The judge let him go, but he spent a night in jail and was shackled and handcuffed for his court appearance. WHAT THE HELL?? If this can happen even for a night, what is wrong with this country? Can we fix it? One of the MAIN purposes of the First Amendment was to be able to point out the problems with the government without being jailed for it.
So, area for debate: What can we do? Is there anything I can do here in Austin, TX to get the country back on the right track? Or is this purely a local incident of one bad judge that I should ignore and move on from?
I’m gonna go with “B”. One bad judge. Not a national crisis.
The article you linked is woefully short on information, but reading between the lines (and looking at the pictures), it sounds like the arrestee first showed up at the courthouse with a sign that derided the judge in his child custody case by name. The judge must have entered an order for him to remove the sign from the courthouse. Then he puts a more generic anti-court-system sign in his yard, and somehow winds up in the pokey for contempt of court. Hard to know exactly what went on without reading the orders entered in the case.
It sounds like one local judge who can’t handle criticism forgot himself, and forgot the First Amendment.
Again, we don’t have enough information to draw a conclusion, but if there has been a First Amendment violation (and it does look that way), then the victim’s remedy would be to file a lawsuit against the judge in federal court under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 (which creates a cause of action for violation of civil rights).
It appears that there were multiple signs in the yard of the arrestee, one of which proclaimed the court system was a “joke”, the rest of which appear to have criticized the judge specifically for a decision granting custody of children to the ex-wife.
The judge has been told not to do it again by the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission.
One should keep in mind this is the same state which produced Judge Moore. Gotta love Alabama.
It sure sounds like the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission stays busy.
I think Alabama has direct election of judges. That makes a judge punishing people for criticism of him and the judicial system generally all the more reprehensible.
So, area for debate:** What can we do?
Is there anything I can do here in Austin, TX to get the country back on the right track? Or is this purely a local incident of one bad judge that I should ignore and move on ?**
What you can do and what you should do is … stick a sign in your own yard in Austin Texas, that reads…OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM IS A JOKE!
Take Jackson County, Alabama for example…the redneck judge puts the redneck boy in jail for a night because he criticized the court. The boy complained to the good ole boys at the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission and they told the judge with a smile and a wink to be more discreet. That’s Alabama. In other parts of the country the wheels of justice grind not so fair.
Justice in America has become an open joke. Here truth and rightness are commodities. Everyone accepts the sad reality that dispensation of justice in the United States is very often given to the highest bidder. Our nation’s laws and legal checks against inequities, have been distorted and then re-crafted by a consortium of lawyers, politicians, and judges into a self-perpetuating machine that sings sirenly a song of justice , but is , in reality , only a legal method of making those who are connected to the legal process locally powerful, and oft times wealthy, and sometimes rich.
Ahhhh, yes. Thank God for the bright light of truth and justice shone down from above by the mighty Milum. I am, once again, in awe of your insight and genius-ness, Milum and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Of course this case is not a single example of a minor abuse of power by a local judge, who was then properly admonished by the judicial review board. Instead, it is a beacon showing that all of Alabama is populated by idiots and yokels. It is a lighthouse, pointing the way to Milum’s firm and unyielding truth. It is an indictment of the entire system, rather than one judge screwing up.
What good luck! It just so happens that I was finishing up a featured interview in the **
AMERICAN JUSTICE DISROBED NEWSLETTER $.50 US $20.00 Canadian** ,
and guess what, the hypothetical interviewee was you. Below is a copy of the article, FREE!
Milum: Hi Hamlet. Hamlet: Hi Milum. Milum: Hamlet have you ever seen a flock of blackbirds in early winter as they move from lawn to lawn greedily eating up all the acorns that have fallen from the oak trees against the food shortages of the coming winter? Sometimes birds of other species join in the rape of the land; red-winged blackbirds, starlings, and other vandals find a survival value in the pillage and plunder. Funny thing about these gangs of birds…they have no leader. Yet they move from lawn to lawn on cue, and act instinctively for the common good of all bird bandits, and to hell with the squirrels in the oak trees, who, one would think, would rightfully be adjudicated the ownership of the nuts.
Get it? Hamlet: Uh…no. Milum: Don’t worry, Hamlet, one day you will. Yes siree, you will.
Oh did you now Dwarf? What I think is that the " Simpsons" guide your intellect.
I think that you are a nice guy, young, and given to cliches that
substitute for any substantive retort that has substance. I do like you, but only in a realization that later you will develope into a worthwhile citizen of Earth.
Meanwhile use your ears more than your mouth and be cool.
