For those who follow such things:

An attorney representing Barack Obama has argued in court to prevent the long-form birth certificate image that was released by the White House nearly a year ago from being placed into evidence.

It was on April 10 at a three-hour eligibility hearing before a New Jersey administrative law judge that the argument came from Alexandra Hill.

She is legal counsel representing Obama’s re-election campaign, and argued then that New Jersey law does not require Obama to present a valid birth certificate to establish his qualifications under Article 2, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution to be on the New Jersey Democratic Party primary ballot.

Hill repeatedly explained to Judge Jeff S. Masin that, “We do not believe the president’s birth certificate is relevant to this case.”

Agreeing with Hill, Masin ruled in a written opinion the same day that New Jersey law does not require Obama to produce any proof he is eligible to be president in order to be placed on the primary ballot.

Noting that New Jersey law allows a nominating petition endorsing a particular person for president to be filed without the consent of the person endorsed, Masin said “There is no obligation upon the person endorsed to prove his or her qualification for office.”

At the hearing, Masin prevented petitioner’s counsel, Mario Apuzzo, who has argued eligibility issues in the courts before, from placing Obama’s birth certificate into evidence. Nor was Apuzzo allowed to call to the stand a witness willing to offer expert testimony that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery.

[…]

“What is emerging in the various state legal challenges to including President Obama on the presidential ballot appears to be an attempt by the White House to divorce itself from the Obama long-form birth certificate released,” said Mike Zullo, the lead investigator in Arizona Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s law enforcement investigation into Obama’s birth certificate and eligibility to be president.

Challenges to Obama’s name on the 2012 election ballot have appeared in more than half a dozen states already.

[…]

At one point in the hearing, Masin, apparently agreeing with Hill’s argument, dramatically explained to Apuzzo that Obama’s birth certificate was not at issue in this case.

“I have nothing before me that I can look at and can say, ‘Okay, this is what has been produced as his [Obama’s] birth certificate,’” the judge said from the bench.

“There is nothing here,” he continued, referring to the birth certificate. “The campaign has not produced me anything and I assume you’re not planning on doing that. The campaign hasn’t shown me anything on the Internet. There’s no birth certificate that has been presented to me – good, bad, indifferent – real, forged, certified, anything – it’s not here.”

Apuzzo pressed to be put on the record a stipulation by White House counsel that the Obama campaign was not utilizing the long-form birth certificate as proof that Obama was born in Hawaii or as proof he was qualified to be president as a “natural born citizen” under the Constitution.

In response, Hill repeated she had no intention of presenting Obama’s birth certificate to the court.

“It’s not here,” she told Masin. “I don’t have it.”

“There appears to be no affirmative requirement that a person endorsed in a nominating petition for the presidency present to the Secretary of State any certification or other proof that he is qualified for the office, at least not at the time when nominating petitions are to be accepted or rejected by the secretary,” Masin wrote in his decision.

“In this matter, as the petitioners’ objection is that Mr. Obama has not provided the secretary with proof of the place of his birth by means of a birth certificate or otherwise, the lack of any obligation on his part to do so means he has not failed to act in accordance with the applicable law.”

I’m no lawyer, but let me see if I can push through this:  while it is tempting for some to declare that Obama’s own lawyers are admitting the released birth certificate is in fact a rather transparent forgery (and many are doing just that), the truth here seems to be that the Obama legal team argued that they don’t have to produce any legal documentation, and so they aren’t offering any, and are not compelled to respond to questions of forgery because the document released by the White House isn’t being entered into evidence.

And this seems in accordance with NJ law.

I don’t know if there are any states that require proof of eligibility for being put on a ballot; I just know (now) that NJ isn’t one of them. And those who brought the case should have known as much.

There’s no there here.  At least, not for now.