Lawyer’s Lawyer, Radical’s Radical

by Andrew McCarthy - March 9th, 2009 (Publication date - posting date 2/24) - National Review

Meet Obama DOJ nominee Dawn Johnsen

Johnsen’s ... bête noire is national security — at least to the extent it involves detaining terrorists and enemy combatants as military opponents rather trying them as civilian criminal defendants. Her 2008 academic article “What’s a President to Do? Interpreting the Constitution in the Wake of Bush Administration Abuses” gathers the Left’s full array of anti-war tropes and disguises them as legal analysis. There is the determination to ignore the terrorist attacks of the 1990s, such that the War on Terror is presented as something President Bush started after 9/11 rather than a years-long jihadist provocation to which the United States finally responded after 9/11. This framework would make it impossible to prosecute as war crimes such pre-9/11 atrocities as the bombings of the USS Cole and the embassies in East Africa. Johnsen further denigrates as an “extreme and implausible Commander-in-Chief theory” Bush’s rationale for warrantless surveillance of suspected al-Qaeda communications into and out of the United States. In fact, the practice was strongly supported by federal court precedent and has since been reaffirmed by the appellate court Congress created specifically to consider such issues. And Johnsen has recently written that the new administration “should order an immediate review to determine which detainees should be released and which transferred to secure facilities in the United States” for civilian trials.

The liberal love for destroying any methods by which America defends itself from acts of war, even to the opposite preference of assuring that enemies are conceded Constitutional rights, is the main background to this love of our corrupt courts as the venue for defending our nation's enemies.

Rancher Ruling Adds To Border Debate

by Jerry Seper - February 22nd, 2009 - Washington Times

Arizona rancher Roger Barnett initially faced the possibility of paying $32 million to compensate several illegal immigrants he stopped at gunpoint on his land. He walked away instead with a verdict that rejected any notion he violated the trespassers' civil rights and affirmed that U.S. citizens can still detain aliens crossing the border.

What remains to be seen, though, is what impact the $77,800 in damages that a jury Tuesday ordered Mr. Barnett to pay will have on America's larger immigration debate and the efforts of some illegals to get compensation from a country they aren't even allowed to enter.

How can anyone make sense of a ruling that say a man has a legal right to defend his land but owes $60,000 in DAMAGES for having done what he has a legal right to do? It is such insane idiocy that liberal judges have allowed to become common place in our corrupt court system.

16 Illegals Sue Arizona Rancher

by Jerry Seper - February 9th, 2009 - Washington Times

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Liberal Democrat judges are determined to make sure that the Constitution is extended to every person in the world. That extension includes the ignorant premise that people who are entering the country illegally have civil rights that prevents a American citizen property owner from arresting and holding these illegal aliens and calling the immigration authority.

"This is my land. I´m the victim here," Mr. Barnett said. "When someone´s home and loved ones are in jeopardy and the government seemingly can´t do anything about it, I feel justified in taking matters into my own hands. And I always watch my back."

He IS the victim. Everyone in America is a victim of a corrupt judiciary whose lust for power allows them to distort everything our Consitution stands for to convert our nation into a socialist haven for everyone in the world.

Verdict Is Still Out On Innocence As Defense

by Lias Falkenberg - February 2nd, 2009 - Houston Chronicle

Does innocence matter?

When I posed that question in a column last week on death row inmate Larry Swearingen’s innocence claim in federal court, I was unaware of the state of Texas’ long-held official answer.

The next day, attorney Gerry Birnberg sent me the link to the transcript of the 1992 oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case Herrera v. Collins.

I was appalled by what I read.

The State of Texas argued before the nation’s highest court that it was OK to execute an innocent person, as long as he got a fair trial.

If this surprises you, then you need to wake up. Any doubt of just how corrupt our court system has become is proven by the fact that lawyers actually argue gibberish such as this in our highest courts. And our Judges listen! Rulings are made that are just as insane as the arguments.

The American Court system has long since abandoned any pretense at justice because they feel that any definition of justice is too complicated to follow. They have settled on a much easier solution. They define 'justice' as whatever they decide. How convenient. No great agony over a complicated definition. No need to concern yourself with actual innocence or guilt. Once twelve raving lunatics said 'guilty' the Judges can walk away and wash their hands. It is not their problem.

Does this seem reasonable to you?

Motley Paint Crew

Editorial - February 3rd, 2009 - Wall Street Journal

In a 2000 letter to a Texas school, plaintiffs attorneys at Wells, Peyton, Greenberg & Hunt (working alongside Motley Rice predecessor firm Ness Motley) pitched participation in any lead paint lawsuit as a "win-win situation." Even if the administrators weren't sure there was any lead paint in the schools, there must have been some "at one time or another," they wrote.

Using an argument that plaintiffs don't have to prove damage but can merely allege it probably occcured, against defendants who don't have to have done anything wrong but who merely resemble defendants who plaintiffs can allege probably did something wrong ... is the essence of modern law. "Someone who looks like you did something that might have harmed me even though I didn't notice at the time. Since I could have been harmed and it could have been you ... you owe me some money."

In such an environment, the law has become a mockery and a farce. This one example of a lawsuit's failure and some possibility of retribution to its initiators will not slow the deterioration of justice in America.