The presidential hopefuls Huckabee and Cruz are celebrating the release from jail of the civil contemnor Kim Davis - even though she adamantly and willfully insists on continuing to refuse to release marriage licenses to same sex couples, and thus never purged her contempt of violating the 1st Amendment by imposing her own religious beliefs upon people she is serving as a public servant who took her office with an oath to uphold that same 1st Amendment.
Yet, in Illinois two pro se individuals are held in jail, and will be held in jail, as the judge reportedly said, forever, until they purge themselves by doing - you know what? They must withdraw counterclaims in a civil action, undo the act guaranteed by the Illinois and the U.S. Constitution (1st Amendment, Petitions Clause).
So, in the Kentucky clerk's case, it is the Kentucky clerk who defied the U.S. Supreme court order and who willfully violates 1st Amendment rights of same sex marriage couples to be free from actions of public officials establishing their own religion as part of their duties, in violation of their oath of office.
In the Illinois case, pro se litigants are jailed for insisting on their state and federal constitutional right of access to court.
I must stress here that Andrew Harrison and Lyle Harrison are not in jail for filing A NEW LAWSUIT in violation of a court order.
They are in jail because they FILED COUNTERCLAIMS, meaning that they were protecting their position in opposition to the lawsuit that was filed AGAINST THEM.
And, the court is now saying that they may not protect themselves without the court's permission - and should go to jail if they do try to protect their legal position in court?
So, two civil pro se litigants are going to be held in jail FOREVER - without being charged with any crime, without any discovery, any motion practice, any pre-trial hearings, any jury trials, any conviction or sentencing - simply because they insist on protecting their legal position in a civil case?
And the judges who is doing it, is still on the bench, still holds a law license, and presidential candidates are nowhere around.
So, I guess, the "stubborn" Andrew Harrison and Lyle Harrison are going to sit in that jail forever, while the stubborn Kim Davis was released to the media frenzy and made a poster girl in presidential campaigns.
Simply because Andrew Harrison and Lyle Harrison are not politically connected, do not play the agenda card of the monied religious conservatives, and simply insist that access to court is their constitutional right that cannot be foreclosed by arbitrary orders by a judge.
There is a lot to be said here about judicial independence in Kim Davis's case.
The judge in the Kentucky case obviously yielded to the political pressure and released Kim Davis from jail, even though she did never purged her contempt and was not going to.
The judge in the Illinois two cases does not want to yield to common sense or constitutional requirements that access to courts simply may not be foreclosed, it is a fundamental right guaranteed by the State and the U.S. Constitution, and is not subject to arbitrary whims of the judiciary.
Will any presidential hopefuls pay a visit to Andrew Harrison and Lyle Harrison or stop children from going to public schools around the jail where Andrew Harrison and Lyle Harrison are held because of a rally they hold in front of the jail?
A rhetorical question, isn't it?
Oh, and yet another question.
Do you think the presidential hopeful Huckabee will be willing to go to jail in Andrew Harrison's or Lyle Harrison's place - as he claimed he wants to in Kim Davis's case?
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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