I grew up believing the law and those involved in upholding it are sacrosanct; why would they not be as it is as close as one gets to God’s key attributes – “to do justice and judgment”1 with God characterized as “the habitation of justice,”2 the source. Albeit knowing that “to do justice and judgment” via humans can in no way parallel how God does it – without perversion – it still has to be close with my belief being those called to it or given the opportunity “to do” have to be the cream of the crop – from a moral standpoint. Specifically, they are men and women more capable, more dedicated or more driven than most for their moral compass to point true north, to suppress uglier or baser instincts that may easily rule or trip others and harness that compass to a voice of reason, of fairness, that encourages everyone’s better angels to the table in resolving controversies for collective good under the law. In short, an overall laudable human, where a superior intellect is just gravy; it is the heart “to do justice and judgment” and to demonstrate, in alignment to the source, that brings them honor and respect in society. No one honors mediocrity or the mundane and those who force it without a show of excellence earn contempt. My belief led to an expectation that guided how I dealt with men and women in venues assigned for the doing – the courts.
My expectation, however, was not rooted in knowledge of how attorneys and judges come to be in our society. When a gymnast wins Olympic gold, it is only after a public demonstration of their superior skills relative to their peers, where what they publicly display testifies to what is less public – the amount of training/preparation, dedication, self-control, discipline, sacrifices, talent that led to that public, laudable performance. It is easy to admire them because there is clear evidence of their superiority, not from wearing the outfit of a gymnast but from their throughput. Understandably, there are “experts” who score their performance to then award a medal, but the public gets to see and adjudge their worthiness too. Many who fall in love with and respect gymnasts do not do so because they are told they won a medal or are good at it but because they see their performances, past and/or present, to adjudge for themselves.
When most in the public first encounter an attorney or a judge, they are riding on a belief of a superiority they have not witnessed nor had an opportunity to adjudge for themselves. Wearing a judicial robe is expected to inform the public of the ethics or moral fiber of its wearer when they have not (yet) seen any throughput. The robe is a symbol to inspire public trust and respect on assumption that what is less public – the amount of training/preparation, dedication, self-control, discipline, sacrifices, talent – of its wearer somehow exists. Thus, when throughput or performances of any wearer show divergence from what was assumed, it can lead to an internal battle, as it did with me, to try to disengage from my long-held beliefs never rooted in evidence or knowledge of what is but on assumption of what it should be. A license to practice law is evidence of some preparation but of the intellectual, not the moral. No law school curriculum, part of the process of preparation, guarantees any who complete it and pass a bar exam are “more capable, more dedicated or more driven than most for their moral compass to point true north, to suppress uglier or baser instincts that may easily rule or trip others, and harness that compass to a voice of reason, of impartiality, that encourages everyone’s better angels in resolving controversies…under the law.” Our expectations guide our actions: the public tends to be at a distinct disadvantage when they first encounter a robe wearer who is ruled by uglier, baser instincts; the assumption is if such exist, they would have been ousted a long time ago but how can any “expert” oust or score what was not a key criterion for entry or elevation to judgeship? How many get the medal based on whom they know instead of any proven or demonstrated superiority relative to their peers?
When I first faced a thief wielding a gavel, I was unequivocally unprepared. My belief about any gavel wielder wearing a judicial robe was expertise in the law and moral uprightness which guided my actions. I was an open book. I had no defenses. I believed justice was the goal of all proceedings and I did everything I was told, putting my inner compass on the back burner in deference to an assumed moral superior. I questioned nothing at first, unsuspecting that I was a prime target to be fleeced, like sheep led to the slaughter, by one who was morally bankrupt. I fit several criteria for a prime target – a woman from an underrepresented minority group; fiscally stable with a potential to earn more due to excellent credentials and/or skills; a clear Achilles heel (my children) and one for whom the process of abuse begun before entry into the court, underscoring the existence of a vulnerability – an open wound. A wound is important; it provides incentive for prime targets to stay in the court believing for relief; our thirst for relief/ justice is primal. If humans wanted to be easy prey to those who wound, weapons would not exist. Since the gavel-wielding thief needs a substrate from which to launch attacks on the prime target, it is also critical that the other party, if not all, be susceptible to emotional manipulation, that is driven or blinded by vengeful lusts or other consuming emotions against the target that can be leveraged, akin to a narcissist in need of supply3 or an addict in need of a fix. Once stirred, like Pavlov’s dog, the gavel-wielding thief piggybacks for a continuum of attacks on the target, which exacerbates their wounds as they are being fleeced ad nauseam, guaranteeing their search for relief after each hit or wound, in vain.
A judge’s official act is to adjudicate what is requested – a request is called a motion or a petition or a complaint – which means in the absence of a request from a party, it is hard for any judge to act or hide (criminal) proclivities or premeditated atrocities for (unsuspecting) targets in the populace. Any “judgment” they make, in the absence of a request, is sua sponte, meaning the judge acted on his/her own initiative, a disfavored practice that showcases the judge imposing self-will or personal bias, instead of impartial application of the law to an actual request. Acting on his/her own initiative transforms a judge into a party, an impropriety that can subject them to scrutiny and/or discipline, which no thief ever wants; nefarious activities thrive best in obscurity. In short, a gavel-wielding thief needs a launch pad – a request – so the party susceptible to emotional manipulation is key to the operation of crime in any court; they have to be incentivized to make a request, no matter how improper or law-deficient, to provide the launch pad and then they are rewarded with any number of things, while any request of the prime target is ignored, like a boxer in a boxing ring with their hands tied to allow punch after punch in interminable rounds. Yes, the US Court facilitates abuse and unfortunately, it seems more adept at manufacturing controversies, than in resolving them. Manufacturing or worsening existing controversies seems to assure its relevance and gains for its officers, no matter how depraved and distant from justice doing so is. Of course, there are various instances where it seems the court gets it right, but those are exceptions, not norm. “To do justice and judgment” seems more “to do crime and escape;” God has nothing to do with it.
The request that first got me to ever enter any court was to seek protection after a violent incident involving my attempted murder by strangulation. My assigned angels must have been working overtime that day as it took a Herculean effort to escape that assault; my swollen neck and partially crushed trachea, uprooted finger nail, bruised face were evidence of the fight, with internal wounds unseen, and along with testimony it was enough for the perpetrator, a non-resident, to be ordered out of the country. The court that stood up for me and the rule of law was in Switzerland, affirming my belief that a court is a place “to do justice and judgment.” The US court, so far, has proven to be a different kettle of fish.
My second request was in a US court, to seek registration of a judgment from Switzerland, to recognize and enforce its provisions, including permanently sever a legal association that was responsible for more than just a few wounds, some of which still bled and in want of relief. The fact that I hailed from Switzerland seemed to suggest in the US court that I swam in wealth or money; I became a prime target.
What should have taken a few months, as in Switzerland, took years, unresolved. I did not even see the torpedo launch; when debris of its impact started to choke various areas of my life and I started to wise up to what was going on, the attack transitioned to another state court well-known for its adept fleecing script with zero accountability for the gavel-wielding thieves there who know each other and seem to cover for each other. All it took for the transition to the guillotine site were 3 requests; the first 2 tanked my request and the third initiated the process, with the attorney of the other party boasting that the merits of tanking my request to initiate theirs was to deprive me of my due under the law. The basis and intent of the bad-faith request that initiated the second case in the US was fraud and extortion.
5 more years of more debris that choked with wounds galore saw my once-thriving career suffocated, loss of employment, loss of my children, loss of my good name, loss of my fiscal stability, which all led me to the US federal court for relief. Surely, I would be defended there and my constitutional and human rights count for something; I found out they do not. By a conflagration of the US toxic history with race, slavery and endemic marginalization of minority segments of its populace, I was just another statistic in a milieu of no legal relief and no consequences for officers in its courts. The fleecing script was well-known; it thrived under (misused) judicial doctrines to clamp down on due process of law whiles complicit court officers coasted with immunity. The only thing missing was the soundtrack from “The Godfather.”
My first federal complaint lasted 10 days before a sua sponte dismissal – a toss out on the district judge’s own initiative – ensured its swift demise. My second federal complaint, after more wounds, named thirty-four (34) co-conspirators, with all (except eight) having a valid license to practice law in the US; it lasted longer but also met sudden death with no preamble/notice so no time to prep a dirge. When I came to the realization that actors in the lower federal courts appeared to be abetting the deprivations by impeding cases from proceeding to hearings or judgments rooted in the law, I ran to the highest court – the US Supreme Court – expecting an immediate stamp out of the atrocities believing they would be absolutely shocked to know what is happening down under; my expectation was based on assumption, not knowledge. When a clerk of that court returned to me what was an expensive submission, on account of the number of defendants alone outside of court fees, claiming an issue with the font in which the submitted petition was written, I was floored. The Clerk’s Office practice of returning petitions for whatever reason, with no public transparency on submissions received and alleged reasons for (no) returns, maintains it and discourages (re-)submissions. The fiscal hurdles to proceed in the US Supreme Court are not insignificant and serves to make any fiscally crippled/indigent citizen stop or not try at all. To proceed with exemption from some of those costs requires an embarrassing display of one’s fiscal dirty linen on the court’s public site, which deters submissions further. To avoid the embarrassing public display of my fiscal crippling over years, I took on more debt instead of ask for any concession. Only after I incurred the additional cost of sharing the returned petition with members of US Congress – to adjudge if any issue with the font in which it was written existed or the return indicative of a court’s reluctance to address matters therein, my re-submission (in the same font) was filed. It was a short win; before justices could review the filed petition, the underlying case in the lower federal court, was quickly dismissed, without preamble. This is the “to do justice and judgment,” US style, that I have been exposed to to-date.
The sum total of my years in the US court is more than a decade, from 2014 to-date, with my latter years involving other persons experiences. Whether a prime target is just fleeced or totally annihilated appears to depend on their accessed level of threat to the status quo, with those who fizzle out or shut up sometimes left alone to stew in festering, inflicted wounds in bar-less prisons. I am not one of those who fizzle out or shut up; I have a mandate that says nothing outside God’s “to do justice and judgment” will thrive in obscurity; only God’s way will do. Behind the Scales of Justice is like coming out of the closet; it exposes what few may know to inform and empower their choices. How can any one survive in a playing field rigged with minefields of attorneys, judges, parties and non-parties? It takes prayer, discernment and some bold, strategic measures some of which I will share; you may not win but you will survive knowing you navigated it as best as you could taking calculated risks. No one viewing my publicly filed petition on the US Supreme Court site would know what it took for it to get there and fewer still may understand what its denial, without reason, means or the consequences meted out in the background to force silence, threatening “freedom of speech” daily to undermine the US Constitution. What I share is sourced from direct experience, research, reviews of legal opinions and accounts of others whether or not they were prime targets. The perspectives (to be) expressed here are all my mine and all truth; I have no desire to invite God’s wrath on me. For some, the stories may turn the bile in their gut or cause severe heartburn. For others, it may be a refreshing change in a culture of silence and obscurity that foments injustices against an unsuspecting public. I guess there is no time to lose; let’s get started! Bon appetit!
Citations/References
Behind the Scales of Justice 