Colo[u]rable:
seeming to be true, or able to be believed:
- The squatters had no colourable claim to occupy the land.
- I have no doubt their argument is colourable, or else they wouldn’t have won. [Cambridge Dictionary]
I’d always wondered about that word. Noted in “Why Trump’s Georgia case likely can’t be removed to federal court,” Jennifer Rubin, WaPo:
Moreover, in seeking removal, a defendant must also show that he has a “colorable” defense under federal law, such as immunity. In Mesa v. California, the Supreme Court in 1989 held that mail truck drivers charged with misdemeanor manslaughter could not get into federal court even though they were performing their assigned duties: driving mail trucks. Because the defendants lacked a federal defense to their charges, the court declined to allow “removal of state criminal prosecutions of federal officers and thereby impose potentially extraordinary burdens on the States when absolutely no federal question is even at issue in such prosecutions.”
