MADISON, Wis., April 30 (UPI) -- A Democratic group suing Republicans over redistricting in Wisconsin can't have its legal bills paid for by the defendants -- at least not yet, judges said.
A court granted Democrats and an immigration rights group, Voces de la Frontera, the right to examine computers used by Republican legislative aides when crafting new districts that skewed Republican in several places. The Democrats conducted a forensic analysis of the computers and found mass amounts of files were deleted and never turned over during the discovery phase of the lawsuit over the new district maps, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Tuesday.
Though the panel of three federal judges wrote they found the document deletions troubling, there was nothing to suggest the files were germane to the case -- and thus the plaintiffs must continue to pay their own legal bills relating to the lawsuit.
"While the court is fully aware of and concerned with the seemingly vast amount of file deletions that the plaintiffs' investigation has uncovered, there has not yet been any showing that the files were either deleted in bad faith or would otherwise have been pertinent to the fact finding process in the underlying action. Thus, the court is wary of requiring any other party to foot the plaintiffs' bill," the judges wrote.
