Abridging the freedom of the press
Prior to the introduction of California’s various sunshine and public meeting laws, various schemes were concocted between government officials and private industry to have government willingly part with your tax dollars. Oftentimes, the higher or sole source bidders would be kicking back cash to legislators and government officials, their families or their business interests. These deals were oftentimes kept in the plain sight of public records and those that held the records did not want to produce them, much like the AOC refuses to produce some records, like an un-redacted copy of the Deloitte contract with the AOC or the contracts and billing records of the previously unlicensed contractors maintaining courthouses.
Back before these sunshine laws the courts struggled with litigation over press access to public records and back then, the press was winning access and government was losing cases that sought to shield those records. The ability of the press to gather additional background information from court records has served to flush in the larger picture of criminal conspiracies and frauds and often, even today it is the unabridged access of a free press to court records that serves as another piece in putting together the investigative story. The true damage that will be done by the impositions of any type of records fees on the media will be to our taxpaying citizens and will further undermine our faith and trust in state government for it is a more subtle form of censorship. But don’t take my word for it. Read what others have to say.
“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime . . . .” — Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, Ginzberg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463 (1966)
“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” — Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
“First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.”—Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Ashcroft V. Free Speech Coalition
CONGRESS (OR THE STATE) SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES. The Bill of Rights, 1791
Abridging: Verb
To Shorten (a book, movie, speech, or other text) without losing the sense.
To Curtail (rights or privileges).
Wendy Darling
March 20, 2013
In a related note, the first convictions in the City of Bell corruption case came in today. A person can only dream that the same might one day be said about 455 Golden Gate Avenue. From today’s Sacramento Bee, as reported by The Associated Press:
Ex-officials convicted in Calif. corruption case
By JOHN ROGERS
Associated Press
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/20/5278625/verdicts-reached-in-bell-calif.html
Long live the ACJ.
disgusted
March 20, 2013
Right, Wendy? Misappropriation of funds: Guilty! Somehow AOC keeps getting away with it, though. 😦
unionman575
March 21, 2013
Nice work JCW.
😉
JusticeCalifornia
March 21, 2013
Thank you for reminding everyone about the Constitutional implications of what “top leadership” is trying to do. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press have been and are under assault.
Let me alert readers to another aspect of limiting access to court files. For years litigants, reporters and members of the public have been told that court files in high-profile cases are “unavailable”– sometimes for weeks at a time.
Sometimes important pleadings are improperly stricken from files, sometimes they simply go “missing”. Sometimes improper orders are secretly presented to judges by one side of a case, signed, put in the file, and never served on the other side. Sometimes clerks retroactively change minute orders without notice to anyone.
In this manner, access to important or controversial information can be controlled by court administration. In this manner, the history of a case can be edited.
In this manner, the ability of a litigant to defend him or herself can also be controlled. Inability to access a file can hamper a lawyer or litigant’s ability to prepare for a hearing or trial or further proceedings. Let’s say the court issued an order and it was never mailed, or it was ostensibly mailed but neither you nor opposing counsel received it and you need it NOW. Or let’s say you need to see what the opposing party or counsel filed on an issue a while back. . . .but opposing counsel will not give the pleading to you and you cannot get the file before the hearing. You simply don’t get to see that document.
The Marin Court often used this tactic to keep the files away from the press and litigants. In fact, rumor has it certain individuals were on an unofficial list for special negative treatment by court administration. . . . .yeah, ponder for a moment the illegality of branch members using their official power to single people out for punitive, prejudicial, or retaliatory treatment.
Members of AOC leadership and the Judicial Council should review Judicial Council and AOC records, as well as their own home court administrative history regarding historical limitation of access to files, and complaints about file tampering and the withholding of files. It has been and is being documented.
DeWitt T. Barker
March 21, 2013
Thank you JCW for your zealous advocacy on behalf of the citizens of California. May I ask what the relevant California sunshine statutes are? I have been doing my own investigative work here in Sonoma County in regard to what my former attorney referred to as “witness manufacturing” within the Family Law division of the Sonoma County Superior Court. To make a long story short, the local Court relies upon the expert witnesses selected by the for-profit divorce attorneys who have meetings which are “Invite-Only” in violation of the non-profit charter of the local Bar Association. In these secret meetings with Judicial officers, decisions are made as to the Court will rely upon in Family Law cases. One of the “expert” witnesses utilized by the Court is a three-time convicted felon guilty of crimes of moral turpitude associated with the practice of his profession as a psychologist. I have previously posted links providing Court cases where this felon testifies on behalf of child molesters and murderers. Although the local DA’s office will not use this individual because of his easy impeachability due to his history of lying on State applications for employment and crimes of moral depravity, the Superior Court uses this ‘expert’ to make decisions affecting children’s right to access to their parents. Simply withholding the child from one parent or another for a period of time can greatly pad billing for the divorce industrial complex (DIC) members. I believe the children and families of Sonoma County deserve greater respect from their government.
I raised these issues in a civil suit for abuse of legal process against opposing counsel in an effort to protect my ex-wife from the financial consequences of her attorney’s misconduct (submitting a declaration in violation of Bus. and Prof. Code 2936, as the psychologist/felon never met me yet offered an opinion on mental state and child apportionment), and I was hit with an anti-SLAPP. Apparently a line of cases in California hold that the litigation privilege of attorneys allows violations of law within a judicial proceedings. The attorney’s conduct was merely illegal, not criminal, so therefore protected. I then proceeded to file the evidence of the existence of this witness manufacturing and closed meetings between Judicial officers and for-profit divorce attorneys deciding these matters of great public importance, and have now been declared a vexatious litigant. I have never filed suit in any other cases other than filing for divorce and the abuse of legal process case in which I was trying to hold an attorney accountable for his collusion with a convicted felon in violation of state code and due process. I have been financially devastated as a result of my efforts to shine some light on these issues, but may proceed with a 42 U.S.C. 1983 lawsuit in Federal Court because of the systematic violations of due process inherent in these secret meetings. Similar abuses of due process were successfully litigated in the following case in Nevada County:
I believe in the principle of speaking truth to power, and I greatly admire the efforts of the JCW – keep up the great work!
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Alan Ernesto Phillips
March 21, 2013
Our hero, the most brave and most Honorable, Emily Gallup (former Family Law Mediator, turned whistle-blower)… the “powers that be recently APPEALED her meritorious award at the very last minute to cruelly further protract the wrongdoing – and the pain. And perhaps as an attempt to bury the bones, while the sociopathic perpe-TRAITORS get another promotion.
unionman575
March 21, 2013
Sounds like you have a pure heart looking out for your ex wife’s best interests:
“I raised these issues in a civil suit for abuse of legal process against opposing counsel in an effort to protect my ex-wife from the financial consequences of her attorney’s misconduct…”
😉
Alan Ernesto Phillips
March 21, 2013
Hear, HEAR!
PRECISELY CORRECT – and oh so ominous…
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