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SHAMING UNDERMINES JUSTICE
Shame is back in the United States with a vengeance.
Across the country, judges and prosecutors and jailers are freelancing by imposing their own brands of retributive justice: forcing people to wear humiliating clothing, parade in public and even sleep in doghouses. The punishments are wildly popular with many in the public who want to see criminals humiliated and seem to relish the entertainment of improvised justice.
Two weeks ago, citizens of Bedford, Pa., were able to gawk at Evelyn Border, 55, and her daughter, Tina Griekspoor, 35. The two had been caught stealing from a child and were told by the local prosecutor that unless they performed a publicly humiliating act, they would be hit with heavy charges. They agreed to appear in front of the courthouse holding signs reading, “I stole from a 9-year-old on her birthday! Don’t steal or this could happen to you!” Such scenes are being repeated across the country as citizens are told to choose between degrading public acts or long jail sentences.
Shaming punishments are a return to primitive practices common before the American Revolution, when people were forced into public pillories, marked with scarlet letters or forced into forms of public humiliation, including degrading signs. These shaming punishments declined after the Founding Fathers sought to modernize the criminal justice system and to require consistent punishments.
Gum, manure and doghouses
Elected state judges have found that many citizens relish the humiliation of others. Georgia Judge Rusty Carlisle does not deny that he is trying to degrade people who come before him. In one case, a defendant seemed “kind of cocky” in a minor littering case, so Carlisle ordered him to scrape the gum off the bottoms of the court benches with a butter knife while people watched. The “King of Shame” was Texas Judge Ted Poe, who insisted that “people have too good a self-esteem,” so he made them do things such as shovel manure to abase them. What Poe called “Poetic justice” has little to do with actual justice. It is a form of entertainment that sacrifices our most fundamental principles to satisfy our most base impulses. Judges give the public displays of retribution by using citizens as virtual props in their personal theater of the absurd.
In 2003, Texas Judge Buddie Hahn gave an abusive father a choice between spending 30 days in jail or 30 nights sleeping in a doghouse (He chose the doghouse to be able to keep his job). Likewise, in Ohio, municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti sentenced two teens found guilty of breaking into a church on Christmas Eve 2002 to march through town with a donkey and a sign reading, “Sorry for the Jackass Offense.” Cicconetti later ordered a woman to be taken to a remote location to sleep outside for abandoning kittens in parks.
Studies have actually shown limited value in humiliation as a punishment in terms of actual deterrence in crime. Its principle value is found in the political rather than the criminal system. Indeed, Poe used the popularity of his creative punishments to secure a seat in Congress in 2004.
Now, prosecutors and jailers are trying to cut in on the shaming action. In the Bedford case, the punishment was not ordered by a judge but by a prosecutor, Bedford District Attorney Bill Higgins, who promised to seek probation if they demeaned themselves.
“Giving the people what they want” can sometimes get them to forget what they don’t want — like the bread and circuses of Roman emperors. For example, Higgins was dogged by allegations of adultery and having sex in the very courthouse where he paraded Border and her daughter. Though he faced a criminal complaint and admitted to adultery, no one is calling for Higgins to wear a placard as an adulterer. Instead, he is being heralded for parading the two petty thieves.
Likewise, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio has long faced complaints over his heavy-handed tactics against both citizens and illegal immigrants. However, most people know him only as the guy who forced male inmates to wear pink underwear to humiliate them.
Inventing justice
Some judges have faced charges over their meting out personal justice but have received little punishment. Gustavo “Gus” Garza, a justice of the peace in Texas, was given only an admonishment last year when he forced parents to spank their children in front of him in court to avoid heavy fines. In another spanking case, former Alabama judge Herman Thomas actually used shaming punishments as a criminal defense. Thomas was recently acquitted of sodomy and assault after he allegedly took inmates from their cells for spankings and sex in his chambers. Despite testimony alleging spanking and sodomy, Thomas’ lawyer insisted that the judge was merely “mentoring them” and trying to turn them into “productive citizens” in dealing with them in chambers.
All criminal sentences produce shame for most citizens. But there is a difference between shame from a punishment and shame as a punishment. These judges are inventing their own forms of retributive justice like little Caesars toying with citizens. It is a threat to the basic principles of our legal system. It is an abuse of not just the criminal code but of the criminals themselves. It is not just wrong. It is, in a word, shameful.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.
November 17, 2009 — USA Today
WHEN CHILDREN DIE, RELIGION IS NO DEFENSE
“Suffer little children to come to me.” So begins one of the most cited passages in the Bible. Yet, in cases involving the deaths of children in faith-healing families, the second half of Jesus’s admonition from Luke 18:16 is at the heart of legal controversy: “. . . and forbid them not.”
In the past 25 years, hundreds of children are believed to have died in the United States after faith-healing parents forbade medical attention to end their sickness or protect their lives. When minors die from a lack of parental care, it is usually a matter of criminal neglect and is often tried as murder. However, when parents say the neglect was an article of faith, courts routinely hand down lighter sentences. While faithful neglect makes for a poor criminal defense, it is surprisingly effective in achieving more lenient sentencing, in which judges appear to render less unto Caesar and more unto God.
This disparate treatment was evident last month in Wisconsin, a state with an exemption for faith-based neglect under its child abuse laws. Leilani and Dale Neumann were sentenced for allowing their 11-year-old daughter, Madeline Kara Neumann, to die in 2008 from an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes. The Neumanns are affiliated with a faith-healing church called Unleavened Bread Ministries and continued to pray with other members while Madeline died. They could have received 25 years in prison. Instead, the court emphasized their religious rationale and gave them each six months in jail (to be served one month a year) and 10 years’ probation.
During their sentencing, Marathon County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Howard said the Neumanns are “very good people raising their family who made a bad decision, a reckless decision.” He then gently encouraged them to remember that “God probably works through other people, some of them doctors.”
Compare the Neumanns’ legal treatment with a couple of other recent cases in which children were injured or killed by nonreligious neglect. Russell J. Wozniak Jr. and Jennifer Ann Wozniak, of Chippewa Falls, Wis., received basically the same sentence as the Neumanns for, the criminal complaint said, allowing their 2-year-old to wander around covered in vomit and wearing a full diaper.
Then there are the parents of Alex Washburn. The 22-month-old died after hitting his head at home in Cross Lanes, W.Va. His parents, Elizabeth Dawn Thornton and Christopher Steven Washburn, said the boy fell a lot and hit his head on the corner of a table and his chin on a toilet. They apologized for not seeking medical help and agreed to terminate their parental rights to their other children, handing over custody to the state. “I wish I did seek medical treatment for my son faster,” Washburn told the court. “That will definitely be with me for the rest of my life.” The court sentenced both parents to three to 15 years in prison.
So the Neumanns got one month in jail for six years and kept custody of their children, and the Washburns got up to 15 years in prison and agreed to give up their kids.
In a nation founded on the free exercise of religion, the legal system struggles with parents who act both criminally and faithfully in the deaths of their children. This paradox has perplexed courts for centuries. One of the earliest prosecutions of such a case occurred in England in the 1800s, when the crown charged followers of a sect known only as the Peculiar People, a name derived from a translation of the phrase “chosen people” from the book of Deuteronomy. They were accused of killing numerous children as a result of faith-healing practices.
Today, the Old Peculiars are largely gone (their faith-healing views thinned their numbers considerably), but many other sects such as Unleavened Bread Ministries have prospered. While the vast majority of fundamentalist and faith-healing parents avail themselves of a doctor’s care when faced with a dire medical condition, some religious parents continue to maintain that belief in God means belief in His power and discretion to heal. They take literally the fact that one of the names of God in the Old Testament, Jehovah-Rapha, means “I am the Lord your Physician,” and point to Exodus 15:26, where God says, “I am the Lord that heals you.”
In the four Gospels, Jesus heals the sick, including in Mark 5:34, where He cures a hemorrhaging girl who was unsuccessfully treated by doctors, saying: “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace! Be cured from your illness.”
Some parents go to incredible lengths to prevent doctors from doing God’s work. Colleen Hauser of Minnesota gained national attention in May when she went into hiding with her 13-year-old son to avoid a court order that he receive chemotherapy for a Hodgkin’s lymphoma tumor growing in his chest. She was eventually forced to yield; this month, her son finished his final radiation treatment and his family says his cancer is gone.
But the Hauser case is an exception. The advocacy group Children’s Health Care Is a Legal Duty estimates that roughly 300 children have died in the United States since 1975 because care was withheld. When such parents appear in court, they often insist that they love their children and their God – an argument that receives a sympathetic hearing from judges and prosecutors.
While defendants generally show contrition for their actions, the Neumanns remained unrepentant about not calling emergency personnel until after Madeline stopped breathing. Leilani Neumann said: “I do not regret trusting truly in the Lord for my daughter’s health.” Dale Neumann told the court: “I am guilty of trusting my Lord’s wisdom completely. . . . Guilty of asking for heavenly intervention. Guilty of following Jesus Christ when the whole world does not understand. Guilty of obeying my God.”
In Oregon, the Followers of Christ church has been cited for injuries and deaths associated with its faith-healing beliefs for decades. In one 10-year period, estimated Larry Lewman, an Oregon state medical examiner, the church experienced 25 child deaths related to faith-based medical neglect. A recent case involved Ava Worthington, a 15-month-old who fell ill in 2008. Rather than call doctors, her parents – Carl Brent Worthington and Raylene Worthington — allowed a simple cyst on her neck to grow to the size of a softball as they anointed her with oil and administered small amounts of wine, according to testimony at the trial. She died of a blood infection and pneumonia.
Judge Steven L. Maurer, a circuit court judge in Clackamas County, Ore., said he would “stand by my assessment that this was wrong, wrong, wrong. This was an unnecessary tragedy.” However, the prosecutor asked for six months in prison, half the maximum sentence for misdemeanor criminal mistreatment. Maurer gave Carl Brent Worthington two months in jail and five years’ probation. Despite the record of deaths and injuries at their church, the Worthingtons were allowed to keep custody of their 5-year-old daughter and a new baby that was coming in a matter of months. They needed only to promise to bring them to a doctor for scheduled checkups.
Now another trial is pending for the family: Raylene Worthington’s parents, Jeff and Marci Beagley, were charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of their 16-year-old son, Neil Beagley. He died in 2008 from a urinary tract blockage that could have been treated with a minor surgical procedure. In cases such as this, in which courts confront repeated faith-based fatalities in a single religious community, the legal system risks becoming a facilitator, if not an accessory, to the crimes through lenient sentencing.
These cases have thrived in a gray zone left by the Supreme Court decades ago. In 1944, in Prince v. Massachusetts, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “the right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease, or the latter to ill health or death.” The court, however, did not expressly forbid the use of faith as a mitigating factor in sentencing – a matter left to the states. Not only does this “good-faith” exception place children at risk, it results in the troubling image of courts favoring religious parents over nonreligious parents in a nation committed to the separation of church and state.
The key to the use of such a defense is that it must involve belief in a divine being, not a particular lifestyle. In 2007, Jade Sanders and Lamont Thomas of Atlanta were convicted of malice murder and given life sentences for the death of their 6-week-old child. The defense attorneys cited the couple’s strict vegan lifestyle to explain why they fed their newborn son a diet of soy milk and organic apple juice, though during the trial Sanders said she had also breast-fed her son, who died in an emaciated state at 6 weeks, weighing just 3 1/2 pounds. The prosecutor and court had no qualms in treating this couple’s beliefs as a poor excuse for murder, calling a nutritionist and vegan expert as a witness to show that a vegan diet can be safe for an infant. In a stark contrast with religious cases, the prosecutor told the jury: “They’re not vegans, they’re baby-killers.”
The next test of the faith-based defense will be in Philadelphia, where prosecutors last month charged Herbert and Catherine Schaible in the January death of their son, Kent Schaible, 2, from bacterial pneumonia. His parents and other adults prayed around him, practicing faith-healing for two weeks without seeking medical assistance. Then they called a funeral home. The couple was charged with involuntary manslaughter and other related crimes.
Denying children critical care may be divinely ordained for some parents, but it should not be countenanced by the legal system. Until courts refuse to accept religion as a mitigating factor in sentencing in such cases, children will continue to die, neglected as articles of their parents’ faith.
Washington Post (Sunday: November 15, 2009
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Free Speech: Just Say No To Blasphemy
Around the world, free speech is being sacrificed on the altar of religion. Whether defined as hate speech, discrimination or simple blasphemy, governments are declaring unlimited free speech as the enemy of freedom of religion. This growing movement has reached the United Nations, where religiously conservative countries received a boost in their campaign to pass an international blasphemy law. It came from the most unlikely of places: the United States.
While attracting surprisingly little attention, the Obama administration supported the effort of largely Muslim nations in the U.N. Human Rights Council to recognize exceptions to free speech for any “negative racial and religious stereotyping.” The exception was made as part of a resolution supporting free speech that passed this month, but it is the exception, not the rule that worries civil libertarians. Though the resolution was passed unanimously, European and developing countries made it clear that they remain at odds on the issue of protecting religions from criticism. It is viewed as a transparent bid to appeal to the “Muslim street” and our Arab allies, with the administration seeking greater coexistence through the curtailment of objectionable speech. Though it has no direct enforcement (and is weaker than earlier versions), it is still viewed as a victory for those who sought to juxtapose and balance the rights of speech and religion.
A ‘misused’ freedom?
In the resolution, the administration aligned itself with Egypt, which has long been criticized for prosecuting artists, activists and journalists for insulting Islam. For example, Egypt recently banned a journal that published respected poet Helmi Salem merely because one of his poems compared God to a villager who feeds ducks and milks cows. The Egyptian ambassador to the U.N., Hisham Badr, wasted no time in heralding the new consensus with the U.S. that “freedom of expression has been sometimes misused” and showing that the “true nature of this right” must yield government limitations.
His U.S. counterpart, Douglas Griffiths, heralded “this joint project with Egypt” and supported the resolution to achieve “tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” While not expressly endorsing blasphemy prosecutions, the administration departed from other Western allies in supporting efforts to balance free speech against the protecting of religious groups.
Thinly disguised blasphemy laws are often defended as necessary to protect the ideals of tolerance and pluralism. They ignore the fact that the laws achieve tolerance through the ultimate act of intolerance: criminalizing the ability of some individuals to denounce sacred or sensitive values. We do not need free speech to protect popular thoughts or popular people. It is designed to protect those who challenge the majority and its institutions. Criticism of religion is the very measure of the guarantee of free speech — the literal sacred institution of society.
Blasphemy prosecutions in the West appear to have increased after the riots by Muslims following the publication of cartoons disrespecting prophet Mohammed in Denmark in 2005. Rioters killed Christians, burned churches and called for the execution of the cartoonists. While Western countries publicly defended free speech, some quietly moved to deter those who’d cause further controversies through unpopular speech.
In Britain, it is a crime to “abuse” or “threaten” a religion under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. A 15-year-old boy was charged last year for holding up a sign outside a Scientology building declaring, “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult. “In France, famed actress Brigitte Bardot was convicted for saying in 2006 that Muslims were ruining France in a letter to then-Interior Minister (and now President) Nicolas Sarkozy. This year, Ireland joined this self-destructive trend with a blasphemy law that calls for the prosecution of anyone who writes or utters views deemed “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.”
‘Blasphemy’ incidents
Consider just a few such Western “blasphemy” cases in the past two years:
• In Holland, Dutch prosecutors arrested cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot for insulting Christians and Muslims with cartoons, including one that caricatured a Christian fundamentalist and a Muslim fundamentalist as zombies who want to marry and attend gay rallies.
• In Canada, the Alberta human rights commission punished the Rev. Stephen Boission and the Concerned Christian Coalition for anti-gay speech, not only awarding damages but also censuring future speech that the commission deems inappropriate.
• In Italy, comedian Sabina Guzzanti was put under criminal investigation for joking at a rally that “in 20 years, the pope will be where he ought to be — in hell, tormented by great big poofter (gay) devils, and very active ones.”
• In London, an aide to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was arrested for “inciting religious hatred” at his gym by shouting obscenities about Jews while watching news reports of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.Also, Dutch politician Geert Wilders was barred from entering Britain as a “threat to public policy, public security or public health” because he made a movie describing the Quran as a “fascist” book and Islam as a violent religion.
• In Poland, Catholic magazine Gosc Niedzielny was fined $11,000 for inciting “contempt, hostility and malice”by comparing the abortion of a woman to the medical experiments at Auschwitz.
The “blasphemy” cases include the prosecution of writers for calling Mohammed a “pedophile” because of his marriage to 6-year-old Aisha (which was consummated when she was 9). A far-right legislator in Austria, a publisher in India and a city councilman in Finland have been prosecuted for repeating this view of the historical record.
In the flipside of the cartoon controversy, Dutch prosecutors this year have brought charges against the Arab European League for a cartoon questioning the Holocaust.
What’s next?
Private companies and institutions are following suit in what could be seen as responding to the Egyptian-U.S. call for greater “responsibility” in controlling speech. For example, in an act of unprecedented cowardice and self-censorship, Yale University Press published The Cartoons That Shook the World, a book by Jytte Klausen on the original Mohammed cartoons. Yale, however, (over Klausen’s objections) cut the actual pictures of the cartoons. It was akin to publishing a book on the Sistine Chapel while barring any images of the paintings.
The public and private curtailment on religious criticism threatens religious and secular speakers alike. However, the fear is that, when speech becomes sacrilegious, only the religious will have true free speech. It is a danger that has become all the more real after the decision of the Obama administration to join in the effort to craft a new faith-based speech standard. It is now up to Congress and the public to be heard before the world leaves free speech with little more than a hope and a prayer.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.
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Appoint a prosecutor for war crimes
Jonathan Turley
To truly earn the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama needs to transform himself from a barrier to a beacon when it comes to human rights and international law.
The most obvious start would be to fulfill our obligations under treaties and international law to appoint a special prosecutor, without limitations, to investigate and prosecute any war crimes committed by U.S. officials. Obama already has acknowledged that waterboarding is torture and that torture is a war crime, yet his administration is blocking investigations that are the prerequisite to justice. Obama has promised CIA employees as a group that they would not be prosecuted for torture for following orders, despite the long-standing finding from the Nuremburg trials that “just following orders” is no defense for a war crime. Appointing a special prosecutor would show that Obama will not continue to circumvent principle for politics. He could further demonstrate his commitment to international law by dropping his opposition to the release of photographs and other records showing our abuse of detainees.
Doing the right thing often demands decisions that are neither popular nor easy. If Obama wants to show that the peace prize is more than the superficial triumph of a cult of personality, he can start by showing that his own country is willing to pay the price demanded by the law of nations.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University and has served as lead counsel in various major national security and constitutional cases.
Los Angeles Times — October 18, 2009
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Justices in the past have often described the first week of a new session as a lot like the start of a new school year with old friends talking about the summer and new friends getting acquainted. Of course, this new term starts with a “new kid” of the block Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Many people are speculating whether she will be a BFF for the liberals or, like Justice Anthony Kennedy, an uncertain friend to both sides? For those looking for the new line-up on the Court, they will not have to wait long. The docket is front-loaded with cases raising fundamental questions where Sotomayor will have to speak clearly on her view of constitutional protections.
This term will show whether we have not one but two consistent swing justices. Since the departure of Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy is often the only thing standing between a constitutional right and its reduction or expansion.
For Sotomayor to assume O’Connor’s role would be a bitter thing for liberals who expected a more consistent liberal nominee from Obama – particularly given Bush’s appointment of two consistent conservative justices. With control of Congress and Obama in the White House, it would be like having the capital for a beach mansion and ending up with a condo time share.
The Court has selected cases that may rekindle old ideological allegiances among the justices, forcing both Sotomayor and Kennedy to return to “first principles” in their views of free speech, federalism, free exercise of religion and gun rights. During her confirmation hearing, Sotomayor was hounded by questions in two areas: free speech and gun rights. To a remarkable degree, her colleagues have chosen cases almost tailor-made to force Sotomayor to choose sides on those very questions. As if to personalize the term further for Sotomayor, the justices also loaded the docket with corporate cases – an area where Sotomayor (who practiced corporate law)is likely to depart from her liberal colleagues.
Last month, the Court accepted a major handgun case, McDonald v. Chicago, that will define the scope of the recently recognized individual right under the Second Amendment. The Seventh Circuit ruled that gun ownership is not a “fundamental right” that applies to the states. That is precisely the position reached by Sotomayor while on the Second Circuit in two controversial cases. She argued that this was a question that had to be left to the Supreme Court and that, absent such a ruling, it is assumed that the right only applies to the federal government. Now, she will help answer the question posed for the Court. For her and her colleagues, the decision will pit state rights against gun rights.
Sotomayor was also criticized by liberals for her voting in an important case to curtail free speech rights of high school students. She will now rule on two cases that raise fundamental questions of free speech. These cases will also test the solidity of conservative block on the Court, particularly Justice Kennedy.
The first of the two cases was heard in a rare September re-argument, involving “Hillary: The Movie” – a 90 minute film released during the presidential election that is a virtual diatribe against Clinton. At issue is the constitutionality of one of the major parts of the campaign finance law and whether corporations should enjoy free speech rights like individual citizens.
Another potentially sweeping case will be heard on the second day of the new term: United States v. Stevens. The case will test the Court’s willingness to stand on the principle of free speech to protect material that contains cruel and disturbing content. Robert J. Stevens of Pittsville, Va., was convicted under a federal law for selling videotapes of fighting pit bulls and sentenced to 37 months in prison. The case law has largely drawn a bright line between criminalizing the conduct (here dog fighting) as opposed to speech containing such images or photographs. If there is an exception for material showing cruelty to animals, how about cruelty to women, police officers, or just cruelty?
In addition to these two free speech cases, the Court also accepted cases that will test press rights and religious rights under First Amendment. In Department of Defense v. ACLU, the Court will decide whether President Obama can withhold detainee abuse photographs simply because they would embarrass the United States and anger Muslims. In Salazar v. Buono, the Court will consider an 8-foot-tall cross in the Mojave National Preserve in Southern California — erected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1934. The veterans are claiming a secular purpose for the cross in what would be a major exception under the separation of church and state. As with the Stevens case, they are the type of cases where First Amendment advocates fear Sotomayor or Kennedy might abandon bright-line rules for compromise decisions.
Likewise, the Court will have to reexamine the Eighth Amendment in two companion cases from Florida — Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida. These cases raise the question of whether the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment apply to juveniles in non-homicide cases. The Court previously adopted a different standard for juveniles in death cases but these cases will address whether a similar standard should be applicable to sentences of juveniles for life without parole.
If her years on the Second Circuit are any measure, Sotomayor is likely to continue her role as a swing voter in some areas. Of course, she could be a surprise (like Souter) in tilting sharply to the left of the Court. Either way, the members appear to have picked a docket that will “assort out” the class of 2009 — and there may be two justices left in the middle at the end of it.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University where he teaches a course on the Supreme Court.
Roll Call October 13, 2009
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Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s Free-Speech Tests
The start of the U.S. Supreme Court’s fall term is always a much-anticipated event. This year, it is likely to receive more attention than usual, with a new justice being seated and conjecture that another plans to resign.
David H. Souter is no longer on the court, and this will be the first term for his replacement, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. It may be the last term for Justice John Paul Stevens, liberal icon of the court. The growing speculation that Stevens plans to retire next year was fueled by his recent decision not to select a full complement of clerks for 2010 — a strong signal that he doesn’t intend to remain on the bench.
For the most part, however, all eyes will be on Sotomayor. Most of the court handicappers will be watching for early signs of how she might depart from the liberal voting record of her predecessor. Originally a Republican nominee to the trial court (though later put on the appellate court by President Clinton), Sotomayor was suggested as a nominee for President George W. Bush and has a more conservative voting record than Souter. If she votes the way she voted on the appellate court, liberals will lose ground with her selection.
Sotomayor will be tested in one of the areas of greatest concern to liberals — free speech — at the very start of her tenure on the court. Sotomayor was opposed by some free-speech advocates, in part because of her vote in Doninger vs. Niehoff, in which the appeals court upheld the right of school officials to punish students for out-of-school speech — in what some considered a major blow to both the 1st Amendment and student rights. Notably, the panel acknowledged that it was not bound by existing precedent from the Supreme Court in denying free-speech protections to students.
Sotomayor’s first free-speech case at the Supreme Court came even before the official beginning of the term. In a rare re-argument of a case, the justices convened court in advance of this month’s opening to hear arguments in a case involving “Hillary: The Movie.”
At issue in the case — a ruling is still pending — may be the viability of one of the major parts of campaign-finance law. The case is actually more compelling than the movie, a 90-minute diatribe against Hillary Rodham Clinton released by the conservative group Citizens United during her 2008 presidential bid. The Federal Election Commission ruled that the film was “prohibited electioneering communication.”
The court in June asked to hear additional arguments regarding an earlier court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of a provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law.
For many free-speech advocates, it is hard to declare this film to be electioneering but not other films, such as liberal Michael Moore’s anti-Bush documentary, “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Sotomayor’s vote, although unlikely to determine the outcome of the case, may offer insight into her thinking on the 1st Amendment and whether corporations enjoy free-speech rights analogous to individuals.
At the start of the fall term, Sotomayor will be tested in yet another case raising fundamental speech rights. On Oct. 6, the court will hear United States vs. Stevens, involving a federal law making it illegal to sell photographs and films of the maiming and killing of animals. Among other things, the law criminalizes so-called crush films, in which models are shown crushing small animals with stiletto heels and other objects.
Robert J. Stevens of Pittsville, Va., was convicted under the law for selling videotapes of fighting pit bulls and sentenced to 37 months in prison. However, the appellate court struck down the law as unconstitutional, holding that there is no exception to the 1st Amendment for animal cruelty as there is for obscenity. The government is seeking to get the court to create another exception to the 1st Amendment, in what free-speech advocates fear will be part of a continued erosion of this fundamental right.
The case will test Sotomayor’s commitment to principle over the prejudicial elements of the crime. The justices will clearly find Stevens and his films of dogfights repugnant. However, there has been a line drawn under the 1st Amendment in which criminal conduct can be prosecuted even as speech is protected. The government can clearly arrest people for holding dogfights or organizing or transporting dogs for such fights. The question is whether selling material with such images is protected by the 1st Amendment if an individual did not participate in the criminal activity. The concern is that Congress will continue to add exceptions for areas viewed as offensive or cruel — abandoning a bright-line rule that has protected speech while allowing the prosecution of illegal conduct.
Given her conservative approach in some cases on the appellate court, Sotomayor could change the outcome in the case, because Souter was viewed as more likely to favor the position of the appellate court and free-speech advocates.
Whatever the outcome of these cases, one thing is clear: Court-watchers will not have to wait long to hear the voice of Sotomayor in the area of free speech. It could be a voice that resonates for decades for citizens and the 1st Amendment..
Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University, where he teaches a course on the Supreme Court.
Los Angeles Times October 5, 2009
When Does Disrespect Become Disorder?
This month, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) achieved unique ignobility as the first Member of Congress to be formally admonished for an outburst during a presidential address. Indeed, Wilson’s most memorable words in his entire career will likely be his two-word rebuttal to President Barack Obama: “You lie!”
Wilson’s lack of personal control and proper decorum, however, may have a more lasting impact on the speech of his colleagues. House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) is warning Members that they will face punishment if they engage in improper forms of speech. Specifically outlawed are references to any president as a “liar,” “hypocrite,” “intellectually dishonest,” or to conduct by a president as “cowardly,” “giving aid and comfort to the enemy,” or involving “sexual misconduct on the president’s part.”
The House rules pit the inherent authority of Congress over its own affairs against the inherent rights of individual Members, particularly their rights of free speech and full representation.
The framers had few illusions of the type of people who often seek power and public acclaim. James Madison stated in The Federalist Papers No. 57: “The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.”
The desire for a virtuous Congress has long since yielded to the more practical objective of maintaining an orderly Congress. The Constitution expressly leaves it to Congress to determine the rules governing the conduct and qualifications of Members. Section 5 of Article 1 states that each house of Congress “shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own Members” and specifically allows each to “punish its Members for disorderly Behavior.” This included the power “with the Concurrence of two-thirds, [to] expel a Member.”
The use of the word “disorderly” captures the proper emphasis of rules restricting Members. The need to prevent disorder is different from preventing disrespect. Yelling during a presidential address causes disorder and is thusly a proper focus of discipline. However, like many matters of protected speech, the right to regulate depends on the time, place and manner of the restrictions. Under the First Amendment, words at one time or in one place may not be protected while the same words at a different time or place are protected. That should be the case with the words “you lie.”
Ironically, Wilson was not subject to the speech rules since the House was in joint session. However, the House reserves the right to enforce a particular rule: “a lawmaker shall conduct himself at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives.”
In most prior cases, this rule has been used for the noncontroversial purpose of punishing Members who have been convicted or accused of criminal acts. Yet, the language is equally applicable to otherwise protected speech. The House rules go beyond bad conduct and encompass bad manners. While courts have overwhelmingly deferred to Congress in such matters, a challenge to a restriction on the content of legislative remarks could force an exception to this principle.
Wilson was properly sanctioned for screaming out during a presidential address. It was a rude and uncivil act that demeaned the entire Congress. However, he has a right to say that a president is lying. Indeed, presidents have lied throughout history on matters great and small. One of the most important functions of a Member of Congress in our system of checks and balances is to call a president to account for falsehoods.
If the president’s party can prevent a Member from referring to him as “intellectually dishonest” or “giving aid and comfort to the enemy,” the majority can effectively script Members’ speech through a process of elimination. The framers never envisioned such a level of choreographed or controlled speech. To the contrary, “sexual misconduct on the president’s part” can be — and has been — a basis for impeachment when such conduct leads to such high crimes or misdemeanors as lying under oath. If a president traded federal positions for sexual favors, it could also be the subject of impeachment. Yet, a Member revealing such misconduct could not refer to the “sexual misconduct” directly.
Some Members in the majority after the Wilson scandal have cited the rules of Parliament. The rules of the House incorporate Section 370 of Jefferson’s Manual, which states that members in Parliament are prohibited from “speak(ing) irreverently or seditiously against the King.” While there are many parliamentary traditions that would be worthy of duplication, this is not one of them. Members should be able to speak irreverently about the head of their government. Indeed, Parliament shows the utter lunacy of these rules by prohibiting certain forms of language like calling the prime minister a “liar,” but members routinely engage in rude outbursts and shout at the prime minister during question sessions. Parliament has it reversed: It should prohibit the outbursts while allowing members to speaking truthfully of their views of a prime minister. The former causes disorder while the latter is merely disrespectful. It is the shouting and catcalling that is out of place — not the frank expression of a member’s view.
None of this means that rules should not discourage the use of such words. Calling a president or another Member a liar is a juvenile habit. However, the House rules suggest that a Member can be punished for using these words, which may accurately describe the view of the Member. The fact is that a president can be a liar or a sexual deviant or both. In such cases, Representatives have not only a right but a duty to confront the executive and his party.
Securing judicial review of such rules may not be easy absent an actual enforcement against a Member. Of course, Members could trigger the rule by marching to the floor to proclaim, “The president is a lying, hypocritical, intellectually dishonest man who is giving aid and comfort to the enemy” — or some variation of that theme. None of that is true, of course, but sometimes a constitutional claim can only be found on the other side of calculated rudeness.
Wilson picked the wrong time and place to cry “You lie!” and was worthy of admonishment. However, when given in the course of legislative debate, punishment for such speech puts the lie to the free speech guarantees in our Constitution. Congress should focus on disorder and let voters focus on decency among its Members.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University.
Roll Call Column — September 24, 2009
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Last night I discussed the growing speculation that Justice John Paul Stevens, an icon of the Court with over three decades of service, may be preparing to retire (here). On both a personal and jurisprudential level, Stevens remains one of my favorite judicial figures. He is a man who had a transformative impact on his country. His place in history will likely be discussed for years to come. With this news and the justices returning to the city for the new term, this story may be of interest. Below is my cover article in the American History Magazine on my choices for the top nine justices — as well as my list of the Supreme failures on the Court.
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was traveling by train to Washington, D.C. one morning nearly a century ago when a conductor asked for his ticket. Holmes looked in vain until the conductor reassured him, “Don’t worry about your ticket, Mr. Holmes. We all know who you are. When you get to your destination, you can find it and just mail it to us.”
“My dear man, the problem is not my ticket,” quipped Holmes, who was renowned for his quick wit. “The problem is…where am I going?”
We face a similar guessing game as a nation every time a new Supreme Court justice is chosen. The president and other officials involved in the selection process can only speculate what route a new appointee will follow during a lifetime tenure on the Court, much less what lasting impact he or she might have on interpretation of our laws. And predicting whether any justice will achieve a measure of greatness is a crapshoot.
Sonia Sotomayor is no exception. When President Barack Obama put her up for Senate confirmation this summer, he touted her “empathy” and potential for blazing a new historical trail as the first Latina justice. She has been widely compared to Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American justice, and Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice, both of whom made history by breaking racial and gender barriers. But neither Marshall or O’Connor are generally viewed as intellectual leaders on the Court. Marshall brought a deep sense of social justice to the Court’s deliberations, but he was not equally known for his contribution to legal theory and doctrine—at least no more than the vast majority of his predecessors or successors. O’Connor virtually functioned as a court of one—the consistent swing vote on a Court rigidly divided in many areas by a 4-by-4 split—but will not be remembered the depth or consistency of her opinions. Even though she often dictated the outcome of cases, she did so with insular and sometimes conflicting rationales.
History suggests that some criteria are wrongly emphasized these days in selecting nominees. The most obvious is prior judicial experience, which is not necessarily the best predictor of potential greatness. Earl Warren had been a popular governor of California, but never sat as a judge before becoming Chief Justice in 1953. Louis Brandeis came from private legal practice, with no prior judicial experience, when he joined the Court in 1916. And while Hugo Black served briefly as a police court judge in Birmingham, Alabama, his most notable experience was as a U.S. Senator before he became a justice in 1937.
The most notable trend in recent decades has been for presidents to put forward nominees who have empty files: impressive academic and judicial resumes combined with a sparse history of controversial speeches or writings that might be turned against them during the confirmation process. Sotomayor, O’Connor, Clarence Thomas, David Souter, and John Roberts all fit this pattern. Such formulaic selections reflect the vagaries of our political system, but also our discomfort with people who are creative thinkers and can’t be easily pigeonholed as either judicial activists or strict constructionists. Even though America has the deepest pool of lawyers in the world, if genius is found on the modern Court it is largely accidental.
There is no standard profile for the selection of great justices. However, close examination of the records of the 111 justices who have served on the Court reveals that a select few managed to see a legal horizon far beyond the view of their contemporaries, often espousing views that would not reflect majoritarian values for decades. The nine justices featured on the pages that follow all exhibited an ability to rise above conventional thinking and prejudices and epitomize what constitutes the right stuff on the Supreme Court.
3 GAME CHANGERS
One of the primary measures of greatness on the Supreme Court is the impact a justice’s decisions have on the society at large. John Marshall, Charles Evan Hughes and Earl Warren all sat on the bench during transformative periods in American history and the social and political consequences of their decisions reverberated for generations.
John Marshall (Chief Justice, Feb. 4, 1801 to July 6, 1835)
Marshall was the author of the most important American judicial opinion of all time: Marbury v. Madison (1803), which established the supremacy of the Court in legal judgments. He also issued a series of decisions involving the balance of power between the federal government and the states that laid the legal foundation for the young republic. “A hush falls upon us even now as we listen to his words,” Justice Benjamin Cardozo wrote more than two centuries later.
Despite such praise, Marshall has an obvious advantage. Marshall’s decisions on the judicial review, Indian tribes, and other fundamental issues reflected the fact that these were the first defining cases. One has to recognize that anyone writing these early decisions would have had the same fundamental impact. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a titan of the early 20th century Court, alluded to the importance of timing when he wryly noted that much of Marshall’s “greatness consists of his being there.”
Marshall was not particularly profound or intellectual in his opinions. Indeed, his opinions often read more like commandments than interpretations on the law. He used Marbury to stake out valuable territory for the Court, a gamble that paid off despite initial protests that he was amending the Constitution through the ruling – the earliest allegation of judicial activism. Yet, the decision achieved a vital balancing of the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government that assured the peaceful resolution of countless conflicts.
Marshall was interested more in the outcomes than the analysis of opinions, but is responsible for the institutional status and authority of the Court itself – giving him a Moses like stature that is unrivaled by his successors.
Charles Evans Hughes (Chief Justice, Feb. 24, 1930 to June 30, 1941; Associate Justice, Oct. 10, 1910 to June 10, 1916)
Like Marshall, Hughes was not renowned for his eloquence or intellect. But he used his political skills to maneuver the Court through swirling waters of social change. Hughes was Republican governor of New York before beginning a six-year stint as an associate justice in 1910. Then, after resigning from the Court to mount an unsuccessful campaign for president and spending several years in private practice as a lawyer, he served as Secretary of State under Warren Harding from 1921 to 1925. He returned to the Supreme Court five years later when Herbert Hoover appointed him Chief Justice.
During the Great Depression, Hughes incurred the wrath of Franklin D. Roosevelt as the leader of a Court that declared several New Deal measures unconstitutional. Most notably, in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935), Hughes ruled that agreements between Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration and private industry regarding work hours, pay rates and price fixing were invalid because they delegated legislative power to the executive branch. After Roosevelt was reelected by a landslide in 1936, he initiated judicial reorganization legislation that would have granted him the power to neutralize the Court’s opposition to his plans by adding more justices. Roosevelt’s court-packing legislation ultimately failed in Congress. But in the interim Hughes helped avoid a cataclysmic showdown between the Court and the Presidency through quiet diplomacy and by working closely with Louis Brandeis, Harlan Fiske Stone and Benjamin Cardozo in decisions supporting New Deal legislation he believed did not threaten the foundations of constitutional law.
Earl Warren (Chief Justice, Oct. 5, 1953 to June 23, 1969)
Before joining the Court, Warren was a consummate politician: a longtime governor of California who proved so popular in his first term that he won the nominations of both the Republican and Democratic parties when he ran for reelection. In 1952 he stood as a favorite son candidate of California for the Republican nomination for President, but withdrew in support of Dwight Eisenhower, who appointed him Chief Justice a year later. Eisenhower proclaimed the Court needed a justice with conservative economic and social values much like his own. Instead, Warren took the Court boldly into the twentieth century with transformative liberal rulings in areas ranging from desegregation to free speech to criminal procedure.
The Warren court issued one landmark decision after another and Warren wrote the majority opinion in some of the most famous cases: Brown v. Board of Education (1954) banned segregation in public schools; Miranda v. Arizona (1966) required that criminal defendants be informed of their rights to remain silent and to be represented by a lawyer; Loving v. Virginia (1967) struck down prohibitions on inter-racial marriage. Liberals generally hailed the Warren Court’s decisions while conservatives cried foul. Nevertheless, Warren was able to find grounds for unanimity among his colleagues in controversial cases like Brown and put the entire weight and credibility of the Court behind opinions that brought great social change.
3 UNYIELDING CONTRARIANS
A handful of justices had a profound impact on the evolution of legal theory by bravely bucking against prevailing trends. Louis Brandeis, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and William Brennan were independent thinkers who stayed the course even when their opinions were scorned by the majority.
Louis Brandeis (Associate Justice, June 5, 1916 to Feb. 13, 1939)
As the first Jew named to the Court and an unabashed advocate of social justice who had earned the nickname the “People’s Lawyer,” Brandeis faced a bitter confirmation fight. “He was dangerous not just because of his brilliance, his arithmetic, his courage,” his fellow justice William O. Douglas later wrote. “He was dangerous because he was incorruptible.” Indeed, it was Brandeis’ willingness to think beyond the status quo that made him such a prescient figure on the Court. His dissenting opinions, particularly in cases involving freedom of speech and the right to privacy, would later become the majority positions of the Court. In Olmstead v. United States (1928), he bristled at the willingness of his colleagues to endorse the government’s use of wiretap technology to gather evidence and argued passionately for an individual’s “right to be let alone.” His dissent is still one of the most quoted opinions in the Court’s history. “Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers,” he wrote. “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (Associate Justice, Dec. 8, 1902 to Jan. 12, 1932)
Holmes first exhibited his fearless instincts for diving headlong into the fray during the Civil War, suffering wounds as a first lieutenant with the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, Antietam and Fredricksburg. After the war, Holmes established himself as one of American preeminent legal theorists with his 1882 book, The Common Law, and was a Harvard Law school professor before serving for two decades as a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. When Theodore Roosevelt put his name forward as a Supreme Court justice in 1902, it was one of the rare occasions that a brilliant legal scholar has been nominated with little regard for partisan politics. Holmes proved to be an independent spirit during his 30 years on the Court, taking a contrarian position in so many decisions that he was dubbed the “Great Dissenter.” But the pithiness of both his minority and majority opinions on issues as diverse as copyright, due process and anti-trust legislation resulted in him becoming one of the most widely cited Supreme Court justices ever. He is particularly well known for his articulation of the “clear and present danger” exception to the right of free speech in a unanimous ruling by the Court in Schenck v. United States (1919), in which he famously declared that First Amendment protections do not apply to an individual “falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater and causing a panic.” However, in his dissent in Abrams v. United States (1919), Holmes objected to the use of his test to punish people solely on the content of their speech.
William Brennan (Associate Justice, Oct. 16, 1956 to July 20, 1990)
Brennan turned out to be a Supreme surprise after President Dwight Eisenhower named him to the Court in 1956. Brennan’s record as a justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court and public comments he had made about criminal law suggested he would follow a conservative course, but he turned out to be one of the most liberal justices in the history of that Court. He was revered by the left and reviled by the right because of his outspoken opposition to the death penalty and support for abortion rights. But his opinions on less socially contentious issues had an equal if not greater impact on the expansion of constitutional theory and doctrines. New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) established the constitutional standard for defamation of public officials defamation of public officials. Baker v. Carr (1962) enabled federal courts to protect individual voting rights by intervening in the reapportionment of electoral districts. Malloy v. Hogan (1964) extended a defendant’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to state courts. Chief Justice Earl Warren often assigned rulings to Brennan that required a comprehensive and profound treatment, leading Court watchers to dub him the “Deputy Chief.”
3 TOWERING VISIONARIES
All of the great Supreme Court justices were visionaries. But John Marshall Harlan, Hugo Black and Joseph Story possessed extraordinary insights that allowed them to transcend their times and articulate a far-reaching view of our laws.
John Marshall Harlan (Associate Justice, Dec. 10, 1877 to Oct. 14, 1911)
Harlan was born into a slaveholding family in Kentucky, and as a Union Army colonel during the Civil War swore that he would resign if President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. But he later broke with family tradition and became an outspoken critic of slavery, which he described “the most perfect despotism that ever existed on this earth.” Harlan was the first justice to have earned a modern law degree and, after joining the Court in 1877, he supplemented his income by teaching evening classes at George Washington law school. Harlan became an eloquent defender of equal rights, and was the sole dissenter in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the infamous case in which the Court affirmed the constitutionality of racially segregated public facilities that were “separate but equal.” In his dissent in the Hurtado v. California (1884), Harlan was the first justice to argue that the 14th Amendment, which extended rights of citizenship to blacks after the Civil War, also prohibited states from constructing laws that infringe on protections accorded individuals under the Bill of Rights. Likewise, in the Insular Cases (1901), Harlan insisted that residents of new U.S. territories in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam should be entitled to the same rights as all American citizens. While serving one of the longest tenures of any justice, Harlan was frequently in the minority, but articulated a new way of thinking about core issues of the Constitution that was decades ahead of his time
Hugo Lafayette Black (Associate Justice, Aug. 19, 1937 to Sept. 18, 1971)
Black’s early career as a local prosecutor, police court judge and Democratic Senator from Alabama was blemished by his membership in the Ku Klux Klan. “I would have joined any group if it helped get me votes,” he admitted years later. But over the course of his 34-year tenure on the Court, he articulated a deep-founded and highly principled view of the Constitution. Black believed in restricting the interpretation of the Constitution to its “plain meaning” and resisted efforts to adopt more expansive views of rights or powers. When the majority invalidated a law that prohibited the use of contraceptives in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) on the grounds that it violated an individual’s right to privacy, Black argued vehemently in his dissent that it was not “the duty of this Court to keep the Constitution in tune with the times.” That same insistence on strict textual analysis of the Constitution made him perhaps the Court’s most passionate defender of the rights of free speech and association. In his dissent in Dennis v. United States (1966), a case in which the majority upheld the conspiracy conviction of a Communist Party leader, he wrote, “Public opinion being what it now is, few will protest the conviction of these Communist petitioners. There is hope, however, that, in calmer times, when present pressures, passions and fears subside, this or some later Court will restore the First Amendment liberties to the high preferred place where they belong in a free society.” He was also a great defender of the rights of the criminally accused and wrote the landmark decision in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), which established that states must provide an attorney to an indigent defendant. Black defied easy categorization as either a conservative or a liberal, but brought a profound clarity to his constitutional interpretation of cases that continue to have a dramatic impact on both the law and American politics.
Joseph Story (Associate Justice, Feb. 3, 1812 to Sep. 10, 1845)
Story was only 32 years old when he joined the Supreme Court and was overshadowed by John Marshall during most of his tenure on the bench, but he ultimately had a greater impact on the law, society and legal theory than any other justice in history. Even though Marshall assigned virtually all the major early Supreme Court opinions to himself, Story was the intellectual anchor who gave lasting meaning to the decisions. Indeed, after declaring the outcome of one case Marshall turned to him and said “Now, Story, that is the law; you find the precedents for its.” When he was allowed to write, Story proved that he was the better of Marshall as a legal mind. In Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee (1816) he established the Court’s authority over state decisions touching on federal law. His decision in Bank of the United States v. Dandridge (1827) led to the creation the modern corporation as a legal entity and other seminal opinions laid the foundations for admiralty law, equity law and patent law. In United States v. Amistad (1841), which was the basis of a 1997 Steven Spielberg film starring retired Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun as Story, he bolstered the abolitionist movement by ruling that the transport of a group of African across the Atlantic was illegal and the slaves should be freed.
Story clearly saw the law organically as an evolving body of doctrines that connected at deep common roots, and the influence of his thinking spread when he became the first Dane Professor of Law at Harvard University while still serving on the Court and penned his three-volume Commentaries on the Constitution (1833). He also was one of the earliest voices calling for society to end slavery and to educate women. While the turgid style of the time makes Story’s opinions less powerful to read than some of his successors, he showed the same quiet passion of his father, Elisha, one of the organizers of the Boston Tea Party. Above all, Story adopted a more modern view of a jurist in avoiding political entanglements and public acclaim “Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens,” he wrote. “They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.”
BOX 1:
SUPREME FAILURES
From the beginning of the Republic, numerous justices have proven unworthy of a life tenure on the Court. In 1795, George Washington gave a recess appointment to John Rutledge of South Carolina to serve as Chief Justice. Rutledge was described by one leading South Carolinian as prone to “mad frollicks” and “frequently so much deranged, as to be in a great measure deprived of his senses.” Henry Baldwin was confirmed in 1830 and described soon thereafter by Daniel Webster as insane and later hospitalized for what was called “incurable lunacy.” He remained on the court for 11 more years. Likewise, Robert C. Grier continued serving on the Court after suffering three strokes in 1867. Days before Grier was pressured to leave the Court because of his mental frailty in 1869, Chief Justice Salmon Chase insisted on using his decisive vote to strike down a major federal law, the Legal Tender Act. In 1880, Nathan Clifford was described by one colleague as a “babbling idiot” and holding a “practically vacant” seat, but he was allowed to die on the Court. Clifford’s colleague Ward Hunt was speechless and paralyzed after an illness. Yet he too refused to resign because he lacked the 10 years of service needed to earn a pension. (Congress relented and paid him a pension to get him to resign).
The behavior of some justices was anything but upstanding. Frank Murphy, a former U.S. attorney general who joined the court in 1940, was addicted to drugs, including the painkiller Demerol. According to his biographer, Sidney Fine, Murphy went into the streets to buy illegal drugs twice a day when he was on the court. James C. McReynolds was a blatant bigot who refused to speak to his colleagues Louis Brandeis and Benjamin Cardozo because they were Jewish. There is no official portrait of the 1924 Court because McReynolds would not sit next to Cardozo. And he warned Oliver Wendell Holmes that God unleashed his friend Brandeis and other Jews on humanity “like fleas on a dog.”
The Court has also had its share of phantoms. Alfred Moore, who was barely 4 ½ feet tall and weighed 90 lbs, was not only the smallest justice in history, but also had only one opinion, barely one-page long, to his name. Moore, who served from 1800 to 1804, even showed up late to the argument of Marbury v. Madison. Moore is tied in his single-opinion record by Thomas Johnson, a more impressive jurist who had no constitutional cases to review during his tenure from 1790 to 1793. Then there is the curious case of Gabriel Duvall, who was reportedly deaf and incapable of meaningful conversation when he served from 1811 to 1835. His one constitutional opinion was three words: “Duvall, Justice, Dissented.”
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RETIRE THE GINSBURG RULE: IT IS TIME TO RETURN CONTENT TO CONFIRMATION HEARINGS
This week, the public is again witnessing the ritualistic exercise of the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee. Of course, the outcome of Sonia Sotomayor’s hearings is not much in doubt. What has been conspicuously absent is substance. The vast majority of questions and answers remained on a shallow and predictable level where Sotomayor did little more than describe current doctrines and case law — avoiding disclosures of her own views. What is most striking is how Sotomayor’s statements were virtually identical to both her conservative and liberal predecessors.
The content-light character in these hearings is largely the product of the “Ginsburg rule” — named after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who refused to answer questions in her 1993 confirmation hearing about any case or matter upon which she might later vote. Backed by a Democratic majority, she simply declared, “I’m not going to give an advisory opinion on any specific scenario because as clear as it may seem to you, I think I have to avoid responding to hypotheticals because they may prove not to be so hypothetical.”
Later nominees for both parties have relied on the Ginsburg rule to turn the hearings into prolonged photo-ops for senators, who largely ask wafer-thin questions to solicit largely scripted answers.
The Ginsburg rule allows nominees to get by with meaningless sound bites that promise to respect precedent, the Framers and collegiality in general. This is akin to a surgeon general nominee explaining how veins bring blood throughout a body. It tells the public nothing about a nominee’s philosophy or purpose before giving her life tenure on the world’s most powerful court.
At the hearing in 2005 for John Roberts to become chief justice, the public heard animated discussions of the movie Doctor Zhivago and baseball analogies. Even Judge Sotomayor was asked on Tuesday about the national pastime.
The ‘Roe’ recital
This hearing has proved to be the same formulaic event. Reporters excitedly reported how Sotomayor expressed support for such doctrines as stare decisis to uphold precedent as though a nominee is likely to announce her intention to discard precedent and shape the law in her own image. These answers have been virtually identical for conservative and liberal justices. Consider the common question over the validity of Roe v. Wade and its successor decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey upholding the right to an abortion. Here is Roberts’ response to the Roe question: “As of ‘92 (in Casey), you have a reaffirmation of the central holding in Roe. That decision, that application of the principles of stare decisis is, of course, itself a precedent that would be entitled to respect under those principles.” Here is Sotomayor’s response: “The court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey reaffirmed the court holding of Roe. That is the precedent of the court and settled, in terms of the holding of the court. … That is the Supreme Court’s settled interpretation of what the core holding is and its reaffirmance of it.”
Ironically, while she skirted questions about Roe v. Wade during her confirmation, Ginsburg had no problem discussing her views once she was confirmed — despite the fact that she is likely to vote on these issues while on the court. Recently, Ginsburg said the Roe decision was predicated on a desire of some people to diminish “populations that we don’t want to have too many of” a curious claim that would have transformed her Senate hearing. Likewise, Justice Antonin Scalia has spoken on issues pending before the court such as detainee rights and separation of church and state. It appears that this information about a nominee’s views is improper only when it is the most relevant.
A nominee’s legal philosophy is rather difficult to understand without discussing legal doctrines. It is like watching The Sound of Music without any of the musical numbers. One can certainly appreciate the acting, but you can hardly get a feel for the movie without the songs.
Once you discard answers that simply restate basic legal doctrines or principles, little is revealed in these hearings that you could not find in a standard legal hornbook. The Sotomayor hearings have been long on insights into her personality and short on insights into her philosophy.
Yet, despite her moderate voting record, she has some worrisome rulings for civil libertarians. If Sotomayor votes the way she has on the 2nd Circuit, liberals could still lose ground on the Supreme Court over free speech, student rights and other core areas. Her life story will mean precious little to those people who might be stripped of rights or denied legal protections. For example, Sotomayor held in one case that schools could discipline students for statements that they made on a blog in their personal time. The impact of such a sweeping denial of free speech rights is hardly lessened with the consideration of Sotomayor’s life story.
Mum can’t be the word
There is a simple solution to returning substance to the confirmation process: End the Ginsburg rule by insisting that nominees answer questions about their specific views on constitutional rights. The only basis for refusing to be forthright should be limited to questions regarding how a nominee would vote on pending cases.
The current system works well for presidents, nominees and senators. It does little for the public or the system of justice. If you found yourself bored to tears during these hearings, don’t just change the channel — change the system and demand substance when we next select a justice for the United States Supreme Court.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.
July 16, 2009 — USA Today
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THE SOTOMAYOR NOMINATION AND THE SEARCH FOR JUDICIAL GREATNESS
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was traveling by train to Washington, D.C., one morning nearly a century ago when a conductor asked for his ticket. Holmes looked in vain until the conductor reassured him, “Don’t worry about your ticket, Mr. Holmes. We all know who you are. When you get to your destination, you can find it and just mail it to us.”
“My dear man, the problem is not my ticket,” quipped Holmes, who was renowned for his quick wit. “The problem is … where am I going?”
We face a similar guessing game as a nation every time a new Supreme Court justice is chosen.
It is a question that has plagued presidents and Senators since the creation of the Republic. In selecting a new member of the Supreme Court, it is never clear where a new justice will go politically or jurisprudentially or historically. It is a question that many are asking anew with the confirmation proceedings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who remains an “unknown” in both her philosophy and potential on the court.
All presidents want to add a “great one” to their legacy, but few have achieved that goal. Indeed, many justices selected with virtual American Kennel Club papers of breeding and education have proven virtual judicial duds with little vision or influence on the law. Conversely, some of our greatest justices did not graduate from law school or sit on a single court before joining the high court.
While the selection of the greatest justices tends to have a considerable degree of subjectivity, many of the most commonly cited justices like Joseph Story, Stephen Field, Louis Brandeis, Hugo Lafayette Black, William Douglas, Earl Warren and others suggest that there is no “profile” for the selection of great justices. They also suggest that the most common criteria are poor predicative measures.
The most obvious is prior judicial experience. Presidents routinely select justices from a small number of law schools (particularly Harvard and Yale) and from the federal court of appeals. Yet, some of the greatest justices came to the court without prior judicial experience or elite law school backgrounds.
Former Chief Justice Stephen Field is a particularly good example of the unpredictability of greatness. Field briefly studied law in New York before getting the gold rush bug in 1849 and heading west. He became a frontier prospector and lawyer. He was involved in armed fights and at least one duel. He was disbarred after a fight with a judge. (The chief justice of the California Supreme Court, David Terry, had a long feud with Field. In 1889, Terry assaulted Field in a restaurant and was shot and killed by the marshal guarding Field. While the marshal was indicted, he was later cleared by, you guessed it, the United States Supreme Court). Field would become one of the most brilliant and influential justices in history.
Brilliance is actually a liability in modern nominations. Presidents and Senators tend to look for “safe” nominees, preferably with little writing or creative thinking in their past. Indeed, some justices were nominated largely because their portfolios were all but empty, like Sandra Day O’Connor, Clarence Thomas and David Souter. O’Connor’s file appeared composed of little more than a birth certificate and a bar license. Souter was found all but living as a hermit in the woods of New Hampshire with solid but conventional opinions on the New Hampshire Supreme Court and federal court of appeals. Thomas not only had not written any substantive articles, but he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had given little thought to Roe v. Wade and its constitutional basis. Perfect.
Conversely, the most influential judges are routinely bypassed. For example, legal historians will always marvel at the fact that conservative Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago was never placed on the court. Posner is one of the fathers of the law and economics movement and one of the most influential legal minds in the history of American law. His influence and intelligence dwarfs the conservative nominees appointed during his lifetime. On the left, Sotomayor sits with an equally influential liberal Judge Guido Calabresi who is widely accepted as one of the most brilliant minds of his generation.
Nominees are selected by politicians often for their optics rather their opinions. This nomination was viewed as a rare opportunity to appoint a Brandeis or a Brennan — a nominee who could bring demonstrated intellectual depth to the development of jurisprudence. Obama had the votes to select such a person but still chose a nominee with a compelling personal story but a largely unremarkable body of work as a jurist. For many academics, it reaffirmed the view that the only chance for a truly “great” theoretician on the court is a purely accidental selection of a stealth genius.
Sotomayor is a relative rare commodity in that, unlike many past nominees with few written opinions, she has hundreds of opinions over the course of 18 years. Review of these opinions by academics and newspapers describe Sotomayor’s opinions as extremely narrow and conventional. There is no single opinion that stands out as particularly profound or clearly establishes why Sotomayor should be elevated to the court — though this does not distinguish her from other recent nominees like Samuel Alito.
Senators often quote legal geniuses like Brandeis. However, they rarely like the same characteristics in living nominees. The best way to the court is to avoid creative thoughts or writings. Chief Justice John Roberts is an example of how one can maximize one’s chances for the court by minimizing any provocative thoughts or utterances. Yet, the great advances in law were the product of people who could transcend establishment or conventional thinking — often displaying this ability before they were selected for the court. Justices with formulaic careers are more likely to result in formulaic opinions.
While Senators often portray the members of the court as the greatest legal minds, the reality is far different. When it comes to trout and justices, Senators prefer to fish in the shallow end of the pond. History has shown that brilliance is hard to hide on the Supreme Court, but much harder to recognize in our modern confirmation process.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington Law School, where he teaches a course on the Constitution and the Supreme Court.
July 13, 2009 — Rollcall
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THEY’RE NOT TERRRORISTS
Sometimes, ‘criminal’ will do just fine
In the aftermath of the killings of abortion provider George Tiller in Wichita and Holocaust museum guard Stephen Johns in Washington, D.C., many have called for the prosecution of Scott Roeder and James von Brunn as terrorists and demanded a new push against “domestic terrorism.” It is an all-too-familiar demand, but this time it is coming from an unlikely source: liberals.
For years, liberals denounced the tendency of the Bush administration and conservatives to call every possible crime an act of terrorism. Now, with anti-abortion and anti-Semitic suspects, there is an insistence that these crimes must be treated as terrorism as if to call them “murder” or “hate crimes” would diminish their significance.
Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, has called for a crackdown on such “domestic terrorists.” And an article in the U.S. News & World Report last week included both shootings in a “domestic terrorism” roundup. On the blogosphere? Well, you can imagine.
The fact is that Roeder and von Brunn appear to be murderers, not terrorists. Many people kill strangers out of hate for their race or religion or some other association. Colin Ferguson killed six people and injured 19 in 1993 on the Long Island Rail Road in a race-based rage. Last July, Jim Adkisson shot and killed two people at a church in Knoxville, Tenn., because he hated liberals. These are acts of loners or rogue operators who seek to satisfy a blood lust against different groups.
There is an important legal difference between people who seek to terrorize a society through coordinated acts of killing and people who act on impulse to kill people they hate. Calling something a terrorism case puts it in a different category for investigation and prosecution. Special laws and punishments apply. The classification allows a now massive counterterrorism apparatus in this country to use powerful investigatory powers to seize records, tape telephones and hold witnesses.
The term “terrorism” once had a clear meaning before it was used as a point of emphasis to elevate or distinguish certain crimes. The Bush administration broadened the definition of terrorism to encompass any prosecution that disrupts a “potential” terrorism threat. The definition allowed virtually any case to be counted as a counterterrorism prosecution, including hundreds of simple immigration or gang cases. Terrorist prosecutions included a Connecticut man who was fined $275 for going through airport security with a knife.
For civil libertarians, the expansion of terrorism investigations represents a clear threat to free speech and free association, as well documented during the Bush administration. Now, with a liberal administration in power, many want to see terrorism investigations targeting anti-abortion activists and other groups that use violent speech.
In 1969, the Supreme Court ruled in Brandenburg v. Ohio that violent speech is protected by the Constitution if a violent act is not imminent. Saying that you wish someone was dead is a juvenile but all-too-common way of expressing profound hatred for views or conduct. You are allowed to pray for the murder of all abortion doctors or hated figures. Indeed, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson once called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
We do not advance our efforts by classifying every hate crime as terrorism. The fact is that even an authoritarian nation can do little to stop a determined rogue operator from walking into a church and killing someone like Dr. Tiller. Calling someone such as Roeder a murderer does not diminish the crime or the victim.
If we classify every such slaying as terrorism, it is the terrorists who will benefit from our lack of focus. We are not a society overrun by terrorism. More important, we do not have to call murder “terrorism” to take the crime or its causes seriously.
Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.
Published: June 17, 2009
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THREE LEGAL TRUTHS: THE CASE FOR PROSECUTING WAR CRIMES BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
For many people around the world, it is a sign of the decline of American moral leadership that we continue to debate whether the government should prosecute those involved the Bush torture program. Their confusion is understandable. Under our existing treaty obligations, we agreed to prosecute such crimes and we have prosecuted others for precisely the same acts for decades. The real question should be: Should the United States violate international law to shield individuals accused of war crimes? Our answer to that question will define or redefine this country for generations.
Notably, in the last few months, the many law professors who once defended the torture program have largely disappeared. The shrinking number of apologists for the Bush administration are left with largely political arguments in the face of three unassailable legal truths. First, waterboarding is torture. Second, torture is a war crime. Third, the United States is obligated to prosecute war crimes.
WATERBOARDING IS TORTURE
Despite early spin, there has never been a true debate about the status of waterboarding as torture. It has been a well-recognized form of torture since before the Spanish Inquisition. Indeed, it has remained popular because it leaves no incriminating marks and requires little training or equipment. It was the chosen form of torture of the Gestapo, Pol Pot, and the Bush administration.
The status of waterboarding as torture was established by the United States. Indeed, the U.S. military used waterboarding (“the water cure”) in the Philippines in 1898. While the accused insisted (as do many today) that the torture was justified under the necessities and law of war, members of Congress rejected the argument and demanded the prosecution of Maj. Edwin F. Glenn. He was court-martialed and convicted of the crime of torture.
The United States remained a moral leader on torture for decades, including our prosecution of Japanese officers for waterboarding American and Allied soldiers. One, Yukio Asano, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for waterboarding.
In 1983, the Justice Department prosecuted and convicted Texas Sheriff James Parker and his deputies for waterboarding a prisoner. Parker was sentenced to four years in prison.
Legal experts around the world have denounced the Bush program as classic and clear torture. They have been joined by interrogators and officials from the Bush administration itself, including various Bush administration lawyers who vehemently objected to torture at the time. Susan J. Crawford, a former judge and convening authority for the Bush military tribunals, and State Department official Richard Armitage acknowledged that we tortured individuals. Republican John McCain (himself a victim of torture) has called it torture. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder declared that waterboarding is torture. Leading organizations like the International Red Cross define it as not just torture but a war crime.
TORTURE IS A WAR CRIME
That brings us to the second truth: Torture is a war crime. This one is easy, and even the dwindling number of George Bush apologists do not seriously question this point. Torture is a crime under domestic and international law. Various federal laws address torture, not the least of which is the Torture Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2340.
There is also the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which President Reagan signed. The Convention Against Torture expressly states that “just following orders” is no defense and “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever” will be considered. This is acknowledged as a binding law, including most recently by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
WE ARE OBLIGATED TO PROSECUTE INDIVIDUALS WHO COMMIT TORTURE
Finally, the United States is obligated to investigate and prosecute war crimes. Under the Convention Against Torture, we agreed to make “all acts of torture offences under [our] criminal law” and to prosecute any such cases. The failure to prosecute war crimes committed by your own government is an offense of the same order as the original war crime.
Bush was adamant on the prosecution of war crimes in other countries. In 2003, he insisted, “War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, ‘I was just following orders.’ ” On June 26, 2003, conservatives applauded as Bush told the United Nations, “[the United States] is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example.”
A TEST OF PRINCIPLE
Our failure to investigate and prosecute accused war criminals has led some United Nations officials to accuse the United States of violating treaty obligations. More importantly, our continued debate over this question puts our troops in danger. We will be hard pressed in the future to call for prosecution of leaders who torture our citizens and soldiers.
We cannot continue a war on terrorism while being violators of international law ourselves. Torture and terrorism are cut from the same legal bolt: Both are violations of human rights and international law. If we want the world to join us in fighting one crime against humanity, we cannot continue to obstruct the prosecution of another crime against humanity.
Ultimately, we all become accessories after the fact if we stand silent in the face of these war crimes. Bush ordered these war crimes because he believed that he was
above the law and others like Rice have claimed that, if the president orders such actions, they are by definition legal. They were both wrong. The law is clear. The only remaining question is whether we have the national character and commitment to the rule of law to hold even our leaders to account for crimes committed in our name.
Such prosecutions do not weaken a nation. They reaffirm the difference between ourselves and those we are fighting. To abandon our principles for politics would be to hand al-Qaeda its greatest victory – not the destruction of lives or buildings but our own self-inflicted wound of hypocrisy and immorality. True victory against our enemies will only be found on the other side of prosecuting those who (like our enemies) claim the right to wage war by any means.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, who has served as lead counsel in a variety of national security and terrorism cases.
U.S. News & World Report Weekly: May 9, 2009
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Cashing in on Martin Luther King Jr.
The civil rights leader’s family is shamelessly selling his legacy.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. often spoke of public charity and how every person “must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” It is a lesson that appears lost on his own children.
The King family has long been criticized for insisting on payment for the use of their father’s name, image, speeches and virtually anything that they can claim for themselves or their foundation. The family reached a new low this week when it was revealed that they had been paid more than $800,000 by the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation for the use of King’s image and words on the planned King memorial on Washington’s Mall.
For many years, the family has insisted that althoughKing may have been called the nation’s prophet, he is their property. Of course, it is the profits, and not the prophet himself, that has led them regularly to court to fight over royalties and control.
The surviving children of King have been feuding in court since July, when daughter Bernice and son Martin Luther King III filed a lawsuit against their brother, Dexter, chief executive of the family corporation, King Inc., accusing him of misusing funds. He countersued, saying they had obstructed the goals of the King Center. The siblings’ most recent battle involved a $1.4-million book deal with New York publisher Penguin Group for a ghostwritten memoir of Coretta Scott King. Dexter King went to court to compel his siblings to turn over photographs and personal papers for the project. The siblings resisted, saying that their mother had decided before her death that she no longer wanted author Barbara Reynolds to do the book.
“Nobody has the monopoly on Martin and Coretta Scott King,” Bernice King told the Associated Press in an interview. “This is ours, and it should be governed that way.” When she says “ours,” she is not referring to the nation. Indeed, the only thing the three living King offspring seem able to agree on is that anyone wanting to further their father’s legacy should pay for the privilege.
During the 1990s, King’s children sued USA Today for publishing and CBS for broadcasting their father’s “I Have a Dream” speech without payment — and they won. In 1999, a federal appeals court ruled that the speech could be claimed as property because the family refused to release it into the public domain. CNN had to buy the rights to broadcast the speech to the nation.
In 1997, the Kings signed a multimedia publishing deal with Time Warner reportedly worth $30 million to $50 million. Although often criticized by scholars for limiting access to King material, the family sold the right to use the “I Have a Dream” speech in commercials for the electronics companies Alcatel and Cingular. They also sought to sell King documents to private bidders in an auction. Philanthropists quickly acted to buy the historical material to prevent its loss.
Nothing is too small for the family to ignore. Isaac Newton Farris, King’s nephew and chief executive officer of the King Center in Atlanta, demanded payments for images showing President Obama and King on the same T-shirts. “We’re not trying to stop anybody from legitimately supporting themselves,” Farris said. “But we cannot allow our brand to be abused.” It is hard to imagine King himself demanding payment from someone who wanted to put his image alongside that of the nation’s first African American president.
In the latest monumental shakedown, the King family’s Intellectual Properties Management Inc. was paid $761,160 by the nonprofit foundation raising money for the Washington memorial. This was on top of a “management” fee of $71,700 paid in 2003. The Kings have defended the payments by noting that donations to the foundation have been down because people were giving to the monument fund instead. The other possibility is that fewer people want to give to a foundation run by the King family.
Few people familiar with the family are shocked by their demands. What is shocking is the failure of the memorial foundation to call their bluff and simply stop work on the memorial. Foundation officials should have publicly announced the payment so that donors could think seriously about whether they want to contribute to such an outrageous arrangement. Instead, officials waited for the Associated Press to force the disclosure. Donors have complained that they were never told of the arrangement.
Congress, which has already given $10 million for the project, should have conditioned public support on a waiver of such claims, and should now demand repayment for the amount given to the King Center. Former presidents waive their property claims over presidential material when they are honored with free libraries; it seems only right that the King family waive rights to famous speeches such as “I Have a Dream” as a precondition for this honor.
King himself was so opposed to appearing to profit from his work that when he won the 1968 Nobel Peace Prize, he gave the proceeds to charity. The insistence on payment for the use of the “I Have a Dream” speech is a particular outrage. King gave that speech to a nation — and a nation responded by rallying to his cause of public service and justice.
In that speech, King proclaimed to a nation that “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Today, we have accomplished things that King could only dream of, including our first African American president. I expect, however, that he would be a bit disappointed in the recent actions of those now-grown children. If they were to be judged by their character, the verdict would surely make King’s towering granite statute blush.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University. Los Angeles Times April 22, 2009
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Lockdown High: Are zero-tolerance policies turning schools into authoritarian fiefdoms?
In Manassas, Va., a 9-year-old student was suspended for giving a friend a Certs breath mint under a policy that not only bans any drugs but also anything that looks like a drug. A girl in Oklahoma was suspended for bringing a prescription hormone tablet to school to deal with her ovarian disease. At least 20 students in four states have been suspended for bringing Alka-Seltzer to their schools. Under zero-tolerance policies, officials across the country have been suspending kids for possession of aspirin, cough medicine and even sunscreen. The question is what lessons are being taught to our children about basic rights of speech, privacy and due process. Even more troubling, what type of citizens are we shaping in this increasingly arbitrary and authoritarian atmosphere?
(Looking for justice: April Redding helped daughter Savana sue school officials in Arizona./ David M. Sanders for USA TODAY)
This controversy will be before the U.S. Supreme Court today in the case of Savana Redding. Six years ago, Savana was a 13-year-old eighth-grader when her friend was found with prescription ibuprofen pills. When the friend was searched, teachers at her Arizona school also found a day-planner that Redding had loaned her. The friend implicated Redding as the source of the ibuprofen. A good student without disciplinary problems, Redding was confronted by assistant principal Kerry Wilson. She denied any knowledge of the pills but agreed to let Wilson search her bag. When no ibuprofen was found, Redding was taken to the nurse’s office and told to strip down to her underwear in front of the school nurse and an administrative assistant, both women. She stood in her underwear and bra as the two went through her clothes. Finding nothing, they then made the teen move her bra and panties, exposing her breasts and pelvic area.
Redding sued. After a lower court found the search to be unreasonable, the Supreme Court took up the issue the latest in a long line of cases that have treated students as little more than legal nonentities.
Conflicting rationales
This is a far cry from 1969, when the Supreme Court insisted that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Over the next few decades, however, a new and more conservative majority chipped away at these rights to the point that most are now lost long before students even approach the schoolhouse gate. Indeed, the courts have allowed students to be punished for speech occurring outside of school, including on social networking sites.
The Supreme Court has given shifting and conflicting rationales to justify school searches. In 1985, it ruled that students have little expectation of privacy in schools a self-fulfilling prophecy given its failure to protect their rights. Ten years later, in Vernonia School District v. Acton, the court allowed random suspicionless drug testing of student athletes. But the justices based their decision on the school’s history of drug problems and the fact that athletes were susceptible to a particular danger of injury if using drugs. The court insisted that athletes have less expectation of privacy because they have to undress in open locker rooms and that forcing teenagers to urinate in cups under the supervision of teachers was a “negligible” intrusion.
Then, in 2002, the court all but abandoned its earlier logic. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that it did not matter if there was no history of drug problems in Tecumseh, Okla., and dismissed the notion that athletes warranted different treatment. The court allowed random and suspicionless testing of any students in extracurricular activities from 4-H to chess club. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, mocking the “nightmarish images of out-of-control flatware, livestock run amok, and colliding tubas disturbing the peace and quiet of Tecumseh.”
In the current case, few people would disagree that the search of Redding’s backpack was justified. After all, there had been a couple of prior incidents involving drugs at the school, and the teachers heard that students were planning to take the ibuprofen at lunch as a dare. Yet, the quantum leap from a bag search to a strip search shows how the court has created virtual feudal estates where students are treated as scholastic serfs.
The long-term effect
The impact of such a search on a 13-year-old girl being stripped in front of teachers is obvious and severe. Ironically, nurses at most public schools cannot give a student an aspirin without notifying and getting the consent of the parents. Yet, rather than simply hold the student for parents or police, the school can force the child to strip and expose herself without even notice to the parents.
We need to think seriously about the type of citizens being shaped in these authoritarian environments. These kids are learning that they must accept arbitrary and often illogical actions by public figures. This month in Virginia, an honors high school student was suspended and faces expulsion for taking her prescribed birth control pill in school. With such cases, the government appears to be training a generation of passive citizens ideal for subjugation and control.
In the name of maintaining safe schools, we have created rights-free zones that treat free speech and privacy as virtual threats to education. When citizens learn rights as mere abstractions, we should not be surprised when they treat their obligations as citizens with the same disregard. Until rights join writing and arithmetic as required components of public education, our schools will remain laboratories of authoritarian living.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.
April 21, 2008 USA Today
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For years, the Western world has listened aghast to stories out of Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations of citizens being imprisoned or executed for questioning or offending Islam. Even the most seemingly minor infractions elicit draconian punishments. Late last year, two Afghan journalists were sentenced to prison for blasphemy because they translated the Koran into a Farsi dialect that Afghans can read. In Jordan, a poet was arrested for incorporating Koranic verses into his work. And last week, an Egyptian court banned a magazine for running a similar poem.
But now an equally troubling trend is developing in the West. Ever since 2006, when Muslims worldwide rioted over newspaper cartoons picturing the prophet Muhammad, Western countries, too, have been prosecuting more individuals for criticizing religion. The “Free World,” it appears, may be losing faith in free speech.
Among the new blasphemers is legendary French actress Brigitte Bardot, who was convicted last June of “inciting religious hatred” for a letter she wrote in 2006 to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, saying that Muslims were ruining France. It was her fourth criminal citation for expressing intolerant views of Muslims and homosexuals. Other Western countries, including Canada and Britain, are also cracking down on religious critics.
Emblematic of the assault is the effort to pass an international ban on religious defamation supported by United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann. Brockmann is a suspended Roman Catholic priest who served as Nicaragua’s foreign minister in the 1980s under the Sandinista regime, the socialist government that had a penchant for crushing civil liberties before it was tossed out of power in 1990. Since then, Brockmann has literally embraced such free-speech-loving figures as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom he wrapped in a bear hug at the U.N. last year.
The U.N. resolution, which has been introduced for the past couple of years, is backed by countries such as Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive nations when it comes to the free exercise of religion. Blasphemers there are frequently executed. Most recently, the government arrested author Hamoud Bin Saleh simply for writing about his conversion to Christianity.
While it hasn’t gone so far as to support the U.N. resolution, the West is prosecuting “religious hatred” cases under anti-discrimination and hate-crime laws. British citizens can be arrested and prosecuted under the 2006 Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which makes it a crime to “abuse” religion. In 2008, a 15-year-old boy was arrested for holding up a sign reading “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult” outside the organization’s London headquarters. Earlier this year, the British police issued a public warning that insulting Scientology would now be treated as a crime.
No question, the subjects of such prosecutions are often anti-religious — especially anti-Muslim — and intolerant. Consider far-right Austrian legislator Susanne Winter. She recently denounced Mohammad as a pedophile for his marriage to 6-year-old Aisha, which was consummated when she was 9. Winter also suggested that Muslim men should commit bestiality rather than have sex with children. Under an Austrian law criminalizing “degradation of religious doctrines,” the 51-year-old politician was sentenced in January to a fine of 24,000 euros ($31,000) and a three-month suspended prison term.
But it is the speech, not the speaker, that’s at issue. As insulting and misinformed as views like Winter’s may be, free speech is not limited to non-offensive subjects. The purpose of free speech is to be able to challenge widely held views.
Yet there is a stream of cases similar to Winter’s coming out of various countries:
In May 2008, Dutch prosecutors arrested cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot for insulting Christians and Muslims with a cartoon that caricatured a Christian fundamentalist and a Muslim fundamentalist as zombies who meet at an anti-gay rally and want to marry.
Last September, Italian prosecutors launched an investigation of comedian Sabina Guzzanti for joking about Pope Benedict VXI. “In 20 years, [he] will be dead and will end up in hell, tormented by queer demons, and very active ones,” she said at a rally.
In February, Rowan Laxton, an aide to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, was arrested for “inciting religious hatred” when, watching news reports of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza while exercising at his gym, he allegedly shouted obscenities about Israelis and Jews at the television.
Also in February, Britain barred controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders from entry because of his film “Fitna,” which describes the Koran as a “fascist” book and Islam as a violent religion. Wilders was declared a “threat to public policy, public security or public health.”
And in India, authorities arrested the editor and publisher of the newspaper the Statesman for running an article by British journalist Johann Hari in which he wrote, “I don’t respect the idea that we should follow a ‘Prophet’ who at the age of 53 had sex with a 9-year-old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn’t follow him.” In India, it is a crime to “outrage religious feelings.”
History has shown that once governments begin to police speech, they find ever more of it to combat. Countries such as Canada, England and France have prosecuted speakers and journalists for criticizing homosexuals and other groups. It’s the ultimate irony: free speech curtailed for the sake of a pluralistic society.
Even countries that the United States has helped liberate have joined the assault on free speech, rejecting the core values of our First Amendment. Afghan journalist Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh was sentenced to death under Sharia law last year just for downloading Internet material on the role of women in Islamic societies that authorities judged to be blasphemous. The provincial deputy attorney general, Hafizullah Khaliqyar, has been quoted as saying: “Journalists are supporting Kambakhsh. I will arrest any journalist trying to support him after this.”
Not only does this trend threaten free speech, freedom of association and a free press, it even undermines free exercise of religion. Challenging the beliefs of other faiths can be part of that exercise. Countries such as Saudi Arabia don’t prosecute blasphemers to protect the exercise of all religions but to protect one religion.
Religious orthodoxy has always lived in tension with free speech. Yet Western ideals are based on the premise that free speech contains its own protection: Good speech ultimately prevails over bad. There’s no blasphemy among free nations, only orthodoxy and those who seek to challenge it.
After years of international scorn, the United States can claim the high ground by supporting the right of all to speak openly about religion. Otherwise, free speech in the West could die with hope of little more than a requiem Mass.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University.
Washington Post — Sunday, April 12, 2009
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D.C.’s speed bump: the Constitution
Congress’ effort to give District a vote is misguided, dangerous
The expected passage this week of legislation to give the District of Columbia a vote in the House is understandably a matter of great celebration for Washington residents. It is far less of a celebratory moment for many constitutional scholars. In passing this bill, Congress will commit a premeditated unconstitutional act of ignoring the clear text and history of the Constitution to create a new form of voting member. For the first time since the founding of the Republic, members will claim the authority to allow non-state representatives of its choosing to vote in Congress.
There is little debate that the voting status of Washington is obnoxious and should be corrected. Nonetheless, the great wrong done to District residents cannot be righted by violating the Constitution. In 1977, Congress proposed an amendment to give Washington full voting rights like a state. It failed. Now, unable to amend the Constitution, Congress seems resolved to simply ignore it.
Under Article I Section 2, the Framers mandated that “the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states.” The term “several states” in this clause has been read by the Supreme Court and supporters of this bill as meaning actual states. The District was created with the express purpose of being a non-state entity.
That should end the debate, but advocates hope that Congress’ plenary authority over the District might trump provisions like that Composition Clause — an absurd notion for many constitutional scholars. While the District Clause is part of a relatively minor provision dealing with forts, installations and territories, the Composition Clause is one of the cornerstones for the entire legislative branch. To trump the Composition Clause would be akin to a dingy sinking a battleship.
The Framers’ thinking
Although some might find their reasons incomprehensible today, the Founders had reasons for wanting a capital represented by Congress as a whole instead of a single representative. In 1783, Congress was forced to flee Philadelphia by an angry mob of Revolutionary War veterans demanding their long-overdue back pay. When Congress called on state officials to call out the militia, they refused. The Framers were intent on never relying again on any state for their protection. They also did not want any individual member to have the singular honor or the authority to represent the nation’s capital. The control and representation of the capital would be shared by all the representatives.
The implication of this compromise was obvious and not uniformly popular at the time. Indeed, no one less than Alexander Hamilton proposed an amendment to guarantee voting rights for the capital’s residents. He lost. Others soon came to dislike the arrangement. The original District was a diamond shape (surveyed by George Washington) composed of ceded territory from Virginia and Maryland. Soon after ratification, Virginians chose to “retrocede,” or return, to Virginia. Notably, the remaining District residents rejected retroceding to Maryland, choosing the benefits of being capital residents over being conventional constituents.
A destabilizing precedent
Political convenience has overridden constitutional principle. To sell this ill-conceived plan, sponsors resorted to trading a new vote for the “red” state of Utah for a vote for the “blue” District. To their credit, some Utah delegation members denounced the bill as unconstitutional. In doing so, Congress will create a second constitutional problem by creating an “at large” district in Utah (to avoid forcing members to hold special elections for newly configured districts). The result is that Utahans will be the only citizens represented by two House members — their original lawmaker plus an at-large representative — in violation of the constitutional concept of “one man, one vote.”
What Congress is about to do is dangerous and destabilizing. In claiming the inherent authority to create a new form of voting member, future Congresses could manipulate the voting rolls by creating new seats for any other territory or reservation. For example, Puerto Rico (with a population of 4 million U.S. citizens) would have equal claim to six seats.
I, and others, have put forward plans that range from retrocession to a constitutional amendment. If our Constitution is a covenant of faith among citizens, it is nothing short of a constitutional sacrilege to change the very structure of Congress to avoid seeking a constitutional amendment. In a nation committed to the rule of law, it is as important how we do something as what we do. The Washington vote legislation is an unworthy means to a worthy end.
Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors. He has testified at the hearings on the D.C. vote in both the House and the Senate.
USA Today March 4, 2009
As we approach the one-week anniversary of the Obama administration, it is a bit early to judge the level of true change brought by the 44th president. However, it is becoming increasingly clear what is not going to change (at least for the better) in the Obama administration. With all of the euphoria of the inauguration, many supporters fought back a strange and long-lingering sensation: doubt. There was little room for doubt in the collective celebration of our first African-American president and a new course after a ruinous eight years under George W. Bush.
Yet, given his tendency to avoid fights on issues like war crimes and unlawful surveillance, Obama seems to view “change” in terms of social programs rather than legal principles. On the principle of the separation of church and state, these doubts are particularly pronounced and personified by the man who delivered the invocation at Obama’s inauguration: evangelical preacher Rick Warren.
Warren is viewed by many as an anti-gay and intolerant voice of the religious right. Obama has insisted that Warren’s much-discussed role simply reflects his desire to be inclusive and show that all views are welcomed in his administration. However, Warren represents more than a preacher with controversial religious views, but one who actively seeks to shape society along those same biblical lines.
From the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the Rev. Warren, Obama’s choices raise a concern that he (like his predecessor) seems to gravitate toward ministers who see little dividing the pulpit from politics.
The fact is that Obama has never hidden his agreement with President Bush on the role of religion in American politics. During the primaries, he proclaimed his intention to be “an instrument of God” and to create “a kingdom right here on Earth.” To be sure, past Democratic presidents also have sought religious advisers and incorporated religious organizations into federal programs as a political necessity in a largely Christian nation.
Expanding the Bush program
Yet, the intermingling of faith and politics was one of the more controversial aspects of Bush’s tenure. The centerpiece of that effort was the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives through which Bush gave billions of dollars to religious organizations to carry out a variety of public projects.
Despite the good work done in areas ranging from drug rehabilitation to disaster relief, it came at the cost of the government’s direct subsidization of religious groups. The faith-based office has been denounced by critics as an attack on the doctrine of the separation of church and state and a reward to the administration’s base of religious activists.
Many people assumed that any Democrat would restore the secular work of government and strive to remove religion from politics. But Obama has indicated that he intends to expand, not eliminate, the faith-based programs. Indeed, he has stated that Bush’s faith-based office “never fulfilled its promise” due to a lack of funding. This “lack of funding” cost this country $2.2 billion in 2007 alone.
Obama reportedly plans to change the name from the “Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives” into his own “White House Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.” The old office would become 12 offices to carry out the expanded program. Not exactly the change that many secularists and liberals were hoping for.
Obama has assembled an informal faith-based advisory group to assist him in plans to expand the incorporation of religious organizations into government at the cost of billions of dollars each year. Warren will likely be one of those advisers.
Warren leads a fundamentalist congregation of 20,000 in Orange Country, Calif. He was a central supporter of Proposition 8, which stripped gay couples in California of the right to marry, calling such unions an affront to “every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years.” He was criticized for a statement that many viewed as equating the legalization of same-sex marriage to the legalization of incest, child abuse and polygamy. In the ensuing firestorm, he seemed to backtrack a bit and has even indicated that he’d be willing to consider civil unions instead of same-sex marriages, but the sentiment was already out there. He also has insisted that religious people must vote against anyone who opposes abortion, calling politicians who do so, such as the new president, “Holocaust denier[s].”
This brand of activist evangelism seems to appeal to Obama the Community Activist. Despite Warren’s rigid religiosity, Obama reportedly likes him because, among other reasons, he supports anti-poverty programs. Obama’s aides have dismissed same-sex marriage as a “single issue,” and Obama has said the choice shows that he is incorporating all viewpoints into his administration. Yet, this treats all viewpoints as inherently equal and worthy of incorporation. Warren’s narrow definition of marriage echoes the objections made by ministers a few decades ago to the marriage of mixed-race couples like Obama’s parents. Would those ministers be worthy of incorporation in the administration? In the name of inclusion, Obama added a voice of exclusion.
It is a simple matter of priorities: Obama just seems to be more interested in programs than principles. He views change in more concrete terms: helping families, creating jobs and expanding the social safety net. Worthy objectives to be sure, but what about restoring the core principles that define our government?
Program-centric governing
In a program-centric rather than a principle-centric administration, Warren is a perfect fit. While infuriating for liberals, the picture with Warren — as well as the reverend’s lengthy opening prayer — played well with religious conservatives and may lay a foundation for a mutually beneficial alliance with Obama. Religious organizations can help politically and practically with the New Deal-type programs that Obama wants to implement. The entanglement of church and state is dismissed as an abstraction and distraction.
Obama’s preference for practicalities over principles is reflected in some of the people he picked for his Cabinet (Hillary Clinton at State, for one), as well as by his voting record. Obama voted to grant immunity to the telecommunication companies and extinguished dozens of lawsuits aimed at the warrantless surveillance program. Obama previously indicated that he would vote against such legislation, but again the practicalities appeared to triumph over principle. It was treated as little more than a fight over abstract privacy.
When civil libertarians denounced Obama’s vote, he simply encouraged them not to get hung up on one issue. That issue, however, was constitutionally protected privacy. The concern is that if Obama does not fight for the separation of church and state, equal protection (his most recent “one issue” flare-up) and privacy, his administration would seem strikingly like the last one, in which principles were dismissed as nave abstractions.
Obama’s approach to religion differs from Bush in one respect. The latter appeared intent on lowering the wall of separation between church and state. For Obama, this is not about principle; it’s business. Warren is a good choice because he supports these programs, and churches like his can deliver needed political and practical support for their implementation. The end, not the means, drives the policy.
Obviously, important things are to be done in a host of other areas by Obama, but it is a dangerous precedent to have another president who treats constitutional principles as something of a distraction. Just as Bush dismissed abstract principles in his war on terror, Obama seems poised to do the same in his economic war. Again, it will simply be an inconvenient time for principle.
I joined millions around the world relishing the moment Obama took the oath and gave such eloquence and hope to a besieged nation. But there is a danger of a cult of personality developing around Obama, that supporters could, in all this adoration, confuse the man with his mandate. So, when Obama put his hand on the Lincoln Inaugural Bible, I silently prayed not for a president but for principle, and that Obama will be able to tell the difference.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.
USA Today — January 26, 2009
Will Alaskans Stand Up to Stevens — Now?
There is nothing like a criminal conviction to concentrate the minds and change the conduct of people. Indeed, prosecutors will often “hoist the wretch” in a criminal case to deter others.
The exception may be the corruption conviction of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). The two target audiences for this particular penological lesson – Congress and the Alaskan people – appear entirely resistant to such outside influences.
Stevens’ conviction may appear an utter disgrace to most people. Yet an astonishing number of Alaskans and colleagues remain robotically loyal to Stevens, who has long bragged that people feared his wrath and curried his favor.
For his part, Stevens (who this week called on his constituents and colleagues to “stand with me”) is committed to standing for re-election next week and fails to see why a criminal conviction would be viewed as a barrier in Alaska.
The incredible thing is that he might be right.
Senators and Alaskans have become addicted to the gross earmark abuse personified by Stevens. Notably, even after his indictment, there were few calls for Stevens to be cast out from the state or the Senate. Instead, he made it through the primary and was embraced by colleagues who denied his flagrantly unethical record.
For many years, I have been one of Stevens’ most vocal critics.
For me, the most remarkable aspect of his conviction on seven criminal counts was that he was ultimately nailed for relatively small stuff.
For years, Stevens has long been viewed by critics as virtually walking the halls of Congress with a credit card machine on his belt. Yet, it was his failure to report gifts that earned him the long-anticipated criminal record.
The blame for the checkered career of Stevens is easy to assign. First and foremost, let’s begin with the Alaskan people.
Not all Alaskans, of course, just those who continued in election after election to return him to Congress despite years of openly unethical practices.
It is time for the country to be blunt with Alaska. It should not take an actual incarceration to clean up your Congressional delegation. The Alaskan delegation has long been an ethical quagmire. The question is why so many Alaskans, including self-described “law-and-order” voters, refused to heed years of scandals involving Stevens and his family.
The answer, it seems, is greed. Stevens brought pork home to Alaska by the barrelful, and voters did not seem to mind if he enriched himself and his family along the way.
Stevens delivered 1,452 pork-barrel projects worth $3.4 billion from 1995 to 2008. By looking the other way during decades of scandals, Alaska in 2006 raked in $611 per Alaskan in federal funds when the national average was $19 per citizen.
Many Alaskans simply do not seem to object to flagrant corruption among their elected officials. Before the recent investigation, various Alaskan legislators in Juneau wore baseball caps with the initials “CBC,” standing for “Corrupt Bastards Club.”
Stevens’ colleague in the House, GOP Rep. Don Young (the other legislator pushing for the “Bridge to Nowhere”) has also been a repeated subject of charges of unethical conduct. The Senate recently took the unprecedented step of calling for an investigation of his possible criminal conduct when he changed the words of an appropriations bill after it was passed by his colleagues.
Stevens, however, always put the rest of the Alaskan delegation to shame.
Stevens came to the Senate with modest means, particularly after heavy losses in the 1980s in a crab fishing boat venture.
In 1997, according to the Los Angeles Times, Stevens decided to get “serious about making money” and contacted lobbyists about possible deals.
One of the first to step forward was real estate developer Jonathan Rubini, who arranged for Stevens to get into a deal in which he turned $50,000 into as much as $1.5 million. Stevens was the only investor not liable for any debts in the deal.
In the meantime, Stevens muscled through a $450 million contract for Rubini from the military, despite the view of Air Force officials that Rubini “lacked capacity and adequate funding.” Since he made his pledge to make some real money in 1997, Stevens has become a multimillionaire.
Even while he was under investigation, Stevens was undeterred in working for friends and associates.
In 2005, Stevens forced through an earmark of $1.6 million that allegedly guaranteed the purchase of property by his former aide, Trevor McCabe, an Anchorage lobbyist. Federal officials had previously rejected efforts by McCabe to develop the property as a visitor center and office complex.
The Stevens family seems to have followed the patriarchal lead. In the VECO investigation that led to Stevens’ recent indictment, his son, Ben Stevens, reportedly received $243,250 for consulting fees that were allegedly payoffs for favors in the Alaska legislature. Stevens’ wife was given a high-paying lobbying job on appropriations – when her husband chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee.
While most people in the country were repelled by his securing hundreds of millions of dollars for the Bridge to Nowhere, Stevens virtually bragged that he could tap the country for billions at will.
Indeed, in one tape from his trial, Stevens cavalierly spoke of the possibility that he and his close friend might “have to spend a little time in jail” for his dealings. It was like listening to Tony Soprano at the Bada Bing club boosting the spirits of his crew.
Of course, Alaskans are not unique. I grew up in Chicago under the Daley machine, where an honest politician was someone who “once bought, stayed bought.”
There are recent examples of voters returning people like Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) and former Reps. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) and Tom DeLay (R-Texas) to office.
Democratic and Republican Members showed little interest in Stevens’ use of the federal treasury like a piggy bank for himself and his state. When the media exposed the Bridge to Nowhere, his colleagues proclaimed that they had reached an “ethical resolution” that only Senators could justify: killing the bridge but allowing Alaskans to keep the money.
Ultimately, of course, it was the Alaskan people who gave the country Ted Stevens. Corruption is like pollution. You may want to pollute your own state in deals with industry. However, when pollution and corruption become transboundary problems, it becomes a national problem.
Since neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to oppose corrupt colleagues, it is up to every voter to stop the problem at its source. When the foreman this week read guilty seven times, many of us hoped that a few Alaskans might have heard the mantra as more than simply an indictment of Stevens alone.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington Law School and a national columnist. He has a daily blog at jonathanturley.org.
Roll Call: October 30, 2008
Yielding to bias;
Segregating kids removes the victims, not their tormentors
BYLINE: By Jonathan Turley
BODY:
With a vote scheduled for Nov. 19, Chicago appears on the brink of creating the city’s first high school for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. For those of us who have been lifelong supporters of gay rights, it is a difficult reform to oppose. However, the planned School for Social Justice Pride Campus would be a terrible setback for public education and gay rights.
The proposal stems from the best possible motives. A recent study by researchers in Chicago found that gay and lesbian students are three times more likely to miss school than straight students. A recent national study found that these students are 86 percent more likely to be verbally abused, 44 percent more likely to be physically harassed and 22 percent more likely to be assaulted. Those figures should be cause for alarm for everyone.
However, the new school is less an intervention than a concession to intolerance and violence.
Officials have insisted this would be a high school that targets gay and lesbian students who have difficulties in conventional settings, not a “gay high school.” But that is precisely how it will be perceived by students, who will tell any student they suspect of being homosexual to “go to gay high.” More importantly, instead of removing homophobic bullies, the schools would be removing the victims. The result will be a less diverse student body and the reinforcement of negative stereotypes. It is not the victimized students but their tormentors who need special attention.
Chicago is poised to follow the example of New York’s Harvey Milk High School, the nation’s first high school for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. It was a highly ironic dedication, since the late gay rights leader Harvey Milk struggled to fully incorporate gay and lesbian citizens into society.
The new school would serve 600 students, a relatively small number in a system with more than 400,000 students and 655 schools. It may indeed prove better for those students, as has Harvey Milk High. But the impact on the overall student body is the greatest concern. A school system has a legal and moral obligation to maintain a safe and nurturing environment. Chicago officials are embracing the approach of segregationists from the 1960s, who insisted that blacks would be “safer” in their own schools.
The proposed gay high school is on some level a continuation of a trend in public education led by the Chicago Public Schools. Chicago is now a patchwork of specialized “charter” or “themed” schools that separate students by race, gender and professional aspirations. Various high schools now cater to specific military branches, including the Marines, Navy, Army and Air Force. Many educators, including myself, have opposed this trend as embracing segregation or aspiring to offer little more than trade schools. School systems such as Chicago are quickly becoming educational theme parks that have abandoned the concept of a shared common curriculum and community for learning.
On Nov. 19, Chicago school officials should take a truly brave stand against homophobia and intolerance. They should reject the School for Social Justice Pride Campus and demand that every school offer an accepting and positive environment for these students. We do not need thematic public education. We need core public education that trains our future citizens to live in a diverse and tolerant society.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University.
Chicago Tribune October 24, 2008
When Salim Hamdan was born in 1970, the horizon of his life extended little beyond his poor Yemeni village and a life (if he was lucky) as a farmer like his father. He was anything but lucky. His mother died when he was 7, his father when he was 11, and he soon found himself living on the streets of Mukalla. He eventually found work as the driver of a dabab, a beat-up minibus stuffed with riders — making just enough to rent a mattress in a flophouse and a daily supply of the mild narcotic khat to chew away his problems.
Yet, within a few years, this dabab driver with a fourth-grade education would occupy not only a cell in Guantánamo Bay but also the minds of members of the Supreme Court and the president of the United States.
Jonathan Mahler chronicles this extraordinary journey, as well as the lives of the lawyers who transformed Mr. Hamdan into an international symbol in the war on terror.
Like Ernesto Miranda (the inspiration for Miranda rights), Mr. Hamdan is hardly a compelling figure, and his prosecution was not unwarranted. Initially hostile to his non-Muslim lawyers, and an adherent of the most medieval form of Islam, Mr. Hamdan deserved punishment for his service to Al Qaeda. Yet his victory would stand as a critical limitation on the powers of the world’s most powerful leader, requiring that he afford detainees basic protections under the Constitution and international law.
With an engaging writing style and eye to detail, Mr. Mahler, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, takes the reader through Mr. Hamdan’s evolution from a street urchin to one of a handful of “high value” enemy combatants. Recruited from the dirty streets around the Martyrs’ Mosque, Mr. Hamdan joined a ragtag group of jihadists trying to find a path through Afghanistan to Tajikistan to fight the Russian-backed government. When their path was blocked by the fearsome warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud, they ended up starving and wandering jihadists without a cause. They eventually found food and a cause in the camp of a radical sheik recently thrown out of Sudan: Osama bin Laden.
Mr. Bin Laden personally instructed the group in the ways of jihad for three days. Yet, of the 35 jihadists, only 17 stayed — including Mr. Hamdan, although he did not prove particularly strong in either his beliefs or his skills. He was used as a mechanic and a driver for Mr. bin Laden, and he was with him on Sept. 11, 2001, as he negotiated mountaintops to get a satellite signal to allow him to watch the planes crash into the Twin Towers. (Terrorist leaders appear to have the same complaints about television reception as everyone else, and Mr. bin Laden was forced to listen to the events unfold on the radio.)
Ultimately Mr. Hamdan was captured by members of the Northern Alliance, who sold him to the United States for $5,000. There is no evidence that he had ever fired a shot in anger or attained a status above mujahadeen mechanic.
If “The Challenge” offers a good account of the making of an implausible warrior jihadi, it provides an excellent account of the making of equally implausible warrior lawyers. At the center of the story is Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift of the Navy. He is an example of an ordinary man made extraordinary by historic events.
He began with a decidedly unremarkable career. Struggling with poor grades and infractions at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, he was known as “N.T.” for “Not Too Swift” and finished 960th out of a class of 1,006. He did little better at Seattle University Law School, and his most noted feat in the Navy was being caught skinny-dipping with strippers as a midshipman.
Lieutenant Commander Swift had one outstanding characteristic, however, shared with others selected by history: a certain clarity of thought. While others caved in to pressure summarily to try Mr. Hamdan and other detainees, he displayed a stubborn sense of duty to the rule of law.
While Lieutenant Commander Swift would garner most of the accolades from this case, he was not the lone warrior often portrayed simplistically by the news media. While Mr. Mahler gives a full account of the work of the Georgetown University professor Neal Katyal, there is limited discussion of the contributions of Lieutenant Commander Swift’s colleague Lt. Cmdr. Philip Sundel, or the pro bono lawyers Joseph McMillan, Charles Sipos and the other lawyers with the firm of Perkins Coie.
In the same genre as Anthony Lewis’s “Gideon’s Trumpet,” “The Challenge” depicts how the various lawyers struggled with personal and professional adversities to pursue a case that many more experienced lawyers had dismissed. Professor Katyal recalls how he called his mentor, Prof. Ahkil Amar, who encouraged him not to take the case, because it was a guaranteed loser, telling him, “Just hang out at Georgetown, write some articles, and wait for the Democrats to take back the White House.” To his credit that was a piece of advice Professor Katyal ignored.
Famous cases are often treated in historical accounts as if they sprang from the head of Zeus, when in reality they represent years of hard and all-consuming work. This book shows how great legal precedents are established through a series of mundane moments, like child-care conflicts and word-processing glitches.
The one thing that is missing is an understanding of the lawyers on the other side: the darker figures of the story. Lawyers like Prof. John Yoo (who is given passing reference in the book) and Prof. Viet D. Dinh are viewed by many law professors and civil libertarians as grotesque and even monstrous in their work to excuse torture and to deny the basic rights of detainees. They remain cutout caricatures in books examining the tribunals. The better one gets to know the heroes of “The Challenge,” the more one wants to know of its villains and their own ascent, or descent, to this moment.
The book ends after the 2006 Supreme Court’s 5-3 decision, with Mr. Hamdan’s future uncertain. Last month, however, he was tried by a military tribunal and convicted. To the obvious displeasure of many in the Bush administration, the military panel gave him only 5 ½ years — far less than the 30 years prosecutors sought (and notably far less than what he would have likely received if he had been taken immediately to a federal court on terrorism charges). Given his time served, he could be released in a matter of months, but the administration has indicated that it will simply declare him an enemy combatant in order to hold him indefinitely despite the ruling of its own tribunal.
“The Challenge” is not just a very readable account of an important case. It is also an intimate account of the lawyers who overcame personal conflicts, animus and flaws to produce a decision for the ages. It is an intriguing tale of how a unique convergence of personalities propelled an unlikely dabab driver from Yemen to international prominence.
Despite his best efforts and due to the efforts of these lawyers, Mr. Hamden succeeded in making a positive contribution to world — something even his famous passenger cannot claim.
Jonathan Turley is a professor of public interest law at George Washington University and has served as lead counsel in national security and terrorism cases.
August 21, 2008
For the web version of the column, click here.
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Bullying’s day in court;
From hall monitors to personal injury lawyers: Parents send a message by forcing bullies from the schoolhouse to the courthouse.
Mathew Mumbauer, 11, never saw it coming. One moment in early March, he was walking down the stairs at Brickett Elementary School in Lynn, Mass. The next moment he was lying at the bottom of the stairs. He was left paralyzed and on a ventilator. Mathew’s parents blame bullies who had been hounding Mathew for most of the year.
Mathew is only the latest victim of bullying in our schools, and some parents are turning from the schoolhouse to the courthouse to seek relief. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of students are anxiously counting down the days left in summer and the approach of another bullying season.
With the advent of the Internet, YouTube and MySpace, bullying is becoming more prevalent and more lethal — allowing bullies to move from playgrounds to cyberspace in pursuit of their prey. While the number of bullying lawsuits is unknown, some high-profile cases are focusing attention on the national problem.
Dealing with bullies has long been treated as just part of “growing up,” a natural and even maturing element of childhood. Encounters with the ubiquitous bully in movies and literature are treated as a type of rite of passage, particularly for boys. From “the Ogre” in Revenge of the Nerds to Scut Farkas in A Christmas Story, the bullies always lose when you simply stand up to them, right?
Perhaps, or you can end up dead. Across the country, schoolchildren have been killed after standing up to bullies in places as wide-ranging as West Paducah, Ky., Edinboro, Pa., and Jonesboro, Ark.
A video hunt
Being a bully remains a popular choice for students, particularly in middle schools, where bullying often peaks. A 2004 survey by KidsHealth found that 40% of children from 9- to 13-years-old admitted to bullying. Another recent study prepared for the American Psychological Association showed that 80% of middle school students admitted to bullying behavior in the prior 30 days. Like Piggy in Lord of the Flies, a child can become a collective target — the object of a natural juvenile inclination to subordinate and isolate individuals. Just ask 15-year-old Billy Wolfe in Fayetteville, Ark.
At some point, high school bullies made him a type of collective sport prey. They even filmed the hunt. One video shows a boy spontaneously announcing that he is going to beat up Billy Wolfe in front of Billy’s younger sister, walking up and punching him at a bus stop.
Billy’s beatings were triggered years ago after his mom complained to the parents of a bully. The next day, the boy presented Billy with a list of 20 names of boys who signed up to beat him up. Attacks would occur at any time and any place — the bathroom, shop class, the school bus — with one requiring that Billy receive medical treatment.
This is not the first lawsuit involving Fayetteville and bullying. The district was previously sued after a student was savagely beaten for being gay. In a similar case in Kansas City, Kan., a jury awarded Dylan Theno $250,000 against the Tonganoxie School District for years of bullying due to the false rumor that he was gay.
As the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier showed the nation, Internet sites such as MySpace have opened up new opportunities for cyberbullying. Megan’s suicide was allegedly triggered by an adult neighbor, Lori Drew, pretending to be a 16-year-old boy who not only dumped her but also initiated a cyberpile-on by other kids. A 2008 study of more than 40,000 adolescents by the Rochester Institute of Technology revealed that 59% of cybervictims in grades seven to nine were bullied by kids whom they knew.
The underlying costs
The social costs of bullying are often ignored. A federal study found that 60% of boys who were bullies in middle school had at least one criminal conviction by the age of 24. Bullying is also routinely tied to suicide attempts, drug abuse, and drop-outs or worse, violence by the victims.
In Littleton, Colo., the killers at Columbine High School in 1999 had complained about being bullied. In Hoover, La., Felicia Reynolds sued the school district after her son, Ricky, stood up to an alleged bully named Sean Joyner after years of complaints to officials at Hoover High School. After being removed from the school due to a separate incident, Sean was allowed to return and fought with Ricky. Sean died from a knife wound, and Ricky was put away for 20 years. Unlike the Hollywood formula of bully movies, when the Karate Kid in real life stands up to bully Johnny Lawrence, he ends up doing one to five years in the county jail.
While many will chafe at the notion of moving from hall monitors to personal injury lawyers, litigation could succeed in forcing schools to take bullying more seriously.
The first step, however, is to dispense with the image of bullies as mere Scut Farkases waiting to be challenged and conquered. Bullies are not adverse object lessons for an educational system; they are the very antithesis of education. They are no more a natural part of learning than is parental abuse a natural part of growing up. That is one lesson Mathew Mumbauer learned all too well.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.
USA TODAY: July 15, 2008
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HEADLINE: The next president’s court;
Today’s Supreme Court has a historic parallel — FDR’s court. So what might that mean for McCain or Obama?
With the end of the U.S. Supreme Court session last week, legal experts are mulling over the recognition of the individual right to bear arms, the expanded rights of detainees and other important rulings. But the most interesting aspects of this session might be less the message than the messengers. The Roberts court is becoming an intriguing case of history repeating itself. It took seven decades, but the Four Horsemen have returned.
The original Four Horsemen were conservative justices during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. They effectively blocked many of his economic reforms and programs. The return of the horsemen could well shape the legacy of a President Obama or a President McCain, with decisions rendered before either takes the oath of office.
The similarities between the courts of Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Chief Justice John Roberts are striking. Both the Hughes and Roberts courts ruled during periods of economic difficulties and political shifts in power. Both courts had four conservatives who maintained a united voting bloc on most major issues. On the Roberts court, the Four Horsemen are the chief justice and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
What FDR faced
If elected president, Barack Obama could find himself in a position strikingly similar to FDR’s first term, when Roosevelt inherited a conservative bench from his Republican predecessors. With a country in economic crisis and a world in upheaval, Obama would face a court with a near majority of ideologically hostile justices. Worse yet, unlike the original Four Horsemen, whom FDR accurately dismissed as the “old men” (all were over 70 in 1937, their last year on the court together), the new horsemen are mere judicial adolescents in comparison — Roberts is 53, Alito is 58 and Thomas just turned 60 last week. Only Scalia has serious miles on the odometer at 72.
Ironically, if John McCain wins, he will face a close proximity of the other bloc of the Hughes court, three justices called the Three Musketeers. For McCain, the Three Musketeers are Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, with David Souter playing the role of d’Artagnan — the fourth Musketeer. The difference (and advantage) for McCain is age. The average age of the left wing justices is about 75, and the iconic leader of the left wing, Stevens, is 88 years old. The next president will likely be replacing liberal justices — a great opportunity for McCain to fundamentally change a wide array of legal doctrines, and a great anxiety for Obama to try to (at least) maintain existing doctrines such as Roe v. Wade.
Make no mistake: This court is deeply divided. While the number of 5-4 opinions fell slightly from the previous term, the appearance is deceiving. There were also 10 fewer unanimous or near-unanimous decisions. Moreover, in some major rulings that escaped the 5-4 category, it was often because liberals moved over to join the conservatives rather than a shift from right to left. This was the case on the 7-2 vote to uphold lethal injection (with Stevens and Breyer) and the 6-3 vote (with Stevens) to uphold photo identification requirements for voters.
President Bush’s appointees — Roberts and Alito — proved as good as advertised for conservatives. Though Roberts insisted at his confirmation that he was a centrist, his center has proved somewhere between Thomas and Scalia. He was there this term to cast the fifth vote to recognize the individual right of gun ownership, to strike down a law effectively penalizing millionaires financing their own campaign, to extend immunity of law enforcement officers from lawsuits and (in a 5-3 vote) to drastically cut the punitive damages in the Exxon Valdez disaster.
Yet not all decisions this term were predictable for the court’s right wing, such as those that protect employees from retaliation and one supporting a Louisiana death-row inmate’s claim of racial discrimination in jury selection.
Where the divide was deep
Even so, the ideological divide was deep and raw in cases such as the detainees decision, where four justices were willing to allow the president to deny the protections of habeas corpus to those held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. While Roberts tended to use more moderate language, Scalia predicted that his liberal colleagues had signed the death warrants for their fellow citizens because the decision “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” It was something one would expect to hear on a late night four-in-a-box dogfight cable show — not a historic court decision.
This term also showed that on the most important issues, both McCain and Obama would begin their presidency with a court of one: Justice Anthony Kennedy (the same role played by Justice Owen Roberts on the Hughes court).
Indeed, this often looked more like the Kennedy court than the Roberts court, with major decisions on habeas corpus (Boumediene v. Bush), limits on the death penalty (Kennedy v. Louisiana) and immigrant rights (Dada v. Mukasey). All were 5-4 decisions where Kennedy held back the Four Horsemen by joining the Four Musketeers. After years in the shadow of Sandra Day O’Connor, Kennedy seems to have found his voice — one that either Obama or McCain will likely have to heed in the years to come.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.
July 2, 2008
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An Extra Ordinary Earmark — Even for Don Young
Last week, the Senate took an unprecedented step asking the Justice Department to investigate the possible criminal conduct of a House member. The subject of this ignoble moment is Rep. Don Young. For many, it was a well-earned distinction for Young, who is often cited as the face of earmark corruption. However, this is different. Young is accused of effectively stealing millions of dollars for a campaign contributor by changing the words of an appropriations bill after it was passed by his colleagues.
The resulting investigation raises some challenging constitutional and criminal questions. Indeed, Young may have relied on such political and constitutional protections – and may discover that he crossed those limits when he crossed out the language of a duly enacted law.
The Young allegations involve a curious form of crime: fraud by whiteout. At issue are $10 million and a highway earmark in Florida.
Originally, this was a simple road widening project in southwest Florida’s I-76 — a pittance in the engorged, pork-filled $286.4 billion highway bill. However, one of Young’s donors, Florida developer Daniel Aronoff, happens to own environmentally-sensitive land near Coconut Road that would benefit
greatly from a nearby highway.
As the former Republican chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Young was the guy to see, a Member who had long filled his campaign coffers with money from business interests seeking earmarks. With his equally controversial colleague, Sen. Ted Stevens, he pushed an
appropriation for $223 million to build the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska.
Of course, it is meaningless in Congress that the officials in Florida did not ask for and did not want the study. Indeed, the Lee County Metropolitan Planning Organization rejected it three times and expressed confusion as to why they had been given money for a project that they did not want.
If they reviewed Young¹s list of campaign donors, their confusion would have been instantly lifted.
After Young went to Florida to examine the area (and hold a signature campaign fundraising event), he quickly received more than $40,000 in contributions from Aronoff and associates, including Rick Alcalde, who worked on behalf of Aronoff’s real estate firm.
There was only one problem. The bill had already come out of conference and been passed by both Houses. That is when Young went too far, even for this Congress.
His staff apparently instructed the enrollment clerk (who was cleaning up the bill for the President’s signature) to erase the reference to “I-75″ and replace it with the words “Coconut Road.” In doing so, Young had taken $10 million from a federal project and used it to benefit a favored donor.
As a matter of criminal law, the controversy can be boiled down to simple fraud and related crimes. Investigators would likely focus on crimes ranging from conspiracy to fraud to false statements to obstruction of justice. While 28 Senators voted against the investigation — including Alaska’s two
Republican Senators, Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski, Young’s best hope may be the Constitution — by ironically wrapping himself in the very institution that he has discredited.
Any prosecution is likely to turn on the interpretation of the Speech or Debate Clause contained in Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution, providing that “for any Speech or Debate in either House, [Members of Congress] shall not be questioned in any other Place.”
This is the same barrier faced in the search of Rep. William Jefferson’s office. As one of the witnesses who testified that the raid was unconstitutional and unnecessary, I believe that there are some salient distinctions between the cases. It was always clear that Jefferson was not protected from the investigation itself — only the brutish means chosen by the Bush Administration.
The fact that this amendment originated in the Senate rather than the House is an embarrassment for the latter institution. While Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated that she will favor the Senate provision, the House could refuse to turn over certain documents or evidence.
The House General Counsel office has traditionally taken a bright-line approach to subpoenas for legislative material from aides or members, as it recently did in the investigation of Reps. Jefferson and Jerry Lewis. There could be a problem when staffers are asked to disclose information about
prior conversations related to Young earmarks as well as instructions given by Young or his staff.
Since the 1881 decision in Kilbourn v. Thompson, the Speech or Debate Clause was first given a boad interpretation. Of particular interest to Young will be the 1966 decision in United States v. Johnson where the court held that the testimonial privilege under the Clause was absolute and that it barred
investigation of the motivation of members in taking legislative actions. Yet, what Young allegedly did was manifestly outside of the legislative process since he changed the language of a finalized bill. By definition, it is not a part of what the Supreme Court called “the due functioning of the legislative process.” It was the very antithesis of a due functioning legislature.
In United States v. Brewster, the Supreme Court held that” while [i]t is beyond doubt that the Speech or Debate Clause protects against inquiry into acts that occur in the regular course of the legislative process,” the act of taking a bribe “is, obviously, no part of the legislative process or function.”
Any prosecution would present a court with the challenging circumstance of a member who acted outside of the legislative process, but the evidence would cover protected discussions leading up to the finalization of the bill. Of course, some evidence like Young’s fund-raising efforts in Florida and
communications with people like Aronoff would not present a serious barrier for the Justice Department.
The question will be whether Congress wants to waive these protections and wait to fight this issue on a better day — and in a better case. In the past, Congress has allowed staffers to be interviewed on alleged crimes like the leaking of intelligence information despite the connection to
legislative functions.
In the end, what is at stake is more serious than a simple $10 million — a tiny appropriation that few members noticed, let alone cared about. In the Madisonian system, the legislative branch plays a vital role in stabilizing the country. Through bicameralism and legislative procedures, Congress is the institution that forges majoritarian compromise out of often sharp factional disputes. You can wheel and deal. You can even waste and deceive. What you cannot do is go outside the rules.
Indicting Young would not end earmark abuses, but it might signal that there remain a few incidental rules that should be followed — if only for appearances.
Jonathan Turley
Roll Call: April 17, 2006 ————————————————————————————————————-
Unequal votes;
The Electoral College is a relic of elitist Framers who didn’t fully trust ‘the people.’ Yet the Democratic Party’s superdelegate system relies on the same disturbing principle.
It appears that the Electoral College has finally found a passionate advocate. Indeed, the past few weeks, Hillary Clinton has been talking so much about the Electoral College, one would think she was an alumna.
In her campaign for superdelegates, Clinton has been insisting that it is irrelevant whether Barack Obama receives the majority of votes or even the majority of states. It is all about the Electoral College; therefore, voters in red states who chose Obama do not really count because, as Democrats, they will not have any say in the general election.
Clinton is, of course, correct.
There are those, however, who would like to change that. This month, Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., proposed the elimination of the Electoral College and the long-overdue adoption of direct election of the president. While attempted many times before, reformers hope that the current outcry over superdelegates will highlight the equally undemocratic role of the Electoral College.
Kindred systems
The Electoral College and the superdelegate system work on the same premise: Citizens sometimes cannot be entirely trusted to choose the next president. Clinton last week even dismissed the notion of “pledged” (or non-super) delegates as a “misnomer,” suggesting that they are free to disregard the will of voters in choosing a nominee.
The senator of New York has stressed that such delegates would not be swayed by the “passion” and oratory of Obama. Since many of Obama’s states are locks for the Republicans in the Electoral College come November, her campaign has called on the party leadership to recognize that she is more electable in a system that does not recognize the national majorities.
Clinton would have found great allies in the Framers. Massachusetts delegate Elbridge Gerry warned that “the people are uninformed and would be misled by a few designing men.” Even George Mason, the great advocate of the Bill of Rights, dismissed direct election due to the inability of ordinary citizens to actually see and hear candidates, given the country’s size: “It would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper magistrate to the people as it would to refer a trial of colors to a blind man.”
While the Framers were great believers in the natural rights of the common man, they actually had little faith in the judgment of the common man. Indeed, most of the Framers were unflinching, unrepentant elitists. They wanted a representative democracy to create a buffer of educated men between citizens and their government. It was not until 1913 that the country finally amended the Constitution to allow for direct election of senators (who were originally elected by state legislatures).
Throughout U.S. history, the Electoral College has worked as designed: to place elections in the hands of an elite. Past controversies involved the same personal wheeling and dealing that we’re seeing today with superdelegates:
*In 1800, there was a tie in electoral votes between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Jefferson’s successful power play left such a bitter aftermath that it might have contributed to Burr’s alleged betrayal of his country and his shooting of Alexander Hamilton.
*In 1824, Andrew Jackson received the most votes of four candidates. However, John Quincy Adams effectively bought off Henry Clay who, in return for throwing his votes to Adams, became his secretary of State.
*In 1876, Samuel Tilden won the majority of votes by a margin of 250,000 over Rutherford B. Hayes. Yet Hayes bought the nomination with a promise to withdraw Northern troops from the South and end Reconstruction.
Then, of course, there was the 2000 election, when Al Gore won more popular votes than George W. Bush but was denied the White House because of the Electoral College system.
Defenders of status quo
Advocates often insist that the college forces candidates to pay attention to small states in their campaigns. Yet, the opposite is true.
A Democratic nominee currently has little reason to campaign in Utah, or a Republican nominee to visit Massachusetts. But if the country had direct elections, a candidate would have every reason to go to such states to secure a couple hundred thousand votes. Given the often close margins of modern elections, no candidate is going to leave thousands of votes in Salt Lake City untapped if they actually counted toward the election.
The fact is that the Electoral College is preserved for, and by, the people who created it: the nation’s ruling elite. The college gives both parties locks on states by discouraging opposing candidates from campaigning in their states and undermining their party’s control. Conversely, a direct election would allow candidates to make pitches directly to citizens and thereby reduce the influence of the two-party monopoly. Suddenly, people in Boise and Boston would see both candidates campaign for their votes instead of sitting out the general election as pre-ordained electoral proxies for their parties. Moreover, voters are no longer “blind” and now can see and hear candidates for themselves.
Despite our immense respect for the Framers, they were not perfect. Even so, they did possess the humility to acknowledge that time could prove them wrong and created a process by which we could amend the Constitution. We have proved them wrong about the ability of ordinary citizens to make decisions directly about their government; we have proved better than their expectations.
One politician understood that in 2000, stating, “We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago. … We should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.”
It was Hillary Clinton.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of the USA TODAY board of contributors.
USA Today: April 8, 2008
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A fool and his lawyer;
Can you be competent to stand trial but unfit to represent yourself?
It is a well-worn cliche that a man who represents himself in court has a fool for a lawyer. Beneath this common expression is a central truth: Nothing protects a defendant against ineffective counsel if he is his own counsel.
That may change with an appeal before the Supreme Court this week. In the case of Ahmad Edwards, the court must decide whether a person can be deemed competent to stand trial but not competent to represent himself.
Edwards’ unlikely journey to the Supreme Court began over a pair of wingtips. In 1999, Edwards stole a pair of shoes in downtown Indianapolis and fired a shot that grazed a guard and hit a bystander in the leg. He was then shot by an FBI agent who happened to be in the area.
Edwards was not just crazy for wingtips. He twice was found mentally incompetent to stand trial. However, in 2004, a state court ruled that after five years at a state hospital, he was fit to stand trial. The court, however, found that he was not competent to represent himself.
After he was forced to accept a lawyer, he lost. He appealed his case, and the Indiana Supreme Court agreed that he had been wrongly denied the right to represent himself. Now the U.S. Supreme Court will hear his case.
It has been a touchstone of American law that every person has a right to choose an advocate, even himself. In the American colonies, many citizens distrusted lawyers, who were viewed as lackeys to the king and the establishment — often choosing instead to speak for themselves before juries of their peers. A lawyer in those days was merely an option, someone who could serve as a surrogate for those who felt unable to present their case. Often these were people who were illiterate or uneducated.
Historically, if you were competent to stand trial, you were competent to argue your own case. In the 1975 case of Faretta vs. California, the court reiterated this basic principle, setting the bar extremely low for defendants, holding that they need only be “literate, competent and understanding,” and not necessarily skillful or effective.
Some self-represented, or pro se, defendants have proved reasonably capable at defending themselves. In the notorious California “Red Light Bandit” rape/kidnapping case in 1948, the defendant, Caryl Chessman, represented himself over objections from prosecutors and defense lawyers. Although he was found guilty, the trial court judge ultimately complimented him on the professional job he did on his own behalf. Sixty years later, private eye Anthony Pellicano is representing himself in his wiretapping case in Los Angeles. He may prove another fool’s lawyer, but he is clearly competent to make such a decision for himself.
But Edwards is another story. The government insists that he was a hazard to himself in a courtroom and cites incomprehensible motions like this attempt to have the case dismissed: “Defendant moves the grounds of this court to dismiss this cause: if any notation of grand avoids a bill immunity proceeding at criminal information true-bill grounds. Defendant prays psalm 15.5 for innocent of court property to be dismissed wherefore, so shall it be done.”
It’s hard to win with arguments like that, bolstering the government’s claim that defendants like Edwards should not be left to their own devices. However, another case last month in Maryland would seem to belie such assumptions. Harold J. Stewart was also viewed as an incompetent self-lawyer but a competent defendant. A high school dropout, he was accused of beating a man to death with a baseball bat. Given the strength of the evidence, his lawyer tried to persuade him to accept a guilty plea of second-degree murder with a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. He refused, insisting instead on representing himself. He also made rambling, incomprehensible motions that led to questions about his mental competency. Yet he won a complete acquittal of charges of first- and second-degree murder against two experienced prosecutors.
Less than 1% of felony prisoners represent themselves. Many do great harm to their own cases and suffer the consequences of such self-inflicted wounds. There are also costs to others. When Colin Ferguson killed six passengers and injured 19 others on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993, for example, he insisted on representing himself despite the clear evidence that he was a delusional psychopath. Yet he was deemed fit to stand trial under the extremely low standard of competency. The resulting bizarre trial mixed moments of mental clarity with total fantasies of mistaken identifies. Victims were forced to be cross-examined by the man who shot them as he tried to convince them that they saw someone else on the train. He was found guilty.
In a case in Texas in 1995, Scott Louis Panetti was treated as competent for trial and proceeded to represent himself in his murder case. He was a lunatic who dressed as a cowboy in court, tried to subpoena Jesus and clearly traumatized his estranged wife, Sonja, in a cross-examination that forced her to relive the murders of her parents. A jury convicted Panetti in 90 minutes. (The Supreme Court in 1997 stayed his execution on insanity grounds.)
Notably, his treating psychiatrist, Dr. F.E. Seale, asked the most poignant question after Panetti’s conviction: “My God, how in the world can our legal system allow an insane man to defend himself?”
The answer can be found not in the twisted minds of these defendants but in our own twisted legal standards. We have been manipulating “competence” for years to guarantee that mentally ill individuals can be tried. After John W. Hinckley Jr. was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981, enraged politicians ripped up existing insanity laws and replaced them with standards so low that even the most clearly insane defendants, such as Andrea Yates, who killed her five children in Texas in 2001, would be viewed as entirely competent to stand trial.
When these same individuals then invoke their right to self-representation, however, we are caught in a trap of our own making.
Obviously, we are embarrassed when the people we seek to execute or imprison are so mentally incompetent that they make a farce out of a proceeding. Thus, judges seek ways to find them sane enough to execute or imprison — but incompetent to argue their own cases. This is what happened in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, who proved to be a barking lunatic before his terrorism trial. The court found him competent to stand trial but denied him the right to represent himself. (His appeal of that decision is pending in the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.)
There are relatively few major cases of self-representation, and most, like the Panetti and Edwards cases, would have been avoided by simply recognizing the defendants’ incompetence to stand trial in the first place.
Rather than address the ridiculously low standard for competence to stand trial, many now want the Supreme Court to raise the standard for self-representation. But by imposing skill and educational requirements, courts could force many defendants to have others speak for them while they are expected to pay the costs of any resulting verdict.
If we insist on ignoring the mental illness of our defendants, then we should live with the untidy and unpleasant results.
Jonathan Turley
Los Angeles Times: March 26, 2008
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Supreme Redux: Is John McCain Ineligible to Be President?
Imagine this. The country is fresh from a close presidential election when the Supreme Court is asked to decide who will be president. If you are thinking about the 2000 election, think again. The expected nomination of John McCain for president could trigger a fight over a relatively obscure provision in the Constitution: the requirement that president and vice president be “natural born” citizens. McCain is certainly a citizen, but there is a legitimate question of whether he is a “natural born citizen” given his birth in the Panama Canal.
To complete this Supreme redux, former Bush counsel Ted Olson has been enlisted to develop arguments for McCain. Sen. Barack Obama and others would prefer to avoid such a sequel to Bush v. Gore. They have been quick to support a legislative fix introduced by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.). However, such legislation unlikely to resolve the constitutional question, which will be answered on the basis of the language and purpose of Article II of the Constitution.
Section 1 of Article II of the Constitution states in part:
“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
Under the 12th amendment, vice presidents must also be natural born.
The requirement of being “natural born” appears to have been initially suggested by John Jay — who wrote a letter to George Washington on the requirement. In his July 25, 1787 letter, Jay wrote:
Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.
Some Framers were probably concerned with a desire among some to have a King, including some foreign princes who might rule the nation. (The theory that it was written to block Alexander Hamilton who was born in the West Indies seems apocryphal since he would have been grandfathered into eligibility at the time of the Constitution’s ratification.)
The requirement that an American be “natural born” has long been controversial, but few associated John McCain with the problem as opposed to popular “naturalized” politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger. McCain was born in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone while his father was stationed there as a naval officer. As objectionable as it may be, it is not clear whether a Panamanian-born citizen is a natural born citizen. The issue has simply never presented itself for judicial review because all prior presidents were born in the United States.
The only president who seemed to have a possible Article II problem was Chester A. Arthur, the 21st president. Arthur was rumored to have been born in Canada, but claimed that he was born in Vermont.
Some past contenders for the presidency would have forced the question if elected – but weren’t. The last time that we faced this question in a serious candidate was Barry Goldwater, who was technically born while Arizona was a territory in 1909. Other such questions were raised by Mitt Romney’s father George Romney, who ran in 1968 despite his birth in Mexico, and former Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., who was born in Paris.
The problem is that such an issue is only “ripe” for review after a general election and before the swearing in ceremony. While it is conceivable that a ballot challenge (contesting the eligibility to be on a ballot) is possible, a court could deny any pre-election lawsuit as an impermissible request for an “advisory opinion.”
Any review would turn on a difficult interpretive question. Two obvious meanings are possible. The Court could view the term as referencing a purely territorial qualification: people born within our borders. The Court could also view the meaning as encompassing a parentage meaning: covering people born to citizens regardless of the place of their birth. The latter interpretation would make natural born status as synonymous with citizenship and the colloquial term “native son.”
Interestingly, McCain and Olson each articulated different theories of why he is eligible. When confronted last week. McCain cited Goldwater and articulated a territorial argument – suggesting that a territory is U.S. soil and Panama was a territory. McCain insists that Goldwater had resolved the question, yet that is not accurate. It was never resolved because Goldwater was never elected president.
When pressed, Olson offered the parentage or native son theory. However, while there is some logical sense for such a theory, the historical sources and text do not establish such a meaning conclusively. Indeed, it does not appear to be the common law understanding of natural born at the time.
In answering this question, the court would likely look to English common law. Notably, the Parliament in the eighteenth century had to make special provisions for English citizens born in the colonies to guarantee things like inheritance rights and office holding under English law. It could be argued that these laws were necessary because it was not assumed that English parents alone or birth in a colony would qualify for the status of natural born citizens.
In 1790, Congress passed An Act to establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, providing:
And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been residents in the United States … .
“Considered as natural-born citizens” can be subject to debate as to its meaning. Moreover, some would claim that this bill was an effort to change the pre-existing territorial understanding of that term.
The 1904 law governing births in the Canal Zone is equally unhelpful, merely saying that children of U.S. citizens shall also be citizens. No one is suggesting that McCain is a foreigner. The question is whether he is foreign born.
Absent a constitutional amendment, the issue will remain one of constitutional construction, not legislative correction. The zone was a foreign military base like Guantanamo Cuba. Ironically, the Bush Administration has been arguing for years (with Senate support) that U.S. laws and jurisdiction do not extend to Cuba in the cases of the detainees. If such bases are now treated as U.S. soil, it is unclear how that would affect this long-standing claim that it is not for purposes of civil liberties.
Military installations like Panama were sitting on leased land. Panama was never U.S. soil. It is different in that sense from embassies or even territories. If such military installations are U.S. soil, it raises a host of even more difficult questions. For example, when illegal immigrants have a child in the United States, the child is a U.S. citizen. Does that mean that foreign citizens who give birth at United States military hospitals or installations are entitled to U.S. citizenship for the child? How about U.S. ships or aircraft?
The new legislation will not likely resolve this question. If a court takes a territorial view of the requirement of being natural born, Congress cannot change that meaning through legislation –any more than it could redefine other words. Thus, it could not legislatively define the age 35 requirement to mean 25 by saying that it is the view of Congress that 25 is the new 35.
It is, of course, a good thing that members are seeking a resolution, but they will have to be cautious not to take one course that could fail in the brief window between a general election and the swearing in ceremony.
In the long run, the McCain candidacy can indeed serve to unite the nation – at least on one question. We need to amend our Constitution and allow all of our citizens to be eligible regardless of the place or status of their birth. As for McCain’s Panamanian problem, Congress is unlikely to be able to settle the question, which will remain not just one of constitutional interpretation but a close one at that.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.
Roll Call: March 6, 2008
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Mukasey’s Paradox;
On further review, his manipulations are a beautiful, twisted thing.
The recent decisions of Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey to block any prosecution of Bush administration officials for contempt and to block any criminal investigation of torture led to a chorus of criticism. Many view the decisions as raw examples of political manipulation of the legal process and overt cronyism. I must confess that I was one of those crying foul until I suddenly realized that there was something profound, even beautiful, in Mukasey’s action.
In his twisting of legal principles, the attorney general has succeeded in creating a perfect paradox. Under Mukasey’s Paradox, lawyers cannot commit crimes when they act under the orders of a president — and a president cannot commit a crime when he acts under advice of lawyers.
Such a perfect paradox is no easy task. Most attempts fall apart because of some element of logical consistency. The closest example to Mukasey’s Paradox is the Grandfather Paradox: If you go back in time and kill your grandfather before he meets your grandmother, you would not be conceived and therefore you could not go back to kill your grandfather. That one can play real tricks with your head.
Mukasey’s Paradox appears designed to play tricks with Congress. Its origins date back to Mukasey’s confirmation hearings, when he first denied knowing what waterboarding was and then (when it was defined for him) refused to recognize it as torture. In fact, it is not only a crime under U.S. law, it is a well-defined war crime under international law.
The problem for Mukasey was that if he admitted waterboarding was a crime, then it was a crime that had been authorized by the president of the United States — an admission that would trigger calls for both a criminal investigation and impeachment. Mukasey’s confirmation was facing imminent defeat over his refusal to answer the question when Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) suddenly rescued him, guaranteeing that he would not have to answer it.
Once in office, Mukasey still had the nasty problem of a secret torture program that was now hiding in plain view. Asked to order a criminal investigation of the program, Mukasey refused. His rationale left many lawyers gasping: Any torture that occurred was done on the advice of counsel and therefore, while they may have been wrong, it could not have been a crime for CIA interrogators or, presumably, the president. If this sounds ludicrous, it is. Under that logic, any president can simply surround himself with extremist or collusive lawyers and instantly decriminalize any crime.
However, this is only half of Mukasey’s Paradox. The other half occurred last week when Mukasey refused to allow contempt charges against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers to be given to a grand jury. Bolten and Miers stand accused of contempt in refusing to testify before Congress in its investigation of the firings of several U.S. attorneys in 2006. Mukasey wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that their refusal to testify could not be a crime because the president ordered them not to testify under executive privilege.
Under this logic, no official can be prosecuted for contempt as long as a president ordered them to commit the contempt — even if the president’s assertion of privilege is clearly invalid or incomplete. In this case, many experts have expressed skepticism that all or any of President Bush’s assertions of privilege in this case would be upheld.
When Mukasey blocked the contempt cases, many legal experts were filled with rage. But I came to see his rationales as objects of beauty rather than scorn. When one combines the two decisions, they fit neatly into Mukasey’s Paradox. Mukasey was saying that lawyers could not be charged criminally because the president ordered them to commit the act — and that the president could not be charged criminally because lawyers told him he could do it.
Now some have pointed to other paradoxes in Mukasey’s tenure. There is, for instance, the “paradox” that his confirmation was saved by Democrats — who thereby allowed the president to avoid a confrontation on torture. There is the “paradox” of Mukasey insisting that courts should not investigate the Justice Department’s failure to preserve the CIA torture tapes because the Justice Department should be allowed to investigate its own failure to previously investigate.
Yet these are not real paradoxes — they’re merely political ironies. A paradox is a statement that seems true but yields a contradiction or a dual truth. When reduced to its purest form, Mukasey’s Paradox is that government officials cannot violate the law — but that because executive privilege is also a law, it’s sometimes necessary to violate the law in order to uphold the law.
Mukasey’s Paradox will now join other paradoxes such as Zeno’s Paradox. Indeed, members of Congress already use a variation of Zeno’s Paradox to explain their lack of action on civil liberties, torture and Iraq. They seem to be always working toward “change” without actual change occurring. The answer is found in Zeno’s Paradox: You will never reach Point B from Point A as you must always get halfway there, and half of the half, and half of that half, and so on.
Mukasey’s Paradox, if adopted, will result in administration officials being effectively beyond the reach of the law. Yet there is always hope.
Consider that Mukasey took an oath under which he swore to uphold the laws of this country — even if the violator is the president of the United States or his aides. That oath means that all laws must be upheld without exception. Except, according to his interpretation, that executive power is a form of constitutional law that creates exceptions to the enforcement of laws.
But there’s something known as the Exception Paradox, which goes as follows: If there is an exception to every rule, then every rule must have at least one exception, including the rule that there must be an exception to every rule. Thus, perhaps this is a rule without exception, and the president cannot order criminal acts.
But that brings us back to Mukasey’s Paradox. Even if there is no exception to the president ordering crimes, there is no crime because the president ordered it. Perfection.
Los Angeles Times: March 4, 2008
Jonathan Turley
just a comment, what if….what if a country other than the US, decides as the US to move unilaterly, to rid us of oppressive government and a tyrannt, for crimes against humanity, or just the american people, as your government has….try on those shoes…just a question??? big rich
new mail address….
Thank you.
I came to your site because I read that you would be the person to talk to about what ordinary people can do when congress refuses to do its job and hold administration criminals accountable for their crimes. How do we go about impeachment without the idiots in washington being ionvolved?
Re: The Five Stages of Christmas
LOL!!! If your career as a brilliant and gifted constitutional law professor/media commentator ever founders, you could always make the payroll by doing a little stand up! Striking Hollywood writers: Beware!
Well, I must say that the little livestock give an endless amount of material — and injuries — to ponder! Have a great holiday.
Dear Prof. Turley,
)
(When I try to post a comment on this the first time around, it did not work. So I hope it will make it this time.
This column is very entertaining; I kept giggling while reading it..I am sure it was quite serious and dangerous situations then, but looking back I think it is one of those stories that you can pass on to your children (if they don’t remember them, that is
). But I really hope that you will keep yourself safe through these dangerous(?) holidays because you are one of the most admired intellectuals in this country and whom this country needs. Your blog (actually your stands on the constiution) opened my eyes to see the things I’ve ignored about what is going on with this country in terms of our rights and freedom. I think I took so many things for granted…but now I realize basic rights and freedom are something we have to guard for not something to take granted for. I am a naturalized U.S. citizen. I used to think that the U.S. was one of the greatest countries because of its stands on human rights and freedom along with other great things. And no doubt now the image of the country is very much tainted due to the course this administration has taken on these issues which are totally against what this contry is founded upon. I want to see the restored image of this country so that I can say that I am proud to be an American. So please keep being a hero for those of us who believe in true American values and who understand what defines Americans.
Happy holidays to you and your familay!!
I apologize; I didn’t mean to make the comment this long. And this comment is quite different from my original one that did not make it
Sincerely,
Sue (AlwaysCurious)
I,for one, would like you as an AJ, Professor Turley, precisely for the reason of the post above. I don’t imagine for a moment that the next appointment is going to be the liberal firebrand antithesis to a Luttig or JRB or some such. No, what is needed is a genial, convivial person, self-deprecating, and comfortable with the media. Personal qualities and abilities to get along with the swing votes will be crucial qualities in the next search since professional competence, illustrious resume, and good knowledge of the law are going to be common across the pool. But perhaps most importantly, it seems to me from reading between the lines on this blog of yours, that you actually deeply care about the constitutional issues of the day, and that though you grace everything with humor and balance, you are invested in this civic religion that many of us share.
Or so I imagine in my outsider, out-of-the-loop way….
I realize that I have been shamelessly indulging myself with promoting you for the position and that it is graceless and awkward, so this will be my last on the topic and no reply necessary!
Seasons greetings.
Please Deeply worried, do not apologize for promoting my elevation to AG. Such a position would bring a security detail which would help dramatically with child care.
Sue:
Thank you for your kind note. With people like you, this country has a bright future. Have a great holiday!
Jonathan
The talking grill really got to me. I laughed so, it brought tears to my eyes.
I must second the idea of your becoming a comedian. And since the writers’ strike is on, this might be a good time to approach MSNBC about doing a show.
You know, the wonderful thing about that possessed grill is that it continued to haunt the family for months. It developed some type of short that would make it spontaneously come on in the middle of the night or when you were walking by in the dark. Suddenly an alien voice would yell, “Let’s Grill?” I finally took the damn thing to the trash and the last I heard from it was some babbling about ketchup as I threw it into the can. I still imagine it out in some dump yield freaking about the seagulls.
Have a great new year Prof. Turley!
Let’s hope that next year is a better year for our constitution. I know you will keep fighting for it.
Do you have any plan to appear on TV anytime soon? I am always eager to hear what you have to say.
We just got back from the holiday, so nothing planned yet for next week except a column on January 3rd on election day and the campaigns in USA Today.
Yes, I would like to see more politicians like Ron Paul. I do not agree with all of his stands on the issues, but at least he has been always consistent with his positions and lived by his principles.
I have yet to decide on which candidate I am supporting but one thing that would affect my decision is their consistency on the issues, most importantly civil liberty voting records.
Thank you for this post, Prof, Turley and Happy New Year!!!
Re: 2008: The year of principles?
Can I get an “Amen” brothers and sisters?
This is not directed at your column but is a general comment to Professor Turley. The Professor would be the perfect candidate for either the post of attorney General or be be named Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court. He would be perfect. He can talk the talk on both sides, to the professional lawyer and to the layman, with both understanding his position and his viewpoint. I look forward to seeing him on TV. as his explanation of the law is very helpful.
RGKahn:
Thanks so much for your kind words. I will keep my day job for the moment!
Best,
Jonathan
You see Professor Turley, there is a popular groundswell developing for your elevation to the Court.
And some of us may have some tiny, miniscule modicum of influence, who can say?? I think of Patty C and her telephone.
In any case, we should all keep our day jobs for now. Massive changes are afoot and not all political at that. A job is a nice thing to have….
You rang, DW?
As most of you know, I have a phone and I’m not afraid to use it…
I agree with you that JT would be perfect as a Supreme, but I am also selfish enough to want to keep him here, with us, for now. And also because ‘here’ is where is most needed and is being, quite obviously, most effective.
Besides that, we are a blast to hang out with about now. Right, JT?
P.S. Hey,you guys, I’m thinkin’ about changing my handle to
‘One Ringy Dingy,Two Ringy Dingy’. Whaddya think?
I would prefer your current one!!
Mr. Turley your views on the death penalty show you to be nothing but a bleeding heart liberal, thank God that Nino, Clarence and the boys don’t agree with you. I pray that you never get appointed to the Supreme Court.
The current Court is following the will of the American people who want to see justice for victims of violent crime. Liberals have always been more concerned for the perpetrators than for the the victims. It’s odd they don’t use the same rationale concerning abortion that they do regarding capital punishment.
*sigh* There’s a BIG difference between justice and vengeance.
Wild update from Detroit (Feb. 5, 2008):
Judge has ordered release of ALL documents pertaining to the sudden settlement of a $9 million lawsuit brought on by three police officers against the mayor. The officers had evidence that the mayor was carrying on an extramarital affair probably using city tax dollars; the mayor subsequnetly and unjustly fired the three. The judge ruled a city cannot enter into “confidentiality agreements” assumed to have been doen to supress the embarassing details of the mayor’s activity.
The mayor denied under oath during the trial of the affair. Since then, new evidence (probably leaked from the confidential settlement agreement) indicates he lied under oath. A 2004 Michigan Supreme Court ruling says perjury does NOT have to be material.
After the judge ruled today to release ALL documents, the mayor (apparently not in need of city council affirmation) announced “the city will immeidately appeal this decision”.
Will this all end up staying in state court or do the feds move in and take it over?
Check it out at wxyz.com
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Mr. Turley….
I’m not sure you are the right person for this query but you’re better than 99.6% of everyone else in the community, so here goes..
How do we the people, or whom in our representation, can refer George Bush and Dick Cheney (and others in this current administration) to the International Criminal Court in the Hague?
I understand we as a nation have not “recognized” this court but does that make a difference??
Why hasn’t Cuba issued indictments for the many crimes committed at Gitmo? If they did, would the indictees be subject to arrest if they left the United States?
It seems to me that justice for the Bush dictatorship will have to be outside the US.
RB-Chicago – we can’t. The U.S. is one of the few countries that did not sign the agreement for the International Criminal Court. Thanks the Republican Congress and George Bush.
Mark:
Thanks.
So what is being said is we have no recourse against these criminals in any forum. While the rest of the world laughs us out of the room; our economy tanks at the expense of the big corporations that Bush and cronies on the Supreme Court now protect; Bush just says this morning that torture must be in the US bag of tricks, against every international law/treaty we as a country have ever agreed to because of some imagined threat the Cheney makes up in his sleep; and, we sit by quietly watching all this happen with no way it seems to stop it??
Mark, I don’t know if you follow such things but yesterday’s decision in Medellin v Texas pretty much scuttles any talk of the ICJ binding domestic courts short of Congressional enabling legislation.
Robert’s footnote 2 by implication gives the Supremacy Clause a new reading, and the conservative bloc voted as expected even though it was against their Commander in Chief and against some of their originalist instincts.
At issue now is how many other treaties are scuttled sub silentio by this decision. What about the CAT?
But what do I know anyway…not much. Mespo?
Just a note – res ipsa is not “the thing itself speaks”
it translates to “the thing speaks for itself”
it’s a subtle, but important difference.
one is a statement. the other is an argument.
Prof. Turley,
I would enjoy reading your views on a Senate bill (S. 1926) introduced by Sen. Dodd, endorsed by Sen. Obama, and adopted by the latter as part of his economic plan.
Perhaps worthy of column? I have attached the URL for the text of the bill.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:s1926is.txt.pdf
Prof. Turley,
After watching the House hearing today with the EPA administrator Steven Johnson and his minions, I’m very concerned that this organization have lost their way to the truth. It seems to be documented in the record repeatedly that he has no opinion other than what he’s told by the White House. This is NOT what the EPA is suppose to be for our country.
Is there a way that Congress can remove Mr. Johnson from his office? Can the courts remove him? Can the courts or Congress stop his rulings?
It’s clear that his rulings are ignoring the science behind the recommendations that his organization brings to his office and he ignores them completely!
Please advise….
Do you think this product could have prevented the problem?:http://www.sgias.com/
It says: “Limit the risk of sudden amendments and text changes that change the meaning of a bill”
SGIAS® II is a comprehensive bill tracking and data transport solution for monitoring proposed legislation. The efficiency of retrieving only those bills with a change of action, with one search, is a real time-saver for busy legislative liaisons and staff. SGIAS® II reduces manual record keeping, produces convenient and concise reports and includes a safety net that eliminates the risk of unknown text changes or losing track of a bill. The search process is further streamlined by the ability to download multiple texts in various data bases at one time. The automatic wake-up feature is a robot that checks the status of tracked bills while staff is performing other important duties. In addition, Master/Client options will enable reporting bill activity in a timely, selective, secure and user-defined environment.
Service Group, Inc., provides a Win 95/98/2000/XP/NT product that directly interfaces with individual state’s Internet web sites. SGIAS® II provides the value-added enhancements for bill tracking, data exports and file management. The bill reporting capability significantly reduces the time delay of forwarding updates to multiple locations and offers quick and easy custom comments on individual bills. SGIAS® II is an effective solution for companies that follow a volume of bills. SGI will monitor the State’s changes to their Site, search engine and changes to Committee Action Fields to provide software updates on the fly.
Liberal TNR Editor:
Bush Never Lied to Us About Iraq
By Warner Todd Huston | June 16, 2008 – 13:39 ET
In an editorial in the L.A. Times on the 16th, Kirchick said that “Bush never lied to us about Iraq” and then went on to substantiate his claim in a style that runs contrary to the Media and nutroots meme that “Bush lied and people died.”
The left narrative, one the media is happy to parrot, has been that Bush lied us into war. Kirchick points out that “the notion that the Bush administration deceived the American people has become the accepted narrative of how we went to war.”
But Kirchick then steps out into some of the most intellectually honest analysis I’ve seen from the left since before the 2000 election when BDS first began to infect the media.
Yet in spite of all the accusations of White House “manipulation” –that it pressured intelligence analysts into connecting Hussein and Al Qaeda and concocted evidence about weapons of mass destruction –administration critics continually demonstrate an inability to distinguish making claims based on flawed intelligence from knowingly propagating falsehoods.
Kirchick goes on to chronicle some of the agencies and investigative bodies that have found absolutely no evidence that the Bush Administration manipulated Congress as it made the case for the war.
Kirchick also comes as close to calling John D. Rockefeller (D, W. Va.) a liar as you can without using those specific words when he notes that Rockefeller’s “highly partisan” Senate Intelligence Committee report does not support the wild eyed claims made in its summation.
Yet Rockefeller’s highly partisan report does not substantiate its most explosive claims. Rockefeller, for instance, charges that “top administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and Al Qaeda as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11.” Yet what did his report actually find? That Iraq-Al Qaeda links were “substantiated by intelligence information.” The same goes for claims about Hussein’s possession of biological and chemical weapons, as well as his alleged operation of a nuclear weapons program.
Kirchick also trenchantly notes that the latest partisan attack that is being presented as a “report” conveniently forgets to mention the words of the many dozens of highly placed Democrats who’s words were nearly identical to Bush’s in the run up to war.
In 2003, top Senate Democrats — not just Rockefeller but also Carl Levin, Clinton, Kerry and others — sounded just as alarmist. Conveniently, this month’s report, titled “Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated by Intelligence Information,” includes only statements by the executive branch. Had it scrutinized public statements of Democrats on the Intelligence, Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees — who have access to the same intelligence information as the president and his chief advisors — many senators would be unable to distinguish their own words from what they today characterize as warmongering.
In the end, Kirchick finds no shred of proof that Bush “lied” about anything. In fact, he scolds every Democrat and partisan leftist for saying that he did and that the claim that Bush lied us into war is an “unsubstantiated allegation” that is “cowardly and dishonest.”
So, kudos to James Kirchick for an honest look at the record. Certainly we can agree to disagree right now, at this point, if the war was a good idea or not. But, it is beyond question that there were no lies disseminated by the Bush Administration and neither did the president “manipulate” any evidence to “mislead” the nation into war.
Go read Kirchick’s piece and marvel that it came from a lefty. He really nailed it. “Bush never lied to us about Iraq” is worth your time.
Mr.Truley, when Obama offers you either the Attorney General position in his administration, or a Supreme Court spot. Please do me and the country big favor and accept.
sorry about the typo Mr. Turley.
RE: FISA
Can we immediately challenege the Constituionality of the soon-to-be-passed FISA Bill that grants telecom immunity?
Jim
frank seidle
1, July 3, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Mr.Truley, when Obama offers you either the Attorney General position in his administration, or a Supreme Court spot. Please do me and the country big favor and accept
I agree with the sentiment, that is, this country could do a lot worse than seeing Professor Turley finally in a position where he is not defending justice, but dispensing it.
But I do have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of condeming the FISA vote, then supporting the man who voted for it.
I’m being serious here, and usually get immediatly attacked for questioning why I, or anyone should or would support Obama after he voted to, as Professor Turley so aptly stated to Rachel Maddow on Countdown, “eviscerates the 4th Amendment”, and “its gonna hurt”.
I believe one term he used was it “strikes at the marrow” of the Amendment.
And more accurate statements have not been made regarding this vote. The vote Professor Turley admonished Mr Obama, and rightly so, was not a “compromise, but a cave in”.
Now what I’d like to hear, and have been searching the blogosphere for, is an explanation of why we don’t hold Obama accountable for this vote? I tried prior to the vote, to rally opposition to the vote and vocalize our opposition to it, so Mr Obama would “take the hint”. No one however seemed to want to touch it, and instead attacked me for even suggesting we withold our campaign donations and threaten to withold our votes if he proceeds to vote with the republicans on this one.
And thats what he did after all, vote with the republicans.
There certainly wasn’t one shred of sanity or concern for public safety in this thing. It was clearly a “we broke the law, got caught, so now will change the law” bill.
Q: If Obama thinks we’re going to vote for him, no matter what he does, just to beat McCain, then what is it exactly that will persuade him to actually care about our values?
Recently, Obama started wearing the flag pin. While I get attacked anytime I bring up the flag pin, the fact is, I saw this as a sign of weakness in the face of a little opposition. Right when the republican crybaby chorale was warming up, and trying to paint him as unpatriotic for not wearing a 50 cent piece of tin on his lapel, or more aptly put, wearing his “patriotism on his sleeve”, …or lapel, as it were…he caves.
His campaign comes up with this phony photo op where some troops hand him a flag pin and walla. He’s wearing the pin.
Why?
So he could look more like Bush?
Some tried to profess that he was “picking his fights”, but what I saw, was a man who caved instantly on the “little fights” and so naturally would cave when the big bouts came.
And he did.
Public Financing turnaround. Declaring to not only extend George Bush’s Constitutional nightmare program “Faith Based Initiatives”, and now FISA?
Even on Iraq, although he claims he hasn’t changed his position, he still made an obvious effort to give himself an out, using the exact same cop out used by Bush for not ending the war;
I’ll listen to the commanders on the ground”
It seems to me that we are doing precisely what we accuse the right wing of doing, day in and day out.
Condemning the opposition candidate for the same things we’re giving a pass to, for our own.
Am I the “only” one who feels this way? And if so,can someone explain to me (without calling me a neocon stooge) what it is again exactly,that makes us different them then again?
Cause I really wanna know.
lol. two typo corrections.
Them then again = than them again (say that three times fast)
and
Declaring to not only extend George Bush’s Constitutional nightmare program “Faith Based Initiatives”, =
Declaring to not only extend George Bush’s Constitutional nightmare program “Faith Based Initiatives”, but to expand them.
Sorry for the typos. I type this stuff quick and spell checkers are for sissy’s, lol.
Additionally, I’d like to hear anyones comments on whether or not they feel like I do, that Hilary Clinton may be still in this thing.
She never really conceded the nomination to Obama. Listen to her speeches. She acknowleged the support for him, and promised him, but she did not concede her delegates.
And so far, her “support” for him has been getting him to go out and beg for money to pay off her campaign debt.
Also I noticed Obama seemed to take his turn to the right, right after her people started nosing around in his campaign. I mean come on, Cowboy hats, vacationing on the fourth of July in Montana, eating steak and wearing flag pins while promising to extend Bush’s illegal “Faith Based Initiatives” program?
This sounds like her schtick, not his.
And then, she suddenly changed her vote to Nay on HR 6034, this past Wednesday, as if she had convinced Obama she was voting for it, then at the last minute taking a hard left.
I still think she may be planning a coup at the convention this fall, and honestly, I’m wondering if she doesn’t deserve it.
After all, anyone smart enough to fool the presumptive nominee into turning into the oppositions darling child, while at the same time putting herself out there as the bastion of our values, pretty much demonstrated they at least are no dummy.
And we’ve had “dummy” in the White House, long enough.
Dear Professor Turley,
Thanks for your hard work on behalf of Dr. Sami al-Arian. I thought you’d like to know that Melva Underbakke will present the film “USA v. al-Arian” at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tarpon Springs, Florida, tomorrow, and we’ll be reading excerpts from articles by Robert Fisk and Charley Reese regarding Dr. al-Arian, and playing his daughter’s “Ballad of Sami al-Arian,” with the congregation singing along. I hope that a number of our members and friends will communicate with Dr. al-Arian, and that he will be granted bail while he awaits deportation.
I myself may be going to jail this coming Tuesday for stopping a float I believe demeans and exploits American Indians in a local parade. I have been allowed to remain free since my conviction in 2004, and managed pro se to have my petition for a writ of certiorari accepted, docketed and rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court–I raised questions about being denied a writ of habeas corpus in lower courts. Semper fi, Dan Callaghan, Social Justice and Worship Committee chairperson, Unitarian Universalist Church of Tarpon Springs; president, Society of Citizens Against Racism (SCAR); member Tampa Bay Downs Racetrack Chaplaincy; Librarian, West Pasco Historical Society, convicted felon!
U.S. AIRLINE PROFILING ATTACK-HOMELAND SECURITY VICIOUS ATTACK-ON CANADIANS (MY MOTHER AND I) -WE EXPOSE ORDEAL: http://WWW.AARONJAMESSTORY.COM-KIDNAPPING ATTEMPTS IN RESPONSE!!! US. NOW USING CAN. GOVERNMENT TO TRY TO KIDNAP US TO U.S./TORTURE TO SILENCE US-3 attempts on my life over last 2 weeks(july 31/08)!! Background: Oct 27/07 Wpg Pol broke into/raided my home/ ATTEMPTED MY ABDUCTION TO U.S. on behalf of their counterparts , the MN police in U.S. to silence our on line protest (AARONJAMESSTORY(DOT)COM) after my mother and I were profiled/attacked on a U.S. aircraft. Jess Zebron step son former Chief Ewatski is involved and is one amongst 4 Winnipeg Police ‘Officers’ who came under charges as reported in Jan 15/08 Winnipeg Free Press/ Winnipeg Sun Columns. All 4 of these charged Winnipeg police ‘officers’ were amongst the 10 police who held guns to my head raided my home, stole belongings sending them to Minneapolis in the U.S. and held me 12 hours no food no water, while threatening and making maneuvers towards my abduction to the U.S.
My website fully exposes the corruption within the Winnipeg police department: Human Rights report by Dianna Scarth and Jerry Woods cites racial brutality attacks upon natives and blacks outside the city perimeters… Canadian Press report by Tamara King cites unprecidented levels of corruption and perjury or brutality charges against police systemic across Canada.
See my site winnipegpoliceexposed(dot)blogspot(dot)com and you will see the Winnipeg Police exposed in systemic rapes, brutalities, drug dealings, gang affiliations, cross border abductions (of which my case is just one amongst many) racism, and systemic abuses.
Total 11 attempts upon my life by Wpg police-they are trying to abduct me prior to Sept3/08 hearing at which we can expose their involvement in our attempted cross border abductions/ kidnapping and jail them for felony acts!
They have gone so far as to terrorized family friends and associates – have also terrorized my 64 yr old mother upon one abduction attempt, demanding entry yet I was not present. We both now suffer chest pains and I have been hospitalized several times as a result of the combination of the original attack and 3 years ongoing trauma/ fear for lives.
Winnipeg Police chief Keith Mc Caskill is deeply involved. He is an FBI graduate with liason to MN police. MN police and Wpg Police Similar MN police are now undergoing lawsuit for KKK threats upon their own black police and Black/Muslim congressman Keith Ellison, and in Minneapolis where we were profiled/attacked 21 blacks are imprisoned for every 1 white due to judicial corruption documented by the Council on Crime and Justice.
CORROBORATIVE CONTACTS: Our Journalist Lesley Hughes (204) 275 5757 e:lesleyhughescanada@yahoo.com, also: Roch Tasse International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group: rocht@iclmg.ca, Communities United Against Police Brutality Michelle Gross (CUAPB.org) 612 703 1612 e:mgresist@minn.net,
(url link error correction http://www.AARONJAMESSTORY.COM )
U.S. AIRLINE PROFILING ATTACK-HOMELAND SECURITY VICIOUS ATTACK-ON CANADIANS (MY MOTHER AND I) -WE EXPOSE ORDEAL: http://WWW.AARONJAMESSTORY.COM
KIDNAPPING ATTEMPTS IN RESPONSE!!! US. NOW USING CAN. GOVERNMENT TO TRY TO KIDNAP US TO U.S./TORTURE TO SILENCE US-3 attempts on my life over last 2 weeks(july 31/08)!! Background: Oct 27/07 Wpg Pol broke into/raided my home/ ATTEMPTED MY ABDUCTION TO U.S. on behalf of their counterparts , the MN police in U.S. to silence our on line protest (AARONJAMESSTORY(DOT)COM) after my mother and I were profiled/attacked on a U.S. aircraft. Jess Zebron step son former Chief Ewatski is involved and is one amongst 4 Winnipeg Police ‘Officers’ who came under charges as reported in Jan 15/08 Winnipeg Free Press/ Winnipeg Sun Columns. All 4 of these charged Winnipeg police ‘officers’ were amongst the 10 police who held guns to my head raided my home, stole belongings sending them to Minneapolis in the U.S. and held me 12 hours no food no water, while threatening and making maneuvers towards my abduction to the U.S.
I actually met THE Ernesto Miranda in the late 1970’s.
A very small man, physically; about 5′6′?
Mr. Turley–I’m interested in the Area 51 suit in which you represented several of the sickened workers. In your opinion, besides getting the government to admit there actually was an Area 51, did you find that there was a good outcome of the trial?
PS Love your work on Countdown.
Dear Mr. Turley,
Watching the Rachel Maddow show this evening, I was saddened to learn how close we are to a complete and utter disregard of the possible crimes surrounding torture, illegal wiretapping and special rendition that occurred with impunity during the current Bush administration. I’m sure you are as busy as I am, but I can’t imagine where to begin in affecting a change in the direction this is going. If you have any information, other than contacting my Senator (Mitch McConnell…you understand my frustration on this count, I’m sure) and Congressman, I would appreciate you pointing me in a hopeful direction.
Thank you for your time, and for your consistent voice of reason and the rule of law.
Sincerely,
K. Medford Moreland, Psy.D.
Prof. Turley,
Please add my voice from the wilderness to the list of grieving citizens who fear Ben Franklin’s Grand Experiment may have just failed – or may very soon if our new President does not officially and publicly reverse our current President’s unprecedented violations of the American inheritance.
In trying to understand my governments’ behavior since 2001, I’ve come to wonder whether these otherwise educated men actually believe they’ve violated no law because their actual definition of the rule of law is inseparable from the rule of institutions. Could it be that there is a very subtle slide in American culture that excuses violations of Constitutional principle when done in the name of public interest – such as homeland security?
Could it be that state and federal judges are increasingly barring Constitutional complaints from the courthouse in the name of laches because they believe it more important to preserve the authority of government even against the promises of our Constitutions? Could it be that this is how Socrates meant that democracy gives way to despotism?
contact regarding law suit referral regarding free speech violations vs -usa govt
roger wiegand
511/12 Chamberlain St.
FLushing, mi. 48433
810-549-6310
Dear Professor Turley,
While watching Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann shows almost everyday, I have been wondering why it is that no one ever seems interested in mentioning the fact that President Bush’s father was, until recently, a CEO of the Carlyle group and Vice-President Cheney a CEO with Halliburton, two companies which benefit greatly from the war since their business is in defense, armaments, tanks, and oil. Is it not a conflict of interest for these two persons to be able to wage wars from which they will profit financially and more to the point, personally? Why is this issue never mentioned? As a French national living here, I am very surprised by the fact that the medias seemingly keep wondering why president Bush wishes to continue the war indefinitely.
I always enjoy your appearances on MSNBC as you always have very wise, intelligent and eloquent answers and I would greatly appreciate if you gave your thoughts on this topic.
Thank you very much in advance,
Evelyne.
f jonathan turley he’s total left wing lieral jerk off !!
How about a post on this:
“In a rare public ruling, a secret federal appeals court has said telecommunications companies must cooperate with the government to intercept international phone calls and e-mail of American citizens suspected of being spies or terrorists.”
“In rejecting the company’s complaint, the FISA appeals court found that the administration had so carefully carried out the Protect America Act that it was not in violation of the Fourth Amendment. It concluded that the procedures put in place under the law properly balanced the constitutional rights of American citizens and the national security interests of the government.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/washington/16fisa.html?_r=1&hp
Dear Mr. Turley,
Thank you for you fighting for our civil rights.
Regarding Florida State law:
Under normal circumstances a private entity has the legal authority to give a trespass warning to anyone not licensed, invited or authorized to be on its property where there is no illegal discriminatory purpose, even though the public is regularily invited onto the property. But the issue here is whether an educational receiving funds (payments & benefits) from the state and federal governments is restricted from issuing trespass warnings to people using its facilities. Also can said institution, designated as a 501(c)3, “not for profit” still maintain its “private Property” status while still receiving said state and federal monies?
Thank you for your time and assistance.
Regards,
Josh Levitz
Email: mnb74777@yahoo.com
Dear Mr. Turley,
I discovered your site as a result of Paul Craig Roberts’ newest article posted at Information Clearing House which cites your quote regarding Washington DC as a place where “principles go to die.” Amen, brother. I was amazed at the vast collection of legal cases in your news section, after which I came to the commentary page and read the latest article on the new Administration, which I have called ObamaNation since his (s)election. The personality cult has been long predictable, and his avenue to continue to feed his finance masters taxpayer funds they gambled away the new rule of law.
As a youth, my greatest hero, after Eddie Matthews, of course, was Clarence Darrow. I read every book I could find about him, and decided to go into the law. However, in my pre-law program, it became most evident that Darrow’s brand of lawyering was hardly the standards fueling my classmates. It was a sad discovery. Even more depressing is the fact those are the men and women whom have created the death chamber for principles in every state house they infect, all happily dancing to the tune of the banksters, or rather, fraudsters, that juice up their campaigns. Many of these vile creatures are also a part of AIPAC, which has orchestrated the situation well summed up by Buchanan’s description of Congress as Israeli occupied territory. This brings me to the spy case of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, whose trial has been repeatedly delayed. It’s beginning to look like the Department of Justice (sic) is also Israeli occupied territory.
Thanks for the great site, Jonathan, it’s a real boon for us legal junkies out here.
Best,
Phil Toler
I am wondering if you can help me.
I have been held illegally for 14 years by some attorneys and the PTO.
The last time i fired an Atty. in sept of 2008, the PTO was forced to let him go.
I still did not know who it was.
so i UPS a package to the virginia State Bar with Mail and Wire Fraud. i had earlier given it to the Post master where i live.
The Post office immediately retired all the employees.
still nothing no files.
so again on Jan 22, 2009 i hand deliver it to the new Post Master. and BINGO the florida bar sends me a letter dated Jan 22, 2009. Telling me to re complain, that they are sorry!And that the Atty needs to return my files by Feb5, 2009.
My Problem is constitutional.
The virginia Bar sends a letter too dated Jan 22, 2009. It says I can’t blame this one or that one. but that’s it.
I could go on and on but i won’t
My home Phone and Cell Phone are tapped. i am at My Brothers writing this to you. .
Still no files. the atty. won’t give them up. He has been telling me in writing for all this time to get lost he doesn’t have them.
I think it may have been a high up PTO Employee that started the Felonies against me.
Can you help me
Sarah McPherson
PO Box 504
Decaturville, Tennessee 38329
731 852 2865/731 549 0697
731 984 7247 is My Brothers phone #
I am wondering if you can help me.
I have been held illegally for 14 years by some attorneys and the PTO.
The last time i fired an Atty. in sept of 2008, the PTO was forced to let him go.
I still did not know who it was.
so i UPS a package to the virginia State Bar with Mail and Wire Fraud. i had earlier given it to the Post master where i live.
The Post office immediately retired all the employees.
still nothing no files.
so again on Jan 22, 2009 i hand deliver it to the new Post Master. and BINGO the florida bar sends me a letter dated Jan 22, 2009. Telling me to re complain, that they are sorry!And that the Atty needs to return my files by Feb5, 2009.
My Problem is constitutional.
The virginia Bar sends a letter too dated Jan 22, 2009. It says I can’t blame this one or that one. but that’s it.
I could go on and on but i won’t
My home Phone and Cell Phone are tapped. i am at My Brothers writing this to you. .
Still no files. the atty. won’t give them up. He has been telling me in writing for all this time to get lost he doesn’t have them.
I think it may have been a high up PTO Employee that started the Felonies against me.
Can you help me
Sarah McPherson
PO Box 504
Decaturville, Tennessee 38329
731 852 2865/731 549 0697
731 984 7247 is My Brothers phone #
During the previous administration, I worked for Dare Mighty Things, the federal contractor that provided technical support for the faith-based initiative known as the Compassion Capital Fund. Much was made about the Bush Administration’s innovativeness in providing public dollars to support the work of faith-based organizations. This was inaccurate. Government support through a network of grants and contracts has been provided to religious organizations for non-sectarian social services for the past 50 years.
What was new was allowing federal funds to be used to support religious and quasi-religious activities under the guise of social services. This happened with a wink and a nod through the Capital Compassion Fund and related faith-based initiatives. This cannot be allowed to continue in the Obama Administration.
Additionally, I witnessed first hand, technical assistance training on how CCF grantees could legally discriminate against people they didn’t want to hire based on religious predilections. As an American, I was and continue to be offended that taxpayer dollars would be used to exclude any group of people. This, as well, cannot be allowed to continue.
Yet, beyond these challenges, there is the wider, Constitutional issue of the separation of church and state. The previous administration – certainly not the most respectful of the Constitution in general – somehow believed that the separation clause was up for grabs. It is not.
We are all diminished when government can use its substantial weight to assault the Constitution by funding the peculiarities of religious entities. Let’s hope that President Obama, as a constitutional scholar, will safeguard these vital protections by curtailing the errors of the past faith-based initiative.
501cweb:
That’s quite an indictment but not particularly surprising. I always admire insiders who value the public’s interests above their own personal ones. Thank you for your service to us all.
Here is an interesting story on property seizure in Texas.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6252365.html
Here are my two questions for you:
1) Instead of tax breaks on new cars, should the government guarantees or backup all new loans or lease on new equipment’s or fuel efficient car’s & SUV’s with 20 mpg or higher?
(That will help the US reduce up to 40% on fuel consumption and at the same that will create sales tax for the cities, save the cars industry, create new jobs and accelerate the economy without bailout. And based on my personal study, new car owners usually goes out more frequently and spend 2-3 times more than before specially on new clothing, movies, restaurant, malls etc…. And as you can see the risks are very small, but the benefits are greater).
2) There are millions of Americans just like me that would like to donate directly to the government at least $100 to help pay off America’s, What can I do?
Thank you!
Serge P.
West Palm Beach.
DOJ released Bush anti-terror memos
Prof. Turley,
Heard a brief exchange with you on NPR re bill to grant DC residents voting representatives in the House. You stated you favored representation but object to the method being proposed and you have proposed alternative method that passes Constitutional muster. Can you a post a link(s) to a statement(s) of your proposed alternative?
Eric S. Haiman, J.D., Ph.D.
Mr. Haiman,
This link to Prof. Turley’s blog regarding the D.C. topic might at least get you started.
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/01/27/congress-re-considers-dc-vote-legislation/
Is there a story here?
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30917
No, no story there, but thanks for the link to a domestic terror site.
Wed. 3/18/09 6:20am
Professor Turley;
While I have great respect for you, I’m writing to ask you to correct your comments from last nights C.D. w/ K.O. show. You said that Senator Dodd’s actions factored into the AIG bonus fiasco. I urge you to read Glenn Greenwald’s “Salon” blog as well as Jane Hamsher At Firedoglake.
Tom Abraitis
Tom:
I have read both columns and updated the blog. I agree that Dodd is not entirely at fault and that it appears to be the Obama Administration that pushed for the language. However, I still believe that the blame is primarily that of Congress which allowed such language to be included and pushed for a rapid passage of the law without greater restrictions. If Dodd pushed back (which I am willing to believe that he did), he still allowed the language to be included as did his colleagues. I do strongly believe that these excellent columns at firedoglake and Salon should demand answers from the Obama administration.
JT
http://newsok.com/edmond-family-fighting-for-soldiers-freedom/article/3357101?custom_click=lead_story_title
Thought this article was of interest
Prof. Turley,
Have you written or spoken about precedent for holding attorneys (think Bybee, Gonzales, et al) criminally liable for opinions given to “clients” to provide legal cover for the clients’ subsequent crimes? What is the crime? Aiding and abetting? Conspiracy?
Roger Frisch
Active Thermite Discovered in 911 WTC Dust :: JUST PUBLISHED ::
No one can be to busy looking the the torture revelations to research this and what it means. ALL of it is connected!!
The Open Chemical Physics Journal Vol 2 2009
“Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe”
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM
or just google the title.
Dear Mr. Turley,
The most sensational and historical report of the post 9-11 era has been published by Dr. Steven Jones and other scientists, and not a single media source in the United States has gone forward with this report. I am speaking about the report which conclusively appears to prove without any doubt that nano-thermite was used to demolish the Twin Towers and WTC 7 that fateful day.
Because of your high morals and fearless approach to the issues of our time, I wish to contribute this information for your review and dissemination to your network of scholars and freinds in the media.
YOUTUBE VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_tf25lx_3o
REPORT: http://www.bollyn.com/public/Active_Thermite_at_WTC.pdf
Most respectfully,
Mickey Armstrong
Dear Professor Turley,
I was terribly disappointed with the presidents press conference and his careful maneuvering around the issue of investigations of torture.
I was thinking to myself, ‘our new president is just as guilty as the perpetrators and is making the justice department just as political as his predecessor’.
It seems the possibility of even the appearance of an investigation is dead. Am I overly pessimistic?
cheers!
With the greatest respect, Professor Turley, what do any of these discussions have to do with your Latest Column and what do those others comments under your Bio section have to do with your Bio?
Does this mean that these 2 sections are where I can best post off-topic subjects I am interested in, because I too might like to do so.
Respectfully submitted
Re: THREE LEGAL TRUTHS: THE CASE FOR PROSECUTING WAR CRIMES BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
Dear Professor Turley,
I am curious to know, with torture being a crime under both domestic and international law, who, exactly, can and should bring charges? Why can’t any American citizen bring charges or initiate an investigation? Why can’t you, or John Dean, for example, bring charges? If “the failure to prosecute war crimes committed by your own government is an offense of the same order as the original war crime,” then who is culpable? Who will be brought up on charges of NOT prosecuting?
I appreciate your excellent commentaries.
Mike Daymon
Excellent commentaries….
If one was to come to my country, into my home, take me to some hidden prison and torture me I would ensure that the society that did it would have an enemy for generations.
“Rule of Law” in this country has become “Rule of Whimsy” our international activities reflect what is going on in this country. For example in Virginia I was assaulted by Manassas police in a CVS store, in front of cameras. I could not get our attorneys to obtain the store video.
http://home.comcast.net/~styx.cml-lsm/01/Cases/OurIssues04.htm
Dear Professor Turley,
As a non-citizen of the United States, I’m deeply and gratefully heartened to find your views broadcast for consumption by millions of audience members on American national (and international) airwaves.
I would be honoured (Canadian spelling, eh?) to obtain your responses to the two following questions:
1. How can I help?
Completing a B.A. in Political Science and History (McGill University, Montreal), I developed an extraordinary interest in the Bush administration’s military and foreign policies following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. In 2002-2003, I felt particularly impotent because I’m a citizen of neither Iraq nor the U.S. Who gives a damn what I think? Once our government was persuaded to refuse to join the “Coalition of the Willing,” the remaining work to be done was in America. Out of desperation, I added my voice to millions of others addressed directly to Americans (e.g. “This News Is 12 Years Old,” http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/03/27_news.html). Now that you’re championing the cause for prosecuting Bush administration officials for violating U.S. law, I once again find myself wondering: “Who gives a damn what I think?” Yet, I cannot help but feel that, as members of one global community, in which the rule of law is almost universally praised, it is every single country in the world that was injured by the Bush administration’s assault on existing international legal structures. Given my combined interests in obtaining a legal degree and re-establishing proper precedent in cases of commission of the supreme international crime (i.e. aggressive war), I wonder if I should: (a) set my sights on working at/for the International Criminal Court (ICC); (b) stay in Canada and work to ensure we abide by our obligations under the treaty of which we are a signatory that makes us a member of the ICC, expected to both refuse war criminals admission into Canada and, failing that, arrest war criminals known to be on Canadian territory (George W. Bush will be speaking in Toronto next month); (c) move to the U.S. and become a citizen to work shoulder to shoulder (for a time, anyway) with others dedicated to seeing war crimes punished and prevented in the future.
2. Might not a “Truth Commission” make plain — and perhaps inevitable, assuming crimes are formally reported — the need for prosecutions, regardless even of the preferences its panel members express?
Although this is a hopeful view, from my perspective, it’s apparently no less so than expecting the Obama administration to do the right thing by appointing a special prosecutor from the start and of its own volition. There’s clearly no escape from politics. Could a commission start building the special prosecutor’s case so that, once political momentum resulting from a conclusive, Congressional accounting of Bush-era crimes both reduces the political cost and brings to a critical mass public pressure to do so, the Obama administration might then wilfully appoint him or her to carry out a mandate without fearing the political costs? True, politics are, in theory, irrelevant here. The law is the law. A special prosecutor should already be at work.
For the sake of hope, I would love to read your positive thoughts (if there can be any) on the following conclusion of Yav Katshung Joseph’s “Truth Commissions and Prosecutions:
Two Sides of the Same Coin?” (Mr. Joseph is a human rights lawyer and lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo):
“In many transition periods two methods are used to establish record of grave human rights crimes following a conflict/war: prosecutions at national or international level and truth commissions with various names, which investigate situations and submits reports. Both of these two methods are not sufficient and therefore, the need to complement each other. There is a growing demand for transitional justice mechanisms such as truth commissions, around the world. The problem however, it is to test if all those mechanisms imply good faith. Is the effort designed to generate more truth, more justice, reparations, and genuine institutional reform? If so, they are welcome. If the objective is to evade the State’s and society’s legal, ethical and political obligations to their people, they should be rejected. The answer should be found in the design of the process itself, but also in the degree of participation, consultation, and transparency that surrounds them (e.g. of South Africa). Moreover, we should start by avoiding seeing truth commissions as an alternative to prosecutions. Even if many of them have been accompanied by grants of amnesty to the major perpetrators of human rights crimes, viewing truth commissions, as substitute for prosecutions is not a right way and can lead to contradictions.”
“Therefore, we should try to consider truth commissions as complementary to national and international prosecutions, not to substitute them. They are two sides of the same coin: transitional justice. However, the processes must be sequenced in a way that one does not affect the effectiveness of the other. Accordingly, Scharf has said, “a country should not rush ahead with prosecutions at the cost of political instability and social upheaval or that every single perpetrator must be brought to justice, an impossible task in most countries that have experienced widespread human rights abuses. By documenting abuses and preserving evidence, a truth commission can enable a country to delay prosecutions until the international community has acted, or the new government is secure enough to take such action against members of the former regime [20].” Furthermore, it may be useful to examine the utility of conducting prosecutions after Truth commissions as a means of uncovering more “truth” that was not revealed through the process. Because, like in the South African case, if those people who did not apply for amnesty or those whom the amnesty was refused, do not face trials, someone could say that there is de facto amnesty and therefore, the purpose of a TRC was just to shield some perpetrators. In this hypothesis, the process will violate the international law and will not be in the interest of justice (society as a whole). So, we should look on the possibilities to trials for those persons in order to avoid impunity, contradictions and allow the roots of a just society to take hold.”
http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/general/2008/0327samecoin.htm
Professor, thank you sincerely for all you do.
Olivier Jarvis Lavoie,
Well said. And good school too. I have a friend who was McGill Law. Sharp guy and a decent human (not that correlation is causation, but there it is).
Hi Jonathan,
Thank you for your work. Re: preventative detention. This is already legal in the U.S., specifically with sexual offenders who have completed their sentence. If they are determined to pose a future threat they may be held, without trial, indefinitely for the rest of their life. A case from Washington state did make it to the Supreme Court and the law was upheld. Obama is merely utilizing a law, put in place – regrettably – by liberals (for the protection of women and children, i.e. a “public safety” argument)in this new context. As you have repeatedly remarked, laws for one thing can be used anyplace else someone wishes and usually are once they become an established principle.
Stephen Buhner
I am a great admirer of your work, although I might be accused of prejudice judging from my last name. My family has often remarked that you look a great deal like my late grandfather Orville and father Richard.
My cousin is now putting together a family tree and we are wondering if you would like to know the results or possibly contribute your family history to see if there is a connection somewhere.
If you desire more information about me, please contact me at the email address provided with this comment. I will try to provide you with any information you need to assure you of my legitimacy. Thank you in advance for your consideration.
Subject: Using radio communications equipment as attack weapons, including to commit radio operator assisted false prosecutions against innocent and unknowing people,
Section I – Court martialed and legally convicted escaped prisoners, more relative-perpetrators of the Jensen Family, still pretending to be qualified FBI and military personnel operating illegally as a foreign enemy paramilitary mafia inside of the US Dept. of Homeland Security since 2003, have been kidnapping legally qualified law enforcement investigators and prosecutors, since January 15, 1993, just to keep themselves from being brought to justice at the same time. by: GS Phillip L. Davis, Sr. (Revision B10-1 30-May-2009)
1. The satan worshipping evil spirits of the Bush family and the Jensen family, operating as the Antichrist ex-FBI/Paramilitary Homeland Security Government Takeover Mafia of Satan, in the clandestine commission of the 112 years long Electronic Spiritual and Physical War of Armageddon against the Creation of GOD since 1897, have been operating as a threat to national security, resulting from how they have been using radio communications equipment as attack weapons, including to commit radio operator assisted false prosecutions against innocent and unknowing people, such as spiritual assault and battery crime manufacturing, using verbal and non verbal radio communications being subliminally transmitted into the minds of unknowing people from inside of the borders of the United States, to cause other people to commit violent crimes in remote locations, is also how 98% of all crimes have been committed by other people on this side of GOD’s Creation since 1897 at the same time. (Revision B10-2 30-May-2009)
2. Resulting from those medical illness causing body tampering supervising perpetrators illegal use of radio communications equipment to take illegal remote metabolic control of the physical metabolisms of unknowing people, is how satan inspired and cocaine induced destructive intentioned criminal motivation operates inside of the minds of those physical evil spirits, as those relentless evil spirits do not want to have to leave innocent and unknowing people alone, just to ease their evil spiritual jealousy of other people having successful and prosperous, lifestyles, and is also how those all legally convicted and sentenced to be legally executed, psychopathic crime committing perpetrators are also obtaining their perverted and necromaniacal homosexual gratification they also have a continuous and insatiable desire to obtain fulfillment only from being in the willful commission of at the same time, they can only obtain while knowing they are destroying the Creation of GOD also at the same time. (Revision B9-2 24-JUL-2008)
3. Why, have those legally convicted perpetrators of the Jensen family Cook County Judge’s Mafia, been using radio communications equipment as attack weapons to commit high felony crimes of insurrection against the people, from the inside of that illegally operating electronic espionage control room allegedly inside of apartment #3927 inside of the Marina City Condominiums, located at 300 N. State St., in Chicago Illinois, being illegally used as a crime manufacturing/electronic espionage facility, privately owned and operated by the Bush family and the Jensen families, I have also been awarded the legal ownership of since January 9, 1993, is also still being falsely associated with the US Dept. of Justice, and while also having nothing to do with the legally operating US Dept. of Justice at the same time, and radio communications equipment is also being used much differently as attack weapons, by the Jensen family Cook County Judge’s Mafia, being supervised by ex-Judge Henry A. Budzinski (Jensen), William Rehnquist (Jensen), John Van de Kamp (Jensen), Eugene Wilson (Jensen), and Stansfield Turner (Jensen), from how radio communications and remote audio-video surveillance equipment is also being used inside of the offices of the more legally operating FBI, located at 2111 W. Roosevelt Rd. in Chicago Illinois, also at the same time? 7/4/2008 6:09:37 AM (Revision B10-1 23-JUL-2008)
4. Those already legally convicted radio operator-perpetrators of the Jensen family Pasadena FBI Mafia of Satan, and the Jensen Family Cook County Judge’s Mafia, operating illegally and seditiously, from the inside of US Dept. of Justice Facilities located in Pasadena Ca., and also in Chicago Illinois, being used for spiritual assault and battery crime manufacturing, is also how 98% of all crimes have been committed by other people all over the world since 1897, also for in home and spiritual thought privacy invading illegal search warrant and intellectual property embezzling investigations, as headquarters facilities and supply centers for their co-perpetrators of the local body tampering field patrol mafias pretending to be paramilitary while not having the legal right to be operating off base in civilian locations, and are also being used as phony and illegal prisons, privately owned by the Jensen family and the Bush families, for holding kidnapped20hostages for many years at a time, at the same time.
5.00 They have also been operating seditiously and subversively as the Antichrist Communist-Imperialist Government Takeover Mafia of Satan, a secret society of membership card carrying satan worshippers, in the clandestine and illegal and high crimes commission of radio operator assisted, radio operator transmitted, and electronic espionage equipment using perpetrators of insurrection, treason, spiritual assault and battery street crime and war crime manufacturing, premeditated false criminal prosecutions, hillside strangler false prosecutions, body tampering, medical homicide conspiracies, including cancer, strokes and heart attacks, implanting espionage transducers inside of the bodies of unknowing people, radio operator transmitted and mercenary committed destructive terrorism, premeditated disasters, underground nuclear earthquakes, r.f. remote detonation of explosive devices, r.f. remote ignition of incendiary devices, remote control of personal and business computer systems. of electronic audio/video equipment, remote controlled automobile electronic ignitions, diagnostic on board computers, and other electrical systems, destructive weather control (including the cyclone in Bogalay, Myanmar on Friday, May 9, 2008) Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Hurricane Gustav right now, military, industrial, and computer sabotage, fraud and swindling and embezzling conspiracies, while also in the 112 inclusive years long commission of the Electronic Spiritual and Physical War of Armageddon against the Creation of GOD at the same time, as their m.o. is only to destroy GOD’s Creation and to also steal valuable and marketable property away from the people also at the same time. (Revision B9-4 01-Sep-2008)
5.10 William Rehnquist (Jensen), or John Proger just said he has been responsible for being in the commission of over 85% of all radio operator transmitted stroke and heart attack frame up conspiracies against unknowing people living on this side of GOD’s Creation since 1957, averaging over 100,000 victims per year in the United States alone, and was also one of his illegal duties and responsibilities as a supervisor of the Pasadena US Facility of the Jensen Family Antichrist Government Mafia of Satan at the same time. 12/13/2008 7:57:17 PM (Revision B9-9 13-Dec-2008)
6.00 They are also still in the radio operator assisted commission of spiritual assault and battery crime manufacturing, to cause unknowing people to commit all kinds of crimes in remote locations all over the Cook County area, and also through out the world from single source locations, is what also makes people hear ‘voices’ being transmitted into their auditory nerves by radio operators, and is also how 98% of all crimes have been committed by other people all over the world since 1897, while they are also being radio operator controlled also at the same time in violation of 18USC373, 18USC2236, 18USC2261A, 18USC1623, 18USC1001, 18USC631, ; (Revision B9-4 10-JUL-2008)
6.10 ‘Spiritual Assault and Battery’, (yankee voodoo part 2) is the voice radio operator transmitted remote crime manufacturing method the Jensen Family ex FBI Mafia of Satan Worshippers have been in the subversive, seditious, and clandestine commission of since 1908 that causes other people to commit crimes in remote locations, and is how they have been clandestinely operating as the remote crime manufacturing primary perpetrators of 98% of all crimes have been committed by other people inside of the United States and throughout the world since 1897, from the inside of illegally operating crime manufacturing US Facilities, they have been using as their headquarters since 1905, located in Pasadena, Ca. at the same time. (Revision B10 10-May-2009)
6.20 ‘Spiritual Assault and Battery’, remote crime manufacturing (yankee voodoo part 2) is also being committed from the inside of another illegally operating remote crime manufacturing US Department of Defense Communications Facility located on the JPL/NASA site also in Pasadena, Ca. that is also the headquarters of the Antichrist Paramilitary Government Mafia of Satan Worshippers, operating illegally as the radio operator transmitted death penalty penal code violating, war crime manufacturing arm of the US Department of Defense since 1947, including radio operator transmitted remote racketeering frame up conspiracies, international conflicts, and remote war crimes manufacturing, remote military sabotage, remote metabolic control, premeditated disasters, destructive weather control, and high crimes of mass destruction that includes the use of nuclear devices including the 9-11-2001, radio operator transmitted nuclear detonation, implosion, and resulting demolition of the World Trade Center in New York City, at the same time. (Revision B10 10-May-2009)
6.30 The perpetrators of Spiritual Assault and Battery remote crime manufacturing (yankee voodoo part 2) have still not been brought to justice for being in the illegal and seditious, clandestine and continuous commission of that voice radio operator transmitted remote crime manufacturing method and the real world reduction in the amount of crimes being committed by other people in remote locations, results just from the investigation of my complaint report called Spiritual Assault and Battery that also resulted in the Jensen family FBI Mafia of death penalty crime manufacturing satan worshippers only being told to reduce the amount of their radio operator transmitted Spiritual Assault and Battery remote crime manufacturing conspiracies they have been in the almost exclusive commission of themselves since 1897 and nothing else. (Revision B10 10-May-2009)
7. Why, did Bill Clinton and the United States Congress allow the court martialed, legally convicted, and sentenced to be legally executed by September 14, 1994, Crime Bill Mafia being supervised by Stansfield Turner (Jensen), to continue to stay on this side of GOD’s Creation, by passing that ill conceived and satan inspired Crime Bill back on August 19, 1994 that also authorizes the death penalty commission of federal interstate stalking, pursuing, body tampering, medical illness frame up conspiracies including cancer, maiming and disabling violations, and is also being used to jealously disguise my discovery of Spiritual Assault and Battery, the real cause of 98% of all crimes being committed by other people throughout the world at the same time? 9/1/2008 5:04:27 PM
8.00 They are also still in the radio operator assisted commission of body tampering and medical illness frame up conspiracies, especially the legally convicted relative-perpetrators, William Rehnquist (Jensen) and the Jensen family Cook County Judge’s Mafia, that includes using their field patrol body tampering perpetrators to clandestinely implant foreign substances and materials inside of the bodies of unknowing people while they are sleeping at the same time, including: cancer germs and disease germ bacteria, espionage transducers (crystal radio particles of germanium), that also includes removing the eyeballs of unknowing people to attach video surveillance transducers to their optic nerves while sleeping, ongoing since 1938, so they can jealously take illegal, clandestine, radio operator transmitted and real world electronic demon possession control of the physical metabolisms of unknowing people in remote locations, including to also see and hear what their victims can see and hear while also being used as walking telecommunications satellites also at the same time, along with committing radio operator transmitted yankee voodoo remote metabolic control, or, remote body tampering corporal injury false prosecutions, to also cause unknowing people to experience heart, stroke, and asthma attacks, epileptic seizures, forced urination and bowel movements, migraine headaches, nose bleeding, hypertension, hypo tension, toothaches, throat tickling resulting in forced coughing, vomiting spells, involuntary yawning, sneezing, runny nose syndrome, ringing in the ears, spots before the eyes, blurred vision, double vision , cross-eyed syndrome, tongue biting, whiplash, muscle twitching, inhibiting the growth of scalp hair, baldness, receding hairlines; and other kinds of hair loss conspiracies, remote control of blood pressure, artificially caused sexual arousal, physical disfiguring cosmetic alterations, mutilation, and body vandalism, including by changing the skin complexions of unknowing victims while sleeping using skin dyes and also resulting internal chemical injections, breaking teeth, spots on the eyeballs, cysts and tumors, changing facial structures (monkey face frame up), artificially caused impotence, fainting, arthritis, phony infections causing pain, swelling, inflammation, and tissue damage, resulting from heating up espionage transducers already implanted inside of the bodies of unknowing people to transforn them into tissue damaging inflammation causing transducers, and if espionage transducers already attached to the optic nerves are also being heated up it can result in blindness also at the same time, have also been putting people to sleep even while driving automobiles, while operating aircraft, and also to prevent them from waking up while their bodies are being tampered with also at the same time, and is also how they have been clandestinely murdering over 25,000 people per year in Chicago alone since 1967 and while also seriously injuring and disabling thousands more also at the same time; (Revision B10-2 30-May-2009)
8.10 The metabolic privacy invading radio operators of the Jensen Family Cook County Judge’s Mafia, still escaping from federal penitentiaries, even after already being legally convicted since January 15, 1993, and also sentenced to be legally executed since March 15, 1993, at the same time, are also the most threatening and dangerous perpetrators of the crime committing and crime manufacturing radio operators, are also the supervisors of their field patrol body tampering mafia, they also tell their body tampering field patrol mercenaries including qualified, ethical, unknowing hospital personnel, to inject chemicals into the bodies of unknowing people while they are sleeping at the same time, just to weaken and to slow down the metabolisms of their false prosecution crime victims in order to frame up their bodies to become their victims of illegal execution false prosecutions by remote metabolic control, also at the same time, including while their victims are also being hospitalized also at the same time, especially after their victims have been admitted into hospitals after radio operator transmitted stroke and heart attack corporal injury false prosecutions have already been committed against them, just so their metabolic activity can be completely shut down more easily, by those diabolical, perverted, necromaniacal, and death causing remote metabolic control radio operator-supervisors, resulting in the deaths of their victims of remote metabolic shutdown false prosecutions also at the same time, operating from remote locations also at the same time. (Revision B10 10-May-2009)
8.20 They also commit telephone order false prosecutions against their victims while they are also being hospitalized or otherwise institutionalized, including by also telling their field patrol body tampering and hillside strangler false prosecution co-perpetrators, such as their phony cancer doctor Jerry Stiff (Jensen) and x-ray technician Jackie Jensen, are also among the most dangerous of all of the body tampering perpetrators, to commit hillside strangler false prosecutions against their victims while they are also being hospitalized or otherwise institutionalized at the same time, while also being supervised by the same remote metabolic control radio operators also at the same time, including Budzinski, Wilson, Van de Kamp, Proger, Reagan, Jensen, Turner, Antonovich, Yaroslavsky, and is also how they have been allegedly murdering over 35,000 victims per year in Chicago alone also at the same time. 5/10/2009 11:33:08 AM
9. They have already killed over 20,000 per year in Chicago alone from 1967-1997, 40,000 per year in Chicago alone from 1997-2007, 7,000 from, 1967-1997 in the suburbs of Chicago, and 25,000 from 1997-2007 in the suburbs of Chicago at the same time.
10.0 The perpetrators of the Electronic Spiritual and Physical War of Armageddon, have also been using in home and spiritual privacy invading radio and video communications equipment and to also transmit delusional video dreams into the minds of unknowing people, including to deceive them into thinking they were the perpetrators of falsely accused crimes, and to also deceive unknowing people into thinking those video dream transmissions were visions from GOD at the same time, and are also being committed by the Jensen family perpetrators operating from single source locations the inside of crime manufacturing US Facilities also at the same time. (Revision B9-3 02-Aug-2008)
10.1 During the transmission of delusional video dream skit productions the perpetrators can deceive knowing as well as unknowing people into responding visual information contained in the delusional false creation video dream skit production, and also to nonverbal biofeedback also being transmitted into the minds of unknowing people at the same time, that can result in forcing people to try to move in physical response while they are sound asleep also at the same time, including by jumping out of bed or by unknowingly attacking their sleeping companion in response to false visual information being transmitted into the minds of their sleeping victims at the same time, by and while also deceiving their sleeping victims into thinking they were awake and were also operating from a different location also at the same time, that can result in serious physical injuries being sustained by the victim jumping out of bed while sleeping, or by physically engaging in some kind of a physical confrontation during the transmission of a false creation delusional video dream at the same time, and especially if their victim is sleeping in bed with another person while the confrontation video dream is also being diabolically transmitted also at the same time. (Revision B9-6 25-Oct-2008)
11. Artificial destructive weather control caused the devastating cyclone, and also Hurricane Gustav right now, being willfully committed as acts of mass destruction and destructive terrorism by Stansfield Turner (Jensen), the most destructive intentioned member of the Ronald Reagan (Jensen) ex-FBI and Paramilitary Mafia of Terrorism and Mass Destruction, in violation of 18USC2381, 18USC2383, 18USC2332a, 18USC2332b, 18USC2153, 18USC 373, 18USC2261A, 18USC114, 18USC1201, 18USC1091, 18USC1111, and 18USC2245, allegedly because of his jealousy of how much potential people have and his cocaine induced criminal motivation and satan inspired desire to hold them back, just to prevent them from having more successful lifestyles at the same time, resulting from his own feelings of insecurity after having destroying his spiritual potential and legal right to have a successful lifestyle himself, since 1949, resulting from his being legally convicted of being the willful perpetrator of high crimes of insurrection, treason, military sabotage, destructive terrorism, and crimes of mass destruction against the people and the United States Government at the same time, including the demolition of the World Trade Center and also the attack on the Pentagon back on 9/11/2001, and blamed it on Osama Bin Laden at the same time. They are all still escaping from state and federal prisons, after also being sentenced to be legally executed by September 14, 1994 also at the same time, and is also why he is a dangerous perpetrator right now. (Revision B9-8 21-Nov-2008)
12. Why, has the Jensen family Supreme Court Hillside Strangler/Recording Industry Mafia, being supervised by William Rehnquist (Jensen) and John G. Roberts Jr., the Jensen family Cook County Judge’s Mafia, being supervised by Henry A. Budzinski (Jensen), and the George W, Bush Homeland Security Paramilitary Mafia, been paying off bribes to their also legally convicted Jensen family relatives, the paramilitary helicopter hoodlums, associated with Stansfield Turner (Jensen), the same hoodlums who have also been embezzling all of the bank accounts from the people who owned businesses inside of the World Trade Center they also demolished the WTC back in 2001, also pretending to be their qualified supervisors by giving all of my property, my legally deserved royalty income, and my legally awarded restitution (all of my legally awarded restitution has already been committed to become the property of the Bank of Palestine – 12% can be placed on deposit inside of the Bank of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, 25% can also be placed on deposit with the Bank of America, and 63% to be placed on deposit with the Bank of Palestine, operating as the treasury department bank) to those same also court martialed and legally convicted paramilitary hoodlum relatives of the Jensen family flying around in red private helicopters while pretending to have already taken20illegal control of the state of Illinois at the same time, just to keep themselves from already being brought to justice, while also knowing they have also been sentenced to be brought to justice themselves since April 17, 1998 also at the same time, while also knowing they do not also have any legal or judicial authority also at the same time, and is also the reason why my constitutional rights have not already been restored, by the legally opera ting US Dept. of Justice also at the same time? (Revision B9-5 10-Sep-2008)
13. Are US Army Corps of Engineers personnel allegedly being kidnapped inside of their own facilities located in the 3400 block of east 89th streets, in Chicago IL, and also at 111 N. Canal St in downtown Chicago Il, and the Chicago Police allegedly cannot stop them from being kidnapped by the paramilitary helicopter hoodlums, because those legally convicted escaped prisoners operating as the Jensen family Mafia, of over 3000 relatives operating in Chicago inside of the FBI, US District Court Judges, ex Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia (Jensen), Cook County Circuit Court Judges, federal and county prosecutors, and also their court martialed=2 0paramilitary co-perpetrators operating as the Homeland Security Mafia, are threatening to retaliate against my personal family members associated with Arlene A. Madrid, being illegally held inside of the Marina City Condos located at 300 N. State St. at the same time. 6/6/2008 7:01:29 PM
14.00 Please release more than 300 more legally qualified female investigators have been since 1998, and are still being jealously kidnapped against their own free will right now, inside of a federal building located in the block compound of federal office buildings located in the 1200 Pennsylvania Ave NW, also inside of an illegally operating crime manufacturing us facility located on E St &15th St., NW, both in Washington D.C., and for no legally justifiable reasons, by the court martialed and legally convicted Jensen family ex-FBI and paramilitary perpetrators, operating as the DHS Homeland Security Mafia, after they were all sentenced to be legally executed since March 15, 1993 through April 17, 1998, at the same time. 6/4/2008 12:11:02 PM (Revision B10 10-May-2009)
14.10 I have also been hearing, three qualified TreasuryDirect employees may also be illegally held, by the already legally convicted and sentenced relative-perpetrators of the Jensen Family and the Bush Family, just to keep themselves from being brought to justice, inside of an illegally operating crime manufacturing, body tampering, medical homicide conspiracies including 100% of all cancer, and illegal electronic surveillance and espionage crime committing facility called a US Facility, located in Washington D.C., on E St &15th St., NW, also being used as an illegal record company, and also as a privately owned headquarters of the Bush and Jensen Families organized crime and racketeering operations while pretending to be the FBI at the same time. (Revision B10 10-May-2009)
15. Why can’t the Jensen family Law Enforcement Industry Mafia of Satan Worshippers, operating out of the Marina City Condominiums, 300 N. State St. in Chicago IL, in conspiracy with the US Dept. of Homeland Security Mafia being supervised by George W. Bush, finally be brought to justice including for being the only perpetrators of hillside strangler false prosecutions against innocent and unknowing people over 85,000 times since 1981, bring supervised by the legally deceased but still alive William Rehnquist (Jensen) and John Van de Kamp (Jensen), and especially while their victims are being hospitalized at the same time? 5,000 victims before 1981, 85,000 victims after 1981, 300 were males, and the rest were all female victims of William Rehnquist (Jensen’s) male homosexual jealousy hate crime committing hillside strangler false prosecution m.o. 6/13/2008 8:46:44 AM 5/29/2008 3:16:49 PM
16. Just to keep themselves from being brought to justice, after they were all legally convicted for being the perpetrators of millions of radio operator assisted high crimes of insurrection against the people and the government of the United States of America, and were also sentenced to be legally executed since March 15, 1993, also at the same time, and to also keep themselves from having to pay civil damages, property damages, and fixed asset restitution they have been ordered to pay to me since January 9, 1993, by the most legally qualified members of the US Supreme Court, including Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, David Hackett Souter, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Gerald Breyer, and retired Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, they have also been kidnapping inside of a US Dept of Justice Communications Facility located on the JPL/NASA site since January 28, 1993 at the same time. (Revision B9 23-JUL-2008)
17. The legally qualified Associate Justices of the US Supreme Court, including the legally qualified Acting Chief Justice, David Hackett Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer, and the now retired Sandra Day O’Connor, have been illegally held as kidnapped hostages either inside of a US Facility located on the JPL/ NASA site in Pasadena, and/or inside of another US Facility located in downtown Los Angeles, located at 435 N. Los Angeles St., along with four members of the Grammy Awards Foundation and Committee, since January 28, 1993, and also three thought to be legally deceased members of the US Supreme Court at the same time, including William Joseph Brennan, Byron Raymond White, and Harry Andrew Blackmun, and they are also being restricted from and while using the telephones, by those same hoodlum relatives of the Jensen family, just to keep themselves from being brought to justice, and to also keep their illegally obtained assets from being legally seized at the same time, after they were all legally convicted for being the perpetrators of millions of radio operator assisted high crimes of insurrection, and were also sentenced to be legally executed since March 15, 1993 also at the same time. (Revision A4 11-May-2008)
18. The local police, including the Los Angeles Police Dept. and legally qualified prosecutors employed by the LA County District Attorney’s Office, still being illegally held inside of that illegally operating US Dept. of Justice Facility called the Pasadena FBI, have already told the radio operator transmitted heart and stroke attack, spiritual assault and battery crime manufacturing, and hillside strangler premeditated murder false prosecution crime committing, William Rehnquist (Jensen), or John Proger, he did not have the legal right to be in the civil rights violating continuous and discriminating commission of illegally invading my in home privacy to know anything about my private activities back in 1992, and have also already been ordered to terminate their illegal 24 hours per day investigation of my in home private activities since January 7, 1993 also at the same time.
19. Please visit my website located at: http://groups.msn.com/TheBushFamily-JensenFamilyRecordingIndustryMafia/documents.msnw? Thank you. If necessary, use sabertoothsleuth@hotmail.com; with p/w 90809080
Sincerely, GS Phillip L. Davis, Sr.
Illinois ID 1206 7 251 317D
6931 S. Crandon Ave. #2B
Chicago, IL. 60649-1769
(773) 288 8760 (773) 752 8324
Why, are the names over 18,000 legally convicted ex-government perpetrators, escaping from state of Illinois prisons, federal prisons, and federal prison camps (like the one in Marseilles Illinois) since January 15, 1993, already on federal prosecution orders since January 15, 1993, still not inside of the state and federal criminal history information computer systems, including over 3000 legally convicted relatives of the Jensen family operating inside of the Chicago FBI, the NDIL US Attorney’s Office, the Illinois State Police, the Chicago Police, the Circuit Court of Cook County, the US District Court, at the same time?
PLEASE ENFORCE FEDERAL PROSECUTION ORDERS ISSUED BY THE LEGALLY QUALIFIED US SUPREME COURT AND THE CDC US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE SINCE JANUARY 15, 1993. THANK YOU.
Section I – Some of the over 35,000 relatives of the Jensen family Law Enforcement Industry and Remote Crime Manufacturing Mafia, still escaping from legally operating state and federal prisons in violation of federal prosecution orders issued since January 15, 1993, while operating as the Jensen family Body Tampering and Law Enforcement Industry Mafia, a secret society of membership card carrying worshippers of satan at the same time. (Revision A3 14-Mar-2009)
1.00 Those already court martialed and/or legally convicted paramilitary perpetrators of the Stansfield Turner (Jensen) Homeland Security Paramilitary Government Takeover Mafia have been preventing the six most legally qualified Associate Justices of the US Supreme Court from using the US Dept. of Justice computer system while holding them as kidnapped hostages inside of so called us facilities, operating as illegal prisons, privately owned by the Bush Family and the Jensen Family, including from putting the real, legal, factual, and official, federal prosecution orders dated January 9, 1993, January 15, 1993, August 15, 1993, April 25, 1994, May 13, 1994, July 14, 1994, September 14, 1994, September 25, 1997, and also September 25, 2007, into the US Dept. of Justice computer system, to replace the falsified versions that do not include the names of the most guilty perpetrators and also does not include my name as being the crime victim and recipient of restitution awarded to me since January 9, 1993, or any information regarding my family members associated with Arlene A. Madrid awarded to me as personal restitution since January 18, 1993 at the same time, just to unscrupulously prevent all of the federal law enforcement agencies from knowing who the real legally convicted and guilty perpetrators are also at the same time, as the Jensen Family Ex-FBI and their paramilitary hoodlum co-perpetrators do not have the legal right to be kidnapping the six most legally qualified members of the US Supreme Court out of free society since January 28, 1993, just to keep themselves from being brought to justice after they were all sentenced to be legally executed since March 15, 1993, also at the same time? 1/18/2008 1:52:11 AM
2. Other relatives of the Jensen family include, the legally convicted Ex Judge Henry A. Budzinski (Jensen), the demagogue of the Chicago Mafia of Satan, and his also legally convicted, body tampering, mass murder, and investment property embezzling, crime committing co perpetrators, mostly relatives of the same Jensen Family, including Albert N. Moskowitz (Jensen) USDOJ, William Rehnquist (Jensen) USSC, Antonin Scalia (Jensen) USSC, John Van De Kamp (Jensen), Edward Hanrahan (Jensen), Stansfield Turner (Jensen) USN, Donald Norton (Jensen) USDOJ, Richard Devine (Jensen) CCSAO, Robert Lee Jensen, Sean Mc Cann (Jensen) CCSAO, ‘Anthony M. Kennedy (Jensen) (USSC), Samuel A. Alito (Jensen), Paul D. Clement (Jensen) USDOJ, John Calleveras (Jensen), Y ounker Forest (Jensen), Henry A. Budzinski (Jensen) CCCC, James W. Kennedy (Jensen) CCCC, Eugene Wilson (Jensen) C CCC, Ronald Reagan (Jensen), James Moran (Jensen) USDC, Philip Cline (Jensen) CPD, Jerome Graber (Jensen) BOP, H. Marshall Jarrett (Jensen), Kim Widup (Jensen) USMS, Robert Trono (Jensen) USMS, Robert Mueller (Jensen) FBI, Glenn A. Fine (Jensen) USDOJ-OIG, John Ashcroft (Jensen), Gary Altobello (Jensen) USDOJ, Dr.’ Jerry Stiff (Jensen), Gary Arkiss (Jensen) AGIL, Greg Afsharian (Jensen-Pasadena Police),20Rosenberg (Jensen-Northeast LAPD), Weisman (Jensen-Rampart LAPD), Robert Lee Jensen ex-FBI, Jackie Jensen, George Jensen ex-FBI, William H. Harrison Jr. (Jensen) J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, Henry M. Paulson (Jensen) USDOTreasury, Robert Kimmit (Jensen) USDOTreasury, Stuart Levey (Jensen) USDOTreasury, Kenneth Fried (Jensen) USDOTreasury, Steve Cooley (Jensen) LADA, William Lockyer (Jensen) CAAG, Sgt. Weston (Jensen) CHP – State Police, Mike Antonovich (Jensen) LABOS, Don Knabe (Jensen) LABOS, Pete Shabarum (Jensen) LABOS, Zev Yaroslavsky (Jensen) LABOS, William Bratton (Jensen) LAPD, NDIL US District Court Judge s James F . Holderman (Jensen), Harry Leinenweber (Jensen), James Moran (Jensen), Wayne Andersen (Jensen), Dr. Robert Eizenga (Jensen) Tinley Park MHC, Tom Corbett (Jensen) PA AG, Richard Berry (Jensen) LASC, Thomas O’Brien (USDOJ), 3000 more legally convicted Jensen family relatives operating inside of the Chic ago FBI, John G. Roberts Jr., George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, the femal e members of the so called Jackson Family, 85 legally convicted Chicago Police impersonators, and other relatives of the penal code violating Jensen family, have been operating as a secret society of membership card carrying and penal code violating worshippers of satan, as the telephone order hillside strangler false prosecution crime committing Chicago Mafia of Satan, are also the perpetrators of a radio operator transmitted crime I discovered called spiritual assault and battery, that has been responsible for 98% of all crimes being committed by other people in remote locations around the world since 1897, and have also been operating as a espionage equipment using, body tampering, cancer frame up, and other medical illness conspiracy crime committing mafia at the same time. (Revision A1 11-Sep-2008)
3. Why, are the names over 18,000 legally convicted perpetrators, escaping from state of Illinois and federal prisons since January 15, 1993, already on federal prosecution orders since January 15, 1993, still not inside of the state and federal criminal history information computer systems, including over 3000 legally convicted relatives of the Jensen family operating inside of the Chicago FBI, the NDIL US Attorney’s Office, the Illinois State Police, the Chicago Police, the Circuit Court of Cook County, the US District Court, at the same time?
4.00 Why, aren’t any of the names of the over 3000 legally convicted felony narcotic cocaine using relatives and over 8000 paramilitary co perpetrators of the Jensen family already inside of the state of Illinois criminal history information computer system, along with the federal prosecution orders that indicates when, how, and why, they were legally convicted issued since January 15, 1993 by the legally qualified US Dept. of Justice, after they were all legally convicted since January 15, 1993, sentenced to be legally executed since March 15, 1993, and have also been escaping from legally operating state and20federal prisons ever since that time at the same time, and have been harboring themselves inside of my free society residential facilities legally awarded to me since January 9, 1993, those legally convicted, threaten ing, and dangerous to others, body tampering perpetrators were never authorized or qualified to be housed inside of, being unscrupulously embezzled away from my legal ownership and control, by over 485 legally convicted NDIL AUSA federal prosecutors also escaping from federal prisons since January 15, 1993, and while also pr etending they are being legally housed inside of state and federal prisons at the same time? 7/4/2008 12:37:47 AM
4.10 Just to keep themselves from being brought to justice for being in the commission of millions of radio operator and espionage equipment assisted felon y high crimes of insurrection and treason against the people and the United States Government, including body tampering, to implant cancer and other medical illnesses inside of the bodies of unknowing people, and spiritual assault and battery crime manufacturing, to cause unknowing people to commit violent and white collar crimes, and has also been responsible for 98% of all crimes committed by other people since 1897, and to also keep their illegally obtained assets from being seized after they were ordered to pay restitution to me from the illegal sales20of bootlegged sound recordings being made from my jealously stolen, original, and unpublished, music compositions, and also after they were all sentenced to be legally executed since Mar ch 15, 1993, is the reason why they have also been in the commission of kidnapping thousands of legally qualified law enforcement investigators also at the same time? 1/18/2008 1:52:11 AM
5. 47 Legally convicted escaped prisoners, operating as the Jensen family Cook County Judge’s Mafia, of 35 legally impeached and disqualified Cook County Circuit Court Judges and 12 US District Court Judges, already sentenced to be legally executed by or since March 15, 1993, for using radio com munications and electronic espionage equipment as attack weapons in their commission of willful felony=2 0high crimes of insurrection against the people including radio operator transmitted spiritual assault and battery crime manufacturing, to cause unknowing people to commit crimes in remote locations and is how 98% of all crimes have been committed by other people since 1897, telephone order body tampering, cancer and other medical illness conspiracies, hillside strangler and medical homicide false prosecutions against people while they are also being hospitalized at the same time, kidnapping over 1500 legally qualified judges, county, and federal prosecutors, and inves tigators since 1993 inside of the Holiday Inn, located at 300 E. Ohio St., the Park Hyatt Hotel, located at 800 N. Michigan Ave. just to ke ep themselves from being brought to justice, have also been jealously and continuously trying to deceive other people into thinking I have also already assassinated my spiritual character, in retaliation to my being qualified to be paid restitution they have also already been ordered to pay to me since January 9, 1993, and while also knowing my name is not also on a federal prosecution order unlike theirs, except for me to be paid civil damages, prop erty damages, and fixed asset restitution, also in retaliation to my still having the legal right to be living in free society, and also in retaliation to my bei ng awarded a family of suitable female companions they have also been jealously kidnapping away from me since Januar y 18, 1993, at the same time. 7/4/2008 1 2:37:53 AM
20
5.10 The Jensen Family Cook County Judge’s Body Tampering Mafia, the 35 co perpetrators of the Supreme Court Hillside Strangler/Recording Industry Mafia, and the 6000 Ex- FBI operating in Los Angeles and Cook Counties are too dangerous to be housed inside of residential buildings, and have been escaping from legally operating state and federal prisons since January 15, 1993 at the same t ime.
6. Another siren hearing range penal code violation was just again manufactured inside of this same neighborhood, by the same hoodlum radio operators of the Jensen family on 7/4/2008 12:58:10 AM, including Henry A. Budzinski (Jensen), in jealous retaliation to the abovementioned comments at the same time.
7. The Jensen family US Dept, of Justice, still escaping from legally operating state a nd federal prisons since January 15, 1993, in criminal violation of federal prosecution orders issued since January 15 1993, after also being sentenced to be legally executed since March 15, 1993, have been in the over 14 years ling racketeering commission of kidnapping the members of my personal family associated with Arlene A. Madrid and my daughter, Evangelyn A. Kerr, embezzling my civil damages, property damages, and fixed asset restitution, including my legal ownership of Motown Record Corporation and the Marina City Condominiums, awarded to me, by the US Supreme Court since January 9, 1993, still in the illegal receipt of my original tap e recordings, containing20my self composed, original, unpublished, and never heard before, music compositions that qualified me to be working for Motown, also qualified to be released as new sound recordings for Motown, and while also continuously and stalkingly invading my in home, bedroom, and spiritual thought privacy 24 hours per day, for no legally justifiable reasons, even after being ordered to terminate their illegal investigation since January 7, 1993, also by the US Supreme Court at the same time.
8. They have also been jealously embezzling my legal o wn ership of Motown away from=2 0me since Janu ary 14, 1973 and all of my self produced and unreleased demo record productions with hit sing and high income potential they have also been plagiarizing and counterfeiting, without my required legal permission, since 1967, for the same reasons, just to prevent me from having a successful, prosperous, and financially secure lifestyle, they have also been jealously embezzling away from me and for themselves while also pretending to be the songwriters and producers of my over 1067 self composed and 1st copyrighted, original and unpublished, music productions with hit song and high income20potential, that did not a lready exist before I first composed th em as demo rhythm, track record productions inside of my home recording studio starting back in 1967 at the same time.
9. Those US Facilities are being operated under the illegal criminal authority of a civil rights violating, phony, and privately owned dept of corrections agency called the US Bureau of Prisons, without any charter with any government department or agency, pretending to be the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and have been illegally holding people against t heir own free will, and20while those death pena lty body tampering and hillside stra ngler false prosecution crime committing inmates, are also unscrupulously siphoning their inspiration, initiative, incentive, success potential, technology, and capability of opera ting successfully away from unknowing people while using espionage equipment to invade their privacy at the same time, just for their own self serving and criminally motivated reason ns and while operating as the perpetrators of penal code violating high crimes of insurrection and treason against the people and the legally operating US Government at the same time, ju st to prevent them from having more successful lifestyles than if they were liv ing independently in free society, at the=2 0same time.
10. William Rehnquist (Jensen), or John Proger, supervisor of mass murder hillside strangler false prosecutions, and the demagogue of the Supreme Court Recording Industry Mafia, in the illegal production of bootlegged sound recordings from my jealously stolen demo tapes since 1967, has been also been using slander, false statements, free society 3rd party illegal restraining orders, embezzling, kidnapping and threatening my female companions, committing hillside stran gler an d cancer false pro secutions, against 9 of my innocent relative family members since 1997, stealing my incoming post al mail and telephone calls, and has even been committing hillside strangler false prosecutions against my personal female companions, just to jealously prevent my suitable female companions and I from communicating with each other ever since they were first jealously stolen away from me starting on July 13, 1963, and also after they were legally awarded to me as personal restitution on January 18, 1993 also at the same time. 2/2/200 8 10:15:08 PM
11. Henry A. Budzinski (Jensen), and Robert Lee Jensen (Rehnquist) or John Proger, allegedly operating from the 39th floor, of the Marina City Condominiums, located at 300 N. State St. in Chicago, Illinois, have been jealously stealing, listening to, plagiarizing, laundering, stealing unpublished trade secrets from, criminally infringing on the copyrights of, and embezzling my unfinished demo record productions of my self composed, original, unpublished, and never heard before, music compositions with hit song and high income potential away from me since I was 15 years old, because they did not want fo r me to becom e more successful than their own=2 0sons could become, including George H.W. Bush, John G Roberts Sr., and while also trying to keep themselves from having to pay restitution they already owed to me since July 13, 1963, and is why they have been jealously squandering my time throughout my productive lifetime at the same time, including right now, and why can’t I obtain restraining orders to keep them from continuing to embezzle my property, from kidnapping my personal restitution family members from embezzling my mail, incoming telephone calls, my legally awarded restitution, my sources of income, my mother’s estate, from threatening to murder my relatives, from continuously and stalkingly invading my privacy, and from communizing my free society personal lifestyle? Thank you. 1/31/2008 6:22:18 AM
12. Why, haven’t the legally convicted relative-perpetrators of the Jensen family Law Enforcement Industry Mafia, operating seditiously inside of the US Dept. of the Treasury and the US Dept. of Justice already been arrested and legally charged for swindling me out of being paid restitution for over 14 years already, and while also kidnapping si x of the most legally qualified members of the US Supreme Court at the=2 0same time? Thank you.
13.00 They are still making themselves criminally rich, resulting from their illegal use of my jealously stolen original tape recordings containing my original music compositions with hit song and high income potential they do not have the legal right to be in the illegal receipt of after already being ordered to return my stolen original master demo tape recordings back to me since March 25, 1993, at the same time.
13.20 My stolen original tape recordings are also still being jealously listened to, Illegally copyrighted as 24 track digital grandmaster recordings (they are also using a music computer that can, by reverse engineering, synthesize a 24 track digital grandmaster recording from a stolen 2 channel stereo demo tape recording), plagiarized, counterfeited, and illegally published, as bo otlegged sound recordings, allegedly inside of the US Courthouse, located at 312 N. Spring St. in Los Angeles, Ca. o n the 12th and 13th floors, by the also legally convicted perpetrators, using the 13th floor of the US Courthouse unscrupulously, as an illegally operating Satellite Office of the US Attorney General, and also as a music embezzling illegal record company, at the same time.
13.40 The illegally operating Satellite Office of the US Attorney General, is being supervised by the legally convicted Albert N. Moskowitz (Jensen), and is also where John Van de Kamp (Jensen) could also be located, I suspect, and is also where he could be jealously and allegedly kidnapping over 75 of my personal female companions of my daughter Evangelyn A. Kerr and my wife Arlene A. Madrid at the same time. 8/31/2008 7:44:19 PM
14. Illegally copied tape recordings containing my original music compositions are also being jealously listened to, plagiarized, and counterfeited, inside of the California Dept. of Justice, located at 300 S. Spring St. in Los Angeles, Ca. allegedly on the 5th floor, by the also legally conv icted perpetrators, using the 5th floor of the Reagan Building20unscrupulously, as a music embezzling headquarters of the California Recording Industry Mafia, being supervised by the legally convicted Albert N. Moskowitz Jensen, and is also where John Van de Kamp (Jensen) is also located, I suspect, at the same time. 8/31/2008 7:44:19 PM
15. Please speak to my personal family members associated with Arlene A. Madrid and Evangelyn A. Kerr in person, and also to my personal restitution family members of suitable female companions also in person, including to find out how they are also being threatened and mistreated while they are also being jealously and discriminatingly kidnapped away from me at the same time and continuously since January 18, 1993, April 16, 1992 and before, by those legally convicted, male homosexual jealousy inspired, paranoid20schizophrenic, and psychopathic crime committing, Jensen relative family impersonators of me, the inventors and the perpetrators of over 90,000 hillside strangler false prosecutions since 1975, are also jealous of the female gender and are also continuously dangerous to their personal well being at the same time, and please do whatever you can to release them just as soon as possible. Thank you. 8/8/2008 6:03:30 PM
Sincerely, GS Phillip L. Davis, Sr. –
6931 S. Crandon Ave #2B –
Chicago, Illinois 60649-1769
(773) 752 8324 voice –
(773) 288 8760 fax / voicemail
Hi Jonathan,
Speaking of a need for web development or at least, a little tuning…I think the post of Mr.Phillip L. Davis-all bazillion words or so…is a case in point
Did you have any thoughts on or if you would like anything done?
cheers!
Mike et al…
Had a free speech question-I am not very informed and wanted to ask a few questions and get a bit of clarification…are you guys still around?
cheers!
thatmtnman,
For someone who claims to know something about WordPress, you cannot seem to find the 3rd section on this site called “Blog” where we posted about the need to update this site, with which you offered to help.
Here, I will try to assist you and perhaps you can find your way; now, easy does it, be careful, you must click on the blue link that follows:
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/06/07/does-turley-blog-need-a-nip-and-tuck/
You will find the “guys” still around on the proper forum of the 3 available here called Blog. You are on the Latest Column Section, but you usually post on the Bio and you need to post on the Blog, where everyone else does, except for religious fanatics or other completely lost posters (except for regulars who try to assist the poor, lost souls). There are only 3 choices…good luck finding your way…
Cheers!
Hey thatmtnman,
I aint very smart ’bout computers ner this WordPress thang, but I held my breath and clicked on that blue thingy above and Whew, it works!
Other than that, I fear that I am unable to help you…
Cheers!
7.8.09
Professor Turley,
A simple question. If possible I’d appreciate a simple or…
complex response.
Thank you
Question re: States Secret Act. I understand that most judges, when they come upon a SSA claim from government, usually defer to the Gov’t w/o really looking into the SSA claim. Ok, I get that.
What if there is a situation where a SSA claim by a president, endeavors to keep Presidential Abuse of Power secret. And as a
result crimes are committed by others, and DOJ is unable to charge/arrest anyone since all elements, all facts, all evidence leading out of the SSA are secret as well.
This concept is complicated. But in essence, as a result of a President not wanting to allow certain information to be in the public domain (which would confirm his Abuse of Power)…he caps the information w/ SSA status. Part of what his SSA status is keeping secret is crimes of common criminals. That continue.
But cannot be stopped because the President’s crimes, and the crimes of the common criminal(s), DO NOT EXIST, IN REAL TIME, DUE TO SSA STATUS.
Finally to explain further. The President delayed acting on crimes of a “common criminal” because publication of those crimes would have hurt his election chances. That is abuse of power. The crimes continue of the “common criminal” but the entire nightmare is under SSA so President cannot be charged w/ AOP. But as he cannot be charged w/ a crime. The crimes of the “common criminal” cannot be charged because they, too, are under the SSA.
Can the Congress or Supreme Court or DOJ in any way interfere w/ such a Presidential Strategy. And if so, how would they go about doing such a thing.
If you can get your head around this, I’d appreciate a response at my email address.
Thank you.
Anon Y Mous
To further explain my above entry. The US Government under President Bush 43 was given information re: a long standing crime and criminal(s) = Anthrax/Tylenol. Bush 43 had information in his first term but refused to move on information given, potentially due to upcoming 2004 election and the possibility of it hurting his reelection bid. After 2004 election, he did not move to bring charges, then because his delay could have been seen as abuse of power. I believe he put it all under a States Secret Act claim to keep it silent. All the while the criminal continued/s his crimes up to and including today. Yet noone can bring charges because all is kept secret under the States Secret Act. The criminals are behind nationwide crime spree. Arson, Murders, and on. The FBI are aware of the criminal(s) and the crimes but cannot take down these individuals due to SSA that has been in effect, and remains in effect by the order of President George W. Bush.
7.10.09
Mr. Turley,
Further re: my above two postings.
This situation has been communicated exhaustively.
Bush 41, Jeb Bush, President Obama, AG Holder, FBID Mueller,
numerous Senate/House committees…Intelligence, Judiciary,
Leaders of both parties at Senate/House, Supreme Court,
CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, ABC, NBC, Time, Newsweek, Washington Post, NY Times, WSJ and on.
Yet the killings and arsons continue. With full knowledge of
Bush 43 and all others.
Simply put, Bush 43 is allowing above mentioned criminals
to Kill and harm innocent victims because he will not rescind
his SSA classification of the overriding criminal situation…
because he, himself could be charged w/ multiple crimes if
the full truth were known.
Professor Turley, America awaits your comments. How is one to
end such a horrific crime against Americans by a former President using a method designed to keep State Secrets secret…
Anon Y Mous
Professor Turley,
I heard a snippet of a recent comment Justice Ginsberg said about Roe v. Wade.
I don’t know if you posted anything. But if you feel it is pertenint could you please post the comment in it;s full context.
I found the snippet disturbing but don’t want to “jump the gun” untill I’ve read it in it’s context.
Buddhaislaughing is living proof that some vaccuumed abortions actually survive the trauma of the experience. Some grow up and live, and write shitty blogs like buddha.
Mespo sucks. He is a brain dead charlie nobody, wannabee ambulance chaser. I think he gives helmet to Bron and buddha and his girlfriend Mike the douchebag Spindell.
I just took a crap and it smelled and looked like buddhaislaughing!
We hear that the US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case or that they have refused to hear a case. Who makes that decision?
John
Voltaire,
To be candide with you is it true you’re living in the best of all possible worlds? Your own diseased mind of course..
Someone told me that a bill has to (Constitutionally) be read 3 times in Congress to be passed officially. I see on CSPAN they vote to bypass reading(s).
Does anyone know if this really invalidates the bill?
It is sad that nominees need to be as unresponsive a possible.
It would be refreshing to hear a nominee express his/her personal opinion and then rightly state that they would base each decision upon the facts of the case and respect for precedent, no matter what their personal opinion.
Unfortunately, Congress has allowed a situation to develop wherein a nominee is forced to evade.
Wouldn’t it be nice to hear a nominee state “No matter what my personal opinion, the facts of each case should be determined, despite my personal opinion. For example, i am peronally opposed to the death penalty, but if the state follows the law, I might be forced to affirm a lower court’s decision to impose that penalty.”
In reading your long post on Justice Sotomayor I was quite disheartened. Before the Election and shortly after I had populated Obama’s fantasy cabinet with all the folk who so clearly envisioned all the places where the GOP had gone wrong. You were clearly in that list as AG, Special Prosecutor or certainly the Supreme Court.
An aggressive stand for honor and reality early on would have gotten howls very loud and long but it would have been at a time no body was going to listen, and in the face of the long list of new outrages that could have been outed as fast as they originally occurred, would have never gotten feet.
I am deeply sorry you have not gotten to act on what you have pointed out as a clear mandate. But I hope that as you keep speaking out perhaps someone will listen.
Jonathan Turley,
I think you do an admirable job of promoting and defending the respectability of the legal regime in this country (by which I mean the regime of laws and courts). You profiles of the justices and your attempting to promote a saner use of language are admirable pieces of writing. At a personal level you and I know eachother, dislike and disrespect eachother although it may take some time for you to remember who I am given your star-studded political life. But I hope that will not prvent this exchange from being at least ten percent rational.
Modern American legal experts like yourself really do not like federalism, really do not like the idea of separation of powers, really do not like to dialog with the traditions which formed the law and really do not accept the input of history and reason when it displeases you. I do not just mean your pals. I may at times (in my small way) be a political bedmate of your political enemies in the culture wars but in the confidential secrecy of the internet I will say that I find most of the very nasty things I just said to provoke you to be true of them as well. The one possible exception is that they do sort of believe federalism is not too bad. Ican’t help wondering what the end game is. Is our fairy godmother going to bless us with happy ending. If you watch such right wing pornography as “A Man for All Seasons” you may remember what the More character says about the devil and the laws. I think we are not quite there yet. I wonder if you can believe a dramatic line could be written about constitutional theories and legal principles.
franksummers3ba,
Well now since this is a site where people are free to comment on posts, I would love to comment on yours. The problem is that you either have a hard time expressing yourself in a written fashion, or you prefer to hide your statements by making them into cryptic contentions.
“At a personal level you and I know eachother, dislike and disrespect eachother although it may take some time for you to remember who I am given your star-studded political life. But I hope that will not prvent this exchange from being at least ten percent rational.”
How do you expect a rational conversation when you begin it with a slyly ironic put down of the person you want to dialog rationally with?
“I may at times (in my small way) be a political bedmate of your political enemies in the culture wars but in the confidential secrecy of the internet I will say that I find most of the very nasty things I just said to provoke you to be true of them as well”
Other than the above being poorly written as to clarity of thought, it also postulates a personal venom that is the antithesis of any rational discussion. You are trying to provoke Professor Turley and then seek to have a rational (10%) exchange?
“If you watch such right wing pornography as “A Man for All Seasons”
You are talking about a play written in 1954 and made into a movie in 1966. I didn’t particularly care for the movie, but then I did watch it 43 years ago. Most people under 45 have never heard of it so your use of it as an example of right wing pornography is rather dated. In fact your whole comment seems rather dated in its’ lack of clarity. It makes it very hard to fathom where you are coming from, but be it right or left your techniques are reminiscent of the pomposity of the “true believer.” The “true believer” espouses a point of view that they deem essential for the benefit of humankind, but in the end all they are really about is stoking the anger that rages like fire in their gut.
Now you probably resent this interference on my part since you specifically, if enigmatically, are calling out Professor Turley.
While he is no doubt more capable than I in dealing with your
diatribe, if regulars such as I keep out of it, then you really have no purpose in posting here. The only logical reason for you to make this post is for people other than JT to see it, or why not just send him a letter? Since irrationally perhaps, I assume that you are somewhat rational in your behavior, you have therefore invited my and others response. If this is the case let me say that in your vitriolic condition you are failing miserably in making whatever point you are trying to make.
Mike,
I do not know you. There is no irony in my comment nor is it a put down. JT and I do infact know eachother. I do not like the comment format here compared to some other blogs and perhaps you thought I was commenting on your post. However, the Jonathan Turley salutation should have cleared that up.
You are welcome to bat for your guy. However as a designated hitter I doubt JT designated you. The man can both write and refrain from writing. I doubt you know what I point might be. That last sentence was a put down. In fact you are probably fairly clever but your note above is more or less bizarre drivel. My senetnce was a disclaimer. If you did not like it you should have criticized it as such.
There is very little venom in my message. Calm and affection are distinct and actualy thought and animosity are quite compatible. If JT is able to remember me then he will not expect me to be a fan. It is true that some respect is needed not for thought but for debate. That level of respect is implied in the disclaimer too. You are an odd rhetorician but I wish you a lovely day because we have no personal history except for your note which I choose to forget about for the moment.
“In fact you are probably fairly clever but your note above is more or less bizarre drivel.”
Frank,
Let me state it clearly since you obviously find reading anything but your own productions difficult. You picked an open forum to write in essence a personal note. Therefore you invite comment, whether or not you appreciate it. Specifically though for you to call my output “drivel” is indeed bizarre, since your original post was written in a cryptic manner. You do know the definition of cryptic don’t you, if not I suggest you consult a dictionary?
“I doubt you know what I point might be.”
That is the point of my post, Frank, I don’t know what your point was because it was so cryptically written and therefore inappropriate for an open forum such as this. If you want to correspond with JT, then do it privately, not in an open forum. By doing it in an open forum you are then responsible to make clear what you are writing. Why is that so? It is because by choosing an open forum you are inviting others to see your obscure written productions and comment on them, which I did. You seem to want it both ways. you want to “call out” JT publically, but don’t want public comment. to me that is fatuous.
Given your two posts the obvious supposition is that you are somewhat disaffected with JT:
“I may at times (in my small way) be a political bedmate of your political enemies in the culture wars but in the confidential secrecy of the internet”
“At a personal level you and I know eachother, dislike and disrespect eachother”
Now in an open forum don’t you think such comments would cause people to be curious about your “beef?” Of course you do that is why you chose to post here. The problem is you apparently have a problem with clarity, or is it honesty and so post in a rather
“sneaky” manner. JT can of course take care of himself and frankly it’s not my need to defend him. However, as a regular here I don’t like people who play “games” rather than assert themselves clearly and I feel compelled to respond.
My name is Marisa Treviño and I publish a site called Latina Lista. Most of the content that I produce are centered on social justice issues, notably illegal immigration.
I would like to pose a question to you that I often get asked and because I have no expertise with the US Constitution, I don’t know how to answer it.
Who is the US Constitution for?
I realize the easy answer is “Americans” but given the illegal immigration debate and the millions of undocumented who live here, doesn’t the Constitution safeguard the rights of the undocumented as well? Or does it?
I plan on posting an observation about a Yale student news piece on how a court ruled against ICE because they did an illegal search and seizure at the home of an undocumented immigrant. As you can imagine, the comments that emanated from that court ruling were not flattering but I notice they all revolved around the US Constitution and how the courts could rule in the undocumented immigrants’ favor.
Any insight, that I may quote you and can post, would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Marisa Treviño