In a belated move, Judge Brenda Weaver, the one who has brought criminal charges through her former employee-turned-prosecutor, against two people who sought public records exposing Judge Weaver's misconduct (see my blogs here, here, here and here), and whose husband (another former employer of the pet prosecutor Alison Sosebee) reportedly triggered the surveillance and investigation against a publisher and an attorney seeking public records exposing his judge-wife's misconduct - resigned from the Judicial Qualifications Commission of the State of Georgia where she was a Chairwoman.
It took Judge Weaver more than a month to make that decision after a disciplinary complaint was filed against her, so, the judicial disciplinary authorities can at least proceed with the complaint against Judge Weaver without the embarrassment of having to investigate and prosecute their present boss.
Yet, Judge Weaver still did not resign nor was suspended from the bench pending resolution of the disciplinary complaint against her and the FBI investigation of the case, which she should do also, considering the circumstances of the case that already became public knowledge.
Judges are suspended pending a disciplinary complaint for much less than what Judge Weaver is accused of.
With an FBI investigation pending, with Judge Weaver acknowledging in the press her theft of public funds from the court operating accounts to give that money to a private law firm as a reimbursement of legal fees for a private individual (not a court employee), Judge Weaver belongs behind bars and not on the bench.
I hope the Judicial disciplinary authorities of the State of Georgia suspend, and then remove Judge Weaver from the bench, attorney disciplinary authorities take her law license, and criminal authorities put Judge Weaver where she belongs - behind bars, for grand theft, not to mention abuse of office.
Then the people of the State of Georgia may have some hope for the equal protection of law and the rule of law in the state applying the same way to judges as well as to average Joes.
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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