COMMONWEALTH OF
KENTUCKY
FRANKLIN CIRCUIT
COURT
DIVISION I
CIVIL ACTION
NO. 14-CI-1508
Geoffrey M. Young PLAINTIFF
vs.
MOTION FOR A NEW TRIAL
Alison Lundergan Grimes and
DEFENDANTS
Kentucky
Board of Elections
***** ***** *****
***** *****
Comes the
Plaintiff, Geoffrey M. Young, pro se, and respectfully moves
the Court for a new trial, pursuant to CR 59.01(a), (b), and (c). He
states the following grounds:
A. The Order
Granting Motion to Dismiss, entered 2/18/15, was reversible error
because of abuse of discretion, by which the Plaintiff was
prevented from having a fair trial. CR 59.01(a)
Plaintiff filed his
original Complaint on 12/18/14 and made a prima facie case
that KRS 118.405 is unconstitutional as applied to candidates running
for two offices on the same ballot if at least one of the offices is
a federal office. Defendants, represented by Counsel, filed a CR
12.02 motion to dismiss by mailing it to the Court and Plaintiff on
1/12/15. Plaintiff moved orally and in writing for additional time to
research pertinent legal issues and compose a reply, and his Motion
was sustained at the Motion Hour on 1/21/15. Plaintiff timely filed
his Answer to the Motion to Dismiss on 2/9/15. Defendants timely
filed their Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss by mailing it on
2/13/15. Plaintiff, after talking by telephone with Counsel for the
Defendants, re-noticed an oral hearing before the Court for 2/25/15
to decide Defendants' Motion to Dismiss. On 2/18/15, however, the
Court entered its written Order Granting Motion to Dismiss, which
made the 2/25/15 hearing moot and unnecessary. The weather was also
bad during this time period. On its own initiative, the Court entered
a second Order on 2/26/15. Plaintiff objects to both the 2/18/15 and
2/26/15 Orders as being improper, prejudicial against his right to a
fair trial, and unsupported by law.
The Court's 2/18/15
Order Granting Motion to Dismiss was based on two independent
arguments: (1) "The Court finds that Mr. Young lacks legal
standing to bring this claim," and (2) "even if Mr. Young
had standing, this claim is not ripe for adjudication." [Order
at 1] Defendants had made both arguments in their 1/12/15 Motion to
Dismiss and 2/13/15 Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss, in
addition to a number of other arguments. The Court did not comment on
those other arguments, nor did it issue different rulings for each
Defendant. The Complaint against all Defendants was dismissed without
prejudice. [Order, 2/18/15, at 4] The Court did not rule on whether
it would accept and consider any of the amendments Plaintiff
suggested in his 2/9/15 Answer to Motion to Dismiss with Prejudice
and Request to Amend Complaint. Plaintiff must assume that the Court
dismissed only the original Complaint re KRS 118.405, which was filed
on 12/18/14, and that said dismissal rendered all of Plaintiff's
outstanding offers and requests to amend his original Complaint
legally moot.
The Court's 2/18/15
Order first addressed the ripeness issue by referring to Plaintiff's
desire "to vote for John Yarmuth for Congress and also for Vice
President in 2016..."; and "the failed attempt to amend KRS
118.405 during the last legislative session, which was widely
perceived as an attempt to allow U.S. Senator Rand Paul to run for
re-election to the U.S. Senate while at the same time appearing on
the Kentucky ballot as a candidate for President." [Id.
at 2] The Court went on to say, "Whether any of these scenarios,
or others suggested by the Plaintiff, will ever come to pass is sheer
speculation." [Id.]
That concluding
sentence is absurd and false on its face. To Plaintiff's knowledge,
no legislator even bothered to refile the Senate bill that was
defeated in 2014, SB 205, to which the Court referred in its Order.
The wall of hostility erected by the Democratic House leadership and
Defendant Alison Grimes in 2014 in opposition to SB 205 or anything
like it must have convinced the Republican Caucus that amending KRS
118.405 through legislative action wasn't even worth trying again in
2015. Instead, the Rand Paul for President (and Senate) campaign has
actively started to explore other, less satisfactory work-arounds
such as a 2016 Kentucky GOP Presidential Caucus in Kentucky rather
than the normal 2016 Presidential primary. [Numerous news reports]
All of this proves not that the controversy is speculative, distant,
or hypothetical, but that the controversy couldn't be more live. At
least one of the scenarios judged by the Court to be "sheer
speculation" has been proven, again and again, to be anything
but. The issue of ripeness has been conclusively decided, by the
passage of time and the rush of political events, in favor of
Plaintiff.
Accompanying this
Motion is Plaintiff's Amended Complaint, which CR 15.01 allows him to
submit at this time because no Defendant has filed a responsive
pleading. In that Complaint, Plaintiff states that he wants to vote
for Rand Paul for re-election to the U.S. Senate and for President on
the same Kentucky ballot on November 8, 2016, which is the earliest
date Plaintiff may do so because Paul is a Republican and Plaintiff
is and will always be a registered Democrat. Until about a week ago,
Plaintiff wouldn't have been able to make that statement about
Senator Paul honestly. Now, however, he can. Plaintiff now views the
likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, as even worse than Rand
Paul because she's so warlike. Both are horrible, but Clinton is more
horrible than Paul. This is clearly an instance of "voting for
the lesser of two evils." The Amended Complaint completely and
permanently disposes of the "standing" issue in Plaintiff's
favor. Plaintiff now has standing to challenge the constitutionality
of KRS 118.405 as applied to federal offices.
B. Now that
Plaintiff has amended his Complaint pursuant to CR 15.01, it is
clear that KRS 118.405 has inflicted an "injury in fact" on
him and that he meets every other Constitutional requirement to
obtain standing.
The Court wrote,
"In order to have legal standing, Mr. Young must demonstrate the
statute has inflicted on him an 'injury in fact', and that it has an
impact on him that is unique and personal, not merely that he
disagrees with the statute as a matter of political philosophy. See
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992)."
The Court's inclusion of the word "unique" in that sentence
is reversible error.
The passage from
the Lujan decision cited by the Court reads as follows:
Over the years, our cases have established that the irreducible
constitu-tional minimum of standing contains three elements. First,
the plaintiff must have suffered an "injury in fact" – an
invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and
particularized, see id., at 756; Warth v. Seldin, 422
U.S. 490, 508 (1975); Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727,
740-741, n. 16 (1972);1 and (b) "actual or imminent,
not 'conjectural' or 'hypothetical,'" Whitmore, supra, at
155 (quoting Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 102 (1983)).
Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the
conduct complained of – the injury has to be "fairly ...
trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant, and not ...
the] result [of] the independent action of some third party not
before the court." Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights
Organization, 426 U.S. 26, 41-42 (1976). Third, it must be
"likely," as opposed to merely "specula-tive,"
that the injury will be "redressed by a favorable decision."
Id., at 38, 43.
1 By particularized, we mean that the injury must affect
the plaintiff in a personal and individual way.
The U.S. Supreme
Court did not use the word "unique." This Court is trying
to make new law that is more restrictive of the rights of citizens.
If the Court's new doctrine were to be generally accepted, a single
protestor who was beaten by police, for example, would be unable to
gain standing to sue her abusers if 15 of her colleagues were also
beaten and none of them chose to sue. Her injuries and suffering
would be "concrete," "particularized,"
"personal," and "individual" to her, but they
would not be unique to her. The trial court (probably upon a motion
of the defendants, but not necessarily) would immediately throw out
her complaint. She would have no recourse at law. The Court's
decision overreaches in a way that severely damages Plaintiff's
Constitutional rights and allows the unlawful behavior of Defendant
Grimes to continue into the indefinite future.
The Court repeated
its reversible error further down the page when it wrote, "Under
traditional notions of standing, the case law is clear that Plaintiff
must suffer a unique, personal injury." [Order, 2/18/15, at 2]
The Court wrote,
"Plaintiff has failed to allege any particularized injury
distinct from that of the general public that he, nor any other
person, has suffered or will suffer as a result of the legislation he
seeks to challenge." [Id. at 3] The sentence is now false
on its face because Plaintiff has stated, in his Amended Complaint,
that he wants to vote for Rand Paul for re-election to the U.S.
Senate and for President on the same Kentucky ballot on November 8,
2016, and that KRS 118.405 and Ms. Grimes are unlawfully preventing
him from doing so.
C. This
Complaint, in both its original and amended forms, has been ripe
for adjudication since 12/18/14 through the present day. There has
never been a moment since it was filed when it wasn't ripe.
The Court wrote,
"Mr. Young's speculation about the potential for a dual
candidacy by... Senator Paul cannot provide the basis for an
adjudication of the constitutionality of this statute. The courts
cannot decide hypothetical questions. His abstract desire to have the
opportunity to vote for the same candidate for two different offices
does not present a controversy that is subject to adjudication."
[Id.] Plaintiff's Amended Complaint, however, has rendered
that argument absurd. Plaintiff now wants to vote for Rand Paul for
re-election to the U.S. Senate and for President on the same Kentucky
ballot on November 8, 2016. The question is emphatically not
hypothetical.
For the (Defendants
and) Court to say that there is no current controversy about whether
state law should be changed to allow Rand Paul to run for two offices
in 2016 is false on its face, and Plaintiff has been vehement with
respect to that point since 12/18/14. [Original Complaint at 3,7;
Motion for Time at 2-7; Answer to Motion to Dismiss at 1-9, 15-18]
The controversy has been intense and fully public since 12/18/14,
when Defendant Grimes told a reporter that she would immediately take
Rand Paul to court if he tries to put his name on the 2016 ballot for
both US Senator and President. Defendants' many statements to the
contrary were all lies, and the Court's adoption of their
counterfactual argument is reversible error. [Id.]
D. This Motion
should be granted because of gross and culpable misconduct by the
prevailing party and her attorney. CR 59.01(b)
On the first page
of his 2/9/15 Answer to Motion to Dismiss, Plaintiff wrote,
"Plaintiff desires to know how many facially false and absurd
statements a party may make in a motion to dismiss with prejudice
before the Court consigns it to the paper shredder." That was a
serious, non-rhetorical question for the Court, but it hasn't been
answered yet. He then went on to demolish at least 95% of Defendants'
Motion to Dismiss and maybe 100% of it. The Court didn't seem to
notice. Plaintiff is acutely aware that if he were to make a single
false statement in any of his pleadings, it would be thrown out, with
prejudice, and possibly labeled "frivolous." Plaintiff is
aware that he might be fined or otherwise punished for making a false
statement by the court or semi-judicial state agency, e.g., the
Public Service Commission (PSC).
In his own personal
experience as a non-attorney involved in various cases before the PSC
and numerous courts in Kentucky since the mid-1980s, however, he has
frequently observed lawyers getting away with the most outrageous
lies and legal fallacies he's ever seen without receiving so much as
a slap on the wrist. Plaintiff has found, in his personal experience,
that if a Kentucky attorney (which category includes prosecutors)
files a meritless motion or other document that is full of blatant
falsehoods and demonstrates obvious bad faith, Kentucky courts
literally never take any remedial action. Plaintiff, frankly, is sick
and tired of the double standard, namely, that a non-attorney must
get everything exactly right every time while attorneys are allowed
to win civil cases, arguments before the PSC, and criminal
convictions using pleadings that aren't worth the paper they're
written on. Plaintiff cannot recall a single instance in the last 33
years when he has been given any slack by a Kentucky court or the PSC
that an attorney wouldn't have been given; quite the contrary.
Recent political
developments in areas unrelated to this case have convinced Plaintiff
that Defendant Alison Grimes is a thoroughly dishonest person who has
no respect for the truth, the law, the U.S. Constitution, or the
Kentucky Constitution. She is morally and ethically unfit to serve in
any position of public trust, including her current position as
Secretary of State. She is a compulsive liar, a hypocrite, and a
political bully. Plaintiff was right when he accused her in writing
of demonstrating bad faith in the context of her meritless CR 12.02
Motion to Dismiss. [Answer, 2/9/15; throughout and at 16-18]
Plaintiff has sued
Ms. Grimes and four other powerful Democrats for conspiracy to
defraud Kentucky's Democratic voters, corruption, cronyism, and
intentional violation of certain critical bylaws of the Kentucky
Democratic Party. [Civil Action No. 14-CI-214, filed in Franklin
Circuit Court, Division II, on 3/2/15] Every sentence she and her
attorney write or speak is suspect. Plaintiff does not file frivolous
pleadings.
WHEREFORE,
Plaintiff
respectfully requests that the Court's Orders of 2/18/15 and 2/26/15
be vacated; that he be granted a new trial that takes as its starting
point the Amended Complaint being mailed on this day; and that the
Court require the sole Defendant, Chief Election Official Alison L.
Grimes, (by counsel,) to file a responsive pleading – not another
CR 12 motion to dismiss – within 20 days in order to enable this
Complaint about the unconstitutionality of KRS 118.405 to be decided
on its merits without further undue delay.
Respectfully
submitted,
Geoffrey M. Young,
Plaintiff, pro se
454
Kimberly Place
Lexington,
KY 40503
telephone
number: (859) 278-4966
email
address: energetic@windstream.net
Certificate
of Service
I, Geoffrey M.
Young, hereby certify that I have mailed a true and correct copy of
this Motion and the accompanying Amended Complaint, postage prepaid,
to the following parties on this 7th day of March, 2015:
Sally Jump, Clerk
Franklin County
Circuit Court
222 St. Clair
Street
Frankfort, KY
40601
Lynn Sowards Zellen, Esq.
Office
of the Secretary of State
700 Capital Avenue, Suite 152
Frankfort, KY 40601
John
W. Hampton
Kentucky Board of
Elections
140 Walnut
Street
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
George
Russell
Kentucky
Board of Elections
140 Walnut Street
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
140 Walnut Street
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Signed,
Geoffrey M. Young,
pro se
454 Kimberly Place
Lexington, KY 40503
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