{"id":567,"date":"2007-02-28T11:34:32","date_gmt":"2007-02-28T15:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2007\/02\/28\/winkelman-scalia-frets-over-pro-se-burd"},"modified":"2007-02-28T11:34:32","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T15:34:32","slug":"winkelman-scalia-frets-over-pro-se-burden-on-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2007\/02\/28\/winkelman-scalia-frets-over-pro-se-burden-on-courts\/","title":{"rendered":"Winkelman: Scalia frets over pro se burden on courts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yesterday&#8217;s oral argument in the <em>Winkelman<\/em> IDEA &#8220;<em>pro<\/em>&#8211;<em>se<\/em>-parent&#8221; case was apparently quite interesting.\u00a0 Usually, a person is only allowed to appear at court <em>pro se<\/em> for himself or herself, and not for another person.\u00a0 <em>Winkelman<\/em> asks whether the parent can appear without a lawyer to represent their child to appeal a special ed ruling by a school district (<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2007\/02\/26\/supreme-court-hears-winkelman-argument-tomorrow\/\">prior post<\/a>). You can read the oral argument <a href=\"http:\/\/www.supremecourtus.gov\/oral_arguments\/argument_transcripts\/05-983.pdf  \">transcript here<\/a>\u00a0(via <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/movabletype\/archives\/2007\/02\/roundup_82.html\">SCOTUSBlog<\/a><\/em>).\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Linda Greenhouse has given a good summary of the arguments and the responses of various justices in the <em>New York Times<\/em>: &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/02\/28\/washington\/28scotus.html?ex=1330318800&amp;en=edc6d2d8ea786f85&amp;ei=5090&amp;partner=rssuserland&amp;emc=rss\">Justices Hear Arguments on Autism-Case Dispute<\/a>,&#8221; Feb. 28, 2007), as has Mark Sherman of the Associate Press: <em>e.g.<\/em>, <em>Law.com\/AP<\/em>,\u00a0&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.com\/jsp\/article.jsp?id=1172570590618&amp;pos=ataglance\">Parents Don&#8217;t Need Lawyer for Child&#8217;s Special Education Needs, High Court Told<\/a>,&#8221; Feb. 28, 2007.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Greenhouse reported that &#8220;While several justices tipped their hands, it was difficult to read the court as a whole. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said Mr. Bergeron would have an &#8216;uphill battle&#8217; to persuade him that despite the statute\u2019s numerous references to parents, the phrase &#8216;party aggrieved&#8217; should be interpreted as applying only to children and not to parents.&#8221; And<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"43\" alt=\"houseG\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/files\/2007\/02\/houseG.jpg\" width=\"35\" \/>\u00a0&#8220;Justice David H. Souter told Mr. Bergeron [the school district&#8217;s lawyer] that the statutory right to a &#8216;free appropriate public education&#8217; appeared to be &#8216;a right of the family group, the parents and the child together, rather than the right of the child alone&#8217;.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yesterday&#8217;s <em>NYT<\/em> posting of the AP report stated that\u00a0several justices had expressed concerns about letting more people appear in federal cases self-represented.\u00a0 \u00a0Today&#8217;s <em>Law.com\/AP <\/em>report states that &#8220;Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Antonin Scalia seemed most skeptical of the parents&#8217; claims. Alito voiced concern that parents who represent themselves or their children would have &#8216;difficulty maintaining emotional detachment&#8217; from the lawsuit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It appears that Justice Antonin Scalia raised the most specific concerns over having more self-represented litigants.\u00a0 According to the <em>NYT<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"62\" alt=\"scaliaGestureHeraldS\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/files\/2007\/02\/scaliaGestureHeralds.gif\" width=\"50\" \/>\u00a0 Justice Antonin Scalia told [<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/law\/2007\/02\/27\/young-lawyer-jumps-off-the-goldstein-track-for-now\/\">Jean Claude] Andr\u00e9<\/a>, the Winkelmans\u2019 lawyer, that lawyers \u201cprotect the court from frivolous suits.\u201d When suits are brought without lawyers, \u201cwe make a lot more work for federal district judges,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Andr\u00e9\u2019s response that \u201ca capable district judge can look at the case and decide whether the school should have complied with the statutory mandate\u201d did not satisfy Justice Scalia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd do it right after reading <em>pro se<\/em> prisoner petitions, right?\u201d the justice said, using the legal term for a case filed without a lawyer. \u201cYou\u2019d have a nice evening\u2019s work,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe think that <em>pro se<\/em> parents are quite different from <em>pro se<\/em> prisoners,\u201d Mr. Andr\u00e9 replied.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As you might imagine, this shlep Editor agrees with the Winkelmans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yesterday&#8217;s oral argument in the Winkelman IDEA &#8220;pro&#8211;se-parent&#8221; case was apparently quite interesting.\u00a0 Usually, a person is only allowed to appear at court pro se for himself or herself, and not for another person.\u00a0 Winkelman asks whether the parent can appear without a lawyer to represent their child to appeal a special ed ruling by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[991],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-items"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}