REPLACING JUDGES WITH JUSTICE

Criminals and tort feasors (civil law violators) are to judges like meat to butchers, flour to bakers, and wax to candle stick makers.

But there is a bigger problem. While bribery is criminal, fee splitting is not. Physicians fee- splitting with surgeons they recommend is as common as tipping waiters. But are judges not shocked when friendly lawyers offer them fee splits? Shit no. All judges were lawyers first and regard it like waiters regard tips.

But there is a bigger problem: recidivists. They are to judges like frequent flyers are to air lines and "loyalty club" members are to hotel chains. No wonder recidivists are never subjected to effective deterrent punishment. They are the meat and flour and wax for the law business. Some judges sponsored a bunch of law students (at Northwestern U Law School, I believe) to finger some 100 wrongful executions to abolish the death penalty. Dead convicts are of no use to the law business. Perhaps you remember an attorney general named Bobby Kennedy, shot by a crazy (or CIA) Arab serving a life sentence. Bobby said: "The only question about American justice is: how much justice can you afford?" Bobby was a member of the law business and understood all of the above. No wonder legal fees are so high and expensive lawyers are so "successful" and crimes and torts are so profitable.

But there is a bigger problem: case law. Each issue has already been decided and carefully preserved in elegantly bound tomes. The fact is that all of the case law is split and carefully indexed (now computer searchable): some pro violator, some pro victim. Once the judge decides whose lawyer is more generous, and therefore who is "right" or "wrong," he or a law clerk dredges up the case law that the judge "must" rely on. Everything you will ever need to know about the law business or "justice" is in the four paragraphs above.

But is there a remedy? But of course. Educate kids 16 and above in pro se procedure so they can represent themselves when they become homeowners or tenants, employers or employees, husbands or wives, and consumers and so on. And recycle the lawyers and judges to teach pro se procedure in high schools where they live. Have I ever appeared pro se? Only about 40 times. But that's another book.

It is generally agreed that deterrence of recidivism is a main purpose of criminal and tort laws. But violations are to the professional law business of judges and lawyers like meat to the butcher, flour to the baker, and wax to the candle stick maker. Effective deterrents would end the law business as it has developed since before the Old Testament which commanded an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, etc. Warehousing criminals has two tiny flaws: it is too costly, and counterproductive. And tiny because nobody seems to notice that in jail, younger criminals learn tricks of the trade from recidivists, and the excessive public cost of "corrections" (with some corporations operating prisons for profit) are tiny compared to the loss and suffering criminals cost society. And judges and lawyers will not propose effective deterrents any more than will butchers promote the vegan lifestyle, and so on. But effective deterrents exist and should be considered before budgeting for more "corrections" which guarantee future business for judges and lawyers some of whom became judges and some of whom became legislators to budget for more "corrections." That said, we should start debating effective deterrents and in addition, consider teaching pro se representation and jury duty as high school civics. Once the law business beneficiaries are replaced with trial by juries-only with the foreperson presiding, crimes and torts will decline dramatically. In addition, of course, there will be no more corporate personhood or opposing abortion as infanticide or misrepresenting election slush as free speech protected by the First Amendment.

Still, there is a widespread belief that judges administer justice. In some minor cases, they do, but only to buy the system some credibility. In most cases, the judges protect the privileges of the overdog leaving the underdog no recourse but to live with the injury and loss, in addition to suffering manifest injustice. I first learned that from personal experience in 1965, and most recently in August of 2010.

So who are the overdogs? The rich, the powerful, the famous, and officials of government bodies and corporations. Everybody else is an underdog in court. This conclusion can be validated statistically, by analyzing case records and counting the overdog wins and/or the underdog losses. Such an analysis would end the law business as it has been operated for more than 4000 years.

The first codified laws have been enacted by Hammurabi, king of Babylonia (now Iraq), who died in 1790 B.C., 3800 years ago. This is the first known ancient law code, consisting of 282 laws. Wikipedia has some samples: "If a judge tries a case, reaches a decision, and presents his judgment in writing; and later it is discovered that his decision was in error, and it was his own fault, he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and be removed from the judge's bench."

In the U.S., judges are never fined and almost never removed, and certainly not for manifest injustice favoring the overdog. Indeed, tax-financed judges and courts exist mainly to protect the privileges and impunity of overdogs. And so, America's underdog victims live with the double whammy: the injury followed by the injustice. And America's cure is worse than the disease: appellate courts and appeals. The appearance has been developed carefully over 4000 years: lawyers in and out of black robes behaving "respectfully" and following "decorum" pretend to present "facts," but the result is never in doubt. Hungarians, an outspoken lot, have a saying: "the stronger dog gets to mount the bitch." Is a cure for humans possible?

Growing numbers of people realize that the judges are out of the citizenry's control. Justice is not rocket science; if it were, lay juries could not exist, much less function. Thus there is no valid reason to allow judges the unchecked latitude and discretion that they have built up over 4000 years and now widely abuse. Most people I talk to believe that the judges have become so mighty that there is nothing that can be done. I disagree. True, a wronged individual cannot stand up to a wrongful judgment alone, but that is not to say that a group of law victims organized to reduce judicial corruption and injustice will not succeed. Margaret Mead, a famous anthropologist, put it this way: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Fighting legal injustices should be one of the principal goals of the Second Vermont Republic. The late attorney general Bobby Kennedy said that the only question about American justice is: how much justice can you afford? Well, this can be changed by establishing a litigation fund before each lawsuit, to be financed in proportion to the parties' financial resources. There is no other way to provide equal justice under law. The "how" can be solved by seating a jury even before the litigation fund, so that judges cannot dismiss complaints by summary judgments and other devices that unjustly deny victims their day in court. Lastly, the Vermont Senate's judicial retention committee reviews every judge every six years. This is plain wrong. Judges should be reviewed whenever an underdog plaintiff complains of bias or injustice. That review, codified 4000 years ago, must take the place of all appellate courts. If juries can judge cases, they can certainly judge the justice of any judge's decision. Below I propose a step-by-step list of actions to replace judges with justice.

1. Create a Law Victims' Commission of Inquiry [LVCI] to catalog and document all complaints of injustice and judicial corruption for the last 10 years. Only certified law victims with documented victimization may serve on LVCI.

2. Compile lists of victims from law victims and from judicial conduct board and case files and sort by judge, then re-open and investigate injustices inflicted by each judge.

3. Publicize item 2. to alert victims of Judicial Conduct Board abuse.

4. Fine and/or jail judges found guilty of injustice or corruption, with deterrent publicity.

5. When a judge disqualifies himself or is removed for bias, vacate or reverse all of his biased decisions, not just the one on which appeal or recusal or removal was based.

6. Make all lawyers -except public interest advocates- ineligible for life to become judges. First, lawyers are both trained and paid to advocate, that is win for their clients and to hell with justice, the truth, the facts, the merits, and laws that do not serve the client's interest. Then these one-sided lawyers are suddenly to become balanced, fair, objective and just judges, just by appointment by a governor or president, and anointment by a Senate advise and consent. And worst of all, judicial corruption (including bribery and fee splitting) is protected when a briber lawyer becomes a bribed judge, and of course they find nothing criminal or unethical or wrong with bribery or fee splitting since they are inured to it. Still another factor is that with telephone banking and e-mail transfers and offshore secret accounts, hard evidence of bribery is impossible to obtain, yet while we all know this, we still demand "hard evidence" of bribery instead of circumstantial evidence that if it looks like a bribe and it walks like a bribe and it quacks like a bribe, it most likely is a bribe. Still another cover-up is to call legal fees attorney work product or covered by attorney-client privilege because hourly billing rates are generally available and one could estimate if the total divided by the rate results in a reasonable number of hours or is padded by a whopping bribe on which the judge can avoid taxes. By such simple devices, bribery is now protected and encouraged. Insurance lawyers are the worst of the lot because insurers are so heavily dependent on friendly judges when they defend well-documented and highly justified claims they want to reduce or avoid. Other factors are that lawyers and judges have collegial relationships and will help each other to protect their law education investment and the "credibility" of their profession. Now, trial judges cover for defense lawyers of corporate crime, and appellate court "justices" rubber stamp the trial judges' outrageous injustices.

7. Vermont court records should be analyzed by statisticians to determine and publicize the number of bench verdicts against underdog litigants. Most people would rather suffer injury, loss and humiliation, rather than go to court, because lawyers in and out of black robes make the system so unjust, mysterious, slow, not user friendly, and beyond external review when it fails. By discouraging ordinary people from availing themselves of the justice machinery, lawyers and judges get away with ever more abuses, and more outrageous abuses.

8. Governors should nominate judge candidates only from among public interest advocates and from among jurors who have rendered just verdicts. While knowledge of the law is desirable, it is easy to ascertain what the relevant law is, compared to finding fair and just people motivated solely to ascertain the facts and administer simple justice without regard to how much justice each side can afford.

9. Have juries write case law, not judges.

10. Appoint volunteer retirees and volunteer unemployed and underemployed voters to serve as court monitors. Make sure 25 or more court monitors watch every trial. Monitors must be paid the hourly rate paid to trial judges and must complete a judge evaluation form and a questionnaire about the justice of the decision.

11. The 6th and 7th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution mandate jury trials. Recently the U. S. Supreme Court has abolished all non-jury capital judgments, so abolish bench trials altogether, not just in capital cases. Seat a jury first, then determine the underdog/overdog status, then establish the litigation fund.

12. Abolish summary judgments, failure to state a case, or dismiss claims for which no relief can be granted, and secret settlements, and all other past and future jury preclusion devices. Also, these are highly marketable devices. What corporation would not pay dearly to prevent a jury trial finding guilt, and enter a permanently confidential settlement?

13. Establish a judiciary duck test. If it looks like a bribe, walks like a bribe and quacks like a bribe or fee split, it probably is a bribe. At that point the burden of proof shifts to the judge who must articulate and prove a reasonable, credible and truthful explanation or be guilty of bribery.

14. Codify jury nullification of statute law, case law, res judicata and collateral estoppel.

15. Since each juror is a judge, the law school requirement for judgeships should be abolished as superfluous.

16. Above all and first of all, teach small claims procedure in high school so everybody can enforce his rights as an employee, consumer, homeowner/tenant, taxpayer, voter, and victim of discrimination because of gender, race, age, disability, and other illegal factors.

17. Convert South Royalton to a school for public interest advocates. In France, only lawyers go to law school. Judges go to separate judge schools and lawyers never become judges (or "lawyers in black robes"), a circumstance that has so far escaped the Vermont Legislature's notice.

18. In addition to categorizing litigants as plaintiffs and defendants, ascertain who are underdogs and overdogs, by a mandatory pre-trial by jury. If one side has more than 10 times the resources of the other, and/or has some official position in government or the corporatocracy, he becomes overdog and the other becomes the underdog.

19. Next the jury establishes a litigation fund, and both sides put in money in proportion to their resources. When a $50,000 income plaintiff sues a $50-million corporation, the plaintiff pays $1 for every $1000 paid by the corporation. There is no other way to provide equal justice under law.

20. The judicial retention committee should review each judge upon a second complaint from a different victim, instead of every six years.

21. Create a new House Standing Committee on Impeachments [HoSCI]. No judge or lawyer or any other person subject to impeachment may ever serve on such committee. This committee shall receive each request for impeachment, and no such petition shall be subject to interception or delay or non-assignment by the Speaker of the House or any other official. Receipt of the petitions shall be acknowledged promptly to the victim, and copies of the petition shall be circulated to the 20 major print and electronic media in Vermont to garner public support to investigate the victim's complaint and sufficiency to impeach. Interfering with HoSCI in discharging its responsibility shall be an impeachable offense. A judge who commits a series of errors favoring one side and evidencing bias shall recuse himself on motion of the disfavored party. Failure to recuse for cause shall be an impeachable offense.

22.Promptly after each jury verdict, each juror shall write an evaluation about the presiding judge's conduct. Canon 3B(4), Code of Judicial Conduct, requires that "a judge should be patient, dignified and courteous to litigants, jurors, witnesses, lawyers and others with whom the judge deals in an official capacity." The original of each juror's report shall be filed with the Law Victims' Commission of Inquiry [LVCI] and made available on the state website.

23. Canon 3D requires "a judge who receives information indicating a substantial likelihood that another judge has committed a violation of this Code should take appropriate action." Hereafter, appropriate action shall be filing a complaint with the Law Victims' Commission of Inquiry [LVCI] promptly. Also, a judge who has information that a lawyer has violated the Vermont Code of Professional Responsibility shall likewise file a complaint with Law Victims' Commission of Inquiry [LVCI] promptly. Judges disobeying this section shall be tried as accessories after the fact, and if found guilty, shall be sanctioned and thereafter impeached.

24. All statutes of limitation of time are to be extended so every law victim is assured of simple justice. No suit may be dismissed because it is untimely, when the victim shows good cause for an extension of time. Even untimely actions must go to a jury which alone will decide whether the suit is timely in the circumstances.

On May 25, 2006, I incorporated the VERMONT LAW VICTIMS ASSOCIATION, INC. as a Vermont domestic non-profit corporation to carry out the JuJu Project which is to "Replace Judges with Justice." Any Vermonters interested in joining our Board of Directors are invited to contact us. No cost, no obligation in joining. Just your name on our letterhead. Judges and lawyers need not apply. Also, any Vermonters who have been victimized by any lawyer and/or judge are invited to mail us a brief statement about their victimization. Once we have a sufficient group of law victims, we will have a chance to replace judges with justice.

Turns out that professional career law business persons are no better than the permanent incumbency of unrepresentative professional career politicians who only seek re-election, but rarely do something in the public interest.