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.


Friday, November 6, 2015

"Good judge" stories are few and far-between nowadays. Back to the new "normal": a New Mexico judge runs amok in advising a young defendant to be prepared for rapes and beatings in prison

A New Mexico female judge by the name of Christina Argyres reportedly told 20-year-old first time offender that, as an act of mercy, she is putting him on 5-year one-slip-and-you-are-behind-bars-for-15-years probation.

Before she announced her act of mercy - and that is in a courtroom where video cameras are not allowed, so the source I quote indicated it was reporting from a transcript - the judge told the teenager the following:

Quote
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“You would probably be raped every day, number one,” she said to Gay.

“You would be beat up every other day.”

Unquote
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According to the same source,  "[t]he judge then proceeded to tell him that if she sentenced him to prison he would be someone’s bitch, so in an act of mercy she put him on five year probation instead.
“He’s going to be somebody’s – I hate to use the word bitch, but that’s exactly what he’s going to be, and I don’t want to destroy Mr. Gay’s life.”"

Wow.

So, she recognizes that in prison the young man will await cruel and unusual punishment by uncontrolled mobs of prisoners - uncontrolled by the government that is "carrying out justice" against him and is supposed to follow the law all the way doing it, becuase the government is supposedly on the high horse and is doing the right thing, and is rightfully punishing the young man, on behalf of all people of the State of New Mexico, for his wrongdoing (doesn't matter, what it was).

So, it is legal in New Mexico now to imply that the prison sentence will include everyday rape and every-other-day beatings?  And authorities look the other way to make this "implied sentence" being carried out?

Ok, Mr. Gay escaped jail through the "mercy" of Judge Argyres - very possibly, not for long, because, the same government that allows prisoners to be raped every day and beaten up every other day when the only thing that the government is entitled to do is carry out a court sentence depriving convicted individuals of their liberty - not dignity, not safety, not harm to health or life - that same government can very easily falsify charges and entrap the boy into "tripping up" and going to that prison for 15 years.

Especially when, as it was reported in January of 2015, for-profit prisons in New Mexico get higher profit from their captive labor force than other states.

In Pennsylvania we had a "kids-for-cash" scandal, but the two judges caught and convicted were still not convicted for selling children into slavery, only for receiving kickbacks.

And even then, in a civil lawsuit, the judge was given absolute judicial immunity, in this disgusting wording from his brother judge (that is running on top of this blog):

What will happen to this judge?

Will she - and other judges in New Mexico who fill so profitable "for-profit" prisons, be finally investigated?

Because the "act of mercy" of Judge Argyres could very well be an act of greed.  And it certainly looked like an act of sadism.

I wonder when they will take this woman off the bench?  Will they?

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