If you ask for a Preliminary Injunction, you’re not asking for money or for jail time. You’re asking a judge to tell him to stop.
Court of Common Pleas. This one happens to be in Alleghany County, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Wikimedia Commons)
It is a federal crime punishable by a fine of $10,000.00 or five years in prison, or both, for a person to “knowingly or willfully pay or offer to pay “either for registration to vote or for voting[.]” The statute is found at 52 U.S.C.A. § 10307(c). The statute is enforceable by the Attorney General of the United States who may file a civil action for an injunction to stop the perpetrator from pursuing his scheme. That statute is found at 52 U.S.C.A. § 10308(d).
What Congress did here is allow for the option of civil, not criminal sanctions or penalties or jail time, so that the law could be worked out without a defendant being asked to pay money or serve time in prison.
Elon Musk and his Political Action Committee, which he calls America PAC, is notoriously offering $1 Million in a daily giveaway to registered voters in selected “swing states” including Pennsylvania. Applicants reportedly must sign a Musk “petition” or pledge to ‘support’ the First and Second Amendments to the United States Constitution. Mr. Musk and his PAC have announced that the winners of their daily giveaway are selected at random.
The U.S. Department of Justice sent Mr. Musk a strongly worded letter to stop. Musk and his PAC have not stopped. They have continued. They have given away some $9 Million as of Monday, October 28, 2024; in particular, nearly half of that amount has been given to Pennsylvania voters.
Apparently tired of waiting for the United States Attorney General to act even by asking for a civil injunction under the federal statutes, the District Attorney of Philadelphia, Larry Krasner, has reportedly filed a civil lawsuit under Pennsylvania law in the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia.
I have not seen the complaint. I have only read reports. But based on my own experience, I draw a couple of conclusions. The reporting describes the D.A.’s lawsuit as a civil case. That means to me that the D.A. is not asking to send Elon Musk to prison here. That is because you cannot ask for jail time in a civil case.
I also draw from the reporting that the D.A. is requesting a Preliminary Injunction. If you ask for a Preliminary Injunction, you are not asking for money or for jail time. You are asking a judge to tell the defendant to stop.
Now, the D.A. may or may not be asking for damages in addition to asking for a Preliminary Injunction, but that hasn’t been reported. A Hearing has been set by the Court for Friday, November 1, 2024, presumably on the D.A.’s request for a Preliminary Injunction. We should know more then. Hopefully, someone will attend who has been in a courtroom before, someone other than the judge and the lawyers, someone who can give us a better idea of what’s going on.
The Philadelphia D.A. has reportedly raised three grounds for an injunction to bar the Musk giveaway. Mr. Musk and his PAC will of course have the opportunity to defend themselves, in Court.
These are reportedly the legal theories behind asking a judge for an injunction to stop Mr. Musk’s unique Daily-Million-Dollar-Giveaway, at least in Pennsylvania:
- The Philadelphia D.A.’s complaint reportedly alleges that the Musk giveaway is in reality a lottery. In Pennsylvania, only the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, i.e., the State, can run a lottery and then only for the benefit of Pennsylvania’s senior citizens (and not, for example, for the benefit of a senior citizen of Florida).
- The D.A.’s complaint also reportedly alleges violations of Pennsylvania’s consumer protection laws.
- Finally, it is reported that the D.A.’s complaint challenges the fairness of the Musk giveaway in the first place. In fact, the complaint contains the allegation that the giveaway is not random and that it is in fact false. For example, the complaint reportedly points out that so far, Pennsylvania winners of Musk’s $1Million are only people who have shown up at rallies for Musk’s chosen candidate.
I have some questions, questions that have arisen in the brief time since I learned about the filing of this lawsuit. Before asking them, I want my readers to know that these questions are based on my own experiences and beliefs about the role of the law. In my eyes, it is the job of prosecutors to enforce the law while it is the job of judges to decide the law. The prosecutor must always have probable cause for what she or he does in office, of course, but from everything I know, in this particular case I think that there is probable cause to file a civil case to ask a judge to tell the defendant to stop.
And so I ask: Why endure Merrick Garland a moment longer in the office of Attorney General of the United States? Why wait once again for Merrick Garland to act to enforce the law?
Didn’t we already wait long enough for him to do something about the 2020 Election Frauds, waiting until it now seems it may all be too little, too late especially but not just if the Roberts court has its say? Waiting so long that the waiting itself caused or contributed to the debacle. So why should we wait any longer now?
Why, indeed, Mr. Garland? You are no longer a judge, you know. You do not get to decide what the law should be any more. Since 2021, you are supposed to act to enforce it, and that’s a different job entirely – which you have not done. The District Attorney of Philadelphia is doing it.
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