Jim Mason:
Mike, sometimes cases take unexpected twists. What did football practice have to do with the homeschool case?
Mike Farris:
Well, Jim, I was informed by a deputy attorney general (in the course of the first day of investigating all of this), that there had been a similar event where another chancery court judge in another part of the state had issued an order all on his own to stop football practices because he thought it was too hot outside. And the schools in the area and the athletic association had filed a petition in the Supreme Court of Mississippi, urging that court to overturn the order against football practice. It took our local counsel a little more than a day and a half to actually get a copy of that order, because it wasn’t a reported decision. We found a newspaper article about it. But that case was identical, in all material respects, to the one we were doing, because it was a judge issuing an order where there was no case, there were no parties, there were no pleadings, and the Supreme Court of Mississippi in that case said, you can’t do that. You’ve got to have a real case in front of you.
Jim:
Why is that a problem that a judge would issue an order when he doesn’t have a case?
Mike:
It’s a problem because it’s the judge being the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, the executioner, everything all in one. And that’s tyranny in our legal system.
Jim:
Thanks Mike. Next time we’ll wrap up the Mississippi homeschool case. I’m Jim Mason.
