Yesterday, Righthaven had to admit that it missed the October 31 deadline for its opening brief in the case.

In its opening brief with the Court of Appeals, the company accused Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson of committing a host of procedural and substantive errors.

Murray's challenge will be heard by a state appeals court in Los Angeles, assuming he files an opening brief at a later date.

Lawyers usually have 45 days after a case has been accepted by the Court to file the opening brief.

The government has about three months to file its opening brief with the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

But none of the approximately 2,000 hours of work Mr. Young says he has devoted to the case produced an opening brief.

For all the reasons discussed above and in our opening brief, plaintiff has not adduced record evidence to support these three allegations.

The Bush administration, which is defending the law, is proposing to the justices that those who were plaintiffs in the district court should file the opening briefs.

The plaintiffs would simply "set forth all their constitutional challenges" to the law in their opening brief, with the defendants then able to defend it as a whole, he said.

Under the government's proposal, the opening brief would have to be filed in the next three to four weeks.