J.A.I.L. News
Journal
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Los Angeles, California
February 21, 2023
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The Inherent Right of ALL People to Alter or Reform
Abusive Government.
The Right Upon Which All Other Rights
Depend
The Torchbearer for J.A.I.L.
Nationally - Support Them!
P.O. Box 412, Tea, S.D.
57064 - (605) 231-1418
South
Dakota Legislature
Forfeits Their Public Trust
Counter-charges are
hereby made that it is grossly unethical, immoral, and
criminal for the Legislators to use South
Dakota taxpayer dollars to pass a "Resolution," and to
influence a popular vote at said taxpayers' expense. It is further
unethical and immoral to use a taxpayer-financed website to spread
their propaganda in a vendetta against the People's right
to propose Initiatives, to wit, "All political power is
inherent in the People, .... [T]hey have the right in lawful
and constituted methods to alter or reform their forms of
government in such manner as they may think proper." Art. VI, Sec.
26. The People have the absolute right to exercise their
inherent power to affect matters regarding their government
without being attacked by that same government, or being
blasted by their own website at their
expense.
While it is acceptable
for legislators in their private and individual capacity
to vote at the polls on November 7th, it is totally
unacceptable for these same Legislators to betray the public trust
by turning the Capitol Building into a massive campaign
headquarters, and using the auspices of their official offices
to campaign against the People's Amendment
E. Because the Legislature has not only presumed to "pass"
that which is immoral, but also that which they have
absolutely no jurisdiction to do, such so-called
"Resolution" is null and void for all purposes, and is as if
it had never existed. It has absolutely no force or effect of law.
It is designed merely for the purpose of deceiving and defraud
the voters of South Dakota into not voting in favor of Amendment
E.
Such action makes a total mockery of the
election process, and reduces the election process down to the
level of a Banana Republic, wherein People are afraid to
appear at the polls and vote. What's more, it calls into suspect
the after-results of the voting, to wit, was it an honest election?
It serves merely to deteriorate People's faith in all government
processes, which breaks down sound government and lends to
confusion and eventual open anarchy. When the People cannot trust
their government with the voting process to be honest, what do we
have left?
This principle
against altering, influencing, or tampering with the
outcome of elections is so strong that not even the Governor of
South Dakota can veto the People's Initiative process. "The
veto power of the Executive shall not be exercised as to measures
referred to a vote of the People." Art. III, Sec. 1, South Dakota
Constitution. Further, the same Constitution also forbids the
Legislature from tampering with the election process, to wit,
"Elections shall be free and equal, and no power, civil or
military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise
of the right of suffrage [votes]." Art. VII, Sec. 1 Re:
Elections.
Response is hereby
made to the charges issued by the Legislature of South Dakota
against Amendment E. For purposes of an orderly response, we
assign a maroon colored Roman Numeral to each and every
charge responded to:
|
State of
South Dakota
|
|
EIGHTY-FIRST SESSION
LEGISLATIVE
ASSEMBLY, 2006
|
|
229M0660
|
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
NO.
1004
|
|
Introduced
by:
Representatives Hennies, Boomgarden, Brunner, Buckingham,
Cutler, Davis, Deadrick, Dykstra, Elliott, Faehn, Frost,
Fryslie, Garnos, Gassman, Gillespie, Glenski, Glover,
Hackl, Haley, Halverson, Hanks, Hargens, Haverly, Heineman,
Hills, Howie, Hunhoff, Hunt, Jensen, Jerke, Koistinen,
Kraus, Krebs, Kroger, Lange, McCoy, McLaughlin, Michels,
Miles, Murschel, Nelson, Novstrup, O'Brien, Pederson
(Gordon), Peters, Putnam, Rausch, Rave, Rhoden, Roberts,
Rounds, Schafer, Sebert, Sigdestad, Street, Thompson,
Tidemann, Tornow, Turbiville, Valandra, Van Etten, Van
Norman, Vehle, Weems, Wick, and Willadsen and Senators
Koskan, Abdallah, Adelstein, Bartling, Bogue, Broderick,
Dempster, Duenwald, Duniphan, Earley, Gant, Gray,
Greenfield, Hansen (Tom), Hanson (Gary), Hundstad, Kelly,
Knudson, Koetzle, Kooistra, Lintz, McCracken, McNenny,
Moore, Napoli, Olson (Ed), Peterson (Jim), Schoenbeck,
Smidt, Sutton (Dan), Sutton (Duane), and Two Bulls
|
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION,
Urging the voters of South Dakota to
reject the Judicial Accountability Initiated Law (J.A.I.L.), which
will be submitted to South Dakota voters in November 2006,
designated Amendment E.
I.
WHEREAS,
Amendment E was drafted by a resident of California and the
petitions were circulated by paid out-of-state persons; and
II.
WHEREAS,
the Amendment E petition failed to
get more than a few thousand signatures in California, and thus was
never submitted to California voters; and
III.
WHEREAS,
South Dakota voters were told that
Amendment E simply provided for a remedy for intentional judicial
misconduct; and
IV.
WHEREAS,
if approved by the voters, Amendment
E would actually allow lawsuits against all South Dakota citizen
boards, including county commissioners, school board members, city
council members, planning and zoning board members, township board
members, public utilities commissioners, professional licensing
board members, jurors, judges, prosecutors, and all other citizen
boards; and
V.
WHEREAS,
Amendment E would authorize and
encourage jury nullification in South Dakota, which was previously
rejected overwhelmingly by South Dakota voters in 2002; and
VI.
WHEREAS,
Amendment E would prohibit summary judgment, a legal remedy
currently available and used to quickly and inexpensively rid our
courts of frivolous lawsuits; and
VII.
WHEREAS,
Amendment E would permit convicted
felons, whose convictions have been affirmed by our Supreme Court,
to sue the prosecutors who prosecuted the felons, the jurors who
voted to convict the felons, and the judges who sentenced the
felons, thus burdening our courts and citizens with countless
expensive and needless lawsuits; and
VIII.
WHEREAS,
the author of Amendment E has
publicly stated that with the passage of Amendment E, Judicial
Accountability Initiated Law members from across the country will
"purposely drive to South Dakota...just for the privilege of
getting a traffic ticket so you can demand a jury trial. I
anticipate traffic courts to be among the first courts to all but
totally close...," thus depriving South Dakota citizens of their
constitutional right of access to our courts and making it clear
that Amendment E is not intended to help cure any alleged problems
with South Dakota courts; and
IX.
WHEREAS,
if approved, Amendment E would establish a new entity to
investigate complaints with an initial budget of two million six
hundred fifty thousand dollars, plus the cost of a facility, with
authority to hire as many employees as it deemed appropriate
without legislative appropriation, consultation, review, or
approval; and
X.
WHEREAS,
the South Dakota Constitution
already provides for the Judicial Qualifications Commission, which
hears complaints and investigates allegations of judicial
misconduct, and operates very economically, with an average annual
expenditure of eleven thousand five hundred fifty-nine dollars over
the past ten years; and
XI.
WHEREAS,
if approved, Amendment E would violate the federal Constitution,
thereby subjecting South Dakota taxpayers to millions of dollars in
damages and attorney fees; and
XII.
WHEREAS,
Amendment E would be devastating to the South Dakota economy,
harming economic development and driving existing businesses from
South Dakota:
XIII.
NOW,
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by
the House of Representatives of the Eighty- first Legislature of
the State of South Dakota, the Senate concurring therein, that the
South Dakota Legislature strongly urges all South Dakota voters to
protect our citizen boards, to protect our system of justice, to
protect economic development, to protect all our citizens from
frivolous lawsuits that would be authorized by the Judicial
Accountability Initiated Law, and to vote against Amendment
E.
I. The J.A.I.L.
Amendment was originally drafted in California for the State
of California under its initiative process. People from all
fifty states (including South Dakota) independently, of their own
volition, contacted its author, and requested to advance the
cause of J.A.I.L. in their own respective states, such
being an inherent right of the People pursuant
to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution under freedom
of association -- a right which every government official in South
Dakota has sworn with an oath to defend and protect. What's
more, these same officials are subject to the South Dakota
Constitution, which states, "To secure these rights governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed." Art. VI, Sec. 1.
As to the charge,
"[T]he petitions were circulated by paid out-of-state persons;"
that is incorrect. The truth is that Amendment E was adapted
in South Dakota for South Dakotans, and the vast majority of the
petition circulators were South Dakotans. What's more,
this charge by the Legislature is moot, for if its collection
of signatures were performed illegally, then why is Amendment
E officially on this November's ballot? Please
explain. You have all the petitions containing the signatures
of the circulators before you. Prove your accusation, or admit
your falsehood!
II. The Amendment E petition is a
South Dakota measure and does not apply to
California.
The People of
California were not able to gather sufficient signatures for the
California J.A.I.L. amendment by volunteers (requiring almost
700,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot), nor were they
able to raise the necessary funds of about one million dollars to
finance the California amendment. (California J.A.I.L. has
been informed by professional signature-gathering companies that
never in the history of California has any proposed constitutional
amendment reached the ballot by volunteers).
III. True. No
rebuttal.
IV. Our Founding Fathers wisely established our system
of three distinct, separate, and independent branches of
government. This principle is preserved in the South Dakota
Constitution, "The powers of the government of the state are
divided into three distinct departments, the legislative, executive
and judicial; and the powers and duties of each are prescribed by
this Constitution." Art. II. No powers of one branch shall function
within that of another.
Amendment E specifies
its application as exclusively to the judicial branch of
government, and no other. By definition (�1b) it applies only
to "justices, judges, magistrate judges, judges pro tem, and all
other persons claiming to be shielded by judicial immunity;"
and by definition (�2) it applies only to "deliberate
violations of law, fraud or conspiracy, intentional violations
of due process of law, deliberate disregard of material facts,
judicial acts without jurisdiction, blocking of a lawful conclusion
of a case, or any deliberate violations of the Constitutions of
South Dakota or the United States."
By the same definition,
Amendment E cannot apply to administrative agencies, such as
boards, councils, commissions, etc., since they are
limited in jurisdiction and cannot adjudicate with finality the
violations specified in �2.
The requirement in �11
that "the complainant shall have first attempted to exhaust all
judicial remedies available in this State" carries with it, by
operation of law, the requirement that all administrative
remedies be exhausted before petitioning for judicial
remedies. The laws of the State of South Dakota recognizes the
differences between exhaustion of administrative remedies and
exhaustion of judicial remedies. Amendment E likewise recognizes
that distinction in law that administrative forums are not of the
judicial branch of government, nor can they
be "judges." Nor can "judges" apply to prosecutors,
and certainly not jurors, who are not an office of government,
nor any part of the three branches of government, but is the
People, who do not take an oath of office. Therefore, all
final dispositions regarding the above violations rest only with
the judiciary, contrary to your charges made against Amendment
E.
V. Our Founding Fathers designed our government
to be fully accountable directly to the People through the
jurors. We leave to them the decisions of life and death of
matters regarding serious offenders. "No person shall be held to
answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a
presentment or indictment of a grand jury..." Amendment V,
U.S. Constitution. In other words, there is no government powers
that can cause a person accused of murder to answer, much
less face a trial, unless there is a presentment or indictment
of a Grand Jury. Now is that power, or what? Absolutely. It is
a power that all government in all its majesty and power,
cannot exercise.
Thomas
Jefferson accordingly wrote: "I
consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by
which a government can be held to the principles of its
Constitution." And, in 1794, in the first jury trial held before
the U.S. Supreme Court, John Jay, the first Chief Justice
instructed jurors thusly: "It is presumed, that juries are the best
judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that the courts
are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your
power of decision. The jury has a right to judge both the law as
well as the fact in controversy." [Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. 1 (1794)].
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Supreme Court Justice,
ruled in 1920 "The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the
teeth of both law and fact." (Horning v. District of Columbia, 254
U.S. 135). This principle has never been reversed by any court in
this country, nor can it be.
Your argument that "Amendment E would
authorize and encourage jury nullification in South Dakota, which
was previously rejected overwhelmingly by South Dakota voters
in 2002;" is bogus for the following reason. Jurors
have always from the beginning retained this power. The
fact is that the Amendment to which you refer was off point,
failing to present the proper question whether the jurors
should be informed of their powers. Judges have never
denied the powers of the jury, but have ruled instead that the
jurors may not be informed of their power. Your
charge presents an example of why we do need Amendment E to
hold judges accountable, not why we do not need Amendment
E. Judges have deceived the People by not allowing them to be
informed of their rights.
Under Amendment E it
assures judges shall receive this right in a criminal
trial. To deny judges this right before a jury
would be to deny them due
process, and provide grounds for reversal on
appeal. Common sense dictates that we, as Americans, cling
fast to the historical heritage of our
jury system, and never depart from it as instructed
by Thomas Jefferson.
VI. Amendment E says nothing about
summary judgment. Any judge in South Dakota may issue summary
judgment, or any other disposition, according to law. Only if
he willfully violates the law under �2. can a judge be liable
under Amendment E.
You mention getting rid
of cases "Quickly and inexpensively." Nothing wrong with that,
provided that "Quickly and inexpensively" is not to the exclusion
of obedience the law. "Justice" must be the primary
objective of South Dakota courts, not rushes to judgment.
Are we in agreement on that?
VII. As stated in IV, above,
Amendment E, by definition (�1b) applies
only to "justices, judges, magistrate
judges, judges pro tem, and all other persons claiming to be
shielded by judicial immunity;" and further, by definition (�2) it
applies only to "deliberate violations of
law, fraud or conspiracy, intentional violations of due process of
law, deliberate disregard of material facts, judicial acts without
jurisdiction, blocking of a lawful conclusion of a case, or any
deliberate violations of the Constitutions of South Dakota or the
United States."
Amendment E
specifically maintains security by precluding
those people within "imprisonment, or parole from a conviction
of a felonious crime..." See Paragraph 12. Amendment E will
actually decrease the number of expensive and needless lawsuits by
enforcing the proper adjudication of cases by honest judges.
Honesty, that's what you seek, is it not?
VIII. Such comment made by the
author of the J.A.I.L. amendment does not reflect any provision of
Amendment E and is irrelevant thereto. Any stated anticipation by
the author does not dictate the terms of Amendment E. The
intention of Amendment E is that stated in the Amendment itself.
The Amendment shows on its face that access to our courts for South
Dakota citizens will be guaranteed by assuring that judges will act
honestly according to law.
The South Dakota
Constitution clearly provides in Article VI, Sec. 20, "All courts
shall be open, and every man for an injury done him in his
property, person or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of
law, and right and justice, administered without denial or
delay." Amendment E enforces that right under �2, to wit, "No
immunity shall extend to any judge of this State for... any
deliberate violation of the Constitution[ ] of South
Dakota...."
IX. Amendment E provides: "Each
Juror shall receive a salary commensurate to that of a Circuit
Court judge, prorated according to the number of days actually
served by the Juror." �9. This means that if the judges
behave themselves, Special Grand Jurors will have no
cases pending before them, then salary for the Jurors will
be zero. If the Jurors work only 30 days out of the year, they
are paid for just the 30 days they worked and no more. It
would be good if all governments worked this efficiently, and
perhaps by the example of Amendment E, it will.
Obviously
the $2,650,000 cost as an operational expense for the
Special Grand Jury claimed by this Legislature, whose credibility
is already questionable, states no basis in fact to which
anyone could calculate. It is just a figure pulled from the air
designed to frighten the voters of South Dakota that this thing is
going to cost a lot of bucks. The Legislature must be
presuming that the Jurors will be working full time throughout the
year in order to keep up with the extensive judicial
corruption in South Dakota. This indicates that they believe the
judges in South Dakota are extremely corrupt and evil, and
that there is a very great need for Amendment
E. This statement does not speak well of their opinions of the
South Dakota judges. We would like to see the chambers of the
Special Grand Jury dark most of the year without any matters
pending before them.
Assuming the
Legislature's position that the judges of South Dakota are really
evil and corrupt, and the Special Grand Jury will be busy full
time, then they must also calculate into the equation the plus
side, to wit, the large number of fines, fees, and
forfeitures paid into Amendment E by the judges. All this
money will ultimately be channeled into the State Treasurer of
South Dakota, creating a "profit" for the state. One can read about
this provision in �6, 10. The objective of Amendment E is to be self-supporting,
and not chargeable to the taxpayers of South Dakota.
�8.
After Amendment E
becomes in force, and if it costs the taxpayers anything out
of the pocket, it can only mean that the Legislature of South
Dakota is failing or refusing to do their job, �8. Now the
Legislature would not willfully violate that constitutional
"shall," would they? We have already proved that they have
willfully violated Art. VII, Sec. 1 by "passing" this "Resolution,"
which we believe is an on-going criminal act of this
Legislature designed to continue each and every day until November
7, 2006. Once the public finds out what they are doing, they are
going to have some very serious explaining to do.
Agreed, the
Legislature is going to have to provide for a facility as set forth
in �5. Staffing for the Special Grand Jury will depend upon
the workload generated by corrupt judges in South Dakota. The
financing for the operation of the Special Grand Jury will work
like an accordion-- when there is a workload, it will expand to
meet the demand. If there is no workload, it will go
dark.
X. Amendment E will not interfere
with, nor replace, the Judicial Qualifications Commission of South
Dakota. In fact, �21 states "The provisions of this Amendment are
in addition to other redress that may exist and are not mutually
exclusive." These words are intend to include the JQC,
but is not limited thereto.
Litigants have the
right to present any complaint they may wish to the JQC, but
honesty dictates that those complaining be informed that,
as a victim, they will never be made whole of their
injury inflicted by a judge as would be the case
under Amendment E.
If the Judicial
Qualifications Commission can bring about honest judges throughout
South Dakota for only $11,559 a year, that is very
good. But this statement runs into a credibility problem. A
person on Social Security receives more than that per year. Frankly
we are amazed that the Legislature can possibly even pay
the rent on a building to house the Judicial Qualifications
Commission, much less hire a single employee to hear and
decide all the complaints against the judges of South
Dakota on that amount. A medical doctor called this
to our attention by challenging one of these senators signing
on to this "Resolution" on what the $11,559 figure
represented, and suggested the JQC could not be the slightest
bit effective running on that budget. He asked if that figure
represented the salary paid to a boy to come in
occasionally to carry out all the filed complaints to the
dumpster. Surely the Legislature is not including
telephones, lights, heat, water bills, supplies and
office equipment in this annual operational budget of $11,559
for this "judicial commission." This judicial commission must
obviously be a shell -- non-existent. But then, what is this
$11,559 for? Padding for someone's pocket? It appears this JQC
needs to be investigated. Now, if we can only find an honest person
in government to perform an investigation of those who investigate
judges! Then we must determine how much we should pay him? Do
you really expect the South Dakotans to really believe you
Legislators on this? It's a joke, just like your entire
"Resolution" of lies, fraud and propaganda at taxpayer's
expense. Please, somebody, drop by this "Judicial
Qualifications Commission" and say "Hi," and have the staff there
introduce themselves to you and show you around.
Honestly, should this
JQC be the least bit successful in enforcing the laws of South
Dakota against miscreant judges, it might prevent the
violations specified in �2, which would reduce or eliminate
altogether the convening of the Special Grand Jury to
hear complaints about the judiciary.
The same is said
regarding the appellate process. Indeed we hope that all cases are
resolved at the appellate level without the necessity of anyone
having to file a single complaint against a judge with the Special
Grand Jury. The mere existence of the SGJ is anticipated to
influence justice in the courts more than will the Special
Grand Juries' actual actions just as the roar of a lion
influences more deer than does its teeth and claws, which affects
but one deer.
XI. We are told by the South Dakota
Legislature "...Amendment E would violate the federal Constitution,
thereby subjecting South Dakota taxpayers to millions of dollars in
damages and attorney fees;"
There is no basis supplied in which to
respond to this charge other than to point out that for years
we have placed the basis for Amendment E under challenge by
numerous lawyers, professors, and legal minds to arrive at a
genuine federal constitutional challenge of its provisions, and we
have yet to find anyone able to find a hole in
it.
XII. We are told
by the Legislature, "Amendment E would be devastating to the South
Dakota economy, harming economic development and driving existing
businesses from South Dakota:"
The answer to this
charge against Amendment E calls for a speculation on the
future such as predicting the stock market whether it will go
up or down. Since we do not deem the South Dakota Legislature to be
a prophet, knowing the future, nor do we deem them to
have special insight as to the future, we respond to
their charges based upon common sense.
By holding judges
accountable to the laws of South Dakota, honesty will spring forth
abundantly, resulting in honest dealings with one another. Honest
dealings will mean honest business. Honest business will result
in prosperity for South Dakota beyond imagination. Businesses
will be drawn to South Dakota in flocks and droves, contrary to
California where the businesses are departing in droves. Once
business hear about South Dakota, they will relocate there,
bringing with them their dollars and their job
opportunities. Unemployment will go next to
zero.
Everyone will be
truly amazed over the improvement of the quality of life
in South Dakota, in which crime will go down enormously,
resulting in the need for fewer Bar Members, prosecutors,
judges, bailiffs, prisons in South Dakota.
XIII. What is so sorely lacking is the
protection of the People's rights from corrupt judges which
are creating the need for Amendment
E. J.A.I.L. is the only
means available to South Dakota by which they may exercise
their duty to renew the use and protection of their inherent
rights, by enforcing the Constitution through holding the guardians
of those rights, i.e., the judges, accountable to them for
unconstitutional judicial action. Amendment E will be the best
thing that has every happened to South Dakota!