Predatory Vultures, Blood Sucking Leaches and Moral Cowards

We need to use strong language as our starting line when discussing judicial corruption.  The human mind accepts the first thing it hears and then that information organizes future information.  If your parents tell you that your priest is GOD’s emissary on earth, then his playing with your little willy is OK.   When we are told that judges are sober and fair, we invent excuses why their predatory behavior is proper or we simply pretend it did not happen.  When we start with the proposition that the judiciary is filled with vultures, leaches and cowards, then we begin our analysis much closer to reality. 

A Corrupt Judiciary Is Civilization’s Fundamental Danger 

Sodom’s evil was not too many Gays, but the four vilely corrupt judges who ran the city.  GOD became involved, so the story goes, when Lot’s daughter was sentenced to death for feeding the hungry (kind of like Georgia which forbids giving water to the thirsty who want to vote).  GOD’s harsh decree was brought on by the four predatory judges, but GOD carried out his decree against the entire city because the public went along with their judges’ evil ways. 

Sodom is a political philosophy dilemma dressed up in religious garb. The Declaration of Independence cited King George’s corrupt judges as one justification for the Revolution.  (“He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.”)  A decade later, the Constitution had to deal with establishing a functioning judiciary. 

The Framers tried to keep the judiciary independent from undue influence of the other two branches of government and from non-government power centers.  Although Lord Acton would not pen his famous line that “Power tends to corrupt . . . “ for another century, it was a well-known fact to the Constitutional Convention.  Because the Supreme Court would have the final say as to what was or was not the law and it had no army, the Republic could not function unless people voluntarily complied with its decisions.  The same principle applied to lower courts. 

When the Constitution was written, many thought that the judiciary was the weakest and least dangerous branch of government.  Hamilton adhered to this belief in Federalist Paper 78.  The Framers did not worry about judges’ abusing the public as English common law had the writ of scire facias.  One type of scire facias writ allowed a citizen to override a judge’s decision.  The writ was formally brought in the name of the King, but any person could initiate it.  It was not designed to correct general principles of law, which were matters of judicial review, but basically of judicial corruption.  

“Violations of good behavior tenure at common law included "abuse of office, nonuse of office, and refusal to exercise an office," and the "oppression and tyrannical partiality of judges, justices, and other magistrates, in the administration and under the colour of their office, [which could be prosecuted] by information in the court of king's bench."  As the remedy of the writ of scire facias was available in every one of the colonies, its efficacy as a deterrent against abuse of judicial office was assumed rather than debated.” Wikipedia  

We have no such process today.  In fact, we have the opposite, i.e., the absurd rule that judges have absolute immunity for acts performed as part of their official duties.  The idea that no man is above the law is obviously false since judicial immunity makes judges above the law.  Is it any surprise that judges who obtain their judgeships by political groveling are among the least honorable people in society? Yet, we give them judicial immunity!   

Judicial immunity has grown from judges’ not being sued for money when they make bad decisions to immunity for criminal behavior when acting in their judge role.  US Supreme Case of Mireless vs Waco 502 U.S. 9, 13 (1991)  Not only has California abolished the writ of scire facias, but  California has gone so far as to find that judges have a constitutional right to use their personal bigotries in running their courtrooms.  (last sentence Cal Const art VI sec 10) They may exclude people on the basis of religion or ethnicity, alter and manufacture documents, and change testimony. Don’t bother to complain. They don’t care.  This “we can do no wrong” principle underlies the predatory behavior in family court, probate-conservatorship court, criminal court — well, in any court where the judge sees it in his personal interest to screw whomever he desires.  They blacklist attorneys whom they label troublemakers. 

The Founding Fathers’ belief that men of integrity would become judges to promote the common welfare has not served us well.  It could be that their assumption that the English writ of scire facias would remain integral to the American judicial system mislead them not to consider the problem of predatory vultures and blood sucking leaches dominating the judiciary. 

When judges pervert the courts for their own financial or social benefit, all of society is harmed.   . 

The Rodney King Trial 1992

The part of the story hidden from the public is how the appellate court “jurymandered” the trial to be held in the Ventura County town of Simi Valley which should have been named Copville USA and the assigning of hanging Judge Stanley Weisberg.    While a judges’ abusive conduct may occur in one trial, the ramifications can be deadly for hundreds of innocent people.  Not only did the corrupt Rodney King trial touch off the Insurrection of 1992 where 54 people were killed, but it emboldened the courts and the police to continue with their predatory ways. 

Judicial corruption allowed police abuse to increase. The public does not realize how judicial corruption spawns police abuse. When the cops know that the judges will protect them, then they run amuck. Within a few years, LA had the Ramparts Scandal.  The criminal nature of the LAPD became public when Officer Rafael Perez kept taking more than his share of drugs from the police evidence room at the Ramparts Division.  The practice of officers taking drugs from the evidence locker was pandemic throughout the LAPD and other police departments. (Your Truly knows since I had been a probation officer and the police would brag about it.)    

The judicial corruption continued.  The first criminal trial of Ramparts Offices was presided over by Judge Jacqueline Connor who should have been disqualified since she had previously praised Rafael Perez during the time he had been framing innocent people.  Although the jury convicted all the Ramparts officers, Judge Connor reversed their convictions.  That brought the Ramparts criminal trials to an end.  It does not take a chess champion to figure out that the officers knew that the judges were behind all the courtroom skullduggery which allowed police testiLying, lying jailhouse informants, concealing evidence, manufacturing evidence.  Who believes that the officers were going to let the judges go unscathed if the cops went to prison? In fact, in 1995 Judge Connor herself had tied to intimidate a witness in her own courtroom to commit perjury by filing a false complaint against him with the State Bar. (The witness, Yours Truly, happened to be an attorney so a complaint by a judge was serious.) 

No one will ever know the thousands of innocent people whose lives have been turned upside down if not destroyed by corrupt judges. After her transfer to West District, Judge Connor went on to suppress information about the financial hanky panky at Countrywide which culminated in the Crash of 2008.  Suicides and billions of dollars in losses for the average citizen were the result of the judges in the West District attacking the homeowner who brought the Countrywide criminality to the court’s attention. 

As the Judges Become More Predatory, Judicial Immunity Becomes Stronger 

The growing monster of judicial corruption and immunity merits more articles. Next time, we shall discuss US Supreme Court case of Mireless vs Waco 502 US 9 (1991) giving immunity to a Van Nuys judge’s ordering a battery on an attorney.

(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. The views expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch. You may email him at [email protected] )