A man in the Pennsylvania prison system last week filed a handwritten Motion for a Temporary Emergency Injunction on the NFL Playoffs. The man, apparently a Steelers fan, is angry that the Chargers made the playoffs when they beat the Chiefs in Week 17 in overtime, after the Chiefs kicker missed a field goal as regulation expired, a play on which an illegal-formation penalty should have been called, giving the Chiefs a re-kick.
The motion argues that the league acts fraudulently and negligently in limiting team challenges. It also argues that the league rule requiring immediate stoppage of play if a player loses his helmet (which took an overtime touchdown away from KC) is unconstitutional because it violates "enacting clause amendments" (not sure what this means) and was "not founded on their forefathers" (hey, Originalism!).
The motion was denied because the plaintiff did not pay the filing fee--he asserted In Forma Pauperis at the top of the motion, but never formally sought a waiver of the fee. In some ways this is bad, because Mr. Spuck now will be angry that his motion, which has no remote legal validity whatsoever, was not considered on its merits. On the other hand, my experience as a law clerk is that many prisoners react worse when you do give their papers merits analysis and they still lose.
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