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.


Tuesday, September 29, 2015

New York's other conjoined twin - Texas. Can putting a high voltage shock through a pro se mentally ill criminal defendant fighting against a death penalty case finally drive this country to abolish the death penalty?

New York and Texas are leading this nation in wrongful convictions.

The difference is though that New York is not enforcing its death penalty now, and Texas is.

On Monday, Texas resumed the criminal trial of a death penalty case against a mentally ill criminal defendant James Calvert.

There was a pause in the trial.

Because James Calvert was ordered to be SHOCKED by high-voltage shock for - guess what - failure to stand up while speaking to a judge, judge Jack Skeen.

The judge reportedly (see the same link) denied the self-represented criminal defendant the right to represent himself, as he wanted while all the defendant wanted was, reportedly:

  • that court reporting of his trial should be done accurately - he "objected to the use of a new court reporter and claimed some court reports are under investigation";
  • asked for the police records to be allowed into evidence;
  • claimed a police log was "untruthful" and "biased".
  •  
And don't we know from the depiction of wrongful convictions of people exonerated from the death row that such things DO happen, and this man is PRESUMED INNOCENT, is MENTALLY ILL and is FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE.

All of the above claims of the criminal defendant were legitimate.

Yet, this is what the judge did:

1) reportedly, he ordered to shock the defendant for failure to stand up when talking to the court;
2) denied the criminal defendant the right to defend himself;
3) bickered with the criminal defendant, openly stating to him, in public proceedings: "the only thing that you cannot handle is the truth".

The shock, this statement, and punishing the criminal defendant with stripping him of his right to self-defense BECAUSE he wanted evidence in and BECAUSE he claimed wrongoing on behalf of a court reporter and the police, is evidence of JUDICIAL BIAS.

And judicial bias in a death penalty case EQUALS DEATH for the criminal defendant.

Yet,  a reporter from NBC considered it possible for himself as a human being to state the following in his "journalistic" coverage of the case:  

"the defendant has already experienced a very small taste of how an electric chair might feel: He was given a shock in court for refusing to comply with a judge's orders", the orders being to stand up while talking to a judge.

TASERED for not standing up in court.

A mentally ill person.

A pro se litigant.

A presumed-innocent criminal defendant.

Fighting a death penalty case.

TASERED by the court for not standing up to speak to the judge.

And a journalist is snickering that he has "already experienced a very small taste of how an electric chair might feel".

There were so many people present in the courtroom when it happened.

WHAT KIND OF HUMAN BEINGS have we become to allow this?

And shouldn't THIS CASE put an end to the death penalty in this country - for good.

Because the way it is handled, I would presume that the judge giving the James Calvert the "small taste of how an electric chair might feel" was the real purpose of the judge.  At least it appears this way.  

My opinion is that Judge Skeen should be taken off the bench, disbarred and criminally prosecuted for this episode, for assault and battery.

We will see if Judge Skeen will suffer any consequences of his outrageous conduct.

After all, judges in this country consider themselves not nobility, not royalty, but deity.


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