"Legal Schnauzer" a.k.a. Roger Schuler proposes that corrupt judges are responsible for rising threats against the judiciary.
I suspect that some threats--maybe a strong majority--come from litigants who were treated correctly under the law but did not like the outcome. But I suspect quite a few parties sense they have been cheated, use a computer or other technology to discover that indeed they were cheated, and become unhinged enough to threaten someone.
Here's something I know from firsthand experience: Corrupt judges are not a mere annoyance to the parties they cheat. Judges have the power to ruin people professionally, personally, financially--or some combination of all three. Just ask Don Siegelman or Paul Minor or Wes Teel or John Whitfield.
An alarming number of judges show signs that they do not respect the power they hold--or the parties who come before them. It should not come as a shock that some parties do not take kindly to being cheated, and possibly ruined, in court.
Interesting that these comments appeared on the ultra liberal (even by my standards) web site, Daily Kos -- http://www.dailykos.com/ --. Just goes to show that all of the nuts aren't on one tree.
I'll drag out something I pointed out to a group of columnists some years ago in regard to keeping an eye on how businesses treat their "customers."
Pick a percentage of people who are fundamentally "corruptible" or at least willing to bend or break the rules. Whatever you think that percentage is, you'll find them in every walk of life, in every profession and at all levels of authority. Some number of people are simply willing to take advantage of other people. And they know, from experience, even when sued, they will almost always prevail in court. ("It's just part of the cost of doing business.")
Now, keeping that in mind, if you ask people if they trust attorneys you'll soon find there are large numbers of people who do not and stereotypical jokes about the honesty of the profession are widespread. And when people realize that most Judges are/were practicing attorneys and they feel they've been abused, it's logical (for them at least) to conclude the whole cabal is against them.
The Honorable Judge Roy Bean The world is a car and you're a crash-test dummy. The Devil Makes Three
Maybe shnauzer guy has a legitimate beef with the judge in his case - he wouldn't be the only one. But to go from there to a conclusion that threats against judges by sovruns and white supremacists are generally based on the same corruption sounds like a stretch. Sovruns possess a deadly combination of (1) being morally certain of their own position, while (2) being completely insane and legally wrong and therefore guaranteed to be disappointed in the court system. That has nothing to do with judicial corruption - it's a "nut behind the wheel" problem. And the more it happens, the more the courts react in a summary fashion which feeds the sovrun's perception of being wronged.
Could it be that people just feel wronged by the system? While the "law" may be what it is there is no doubt that people are treated unfairly in the court system. These judges see tons of cases and they have no connection with what is right or wrong, you are just a docket number. Just like a homicide detective sees death all the time he also becomes hardened to the actual consequences of what happened to the poor fellow. He who has the most money usually wins, regardless.
I've seen first hand how the system works on many occasions and how utterly disconnected judges become from the reality of situations. Lawyers know this and can easily game the system causing ridiculous delays winning by attrition rather than by the merits. Lawyers also take advantage of their clients pretending things are far more complicated than they are which ends up jeopardizing a fairly easy win for the client.
Laws apply to protect people and business but judges get stuck in the mode of focusing only on the law not what the purpose of the law was. They have great latitude to lean one way or the other but generally tend to lean towards what's easiest as do most all government workers.
There are exceptions, I have seen those too, but they are far more rare.
Ok let the slamming begin....tell me how honest and dedicated to justice lawyers and judges are and how people who are not a lawyer or judge are just idiots who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
btw, I'll provide an example of one of the things that happened to me. I employed a lawyer to handle a fairly easy case. In the contract for services between her and I it required her to show up to court at least once. The retainer was 2500.00. The case involved alternative dispute resolution, which was ordered by the judge. The defendant and I went to ADR and came to an agreement which we both signed the defendant had a lawyer and I did not. The defendant failed to pay their attorney so it was never entered in to court. This came back to haunt me a year later. I looked up the Texas law and saw that it was a binding contract and all that needed to be done is have it entered. So this is why I retained an attorney.
The attorney did nothing and always gave excuses why things weren't done. Made me wait for a few hours in the waiting room every time I scheduled an appointment. I decided to fire the attorney. She showed up to court and removed herself, that was her one time to court...which cost me 2500.00.
Anyway I filed it myself showed up to court with the defendant and it was resolved in about 15 minutes. Total time to have the defendant served, filed with the court and research to look up the laws, about 2 hours. I filed a complaint with the BAR and they came back and told me she honored her contract, she showed up to court at least once.
I've heard many similar stories....about both horrible judges and grossly negligent lazy attorneys. I have a few more stories concerning business also...businesses being effectively shutdown simply because of bogus accusations and years of delays by both the judge and the attorney representing the opposing party. It's truly amazing how simple it is to get a TRO against a business considering how devastating it is to that business.
SteveSy wrote:Could it be that people just feel wronged by the system?
I'm sure they do, the question is how many of the people who progress to making threats against judges have a legitimate reason to feel wronged. I think the people making threats are mostly f-ing nuts.
Laws apply to protect people and business but judges get stuck in the mode of focusing only on the law not what the purpose of the law was.
Translation: judges focus on what the law is, not what Steve thinks it was.
Reading back over this thread, I see mostly agreement that there are some judges who abuse their powers. But you can't drag me from there to a conclusion that the courts are generally corrupt. Personally, I think bad laws are a much bigger problem than bad judges.
CaptainKickback wrote:Are there bad judges? Yes. Are there bad attorneys? Yes. It is a given.
But, as with most fields, 99%+ of that field are doing their best and doing a decent to excellent job of it, unfortunately, they end up getting spattered when the tiny portion of their field goes bad and gets tarred and feathered.
It is true in every field, bar none. But it does not mean everyone in that field is a bad apple.
I think you'll find a lot less than 99% satisfied clients. I've used probably 15 attorneys over the years and only found 2 worth a crap that didn't try to 1/4 hour me to death and actually focused on winning the case for me both in business and personal. In that time I've run across a lot of other clients who were either party's to the case I was involved in or just discussed issues in general conversations that have had similar experiences. I've only ran across one judge that truly seemed concerned and tried to be as fair as possible to the parties involved.
I suppose its probably the same in say the general contractor field...the difference is if they screw you or up its doesn't effect your livelihood or freedom. A lot of lawyers make as much as doctors, maybe lawyers should be held as accountable as they are.
