I've just posted a blog about two nightmare judges in New York - Richard Northrup and Kevin Dowd - who were elected while running unopposed.
Yet another nightmare like that just happened in California where Judge Aaron Persky, the one who gave a 6-month sentence to the Stanford rapist Turner Block, was just re-elected to a 6-year term.
As the report says, the voters "did not get to oust" the judge because her ran unopposed.
And that is, despite an international outcry to oust Judge Persky, an online petition that has gathered hundreds of thousands of votes to oust him and members of legislature calling upon him to resign and pledging to oust him if he doesn't.
It is clear that Persky is not resigning - he adamantly continued his election campaign and was re-elected unopposed.
By the way, the Stanford rapist case is not the first time when Persky made a decision favoring rapists.
In a civil trial alleging sexual assault by a group of De Anza College baseball players sued for allegations of gang rape, Persky derailed the case, which resulted in dismissal of the lawsuit against two of the defendants and private settlement against others, by admitting into evidence IRRELEVANT Facebook pictures of victims in revealing clothes made 6 months after assault.
It is apparent that the judge, same as in the Stanford rapist's case, sends a message that the victims were themselves to blame. You dressed scantily - don't complain when you are gang-raped, that's the message.
Same as in the Stanford case - you went to a party and got drunk, don't be surprised that you found yourself raped behind a dumpster, and your rapist will get a rehab-length of incarceration only because a longer term will be too hard for his tender sensibilities.
Great message from a judge to the public.
And - he was just re-elected for 6 more years.
The public can expect the same kind of rulings from him in the future.
I wonder whether Persky will be removed or even disciplined for abusing his discretion in the courtroom and using it to humiliate and demean victims of sexual assault - we'll see.
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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