Reply by
Dr. A. D. Jackson 1 hour ago
Hello Lynnette,
The Universal Periodic Review by the Human Rights Council headed by the U. N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has attracted much attention by OAK members. I only make a few reflections. In the same year it was proposed, the U. S. became a signatory to the U. N.'s 1948 Declaration of Human Rights. The issue of using a U. N. treaty to take away rights of citizenry granted by the Constitution - which has been raised in other contexts - does not arise here. In fact the Constitution and Bill of Rights grant more than the 1948 U. N. Declaration, so in that context the dispute is moot..
The 1948 Declaration does not define our rights under the Constitution but is an international standard that the U. N. and other countries at least promise to adhere to. And maybe in light of WW II, it was part of a promise by signatories that certain things cannot and will never happen here. Violating certain parts of the First Amendment, for example, would also violate some parts of the 1948 Declaration. Going to court over here, one would cite appliable constitutional and legal authority.
Commenting on the Periodic Review or otherwise dealing with the High Commissioner on Human Rights, one would either show that certain things are blatantly violative of the 1948 Declaration, might cite the offended provisions, and point out that where there is systematic or systemic corruption and/or blatant disregard of basic rights and various engines of government do nothing about it - somehow neither the constitutional standard nor the international standard is adhered to, and maybe promises of liberty and rights are honored more in the breach than in the keeping.
It is well known that the U. S. holds itself out as a shining beacon of liberty for the world to admire. And in the course of doing that, we often fall short of our billing.
Andrew
Reply by
Joseph Zernik, Los Angeles, CA 13 minutes ago
Again, Dr. A. D. Jackson, made confusing statements. The Universal Declaration is inclusive of the Constitutional (or Amendments) Rights that were enacted by any nation, respectively. Therefore, the Universal Declaration is more comprehensive than the Rights provided in the Constitution, since the whole is bigger than its parts.
The US as a "shining beacon of liberty for the world to admire"? Such notion appears as a largely delusional concept propagated by some in the US, but none that is held valid outside the US. In fact, reading the quotes, copied below, by official government report, by two deans of California law schools, and by a mainstream news outlet, one would likely conclude that even within the US not many share Dr A. D. Jackson's notion.
Copied and linked below is current draft of the Human Rights Alert submission for the Universal Periodic Review.
[1] Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. OAK and NFOJA are welcome to use such draft in their upcoming, scheduled discussion of submission to the UN, since it did not appear that there would be any subject matter to base the planned discussion on.
Truly,
Joseph Zernik, PhD
Human Rights Alert (HRA), NGO
http://human-rights-alert.blogspot.com/
http://www.scribd.com/Human_Rights_Alert
LINKS
[1] The complete draft submission of Human Rights Alert can be viewed at:
http://inproperinla.com/10-04-05-revised-draft-hra-upr-submission.pdf
10-04-05 Revised
Human Rights Alert, NGO - Submission for 2010 United Nations Universal Periodic Review of the United States
About the Justice System of Los Angeles County, California
Quotes from the past decade:
"Los Angeles County got the best courts that money could buy".
KNBC (October 16, 2008)
"Innocent people remain in prison"
LAPD Blue Ribbon Review Panel Report (2006)
Los Angeles Superior Courts must be examine[d for] its role in accepting pleas from innocent defendants and failing to detect police perjury or the conviction of the innocent.
LAPD Blue Ribbon Review Panel Report (2006)
"...law enforcement, prosecutors and judges - inexorably chose containment. It is not that individuals or entities conspired to cover up corruption; it is that when a window on its true extent opened, they simply closed it."
LAPD Blue Ribbon Review Panel Report (2006)
The response by police to the Blue Ribbon Panel report was of interest in that it failed to ever mention past present or future investigation into the Rampart scandal abuses that were the reason the Panel was instituted, and were the subject of its report. Obviously the LA Superior Court and the DA office, the two other parts of the justice system that the Blue Panel Report recommends must be investigated relative to the integrity of the system, have not produced any response that we know of...
LAPD Blue Ribbon Review Panel Report (2006)
The justice system of Los Angeles shows tolerance of a subcult of criminality in the ranks.
LAPD Blue Ribbon Review Panel Report (2006)
Los Angeles County is "the epicenter of the epidemic of real estate and mortgage fraud." FBI (2004)
judges tried and sentenced a staggering number of people for crimes they did not commit."
Prof David Burcham (Dean), and Prof Katherine Fisk, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles (2000)
This is conduct associated with the most repressive dictators and police states and judges must share responsibility when innocent people are convicted.
Prof Erwin Chemerinsky (Dean), University of California, Irvine Law School (2000)
Table of Contents
Quotes about the Justice System of Los Angeles County, California
Executive Summary
I. Alleged Human Rights Violations
II. Key Cases
III. Conclusions
1. Precipitous deterioration in integrity of the Justice System in recent decades
2. Correlation with introduction of computerized case management systems at the courts
3. Conditions are unlikely to self-correct within the framework of US Constitution
4. Such conditions in the US incurs risks that defy assessment to world peace and welfare.
IV. Recommendations
1. No action is not a reasonable viable option
2. Immediate action is required to restore integrity of case management systems and court records in the US and the right to access court records to inspect and to copy
3. Monitoring by the international community is essential
4. The US may opt to institute Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the conduct of the judiciary
V. Appendix - Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Human Rights Alert, a Los Angeles-based NGO, views the 2010 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United States of America (US) by the United Nations (UN) as a unique historic opportunity. The UPR must engage in objective external inspection of the justice system of the US, local, state, and federal, as central to compliance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Accordingly, a series of seven Articles are quoted from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which pertain to integrity of the Justice System, and where the major violations of Human Rights in the US are alleged. Next the submission provides a list of nine Key Cases as the core evidence of the violations. The cases highlight alleged large-scale violations of Human Rights by the courts and the justice system itself. The nine Key Cases are supplemented by a series of Appendices, which are state/federal agency specific. Together, such records produce a detailed picture of the US justice system and the US Human Rights record today. The scope and depth of Human Rights violations which are reported in instant submission may surprise some readers, since the matters are largely under reported. Five far-reaching Conclusions are drawn from such evidence. In essence - that precipitous deterioration in integrity of the US justice system took place in recent decades, which by now has reached crisis level; that conditions of the US Justice System are unlikely to self-correct in a timely fashion through checks and balances that are inherent to the US Constitution, and that such large-scale violations of Human Rights in the US and such state of the US Justice System pose a clear and present danger to world peace and welfare. Accordingly, Human Rights Alert offers five Recommendations. The recommendations focus on strict enforcement of the law on the courts themselves, in areas that may appear merely technical, but are essential for transparency of the courts and the safeguard of integrity in court procedures and court records: (a) Restoration and strict enforcement of First Amendment right to access court records to inspect and to copy, and (b) Strict enforcement of the Rule Making Enabling Acts (states and federal). Implied in enforcement of the Rule Making Enabling Act is subjecting the case management and public access systems of the courts, which are seen as enabling tools of the corruption, to publicly accountable validation (certified, functional logic verification). Close monitoring by the UN and the international community of the effect of any efforts by the US to restore the Rule of Law through enforcement of the law on its courts, is quintessential for any progress in the matter a reverse Marshall Plan.
I. Alleged Human Rights Violations
The primary Human Rights, pursuant to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, violations of which are alleged in instant submission are:
1. Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
2. Article 7
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
3. Article 8
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
4. Article 9
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
5. Article 10
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
6. Article 11
(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission, which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
7. Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
II. Key Cases
Human Rights Alert, a Los Angeles, California based NGO, alleges herein large-scale, pervasive abuse of the Human Rights of the people of the US through widespread corruption of the courts, law enforcement, the legal profession, and financial institutions. Ten (10) specific matters are provided below as highlights. Numerous others are listed in an Appendix:
1. False imprisonment for over a decade of thousands of RampartFIPs (Falsely Imprisoned Persons) in Los Angeles County, California (since before 1998).
The Rampart-FIPs are the victims of the Rampart corruption scandal (1998-2000), almost exclusively black and latinos, who have almost all remained imprisoned. By estimate, about a third of them were still juveniles at the time of their false confinement. An official government panel (2006), which reviewed such state of affairs some eight (8) years after the launch of the initial scandal investigation, with no official report of the investigation ever issued, concluded that it was unreasonable from the start to expect that the corrupt justice system of Los Angeles County would have been able to investigate, prosecute, and judge its own corruption. The panel refused to issue specific findings regarding the scope and nature of the corruption involved in the Rampart scandal, since the Los Angeles Superior Court continues to deny access to court records, in disregard of US First Amendment and Human Rights. Therefore, not even a good estimate of the number of victims is available. The official review panel recommended an outside investigation, to examine the integrity of the Los Angeles Superior Court, Los Angeles County prosecutors, and the Los Angeles Police Department. Such recommendations remain unheeded. The ongoing false imprisonment of thousands of Rampart-FIPs is alleged as a Human Rights disgrace of historic proportions.
2. Ongoing false imprisonment of two of the Angola Three, New Orleans, Louisiana (since 1972)
In 1972, in Louisiana, 3 young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000-acre former slave plantation called Angola. In 1972 and 1973 prison officials charged Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King with murders they did not commit and threw them into 6x9 ft cells in solitary confinement, for over 36 years. Robert was freed in 2001. In March 2008, solitary confinement of the other two was terminated, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
Three court cases are now pending. Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace are both appealing to have their convictions overturned. On October 9, 2009, the State Supreme Court denied Wallace's writ, so he will now be filing a habeas petition in Federal Court.
The joint federal civil rights lawsuit of Woodfox, Wallace, and Robert King, arguing that their time in solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment, will go to trial any month in Baton Rouge, at the U.S. Middle District Court.
3. False hospitalization of 70 year old, former US prosecutor Richard Fine in Los Angeles County, California (since March 2009)
Richard Fine exposed and vocally rebuked the taking by ALL Los Angeles County judges of payments (~$45,000 per judge per year) that were eventually ruled in October 2008 not permitted. In parallel, he documented that it became practically impossible to win a case at the courts against the payer of the not permitted payments Los Angeles County. In February 2009, at the urging of the California Judicial Council, the California Governor singed into law of dubious validity Retroactive Immunities for all judges who took such not permitted payments, to mitigate their civil and criminal liabilities. Less than two weeks later, on March 4, 2009, Richard Fine was apprehended by the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department Warrant Detail albeit with no warrant at all. He has been falsely hospitalized under solitary confinement ever since. His case is of historic significance, since it provided abundant evidence of (a) the racketeering nature of the conduct of the courts and the justice system of Los Angeles County, and beyond, and (b) the central place of the case management and public access systems in producing false court records and perverting justice in all justice system agencies involved Los Angeles Superior Court, Los Angeles Sheriffs Department, US District Court- Central District of California, and US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit.
4. Drowning deaths of prisoners in New Orleans, Louisiana, during Hurricane Katrina, and post-Katrina police shootings of unarmed blacks (2005).
An unknown number of prisoners were abandoned by the prison guards to drown in a New Orleans prison when water level was rising. It was likely one of the most serious abuses of Human Rights in the US in the past decade. No official report of US, State of New Orleans, or local government could be found on the matter. The case remains shrouded in secrecy, with no evidence of corrective measures at all.
5. False imprisonment of thousands of juveniles in a kids for cash scandal in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania (exposed in 2008).
The false imprisonments in Pennsylvania were the result of corruption of the justice system, were the main culprits are State of Pennsylvania judges, of are now prosecuted for racketeering. The case is still unfolding. Media reports indicate that complaints regarding corruption of the courts in Luzerne County were ignored for years.
6. Large-scale corruption of the courts in El Paso, Texas (exposed in 2009).
The scope of the corruption of judges in El Paso, Texas, is difficult to gauge, since media are denied access to court records, and information is scarce of the still evolving scandal.
7. Large-scale corruption of government in San Bernardino County, California (exposed in 2010).
The scandal is still evolving. For several years the local media in San Bernardino County, California, have been exposing and denouncing the corruption of senior county officials and the San Bernardino Superior Court. Senior County officials were indeed recently indicted. However, there is no indication that investigation of overwhelming, credible evidence of corruption of the San Bernardino Superior Court has ever been instituted.
8. Deprivation of the Right for Possession: Ongoing Financial/Integrity Crisis involving Large Financial Institutions, law-firms, the Courts, and Banking Regulators (exploded in 2008)
The evidence reveals a multi-level integrity crisis: (a) Fraud of unprecedented, trillions-of-dollars-scale against the US treasury and the people by large US financial institutions; (b) Routine fraud against individual home owners by the same institutions in collusion with the courts and large law-firms, and (c) Refusal of US law enforcement to provide Equal Protection for the individual victims of such abuse, and cover up of the criminality underlying the crisis in reports to the people, to US Congress, and to the international community. Evidence is provided of such abuse by Countrywide Financial Corporation, Bank of America Corporation, and Old Republic International. Further evidence is provided for collusion in such abuse by some of the worlds and US largest law-firms, including but not limited to Bryan Cave, LLP, Sheppard Mullin, and Buchalter Nemer. Evidence is also provided of refusal of FBI, SEC, Office of Federal Trade Commission, Office of Thrift Supervision, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to provide Equal Protection to the individual victims. It is alleged that the crisis is fundamentally an integrity crisis, not a financial or economic crisis per se.
9. Discrimination by the US Government against the region of Los Angeles County, California (ongoing since at least ~1980)
The discrimination is best evidenced in the refusal of US government to protect the fundamental Constitutional, Civil, and Human Rights of the 10 million residents of the county, including but not limited to right for Fair and Impartial Hearings, the right for National Tribunals for Protection of Rights, the right to Access to Court Records to Inspect and to Copy, and the rights of Liberty and Possession. Such discrimination has been ongoing for at least two decades, effectively rendering Los Angeles County, California, an extra-constitutional zone. The origins of such state of affairs are found in long term collusion of US agencies with local agencies in profound violations of the law and abuse of the rights of the people, which left US agencies not willing, ready, able to investigate, and prosecute- if necessary, overwhelming credible evidence of racketeering by Los Angeles County judges.
10. Racketeering by judges is commonplace in the US, tolerated and patronized by US Department of Justice.
Judges were/are prosecuted for racketeering in recent decades in San Diego and San Jose, California, in Cook County (Chicago), Illinois, and in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. However, the evidence indicates that racketeering by judges in various parts of the US is common, in both state and US courts. However, such conduct is tolerated and patronized by FBI and US Department of Justice. The installation in the past quarter century of computerized case management systems at the courts amounted to a sea change in operations of the courts. However, in not a single case that was examined, were such systems adequately established in the Local Rules of Courts. Moreover, in all cases that were examined, introduction of such systems was accompanied with denial of public access to critical court records. Such conditions are claimed to be central to the precipitous deterioration in integrity of the courts. Complaints alleging racketeering by judges of the Los Angeles Superior Court were filed with US Attorney General already in 2008, with large volume of credible evidence. It is alleged that senior FBI and US Department of Justice officers provided fraudulent responses to US Congress in this matter in 2008. In late 2009 complaints were filed with US Department of Justice Inspector General, and Congressional Inquiries followed. The case is still pending.
III. Conclusions
The five (5) conclusions, listed below, are far reaching. Nevertheless such conclusions were deemed direct extension of the evidence provided by Human Rights Alert in instant submission. It is acknowledged that Human Rights Alert never mastered the resources or the time to provide full substantiation of such conclusions. However, the significance of such conclusions is such, that they must not be overlooked, even if taken only as defining the scope and depth of required international effort in such matters:
1. Precipitous Deterioration in Integrity of the US Justice System took place in recent decades.
Regardless of the USs unique contribution to establishment of the UN and the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the wake of World War II, conditions in the US today reflect substantial deterioration of the integrity of government in general, and the justice and financial systems in particular.
2. Introduction of false database and case management systems in the justice system, at US government agencies, and in financial institutions, was central to the deterioration in court integrity and consequent harms.
Such precipitous deterioration in the integrity of the Justice and Financial Systems in particular, and US government in general, is tightly correlated with the introduction of fraudulent large computer systems at US agencies. Major harm was inflicted through such compromised integrity in the US government in areas that are not often seen as conjoined: Abuse of Human Rights, and major loss in US and world economic growth potentials.
3. The undermined integrity of US Justice and Financial Systems is unlikely to self-correct in a timely manner through checks and balances that are intrinsic to the US Constitution.
The conduct of the US and states judges was and is inherent and central to the development of current conditions. Such conduct is claimed as abandonment of their oath of loyalty to the US Constitution. Therefore, it was unlikely that the US government system, as a whole, would be able to self-correct in a timely fashion through the checks and balances that are inherent to the US Constitution.
4. Allowing such conditions to prevail and the deterioration to continue incurs major risks to world peace and welfare, which are difficult or impossible to assess.
Such compromised integrity of US government systems undermines the power of the US central government and the White House, and allows peripheral regions, such as Los Angeles County, California, to flaunt their defiance as renegade regions of the US. Such conditions in Los Angeles County, California, are best reflected today in violation of Human Rights in a two-fold manner:
(a) In the case of Richard Fine - the false hospitalization, for over a year, of the 70 year old former US prosecutor, who exposed the widespread corruption of the judges of the Los Angeles Superior Court in taking payments that were not permitted. He is held by the Los Angeles County Justice System for over a year with no warrant, no judgment/conviction and no sentencing ever been entered.
(b) In real estate fraud by the Los Angeles Superior Court in collusion with Bank of America Corporation, including Brian Moynihan, its president The case was opined as fraud by a highly decorated FBI veteran, and is only one of many cases of real estate fraud by the court that have been documented. However, FBI and US Department of justice are not ready, willing, able to enforce the law and provide Equal Protection to persons residing in Los Angeles County, California. Furthermore, to cover up such conduct senior US Department of Justice officers perpetrated alleged fraud on US Congress. The ongoing cover-up of racketeering by the judges of Los Angeles Superior Court in collusion with senior management of Bank of America Corporation in the midst of the current crisis, defy any notion of reasonably functional government operations in the US today.
In both cases, the Los Angeles Superior Court, backed by the US Court, Central District of California, US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, are flaunting their disregard for Human, Constitutional, and Civil Rights and the Rule of Law.
Allowing the US to lose its cohesion at the dawn of the 21st century incurs major risks to world peace and welfare, which are difficult or impossible to assess.
IV. Recommendations
1. Ignoring the large-scale Human Rights violations by the US, exposed through the 2010 UPR, is not a reasonable, viable option for the international community.
Restoring the integrity of US government and restoring US Human Rights compliance are critical for world peace and welfare. No response at all must not be allowed.
2. International efforts should focus on immediate effective actions by the US government to enforce strict compliance of the US and state courts with: (a) The Right to Access Court Records to Inspect and to Copy, and (b) The Rule Making Enabling Acts (states/federal).
Emphasis on these two measures may initially appear as narrow and technical. However, based on review of conditions in various courts across the US, it is concluded that enforcement of these two measures is both necessary and sufficient to affect an immediate, dramatic improvement in integrity of the US Justice System. Moreover, enforcement of these two simple measures is easy to monitor. Finally, enforcement of these two measures will empower the residents of the various regions of the US to assert their Constitutional, Civil, and Human Rights, by making the courts much more transparent.
Implied in the enforcement of the Rule Making Enabling Act is explicit enumeration of the Local Rules of Courts, which are embedded in the specifications and programming of the computerized case management and public access systems of the courts. Such systems were installed in state and federal courts across the US in the past two decades. They amounted to a sea change in the operations of the courts. However, in no case that was examined, were the systems installed in a manner that was honest, valid, and effectual in compliance with the law. On the contrary, in each and every case that was examined, features were found in the design and operation of such systems, which upon review by competent fraud experts should be deemed fraud on the people.
Implied in enforcement of the Rule Making Enabling Act is also compliance with the requirement to post new proposed Rules for a reasonable period - for public comment and challenge. Given that such rules are embedded in computer programs, it would be necessary to extract such rules and explicitly state them in natural language. However, such process of extracting the Rules or assertions from existing programs must be publicly monitored in order to ensure compliance with the Rule Making Enabling Act. It is therefore deemed essential that extracting and posting the Local Rules embedded in such systems, be executed in the context of subjecting such systems to publicly accountable validation (certified, functional logic verification). Similar measures should eventually follow in other US agencies, in financial institutions, and in public corporations. The need is apparent to develop in the US a professional license in the field of publicly-accountable computer systems validation (certified, functional logic verification).
3. Effective monitoring by the International Community of US efforts to restore the Rule of Law by enforcement of the law on the courts is essential a reverse Marshall Plan.
The primary stakeholders the UN, the European Union, and China, must engage in intensive monitoring of US actions and progress in enforcing the law on the US and states courts. One form of such monitoring that may prove particularly effective, would be in routine, comprehensive attempts by such international monitors to exercise the right to access public records to inspect and to copy, at the courts and at any other applicable US and states agencies. Involvement of international experts in validating the Courts case management and public access, may likewise prove to be a must, since the evidence shows timidity by US experts in addressing the double hazard of court corruption, and major harm inflicted by computer programmers on the Human Rights of the people of the US.
4. The US may opt to institute a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
It is claimed that once public access to court records to inspect and to copy is restored, the US public is likely to be shocked by the level of criminality by state and federal judges, which is evidenced in court records that are today concealed. Conditions in the US today are in fact Tyranny of the Courts. Accordingly, upon relief of such tyranny, Truth and Reconciliation Commission may be found to be a practical necessity, as used in other nations who emerged from various types of oppression.
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