Rape of Justice - Eustace Mullins |
According to legend, the "court" originally referred to the courtyard of King Solomon's palace, where disputes were heard when the weather permitted. In mediaeval times, the "court" was the poultry yard, where chickens were allowed to run free and peck at worms. "Just as capones in a court come to mannes whistlynge." (1377 Lengl. P.P.O.B. vx 466) Court also referred to the enclosures which surrounded the Jewish tabernacle. Later, it became known as the place where the sovereign or other high dignitary resided and held state, attended by his retinue. "The messengers of Rome came to the grete Arthur's court" (1480 Caxton Descr. Eng. 17 ).
The court is the arena where civil procedure takes its course. The basis of all civil procedure in the United States is the relentless application of the ancient legal maxim, "Fry the pig in his own fat." This means that the parties in a legal dispute are maneuvered by their lawyers and by orders from the judge to step into the pan and sizzle until they have been reduced to a passel of bones. The rendered fat is then divided up between the avaricious lawyers and the participating judicial authorities. If you are an American citizen worth some $300,000 in personalty, you may decide to enter into litigation to recover a debt, damages from an injury, or other payment to which you believe you are legally entitled. Until they step into the quicksand, most Americans look upon litigation as a comparatively simple matter. They engage an attorney for a reasonable fee, he presents the facts to a judge, perhaps before a jury; the opposing party recites his version of the facts, and a decision is rendered, with a judicial order for payment. The lawyer will then deduct his fees, and the litigant returns home with his collection.
The usual outcome is a far cry from these developments. Instead of collecting what is due him, the citizen with $300,000 in personalty may find that not only has his net worth vanished, but that he now owes his lawyer an additional $50,000, plus counterclaims advanced against him by the opposing party which have been allowed by the court, and that even now, officials are on his way to his home to evict him. Is this justice? Of course not. It is the law merchant in action, in which all legal realities are transformed into legal fictions. At any time during litigation, a plaintiff may be hit with ruinous fines, arbitrary jail sentences, and other misfortunes, while his original goal of collecting moneys due him now recedes into the distance, never to be realized.
The first ventures of the present writer into our halls of justice, some forty years ago, were marked by total ignorance of the details of the judicial process. Like most Americans, I naively supposed that if you had a grievance, you went to court, stated your grievance, and the opposing party stated some rebuttal. The impartial judge, having listened carefully to both sides, would then deliver a fair verdict. End of case.
The reality turned out to be quite different, so different that I became a courthouse habitue for some four decades, not because I was seeking entertainment, but because I kept going back to see what new outrage would be perpetrated against me. My first judge, whom I was later told had never been known to deliver an impartial verdict in his entire career, frequently turned off his hearing aid and sat in blissful silence while the sweating lawyers (this was before the era of air-conditioned courtrooms) strained over every word, hoping to make an impression upon His Honor. I also learned that there was really no need for the judge to listen to the testimony, because, in the great majority of cases, his decision had been reached long before the case actually came to trial. Thus he had no reason to burden himself with the dreary chore of listening to days and hours of contradictory, and often peijured, testimony.
I also learned in short order that lawyers in most instances had no intention of seeing my complaints come to trial. Their legal maneuvers were designed solely to get rid of me, a goal in which the judge heartily concurred. As a person representing himself, on Constitutional lines, I presented a threat to the economic base of all members of the legal profession. Ninety per cent of the cases heard in our courts could be presented without any lawyer being present. The attorney pro se virus is the ADDS of the legal profession, which could decimate its ranks.
In my initial case, whenever I appeared in court, a matter of some inconvenience, as I was then residing in another state, the opposing lawyers would first register surprise, and then disapproval that I had actually arrived. They would immediately ask for another postponement. After I left the state, they would hurriedly reschedule another hearing, hoping that I would not be able to return. This charade went on for several years, and was finally dismissed under the statute of limitations.
The mysteries of civil procedure, which at that time seemed to present an impenetrable code, were finally unveiled for me by one of the most able law firms in the state. I had sued a man who had attempted to kill me (see Chapt. The Strange case of the Schizophrenic Driver). Because he had been driving illegally, it was necessary to prevent me from bringing the case to trial. The firm's members expected to make short shrift of me, but because the offender was a prominent merchant, the firm's senior partner personally took charge of the case. He began his campaign with an inquisitorial fifty-nine questions, the First Set of Interrogatories, supposing that I would either refuse to answer them and throw them aside, thus defaulting out of the case, or I would trip myself up in my answers to the extent that he could have the case dismissed. In most cases, Interrogatories, which are answered under oath, are only answered in consultation with one's attorney. A layman could hardly be expected to answer them without digging a deep hole for his case. Refusal to answer means that the opposing lawyers appear in court and request dismissal on grounds of default. Judges always grant default dismissals as a quick method of getting rid of an obnoxious attorney pro se.
Being an indefatigable writer, I answered the Interrogatories with some eighty pages of answers, using the opportunity to interpolate many events of my career to illustrate the points I was making. This led to a further imbroglio in chambers. This case lasted for some three years, during which the highly paid lawyers tried every trick in their repertoire. The result was that I received an advanced course in civil procedure which no law school could have given me.
After forty years, I analyzed the process of civil procedure, reducing it to three items which must never be ignored; 1. Answer everything. 2. Deny everything. 3. Answer on time. Refusal to answer any pre-trial discovery, no matter how intrusive it may be, is seized upon by the opponent as grounds for dismissal, which the judge usually grants. Interrogatories, Requests for Admission, and Depositions are the three sacred cows of pre-trial discovery. Although I never failed to answer them, I always filed, upon receiving demands for these procedures, Motion to Quash Interrogatories, Motion to Deny Deposition, and Motion to Deny Requests for Admission. This forced the opposing attorneys (I always faced at least two, sometimes three or four, lawyers at every session) to go before the court and request a court order. The judge seemed mystified by these motions from me, because pre-trial discovery is the bread and butter of the legal profession. In every case, the judge issued a court order that I must answer pre-trial discovery. However, my motions usually postponed the sessions for several months, adding to the steadily running meter of opposing counsel, while my meter consisted solely of turning on my electric typewriter.
I repeatedly filed objections to pre-trial discovery, pointing out, accurately on my part, that it meant that opposing counsel simply tries the case himself, without judge or jury being present. Counsel conducts lengthy examinations under oath, in a procedure which is designed solely to harass the other party, put him to great expense, and hopefully, to break him down physically to the point that he no longer realizes what he is saying. He is then likely to make a statement which will destroy his entire case. These are the same principles of the Spanish Inquisition which are used by the Internal Revenue Service and by other government agencies. You are given the third degree until you finally confess, whether you are wrong or not. The abuse of this procedure proves that it is a flagrant violation of the Constitutional prohibition against bills of attainder.
The purpose of pre-trial discovery is to place you under a court-ordered bill of attainder, so that you must "taint" yourself, make some damaging admission, and testify against yourself in violation of the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. Ah, says the legal expert, but you are talking about civil procedure; the Fifth Amendment is only concerned with criminal procedure in which a citizen accused of a crime is protected against self-incrimination. However, if the Fifth Amendment protects one from testifying against oneself in a criminal charge, it is equally Constitutional that the same protection is extended to a citizen testifying in a civil case. The Fifth Amendment specifies that "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." This amendment extends a specific protection against self-incrimination; it does not state that any citizen shall be compelled to testify against himself in a civil action, although its language in this instance mentions only criminal cases.
Art. 1 sec. 10 specifically states "No State. . . shall pass any Bill of Attainder," yet state judges have repeatedly, over a period of forty years, issued orders compelling me to submit to inquisitorial pre-trial discovery for the sole purpose of attainting myself and my complaint, in a flagrant Bill of Attainder. The judges can do this because they are presiding over an Admiralty Court, and the law merchant does not prohibit bills of attainder. Under Admiralty procedure, an American citizen has no Constitutional safeguards, hence the judges freely granted Bills of Attainder against me. The Fourth Amendment guarantees "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures," yet I was repeatedly ordered to turn over all of my personal papers, photographs, financial records, tax forms for periods of from twenty to thirty-five years, to the opposing counsel so that they might turn up some damaging material to be used against me in the process of self-incrimination. Under the law merchant, the judges used admiralty procedure to order me to "stand and deliver," the time -honored phrase of the British highway robber, forcing me to turn over my property to the bandits.
The three principles which I developed as "Mullins' law," bear some elaboration. The first, "Answer everything," means just that. Refusal to answer means a dismissal of your case and sanctions, both financial and penitential, will be issued against you. However, in representing myself, I found that opposing parties almost universally refused to answer my interrogatories, or marked each question, "Not relevant"; their attorney had previously obtained guarantees from the judge that, because I was an attorney pro se, no sanctions would be ordered against his client. However, this is a flagrant dodge which you must never use in representing yourself, because sanctions will be ordered against you. If you don't like the question, such as "What is the color of your hair?", you may answer, "Even my hairdresser doesn't know for sure," and expound on this at some length, going into the reasons your grandfather left the old country, and why homesteading has lost its appeal in recent years. The answer should be held to less than 1500 words.
The second maxim, "Deny everything," is more crucial. Few Americans are aware that our court system functions on total duplicity. Everything in the judicial process is designed to trick the opponent. You may see no harm in answering a question with a straightforward answer which apparently does not imperil your case, but the attorney will eventually use it against you. Admit only your name.
The third principle, answer on time, is also part of the legal quagmire. A day late means that you are out of your case. Most Americans suppose that a judge will be lenient, and allow a day late in answering. This will never happen if you are representing yourself, although judges habitually extend all sorts of delays to their fellow attorneys. The least error by an attorney pro se will bring the judge down against him, dismissing his complaint. Despite the best efforts of their secretaries, lawyers frequently fail to answer on time, because they are by nature lazy and shiftless. In cities where a comfortable Masonic brotherhood creates a bond between the judge and the lawyer, such failures may result in a mild reprimand, or none at all. Lawyers are also frequently late in appearing to argue motions or for court appearances, and sometimes fail to appear at all. This too is usually met with mild amusement or a forgiving gesture from the judge. In like instances, attorneys pro se usually have their cases dismissed out of hand.
The problem of using the designation, attorney pro se, which the present writer has used for many years, is that it is defined in Black's Law Dictionary as "For Himself," which could mean that he is appearing as another person who appears "for him self." Black's also defines it as "in person," which seems adequate. Purists prefer the appellation "In Propria Personae," which according to Black's, is "In one's own proper person." In either case, you become the attorney of record. And whichever you use, your primary problem is not what you call yourself, but the fact that you are appearing in an admiralty court which denies you the protection of the Constitution.
The legal profession has set up generous protection standards for one who wishes to represent himself. The Standards Relating to Trial Courts, American Bar Assn Commission on Standards of Judicial Administration, 1976, sec. 2.23. Conduct of cases where litigant appeared without counsel.
"When a litigant undertakes to represent himself, the court should take whatever measures may be reasonable and be necessary to insure a fair trial."
I have never met any judge or attorney who had read that particular recommendation.
On May 27, 1977, Chief Justice Warren Burger addressed the American Bar Association,
"In the federal courts the right of self-representation has been protected by statute since the beginnings of our nation. Sec. 35 of the Judiciary Act of 1789,1 Stat. 73,92, enacted by the First Congress, and signed by President Washington, one day before the Fifth Amendment was proposed, provided that in all the courts of the United States, the parties may plead and manage their own causes, personally, or by the assistance of counsel. The right is currently codified in 28 USC Sec. 1654."
The decisions of the admiralty court frequently fly in the face of common sense, as well as law, because of the havoc created by illogical judicial pronunciamentos whose real purpose is part of the program of the hidden government. Thus Judge Charles Wohlstetter, chairman of Contel Corp., describes the judicial breakup of American Telephone and Telegraph as "Probably the most stupid and damaging decision that has ever been made in the history of business in any country." It has been suggested that Soviet prestige was constantly affected by its backward telephone system, while the United States had the best telephone system in the world. The judicial decision was that we must give up our smoothly functioning telephone system because it was a "monopoly," and break it up into inefficient smaller units, which would hopefully be as inefficient and backward as the Soviet telephone system. Many dissatisfied customers believe that objective has now been reached.
The Constitution plainly states, Art. 1, Sc. 10 that "No State shall. . . pass. . . Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts." Why was it necessary to place this prohibition in the Constitution? To "promote the general welfare" through business stability. However, the liberal Holmesian school now claims that contracts are "only words," which can mean whatever one wishes them to mean, and therefore cannot be upheld. In 1968, the California Supreme Court ruled in Pacific Gas & Electric vs. G. W. Thomas Drayage & Rigging that although there was a clear indemnification provision in a contract, words didn't settle the matter. Chief Justice Traynor rejected the common law notion that parties must be free to negotiate among themselves, observing that individuals can use words— that is, contracts—to allocate risks and rewards, is an old view which is "a remnant of a primitive faith in the inherent potency and inherent meaning of words. Words, however, do not have absolute and constant referents."
As a lifelong wordsmith, I use words to communicate certain facts. In a contract, words define the obligations of the parties. One would suppose that this would be sufficient even for an admiralty court, but the law merchant has now embarked on a wholly new tack, guided by Holmesian liberalism, that mere words do not define the provisions of a contract, because they are pathetic remnants of primitivism. Judge Traynor actually cited, in support of his opinion, semantic and anthropological evidence that only primitives ascribe binding meaning to words.
E.g. "The elaborate system of taboo and verbal prohibitions in primitive groups. . . totemistic and protective names in mediaeval Turkish and Finno-Ugrian languages; the misplaced verbal scruples of the Presieuses; the Swedish peasant custom of curing sick cattle smitten by witchcraft, by making them swallow a page torn out of the psalter and put in dough."
The Wall Street Journal terms this "moonbeam legal evidence." Perhaps the next step will be to make a defendant chew up and swallow his own confession, which, after all, is mere words. The Journal cites this decision as a dangerous development in contract law, noting that "The Pennzoil v. Texaco case put investors world-wide on notice that anything could happen in a Texas courtroom." The problem is not limited to Texas. The present writer has for years compared American civil procedure to Russian roulette. You go into the courtroom, the attorney hands you a loaded pistol after spinning the cylinder, and you put it to your head and pull the trigger. This is our legal system.
Lawyers have now come into court to obtain enormous awards for such legal discoveries as "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder", which was defined in the American Psychiatric Assn Manual in 1980, and which spawned thousands of profitable lawsuits. It has been refined to encompass many more specific cases of stress—the Battered Woman Syndrome, the Rape Trauma Syndrome, the Child Abuse Syndrome, the Post Abortion Syndrome, Oppression Artifact Disorder, which was conjured up for blacks as a new version of legal voodoo, and Victimization Disorder. The American Psychiatric Assn was lobbied successfully by the homosexual community to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, where it had rested for many years as a profitable basis for recruiting clients from the gay community; it is now contained in an independent appendix. You may have overlooked the fact that you could be a victim of Paraphiliac Coercive Disorder—has anyone ever ordered you to do anything? See your lawyer.
The real gold mine has been found in sexual discrimination lawsuits against businesses; if you can't prove sexual discrimination, you may have to fall back on a surefire complaint—sexual harassment. When your boss smiled at you this morning, he may actually have been laughing—that will cost at least $300,000, in the hands of a good lawyer. These stimuli to the legal imagination have come about through the liberalizing of the law school curricula. Good-bye to Kent's Commentaries and the Constitution. Coke and Blackstone have been gone these many years. The emphasis of the curricula now is on contract law and training in the law merchant. More esoteric offerings include "Feminist Legal Thought" at the highly touted University of Virginia Law School, which graduated Robert and Teddy Kennedy, as well as Race Relations Law, and Refugee Law. The University of Georgia Law School offers three hours of admiralty law; the law schools generally offer extensive courses on Federal estate taxes, trusts, and other developments of the Law Merchant State.
We may be forgetting the fact that the Republic of the United States of America was founded by refugees who were fleeing just this sort of legal dictatorship in Europe. North European individuals who had been born into the category of fit and able citizens were being persecuted and killed by the growing numbers of the unfit, who were unable to compete. They therefore gathered together in secret conspiracies and used their combined power to exterminate their fit competitors. That the extermination or expulsion of the fit caused havoc in the nation and brought ruin to the economy was less important than the goal of promoting the survival of the unfit.
Seeking no revenge against their enemies, the fit migrated to America, wishing only to escape, and, to some extent, to proscribe the unfit from pursuing them to these shores. The fit drew up a formula for self-government, which they called the Constitution. This remarkable document was not merely a prayer, in the legal sense, for protection, but a binding resolve in which they contracted to protect themselves and their descendants from the ferocity and the ruthlessness of the unfit. A system of republican self-government was devised, which carefully proscribed the machinations of the unfit, and demanded the protection of the fit from this dedicated enemy. To ensure that the unfit would never be able to use the powers of government against the fit, the Founders drew upon the greatest traditions of Western civilization, choosing the most admirable provisions of Greek, Roman, and English law. They divided the government into three compartments, to prevent any department from establishing a dictatorial power. This constitutional republic was divided into the legislative, the executive and the judiciary. From the outset, the judiciary was considered the least powerful and the least involved in the processes of government. It existed as a potential referee if either the executive or the legislative branches tried to wield excessive power. Constitutionally, the judiciary was neither expected to make law nor to execute it. This tripartite system was designed, like the Titanic, to keep one or more compartments afloat, even if one was struck by disaster.
The Founders sought to protect themselves against a recurrence of their unfortunate experiences at the hands of the Black Nobility in Europe, which had become the champions of the unfit in the lists; they therefore tried to limit excessive power in the executive, making the President something of a figurehead, and relying upon the more representative legislative branch to exercise restraint in governing. The result is that we see an Imperial Congress conducting political show trials without objection from the judiciary, whose powers seemingly have been usurped. The judiciary does not object because it has reserved truly despotic powers for itself. Are you concerned about the crime, violence and dope in your child's school? The judiciary will not let you do anything about it. If citizens protest about conditions in their schools, the judiciary steps in and takes control of the schools. Do you favor public religious displays? The judiciary forbids such displays, even though you, as an American citizen, have a direct proprietary right in every public area.
However, the true despotism of the judiciary has been achieved by its continuous and furtive destruction of the Constitution, and replacing it with the dictatorial vehicle of the Black Nobility, the admiralty court, which was spawned by England's chartering of the Bank of England, its worldwide espionage empire, the Secret Intelligence Service, and by its enormous profits from the slave and drug trades. Because the judges no longer allow the Constitution to play a role in their decisions, their reaction to the introduction of Constitutional arguments in the courts range from derision to anger. Some judges allow Constitutional arguments to be introduced, knowing that they will not affect the decision. Other judges bridle at any citation of the Constitution, as a direct affront to the admiralty procedure of their court. The situation remains concealed from American citizens, because the media is forbidden to mention Constitutional issues. Instead, we get endless sob stories about a three-legged dog in Finland, or a paraplegic in New Zealand who has taken up ice skating. Wallowing in "compassion" and "caring" is now the substitute for responsible concern about the fate of our nation.
The tragic development of Americans who have been denied their Constitution was achieved because the Black Nobility, early on, noticed the Achilles Heel of our Constitutional system, the power of judicial review. The "original intent" of the Constitution was that no one branch of government could wield totalitarian power over the other two branches, or over the American people. This original intent was subverted by replacing Constitutional law with the law merchant. The Jeffersonian system of checks and balances enshrined in our Constitution does prohibit one branch of government from dominating the other branches. However, the law merchant allows the judiciary to issue imperial edicts that no one, even the President, is "above the law." The judiciary cleverly avoids mentioning that "the law" to which they are referring is the absolute decree of the law merchant, or that the federal agents who appear on your doorstep have been sent there in flagrant violation of the Constitution, but on direct commission by the admiralty court.
This charade can succeed only as long as you, the citizen, remain unaware of what is going on. For those who become informed, the door is opened for them to exercise their Constitutional rights as American citizens. Andrew Melechinsky has long been active in the lists with his Constitutional Revival Movement in Fairfield, Conn. When government goons filed a suit against him, Melechinsky responded by an Answer which he filed in the form of an Affidavit in the Enfield Land Records, v. 582, p. 1036, sending a copy to his accusers. He thus avoided giving the admiralty court jurisdiction by appearing and entering a plea. Melechinsky filed "Notice of Disclaimer of Unlawful Equity Jurisdiction:
"The undersigned, Andrew Melechinsky, is not under the jurisdiction of the IRS. He has no connection with the IRS. No jury has ever found probable cause. No jury has ever declared liability."
Melechinsky then cites his person, property, books and records which are private, protected and guaranteed under the Fourth through the Tenth Amendments. He states,
"I demand a court of law (as opposed to equity), a neutral judge at law, and a probable cause jury to decide whether or not there is cause to bring an action against me. . . Federal personnel in their official capacity can be sued for damages by a person damaged by an unlawful equity decree. This is a formal notice; govern yourselves accordingly." Signed, Andrew Melechinsky; notarized.
In a case where he was assaulted by a deputy, Melechinsky filed a Jurisdictional Challenge; the judge then entered a plea over his objections. Melechinsky then filed a REPUDIATION OF USURPATION OF JURISDICTION AND ADDITIONAF COUNTER COMPFAINT AND CFAIM FOR DAMAGES. The judge dismissed it. Another judge (Noren) killed himself after having locked Melechinsky up for exercising his right to remain silent. If more citizens could follow Melechinsky's example, we might see a wave of suicides among the corrupt officials of the judiciary. Their powers can only be exercised in the realm of darkness. Fight will destroy them.
Andrew Melechinsky has drafted a simple change which should be included in every state code: "Whenever there is any variance between the rules of equity and the rules of the common law in reference to the same matter, the rules of the common law shall prevail."
Any citizen may legitimately object to granting jurisdiction over his person to a court, because the American courts have become the official endorsers and protectors of every type of deviation and perversion. The New York Court of Appeals recently ruled four to two that marriage is officially "a fictitious legal distinction," thus opening the door to the state sanction of homosexual couplings, animal associations and other odd combinations. This is the same court which a few years ago threw out the conviction of two homosexuals for sexual acts in a bookstore, on the grounds that because the acts occurred in a bookstore, this was an act of "free speech" which was protected by the Constitution!
Because of the Democratic majority in Congress, the committees are dominated by leftwing Democrats, not the least of which is the Judiciary Committee. Newsweek reported on the bias of this committee by quoting Rep. Chuck Douglas, April 10, 1989,
"I don't know if you know who Barney Frank is, but he is one of the two members there who are only interested in members of their own sex. That gives you a little feel for the Committee."
The Congressman's reference to his colleague, Rep. Barney Frank, showed some irritation with Frank's personal background. Despite Frank's public revelling in stories about his homosexual "orientation," he was now in his fifth term in Congress, and had won 70% of the vote in the 1988 election in Massachusetts' 4th District. The Associated Press on August 26, 1989, carried revelations from the Washington Times that Frank's lover, whom he paid $80 for their first encounter, and then $20,000 a year for his "duties," had been operating a male prostitution ring from Frank's apartment on Capitol Hill. The lover, using the name of "Greg Davis," had been charged with oral sodomy, drug charges, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was also charged with possession of cocaine, the "drug of choice" for our enlightened leaders.
Frank was astounded at the public interest in the revelations. As a longtime resident of Sodom-on-the Potomac, a mecca for those of his persuasion because of the profusion of young sailors and Marines, he saw little merit in the story. He justified his conduct by maintaining, during an hourlong press conference, that he "has been in a monogamous homosexual relationship for about two years with a very sensible person and a steadying influence." (without issue, of course).
His fellow Democratic Party member, Speaker Tom Foley, who recently replaced Speaker Jim Wright of Texas, leaped to Frank's defense by praising Frank's "outstanding service to his constitutency and the nation." He prudently refrained from explaining that Frank's service may have gone beyond the call of duty.
The extreme leftwing bias of the Judiciary Committee has an inevitable effect upon the types of decisions rendered by the judges, who take their lead from the political stance of the Committee. The citizen also should be aware of the differing Constitutional origin of the courts before which they appear. Many presentday "courts" are actually administrative law courts set up by Congress. These are known as "Article I courts" because they were originally territorial courts established by Congress in the territories before they gained statehood. The most typical of these administrative law courts is the Tax Court, whose judges, although acting with the powers of a federal judge, are not and cannot be federal judges, because they are appointed for fifteen year periods, whereas federal judges, under Art. III, sec. 1 of the Constitution, hold their offices for life, unless impeached. A legitimate court in the United States is an Article III court. An Article I territorial court authorized by Congress depends entirely upon admiralty procedure for its rulings, which means that it functions as a branch of the Bank of England through the London Connection (see Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace Mullins).
Constitutional Limits on Judges
There is also a serious questions as to whether Article III judges are now legitimate. Several people have caused consternation in judicial ranks by requesting that an Article III judge preside at their trial, that is, a judge who functions under the Constitution, meaning that he is a judge who qualifies under Art. IH, Sec. 1, which requires that "the Judges. . . receive a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in Office." Because all judges today have payments withheld from their salaries for social security, insurance, tax charges and other deductions, there is no question that these deductions "diminish the Compensation" of the judges while they are in office. Consequently, said judges can no longer qualify as judges under the provision of Article III of the Constitution. Those who request a true Article III judge at their trial are raising a problem which is difficult to resolve.
Because Congress is not granted any power in Article I to establish courts of any kind in the United States, the Tax Court, as an Article I court, has no jurisdiction over any American who is a citizen of a State. To prevent this and other questions from being raised before Tax Court, the court refuses to allow anyone to practice before it who has ever challenged the basic premise of the income tax law. The present writer appeared before Tax Court as attorney pro se, and the "deficiency" was hastily resolved by a court judgment that I had no tax deficiency. At that time, I had not been researching the Article 1 dilemma, but should I have occasion to appear before Tax Court again, the question will be raised.
During my time in Tax Court, I saw that the persons appearing there were the most obvious victims of a tyrannical and insanely greedy federal authority. There was a pathetic elderly couple, shabbily dressed, with many grocery bags filled with cash register receipts; a mentally retarded youth dressed in castoff clothing, who had little concept of what was happening to him; and a contractor who had accepted enormous bribes in a state paving contract, not realizing that although bribery is an omnipresent fact of life and is accepted by the government, the government also requires that all bribes, without exception, must be reported as income. The Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS now had him on a greased slide to the penitentiary.
A territorial court such as the Tax Court, which is illegally situated in any State of the United States, illustrates the boldness of the admiralty court in replacing our Constitutional courts throughout the nation. For the past five hundred years, Anglo-American jurisprudence has required proof of an intent to break the law—the principle of mens rea—before a criminal conviction can be obtained. As Judge James Buckley pointed out on the Washington Court of Appeals, in reversing the criminal conviction of President Reagan's aide, Lynn Nofziger, on vague charges of "lobbying," prosecutors must prove both a criminal act (actus reus) and a guilty mind (mens rea). Despite his acquittal, Nofziger's legal battle cost him one and a half million dollars. Just as our Constitutional law has been supplanted in its "original intent" by the bold tyranny of the admiralty courts, so the necessity of proving mens rea has also been tossed aside as excess baggage by the law merchant. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson previously called the intent requirement "as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil."
Political show trials of Republican White House aides in Washington, who are routinely convicted by black Democratic juries, cannot establish intent, but the victims are hurriedly legally keelhauled by admiralty procedure before they or their attorneys realize what is happening to them. In most of these cases, their attorneys are charging from one to three million dollars to defend them; for that kind of money, you have to go along with the Establishment. However, these same political show trials have exposed aspects of the jury system as totally unqualified to make a just decision; in any case, these trials never had any such goal. They were conceived to make a political point, and "justice" or its rape, was a side issue. Dean Griswold of Harvard Law School stated,
"Jury trial at best, is an apotheosis for the amateur. Why should anyone think that twelve persons brought in from the street, selected in various ways for their lack of general ability, should have any special capacity to decide controversies between persons?"
David Peck calls jury trial "geared to the assimilation of the unfamiliar by the inexpert." Prof. Prosser ridicules "the twelve housewives, bakers helpers, and unemployed individuals we get today in the United States." In Washington's political show trials, North, Nofziger, Deaver et al, both the judge and the jury are expressly selected to obtain a conviction of a political opponent. The ballot box has been transferred to the jury room.
The magical number of twelve used for the jury is taken from Kabbalistic numerology; twelve is known as a number of completeness, as is seven. Of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, twelve are definitely connected with the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Eleven or thirteen jurors would be more practical, as it would lessen the chance of a deadlock. However, twelve satisfies the need to identify the judicial process with the cult of Babylon, as well as conforming with the importance of the number twelve in many aspects of our existence; the twelve hour day, twelve months, twelve disciples of Jesus, twelve Labors of Hercules, and many other usages. Revelation states that God's mark was placed on 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes for the number of 144,000, who will survive to stand on Mt. Zion with the Lamb. Revelation also describes the New Jerusalem as walled with twelve gates, on which stand twelve angels; the wall has twelve foundation stones with the names of the Twelve Apostles and adorned with twelve jewels; the tree of life within the city bears twelve kinds of fruit; the dimensions of the city are multiples of twelve.
Bushell's Case, which was tried over three hundred years ago in London, was a landmark jury case, in which the jurors held that every person has a right to worship according to his own conscience. It marks the birth of the modem jury system. The importance of the jury in nullifying an arbitrary judge has been perverted by the judge's "instructions" to the jury. These instructions change the ancient concept of the jury as "trial per pais," that is, trial by the country, meaning "by the people," as distinguished from our present system of the law merchant, which is trial by the government. No one should ever be tried by "the government," that is, by an arbitrary power, but only by one's peers, those of the same origins, goals and ambitions as oneself. As Lysander Spooner points out, "An Essay on the Trial by Jury,"
"The object of this trial 'by the country' or by the people, in preference to a trial by the government, is to guard against every species of oppression by the government. In order to effect this end, it is indispensable that the people, or 'the country,' judge of and determine their own liberties against the government; instead of the government's judging of and determining its own powers over the people."
The judge's arbitrarily extended power to "instruct" the jury is part of the same law merchant process which was used to extend Article I legislative courts based in the District of Columbia, and created by Congress' exclusive legislative power over the District of Columbia, Art. 1, Sec. 8, Cl 17, by a secret interpretation of the commerce clause of the Constitution. These legislative courts had no power to punish, but this power was later "assumed" through admiralty procedure. The result is that the federal courts throughout the United States are extended District of Columbia legislative courts which have no legal or judicial power to "punish" any American citizen, or to pronounce punitive sentences upon us. Further, they are illegally seated in the States, because the Constitution, Art 1 Sec 8 Cl 17, limits them to the Seat of Government, the District of Columbia. This problem has been "resolved" by extending the District of Columbia to encompass the entire United States!
The courts have become the preserves of a small section of the American legal profession, that ten percent which comprises the members of the American Association of Trial Lawyers, which has 63,000 members of the 707,000 licensed members of the American legal profession. These trial lawyers, in their quest to obtain multi-million dollar fees, have created the $300 billion a year tax on American business which Peter Huber defines as the harvest of current tort liability, an amount greater than our trade deficit; which allows the average worker who wins a sex harassment or sex discrimination suit to receive an award of $602,000, and even greater awards in wrongful termination suits, an average award of $732,000, according to the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 3, 1989.
After ten years of litigation, according to the Washington Post, May 9, 1989, of suits brought by the Vietnam Veterans of America, resulted in two million dollars in payments to veterans who charged they were victims of dioxin poisoning, and in twenty million dollars being paid to their lawyers! But that's impossible, we might observe. Contingency fees are one-third of the award. Two-thirds should go to the victim. As proposed by the lawyer, a case taken on contingency fee does allow one third to the lawyer, and two-thirds to the victim. However, legal expenses, fees for appeals etc., often mean that the lawyer winds up with ninety per cent of the award. The victim, instead of being awarded 66% of the damages, often winds up with no more than five or ten per cent.
An even more flagrant action of trial lawyers occurs when they persuade their clients to be "magnanimous," and to lower their expectations. Such an appeal to a client's generosity usually occurs after the lawyer is approached by opposing counsel, who says,
"Look, we haven't got a prayer of winning this one. You're going to wipe us out. Go back and tell your client he should be satisfied with a moral victory, and forget any monetary awards."
No lawyer would agree to such an outrageous procedure unless some private allowance has been made to spur his generosity. A stunning example of this appeal of "magnanimity" occurred when the American Medical Association faced disaster, after being convicted of criminal conspiracy in an effort to maintain its illegal Medical Monopoly throughout the United States, by trying to destroy the competing skill of chiropractic. On Aug. 27, 1987, after eleven years of desperate legal maneuvers, Federal Judge Susan Getzendammer of U.S. District Court found the AMA guilty of conspiring to destroy the profession of chiropractic. The AMA faced damages of hundreds of millions of dollars, which, after conviction, could have been tripled as punitive damages. Their lawyers persuaded the chiropractors to accept "a moral victory," with the result that the members of this profession are still being assessed payments of millions of dollars to their lawyers for the lawsuit which they "won"! Magnanimity, anyone?
In Maryland, a new court ruling is a first strike against the "litigation lottery," stating that in the future, suits against professionals will have to prove "actual malice" to collect punitive damages. The ruling has no effect on actual compensatory damages, but Richard P. Gilbert, chief judge of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, overturned a $750,000 award against an opthalmologist, as a new departure in the field of medical malpractice. The court defined "actual malice" as "the performance of an act without legal justification or excuse, but with an evil or rancorous motive influenced by hate, the purpose being to deliberately or willfully injure the plaintiff." This is an accurate description of the FBI thirty-three year campaign against the present writer, ("A Writ for Martyrs," by Eustace Mullins), which resulted in a fifty million dollar judgment against the government.
U.S. government responsibility in another case surfaced in the Shimoda Case (American Journal of International Law. v. 59, 1965): An individual sued the Japanese Government for damages sustained in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a suit filed Dec. 7, 1963. The District Court of Tokyo ruled that the United States violated international law by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that the plaintiff had no grounds to recover from the Japanese government. Article 19 of the Peace Treaty with Japan waives all claims of Japan and its nationals against the Allied Powers and other nations arising out of the war or out of actions taken because of the existence of the war. The Japanese Government also cited its diplomatic protest to the United States in a formal note presented through the Swiss Government August 10, 1945, in which the attacks were ruled "a new offense against the civilization of mankind." It described the aerial bombardment of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an illegal act of hostilities and the indiscriminate bombing of undefended cities, further citing the prohibition against poison gas as outlawing such attacks— Art. 23, Hague Regulations Respecting Land Warfare 1899, and General Protocol 1925. Recovery by any Japanese citizen was unlikely under the principle of fait accompli; it happened. Despite the fact that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually happened, it was a lawful reality which after the fact could only be treated as a legal fiction, history being essentially fantasy, as contrasted to the real present and the unimaginable future.
The LaRouche case
Because of the emphasis on the court as a Roman arena for political show trials, the court as a place where criminals are brought to the bar of justice to atone for their crimes has faded into insignificance. On Jan. 5, 1986, the New York Times reprinted an editorial from 1983 on the New York Criminal Court, headlined "The Crime of the Criminal Court."
"Rarely has any public institution been held in such open contempt by those who work in it and those who pass through it. Judges call it a sham and a fraud. Lawyers say that justice is unpredictable. Only one in one hundred cases are tried."
This ratio does not apply to the number of political offenders who are tried, convicted and sentenced. This ratio is one hundred of one hundred. The process is mercilessly pilloried in a recent book, "RAILROAD: U.S.A. vs. LYNDON LAROUCHE ET AL." LaRouche's crime was that he sought the presidency of the United States four times as an independent political candidate, in a "bipartisan" nation which allows only two political parties, each with the same program of Marxist oppression and worldwide revolution. LaRouche was brought before Chief Judge Albert Bryan Jr. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District, whose treatment of political offenders earned his court the nickname of "the Rocket Docket." The Washington Post headlined on Nov. 20, 1988, "LaRouche Trial Expected to be Speedy; Alexandria's Rocket Docket Federal Court." LaRouche called the court, "the only railroad in the United States which runs on time."
At a secret meeting in his Alexandria office, in the autumn of 1988, U.S. prosecutor Henry Hudson described the Bryan court as "our window of opportunity," and "our last chance to get LaRouche." It is gospel that it takes from three to five years to get a case through our over-burdened court system, yet LaRouche was indicted Oct. 14, 1988, and pronounced guilty Dec. 16, 1988! The case originated with a letter from Henry Kissinger to FBI director William Webster (the defendant in the present writer's suit against the FBI) Aug. 19,1982, "suggesting" it was time to do something about LaRouche. Kissinger controlled the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which gave the FaRouche strike force official White House backing. Senator Robert Dole remarked of the "conspiracy" charge which the secret task force brought against FaRouche. "Conspiracy? That's what they do when they can't get you on anything else."
LaRouche responded to the indictment by listing the federal and state agencies which had sworn to get him: the FBI; the U.S. Secret Service; the IRS; U.S. Attorney for the Eastern Dist. of Va.; U.S. Postal Service; BATF; Va. Atty Gen. office; State Police of Va.; Va State Corp. Commission; the Virginia-Israel Commission. Anyone who has all those agencies against him couldn't be all bad. William Weld and Henry Kissinger had set up a special government task force, The General Fitigation and Fegal Advisory Section of the Criminal Division, Justice Dept, to finish off FaRouche. He was quickly tried and sentenced, Judge Bryan virtuously noting at his sentencing, "this idea that this is a politically inspired, politically motivated prosecution, that is errant nonsense."
One could only admire Judge Bryan's ability to say this with a straight face. FaRouche has never been anything but a political figure; he has never been a tobacconist or a social worker. During the proceedings, Jan. 19, 1989, Judge Bryan stated that any information asked of jurors by the defense would be "badgering." Mr. Webster, defense attorney, replied, "I would prefer a different term, Your Honor."
BRYAN. I know. That's my term. It's not yours or the governments." The idea that any defense attorney would "badger" a prospective juror who would later rule on the innocence or guilt of his client itself was ridiculous. Judge Bryan had a long record of anti-LaRouche activity, having previously participated in the shutdown and seizure of LaRouche publications, and later denying a motion which appealed a secret ex parte proceeding and the fact that the U.S. government (read Kissinger) had exercised prior restraint against a publishing company in violation of the First Amendment. Bryan denied the motion.
LaRouche appealed Judge Bryan's sentence in Case No. 89-5518 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, citing numerous violations of constitutional rights, interference with the process of jury selection, and many other violations. The appeal cited the principle of law, "Difficilem oportet aurem habere ad crimina; In a court of law, one must not descend to listen to slander." This is a fundamental Principle of Legality. The appeals cited LaRouche's conviction on charges of failure to repay loans, "a fact which occurred and which no parties in this case try to deny, is not a criminal act in itself." The loans were political loans, which legally are different from business loans, loans for educational purposes etc. In any case, the federal agents made it impossible for LaRouche to keep track of or repay the loans because they seized millions of documents in a raid on his headquarters in Leesburg, Va., Oct. 6, 1986.
Because of his geographic location, LaRouche was forced to appeal to the notorious 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (which denied an appeal from the present writer on grounds so incredible it was obvious that no member of the court had even glanced at the pleadings). LaRouche faced an additional problem with the 4th Circuit; Judge Bryan's father, Albert V. Bryan Sr. was himself a judge on the 4th Circuit Court from 1961 until his death in 1984, and the court had maintained a record of rarely overturning any rulings of the present Judge Bryan. "The Circuit Court is known to be extremely protective of Albert Jr. and 'the rocket docket.' "
Legal Strategies for Self-representation
Representing oneself in court, as this writer has now done for some four decades, is a heady experience. It allows one to choose at will from the entire repertoire of legal strategy, without fear or favor. Strangely enough, strategy is a word rarely used in the legal profession, because its members prefer the devious techniques of conspiracy and treachery. I once asked a former "richest man in the world" who was embroiled in a legal battle, "What is your strategy?" He was puzzled by the question. Could anyone believe that Napoleon had no strategy in his succession of lightning like victories throughout Europe? He began to lose when he tempered his military genius with political considerations. Waterloo was not far off.
Once a litigant has dredged his way through the quagmire of pretrial discovery, there are a number of strategies available. If a defendant, you file "Motion to Dismiss." If a plaintiff, you file a Motion for Summary Judgment. These motions are pro forma, and rarely succeed, but they give you another turn at bat. Counter-claims are always good, as well as a lawsuit filed against opposing counsel. These suits need little preparation. One need only look over the file of the case and note all the illegal acts which the counsel has perpetrated against you. Some of my consultants advise filing suits against the judge; it is noteworthy that all persons known to me who regularly urge me to do this have themselves never filed a suit against a judge. There is no risk of turning him against you; he is already against you. The problem is that such a suit opens the door for punitive actions of contempt, remanding to jail or whatever he may trump up to get you out of his courtroom and into confinement.
Court demeanour is important, although it will not win you any friends there; nothing can do that. You should be well-spoken, well-dressed, and unflappable. Almost every judge I have appeared before has done his best to goad me into some outburst, by actions so flagrantly prejudiced that most plaintiffs would have to react. Because you are surrounded by armed men, any gesture which might be interpreted as "violent" would bring an inevitable response. On one occasion, I wore a large Masonic ring, which I had picked up at an auction in a madhouse, and flaunted it before the judge at every opportunity. It made not the slightest difference; they know who is a Mason and who is not.
In an address to the American Bar Association in 1940, John W. Davis, a distinguished jurist, stated the ten principles for court argument:
Lawyers rarely lose an opportunity to create chaos in international affairs—the career of the late John Foster Dulles is ample witness to that. The Nation noted on Feb. 6, 1989 a new development, "revolution by litigation," as evidenced by the action of a Washington wheeler dealer, William Rogers, of Arnold and Porter (formerly Arnold, Fortas and Porter). In ongoing efforts of Washington insiders to unseat Noriega in Panama, who had somehow been transformed from a partner in government drug operations to a competitor, Rogers gave Noriega's political opponent, and apparent President of Panama, Eric Delvalle, control of some fifty million dollars of Panamaniam assets in the U.S. The Justice Office of Foreign Registration notes that Arnold and Porter received $450,517 in fees for ten weeks of work for Delvalle's shadow government, and could receive millions more. The Nation noted that this could make Rogers the highest paid revolutionary in history.
As part of a supposed campaign against organized crime, Congress passed the RICO statute in 1970. The bill was intended to "wipe out" organized crime by charging it under the sweeping provisions of the new Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization, or RICO law. In some unexplained manner, the enforcement of the statute somehow overlooked organized crime altogether. Those charged under the RICO statute were legitimate businessmen, who quite often had neglected to make the right political contributions. In short, RICO, instead of punishing the Mafia for its extortion racket, went after businessmen who had refused to yield to extortion from Congress. Chief Justice William Rehnquist spoke to the Brookings Institution April 7, 1989, noting that RICO was the basis for nearly one thousand cases a year. "Civil RICO is now being used in ways that Congress never intended when it enacted the statute. The time has arrived for Congress to enact amendments to civil RICO to limit its scope."
However, the Supreme Court, when a RICO case was recently appealed there, refused in its ruling to limit RICO in any way. Its punitive measures, such as triple damages and fines, have been used to put many American businesses into bankruptcy. No relief is in sight.
Another lucrative field before the courts is libel action. Yet the Wall Street Journal noted in an op-ed piece, July 13, 1989, that what most litigants in libel actions wanted was not monetary payment, but public vindication. A three year study by the University of Iowa, begun in 1982, found that only one-fourth of libel litigants were after monetary awards. Three-fourths said they would have been satisfied if the allegedly false story had been corrected. Two factors intervened; first, the unbridled arrogance and wealth of the media—so sue me; and second, the fact that most libel plaintiffs are represented by attorneys on contingency fee. A retraction or public apology would net these lawyers nothing. Consequently, they refuse to arbitrate, or to offer the offending publication a chance to settle by an apology. The Journal commented on "the influence of lawyers, whose interests may not be congruent with those of their clients." This is such a basic fact of our legal system that it is amazing that anyone should have to mention it. Of course the interests of the lawyer are not congruent with those of his client. The American public's refusal to acknowledge this inescapable fact of life lies at the bottom of most of our problems with the legal profession.