(Written by kencraw)

I’m at a complete loss for words at what has just came up on the SAHPC court case page:

Given Respondents’ clarification of Mr. Friedman’s statement and the other matters currently before the Court requiring the Court’s and the parties’ attention, Petitioners believe it is in the interest of the Court, the parties and the judicial economy to withdraw the motion for a new trial and motion to vacate the judgement

A document stating this was signed and submitted to the court today by Stephan Volker, lawyer for the Tree-Sitters, Michael Lozeau, lawyer for the home owners association, and Harriety Steiner, laywer for the City of Berkeley.

For those who don’t read legalese what that says is that the opposition has decided not to pursue their request for a retrial because it would be unlikely for them to win and they want to save everyone the time of going through the motions.

I find it nearly impossible to believe that Volker and company are withdrawing their motion because they believe it doesn’t have merit. That hasn’t stopped them with just about every motion/suit to date. In fact, they’ve stated publically that their STRATEGY is to delay as much as possible. There’s got to be a reason and I can’t say with any confidence what it is. Here’s my best guess:

Judge Miller gave them an ultimatium of some sort that basically said: “The appellate judge has said that you can’t appeal until I issue my final ruling. So here’s what I can do. I can give another order removing the injunction right now while I’m still sitting around waiting for the 25th to come and go. That’ll give the University 10+ days to cut down the trees while you can’t appeal because I have yet to make a final ruling. Since you don’t want that, here’s how it’s going to go… you guys withdraw your request for a retrial. The University will state that it isn’t going to file the stuff I allowed it to by 8/25. Then I’ll make my final ruling ASAP repeating what I ruled before and that gives you 7 days to re-file your appeal. That way this case is off my desk and you can file an appeal. Deal?”

To add to my theory, Cal submitted something themselves today: a statement saying they’re not going to file the stuff they were given until the 25th to file.

I could be WAY off in the weeds. It could be Volker found some judge he likes to take the appeal but he’s got to get that done soon for some legal reason. It could be there’s some other counter ticking we’re not aware of that he needs to speed things up for. It could even be that the grinch’s (AKA Stephen Volker) heart grew three times larger and he’s giving us back our athletic center. We’ll find out in the coming days.

What we do know is this: Judge Miller is pretty free at this moment to rule at any time and start the 27 day counter (7 days from Judge Miller before the injunction is vacated plus a 20 day automatic extension once the appeal is filed) until the trees can come down assuming some appellate judge doesn’t institute a new injunction.

The bad news, which we already knew, is that it is far less than 27 days until the first game at Memorial Stadium.

Any alternate thoughts on what just happened?