With Justice for None; the four henchmen

@ H. Skip Robinson 04/01/2019

It is not hard to acknowledge that when Judges are chosen politically, the Judges will become as much a politician as those selecting them.  The confirmation hearings of Judges have become a political battle so adverse and contentious, that they are partially being fought through the legal system itself.

Of course, this is the worst thing that could ever occur in any society, but it has been the rule throughout human history. The Judges have always been a rubber stamp for the ruling class and the various factions want their candidate to be the one confirmed.  The should give you an indication of just how arbitrary judicial decisions have been and can be.  

“With Justice for None” is also the title of a book by the best-selling author and prominent defence Attorney Gerry Spence, now deceased, who wrote a highly critical review of our legal system.  

“A scathing indictment of how law is taught, practiced, and administered in this country . . . One of the best books ever written on the law.”—The Denver Post
 
“Renowned trial lawyer Gerry Spence takes an in-depth look at the American justice system and reveals a terrible truth: If you don’t have power or money, then you likely won’t receive justice either. The wealthy buy their way out of trouble, while the poor are punished. In an effort to combat this corruption, the author devises a number of reforms, tackling issues in every area of the system from law school to the courtroom.”

This is the truth about our legal system, and I have read and heard hundreds of stories over the years providing additional evidence. If you have the money to pay the extravagant prices the average Attorneys charges, and many of them are “poor to average” at best in their abilities to acquire justice, you will get better treatment that those that don’t have the money. Many of them are highly unscrupulous and will take your money and then do hardly anything to help you. And God forbid, having to use a Public Defender who is an indirect drain on the pension funds of the Judges and other government employees that work the justice system, I call Courthouse Vultures.   

IMHO, with the States and American BAR Associations, they have created a quasi power cartel full of individuals with highly questionable integrity. In 1820, Thomas Jefferson apparently agreed when he wrote; “The Judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working underground to undermine the foundation of our confederated fabric.… the Federal Judiciary; an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow and advance it’s noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one…. when all government….in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.

Our Judiciary, has allowed, until just this week of 3/15/2019 the “extraordinary” excessive confiscation of money and property through unconstitutional Asset Forfeiture actions protected by the 8^Th Amendment to be standard operations by local, state and Federal Law enforcement agencies. Finally, after decades perhaps even a century or so, of unlawful confiscations of property and money from the Citizens by government prosecutors and law enforcement, the Supreme Count finally has upheld and protected one of out constitutional rights, in a case Timbs v Indiana after the appellate determination by the Indiana Supreme Court, affirmed an action so unconscionable that it boggles the imagination.

We all know our political system is inherently flawed because of the effects of money on the system but unless you follow some of the lower and Supreme Court decisions carefully you are not necessarily cognizant of the Courts poor behavior.

I think they got Roe vs Wade right and many others but when it comes to the governments taxing and other confiscatory powers to fine, penalize and imprison, it is as if it is a profitable business to them.

I’ll give you one example. During the foreclosure epidemic, the South Florida Courts literally became a purely arbitrary system with a “rocket docket” mentality as it was being called by Attorneys, forgoing most of the rules of law and this was a determination from the top down, with the Senior Judges telling their subordinates to clear their docket, ruling against the homeowners almost 100% of the time. Come to find out the Judges have their own pension fund and they had invested in some of the mortgage loans sold be Wall Street and the banks.

Despite the various frauds initiated by the banks and mortgage lenders, homeowners lost their homes almost 100% of the time unless the banks made some sort of deal with the homeowners.  Here in So. Florida we still have huge numbers of foreclosures still on the dockets and it is often the banks themselves slowing the process. As a Realtor, I think they are trying to slowly bring these properties on the market so that the keep the inventories low and prices remain high but that’s another issue for another day. 

The rocket docket mentality still exists as far as the Judges siding with the banks, but the legal processes have normalized. If you think justice is being served, it is not. We even have found family members of the Judges being owners of banks or major shareholders. 

In the State of Florida, a jury trial is prohibited for foreclosure proceeding by Florida Statute allowing only the Judges to reside, called a Judicial Hearing over the determination of the cases. How can this even be constitutional? 

What is amazing is that Thomas Jefferson warned us about this so many years ago. He stated: “The opinion which gives to the Judges the right to decide what laws are Constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action, but for the legislature and executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a Despotic branch.  The new Constitution has secured these (individual rights) in the Executive and Legislative departments; but not in the Judiciary. It should have established trials by the people themselves, that is to say by jury.” Understand that he was writing about the jury being the final arbiter at the Appellate levels just as it is most often at the Circuit Court level. 

In one case We The People v. United States, 485 F.3D 140 (2007), one Judge made the initial decision in the lawsuit to deny the right to petition the government for redress of grievances under the 1^st Amendment, a group of 62 questions relating to the Federal individual Income Tax, the U.S. Government would not answer.  A three Judge panel, including the now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh upheld the usurpation and the SCOTUS refused to hear the case. https://openjurist.org/485/f3d/140/we-the-people-foundation-inc-v-united-states So, we had in this case, just “four” people determining if Citizens have the Right to petition the Government for Redress of Grievances under the 1^st Amendment and expect honest answers to those questions.  Siding with Kavanaugh was Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Chief Justice and District of Columbia Circuit Court Justice, Judith W. Rogers. The initial Judge in the lawsuit at the DC Circuit was Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. I call them the four henchmen for usurping one of the most necessary rights of all. Our founding fathers petitioned King George as well and with the same results.

The proverbial question is why have a right to petition the government for redress of grievances, if the Government doesn’t have to honestly respond to questions pertaining especially to the tax laws of our nation? If they cannot answer such questions, how are they able to assess and enforce them?  

It was the single most influential action taken by those in the U.S. Government that made me come to the very sad but honest realization, as those from Princeton University and other academics have concluded. That we are an oligarchy and not a democratic republic any more, quashing the entire notion of any possibility of representative democracy under our current leadership and system. IMHO, it is the judiciary that provides the legal precedence that has slowly allowed the expanded size and scope of powers beyond the constitutional limitations set force in our rules of law.  There are legal and proper ways to amend our Constitution, yet the judiciary has ignored them on many occasions, legislating from the Bench as each political Party contends the other is doing. In all three of the above situations noted above, it was the Judiciary single handedly that was the final arbiter fostering the usurpation of rights protected by the Bill of Rights.           

Here are the 62 Questions posed in the formal petition for redress of grievances under the 1^st Amendment presented to the IRS Department of the Treasury, The President of the United States and all 535 members of Congress. https://jurists4justice.com/essays/62-questions-the-irs-government-refuses-to-answer/

It simply comes down to just nine people determining the laws for a nation of 325 million people; two much power in the hands of too few individuals. With the negation of the right to petition for redress of grievances, they have now blocked all of the Citizens ability of any method(s) of direct oversight over those in judicial power, as Thomas Jefferson warned so very long ago.  You can vote your little hearts out and it will have little bearing, these justices are nominated and confirmed by the most politically powerful in our system.  The President and 100 Senators now decide our judicial fate.

Then we wonder why the Government has grown from having just one tax, a luxury import tax, to taxing everyone and everything we do with Gestapo like tactics, WWII Germany would be proud of. Total government spending at all levels is now at $7.4 trillion “annually” and we must borrow $1 trillion of that annually, now placing every household in debt to the turn of about $175,000.00 with a total of just the Federal Government debt now surpassing $22 trillion.

We are literally indebting the future generations beyond their potential of paying it back without debasing our currency even more.  Inflation has only been curbed by the poor economic conditions felt by everyone but the wealthy who appear to be oblivious to the effects placed on the middle to lower socio-economic spectrum.