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.

Saturday, July 16, 2022

Delaware County (NY) judicial candidate John Hubbard MUST PUBLISH for the voters his family tree by consanguinity and affinity up to the 6th degree to determine percentage of cases from which he will be disqualified by law

A County judge in Delaware County also carries out the duties of the Family Court and the Surrogate Court's judge.

The salary of such a judge - based on the published salary of the recently-retired judge Richard D. Northrup, Jr., whose vacated place is now up for elections - is $210,893.


That amount is payable not by the state of New York, but by Delaware County Taxpayers - according to the New York State Family Court Act:



So, when you vote in Delaware County for who is going to be your judge, you need to think how often the judge will be NOT ABLE to discharge his duties because he is going to be prohibited to do that by law, and how often instead Delaware County will have to pay for services of an additional judge.

For the current judicial candidate John Hubbard, such a percentage may be staggering.

 

New York State has a statute, Judiciary Law Section 14, containing ABSOLUTE prohibitions for judges to preside over certain cases.

"A judge shall not sit as such in, or take any part in the decision of, an action, claim, matter, motion or proceeding 

  • to which he is a party, or 
  • in which he has been attorney or counsel, or 
  • in which he is interested, or 
  • if he is related by consanguinity or affinity to any party to the controversy within the sixth degree.  The degree shall be ascertained by ascending from the judge to the common ancestor, descending to the party, counting a degree for each person in both lines, including the judge and party, and excluding the common ancestor.  
But no judge of a court of record shall be disqualified in any action, claim, matter, motion or proceeding in which an insurance company is a party or is interested by reason of his being a policy holder therein.  No judge shall be deemed disqualified from passing upon any litigation before him because of his ownership of shares of stock or other securities of a corporate litigant, provided that the parties, by their attorneys, in writing, or in open court upon the record, waive any claim as to disqualification of the judge."

This article will deal with only one problem with candidacy of John Hubbard (the current District Attorney) for the position of a judge of the County, Family and Surrogate's Court in Delaware County New York, his likely mandatory disqualifications from an overwhelming number of cases because of his multi-generational familial connections in the area.


John Hubbard is currently actively campaigning for the highly-paid  position of a 3-bench (Family Court, County Court, Surrogate's Court) judge, giving away candy and American flags.






Recently, John Hubbard, to bolster his election stance, he has also provided a very peculiar evidence, supposedly in support of his position as the county judge: a picture of the grave of his revolutionary hero relative who has supposedly lived in this same area a couple hundred years prior.



I guess, the blood of the revolutionary hero sings in John Hubbard's veins and this makes him qualified as a judge - by pedigree.

The usual identity politics, nothing new here.

Yet, let us count, based on John Hubbard's own disclosure, how many generations of his ancestors (at the very least, there may have been more before the person buried under the shown grave marker) have lived in the area.

John Hubbard describes David Ellerson as his "5X great-grandfather".  So, it is 6 generations up.

Let us consider that Delaware County (and I lived there for 16 years, and knew, because of my husband's and my own profession, many people in the area) is a rural, woody and mountainous, poor, thinly populated, with scant population movement and, consequently, highly interbred county (the going characterization of the population in the Delaware County is that it is "the land of kissing cousins").

Thus, going 6 generations up and down from John Hubbard in terms of blood relations (consanguinity) and marital relations (affinity) may result in a finding that John Hubbard, whose ancestors, as Hubbard has himself proudly demonstrated with the help of a picture of his revolutionary hero-ancestor's grave marker on his election campaign page - may have an absolutely disqualifying familial relationship through blood or marriages with the absolute majority of the County residents.

Don't you think that Hubbard owes its voters, instead of giving out candy, American flags and posing with his brilliant smile at different old-boy gatherings, to make a disclosure as to how much of their money will be wasted if they elect him - and to PUBLISH his full family tree, up to the 6th degree of consanguinity and affinity up and down in age.

If he can't do it, even more so he can't be a judge - because taxpayers in the poor rural Delaware County will be then put into an untenable position of wasting their limited resources on a huge Hubbard's judicial salary and benefits, AND for Hubbard presiding over proceedings which may at any point in time may be pronounced VOID (as in: zero, nullity, never happened) because of his absolutely prohibited as a matter of law familial connection to a party in the proceeding.

So, will John Hubbard publish his family tree covering relatives in all disqualifying degrees of consanguinity and affinity?

Or will he continue to bamboozle voters with candy, American flags and his photo-ops?



By the way, the same disqualification problem may exist for the already sitting judge, Gary Rosa, also a multi-generational native of Delaware County - who is also in no hurry to publish his family tree and enlightening parties in front of him about his mandatory disqualifications.

The ONLY way Judiciary Law 14 will be meaningful and have the intended protections for the public is that all judges and judicial candidates are required to publish their family trees to the 6th degrees of consanguinity and affinity - so that the public may readily see where the judge is prohibited by law to preside over a case, making any decisions in such a case void.

Since this is a highly paid and powerful public office, any expenses for putting together such a family tree shall be on the judge or judicial candidate, and the law must be introduced that nobody may be punished for requesting such a family tree or for challenging its authenticity.

For problems with Hubbard's likely or, rather, 100% positive disqualification based on other 3 mandatory bases listed above (being a party, and attorney for the party and having an interest in litigation), I will publish more articles before elections, so stay tuned. 

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