frankenLawyers for Al Franken are trying to turn Norm Coleman’s recent media blitz into a justice blitz, using comments from the Republican campaign in news reports to persuade the the Minnesota Supreme Court to speed up Coleman’s appeal.

In a motion for an expedited schedule filed with the state’s high court Tuesday afternoon (pdf), Franken attorneys Marc Elias and David Lillehaug cite quotes from Coleman and Cullen Sheehan, a Coleman aide, that appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and MinnPost.

The quotes show the Coleman camp has already been hard at work at their appeal briefs, Franken’s motion argues, so let’s put the appeal on a fast track. But taking Coleman at his quoted words, it’s an idea he agrees with.

“We are hoping the court gives us an accelerated schedule, so we are actually working on the briefs now,” Coleman told the PiPress on April 15.

But Sheehan told MinnPost’s Eric Black a slightly different story two days later.

In the 2000 Bush v. Gore recount case, the U.S. Supreme Court only allowed a few days for briefs to be filed. The reason the campaign didn’t immediately appeal the election contest court’s April 13 decision giving Franken a 312-vote win, Sheehan told Black, was so they would have more time to work on their appeal brief — in case the accelerated court schedule his boss hoped for was too accelerated, apparently.

So the Franken campaign urges what the Coleman camp either wanted or was bracing for: a hurried schedule of filing deadlines that has the final brief arriving at the high court on May 4 — a lucky 13 days away.