Why has Jail4Judges not been passed yet?

[middleagedgamer]

And further these same amateurs get to throw judges in jail with no due process? This is beyond stupidity

Ok, first of all, this isn't what the initiative says at all.

Second, assuming (for the sake of argument) that the J4J system could end up that way, I've already shown you the Lopez v. Vanderwater case law, where that guy was locked up and thrown in jail with no due process.

I can show you dozens of other case law where people were similarly denied their due process rights, including one case where a person was sterilized and didn't know that this court order had been issued against her! Would you like to see it?

Which is the lesser of two evils? Having innocent citizens live in constant fear of being thrown in prison at a moment's notice for whatever reason whoever happens to be in power at the time chooses, or restricting that danger to those who freely and voluntarily sign up for that risk out of desire to have the job? Seriously, which is the lesser of two evils! I'd seriously like you to answer that question!

 

[Gaius46]

Ok, first of all, this isn't what the initiative says at all.

Second, assuming (for the sake of argument) that the J4J system could end up that way, I've already shown you the Lopez v. Vanderwater case law, where that guy was locked up and thrown in jail with no due process.

I can show you dozens of other case law where people were similarly denied their due process rights, including one case where a person was sterilized and didn't know that this court order had been issued against her! Would you like to see it?

Which is the lesser of two evils? Having innocent citizens live in constant fear of being thrown in prison at a moment's notice for whatever reason whoever happens to be in power at the time chooses, or restricting that danger to those who freely and voluntarily sign up for that risk out of desire to have the job? Seriously, which is the lesser of two evils! I'd seriously like you to answer that question!

So did you actually read the entirety of Lopez? If you did, and I'll call your attention to section III, you'll see it doesn't say what you apparently think it said.

I'll give you the Reader's Digest version:

1. Yes Vanderwater had immunity for those acts of his that were judicial in nature since he had jurisdiction. They were handled in an out of the ordinary way, he was arraigned in a police station, for example but that doesn't mean they weren't judicial proceedings.

2. However Vanderwater also acted as prosecutor which the Circuit Court clearly violated Lopez' due process rights, among others. Additionally Vanderwater has no immunity for those acts because they fall outside his authority so that aspect of Lopez' 1983 suit - the civil suit against Vanderwater - was sent back to the lower court. From section III of the decision:

Because Vanderwater is not immune from liability for his prosecutorial acts, and because those acts were an integral part of his unlawful course of conduct, we reverse the summary judgment in his favor[17] and remand this aspect of the case to the district court.

So Lopez v Vanderwater is an example of a judge being held responsible for his overstepping his authority.


If this is how the typical citizen is going to read decisions I think your amendment has problems.

 

[middleagedgamer]

2. However Vanderwater also acted as prosecutor which the Circuit Court clearly violated Lopez' due process rights, among others. Additionally Vanderwater has no immunity for those acts because they fall outside his authority so that aspect of Lopez' 1983 suit - the civil suit against Vanderwater - was sent back to the lower court. From section III of the decision:

Yeah? So what? How does that curb judicial abuse? All judges in his shoes have to do is ask the prosecutor for that favor, and then go ahead and summarily convict the citizen without due process.

It's a minor thing in the grand scheme of things. The real injury, here, was the summary conviction. It could have been for trespass; it could have been for theft of the key; it could have been for anything. What matters is that he didn't get his day in court and the opportunity to confront the evidence against him. He was sentenced to 240 days in jail (for [insert crime here]) without getting even sixty seconds to tell his side of the story.

240 days in jail is still 240 days in jail is still 240 days in jail, regardless of what crime you were serving time for.

You still haven't answered my question: Which is the lesser of two evils? Subjecting innocent citizens to fear of being locked up without due process, or restricting that risk to those who freely and voluntarily sign up for it?

 

[Gaius46]

Yeah? So what? How does that curb judicial abuse? All judges in his shoes have to do is ask the prosecutor for that favor, and then go ahead and summarily convict the citizen without due process.

It's a minor thing in the grand scheme of things. The real injury, here, was the summary conviction. It could have been for trespass; it could have been for theft of the key; it could have been for anything. What matters is that he didn't get his day in court and the opportunity to confront the evidence against him. He was sentenced to 240 days in jail (for [insert crime here]) without getting even sixty seconds to tell his side of the story.

240 days in jail is still 240 days in jail is still 240 days in jail, regardless of what crime you were serving time for.

You still haven't answered my question: Which is the lesser of two evils? Subjecting innocent citizens to fear of being locked up without due process, or restricting that risk to those who freely and voluntarily sign up for it?

The risk of having honest judges having to factor lawsuits into their thinking when making a ruling is the greater. There is certainly judicial malfeasance but it doesn't seem to be nearly the problem you make it. And as I said if you can't even correctly read the decision that blows your entire argument that citizens can effectively oversee judges and decide when they're violating people's rights completely out of the water.

If you even read it. Did you? Or just link to it? You've already mis characterized the holding and have now gotten the sentencing wrong. Lopez was sentenced to 240 days in jail but served 6 before his lawyer, recognizing the due process issues, got the judge to suspend the sentence and eventually vacate the conviction. Which is how the system is supposed to work.

People cannot be summarily convicted of anything, despite your claim otherwise. You have a right to a jury trial. You have to waive that right. In this case Lopez claims that the judge forged his signature on the waiver form as well as on a guilty plea. Frankly the judge strikes me as moron if he thought he could get away with it.


If you want to build for the system being broken with respect to corrupt judges you picked an example that argues just the opposite - that the system works.

 

[middleagedgamer]

The risk of having honest judges having to factor lawsuits into their thinking when making a ruling is the greater.

What evidence - actual EVIDENCE - do you have to claim that being even slightly weary of consequences for violating the law would destroy the judicial system?

There is certainly judicial malfeasance but it doesn't seem to be nearly the problem you make it.

I have shown you link after link after link, coming from people who are inside the legal system, that repeatedly explain that this problem is widespread and commonplace. Not just the Jail4Judges leader claiming that prosecutors said they have a conflict of interest, either. I've shown you interviews with anonymous attorneys, videos of murder victims telling us who their killers would be if they died, legal scholars (who are currently serving as state Supreme Court clerks) publishing essays in legal journals, speaking of the widespread judicial corruption and how it got this way.

What credentials do you have to refute all these people who are actually part of this system? Evidence that judicial corruption is, as a fact matter, rare? Not just that judicial immunity, as a matter of public policy, is a necessary evil? But that judicial corruption is rare in the first instance. What evidence do you have of that?

And as I said if you can't even correctly read the decision that blows your entire argument that citizens can effectively oversee judges and decide when they're violating people's rights completely out of the water.

No, I've refuted your argument there.

If you even read it. Did you? Or just link to it?

No, I read the whole Lopez case. The thing Vanderwater was held liable for is not the source of the problem. You've already mis characterized the holding and have now gotten the sentencing wrong. Lopez was sentenced to 240 days in jail but served 6 before his lawyer, recognizing the due process issues, got the judge to suspend the sentence and eventually vacate the conviction. Which is how the system is supposed to work.

People cannot be summarily convicted of anything, despite your claim otherwise. You have a right to a jury trial. You have to waive that right. In this case Lopez claims that the judge forged his signature on the waiver form as well as on a guilty plea. Frankly the judge strikes me as moron if he thought he could get away with it.

If you want to build for the system being broken with respect to corrupt judges you picked an example that argues just the opposite - that the system works.

No, I haven't. I've already explained how this is an example of a judge getting away with corruption.

 

[Paleocon]

I think someone here has a serious problem with authority. He's practically salivating at the thought of throwing judges in prison or even murdering them at the drop of a hat.

 

[middleagedgamer]

There is certainly judicial malfeasance but it doesn't seem to be nearly the problem you make it.

I've already provided plenty of links, but just in case you missed them, here they are again:

Corrupt justice: what happens when judges' bias taints a case? | US news | The Guardian

“The decorum and bias and the perfectly unethical behavior of the judges is really rampant,” said Amanda Lundergan, a defense attorney in Royal Palm Beach, Florida, who confronted a nest of judicial conflicts in her state’s rapid-fire foreclosure rulings – dubbed the “rocket-docket” – following the housing market collapse. “It’s judicial bullying.”

Judges in local, state and federal courts across the country routinely hide their connections to litigants and their lawyers. These links can be social – they may have been law school classmates or share common friends – political, financial or ideological. In some instances the two may have mutual investment interests. They might be in-laws. Occasionally they are literally in bed together. While it’s unavoidable that such relationships will occur, when they do create a perception of bias, a judge is duty-bound to at the very least disclose that information, and if it is creates an actual bias, allow a different judge to take over.

All too often, however, the conflicted jurist says nothing and proceeds to rule in favor of the connected party, while the loser goes off without realizing an undisclosed bias doomed her case.

Lawyers Who Criticize Judges Are Being Punished — Jonathan Turley

“They don’t speak up. The reason is you get targeted and you could lose your license,” said Barbara Kauffman of lawyers who witness judicial misconduct. Last month the California attorney contacted state officials alleging that a family court judge in Marin County tampered with court records.

Civil rights attorney Don Bailey had his law license suspended for five years in October by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. “The reason I lost my license is because I criticized judges,” said Bailey, a former Democratic Congressman and state auditor general, in a phone interview last week.

The pattern of attorneys losing their careers or facing hefty fines after speaking out against judges has legal experts worried. The law professor and legal analyst Jonathan Turley wrote of Bailey’s license suspension, “While some would agree with the case, there is a worrisome line of cases targeting lawyers who criticize judges.”

How about ... the testimony of an actual JUDGE?!
Retired Arizona Judge Reveals Corruption in Legal System

“The once honorable profession of law now fully functions as a bottom-line business, driven by greed and the pursuit of power and wealth, even shaping the laws of the United States outside the elected Congress and state legislatures.”

How's this, for evidence that corruption is rampant?
testtube.com/testtubenews/how-corrupt-is-america-s-judicial-system

Altogether, research indicated that some 2.5 million bribes are paid each year within the U.S. Justice System, according to Pew Research, Yale Law School, and other sources.

Granted, this article also says that the majority of judges are upstanding citizens. However, "majority" can mean merely 50.001% are upstanding while 49.999% are corrupt. That's still way too much corruption.

How many more sources do you want before I can convince you that judicial corruption is commonplace?

 

[middleagedgamer]

I've cited a research conducted by Yale Law School estimating about 2.5 million judicial bribes per year.

Let me put that in perspective for you:

According to the FBI, there were approximately 1,165,383 violent crimes committed in the USA, in 2014.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/20...me-stats-released/latest-crime-stats-released

The number of judicial bribes - just bribes, not any other judicial crimes - and just judges, not politicians, police, or anyone else - more than DOUBLES the number of violent crimes (regardless of variety, severity, or victim social class) committed per annum COMBINED!

This figure is made even more jarring when we realize that the FBI's violent crime statistic is based on a national population of (at the time) 318.9 million people ...

https://www.google.com/#q=U.S.+Population+2014

... whereas there are fewer than 10,000 state and federal judges in the USA.

https://www.citizen.org/documents/FederalDistricJudgesvastlyoutnumberedbystatejudges.pdf

This means that the number of per capita judicial bribes, per year, exceeds the per capita number of violent crimes per year by a multiple of ... wait for it ...


... wait for it ...














... get ready ...








SIXTY-NINE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED FIFTY-SIX TIMES!

and you have the balls to sit here and tell me that judicial malfeasance "doesn't seem to be nearly the problem you make it." Just where, in the farthest reaches of your arse, are you getting this data? It's insulting!

 

[Paleocon]

We get it, you hate authority. What, did your dad hit you or something when you were a kid?

 

[middleagedgamer]

We get it, you hate authority. What, did your dad hit you or something when you were a kid?

So, you're not even going to try to refute the innumerable sources I've provided?

 

[Paleocon]

So, you're not even going to try to refute the innumerable sources I've provided?

You have increasingly convinced me that your approach to this issue is pathological. I've tried refuting stuff, but it seems that no amount of reason will cure your monomania.

 

[middleagedgamer]

I've tried refuting stuff

No, all you've done is say "Judicial immunity is necessary" over and over again, without giving any details beyond that. You expect me to accept that it's necessary because ... you claim it to be so. You're just as bad as the judges who created (and who benefit from) judicial immunity. When they gave their justifications, they made no attempt to prove them, because ... there's nobody above the Supreme Court to review their arbitrary findings. But that doesn't make them any less arbitrary.

Show me one post - just one - where you've actually provided some EVIDENCE to support your arguments! Or at the very least, given factual arguments that go beyond simply asking me "How are judges supposed to do their jobs?" Because I've already answered that. You think that's obvious; I disagree, and I've told you why (because other officers are subject to suit and get their work done just fine).

You say that judicial progress would come to a screeching hault if judges were subject to suit? Prove it!
You say that judges would be sued by everyone they've ever ruled against? Prove it!
You say that judicial malfeasance is not a very widespread problem and doesn't warrant such an extreme solution? Show some EVIDENCE to refute the 2.5 million yearly judicial bribes I've provided!

Details! Evidence! I've provided it in support of my argument; why haven't you?

 

[Paleocon]

No, all you've done is say "Judicial immunity is necessary" over and over again, without giving any details beyond that. You expect me to accept that it's necessary because ... you claim it to be so. You're just as bad as the judges who created (and who benefit from) judicial immunity. When they gave their justifications, they made no attempt to prove them, because ... there's nobody above the Supreme Court to review their arbitrary findings. But that doesn't make them any less arbitrary.

Show me one post - just one - where you've actually provided some EVIDENCE to support your arguments! Or at the very least, given factual arguments that go beyond simply asking me "How are judges supposed to do their jobs?" Because I've already answered that. You think that's obvious; I disagree, and I've told you why (because other officers are subject to suit and get their work done just fine).

You say that judicial progress would come to a screeching hault if judges were subject to suit? Prove it!
You say that judges would be sued by everyone they've ever ruled against? Prove it!
You say that judicial malfeasance is not a very widespread problem and doesn't warrant such an extreme solution? Show some EVIDENCE to refute the 2.5 million yearly judicial bribes I've provided!

Details! Evidence! I've provided it in support of my argument; why haven't you?

You have agreed that judicial immunity is necessary. I do not need to prove what no one disputes.

Granted, you want it to only apply to the superjudges on the great grand jury, who can authorize other judges to be summarily executed by vigilantes. But I don't feel it's necessary to explain why that's a bad idea.

 

[middleagedgamer]

Granted, you want it to only apply to the superjudges on the great grand jury, who can authorize other judges to be summarily executed by vigilantes.

Uhhh ... no ... I never said anything even remotely close to that, you damn liar.

 

[Paleocon]

the conflict-less grand jury would step in and oust both judges from the bench and order them thrown in prison. If the police don't arrest them, the citizens get to blow the judges' brains out.

.....

 

[middleagedgamer]

.....

When did I ever say that the proceedings would be summary? As in ... no due process?

 

[Paleocon]

When did I ever say that the proceedings would be summary? As in ... no due process?

Are the grand jury's decisions subject to appeal?

 

[middleagedgamer]

Answer the question: When did I ever even so much as IMPLY that the grand jury's verdict would be summary?

 

[Paleocon]

I rest my case.

 

[middleagedgamer]

Yeah, sure. When you can't refute someone's claims, straw man them! Try to make it sound like he's admitted to his own counter-thesis when you know full well he hasn't.

Also, I just noticed: Your avatar says "Proud Anti-Semite." So from now, I'm not taking ANYTHING you say seriously! You damn bigot!

Maybe you support judicial immunity because one judge acquitted you of lynching a Jew, simply because he was a Jew.