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.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

250 prosecutors disqualified in California by a single judicial decision because of misconduct - will there be any discipline of those prosecutors?


A judge in California has just disqualified 250 prosecutors off a major case because of a long history failure to turn over to the defense exculpating and impeachment evidence about informants who were illegally pumping criminal defendants for incriminating information, despite their attached right to counsel.

 As a response, the prosecutors increased dramatically their motions to disqualify the judge.  Usually such motions are made when the judge is not impartial.  Ruling fairly as to prosecutorial misconduct that truly occurred does not constitute a ground for disqualification of a judge, and the judge should be commended for his courage, as his disqualification decision are ruffling a lot of feathers in the political elite of the state.

 The reason for the disqualification, among other things, was that the Orange County Sheriff's Department, in total agreement with the DA's office, created and operated - for years and decades - a SECRET system of evidence against criminal defendants held in custody and pumped for information by jail snitches.

 Such pumping for information by jail snitches at the behest of the government was the same as the government conducting interrogation.  Some of the evidence secretly held by the police for 25 years was exculpatory and was not turned over to the defense, with the full knowledge of the prosecutors.

 Two years ago, it has been reported that crime labs are paid PER CONVICTION, meaning that the results of their work is clearly tied to whether the defendant is convicted or not.

 Imagine what kind of perverse incentive that is and how many lives it may have disrupted through wrongful convictions.

 My search on the Internet failed to discover that anybody was disciplined or held accountable for creating such a "pay-per-conviction" scheme of compensation for the crime labs, and one does not have to be a wiz to see a hand of a prosecutor (a future judge?) all over the place in this pay-per-conviction scheme.

 Imagine how many lawyers (prosecutors) knew about the scheme and kept mum.

 In April of 2015 it was reported that federal crime labs were presenting false evidence and testimony in criminal cases since 1999, generating an unknown number of false convictions and falsely induced plea bargains.

 My question is - when independent civil rights and defense lawyers are suspended and disbarred left and right for simply criticizing a judge (for which they must have full 1st Amendment protection - especially when they do that to ensure their clients' right to a fair and impartial adjudication), what will be done in terms of discipline to prosecutors who perpetrated all of the above-reported fraud and misconduct?

 Should we hold our collective breaths to figure that out or do we already know the answer - NOTHING?

And isn't this "nothing" the answer as to whether there is a reason to continue the fake protection of the attorney licensing system which protects only the market, with its high prices, from entry of affordable providers of legal services, not bound by financial contributions and financial ties in their loyalty to "the system"?

 While we are waiting to see whether the 250 prosecutors will be disciplined or not, we can recall that California is the state that disbarred attorney Richard Fine for his fight against judicial corruption when he found out that state judges received additions to their salaries from counties that appeared in front of those same judges as parties.

 The scandal was hushed by:

  1.  disbarring and jailing in solitary confinement for 14 months (without charging him with a crime) the whistleblower against judicial corruption, prominent attorney Richard Fine, and by 
  2. the State Legislature giving judges involved into the apparent corrupt scheme of justice for sale retrospective immunity from criminal prosecution, civil liability and disciplinary action  for any misconduct they may have committed.


 With that in mind, I will be eagerly awaiting news as to how the now discovered misconduct of the 250 prosecutors will be handled by the State of California.
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