Not elected to be lickspittles

To the editor:

Fellow citizens, I have sent the following message to our state legislators with judiciary committee assignments or interests. What do you think they will do?

It has been reported in the Anchorage Daily News that the State of the Judiciary speech given by the chief justice made a point of reporting serious backlogs of unhandled appeals in our state’s justice system. She requested action by the Legislature to fund more personnel to handle this to honor the rights of the Alaskans who have had their appeals so stalled.

Her call to have help to honor the rights of Alaskans has merit.

What does not have merit is the chief justice ignoring or saying nothing about the ill-training, professional misconduct, defiance of rules of the court and judicial canons, or even incompetence that must exist for such a volume of appeals to occur. Such defects would have to be naturally rampant with prosecuting attorneys, defense attorneys and judges/justices, or with all three.

Black’s Law Dictionary defines appeal: “Resort to a superior (i.e. appellate) court to review the decision of an inferior (i.e. trial) court or administrative agency. A complaint to a higher tribunal of an error or injustice committed by a lower tribunal, in which the error or injustice is sought to be corrected or reversed.”

For the Legislature to spend money — no matter how outwardly merited a purpose — merely on the unverified say-so and opinion of a state official (no matter how highly trained or senior) is to demonstrate an intellectual slavery repugnant to the design of republican-type government you have all sworn to guarantee. You are not elected to be lickspittles.

You may very well have to spend public money to clean up the mess reported by the chief justice. But to do so without correcting what creates the mess in the first place is to invite the same mess to be created again. This would be a complete failure of your fiduciary duty to the Alaskan people — worthy of recall and of public condemnation of your morals.

To aid in your proper legislative investigation of this matter of backlogged appeals, I have attached a report of dereliction of duty by the Judicial Branch personally witnessed, previously submitted to the chairman of your committee. Its allegations are fully supported by uncontestable public record and direct proof carefully referenced.

Arising even from our U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, you have an obligation to secure freedom and justice for all. This cannot occur if you fall victim to having elitists in the legal system tell you what to think.

Stuart Thompson

Wasilla