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We have all heard
it said that “no
one is above the law”
– but is that statement true? This article will examine the various
types of legal immunity, who is immune to the (legal) consequences of
their actions, and will expose why some people who are granted this
immunity are the worst criminals among us. I examine the reasons why
these forms of immunity should be immediately rescinded because they
violate the very concept of “justice under the law”, and in fact, are
violations of the United States Constitution, and of human rights in a
civilized society in general.
But before we get
into all of that, I want to make a “common sense” observation. I will
state the observation in the common vernacular so that everyone – even
an imbecile – understands the heart of the matter at hand. That
observation is simply this:
He who has the biggest guns, makes the
rules.
Who has “the
biggest guns” in the world? You guessed it; The United States. This
allows us to run roughshod over sovereign nations like Iraq and
Afghanistan, lets the President of the United States (George Bush,
et. al.) construct total bullshit stories about “Weapons of Mass
Destruction” that were never there, and go into that country with an
invasion force to steal that country’s natural resources (oil), which
happens to be the commodity his family in “the oil business” has been
dealing in for generations. Where is the accountability to the law for
this man and his co-conspirators to face the gavel of justice for what
is essentially a war crime? The answer is that there is no
accountability, and the reason for that is what is known as
“Parliamentary Immunity” which
holds government officials immune from
prosecution while they are operating in their elected office.
Sovereign immunity
and its various and sundry spin-offs, has its roots in the law of Feudal
England and the premise for it is that “The Ruler can do no wrong” – I
reckon that people in Feudal England were either ill-informed, stupid,
or naïve – much as we are in the United States today. Public policy
grounds for granting immunity from civil lawsuits to judges and
officials in the Executive Branch of government survive even today.
Sometimes known as official immunity, the doctrine was first
supported by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1871 case of Bradley v.
Fisher.
In Bradley, an attorney attempted to sue a judge because the judge had
disbarred him. The Court held that the judge was absolutely immune from
the civil suit because the suit had arisen from his judicial acts. The
Court recognized the need to protect judicial independence and noted
that malicious or improper actions by a judge could be remedied by
Impeachment rather than by litigation.
In other words, if
a judge or prosecutor railroads you into serving a prison sentence for a
crime you did not commit, your only “remedy” is to lobby the citizens
for the Judge or prosecutor’s removal from office. Since it would be
next to impossible to do this from a prison cell using a manual
typewriter and legal help from inmate law clerks in the prison law
library, you would have to have someone on the “outside” assist you, or
do it for you, or wait until you got paroled.
Even if you won
the case and the official is impeached, you would have no way to be
compensated for the years you spent picking up soap with your toes in
the shower, because the bastard(s) are immune from civil lawsuits. Your
only recourse then would be the exercise of your
2nd
Amendment rights, and you risk the attendant consequences for doing so.
Before we get too
far into this, allow me to define the types of immunity, so that the
reader can become familiar with the terminology.
SOVEREIGN
IMMUNITY – (aka: Official Immunity) A nation is immune from
suit in the courts of another country.
At first, courts provided absolute immunity from the jurisdiction of a
U.S. court for any act by a foreign state. The courts supported the view
that the United States could not be sued without Congressional
authorization.
This immunity applied to suits filed by states as well as individuals.
Those who had tort claims against the US government had
no legal recourse
except through an act of Congress
on a case-by-case basis.
The Tucker Act
authorizes Federal District Courts to hear
contractual claims not exceeding $10,000 against the United States. In
1946 Congress passed the Tort Claims Act,
which authorized U.S. district courts to hold the United States liable
for torts committed by its agencies, officers, and employees just as the
courts would hold individual defendants liable under similar
circumstances. This general waiver of immunity had
a number of
exceptions
which
made the Tucker Act essentially worthless:
EXCEPTIONS TO THE TUCKER ACT
·
Battery
·
False imprisonment
·
False arrest
·
Malicious prosecution
·
Abuse of process
·
Libel
·
Slander
·
Misrepresentation
·
Deceit
·
Interference with contractual rights
·
Tort in the fiscal operations of the Treasury
·
Tort in the regulation of the monetary system
·
Tort in combatant activities of the armed forces in wartime
A head of State
such as a King, a President, or a Dictator has traditionally been immune
from the law because he commands the government who “has the biggest
guns”, or “more guns than the governed” (This
is the real reason behind “gun control” legislation).
No one protected under this immunity can be arrested and no lawsuits can
be filed against a sovereign unless the sovereign allows it to happen
(which is practically never).
The federal
government of the United States may not be sued under this protection.
Of course, a citizen may have a cause of action to bring a lawsuit, and
(if they’re lucky) it may even get to trial; the citizen may even win!
However, it would all be an exercise in futility because it is extremely
rare for a lawsuit
against the government or its officials to end up with the plaintiffs
being compensated for their injuries.
So a lawsuit is essentially moot, and a judgment against the government
or its officials is a pyrrhic victory and an exercise in futility if it
doesn’t end with some sort of compensation – or “effective remedy”.
Members of
Congress and state legislators are absolutely immune from civil lawsuits
for their votes and official actions.
In 1998 the U.S.
Supreme Court extended immunity to local legislators.
However, not all
immunity is absolute. The Court ruled that President Bill Clinton had to
defend himself in a sexual-harassment lawsuit that was based on his
alleged actions while governor of Arkansas.
The reason the case proceeded is that “getting head” or sexual relations
of any sort was not a part of his “official capacity” as Governor.
You will note, a
cursory examination of the progression of immunity being extended to
more and more people in the government as time goes on, will reveal the
fact that the expansion of immunity seems to correlate with the need to
protect more and more people from prosecution as criminals, and against
civil lawsuits for egregious violations of civil and human rights
committed “in an official capacity”, as the corruption in the government
expands.
DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY – Is granted to
representatives of foreign governments (and their resident families) by
the Vienna Convention Diplomatic Relations Act of 1978.
Article 31 of the Vienna Convention does not allow the private residence
of a diplomat to be included in a civil suit.
Diplomats routinely
violate the laws in this country – traffic laws in particular – [watch
out for “DPL” license plates] and if I had 1/10th of the
money owed by diplomats for parking violations in New York City alone,
I’d own a Fortune 500 company. US citizens and businesses might as well
spit upwind in a Saigon monsoon when filing civil claims against a
diplomat, especially in cases of unpaid debts, such as alimony, rent,
divorce,
or child support et. al.
A diplomat can
commit a murder or rape, and thumb his nose at the police when they come
to arrest him.
The worst that can happen to a diplomat who is found committing a
serious crime is that he is deported (the taxpayers pay the airfare). In
very rare cases where the crime is especially egregious, the diplomat’s
country may refuse to enforce the person’s immunity, or refuse to accept
him back in his home country. In that case, he leaves for “parts
unknown”, and is banned from re-entry into this country.
PROSECUTORIAL IMMUNITY – A State or
local prosecutor cannot be arrested for any crimes he commits (such as
falsifying evidence) or civilly sued for any Civil Rights violations he
perpetrates upon an innocent person in the courtroom. This effectively
gives prosecutors carte blanch to lie (or cause witnesses to lie)
under oath, and gain
false convictions thereby. Under Qualified
immunity, prosecutors can also, with impunity, withhold exculpatory
evidence,
interfere with attorney – client communications, and can effectively
bias a case by interfering with such essential, Constitutionally
protected processes.
JUDICIAL
IMMUNITY –
A judge is not criminally or civilly liable – They cannot
be arrested and they cannot be sued for any crimes or violations of the
law – even the US Constitution – while they are acting “in their
official capacity”. A judge can conspire with the District Attorney to
exclude evidence that favors the accused in a high-profile or
“sensitive” case, or a case in which he has a “vested interest” in order
to gain a false conviction and public notoriety as a “tough-on-crime”
judge. That same judge can walk out of the courtroom and get in his car
and be arrested for DUI minutes later. Since driving a car is not an act
of his “official capacity”, he can be charged, but being a member of the
“good ol’ boys club” of judges, do you really think he would serve any
prison time for it?
PARLIAMENTARY IMMUNITY – This keeps
elected government officials immune from prosecution while acting “in
their official capabilities”.
Parliamentary Immunity is essentially
Prosecutorial Immunity sub nom.
QUALIFIED
IMMUNITY – Prosecutors cannot be sued
for having lawyers searched, or for interfering with the lawyer who is
advising a client appearing before a grand jury.
One of the main goals of qualified immunity is to remove the defendant
from the lawsuit as quickly as possible, thereby reducing legal costs.
Justice Anthony Kennedy restated the principle that
immunity is not a
“mere defense” to liability but [it is] an “immunity from suit.”
Immunity from
the law is not a free pass to commit crimes, however. There are several
instances where some person who thinks that they are immune to
prosecution actually becomes convicted of serious crimes. Usually cases
that involve such persons are very costly and time consuming. Cases
against people who have immunity are often undertaken because of the
obvious seriousness of the charges.
Hundreds of thousands of cases for egregious criminal conduct could be
brought against police, prosecutors, judges, and politicians who have
(or had) ulterior motives or vested interests for violating the rights
of US Citizens. This is especially true in cases where “social workers”
or other “child protective” agencies walk into a home and remove a child
or children from a home without probable cause, without any evidence of
a crime being committed, and without any
due process of law whatsoever.
In fact, false allegations of “child abuse” were one of the reasons for
the FBI / ATF raid on Waco and Ruby Ridge. See articles and videos
posted on the following pages:
http://www.serendipity.li/waco.html
http://www.Net4TruthUSA.com/ACSAbuse.htm
http://www.Net4TruthUSA.com/righttopetition.htm
It is
the purpose and intent of this writer to rally support among the
American people for the total abolition of Immunity from Prosecution in
all of its varied forms. Immunity from prosecution = Freedom to commit
crimes and Civil Rights violations with absolute impunity, which flies
in the face of “justice under the law” in any meaningful context.
Citizens who are wronged by the government should have an effective
remedy to bring their case to bar, and to have all evidence openly
demonstrated – whether the “court” deems it relevant or not; a jury of
one’s peers should be the ones who decide what evidence is relevant –
not a judge, prosecutor, or District Attorney who may have a personal or
professional interest in prejudicing a case against a defendant.
In
addition,
I propose that a reverse of the current doctrine should be
enforced at the Federal level; that is, any person found to have
committed a crime (such as, but not excluding fabrication of evidence,
withholding of exculpatory evidence, tampering with a jury, interfering
with or monitoring communications or written correspondence between a
lawyer and his client etc.) shall be arrested and charged as
ordinary citizens would, and if found guilty of such violations, be
FIRED from his position, lose all benefits and pension accrued, and be
sentenced for those crimes, and
in addition, a mandatory sentence
extension to run consecutively with the sentence for the crimes
committed,
of twice the maximum sentence the defendant served or
would have served
– and that the punitive sentence would be served without
the possibility of reprieve or parole.
In addition,
the former official would become civilly liable in his private person,
to civil tort actions by the person or persons he has harmed. I propose
that the immunity protections that were afforded these individuals were
unconstitutional to begin with, and therefore, are of no force
presently, nor were they of any force in the past. Therefore with the
Immunity provisions being globally rescinded in their entirety, US
Citizens who were harmed by official misconduct or criminal acts,
violations of their God-given Constitutional rights as Americans, or
other egregious behavior by government officials, will now have
ex-post-facto cause of action for criminal and civil prosecutions of
those officials.
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