In 1975, I talked to an editor at the Indianapolis Star about my being slandered. He introduced me to reporter Carolyn Pickering and asked her to follow up. I gave her copies of the Retail Credit report and Tuohy's malpractice. She said she'd look into it and did write a story, which was published on June 3, 1976, headlined "Attorney Fees Seen Forcing Liquidation Of Insurance Firm" discussing Judge Dugan's attempted reinsurance of UNAC's assets. Judge Dugan held an emergency hearing and awarded $300, 000 in legal fees to be paid by UNAC to various attorneys. The emergency existed because Judge Dugan was going on vacation. A Chicago firm was paid $167, 362.50; A Virginia firm was paid $64, 237.50; Dillon, McCarty, Hardeman and Cohen (Dillon was the former Democratic attorney general for Indiana) was paid $17, 887. Dillon and Gregory Hahn, treasurer of the Marion County Democratic Central Committee, were appointed by Judge Dugan as local counsel for the out of state firms, which means Dillon and Hahn were involved in total payments exceeding $230, 000. The firm of Tuohy, Gleason and Mercer was paid $48, 960. Tuohy was paid even though he had no records of time spent and didn't perform any legal functions on behalf of the company. . . . Judge Dugan was tried before a jury in Indianapolis. The action was United States of America v. Michael T. Dugan, II, Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division, Cause No. IP88-78-CR. Other persons admitted paying bribes and taking payoffs. The jury verdict was returned May 26, 1989, finding Dugan guilty on a variety of charges of bribery and extortion, including a true bill of unlawfully obtaining money (a $1, 000 bribe) from James Eckman, President of First Equity Security Life Insurance Company (which Eckman had admitted).

Judicial Deception

By Reginald L. Jensen

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Reginald L. Jensen
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-2018-7

Chapter One

FOREWARD

The legal system in the United States doesn't work the way most people assume. We've been taught to believe the blind lady holding the scales of justice protects those in the right. In reality, the scales of justice are a myth and the lady isn't blind. There are serious issues American citizens must tackle if they're to eliminate the myth and replace it with the desired reality. Remember the song "Do Re Mi?" In "Do Re Mi" we start at the very beginning and that's what needs to be done if you want to understand how the United States judicial system works. If the system works one way for me, a different way for you, and still a different way for many other people, we all need to know what's happening.

In his Sixth Annual message to Congress on December 2, 1806, President Thomas Jefferson said "[w]here under the characters of jurors, they exercise in person the greatest portion of the judiciary powers; where the laws are consequently so formed and administered as to bear with equal weight and favor on all, restraining no man in the pursuits of honest industry, and securing to every one the property which that acquires, ..." reaffirming the judiciary is controlled by the people, not the judiciary. But as you shall see, control has been reversed.

One of the founding principles of our nation is that everyone is entitled to a trial by jury, whether the matter at hand is civil or criminal. The right to a jury trial in civil cases in federal court is governed by the Seventh Amendment:

In Suits at Common Law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried to a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the Common Law.

Tocqueville reflects on his conversations in New England regarding the jury, and writes that the institution is the "most direct and most powerful application of the dogma of sovereignty."

But the requirement of receiving a jury trial has been lost. Statistics tell the story. The Bureau of Justice Statistics tracks the percent of tort cases concluded by trial in U.S. District courts from 1970 to 2003. In 1970 there were 25,451 tort cases. Of those, 2,526 (9.9 percent) were decided by jury trial. In 2003 there were 49,166 tort cases. Of those 768 (1.56 percent) were decided by jury trial. In 1962, 11.5 percent of federal civil cases were disposed of by trial; by 2002, that figure had plummeted to 1.8 percent. The records available in twenty-two states indicate only 0.6 percent of civil cases go to trial by jury. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on September 26, 2004, that 1.7 percent of all criminal cases were tried before juries in 2002. The most commonly accepted margin of error in any statistical analysis is plus or minus 3 percent. Statistically, jury trials have been eliminated in the United States. If the members of the judiciary don't want you to have a trial, you won't have one. How does that stack up against Jefferson's vision of our judicial system? The judiciary has stolen control from the people and given it to itself.

Futhermore, the makeup of the judiciary itself tends to be unduly influenced by the legal profession at large. For example, judges in state courts rely on political contributions to finance their election and most of those contributions come from successful law firms. While judges in federal courts are appointed by the President with the approval of the Senate, the Senators from the states hosting the courts with vacancies are given the plum of selecting the candidates for appointment. Because the large law firms make substantial contributions to major politicians, the firms pass on their recommendations to the Senators regarding potential candidates for the bench. In most cases, several law firms will take credit for any appointment to the bench. As a result, those firms expect and receive preferential treatment in court.

Attorneys represent themselves, not their clients. Their first question is always "What's in it for me?" If you go to court over any issue, always ask yourself what your attorney will want and what benefit your case will be to the attorney. Then you need to find out who controls the judge. Make no mistake, someone does in fact control the judge. To whom do the judges' loyalties lie? Theoretically, the judges should uphold and enforce the laws passed by Congress and signed by the president. The judges should perform on behalf of the law-abiding people. But they don't, they perform on behalf of the individuals and organizations that put them in office.

Anarchy is derived from the Greek word anarchos, which means "having no ruler." In English it means absence of governmental authority. A self-regulating organization is an anarchic organization when it has no superior authority to which it must answer. The United States Constitution is supposed to govern the judicial system, but, in fact, the judiciary has assumed the authority to govern itself by interpreting the Constitution as it applies to itself. The Constitution doesn't give that authority to the Supreme Court, it assumed that authority with its ruling in Marbury v. Madison. (Chief Justice John Marshal was a compatriot of Aaron Burr.) The flaw becomes obvious because Congress is required to make changes in the judicial process. Congress is supposed to control the court's exceptions and regulations. The rule of law in the United States is supposed to be the Constitution, the statutes enacted by Congress, and case law (judicial decisions outlining precedent, or stare decisis), which supports and/or interprets either of the first two. The legal process allows a case to be decided in the trial court and the trial court's verdict, or decision, stands unless appealed. If the trial court results are not appealed, the case has no effect on any other case in the United States. But an appeal is supposed to change all that. The court of appeals either upholds or alters the trial court decision. When a trial court action is appealed, the court of appeals is required to verify the results are consistent with similar appellate court jurisdiction results or Supreme Court opinions bearing on the subject matter. The appellate court can reverse previous decisions, but the current rulings stand for all other cases in the circuit until reversed. If no other rulings have been made that bear on the subject matter, the issue may go to the Supreme Court and a new ruling (or opinion) created. If two different appellate courts rule inconsistently, the Supreme Court is supposed to review the lower-court rulings and reach a opinion that stands for all courts in the future. The Supreme Court takes very few petitions for appeal. The Supreme Court only reviews issues it thinks are important, which means the decision in the court of appeals is usually final. Whatever happens, the appealed decision is supposed to establish precedence unless precedence has already been established and the appellate decision merely supports previous decisions. The rule of law means the established law applies to you, me, and everyone else, under the same or similar circumstances.

The judges are doing what they are prohibited from doing according to the United States Constitution. If you ask members of the judiciary why they don't want jury trials the expected answer would be that it's inconvienient, it takes up too much...