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.


Sunday, October 8, 2017

The #JudgeBrendaWeaver saga, Part IV - with Brenda Weaver and her cronies, what is public and what is private is a blur

I have posted so far 3 blogs explaining impropriety of dismissal of disciplinary charges against Judge Brenda Weaver of the State of Georgia, see Part I, Part II and Part III posted on this blog today and yesterday.

In this blog I wanted to show how court reporter's attorney (and now judge) Mary Beth Priest defrauded the court, Judge Martha Christian, in her defamation counter-claim, when she asserted on behalf of the court reporter Rhonda Stubblefield, that the defamation lawsuit was private.

Look how Rhonda Stubblefield (and her attorney, now judge Mary Beth Priest) and Judge Brenda Weaver flickered their claims of public or private status in connection with the open records request and/or criminal prosecution of Mark Thomason and his attorney Russell Stookey, to derive the most personal benefit from such claims.






Private
Public

Judge Brenda Weaver
Audit of the “court operating account” illegally funded by counties

Bringing criminal charges for “illegal access to personal information” as a “victim”, personally, of the alleged crimes of Mark Thomason and Russell Stookey – the “crimes” being trying to get access to PUBLIC RECORDS, transactions in the court operating account (JQC dismissal claims that Brenda Weaver’s “concern” was for supposed potential for theft of her Social Security number on “her” account – yet, her personal Social Security number can only appear on that account if it is a private personal bank account, not an account of a public entity, the court)

Giving money to a court stenographer out of that same “court operating account” to pay for attorney fees in her private lawsuit

Denying access to a reporter, Mark Thomason, to that same account because now it is part of "judicial records" - which it was not, as it was an administrative record and not record of judicial proceedings



Court reporter
Rhonda Stubblefield
Initially, court reporter Stubblefield denied access to the audio of court proceedings claiming she is a private person and a private entity, not a public official.

Stubblefield brought a Counter-claim for defamation against Thomason and Stookey was brought by Stubblefield as a private party – had she sued as a public official, the lawsuit would have been frivolous out of hand, because she could not prove that the request to access records and the claim that there was a racial slur was not only false (it was not even that), but also malicious

Brenda Weaver paid $17,000 out of a “court operating account” to Stubblefield’s attorney claiming that Stubblefield “prevailed” (I guess, by withdrawing her counterclaim and agreeing to its voluntary dismissal) in her official capacity as a court reporter;

The Judicial Qualifications Commission claimed that “Stubblefield had been sued solely because of her status as official court reporter.  After notifying the Pickens, Fannin, and Gilmer County Commissions and receiving their approval, Judge Weaver had Stubblefield’s attorney’s fees and expenses paid from Judge Bradley’s operating account.  The counties fund such accounts for each of the judges in the Circuit.



So, Stubblefield claimed to the court - to escape out of hand dismissal of her defamation lawsuit, with sanctions and attorney fees awarded AGAINST her and in favor of Thomason - that her defamation lawsuit was brought by her as a private party.

On the same grounds she initially denied access to the audio of court proceedings.

But, that did not prevent Stubblefield, or her attorney Mary Beth Priest, from accepting $17,000 of attorney fees for her attorney paid out under the theory that, on the opposite, she was sued, and filed a counter-claim in defamation, in her official capacity as a court reporter.

I guess, money does not smell.

Similarly, Brenda Weaver, knowing that a court operating account MUST be audited by the State financial services, upon information and belief, did not submit it to audit claiming that it is not subject to audit, because it's "hers".  Apparently, when you consider yourself as the same as THE government, and public pocket as her own - such a "confusion" can happen.

But then, after asserting that "her" account is not subject to state audit because it's "hers", Weaver turned around and told Mark Thomason that he does not get to get access to that same account because it is now "public" and not subject to an Open Records Request because it the Open Records Act supposedly "does not apply to the judicial branch" - but it DOES, to its administrative records, and financial records are definitely administrative records.




Then, Weaver turned around and claimed, again, that the account is "hers" to prosecutor Alison Sosebee, her own former law clerk, to be positioned as a "victim" in a criminal proceeding who had "concerns" that access by a journalist to a PUBLIC RECORD may actually result in the theft of her PRIVATE Social Security Number.

Then, again, Weaver turned around for yet another time and claimed that the bribery fund is once again now an official "court operating account" to whitewash herself before the "friendly" Judicial Qualifications Commission - there, by the way, there was a problem, even though the JQC swallowed her explanation whole.

The explanation of the JQC that:


  • Brenda Weaver, a public official,
  • paid a court reporter, supposedly a public official (not true, but at least an attempt can be made to stretch the truth that far) 
  • on approval of Fannin, Pickens and Gilmer County Commissioners who regularly finance operating accounts of ALL circuit judges -
fails miserably in step No. 3.

Because here is the admission that the account was NOT a public account, but was a bribery account illegally financed by counties, while the state court system must be financed only and entirely from the state budget to ensure independence of the state judiciary.

That's exactly how Los Angeles County was caught regularly bribing California state judges in the very same criminal scheme.

As to the frantic efforts of Brenda Weaver, court reporter Rhonda Stubblefield and the crew to create the "make believe" that the same proceedings and the same actions and the same accounts are "now private" and "now public", I guess, when you are stupid and arrogant, once in a while, no matter how hard you try to appear smart, you just ... slip ... and fall right on your face.

Hard.


1 comment:

  1. Thank you for your continued information to the PEOPLE!!

    ReplyDelete