You've just missed it, Mark. :-)
Since 1993, all protest/appeal matters have been included in the back of the
results booklet we all get.
It might be useful to have them in FasTrack as well, though. Only Nationals
competitors, and few others, see the results booklet.
BTW, your comment in another post -- "any controversial position would be
left unspoken" if deliberations were made public sure as hell sounds like an
attempt to dodge controversy to me -- is quite accurate, but not for the
reason you infer. The need to dodge controversy -- that is, the
second-guessing debate after the decision is a done deal -- is so that there
can be open discussion in the first place. In general, people do not mind
taking a controversial position in the context of a discussion among a small
group charged with rendering a decision. That position is then dissected by
the others there, molded, modified, and either ends up being agreed with by
the others, or the others convince the original proponent to modify or
abandon it. That all contributes to the ultimate decision.
But then, people do not want to get into some post-decision harangue with
people not party to the discussion, who bring to it their own biases and
(often irrelevant) viewpoints, and then tend to regard those who disagree as
enemies. If that was the common result of serving on a PC, then the hell
with it, let someone else do it (and "someone else" suddenly becomes in
short supply).
So we don't get that Joe thought the frammis was legal under C&C but Bill
thought it was illegal as not specifically allowed, and all the debate that
went on over that point. What we get is that the frammis was deemed illegal.
We may get that it was adjudged so as not an item specifically allowed. At
the end of the day, that's all we need to know. The rest is just gossip.
I served on a jury about two weeks before Nationals. Child molesting case,
seven counts. I went into the jury room thinking this guy is gone, guilty as
hell, we're outta here in an hour. And then we spent two hours discussing
count one because others among the 12 came in with different viewpoints,
heard different things in the testimony, had different concerns. We had some
major disagreements, even shouted at each other a bit (and also laughed with
each other), but ultimately arrived at a unanimous verdict. We were in there
half the morning and all afternoon, and count one was one of the last we
decided after we had gone off to some others. Found the guy guilty, but not
quite guilty-as-hell as we acquitted on three of the counts. A couple of
times it seemed we might be a hung jury, but we kept hammering at it. We
said some rather gross things in that jury room, often very un-PC, had to in
dealing with the subject matter before us. And glad to be able to leave it
in that jury room, beholden to no one to explain why we did what we did.
That confidentiality, that avoidance of *public* controversy if you will,
was critical to being able to do the job.
That's why juries decide such things, not individual judges. That's why
there is a Protest *committee* and not just one official deciding. And the
personal confidentiality is an absolutely essential tool to the job.
--Rocky Entriken
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Andy" <marka@telerama.com>
To: "autox mailing list" <autox@autox.team.net>
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 8:20 AM
Subject: Re: FM Protests...again (was: Service Manauls)
> Howdy,
>
> On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Rocky Entriken wrote:
> > The decision itself, however, IS public record. The Supreme Court
> > writes lengthy decisions, which are not further argued with but are
> > cited as precedent. The PC is not quite so verbose, but the decisions
> > are posted on the results boards in Information for anyone to read. As
> > are appeals decisions, if rendered during the week. And all are also
> > in the back of the results book.
>
> This is more where I was going. I had no idea that the decision (beyond
> "xxx is illegal") was public.
>
> Is there a reason that we don't do a summary of the protest like the SCCA
> roadrace folks do in FastTrack? That kinda thing would be a _great_ start
> to getting the straight poop about a situation. Or is it already there
> and I've just always missed it?
>
> Mark
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