L. Campbell v. 1st Judicial District ( 2020 )

ORICINAL 07/15/2020 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA Case Number: OP 20-0360 OP 20-0360 FILED LORRIE CORETTE CAMPBELL, and JILL LOVEN, JUL 1 5 2020 owen Greenwood ::lerk of Supreme Court Petitioners, Stasw nf Montana v. ORDER MONTANA FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT,LEWIS & CLARK COUNTY, HONORABLE JAMES P. REYNOLDS, Presiding, Respondent. Petitioners,two Montana voters who signed a petition to put the Montana Green Party on the 2020 ballot, filed an emergency petition for writ of supervisory control seeking an order to immediately reverse the First Judicial District Court's denial of their motion to intervene, an order the court issued from the bench on the opening morning ofan evidentiary hearing. The underlying proceeding,Lewis and Clark County Cause No.CDV-2020-856,is an action brought by the Montana Democratic Party and four other Montana voters that apparently seeks to withdraw the signatures ofnumerous individuals on petitions to qualify the Green Party for the ballot. (The complaint is not before us.) The Defendant in the underlying case is Secretary of State Corey Stapleton, whose office is defending the action. Petitioners urge this Court's immediate action on the grounds that their fundamental rights are at stake in the case and that no other party to the proceeding represents their interests. Petitioners have presented the Court with their intervention motion and briefs to the District Court and with the Plaintiffs' response. Supervisory control is an extraordinary remedy that is sometimes justified when urgency or emergency factors make the normal appeal process inadequate,the case involves purely legal questions, and one or more ofthe three following circumstances exist: the other court is proceeding under a mistake of law and is causing a gross injustice, constitutional issues of state-wide importance are involved, or the other court has granted or denied a motion for substitution of a judge in a criminal case. M. R. App. P. 14(3). Exercise of supervisory control is discretionary. On review of the Petitioners' submissions, the Court concludes that the petition is insufficient on its face to demonstrate that the District Court is acting under a pure mistake of law or that a gross injustice will result, particularly given that the Plaintiffs' brief below indicated they did not object to Petitioners' participation as amicus curiae. The petition as presented does not satisfy the M. R. App. P. 14(3) criteria for invoking this Court's extraordinary jurisdiction to review the District Court's interlocutory ruling. IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that the Petition for a Writ ofSupervisory Control is DENIED and DISMISSED. The Clerk is directed to provide notice of this Order to all counsel of record in the First Judicial District Court's Cause No. CDV-2020-856 and to the Honorable James P. Reynolds, presiding District Court Judge. DATED this day of July, 2020. Chief Justice