Commission brushes-off effort to address judicial reform

I was permitted to give general testimony to our state Judicial Conduct Commission Aug. 19 about the types of judicial misconduct (as defined by statute) in Alaska. Effectively, the Commission brushed off this constructive effort to address judicial reform, and treated me like I was a clueless barking dog. Fellow citizens, following are excerpts from that testimony for you to judge if this constitutes destructive citizen suppression.

Willful misconduct in office

Lord Acton’s maxim applies. “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” People are imperfect and the more power and authority they have, the more those imperfections are exaggerated or make the person vulnerable to greed, bribery or blackmail. U.S. founder cognizance of this is the genesis of their theory of checks and balances. They knew they couldn’t eliminate misconduct and corruption, so settled for restraining such. For Alaska’s judiciary to only give lip service to this powerful theory, or only sanctimoniously use it for awhile after somebody gets caught, is philosophic treason — besides being just plain stupid.

Peer pressure has more power to maintain standards than almost any other device. If fellow judges don’t take interest in each other, and catch personally understood symptoms of ethical breakdown before they mutate into willful misconduct, even a judicial Genghis Khan couldn’t keep things straight. It is a social law that the ethics standard of a group is always the lowest common ethical denominator of that group. This is because low standards of some will inevitably coax compromise and then degradation from those with higher standards — if they are all individuated from each other. The Three Musketeers motto “All for One and One for All” is the only path to consistent professional ethics. Oaths of office are worthless without such an interest in the professional well-being of one’s fellows.”

Conduct prejudicial to the administration

of justice

For years I have heard the justice system — championed by its judges — snivel and whine about being overloaded with cases. And how judges have to have their court schedules overbooked like the airlines do. And how they must tolerate the vile and disgusting judicial perversion called plea-bargaining. And how they must permit prosecutors to conceal exculpatory evidence to save time. Thusly, they use overwork to explain away their failure to supply consistent justice to the common people they are supposed to serve.

All the money, power and personnel thrown at this stated problem over the years have never seemed to deal with it. It’s only gotten worse. Why? It’s because it’s the wrong problem! The real one is that as an institution, our justice system perpetuates intellectual slavery of the public on the subject of justice and its administration. Yes! It is intellectual slavery by dictionary definition. In perpetual ignorance of justice, its maxims, and its tested tools, the public subjects itself to an aristocracy of legal professionals as the only gateway to the sole civilized remedy found for abuse of liberty. Or as James Madison put it in the Federalist Papers: “Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society.”

So here is a bottleneck created where a special interest group (lawyers) has obtained a virtual economic monopoly and even dictatorship on the use of public power. How is it perpetuated? By the educational myth that the legal profession and the social science of justice can only be understood and utilized by talents identified by law schools. This philosophic treason also creates politicians who ignorantly think passing law solves all social problems — even when enforcement of law is the weakest of three historic vehicles capable of bringing social order. Thus abuse of lawmaking power brings further congestion to the justice system with exaggerated lists of victim-less “crime.” Naturally, it supports the legal profession’s monopoly for judges to totally neglect their branch of government’s responsibility to check such abuse of lawmaking.

What to do? Education is the simplest method of getting bodies of people to move in a coordinated fashion. Educated Grand Juries, who aren’t just puppets of prosecutors, can use their full powers to screen criminal charges, or investigate potential charges when prosecutors don’t have time to. Educated public can handle competent presentation of their own cases, or arm their attorneys efficiently so litigation isn’t a cacophony of people going off half-cocked. You would also create a field of non-lawyer people who would be competent enough to be appointed magistrates, if not judges. Thus the bottleneck that creates insufficient infrastructure for widespread justice would be eased. Therefore, I suggest you have every judge and lawyer in the state practice intellectual emancipation of the Alaskan people by lecturing at schools, churches, civic group meetings, and meetings of legislators on basic legal maxims and the discipline of due process of law. A good role model for such activity is Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, who is on the lecture circuit on this very subject. This also would reach the judiciary’s responsibility to check abuse of lawmaking.”

Stuart Thompson lives in Wasilla.