Jabour and Harms at the 1st DCA

Everyone is entitled to their day in court. Today is (non)Councilman Jay Jabour's second. Today, the First District Court of Appeals will hear arguments in Harms v. Jabour. I'll be listening in live at http://www.1dca.org/video.html.

In my view, Jay has an uphill battle. The factual findings and legal conclusions made by Judge Nachman are, in my view, bullet-proof. As others have noted, the DCA could be the end of Jay's road in the event the court issues a PCA decision on behalf of Harms. This means "Per Curium, Affirmed." It also means that the case is not vested of any further appellate jurisdiction. In other words, the Florida Supreme Court wouldn't have to get involved. It will take some time for the Court to rule. Appellate Courts don't rule from the bench, though I don't expect it will take too long to write a three-word opinion.

The Court is on "coffee break" right now. I expect the Harms/Jabour throw-down to be next up... in about 10 minutes time. I'll update this post with any juicy details that emerge from the argument.

Update: No juicy details, as it were. Just a dry restatement of the arguments and record developed at the trial. Both appellate counsel were effective in their cases. However, and this is based on nothing but my sense from the Judges' questions... but I think Jabour has the advantage at this moment. The Judges seemed somewhat antagonistic to Mr. Harms's position. I'll be interested to hear what others think. And the waiting begins...