[Victims of Court Corruption] J.A.I.L. is faulty in a variety of ways - Zena Crenshaw

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Re: We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us
Date:	Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:10:20 -0600
From:	Zena Crenshaw <zcrenshaw@comcast.net>
To:	Jacob <jrogins@va.metrocast.net>
CC:	Ron Branson <VictoryUSA@jail4judges.org>, Andrew Jackson <dradjackson@yahoo.com>, John Wolfgram <johnwolfgram@hotmail.com>, Dale Nathan <dalenathan@usfamily.net>, Glenn Vickers Bey <glenn_vickers@yahoo.com>, Jon Roland <jon.roland@constitution.org>, "Center for Judicial Accountability,Inc. (CJA)" <elena@judgewatch.org>, gzerman@hotmail.com

Zena Crenshaw wrote:

The writings of professors Drew Lanier and Vincent Johnson, featured in the Fogg symposium report, indicate that certain "structural elements" and "ethical norms" are necessary to ensure judicial independence.  And by "judicial independence", they don't mean 

unrestrained freedom.

  

Lanier explains:

Courts operate within a field of bounded discretion due to pre-existing rules that govern their decision-making. These include procedural and evidentiary rules that limit how and when courts can act and constrain a court's options when issuing a decision.

The “structural elements”required to accomplish this independence are (1). judicial salaries that “cannot be reduced while (recipients are) in office”; (2). “fixed (judicial) tenure”; and (3). judicial selection “through executive appointment that is checked by some other actor or through direct election.”

  

The referenced ethical norms relate to ex parte communications, gifts, political activities, and “certain problematic relationships.”

  

The Fogg report explains:

 

While Professor Johnson appropriately lauds “the ethical standards that prevent or mitigate harm to the exercise of judicial judgment by inappropriate pressures . . .”, attorney Crenshaw-Logal called it ironic “. . . that judges are most buffered from the consequences of disregarding or circumventing ethical norms”.

 . . .

Rather than unethical judges, attorney Crenshaw-Logal cited inadequate transparency, awareness, and education regarding American courts as a main culprit, stating:  “I’d like to propose that at some point America’s legal system began operating in such obscurity that “judicial restraint” became our only hope; I propose that judicial restraint explains America’s seeming reliance on the rule of law more than stare decisis or any self-executing, external constraint.” 

 

By the time I make this point about the obscurity of America's judiciary, we've already learned from Fogg's report that . . .

 

(t)he relative obscurity of American courts was noted in a variety of ways at Fogg’s debut symposium on stare decisis.  The courts were fairly described as obscure based on inadequate major media coverage of their activities; the misunderstandings and misperceptions of their proper function that abound; the disregard of and disinterest in their operations among many Americans; and the nature as well as implications of those activities that are simply unknown by or concealed from most Americans.

 

Here's the point: there is no rule of law if judges are free to violate ethical norms and substantive law with impunity.  There is no rule of law "when judges enforce or disregard precedent at will".  This proposition does not change based on the character of judges.

 

Every judge in America could be brilliant, honest, and incapable of an improper or illegal act.  We would still lack the rule of law if there are no external constraints on their official conduct or the purported constraints are illusory.  Instead we'd have a magnanimous judiciary which, unfortunately, has not been my experience. 

 

Hence, in my view, debates about the extent to which judges are or are not "crooks and scumbags" are tangential, at best.  Our problem also extends beyond the fact that judges have created immunities and other devices to avoid negative consequences of misconduct and are virtually immune to impeachment and criminal prosecution.  Arguably the bigger problem is that these developments and circumstances are pretty much unknown or disregarded by most Americans.

 

In seeking public awareness, NFOJA speaks in terms of imbalance of power, due process, equal protection, vitality of stare decisis, rule of law, fair and impartial administration of justice, etc.  Sometimes, but rarely do we use the phrase judicial corruption.  And we absolutely avoid premising the need for reform on the honesty, dishonesty, and/or similar traits of judges. 

 

I'll continue to develop the theory that citizen oversight such as NFOJA proposes must be part of America's strategy for bringing appropriate judicial scrutiny to bear.  NFOJA is meant to be a composite of best practices drawn from proposed initiatives of multiple grassroots judicial reformers including J.A.I.L. proponents.  I remain willing to expound upon my contention that J.A.I.L. is faulty in a variety of ways.  My schedule should allow me to prepare for that discussion in about 30 days.

 

Zena    

 

  

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:55 AM, Jacob <jrogins@va.metrocast.net> wrote:

 

Steve,

 

In my view the root of the problem is deeper.  If you happened to see my yesterday's post in explanation of my rejection of the current Constitution as a guarantee of anything but tyranny, you would see -- and you could have already known this independently -- that one of the articles of George Mason's proposed bill of rights that did not make it into the Bill of Rights was the one that declared emphatically the right of the people to obtain redress for injuries.  I believe the reason this one did not make it is neither the majority of the Framers nor that of the Ratifiers really cared much for each individual having access to justice.   These people really never intended for the Declaration of Independence to be the "heart and mind" of this Constitution, as the Supreme Court would have us believe. 

 

The immunities are part and parcel of how the elites have circled their wagons, and they will not allow you to breach their defenses, as long as they can.  That is the root of the problem.  They will shoot at you from all directions with everything they've got whenever and wherever you try to breach the circle.

 

Jacob

 

 

Wolfgram said:

 

Well, Carl, I've been a general supporter of JAIL for over fifteen years, maybe even from before Ron and Gary finalized the JAIL concept.  But I do agree that it is more an attack on the branches and not the root, and over that time I've chosen more to attack that root of immunity, than its branches.  In doing that I came to realize that the problem is not the judges as people, but the system that has been carved out for them by their predecessors, particularly on the Supreme Court.  A judge today that realy believes in justice, has a real problem.  The system simply won't allow it and the judge, as a person, is forced into negotiating a Hobson's choice of abandoning morality or abdicating judicial responsibility all together.

  

Once you see this, you can see Zena's position.  She is unwilling to admit the corruption of judges generally, as she should and as I do.  Yet, that they are corrupt in a constitutional sense, there can be no doubt ... but it is a collective guilt.  I can understand that and apparently you do.  But Zena has not gotten that far yet.  She simply cannot understand the effect of immunity on the judicial system and especially now that the judiciary has extended the hallmark of corruption to all government functionaries.

  

As you attest, that concept, that immunity as the root of corruption, has more and more taken hold.  I am suggesting that Ron change the nuance of JAIL to attack that root more directly.

  

Wolf

 

 

On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 5:17 PM, Jacob <jrogins@va.metrocast.net> wrote:

 

I do not see anything Pollyannish about Zena's statements,  only wonder what motivates this intelligent woman to spew smoke and incongruities.

 

It is not terribly difficult to prove to an intelligent arbiter that the system is corrupt to the core, and that the judiciary is a class of criminals in America -- not each judge of course, but the majority.  Statistics is a powerful analytical tool, and there are tons of indisputable data to feed a statistical analysis that would dispositively support the claim that the American judiciary is corrupt to the core.    Just one example ...     In 2002 AMOJ pulled over 2,000 docket sheets of pro se litigants suing for violation of Constitutional rights in the Federal District of Maryland,  and we found that not a single case survived the motion to dismiss, and that each of the hundreds of appeals in these cases had the lower court's ruling affirmed by the 4th Circuit.   We also looked at the cases filed in that district by attorneys, and the vast majority of those met the same fate.  What other than consistent obstruction of justice by the federal judiciary in the Fourth Circuit could explain this?    But this of course is only a single datum.  When many are combined, the proof is beyond, beyond, beyond any reasonable doubt.  

 

A much more important issue needs to be addressed with Zena before I would spend any more of my time trying to prove teh obvious to her.  Why would she not offer to us first the benefit of a clear explanation as to a) why the people she admits to rampantly deny access to justice for the ordinary people are not criminals engaged in a recognized type of crime, called "obstruction of justice," b) who exactly is she seeking to convince that the outrageous excesses of power she admits to exist are actually afoot in America, and c) how the convincing she would make would change things for the better?

 

For my part, I will say that there would be no Declaration of Independence if the Founders first sought to convince law professors that the system was broken, or to enlist their help in declaring that it was broken, or by holding law school conferences on the elements of the denial of due process.   I associate such pursuits in intelligent and well educated people like Zena with personal agendas --  agendas having nothing to do with any pursuits of good government and the betterment of society.   I am not yet attributing to Zena in this forum such repugnant ulterior motives, hoping that she will credibly defend her position and thus clear the air.

 

Jacob Roginsky