In a case decided in 1963 the U.S. Supreme Court made the following statement:
"The United States wins its point whenever justice is done its citizens in the courts", Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).
The decision was made on the height of active civil rights movement and public unrest, 5 years before the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
The U.S. Supreme Court, a court that is supposedly independent and that must supposedly act in a dispassionate manner, made several decisions helping (for the time being) criminal defendants get justice.
Of course, it did not prevent the same U.S. Supreme Court to wash out the value of those victories by later interpretation, which resulted in a system where wrongful convictions have become the rule rather than the exception.
It is important to note that the case Brady v. Maryland was a state, not federal criminal case, and in that context, by quoting the statement about the U.S. government, the U.S. Supreme Court applied that statement to state government's too, which is what was only fair to do under Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
And that statement, that the government (state or federal) wins whenever justice is done its citizens in the court, is true for criminal, or civil, or and especially civil rights case context.
In that same context, I am asking questions:
- What justice is done the victims of governmental misconduct and corruption when members of the government (state or federal) are granted absolute immunities for their malicious and CORRUPT acts in office? What kind of "public policy" would support allowing malicious and corrupt acts of public officials in office remain unaccounted for, because, seriously, they are not accounted for if they are not made public - and if the public does not go massively and seriously to the streets and, now, to the social media demanding accountability
- Moreover, what justice is done the victims of governmental misconduct and corruption if they are also made to pay attorney fees and sanctions (an increasing trend in civil rights litigation) for even filing their civil rights lawsuit to ask the courts (as they thought they could pursuant to the 1st Amendment Petitions Clause) to do justice for them and to rule fairly?
- What justice is done if the courts would not want to hear whether a government official (especially a government official of the same class as the court, a judge) did or did not actually commit the misconduct he is sued for, and would not allow discovery?
- What justice is done if a mass of auxiliary workers serving the judge (or prosecutor, another class of recipients of absolute immunity for corrupt acts in office) are also given judicial immunity - and that is done without the parallel promise (even though a fake promise that it is) of a possibility of judicial discipline and without the parallel requirement (although made ineffective) of having judges file their financial disclosures with the court system (every half a year in New York)?
Just questions this time, no answers.
And does it have to be public unrest, civil rights movement led by a leader of the caliber of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for this country's courts to even try and start doing what is fair for its citizens - for fear that otherwise citizens will eliminate the government as it exists, including that court, and start anew?
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