..What Is Meant By Justice ~ When Justice Fails..
PREAMBLE
By Christopher Cross
Have you ever wondered what is meant by "Justice" ?
Websters New Collegiate Dictionary defines "Justice" in section one as:
"1a: the maintenance of administration of what is just esp. by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishment"
Findlaw Legal Dictionary defines "Justice" in section two as:
"2 a: the administration of law Example: a fugitive from justice esp : the establishment or determination of rights according to law or equity: Example: system of justice"
Judge Edith Jones of the U.S. Ct. of App. for the Fifth Cir.,told the Federalist Society of Harvard Law School on February 28, 2003 that:
"The American legal system has been corrupted almost beyond recognition" . . . "the question of what is morally right is routinely sacrificed to what is politically expedient. The change has come because legal philosophy has descended to nihilism."
So often we hear people say "I Know My Rights" and yet, by all accounts it is far more likely that they do not. And while one branch of government wishes to blame the others, I believe there are three primary reasons that our system of "justice" has gone afoul.
The first is that of an "unregulated enterprise" that has greatly presupposed that "justice" is for sale. The second is that of "qualified & soveregin immunity" that has destroyed official accountability and the third is that of "societal indifferences" that have allowed the other two to gain their life in their full impact that we are now facing tenfold in repercussion. To the point that no longer can we securely or even semi-confidently say ...
"I Know My Rights !"
This report will focuse on these three primary components; examining them in their historical, leglislative and judicial complexities and existence for educational purposes.
Part One
Unregulated Enterprise = Justice For Sale
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy once stated in reference to the law making a promise of neutrality to the people that:
"There's a rule of law, [and it has] three parts. One: the government is bound by the law. Two: all people are treated equally. And three: there are certain enduring human rights that must be protected. There must be both the perception and the reality that in defending these values, the judge is not affected by improper influences or improper restraints. That's neutrality".
But are Judges truly neutral when there are multiple exterior influences involved that not only encompass political aspects by virtue of Judges being appointed by politicians and elected by the people. Yet, the financial aspects involved that frequently determine they type of attorney one is represented by and his or her skill level.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Breyer believes that:
"Judges are appointed often through the political process. At least there's a political input, but when you put on the robe, at that point the politics is over. And, at that point, a judge must think through each case with the total neutrality that you mentioned. . . All anyone has to ask himself is, Suppose I were on trial? Suppose somebody accused me. Would I want to be judged by whether or not I was popular?"
And yet most recently, in October 2004, Texas Criminal Court Judge Faith Johnson "welcomed a former fugitive back to her courtroom with balloons, streamers and a cake before sentencing him to life in prison." Stating:
"You just made my day when I heard you had finally come home." "We're so excited to see you, we're throwing a party for you."
Seana Willing, Executive Director of the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct, stated in response that:
"It's the kind of thing I look at and scratch my head and wonder, 'What was she thinking?'"
Trent Touchstone, a supervisory deputy U.S. marshal, stated:
"Johnson took a special interest in Williams' case after he jumped bail that she had set following the 2002 assault".
Herein lays the problem when Judges presuppose that their position as a Judge permits them to take a "special interest" in a case rather than remaining neutral to all parties involved, including the accused and therein run afoul.
Captain Ronald L. Davis, Oakland Police Dept., once wrote in Justice By Action that:
"The symbol of Justice is a woman holding a scale – blindfolded. The symbol does not suggest the woman is free of bias or that justice is blind. The symbol represents the need to blindfold those empowered to administer justice from personal and societal prejudices when exerting the authority and power of office".
Therefore, to assume that a Jude becomes neutral once and merely because he/she puts on the robe is problematic to why the greater harms continue to occur.
In a poll taken in 2003 by the Texas State Supreme Court and the Texas State Bar Association that questioned the neutrality of Judges, the poll found that:
83% of the public think judges are already unduly influenced by campaign contributions.
79% of the lawyers who appear before the judges think campaign contributions significantly influence courtroom decisions.
Almost half of the justices on the Court think the same thing.
In response to these findings, Justice Kennedy stated:
"This is serious, because the law commands allegiance only if it commands respect. It commands respect only if the public thinks the judges are neutral. And when you have figures like that, the judicial system is in real trouble. And that's why we should have a national conversation about it".
But to no avail has this "national conversation" taken place and in all probability it never will, because as Judge Edith Jones pointed out in her 2003 speech before the Federalist Society:
"The American legal system has been corrupted almost beyond recognition" "…the question of what is morally right is routinely sacrificed to what is politically expedient"
And while there is an oversight board responsible for reviewing the conduct of Judges, they are under no obligation to do so unless they so choose by virtue of their discretionary authority or a complaint is filed against a Judge. Rather than recognizing the dangers existing and mandating that an investigation be conducted when a Judge exhibits such conduct that fails to honor the promise given to the people in the application of law. And therein cease selling "Justice" in what has become a grossly unregulated enterprise of politcal expectations and contribution's.
Part Two
Qualified & Soveregin Immunity = Destruction of Accountability
Although Alexander Hamilton was not seen as a "good politician" because of his unwillingness to speak softly to appease others, in 1775 he wrote:
"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummage for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."
And Earl Warren wrote in "A Republic If You Can Keep It" p. 48 that:
"The [only] protection of [every] citizen from such deprivation of rights is a [strict adherence] to the Bill of Rights [by everyone for everyone]…." (emphasis brackets added)
Yet, while our framers were abundantly clear in the rights and liberties created in and given by our Federal Charters. Man’s obsessive greed for political power and moreover, the pathway for personal vindictive expressions, such things constantly erode the gifts in rights and liberties that our framers intended for us to have. For example:
Findlaw Legal Dictionary defines "qualified immunity" as:
"specif : official immunity from damages for acts that violate another's civil rights that is granted if it can be shown that the acts do not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would be aware."
I submit however, that there can be no greater threat to democracy and the very sanctity of life and liberty itself than what comes from the predisposition of these immunities against the people. For the very consequence in their application, presupposes that official’s are above the law and the people therefore hold the greater burdens of proving otherwise.
All early American history testifies to the fact that the right of power lays in the hands of the people or though their elected officials as plainly evident in that:
"In the United States the people are sovereign. The powers of the government are only those delegated to it by the people. The democratic process, by definition, is one in which "The supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system." Earl Warren, Id at Pp. 60-61
However, official’s, both legislative and judicial alike have adopted the belief that in order for the government to have the ability to enforce the law, they must therefore be above the law.
In doing this, both legislative and judicial official’s alike have undermined the integrity of their Oath tenfold, which is their solemn promise to the people to ensure the laws will be upheld in neutrality and not therefore be marked by the corrupt individual’s power. And while Harlan F. Stone, noted in "The Common Law in the United States, 50 Harv. L. Rev. 4 (1936)" that:
"The law itself is on trial, quite as much as the cause, which is to be decided."
When such immunities are imposed against the people, it cannot be the law that is on trial or even the official, but the people instead as a means to silence their dissent for the government to retain its power sot it may achieve conformity.
Part Three
Societal Indifferences = The Path To Whimpers End
Earl Warren went on to say:
"…This should be self evident but the danger or erosion of rights stems largely from the fact that so many citizens of the majority, who have never been deprived of any of these rights, find it difficult to understand what the deprivation of them means in the lives of others."
The indifferences existing in society is the common binding ground that forges greater deprivations of rights to occur, until there can be only one end shared by the swallowing of us all. For the voice of silence is the surest pathway to bring about our whimpers end.....for the sake of conformity.
