Public would want to know if the man/woman whose finger is on the big red nuclear button has a health condition that can either cause his/her judgment to be clouded, or his finger to twinge.
I insist that public would also want to know if the person in whose hands is a particular litigants life, liberty, reputation, property, or custody of children has any medical or mental health conditions that would prevent him from having good concentration or retention of information, or which would cloud his or her judgment.
Let's focus on just one possibility - if a judge has diabetes.
Swings in sugar levels in diabetes, as is well known, can and do cause swings in moods and in perception, or even visual hallucination, if diabetes is not under control.
It is highly inadvisable for a diabetic to drink alcohol.
Recently, Delaware County Judge Carl F. Becker revoked a gun license of a person using the fact that he was a diabetic and intoxicated as a passenger in a car, see Lillian Browne, Walton Reporter, November 13, 2014, p. 3 "Man Acquitted of Charges, Sues Walton PD".
As quoted by the newspaper above, Judge Becker reprimanded the gun license holder this way: "There is sufficient grounds to believe that you engaged in conduct which raises serious questions as to your conduct and decision making abilities to consume alcoholic beverages when you are a diabetic".
Now, since a judge acknowledges that drinking while having diabetes is a serious judgment flaw, are judges, the public officials who are supposed to make decisions, often in fast-paced environments, about people's liberty, reputation, property, custody of children - do they undergo regular screening for debilitating diseases and influence of alcohol and drugs?
Try FOILing this information and your FOIL will be rejected on the issue of privacy. It is a private issue whether the black-robed person on the bench has a mood swing and pushes "the red nuclear button of your life" because he is sick, or sick and drunk, or sick and under the influence of medication.
I cannot get FOILs through even for financial information of judges, while judges' financial reports must clearly be public record and must show people what the judge owns, what is his/her and his/her spouse's income and who gives the judge gifts.
Yet - isn't the fact that Mr. Picinich is a diabetic also private and why did Judge Becker publicize it on record and make it a part of his court decision?
Shouldn't we the People have more say in who takes our liberty, reputation, property and children away? Shouldn't we know if a certain judge is a diabetic and may be hallucinating or having a sugar level-induced mood-swing on the bench while deciding your case? Shouldn't we know if the judge who is a diabetic is "drinking his lunch and dinner", and especially if it is on a regular basis?
I recall that all those public officials, including judges, call themselves (when they pretend humility that they do not have) "public servants". Yet, those so-called "servants", when they get out of hand, which is what they do as a matter of right, are very difficult, if at all possible, to get rid of, and usurp power to retaliate against the complainants and eliminate complainants' rights, be that livelihood, reputation, property, gun licenses, other licenses - you name it.
And - my question now is, will Judge Becker return the gun license to Mr. Picinich who was acquitted by a jury of the criminal charges, or will Judge Becker still "stick to his guns", no pun intended, and continue to punish the acquitted individual - which will look like punishing him for
(1) winning a jury trial,
(2) having the police officer John Cornwell disappear from Walton PD,
(3) having the Walton Police Department embarrassed, and
(4) for suing the Walton Police Department in court?
Isn't Judge Becker just a little out of control where he denies or revokes gun licenses in cases involving criticism of the government, and this is the second case when he does it that I know, and there may be more cases that I do not know of?
And - since Judge Becker, as a judicial officer, pronounced that it is a judgment flaw for a diabetic to drink alcohol, that should be the law now and all individuals who have to make important judgments on a daily basis that people's lives depend on, including judges, should be screened for whether they are diabetics who drink, or have other debilitating physical or mental diseases affecting concentration and judgment, or whether they are under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol while at their official duties?
Wouldn't that be a good idea?
THE EVOLUTION OF JUDICIAL TYRANNY IN THE UNITED STATES:
"If the judges interpret the laws themselves, and suffer none else to interpret, they may easily make, of the laws, [a shredded] shipman's hose!" - King James I of England, around 1616.
“No class of the community ought to be allowed freer scope in the expression or publication of opinions as to the capacity, impartiality or integrity of judges than members of the bar. They have the best opportunities of observing and forming a correct judgment. They are in constant attendance on the courts. Hundreds of those who are called on to vote never enter a court-house, or if they do, it is only at intervals as jurors, witnesses or parties. To say that an attorney can only act or speak on this subject under liability to be called to account and to be deprived of his profession and livelihood by the very judge or judges whom he may consider it his duty to attack and expose, is a position too monstrous to be entertained for a moment under our present system,” Justice Sharwood in Ex Parte Steinman and Hensel, 95 Pa 220, 238-39 (1880).
“This case illustrates to me the serious consequences to the Bar itself of not affording the full protections of the First Amendment to its applicants for admission. For this record shows that [the rejected attorney candidate] has many of the qualities that are needed in the American Bar. It shows not only that [the rejected attorney candidate] has followed a high moral, ethical and patriotic course in all of the activities of his life, but also that he combines these more common virtues with the uncommon virtue of courage to stand by his principles at any cost.
It is such men as these who have most greatly honored the profession of the law. The legal profession will lose much of its nobility and its glory if it is not constantly replenished with lawyers like these. To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it.” In Re Anastaplo, 18 Ill. 2d 182, 163 N.E.2d 429 (1959), cert. granted, 362 U.S. 968 (1960), affirmed over strong dissent, 366 U.S. 82 (1961), Justice Black, Chief Justice Douglas and Justice Brennan, dissenting.
" I do not believe that the practice of law is a "privilege" which empowers Government to deny lawyers their constitutional rights. The mere fact that a lawyer has important responsibilities in society does not require or even permit the State to deprive him of those protections of freedom set out in the Bill of Rights for the precise purpose of insuring the independence of the individual against the Government and those acting for the Government”. Lathrop v Donohue, 367 US 820 (1961), Justice Black, dissenting.
"The legal profession must take great care not to emulate the many occupational groups that have managed to convert licensure from a sharp weapon of public defense into blunt instrument of self-enrichment". Walter Gellhorn, "The Abuse of Occupational Licensing", University of Chicago Law Review, Volume 44 Issue 1, September of 1976.
“Because the law requires that judges no matter how corrupt, who do not act in the clear absence of jurisdiction while performing a judicial act, are immune from suit, former Judge Ciavarella will escape liability for the vast majority of his conduct in this action. This is, to be sure, against the popular will, but it is the very oath which he is alleged to have so indecently, cavalierly, baselessly and willfully violated for personal gain that requires this Court to find him immune from suit”, District Judge A. Richard Caputo in H.T., et al, v. Ciavarella, Jr, et al, Case No. 3:09-cv-00286-ARC in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Document 336, page 18, November 20, 2009. This is about judges who were sentencing kids to juvenile detention for kickbacks.
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