Court to hear appeal late Tuesday

The Student Body Supreme Court has agreed 8-2-1 to hear an appeal filed by members of the Big Red ticket at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Moot Court Room at the School of Law.\nThe 10 justices who will hear The Crimson Elections Ticket and the Fusion Elections Ticket v. The Big Red Elections Ticket will ultimately decide whether to uphold the election commission's decision to disqualify Big Red from the IU Student Association elections or overturn it. \nIf the Supreme Court upholds the commission's decision, the Big Red executives would be disqualified and Crimson would become the winning ticket. \nThe hearing will last an hour, with each side having 10 minutes for opening statements and five minutes for closing statements. Although the court will likely make a decision Tuesday night, it will not release a written decision until 24 to 48 hours later, said Kate Buckley, external affairs committee chairwoman.\nThe Supreme Court usually consists of 11 justices, but one student is studying abroad. Therefore, the decision could result in a tie.\nBrian Clifford, chief justice of the Supreme Court, said an even split among the court means the decision of the lower board -- in this case, the elections commission -- would be upheld. \n"In other words, if the Supreme Court vote was five to five, the decision of the elections commission would be affirmed by default," Clifford told the Indiana Daily Student in an e-mail.\nThe court's decision will be final, and the only course of legal action Big Red can take past the Supreme Court will be outside of IUSA. \nMembers of the Big Red party filed their appeal Thursday on grounds they did not intentionally falsify their financial statements, which resulted in the executives' disqualification. The members argue the 600 extra T-shirts, which were not reported in their statements, cannot be counted as campaign expenditures because the election code defines a campaign expenditure in two separate places, which, they said, makes the code ambiguous. \nVice President-Elect Angel Rivera said the "law of lenity," which states if there is any ambiguity in a law or code the ruling goes in favor of the defendant, protects Big Red from being disqualified.\nThe Fusion party had not yet decided whether it was going to file a reply brief by press time.\n"If we do, it will be to hold Big Red accountable for their actions," said Dan Shapiro, Fusion presidential candidate. "I find it hard to believe that people running for office the second time around can make these kind of (election code) mistakes."\nRivera believes they made no mistakes in their campaign.\n"We acted how we thought was correct according to the code," said Rivera. "In the case against Fusion, the commission ruled in their favor due to ambiguity. In our case, they ruled against us even though it is the same ambiguity issue."\nShapiro believes there is no ambiguity in the matter.\n"They're trying to say there was ambiguity to argue semantics because they broke the rule. They know they broke the rules, and they got caught," said Shapiro. "They're way out is to find some type of small loophole -- in this case, the so-called ambiguity. What they're talking about is a spot where there are two words between two commas, and they found that to be an ambiguity. In our case, it wasn't dismissed because of ambiguity, it was dismissed because we didn't violate the code -- Big Red did and, therefore, should be sanctioned."\nDietrich Willke, former member of IUSA, said he believes the election code, like the law, has its large ambiguities.\n"Just because you are speeding doesn't mean you always get a ticket," he said. "There are some situations where human error should play a big role in whether the action is excused or not."\nWillke said despite the controversy, he believes the Supreme Court will make the right decision.\n"I do not think they will even allow or consider what the commission did," Willke said. "I think they are going to look at this situation with the law's eyes. If they go that route, they will realize this whole fiasco was a wrong thing and should be forgotten."\nThe Big Red executives remain confident in their claim and believe the commission's decision will be overturned.\n"Not only do I think the facts are in our favor," said Rivera, "but the truth is in our favor, too."\nWillke said he believes the Supreme Court will make their decision based on the facts.\n"I would not be able to live as a judge or even part of the Supreme Court to have something literal in the code, yet to decide a case just because you feel like it," said Willke. "Feeling like it is not law -- that's for psychologists and counselors."\nMembers of the Crimson ticket did not return phone messages by press time.\n-- Contact staff writer Mallory Simon at mgsimon@indiana.edu.