JUDICIAL TYRANNY

  

Kim Davis

   Kim Davis is just another victim of our out of control court system. For those who say that she deserves to be in jail or she should just step down from her position I would suggest that she and others should never have been placed in this position to begin with. I learned a long time ago, as a political science minor at M.T.S.U. that there are three branches of government and they are not equal. I would be willing to bet that my professor was a liberal but at least he taught the truth. Most people have been taught that the three branches of government are co-equal. The truth is that the constitution grants the legislature supremacy over the executive and the judiciary. This is why the legislature is mentioned first in Article 1 of the constitution. Article 2 deals with the executive and Article 3, the judicial. The Founders were so afraid of judicial tyranny that many wanted to leave a judicial system out of the Constitution altogether. John Marshall supposedly established judicial review through his ruling of Marbury vs. Madison in 1803. It is the process by which a law is nullified when the court decides it to be unconstitutional or in conflict with the Constitution. Some scholars argue that judicial review was already written into the Constitution and others argue that Marshall was the author of it in America. The concept actually dates back to England. In my view the Founding Fathers never intended for the courts to have more power than the legislature and the executive. Madison said that All of the Constitution’s checks and balances serve to preserve liberty by ensuring justice. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society.”

 Marbury Vs. Madison was the result of a lawsuit filed by William Marbury. John Adams was defeated by Thomas Jefferson. As a lame duck president he made last minute judicial appointments to insure a Federalist dominated judiciary. Marbury was commissioned as a Justice of the Peace but it was not delivered to him before Jefferson occupied the White House. As a result the Jefferson administration denied him the position. Marbury filed his lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court instead of going to a lower court. Marshall ruled that Marbury's commission was valid but the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction in the case. In my humble opinion Marshall fashioned a decision that insured his place as a Federalist Chief Justice and secured the power of the court. He did this while avoiding a head to head showdown with an Anti-Federalist president. 

 Marbury would never occupy his post as Justice of the Peace. Jefferson disagreed with Marshall's decision because it granted the court too much power. In a letter to Marshall he wrote, You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.... Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.

Thomas Jefferson

John Marshall

The following are just some of the really bad decisions that have altered the course of American history. 

1.The Dred Scott Decision (1857)- Chief Justice Roger Taney tried to settle the slavery issue once and for all by declaring that Scott, a slave, could not sue for his freedom in a Federal court because a person of African descent could not claim citizenship and had no legal standing under the constitution. This decision nullified the anti-slavery provisions of the Northwest Ordinance. It also declared the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. This ruling infuriated Northerners, increased sectional division and hastened the onset of the Civil War.

Roger Taney

2. Plessey Vs. Ferguson (1896) - Homer Plessey, a biracial man, who was only one eighth African descent, challenged Louisiana's segregation laws by riding in the white section of a train in 1892. In a landmark 7 to 1 decision the court upheld segregation, in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment it declared that a state could separate by race as long as it provided facilities that were separate but equal. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment granted blacks the same rights as all citizens but this atrocious decision insured segregation until the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This Act was simply a reaffirmation of the 14th Amendment. The Court got it right however in 1954 with Brown Vs. the Board of Education ruling. This decision started the ball rolling toward desegregation but it would take the Civil Rights Act to get it done.

Homer Plessey

3. Everson Vs. the Board of Education (1947) - This was a case that stood the 1st Amendment on it's head. A private citizen of New Jersey filed suit because his school district used taxpayer funds to reimburse parents that used city buses to transport their children to both public and private Catholic schools. This was a five to four decision which ruled that the 1st Amendment applied not only to the Federal government but to the states. It established a mythical (wall of separation) between the church and the government. The actual wall of separation was between the Federal government and the states. The states are free to worship in anyway that they choose. For example a state can have an established religion if it wants to. It can also legitimize the placing of religious symbols on government property like nativity scenes or the Ten Commandments. The state can authorize prayer in school and other religious activities without interference from the Federal government. This was the original meaning of the 1st Amendment. Because of this illegal ruling the government has established freedom from religion rather than freedom of religion. Personally I believe that Justice Hugo Black, a former member of the Alabama KKK injected his anti-Catholic bias into this decision.

Hugo Black

4. Roe vs. Wade (1973) - This decision along with Doe Vs. Bolton, and Planned Parenthood Vs. Casey in essence legalized abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. Over fifty million people have died in this holocaust. Jane Roe and Mary Doe who were the plaintiffs in these cases have since become staunch ant-abortion advocates who were exploited by radical feminists. Both women had unwanted pregnancies but they would eventually deliver healthy babies. Their respective state laws at the time prevented them from getting a legal abortion. Mary Doe never even granted permission to go forward with her case. This was another example of the court usurping the power to legislate from the bench. The court invented a woman's right to privacy out of thin air. As in Dred Scott the court ruled that an unborn baby has no legal standing under the United States Constitution. A baby is easier to kill when it is considered less than human.

Jane Roe

Mary Doe

5. Lawrence Vs. Texas (2003) This case struck down state sodomy laws and overturned a previous Supreme Court ruling in Bowers Vs. Hardwick that upheld a Georgia anti-sodomy law. Although I believe that consenting adults should be able to have sex in the privacy of their bedroom, sexual activity was declared a fundamental right guaranteed by the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. This set the stage for same sex marriage. Later that year the State Supreme Court of Massachusetts in spite of the fact that a poll showed that 66% of the population were opposed to same sex marriage declared it legal Since that time the majority of the states have passed referendums opposing same sex marriage and activists courts have one by one overruled the will of the people in these states. This includes wild and woolly California that overwhelmingly voted against same sex marriage. Marriage is a prerogative of the state. In addition the equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment cannot be granted to homosexuals until it can be proven beyond a doubt that homosexuality is biological trait and not learned behavior or a mental disorder. The recent ruling to legalize same sex marriage was outside the jurisdiction of the courts and it sets the stage for the legalization of plural marriages, incestuous marriages, and marriages between humans and animals.

6. Keo vs. City of New London- (2005) - This case involves the issue of imminent domain. Historically imminent domain has been when the government has to take private property in order to build a bridge, a road, interstate highway, or a railroad for example. Imminent domain was covered under the 5th Amendment which provided just compensation to the owner of private property taken by the government. Also the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies. This decision however changed the law to mean that a private owner has to transfer his property to another private owner if it can be shown that the transfer will benefit the community at large. For example a Wal-Mart can acquire your property because it will employ people and increase tax revenue. 

7. The Obamacare ruling - This ruling forced American citizens to buy a product that they do not want. The court also declared a fine a tax and it was declared legal because government has a constitutional right to tax. Obamacare has always been opposed by the great majority of the American people but it has been rammed down our throats. Health insurance is not a fundamental right. This ruling upheld a system that is in the process of destroying the greatest health care system in the world. It is also expanding our deficit at an alarming rate.

  In conclusion our court system has imposed judicial tyranny on America. It has become exactly what our Founding Fathers feared and what Thomas Jefferson warned us about. Kim Davis is one of many victims of judicial tyranny. Republicans and Democrats alike are calling for her to step down or to accept the law and to do her job. Their job is to uphold the Constitution. Not to create new law. We have a legislature for that.