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We got trouble Folks!!
Right here in River City!!
Trouble with a Capital T and that rhymes with B and that stands for Bar as in New York State Bar Association.
The name is Mark H. Alcott, a senior litigation partner in the New York City law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison.
Alcott has just assumed the reins of president of the state bar and he's out to ensure that the state's lawyers control the courts and pick their brothers and sisters as the judges that they want to hear their cases. In some circles, it's called stacking the court.
It seems that Alcott speaks with a forked tongue, first whining that "our courts are under attack" and that he's "deeply concerned about efforts to intimidate judges and strip them of their ability to serve as neutral arbiters of disputes". Looks to us like most times it's the lawyers who are intimidating the judges.
Neutral arbiters? Is there such a thing as an impartial judge in the State of New York?
But then he says he wants to be able to screen who the judges are, he wants merit selection. In order words, if the judge done good and advanced the interests of the legal profession, then they'll get virtual life lease on their judicial seat but if they rule too many times in favor of the defendant, they can say goodbye to their pension. It won't be the people who decide who the judges are but rather the lawyers. How is that having a neutral arbiter on the bench? He wants the lawyers to control the judges, not the public.
It's the judges who have become out of control, a runaway judiciary, abusing their position and power to intimidate the public by legislating from the bench, making the law up as they go along. The law is what I say it is, is their position, not what the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the land, says it is. Apparently Mr. Alcott endorses judicial activism and wants to ensure it continues and that's not a good thing.
Alcott even goes so far as to blame the Schiavo case for the long overdue public awakening to the judicial tyranny that exists in our Republic today, personified by the icon of judicial tyranny, Pinellas County Court probate court judge George W. Greer. The Schiavo case was a showcase of what's wrong in the court system today from the local courts to the state courts to the federal courts.
George Greer's legacy will be that he thumbed his nose at the rule of law, the state and federal Constitutions and dismantled the scales of justice. He firmly established the throw-away society in our Republic and aligned himself with the interests of the death cult while totally disregarding the evidence of criminal wrongdoing and the self-serving interests of Michael Schiavo in his quest to kill his disabled wife.
George Greer a neutral arbiter? That's like saying that Adolf Hitler was a neutral arbiter in determining the fate of the disabled and Jewish faith.
It's eerie that Alcott should blame the Schiavo case as posing a threat to judicial independence. It was the Schiavo case which evidenced the presence of bias and prejudice in the courtroom in the persona of Greer and the legal profession sure didn't shine at it's finest in representing Michael Schiavo. Let's not forget it was lawyer George Felos who refused to honor the directive of his client, refused to honor the decision of Michael Schiavo to "give up the fight" to kill his wife and told him it wasn't Michael Schiavo's decision to make, it was his; right-to-die advocate George Felos who said it wasn't about Terri anymore, it was about the rest of the people who didn't want the government telling us how we could die. George Felos used Terri Schiavo for his own personal agenda as lawyers do every day in this country with their clients' cases, he even took her trust fund money that was earmarked to rehabilitate her to instead advocate his own cause and that's wrong, very, very wrong. With Alcott supporting that position, New York State is headed down that slippery slope where lawyers decide how the cases will be determined, not the judges, not the clients. The Schiavo case wasn't about Terri's right to live and her right to privacy, it was about the personal wishes and agenda of the society of death cult lawyers.
Alcott says "courts have no armies and no weapons other than their moral authority. We must protect that authority by speaking out vigorously against this type of political pressure and I intend to do that".
Moral authority? George Greer have moral authority? Judicial tyranny can never be classified as moral authority. Alcott is incensed because citizens are seeking to restore the balance of power that our Constitution guaranteed instead of the judiciary raping our rights? Alcott must not be allowed to intimidate the residents of New York State. We are a nation of laws, not lawyers and contrary to Mr. Alcott's thinking, we are still a nation of people, and that a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth, and certainly not in New York State even though Mr. Alcott and the New York State Bar seems to feel that lawyers are autonomous.
Alcott also has his goals set on "reforming the judicial selection process" in the state. He wants to take choice away from the people and put it in the hands of---who else---the trial lawyers of the state. We agree there has to be reform of the selection process, but we can't have the lawyers of the state selecting the judges, appointing themselves. He also wants to end the mandatory retirement age of judges. He wants judges to serve forever. He says he's going to be an agent of change. From the platform he presents, any conceivable concept of impartiality would vanish from the courts and instead of that "political interference" that Alcott opposes, he would have the courts controlled by himself and the legal profession, one big clique predicated on money, power and ego. The Haves and the Have Nots, business as usual in the courts. If you've got the money, they've got the time.
Alcott notes that three of the seven members of The New York State Court of Appeals will soon be up for reappointment including Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye and the only African-American Associate Judge, George Bundy Smith. He's threatened that the bar will control who will sit on the Court of Appeals, saying the association will play an important role in "vetting the qualifications of the candidates". He says that for more than four decades, the NYSBA has interviewed candidates for the Court of Appeals and issued findings concerning their qualifications, just another instance of the state's lawyers and bar trying to control the "independent judiciary".
The judicial selection process is certainly in need of reform but we can't have attorneys and judges selecting those who they can control as ascending to or remaining on the bench.
As far as mandatory retirement goes, that should not be disturbed and in fact, term limits for judges in New York State should be imposed and the terms for judges should be reduced, eliminate the 10 year gravy trains. If judges had to be accountable to the people as do other public officials, then perhaps their rulings would be fairer and more in compliance with the law.
The criminal justice system in New York, as across the nation, is sadly in need of reform. In Shakespeare's Henry VI, one of the characters, "Dick The Butcher" said that the "First thing we do, is kill all the lawyers".
Agreed, in addition to abolishing the state bar association, that would be a fine start to effect the overdue legal and judicial reform in New York. 6-05-06
© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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