Mississippi Chancery Judge Talmadge Littlejohn means it when he asks everyone to stand and say the pledge of allegiance. When attorney Danny Lampley of Oxford stood but did not recite, Littlejohn threw him in jail.
Littlejohn was just honored by the Mississippi bar for 50 years in public service.
Lampley was jailed from 9:40 a.m. and released about 2:30 p.m. on the judge’s orders. However, the reported order below says that Lampley would not be released until he recited the pledge for the judge.
The contempt sanction is, in my view, both injudicious and unconstitutional. Requiring an attorney to recite the pledge is a violation of his free speech rights. There is no question that an attorney must comply with court orders and that a judge is given considerable leeway in running his courtroom. However, that does not include monitoring pledge recitals.
Here is the order, which I found on The Agitator:
BE IT REMEMBERED, this date, the Court having ordered all present in the courtroom to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegience, and having found that Danny Lampley, Attorney at Law, failed and refused to do so, finds said Danny Lampley to be in criminal contempt of court.
IT IS FURTHER ORDED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED, that Danny Lampley shall purge himself of said criminal contempt by complying with the order of this Court by standing and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in open court.
Source: Clarion Ledger
Kudos: Reddit
I know this judge. He is similar to another judge, much younger, who was on the bench a number of years ago in Rankin County, MS. Fortunately, the Rankin County Chancellor was voted out of office after a single term on the bench. Would that Littlejohn suffer the same fate, but he is running unopposed this time around. The cry should be, “Oyez, Oyez, Save us from this dishonorable court.”
Lets face it the pledge is a medieval and older hold over.
A pledge was required from southerners after the end of the Civil War because they had forsaken their citizenship, and it is required for new citizens.
Beyond that it is tokenism. It is politically loaded these days,and as such it is certainly impurdent of a judge or law enforcement person to make a largely political issue into a legal issue, and deprevie a citizen of their constitutional right to freedom of movement.
The lawyer reportedly said, I don’t have to take it. I’m a citizen.
I agree with that.
so, who is Richard Stands?
“Injudicious and unconstitutional” are not adequate criticisms. This judge is a thug. He blatantly and knowingly abused his power and should be removed from his position. In fact, it ought to be a crime for a judge to imprison someone when he could not possibly have believed that doing so was within his authority.
You can count on Mississippi every time.
Hmmm…Littlejohn(son)? Could his demand be overcompensation for an anatomical deficiency? /snark
The Pledge of Allegience was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Christian socialist who believed in and wanted a totalitarian America. Bellamy himself even said that the main reason for “allegience” to the flag was to indoctrinated schoolchildren into the Lincolnian theory of the perpetual nature of the consolidated, unitary, and omnipotent state.
The Pledge completely and utterly flies in the face of the concept of state sovereignty. Excerpts like “one nation, indivisible” clearly indicate Bellamy’s disdain for states rights and secession—two things CLEARLY advocated and permitted in the Constitution.
The Pledge is an oath of allegience to the omnipotent, Lincolnian state—–NOT to teach schoolchildren the ideals of the founding fathers. So, the next time anyone recites the Pledge, they are giving allegience to the centralized, unitarian state that was written by a Christian socialist who hated Federalism and states rights. It is NOT a pledge to the founders’ teachings of individual rights and state sovereignty or to the America that the founders envisioned.
Clearly an abuse of power.
The type of jerk who demands everyone say the pledge is also likely to be the kind of judge who demands everyone be there first thing in the morning, so you likely couldn’t even avoid the issue by waiting outside until the pledge was finished.
And they’re trying to impeach Judge Porteus?
unsettling times, the Lion in Winter…..
State courts as well as federal courts need to limit the scope of “court orders”. It was a “court order” that led to my being incarcerated by DOJ for 5 months without a criminal charge or an arraignment. I was charged with filing a truthful Rule 60b(3) petition in a non-rendering court. (I appealed that to the Federal Appeals Court of the District of Columbia and DOJ did not file a responsive brief and has not responded to my motion for a settlement conference which described my appeal as “unopposed”.)
Quoting Sieverding v. DOJ unopposed brief (see http://www.rightscase.com):
“[A]s a general matter, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” The Constitution demands that content-based restrictions on speech be presumed invalid, R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 382 (1992), and that the Government bears the burden of showing their constitutionality.” Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 322 F.3d 240.
The lawyer’s refusal to recite the Pledge was a First Amendment expression.
“The First Amendment prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for engaging in political speech.” Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Refusing to recite the Pledge is political speech.
The Supreme Court “invalidated an outright compulsion of speech” in West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319U.S.624(1943) affirmed in Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Association. 125S.Ct.2055(2005).
The judge who incarcerated the lawyer for not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance was trying to compel speech.
I pledge annoyance
at Judge Littlejohn
and this can of worms
he’s opened.
What in the world would we do without idiots in high positions … time to start a review of his past rulings …
Really this Judge should be sanctioned hard.
The Judge should be censured…..Sig Heil Der Fuhrer…
“Compliance ist einfach, wenn sie haben auf ihre Seele.”
Compliance is easy once you have given up your soul.
The judge should be censured for such a blatant constitutional breach. It’s absurd that a judge’s prerogative about the manner in which his courtroom is run should supersede law.
I remember a kid in my grade school who’s religion forbade him from saying the pledge. A couple of the guys took it upon themselves to express their distaste for his religion through the application of physical violence. Yes, this is the America we want to return to.
Ah the old loyalty oath thing again. Heil, mein Führer Littlejohn. Why do we have a pledge of allegiance to anything except the Constitution, which of course does not require us to pledge allegiance to anything?
First of all, this is Mississippi that we are talking about so we shouldn’t be looking for logic. Secondly, this judge should be thrown from the bench posthaste. If he reacts like this to not saying the Pledge, I wonder what type of decisions he is rendering!
Thisactionby the judge should result in sanctions against the judge.