I don’t know that I’ve seen criminal cases moved through the court system as fast as the JK Rowling case. The petition was filed in October and is set for trial at the end of March. Initially oral argument1 was to be held on the preliminary injunction motion on March 13 but now the Court wants to hold a full trial on the same date.
Rowling’s attorneys filed a letter arguing that they weren’t ready to present live testimony and hold a trial. The Court denied the application for more time saying “When the essential facts are not in dispute, the parties should be able to agree to rely on the affidavits and exhibits to be received in evidence and that only certain witnesses need to be examined by the parties.” (same link). The Court is willing to hear oral argument on why this isn’t the case.
It sounds like Judge Patterson doesn’t believe that there should be alot of extraneous live witnesses that some parties want to put forth that have no relevance to the case.
1. Oral argument is where the attorneys for the respective parties argue their positions that are written down in their legal briefs.
Whoa, I haven’t seen anything happen that fast since the time a friend went with her client to plead a moving violation and the judge said “Pick your jury and let’s have the trial.”
I think she probably felt much like Rowling’s lawyers feel. (It was her first trial. She lost.)