PHILADELPHIA — As the partial government shutdown continues to grip the nation, some legal cases like the one involving adult-producer recordkeeping regulations have been placed on hold.
The Justice Department was to have delivered its first brief challenging a previous ruling in the case to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan. 4, but that deadline came and went without any filings.
The current case at the 3rd Circuit centers around First Amendment aspects of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2257 and 2257A.
Last summer, U.S. District Judge Baylson in Philadelphia found that large parts of the statutes were unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds. Baylson issued a judgment and decree over the regs.
An earlier FSC victory against the regulations on Fourth Amendment grounds came from a 3rd Circuit ruling.
So far, there has been no other records filed with the 3rd Circuit relative to the appeal and cross appeal waged by defendant Justice Department and plaintiff Free Speech Coalition, which is represented by attorneys J. Michael Murray and Lorraine Baumgardner, who both have fought the legal battle on behalf of the FSC for more than a decade.
Like other parts of the government, the Justice Department and the federal judiciary rely on Congress to provide funding as part of the annual appropriations process.
And, as it now stands, many parts of government have become hobbled after funding lapsed in December after President Trump demanded money for a border wall and congressional Democrats refused to go along.
The 3rd Circuit is open during the government shutdown, but the appeals court said in an order that “deadlines in nonemergency civil cases for the federal government will be suspended during the lapse in funding.”
The Justice Department’s appellate counsel, Anne Murphy, earlier noted in court filings that the opening brief would require an extraordinary amount of time.
“The trial record is voluminous, and includes thousands of pages of exhibits,” Murphy said in a November motion. “In sum, these cross-appeals present significant legal issues about the constitutionality of an act of Congress in the context of a very extensive factual record.
"Preparing the cross-appeal briefs will require appellate counsel to commit an unusually large amount of time to the appeal.”
With such filings, drafts must be reviewed by supervising appellate counsel, by trial counsel and by counsel in several other divisions of the Justice Department with an interest in the case.
