[Victims of Court Corruption] Re: Is J.A.I.L. sufficient? Judges are NOT Accountable

John Roland:

I have read your below recommendation as to how we can improve our Grand Juries within this country. I wish to comment on your improvements.

Your first point of improvement is that we do not need to create Special Grand Juries, but merely empower all existing Grand Juries. You have touched on one of the goals of the J.A.I.L. objective. You have even recognized the fact that we do not need to "empower" all Grand Juries, as we both see that all Grand Juries already possess all the powers recognized in their creation by our Founding Fathers. You state, "They already have that power in principle, no matter what rules may have been adopted." To this I agree with you and say, "Amen!"

But herein lies the problem, Jon. How do we "empower" Grand Juries who already have that power? We cannot just wish it into existence.

Allow me to suggest how we can accomplish your purpose. What we need to do is create Special Grand Juries whose access and jurisdiction can only be accessed by means of all these common Grand Juries already in existence. In this manner, all cases will pass through the hands of these impotent Grand Juries up to the Special Grand Jurors who will be indicting judges, assigning their Special Prosecutors to those whom they indict, and causing these judges to stand criminal trials in front of common law Petit Juries, who, upon conviction, also sentence these judges to fines and imprisonment.

By so doing, we will educate all these Grand Juries that they are being used by the system to look like they are accomplishing their duty, when actually, all the prosecution work is being accomplished by these Special Grand Juries. It will be in this manner, we will accomplish your suggested goal by embarrassing these common Grand Juries into action.

Under your point number 2 you say, "Obviously, Grand Jury findings are not enough. They also need to be able to appoint private prosecutors." Again, to this I am in agree with you, but since this provision is nowhere in out Constitution as written, we are forced to have to place such a provision on the ballot through the Initiative Process and amend our current Constitution.

You are batting 100%, as we are in agreement on this point. But, I do have to take issue with you as far as your proposal that we provide free civil prosecutors. We already have in our Constitution the right to Assistance of Counsel, albeit, not free. If you are advocating free lawyers at taxpayer's expense if we elect to bring a civil action, then all patriots must oppose this idea, as it have overtones of a communistic and socialistic society.

Under your point 3 you propose term limits for all judges. To this we both agree. However, JAIL4Judges does not touch this elective issue, except to propose a "Three Strikes and you are out," provision. By this means all judges are allowed three adverse violations rulings by the Special Grand Juries before they are permanently removed from the bench never to be a judge again. It also provides that convicted judges will receive no more than one-half of the retirement benefits to which they would have otherwise be entitled to. A finding by the Special Grand Jury of willful civil violations are the same as criminal conviction when it comes to "three strikes."

Under your fourth point you propose "random selection process needs to be public and transparent." Again, we are on the same path. Amen! J.A.I.L. has exactly just this such a provision written therein.

Jon, with your expressed ideas, do you realize that your views  might have qualified you as being the potential author of JAIL4Judges?

Again, I commend you for your suggestive ideas as to how we can improve our Grand Juries system within this country. We have the very same goals.

Ron Branson

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Jon Roland wrote:

A few points I have made many times before:

1. The solution is not to create a special grand jury to strip judges of official immunity, but to empower all grand juries to investigate and issue presentments that an official has acted outside his jurisdiction, so that he does not have official immunity for that action. They already have that power in principle, no matter what rules may have been adopted, but the impediments need to be removed and instructions given.

2. Obviously, grand jury findings are not enough. They also need to be able to appoint private prosecutors, both civil and criminal, by issuing presentments or indictments to them. We need to restore the ancient principle that an indictment is authorization to prosecute.

3. Judges need to be selected by sortition, that is, at random, much the way jurors are supposed to be selected, for limited terms, and assigned to cases at random. Judges become corrupt because they hold their positions too long, long enough for corrupting influences to compromise them. On the other hand, lengthy terms don't work to preserve judicial independence because both election and appointment creates a career path for advancement that can be used to control them. Only sortition offers a solution, because after serving a term a judge, like a juror, returns to private life, with no advantages over others in private life other than having had a learning experience.

4. None of this sortition will work if officials can stack juries or benches, so the random selection process needs to be public and transparent, and be conduced by or under the supervision of a randomly selected panel like a grand jury. Grand juries need to conduct the selection of grand and trial juries and judicial panels.

As in most reform efforts, it doesn't work to fix just one thing. There are several interlocking pieces that all have to be fixed at the same time.

-- Jon    ----------------------------------------------------------  Constitution Society               http://constitution.org  2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322           twitter.com/lex_rex  Austin, TX 78757 512/299-5001  jon.roland@constitution.org  ----------------------------------------------------------