Opinion ID: 4283041
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: URP Attorney Marcus Mumford

Text: Finally we address the conduct of Mr. Marcus Mumford, an attorney for the URP. After he repeatedly missed deadlines at the Tenth Circuit, a panel of our colleagues took the extraordinary step of placing Mr. Mumford on notice that “the judges assigned to decide this appeal on the merits may wish to address in greater depth counsel’s noncompliance with the court’s rules.” Utah Republican Party v. Cox, No. 16-4091, Order Granting Appellant’s Motion to Accept Late Brief (Dec. 16, 2016). Mr. Mumford triggered this notice through a series of procedural and timeliness violations in the submission of his opening brief. First, the brief did not satisfy this Court’s rules, in that it did not state the opposing party’s position on the relief requested as required by Tenth Circuit Rule 27.1. Second, Mr. Mumford failed to comply with Tenth Circuit Rule 31.5 by not providing this Court with hard copies of his brief within two business days of the brief having been filed electronically. into primary election with Jonathan Johnson, FOX31 SALT LAKE CITY, (April 23, 2016) http://fox13now.com/2016/04/23/gov-gary-herbert-forced-into-primaryelection-with-jonathan-johnson/ (“Because he gathered signatures under the “Count My Vote” compromise law, Herbert has a guaranteed spot on the ballot, despite failing to secure the convention nomination.”). 44 Our colleagues—correctly, in our opinion—noted but did not linger on these errors. More troubling, however, was Mr. Mumford’s repeated inability to file papers in a timely manner. Rather than paraphrase the extensive timeliness problems associated with this brief, we simply incorporate our colleagues’ findings: The opening brief was originally due September 27, 2016. The appellant requested and was granted an extension of time to file the opening brief until October 27, 2016. The appellant then requested a 96-day extension of time to file the opening brief, or until January 31, 2017. At the direction of the court, the appellant was granted a portion of the requested extension. We allowed 30 additional days to file the opening brief, which pushed the filing deadline to November 28, 2016. The court advised that no additional extensions of time to file the opening brief would be granted. On November 28, 2016, the appellant electronically filed a four volume appendix. No opening brief was submitted with the appendix, however. Two days later, having received no opening brief, the court issued a deficiency notice to the appellant regarding the missing brief. The court sua sponte granted 10 additional days to file the opening brief. The opening brief was due December 12, 2016. With the additional time provided by operation of the deficiency notice and an intervening weekend, the appellant had 14 additional days beyond the final extension deadline to file the opening brief. But even with all of this additional time, the appellant still did not file the opening brief on the due date. The brief was due December 12, 2016, but was not filed until the morning of December 13, 2016. Compounding the problem further is the fact that the [Motion to Accept Late Brief] was not filed until December 14, 2016, two days after the deadline set in the deficiency notice expired. Utah Republican Party v. Cox, No. 16-4091, Order Granting Appellant’s Motion to Accept Late Brief (Dec. 16, 2016). Notwithstanding these errors, our colleagues 45 tolerantly excused the untimely submission and granted the Motion to Accept Late Brief, albeit with the language regarding Mr. Mumford quoted above. Id.28 Like our colleagues, we are troubled by this pattern of untimeliness. If it were to continue in future appeals we might be forced to consider taking action against Mr. Mumford. While at this time we do not feel his conduct has risen to the level necessary to support such drastic sanctions, he would be well-served to approach his next foray into our courthouse with a keen attention to timeliness and detail.