Requests to Postpone and Adjourn: Balancing Fairness and Efficiency
Like excuses for not doing homework every adjudicator has seen a variety of requests for a postponement or adjournment of a hearing. In a recent case in the U.S., the lawyer for the accused in a criminal trial asked for an adjournment to attend an Ernest Hemingway lookalike contest. In denying the request, the judge wrote:
. . . [more]Between a murder-for-hire trial and an annual look-alike contest, surely Hemingway, a perfervid admirer of “grace under pressure,” would choose the trial.
At his most robust, Hemingway exemplified the intrepid defense lawyer:
He works like hell, and through it. . . . He