Level One Corruption - where the law itself is corrupt, unspeakable evil is perfectly legal
Below is excerpted from my upcoming book "Railroading, Stonewalling & Gaslighting"
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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
- Thomas Pynchon, “Gravity’s Rainbow”
The following is a partial list of rules and statutory provisions, each of which authorizes a judge to issue a corrupt ruling, and none of which would be present in a free society that actually had a justice system:
• No Cameras in the Courtroom – Since the advent of photography (and subsequently recording), the rule in U.S. Courtrooms is “no cameras or recording devices allowed.” This, despite the First Amendment’s promise of freedom of the press, and despite the fact that public trials is a defining characteristic of a free society.
Permission to record in court is granted or denied on a case-by-case basis. Like basically everything else, the law is whatever the judge says, First Amendment be damned. Why would you think that cameras are only allowed in court with permission of our overlords? The answer seems self-evident to me: T.H.E.Y. are controlling the evidence, especially the evidence of their own wrongdoing.
If you research the topic, you will find diatribe about protecting a criminal defendant’s right to privacy. But what about civil cases? And since when should anyone in court have a “right to privacy?” A court proceeding so supposed to be a public event, and for very good reason. When the process is secret, tyrants can conduct show trials and get away with it.
As just one example, courts nowadays will alter the official court transcripts as necessary, to destroy evidence of the court’s own wrongdoing - e.g. key evidence disallowed, or key witnesses excluded, or words changed from what was actually said, or deleted altogether. Now, if the proceeding had been livestreamed, and recorded, we could compare the recording to the transcript.
In my never-to-be-humble opinion, all court proceedings should be live streamed and recorded. We have the technology. For crying out loud, 140 million users of Twitch are live streaming themselves playing video games. Other than to cover up what T.H.E.Y. know to be an extortion racket, what reason exists not to allow recording in every single court proceeding, without having to beg permission?
• Judicial Discretion – Found throughout the law, discretion means the Judge is free to decide the issue for either side not matter what the facts. Allegedly, the U.S. was meant to be a nation of laws and not of men. Judges were supposed to follow consistent, well-established legal priciples, evolved over the centuries. We were not supposed to allow judges to make capricious and arbitrary rulings.
• Court Trial – aka “Judge Trial” or “non-jury trial”, a Court Trial means the Judge acts as both judge and jury. The judge non only interprets the law, but also weighs the credibility of evidence and makes factual findings. The so-called Bill of Rights purports to guarantee a jury trial in all criminal and civil matters. Thomas Jefferson warned us:
I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.
- Thomas Jefferson [1]
If you don’t think the “Bill of Rights” was a hoax, look no further than the abolition of the jury trial. Legal scholars have written lengthy journal articles about the right to a jury trial, and completely ignored Family, Probate and Child Welfare, the systems most likely to affect regular people. [2]
• Discovery Motions – “Discovery” is the process of obtaining evidence from the other side, or from third-parties. Supposedly, you are allowed to obtain any documents and get the answers to any questions that are “reasonably calculated to lead to admississilbe, relevant evidence.” In reality, the Judge will exercise “discretion” to punish the disfavored, weaker party.
The Judge can stonewall discovery completely, never compelling the production of anything. Or, the judge can compel the disfavored party to produce endless amounts of documents, to the point where nothing is ever enough, then sanction them for not “cooperating.” Either way, the Judge decides winners and losers in discovery, and monetary sanctions are mandatory against whoever loses a discovery motion. And guess what? Discovery motions are not appealable!
• Judicial Immunity – This is a rule they made up that says that you can’t sue a judge, even if you can prove that they committed a crime and hurt you on purpose, which in legal jargon is called “actual malice.” The “law” says that if a judge is acting in “judicial capacity” (i.e. wearing the black costume and wielding a wooden hammer), then nothing they do can ever be considered any form of wrongdoing. Isn’t that convenient?
The leading case on Judicial Immunity is called Stump v. Sparkman. In that case Judge Stump issued a secret Order authorizing a teenage girl to be sterilized. This was part of the eugenics policy in the U.S. up through the 1970’s.
The girl’s mother had told the Judge that she was “mildly retarded”. Without any proof, without appointing anyone to represent the girl, Judge Stump signed the order. The girl was told she had to have her appendix out. She only discovered she had had a hysterectomy years later after she got married and was trying to have children. She tried to sue Judge Stump, and why wouldn’t she? I would. Wouldn’t you? If you ask me, Judge Stump should be in prison. But no, he was protected by “Judicial Immunity.”
• The Litigation Privilege, aka the Perjury Privilege – Here’s a trivia question for your next dinner party: For every crime, there is a corresponding civil cause of action. We have the crime of murder and the civil lawsuit for wrongful death. There are theft crimes, and the civil case for conversion. There is criminal fraud, and civil fraud. However, there is one notable exception. What is one crime for which there is no corresponding civil action?
The answer is “perjury.” Perjury is making a false statement, under oath, about an important issue. But only the government can prosecute a person for perjury. According to a long-standing principle called the “Litigation Privilege,” you are not allowed to sue somebody for perjury. Not even if you can prove their words were false and defamatory, and cost you your reputation or your children or your business or a million dollars.
The Litigation Privilege might as well be called what it really is: the Perjury Privilege. In my view, it is one of the most destructive laws on the books, second only to “Judicial Immunity” as the worst law ever.
The supposed rationale for the Litigation Privilege is that we want to encourage witnesses to come forward and testify in court cases. If every witness was worried about being sued for what they said, then many would be intimidated and afraid to come to court. The Litigation Privilege is said to “preserve the integrity of the court system”. [3]
Do you believe that the Litigation Privilege preserves the integrity of the court system? I think exactly the opposite. Witnesses who are telling the truth do not need to fear being sued, because, well, they are telling the truth.
It is liars who should and would be afraid to come to court and tell lies. Don’t we want liars to be afraid to lie? Why do we invite liars to testify, and how could anyone buy in to the notion that this preserves the integrity of the system? Is it any wonder that every Civil and Family Law case devolves into a cesspool of dishonesty?
• The Accusatory Hearsay Exception – California Welfare and Institutions Code § 355 makes Hearsay evidence by “peace officers”, “social workers”, “health care practitioners”, and “teachers” automatically admissible as evidence, as long as it is found in a “social study” or a “report”. Not only is it admissible, but the law literally says that it shall be sufficient evidence for a finding of “jurisdiction” over the children, i.e. to seize and permanently hold the children in the foster care system. This is a very profitable situation, as County agencies receive federal money under Title IV D for each child taken.
Let’s look at the Hearsay Rule and why it is important. Hearsay is an out of court statement offered for its truth. So any time a witness is testifying, and says something like, “…Joe told me Bob hit him…” that is hearsay. The witness has no knowledge of Bob hitting Joe, the Court needs Joe to testify. Wait, it gets worse.
All written declarations and reports are out-of-court statements, thus hearsay by definition. Typical social worker reports contain triple hearsay. One social worker writes the report, which is full of out-of-court statements relaying the out-of-court statements of other social workers and peace officers, who assert that the child made certain out-of-court statements that somebody did something wrong. That’s triple hearsay. And yet, it is not possible to cross examine any of these accusers. The Judge, who is acting as jury, will simply accept anything in a report as the truth, and “the law” backs up the judge. If that doesn’t constitute a show trial, I don’t know what does.
• Dispensing With Notice in a Guardianship Hearing
Notice is a fundamental component of due process. “Notice” means that T.H.E.Y. are not supposed to have a legal proceeding where your rights are at stake unless T.H.E.Y. have served you papers that notify you of who the parties are, what is at issue, when the hearing is and where the hearing is. This is why every court paper is required to be served on all parties, and why there is supposed to be filed a proof of service.
California’s Probate Code Section 2250(e) has a rule that says that on a hearing for Temporary Guardianship of a Child, Notice requirement may be done away with for “good cause”. What constitutes “good cause?” It is simply a checkbox on a standard form, and no explanation is required.
For a real-world example of how 2250(e) is used to conduct a secret hearing to take a child away from her legally married, biological parents, 5 days after the father was cleared of the one vague allegation against him, check out the Chapter on the Augustus case.
• Unpublished Appeal Court Opinions - Any time a Court of Appeal rules on a case, its opinion becomes the law. Such “Case law” may be cited in a new case to show how that case is like the earlier one, and why the Court should rule the same way now. Except, nowadays, the vast majority of Appellate Opinions are issued as “unpublished”, meaning we are not allowed to cite the case. Think about it. If the Opinion is valid, then why would we not want it published? And if the Opinion is not valid, why should we allow it to happen in the first place?
• Temporary Child Custody - The right to family unity is a fundamental right. Constitutional rights supposedly cannot be taken away without due process. Under any sane legal system, a parent has a right to frequent contact with their child unless and until that parent is convicted of committing a crime against that child. Not accused. Convicted.
It is extremely common in Family Court for the judge to award ‘temporary” sole custody to one parent, and either no visitation, or only monitored visitation to the other parent, all upon allegations only. Getting to a “final” custody order often takes years of expensive litigation, and is never final anyway, as custody is always modifiable.
The fight is never over. As Alec Baldwin famously said, it’s like being chained to the back of a truck and dragged down a dirt road – it’s not over until someone runs out of gas.
• Best Interest of the Child – This is a catch-phrase throughout Family Law. All other considerations are supposed to take a back seat to the “best interest of the child.” But what does it mean? (Hint: what it means to you doesn’t count).
When a parent comes to family court and learns that the Judge supposedly must consider the “best interest of the child,” that sounds good. The parent is naturally thinking that “best interest” means the same thing to the judge as it does to them. But stop and think about this for a minute.
Any parent has a strong, instinctual feeling about what is best for their child. This comes from making countless decisions about what the children eat, what games they play, what videos they watch, who they are friends with, where they go to school, what religion they practice, and a zillion other things. And it’s all based on love. Parents love their children.
Only someone who truly loves a child can possibly make decisions about their best interest.
Does the Judge love your child? Hell no. The Judge cannot possibly decide the “best interest of the child” the way a parent would. In court, the “best interest of the child” means something completely different than it does in the real world. It means whatever the judge says. A Family Law Judge utters the sacred incantation “the Court finds it is in the best interest of little Johnny that …” And whatever the judge just said becomes “the truth.”
• Domestic Violence Restraining Orders for Non-Threatening Speech - California’s Domestic Violence Prevention Act (“DVPA”), defines “abuse” to include “any conduct that destroys the mental or emotional calm” of the other person.
This has resulted in cases where a 3-year restraining order issued solely on the basis of man forwarding the wife’s text messages to her parents, [4] or another man (me) winning a copyright infringement case against his ex-wife and discussing it on a blog, [5] or another man who emailed his ex wife asking whether the little twin boys would like to visit their grandfather in the hospital. [6]
• Vexatious Litigant Statutes – California Code of Civil Procedure § 391 authorizes a judge to issue a “pre-filing” order against anyone the judge deems to be a “vexatious litigant.” A person subject to such an order is forever prohibited from filing any new litigation unless the government gives permission to do so.
Originally, a vexatious litigant was defined as “a person who files multiple lawsuits, without legitimate grounds, with the intention of harassing or quieting another person.” The idea of shutting down a truly vexatious litigant is reasonable.
There is a guy named Johnathan Lee Riches who filed over 2,600 lawsuits, including trying to sue “Somali Pirates,” “Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Party,” the “13 Tribes of Israel,” “Plato,” “Nostradamus,” “Che Guevara,” “James Hoffa,” “Various Buddhist Monks,” “The Garden of Eden,” “The Roman Empire,” “The Appalachian Trail,” “Plymouth Rock,” “The Holy Grail,” “Nordic Gods,” and “The Dwarf Planet Pluto.”
OK already. Johnathan Lee Riches is vexatious. I have no problem with a law intended to stop someone like him. But as with so many other laws that might sound good, they have written the Vexatious Litigant statutes to allow T.H.E.M. to shut down anyone trying to expose the truth about T.H.E.M. T.H.E.Y. can shut down anyone T.H.E.Y. don’t like. Me for instance.
California’s Section 391 actually has two definitions of “vexatious” – one to identify an actual vexatious litigant, and the other to silence anybody they want to. The first definition is a litigant who, in the previous 7 years has filed and lost at least 5 lawsuits. The other definition applies to a person who, while not having an attorney
…repeatedly files unmeritorious motions, pleadings, or other papers, conducts unnecessary discovery, or engages in other tactics that are frivolous or solely intended to cause unnecessary delay.
- Cal. Code Civ. Pro § 391 (b)(3)
This definition can easily be twisted to fit anybody who can’t afford a lawyer and who is trying to sue anybody. “Repeatedly” filing papers can mean as few as 2 times. “Unmeritorious” is anything the judge says. Likewise, “unnecessary discovery” or “tactics solely intended to cause delay” can mean anything you tried to do in court, but were denied.
In my case, I had Family Law judge Gregory Weingart deem me a vexatious litigant. This was based on saying that my federal copyright infringement case should have been brought in Famiy Court. Never mind that I won that case, and that my judgment was upheld on appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
My Vex pre-filing order was also based on a finding that I caused unnecessary delay by filing a motion trying to disqualify Court Commissionser Alicia Blanco from further hearing Clair’s DV Restraining Order hearing against me. As detailed in a later chapter, this Blanco bitch was clearly biased against me, and that is putting mildly.
The concept of vexatious litigant laws was supposed to apply to plaintiffs who file cases improperly. But I was a defendant to the DVRO! I didn’t file that fucking case, I was just trying to defend myself.
Since when are vexatious litigant laws supposed to stop defendants? Well, Arizona has now encoded the concept of the “vexatious defendant” at Section 12-3201 of its Arizona Revised Statutes, expanding the definition of a vexatious litigation to include “Court actions brought or defended without substantial justification.” I wouldn’t be surprised if California and the rest of the world follow suit.
If stopping vexatious litigation really is the goal of the Vex Lit Statutes, why then would it only apply to parties in pro per? Why are parties who can afford expensive lawyers allowed to litigate as vexatiously as they like? To anyone paying attention, the answer is clear: If you want any chance of justice, you’d better be prepared to pay lawyers a lot of money.
If any Civil Rights lawyer still believes in the “Bill of Rights,” a fine legal argument could be made that Vexatious Litigant laws violate the Equal Protection Clause, unfairly discriminating against poor people. However T.H.E.Y. define “vexatious.” T.H.E.Y should either stop rich people from doing it, or they should allow poor people to.
• It’s Official: Litigation Is Now Domestic Violence – Effective January 2023, California has now passed “AB 2391,” officially connecting supposed domestic violence with supposed vexatious litigation. While “AB” stands for “Assembly Bill,” this new law truly ought become known as the “Alex Baker Act.”
I was the first person in history to have a DV restraining order against me for my litigation conduct, “irrespective of whether the litigation has merit or not,” because “all that matters is the effect that [the litigation] has on [Clair Marlo].”
This new law authorizes a Judge to deem you a Vex Lit, and toss out your case, or deny your motion, if:
…while [a DVPA Family Law] restraining order is still in place, they commence, prosecute, or maintain litigation against the person protected by the restraining order that is determined to be meritless and causes the person protected by the order to be harassed or intimidated.
- AB 2391, to be added at Cal. Code Civ. Pro. § 391 (5)
Clair’s DVRO against me was the model test case for the new law, which new law doesn’t even pretend to be anything besides what it is – totalitarianism. First, remember that they can issue a DVRO for “any conduct that destroys the mental or emotional calm” of the other person. This can mean literally anything.
Then, once the DVRO is in place, the “restrained person” loses the ability to litigate against the “protected person,” including litigating the family law case itself. Notice the use of the word “maintain” in the new law. Until now, a Vex pre-filing order could only prevent you from initiating a new case. Now, T.H.E.Y. can and will use this law to stonewall your already-existing case.
That’s exactly what T.H.E.Y. did to me, which is why I say my case was the test case. Clair Marlo’s DVRO was not to protect her from “violence,” it was to protect her from being sued. While my case was the first, now that they have officially made litigation a form of domestic violence, it surely will not be the last.
• Etc. Etc. Etc. – The above list of corrupt laws is hardly exhaustive. If you know of a bullshit law that was invoked to deprive you or someone you love of justice, feel free to email me about it – alex@pmjmp.org. Put “bullshit law” in the subject line. It can be a statute, or a rule, or a case law holding. We can discuss it on a podcast.
[1] The Writings Of Thomas Jefferson 71 (Washington ed. 1861) [2] See e.g. William V. Dorsaneo, “Reexamining the Right to Trial by Jury,” SMU Law Review, Volume 54, Issue 5, Special Issue (pages 1691-1906) Article 5 (January 2001) – [45 pages and no mention of Family, Probate or Child Welfare courts whatsoever]. [3] See Louise Stark Hill, The Litigation Privilege: Its Place In Contemporary Jurisprudence, Hofstra Law Review Vol. 44, Issue 2, (2015) [4] See IN RE: the MARRIAGE OF Keri EVILSIZOR and Joseph Sweeney https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1705601.html [5] See XXX [6] See XXX – Darwin case