How the Racist Whims of California Judges Have Victimized Us All

Over the millennia, mankind has learned civilized society requires the rule of law. When the whim of men replaces the rule of law, death and destruction replace goodness and kindness. It is axiomatic that only the powerful can impose their whims on others and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Corruption destroys. 

The Declaration of Independence rejected the whims of the powerful and stated that a just society must guarantee the people’s individual inalienable rights. Allowing police officers to murder an innocent man in an agonizing death which took eight minutes while the murderers’ actions were being videotaped testified that we are no longer a nation of law. 

George Floyd’s Murder Was the Product of a Hideously Corrupt Judiciary 

The epicenter of George Floyd’s murder is the court system. Especially in California and seemingly also in Minnesota, the rule of law is an illusion. George Floyd’s murderer was police officer Derek Chauvin and his three accomplices were police officers, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng. Officer Derek Chauvin had at least 17 prior complaints. Yet, he was allowed to be a police officer. How does a society devolve to the point where police officers can murder an innocent man in front of witnesses and on video tape? 

These officers had learned that America runs of the basis of the Whim of Men and not on the Rule of Law. Political speeches and civil rights legislation are worthless as long as the whim of bigoted and racist judges have the final say. 

The Judicial System is the Core Evil in our Society 

While judges more readily victimize the Blacks and Browns than others, we all are subject to the caprice, whim, and sadism of the judicial system. This intolerable situation has become so firmly ingrained that we cannot see it operating. The corrupt courts at the root of the destruction of American life have their Commissions on Judicial Performance to protect the dishonest judges. Meanwhile, State Bar associations silence attorneys who complain about the injustice which permeates our judicial system from the very top including the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, and California State Supreme Court Justice, Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye. The latter is most blatant in her sanctioning the decision that California State Constitution article VI, section 10 provides judges the constitutional right to use their personal bigotry when presiding over cases. 

The Judiciary’s Guiding Light is Judges May Do Whatever They Want 

California makes explicit what most courts keep as a sub rosa practice. With the support of appellate justice Paul Tuner, California approved Judge John Torribio’s assertion of judge’s right to discriminate against a troublemaker Jew who “would refuse Jesus Christ.” It would be an error to think that California’s constitution is specifically anti-Jewish. Rather the use of article VI, section 10, represents the basic operating principle of the court system: the whims of racist judges overrides the rule of law.   

Before discussing what seems to be the common problem of Senator Amy Klobuchar and Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey, let’s look at how the whim of LA judges brought about the 1992 riots. 

A few appellate justices decided that the police officers who had beaten Rodney King should not be convicted and they were very worried that would occur if their trial were in Los Angeles County. They managed to have the trial moved to Ventura County’s Simi Valley, a bedroom community for cops where many jurors would be afraid to vote for conviction. In addition, former public defender, Judge Bernard Kamins, was replaced by the law and order Judge Stanley Weisberg. Without the jury rigging to acquit the guilty officers, the 1992 LA Insurrection and the deaths of 54 innocent people would have never occurred. But the rule of law is no match for whim of the powerful. 

This bit of judicial history may help explain the joint dilemma of Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and Los Angeles Jackie Lacey. For those who do not know, Sen. Klobuchar was a prosecutor who allegedly chose not to prosecute Derek Chauvin for his prior crimes while a serving as a police officer. Black Lives Matter are angry at LA’s DA Lacey for her failure to bring police misconduct charges and her reluctance to charge even minimally powerful people like Larry Buck.   

Let’s assume arguendo that prosecutors Klobuchar and Lacey fervently wanted to end police abuse of Blacks. Let’s analyze their reality. After the court engineered acquittal of the Rodney King officers, what could a prosecutor expect? The worst race riots in a century, the deaths of 54 innocent people, billions of dollars of destruction, extreme hatred between Koreans and Blacks because some judges’ pulling the strings from behind the scenes might again impose their personal whim on the justice system? While this writer is quite familiar with judicial corruption in Los Angeles first-hand, the most he can say about Minnesota is that it appears eerily similar to Los Angeles. How can a state with such an illustrious civil rights history have such a racist substructure that police feel free to publicly murder a Black man? 

One Could Write a Thousand Pages on How the Racist Whims of Judges Have Rotted America’s Soul 

Set aside California’s ersatz reliance on its constitution to justify bigotry and look at what happened to the nation’s number one federal judge who opposed prosecutorial misconduct. All we mere citizens get to see are the chapter headings of judicial whim behind persistent racism. Irascible Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit (who ironically is the good guy in this scenario) had a history of complaining about the “epidemic of misconduct” in California prosecutors singling out then State Attorney General Kamal Harris for her role in the illicit use of lying jailhouse informants in 13-56132 Johnny Baca v. Derral Adams (2015). The story goes that in 2017, with pressure from the U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, Judge Kozinski was forced to resign on alleged charges of sexual improprieties while Kamala Harris ran for the Democrat nomination for president who is now a leading candidate to be Joe Biden’s running mate. The predator advances while her critic gets booted. 

As far as we can tell, prosecutors who persecute minorities with lying jailhouse informants get judicial and other political support, while those who oppose corruption are forced to retire or disbarred as happened to attorney Richard I. Fine. Personal racist whims have trampled to death fairness and justice in America except as a propaganda slogan behind which the powerful hide. 

Judicial Whim is Not Limited to Criminal Courts 

As Los Angeles burns again, people close their eyes to why so many people respond to the call for looting and burning. Let’s ask Judge Richard Fruin who in December 2016 ruled that the corrupt LA City Council’s actions in the destruction of poor people homes and other collective misdeeds were “non-justiciable,” e.g. above the law. This judicial action presaged the destruction of Black communities in South Central LA, while escalating the homelessness crisis. Judge Fruin’s rule that the City Council’s actions are non-justiciable also left no civil recourse for the pre Covid-19 pandemic death rate among LA’s homeless. While Blacks suffer the most, all people suffer from the mass destruction of rent-controlled housing. 

A corrupt city council can visit more misery on a minority community than a corrupt prosecutor’s office. There is no gainsaying that the LA City Council has targeted LA’s historic Latino and Black communities in the city’s Manhattanization juggernaut. 

While Governor Gavin Newsom provides homespun tales of tolerance, he refuses to discuss California’s policy that the California Constitution allows bigoted judges to discriminate as they please. 

So once again, LA burns while everyone remains silent how the whims of racist judges have brought us death and destruction.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Graphic: ProPublica. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.