United States Watchdogs

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Judicial Overhauling

“Judicial Overhauling” is in the air. It is a term that goes beyond Court Reform and cuts directly to the heart and sole of the problem with a three-point plan to clean up the judicial system once and for all:

  1. Judicial Reform with a plan to appoint, discipline and remove judges,
  2. remove the attorneys’ licensing and disciplining from the Bar Association and,
  3. Implement “Loser Pays” like almost every other western country; The head of the snake.

If you’re not an attorney, you already know that our judicial system is badly broken. We need to tear it down and rebuild it. We need a Judicial Overhauling.

Judicial Overhauling

It’s past time to overhaul our Courts from the Bar Association to the Appointment & Removal of Judges

Featured Story: Civil Rights Lawsuit Against Judge Christopher J. Muse Published by Feds

1) Judicial Reform

First, let’s stop the arcane practice of allowing Governors and a President to hand out  political favors known as Judgeships. We must provide a means for us to remove a Judge. As stated by Jesse Torres III, the only citizen to successfully lead an Impeachment Effort which actually got a Judge removed:

No matter if you support the election of judges or a Modified Missouri Plan, we must change the laws to provide for the removal of Judges. Their absolute power has corrupted far too many Judges who have destroyed far too many families and businesses in their wake.

The Modified Missouri Plan proposed by Mr. Torres would modify the 74 year old Missouri Plan used in several states and numerous countries. Basically the Missouri Plan uses an appointed committee, which creates a small list of candidates to fill a judicial vacancy. The Governor then selects his appointee from that list. After a year, the Appointed Judge faces a confirmation election. Once confirmed by a vote of constituents, the Judge generally enjoys a lifetime appointment.

The problem as Mr. Torres sees it, is after the confirmation election, if judges go rogue, thinking they’re “anointed not appointed”, there is no way to remove them other than by Impeachment, which he personally knows, is not a valid safeguard.

The modifications:

  1. The commission to appoint judges should be comprised by elected officials, three attorneys and four non-attorneys.
  2. The one year confirmation election should be kept in place.
  3. That by partition of 10% of the area of County, State or Country where the judge presides, a special election for the removal of a judge would be held.
  4. That by partition of 5% of the area of County, State or Country where the judge presides, the judge would face a recall election in the next general election.

Mr. Torres’ plan would allow good Judges to never to face another election while providing safeguards to remove the rogue Judges. Let’s face it, knowing that they can be removed by the voters will make for a much better judiciary in the long run.

Whether you favor the election of Judges or the Modified Missouri Plan, there has to be a mechanism for us to remove a Judge. We can’t do worse than our current system of electing officials.

Judicial Conduct Commissions should be public and comprised of an entirely elected panel with a majority of non-attorneys with complaints posted online. If you doubt the importance of this, be sure to see our upcoming story of how the Massachusetts Judicial Conduct Commission dismissed complaints they never had in their possession and got caught on tape.

2) The Bar Association

The Bar Association was formed over 100 years after the Sixth Amendment was written, in 1878. A review of the Bar Association Lobby leaves little doubt, it’s about the money to keep the affluent lifestyle of attorneys in full bloom. So why on God’s green earth do we let attorneys police themselves?  And we let them do so with our lives and livelihood.

The fox is guarding the hen house, and we are the chickens.

We now have a nation that produces more attorneys than scientists and engineers. The reason is simple: greed. The Bar Association is more about preserving the income and lifestyle of attorneys than anything else. The way to stop this dangerous trend is to take the licensing and disciplining of attorneys out of the purview of the Bar Association and oversee it by elected, regulated committees.

3) Loser Pays

We must adopt “Loser Pays” which will strangle attorneys’ income from frivolous lawsuits and help bring sanity back to our nation and affordability to many services whose costs have sky rocketed while attorneys’ lifestyles grow ever more opulent. This would bring about a drastic reduction in, among many others, medical costs.

We have to get back to what made this country great. We must return to a nation of creators. We must produce scientists and engineers who will create and whose efforts will build us back to the strongest economic power in history. Before we start using Shakespeare’s words and “kill all of the lawyers”, we need to stop allowing the weasels to police the chicken coop. Attorneys need to be made accountable to us and not other attorneys.

We need to stop what is the greatest threat to all Americans, the self-perpetuating and ever-expanding universe of frivolous lawsuits. An old adage expressed as only Mark Twain can,

“if there’s only one lawyer in a small town he will starve. If there are two lawyers in that small town, both will prosper.”  

It’s time to starve a few attorneys, so that the rest of us can prosper.

Related Stories

We would like to introduce you to the Poster Boy of the “Judicial Overhauling” movement, Judge Christopher J. Muse who was caught on the record. Believe us, Joe Biden has nothing on Judge Muse!

He said what?