BY JAY WEAVER
ATLANTA -- Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives arrived in court this morning to fight what could be their last battle in trying to keep the boy in the United States.
Lazaro Gonzalez, his daughter Marisleysis, his brother Delfin and their attorneys arrived at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court shortly before 9 a.m. Gregory Craig, who represents Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, also arrived, as did government attorneys.
The relatives were greeted by about 25 supporters outside the courthouse, many waving Cuban and American flags. By the time Craig arrived, the crowd had grown to about 100.
The 6-month-old family feud over Elian Gonzalez's fate was supposed to be condensed this morning into a crucial 40-minute hearing on the third floor of a granite courthouse in Atlanta that was once the legal battleground for the civil rights movement.
But the hearing took more than an hour and a half, apparently because the judges were peppering the attorneys with questions.
At 9 a.m. sharp, attorney Kendall Coffey, representing the Miami relatives, was to rise from a table on the left side of the courtroom to convince three judges of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Elian has a right to apply for asylum and that he faces political persecution back in his communist homeland.
Coffey, assisted by seven lawyers, had 20 minutes to make his case. The child's appeal was brought by his Miami great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez.
Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler, flanked by five Justice Department lawyers at a table on the right side of the courtroom, were expected argue that the 6-year-old boy is too young to seek asylum and that his father wants to return with him to Cuba. Kneedler had 15 minutes to make his case for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
And Craig, representing Elian's father Juan Miguel Gonzalez, was to follow with a simple request of the judges: don't let this dispute drag on any further for the sake of a young boy and his dad. He had five minutes to make his case on behalf of the father, who is staying with his son in Maryland and did not attend the hearing.
The 11th Circuit Judges James Edmondson, Joel Dubina and Charles Wilson -- picked randomly for this high-profile case -- were perched on a horseshoe-shaped, dark-wooden bench in front of the lawyers' tables in an area called the well. Behind the bar 136 spectators were expected, including Elian's Miami relatives and a dozen members of the media.
The trio is expected to issue a ruling at a later date on whether the INS must give the boy an asylum hearing.
The brief timetable for oral arguments is common in the appellate court and comparable to the time set for major appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court.
LEGAL HISTORY
The setting for the showdown over Elian, which will unfold in courtroom 338, is rich in architectural detail and legal history. The gray-granite building, originally both a U.S. Post Office and courthouse, was constructed in 1911 in the Renaissance Revival style.
It was part of the historic Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, until 1981. That year, the Atlanta branch broke off to become the 11th U.S. Circuit Court. The building was named in 1990 after the late Chief Judge Elbert Parr Tuttle of Atlanta, one of the South's leading civil rights advocates.
During the 1950s and '60s, Tuttle helped decide landmark cases on Jim Crow laws, voting rights, jury discrimination, employment discrimination, reapportionment and school desegregation.
Today's hearing has not generated high interest among Atlantans, although TV trucks have been parked on narrow Forsyth Street outside the courthouse. Atlanta Police and U.S. Marshals have already set up metal barricades outside the courthouse entrance in preparation for what they expect to be a crush of reporters and photographers and perhaps a few hundred demonstrators.
APPOINTED BY REAGAN
Of the three-judge panel, Edmondson, 52, is the senior member, appointed to the 11th Circuit Court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan.
Dubina, also 52, a former federal magistrate in the Middle District of Alabama, was appointed by President George Bush in 1990. And Wilson, 45, of Tampa, who served as the top federal prosecutor in the Middle District of Florida, was appointed by Clinton in 1999.
In a preliminary ruling last month, in which the trio barred Elian's removal from this country until his relatives' appeal is over, the judges showed sympathy for the Miami relatives' case. The crux is this: Immigration law says that any alien, including a boy as young as Elian, may apply for asylum. The judges seemed to take a literal interpretation of the law, which does not impose any age restriction on asylum applications, and noted that the INS should interview the boy -- even if it goes against his father's wishes.
CONTRASTING VIEW
Their view contrasted sharply with U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore's decision in March that upheld Attorney General Janet Reno's broad powers to reject Elian's asylum requests on grounds that only his father can speak for him. Juan Miguel Gonzalez withdrew the boy's applications, made on his behalf by his Miami relatives.
Lawyers for the boy's Miami relatives fear that even if they win an asylum hearing for Elian, it could lead nowhere. An INS asylum officer could reject the child's asylum application, without the agency beginning formal removal proceedings of Elian.
That would deprive the child's lawyers from being able to appeal the asylum officer's decision to an immigration court in Miami. And it would allow Elian's father to take the boy back home to Cuba soon after his hearing, a process that takes two to three months.
``We think if we go to the INS, the hearing will not be fair because they have prejudged the merits of his asylum claim,'' Garcia-Pedrosa said. ``We're looking at the possibility of asking the appellate court to fashion a remedy that calls for a fair asylum hearing.''
Herald staff writer Andres Viglucci and Herald Online News Reporter Madeline Baro Diaz also contributed to this report.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald