One mildly redeeming feature of Judge Walker’s procedural shenanigans is their bumbling, Keystone Kops quality.

The latest example is yet another notice—supposedly posted on Tuesday and available, at least for now, here—that Walker issued extending until February 1, 2010, the deadline for comments on his purported revision of Local Rule 77-3 under the “immediate need” exception of 28 U.S.C. § 2071(e).

Let me count the ways in which this notice is risible:

1. This is Walker’s fourth notice concerning the same attempted revision of Local Rule 77-3. (See an outline of the previous three here.)

2. This notice specifically states that the court “is interested in comments that pertain to the revised rule and NOT to its application to a particular case” (capitalization in original). But it’s Walker who, at the opening of the trial on Monday, tried to hide behind the fact that he had received so many comments requesting broadcast of his particular case, without disclosing (see third paragraph here) that the overwhelming number of those “comments”—some 99.8% of them—were signatures to a petition drive organized by a left-wing activist group “insist[ing] that the trial of Proposition 8 be televised”:

Now, a good many of those comments, of course, related simply to the transmission of this case, and did not specifically address the rule change.… But I think it’s fair to say that those that favored coverage of this particular case implicitly also favored the rule change which would make an audiovisual transmission of this case possible. [Official Transcript for Jan. 11, 2010, at 12:2-9 (emphasis added).]

Is Walker now trying to deter a counter-petition drive opposing broadcasting of the anti-Prop 8 trial? Don’t worry, Judge. There’s no longer any reason for that.

3. Whether or not the notice was actually posted on Tuesday (someone monitoring the broadcasting matter closely didn’t see it until yesterday), it’s obsolete now that the Supreme Court has ruled that the purported revision of Local Rule 77-3 under the “immediate need” exception of 28 U.S.C. § 2071(e) was unlawful.

4. Walker now needs to post a new notice. I’ll offer him some helpful advice. (If only he had listened to me before….) Your new notice should be for a proposed revision to Local Rule 77-3. It should not be issued until after the Ninth Circuit Judicial Council has adopted clear and sensible guidelines for its pilot program. It should have a comment period of at least 30 days. It should state clearly that the proposed revision, if adopted, would not apply to any proceeding in which the trial has already commenced. And, if the Ninth Circuit’s guidelines don’t say so, the proposed revision should specify that no case in which any party objects to broadcasting shall be a candidate for the pilot program.