Category: Judges
Judges that have proven to be corrupt
A Must Read! Cease and Desist Your Mandatory Mask Policy by Jason Hommel
September 8, 2020 by nootkabear, posted in above the law, Attorneys, Banksters, beaches, big brother, BLM, brains eaten away, California, Caution, CDC, climate engineering, Congress, constitution, contaminated, corruption, Danger, death, degenerative brain disorder, Disappears you, disaster, foreclosure, globalists, Health, Idiots, Judges, Judicial Corruption, killing us, Legal, manifest injustice, mass die offs, Maxine Waters, Mayors, Murder, panic, pro-cop killing, Pro-Life, propaganda, Public safety, resigns, super-deadly virus, surveillance, takeover, Toxic, traitors, Trump, UN, United Nations, United States, US Senate, US Supreme Court, vaccines, Warning
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CEASE AND DESIST YOUR MANDATORY MASK POLICY
Posted byJason Hommel 1st August 2020
44 Comments on CEASE AND DESIST YOUR MANDATORY MASK POLICY
Jason Hommel
On 7-31-2020, just before 1:30pm in the afternoon, my wife and I were asked to leave the Sprouts Store located on 82nd and Quaker, in Lubbock, TX, because they specifically said they do not recognize medical exemptions to wearing masks. We were wearing medical exemption badges, which are not required by law to be worn, to help inform others. I was given a store policy sheet, and I was invited to shop online, from home.
I hereby demand that you cease and desist requiring wearing masks to shop at your stores owned and operated by Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc.
I hereby demand that you stop violating the law in numerous ways, as follows.
You are in violation of both the City of Lubbock and the State of Texas masking laws, both of which make provisions for medical exemptions. You are not allowing medical exemptions, in violation of both laws, laws which you are fraudulently attempting to enforce.
1A. You are not a police officer. You are not empowered to enforce laws.
You are practicing medicine without a licence, which illegal in all States in America, which is a felony, and carries with it a prison term from 1 to 8 years. A mask to prevent viral transmission is a medical intervetion that carries with it risks, such as reduced oxygen intake, increased CO2 intake, increased risk of viral and bacterial and fungal lung infections, fungal face infections, and potential brain damage from reduced oxygen. A list of up to 131 scientific articles and reasons to avoid wearing a mask can be found online at https://revealingfraud.com/2020/05/health/refuse/ You are overriding both the science, the law, and other doctor's orders, in overriding the legal medical exemptions, without a medical license, in violation of numerous laws. When engaged in practicing medicine without a licence, you can be sued for damages that your advice might cause, there not need be any actual damages. You can be sued for "possible brain damage" that often carries rewards exceeding $1-10 million dollars in damages, and you can be held personally and corporately liable. I hereby again claim my own medical exemption, and I'm not required by law to tell you my medical history, nor are you allowed to ask, because of medical privacy laws protected by HIPAA. But my medical history is published online at revealingfraud.com anyway.
2.(A) Medical Professionals can only "prescribe" medical procedures, which means to give advice. They are not even legally allowed to mandate a medical procedure. In order for Doctors to mandate a medical procedure, they first need to either obtain a medical power of attorney document over a patient, and/or declare the person unconscious and/or unfit to decline a life saving procedure. You neither have a medial power of attorney over me, nor have I hired you to be my doctor, nor am I unconscious. Nor am I mentally compromised in any way. By wearing a mask, you restrict your own oxygen, and you mentally compromise yourself. You might want to take off your mask, and take a few deep breaths to get oxygen to your brain, to help you understand the rest of this.
You are violating the ADA Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires that you make reasonable accommodation to those with disabilities that could include numerous medical disabilities that could prevent people from wearing masks, such as, but not limited to, the following: asthma, allergies, anemia, fungal infections, blood clotting disorders, diabetes, PTSD, autism, pre existing lung problems, "being a human", and needing to meet basic OSHA air quality requirements of more then 19.5% oxygen, and less then 400 parts per million CO2. Masks have been shown to reduce oxygen to 18% and increase CO2 to over 10,000 ppm.
3.(A) To help you understand the level of offense of your illegal discrimination, try demanding that black people not enter your store on the basis that give off particles that are offensive, and requiring them to shop at home. That is as offensive as refusing service to those not wearing masks for reasons of a medical exemption. The ADA also requires you to make reasonable accommodations for people with a religious exemption to wearing masks, because discrimination based on religion is also illegal.
Your demand that customers wear masks, with no medical exemptions, fraudulently assumes that masks work. They do not. Air easily slips around all masks, such as the very large air gaps around the nose, cheeks and chin. Furthermore, the particle size of the coronavirus is typically 1/1000th of the size of the spacing between threads of the mask itself. A coronavirus is 0.1 microns. Holes in cloth masks are up to 100 microns. If you "zoom in" this is like expecting two threads, spaced as far apart as three football fields, 900 feet, to filter out a shoe the size of one foot. That is insane. Furthermore, there are 1000 microns per millimeter. The air gaps around the mask, by the nose, if they are half a centimeter, are 5000 microns. A coronavirus is 0.1 microns. The difference is 50,000 times in size. This gap is so big, and the virus is so small, it's like two lines, 10 miles apart, (52,800 feet) trying to filter out a basketball (just under a foot). Mask wearing is mental insanity. In both theory and actual fact, masks cannot possibly work to do what you expect them to do, so your position is not based on science, but rather, irrational fear, and irrational expectations that masks work, when they cannot. Since your position is based on insanity and the fraud that masks work, it cannot be said to follow the law and be "reasonable". Furthermore, restaurants are open, with up to 60-100 people eating at once, with nobody wearing a mask while eating, and that fully complies with the law. So how could one person not wearing a mask in a grocery store be a danger compared to that? Fraud also carries with it a prison sentence, as fraud is a felony.
When informed that mandatory masking was a fraud, and therefore a felony, the Orange County board of Supervisors abandoned their mandatory mask policy, back on June 9th, 2020. https://www.thehealthyamerican.org/
The COVID19 scare is a fraud, from top to bottom. Politicians and the Media are immune from the consequences of lying, but commercial stores have no such immunity from practicing fraud. COVID19 is fraud for the following reasons.
A. The test kits do not work. The tests have a 50% to 80% false positive rate.
B. The rate of positives has always been about 10%, from the very beginning of the crisis. The rate of people testing positive has not gone up, they have only increased the number and rate of tests given.
C. The test kits have been reported to be contaminated. June 23, 2020: https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200623/early-cdc-covid-19-test-kits-likely-contaminated Unswabbed swabs are reported to test positive.
Nurses' Lawsuit Claims 'Fabricated' COVID-19 Tests at Georgia Hospital
Max Blau June 22, 2020 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/932722
D. While "confirmed case" counts have been going up, there is no such thing as a "confirmed case" because the test kits say directly on them "not to be used for diagnostic purposes" and therefore a fraudulent test with a high false positive rate cannot "confirm" anything.
To determine the lethality of any disease, they need to compare cases to deaths. Both numbers suffer from massive fraud. Regarding death counts:
A. The death counts are overinflated, as States have been directed by the CDC to include presumptive or presumed cases that would not even include the fraudulent test kit non confirmation, which, itself, over counts things with that false positive rate of from 50% to 80%. "COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death." https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-ICD-code-introduced-for-COVID-19-deaths.pdf
Furthermore, Birx says government is classifying all coronavirus death cases as COVID19 caused deaths, regardless of the cause, such as underlying health issues. See point B for further corroboration. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/birx-says-government-is-classifying-all-deaths-of-patients-with-coronavirus-as-covid-19-deaths-regardless-of-cause
B. Other nations have determined that 99% of their "died with COVID" cases did not die "from COVID" as 99% of other patients were elderly and had from 1-4 other co-morbid chronic conditions. If that is true, it takes the real death rate down to nearly nothing. This was reported by Bloomberg, back on March 18th, which basically shows and admits that this is all a media hoax. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says
C. The real death counts are not higher than the rate of normal rates of pnumonia. People vastly overestimate their chances of "catching" COVID, and vastly overestimate their chances of death, with younger people, aged 18-34 giving the highest estimations, at 90% estimated chances of catching it, and a 20% chance of death if they do catch it. https://www.nber.org/papers/w27494.pdf see chart on p. 12. These estimates would have COVID killing about 328 million x .9 x .2 = 59 million Americans. Even the White House estimations of the deaths of 2 million Americans were vastly over exaggerated, and the man responsible for that model resigned in disgrace. The "official" death toll, which is grossly over exaggerated, for multiple reasons, as I am going over, stands at 137,922, per the CDC as of July 31: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm see Table 1. That is a total death rate of the population of 0.04%, which is substantially lower than the CDC's latest death rate estimate last month of 0.26%. Typical flu deaths in a year vary from 50,000 to 80,000.
D. Death counts are inflated from putting people into a very risky coma plus a ventilator, and that process kills people from 88% to 90% of the time. https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/nearly-90-of-covid-19-patients-put-on-ventilators-in-new-yorks-largest-health-system-died-study-finds/
E. The real death rate could well be 137,922 x 1% (no comorbidities) x 50% due to false positives, which would be 689! Given that there is no higher overall death rate than normal, the risk from a fraudulent disease that is not increasing the total death rate is zero. A real pandemic would not require fraudulently overstating things at all levels, from test kits that don't work, to fraudulently claiming an increase in the infected, to inflated death counts, to masks that don't work.
F. The false pandemic is a "live exercise" planned in advance, in October 18th, 2019. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/
People with honor do not practice nor support games of fraud. If managers wish to stop participating in the COVID media lies, they may wish to remind their employer of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which makes it illegal to discriminate based on religious beliefs. Sections 703 A(1)(2). My own religious beliefs also prohibit me from participating in fraud, or from lying in any way.
Managers of businesses cannot be hired to break the law. You may have been told by a supervisor to "enforce store policy", but you cannot be hired to break the law nor be hired to commit one felony, let alone multiple felonies. You always have the right to tell your supervisor, "You cannot legally require me to break the law." You may wish to present this letter to your immediate supervisors and/or human resources department, and/or legal department and/or corporate board and/or company owners.
Even if you were a doctor, and a lawyer, and a police officer, you would still not have the right to demand that free people wear masks to shop at your store.
Even if you petitioned congress to change all the laws above, you would still not have the right to trample on people's Constitutional rights, and it would remain unwise to do so.
Numerous "emergency COVID orders" have already been struck down as un-Constitutional in various other states.
Several other large retailers in Lubbock, at their corporate level, such as Market Street United Supermarkets and Wal-Mart, have decided to honor medical exemptions to mask wearing, presumably because they have been informed of the legal issues involved, or maybe because they are already involved in litigation over it, and are engaged in actions designed to settle the disputes.
After having been informed of the law, such as through a cease and desist letter like this one, if you continue to violate the law, it will be presumed that you are "willfully" violating the law, which often carries with it additional penalties, such as double the criminal prison sentence to be served, and/or double the civil fines to be paid.
The CDC Proves the CDC is LYING!
You know my response. It would take one of the masks below, to protect you from a deadly disease spreading. The stupid little masks that people wear, does not even cover their eyes.
Is common sense so lacking for people?
Damn it sheeple wake up, you act like idiots.
Tagged Covid-19, masks, must read, sheeple, sleepersLeave a comment
It will soon be time for President Trump to unleash military arrests of all the domestic enemies in America: Tech CEOs, journo-terrorists, treasonous lawmakers and more
May 3, 2019 May 3, 2019 by nootkabear, posted in above the law, access to injustice, Attorneys, Banksters, CDC, corruption, Judges, Judicial Corruption
It will soon be time for President Trump to unleash military arrests of all the domestic enemies in America: Tech CEOs, journo-terrorists, treasonous lawmakers and more (see full list)
https://www.newstarget.com/2019-05-02-time-for-president-trump-to-unleash-military-arrests-of-domestic-enemies.html
Events are rapidly coalescing to the inevitable conclusion that America must either rise up and defend itself or fall to the lawless, lunatic Leftists and globalists who seek to destroy it from within.
Soon, it will be time for President Trump to take decisive action to eliminate the domestic enemies of America (see full list below) and restore the rule of law to this sovereign nation. Although I don't have any special inside information about Trump's plans, an analysis of accelerating events points to an historic showdown as pro-American forces face off against anti-American traitors throughout every level of government and society.
With deranged, lawless Democrats now demanding the impeachment of Attorney General William Barr for completely fabricated reasons — i.e. they don't like the fact that he won't go along with the Russia collusion hoax that was fabricated by the treasonous deep state — we are getting closer each day to the need for military arrests of those lawmakers and domestic terrorist organizations (see list below) who are actively conspiring to defeat America as founded and turn this country over to globalists to be looted, dismantled and erased from history.
President Trump must know that We the People are ready and willing to defend this nation against domestic enemies
The President needs to know that We the People wholly support his efforts to drain the swamp and "lock them up." We are law-abiding patriots and defenders of the both First and Second Amendments, and we are ready to back President Trump's decisive commands with city-by-city, county-by-county defenses to identify and arrest all enemies of America who are attempting to destroy this nation from within.
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To be clear, yes, I'm talking about armed, law-abiding citizens all across America who are willing to defend America from the traitors who are trying to destroy it.
From idiotic lunatics who would push America into an all-out economic collapse (Ocasio-Cortez) to high-level treasonous criminals who armed America's enemies with nuclear weapons and leaked U.S. military secrets to China and Iran (Barack Obama), all those who threaten the United States of America must be identified, arrested and removed from power as part of the process of restoring the rule of law in America.
I don't have any special inside information of what Trump is planning, and I don't speak for Trump in any way. But some of the actions that Trump could take to restore the rule of law in America and eliminate the sabotage actions of the domestic enemies currently operating in America include the following:
Deploy the military police nationwide to arrest and detain the CEOs of all tech companies and financial institutions that are systematically de-platforming conservatives, Trump supporters and Christians.
Every CEO of every tech company (Google, Twitter, etc.) or financial institution (Chase, Mastercard, GoFundMe, etc.) that has de-platformed users for being conservatives must be charged and prosecuted for willfully denying Americans their basic civil rights to engage in speech and commerce.
The domain names of all such tech companies and financial companies should be seized by the State Dept. and held in escrow until such time that the corporations sign consent decrees that guarantee the freedom of speech and freedom of commerce for all Americans, without interference, shadowbanning, de-platforming or algorithmic censorship.
RICO Act racketeering laws can be used to level felony criminal charges against all those engaged in these activities.
Every fake news media organization that actively participated in the sourcing and publishing of fabricated "leaks" what were intended to further the political coup effort against President Trump should have its conspirators arrested and removed from public influence. CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and Buzzfeed, among others, have collapsed into "journo-terrorism" hubs where they attempt to terrorize the American public with fabricated news hoaxes with the aim of destabilizing the Trump administration. These activities are not expressions of a "free press" but rather active efforts to commit sedition and treason as part of a coordinated, deep state political coup to overthrow the results of the 2016 election and nullify the will of the voters. The left-wing media has essentially merged with the deep state and now functions as the propaganda extension of the very treasonous groups that are attempting to overthrow America's democracy.
Every member of Congress, in both the House and Senate, who has actively participated in furthering the Russia collusion hoax and attempted coup against the United States of America should be arrested by military police and charged with sedition, then removed from public office and held to face military trials. Sen. John McCain should be charged posthumously for his role in the "Trump dossier" which was used to obtain an illegal FISA warrant application to spy on Trump campaign and administration personnel (in total violation of U.S. law).
As part of the cleanup operation to eliminate domestic terrorist groups that are operating inside the United States, Antifa must be designated a domestic terrorism organization, and all those who collude with Antifa to carry out acts of violence against conservative Americans must be arrested and charged with terror-related acts of conspiracy. This will include a very large number of college and university professors who exploit their positions of academic power to recruit and deploy domestic terrorist groups against the United States government.
The mayors of "sanctuary cities" and the governors of "sanctuary states" must be declared to be engaged in an active insurrection against the United States of America, then arrested and subjected to military tribunals for their active roles in undermining the nation through willful complicity with criminal felons and terror-linked groups.
All governors who signed laws authorizing the voting of illegal aliens must be arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit voter fraud. A national voter ID law must be put into place and fully enforced. Until California or any state agrees to enforce voter ID laws, that state's members of Congress must be suspended and prevented from participating in federal legislation in any way whatsoever. The message to California? If you don't enforce voter ID laws, you will lose your Senators, members of Congress and your Electoral College votes. You cannot participate in democracy if you aren't willing to follow the basic rules of democracy.
Activate American patriots to defend the national borders. Militia groups must be called up by the President to defend America's territories against foreign invaders. Those attempting to illegally enter the United States via border crossings must be ordered to turn around and go home. Those caught inside the border must be arrested and immediately deported to their home countries. The message must be clear: Immigrants are only welcomed in the United States through legal processes, not illegal border crossings. If you want to become an American, wait in line like everybody else who immigrated legally.
By now, President Trump knows that the American people are ready and willing to activate their Second Amendment responsibility nationwide, to protect and defend the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. There are millions of military veterans and both active duty and former law enforcement Americans who are ready and willing to enforce the rule of law and, at the direction of the Commander in Chief, do their part to identify and eliminate the threat of "enemies within."
Most real Americans have reached the point where they now realize their country will be completely overrun and destroyed if something isn't done to halt the enemies within. Time is growing short. The will of the American people to defend their nation is stronger than ever, but most Americans will not act unless they are given authorization by the President.
That authorization will not come before the 2020 election, but once Trump wins a second term, there's nothing holding back a full-fledged defense of America and the complete rooting out and elimination of America's domestic enemies.
I have no doubt that President Trump already knows the American people are with him and are ready to defend his presidency and defend this nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Get prepared while you can, since the Democrats are desperately trying to disarm the American people before the "big showdown" takes place. I am also directing you to this very important tactical analysis of how a civil war might go down and why the treasonous Left will "suffer a brutal loss" as power, water and food supply lines to their cities are cut off by pro-America forces who are defending this nation against traitors and terrorists. That article is based on this article by Matt Bracken at AmericanPartisan.org. It's also a very important read.
God bless America. #MAGA like a MOFO.
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Tagged journo-terrorists, Mike Adams, treasonous lawmakersLeave a comment
New York's Lawyers and Judges Behaving Badly, From New York Law Journal
January 8, 2019 by nootkabear, posted in above the law, access to injustice, Attorneys, Big Law, child porn, corruption, Court Cases, Courts, criminal injustice, ethics cases, Fraud Upon the Court, impeachment, Injustice, Judges, Judicial Corruption, Judicial ethics, Judicial Rulings, judicial watch, law, Lawyers, Legal, manifest injustice, too little too late, traitors, United States
https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2018/12/30/lawyers-judges-behaving-badly/
Tara Lenich, admitted to forging judicial orders to run illegal wiretaps on a fellow prosecutor and a New York City Police Detective, sentenced to one year in prison in early 2018.
Edmund Duffy's five-decade legal career, during which he rose to prominence as the former heard of the China practice at Skadden, officially ended 02/08/2018, when he was automatically disbarred after he pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.
A Suffolk County District Court Judge was suspended from the bench after he was arrested and charged with burglary. He was caught with women's underwear that he allegedly stole from a private residence.
Evan Greebel, a former partner at Kaye Scholer and Katten Muchin Rosenman, was sent to prison for working with disgraced pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli to defraud investors.
Keila Ravelo was sentenced to five years for conspiring to defraud her former law firms and clients out of $7.8 Million, using bogus litigation vendors. Prosecutors said that the former Hunton & Williams and Willkie Farr & Gallagher partner used the money to fuel a lavish lifestyle.
Prominent M&A partner Frank Aquila deleted his Twitter account after tellling White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders she should "Rot in Hell You Bitch" for defending Sen. Lindsey Graham amid the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.
Manhattan attorney Aaron Schlossberg's rant against employees speaking Spanish at a Mexican Restaurant provoked a firestorm on social media.
Another viral video captured a second New York City lawyer who directed racially charged comments at bystanders.
"Egragious and outragesou" conduct by ex-Mintz Levin associate Anthony Jacob Zappin during his pro se legal war with his former wife, also an attorney, led to his disbarment.
New York's high court unanimously said that Civil Court Judge Terrence O'Connor's "intemparate" and "inappropriate" behavior in the courtroom were bad enough, but his decision to not cooperate with an investigation into his actions also contributed to his removal from the bench.
Tagged Judges, Judicial Corruption, Lawyers, misbehavinh, removed from bench, TRUTH2 Comments
GA BlackRobe Mafia Strikes Again! This time, they cut the cases they have to rule on more than 50%. Ask yourself, just what does GA Supreme Court do?
April 6, 2017 by nootkabear, posted in above the law, access to injustice, Court Cases, Courts, Georgia, Judges, Judicial Corruption, Judicial ethics, Judicial Rulings
Ga. Appellate Practice § 12:4Georgia Appellate Practice With Forms
Christopher J. McFaddena0, Charles R. Shepparda1, Charles M. Cork IIIa2, George W. K. Snyder, Jr.a3, David A. Webstera4, Kelly A. Jenkinsa5
Chapter 12. Overview of the Appellate Process§ 12:4. Selecting the proper court—Particular types of cases
Before the Appellate Jurisdiction Reform Act of 2016, the Georgia Supreme Court had appellate jurisdiction over 10 categories of cases specified in the Georgia Constitution,(fn1) and the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction over the rest. The limits of each category were interpreted in numerous decisions, many of which are discussed in the remainder of this section, and many of which are obscure or debatable. The Appellate Jurisdiction Reform Act will change that allocation of appellate jurisdiction significantly, by shifting several categories of cases over to the Court of Appeals. This transfer will take effect for notices of appeal or applications to appeal that are filed on or after January 1, 2017. (fn2)
Constitutional questions.
The Supreme Court has exclusive appellate jurisdiction over cases calling for the construction of the Georgia Constitution (fn3) and cases in which the constitutionality of a law has been drawn in question. (fn4) This jurisdiction, which the Appellate Jurisdiction Reform Act does not alter, expressly extends to cases involving the constitutionality of ordinances. (fn5) Administrative regulations, however, are not laws within the meaning of the Constitution, and thus, the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to resolve whether a particular regulation is constitutional.(fn6) In order to invoke the Supreme Court's jurisdiction a constitutional question must be distinctly raised and ruled on by the trial court,(fn7) but an oral ruling is sufficient. (fn8) The question must also be timely raised; the Supreme Court will transfer cases involving constitutional questions that are untimely raised even if the trial court rules upon them.(fn9) The ruling must address the merits of the constitutional challenge; a ruling that the constitutional challenge was untimely does not confer jurisdiction upon the Supreme Court.(fn10) However, if the trial court also rules on the merits of the challenge as an alternative basis for its judgment, the Supreme Court has jurisdiction. (fn11) If a constitutional question is raised and ruled upon below, the Supreme Court has exclusive jurisdiction on appeal even if, upon consideration of the entire case, the Supreme Court determines that the case can be properly resolved without deciding the constitutional issue and declines to decide the constitutional issue.(fn12) The Supreme Court has jurisdiction over an appeal raising such constitutional questions even if appellate jurisdiction is based on a non-constitutional ruling, so long as the constitutional question is within the scope of pendent appellate jurisdiction under O.C.G.A. § 5-6-34(d). (fn13)
Mere mention of a constitutional principle will not bring a case within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. "The Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to decide questions of law that involve the application, in a general sense, of unquestioned and unambiguous provisions of the Constitution." (fn14) After one challenge to the constitutionality of a statute has been considered and rejected by the Supreme Court, subsequent challenges on the same point are relegated to the Court of Appeals. (fn15) Different constitutional challenges to the same statute will be within the Supreme Court's jurisdiction if the other criteria discussed above are met. (fn16)
The Supreme Court has overruled a line of cases that had interpreted transfers of cases to the Court of Appeals as implied holdings that there is no meritorious constitutional issue in the case.(fn17) For instance, the Court of Appeals may consider whether the evidence in the case should lead to a result different from the case in which the Supreme Court decided the constitutional point. (fn18)
Election contests.
The Supreme Court has exclusive appellate jurisdiction in all cases of election contest. (fn19) This jurisdiction, which the Appellate Jurisdiction Reform Act does not alter, extends to challenges to candidates for and results of elections. (fn20) It does not extend to other election-related issues, such as the qualifications of a voter.
Title to land.
After January 1, 2017, the Court of Appeals will have jurisdiction over appeals involving title to land. (fn21) Until then, the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over these cases. The Supreme Court's jurisdiction over cases involving title to land has been described as limited to actions "such as ejectment and statutory substitutes, in which the plaintiff asserts a presently enforceable legal title against the possession of the defendant for the purpose of recovering the land." (fn22) Other cases have conceived that jurisdiction more broadly so as to include actions to remove encumbrances from title. (fn23) These two understandings of the Supreme Court's jurisdiction over cases involving title to land have yet to be reconciled. (fn24) Cases in which the right of possession and not title to land are in dispute are for the Court of Appeals. (fn25) Cases in which the issue on appeal does not involve a dispute over title, though the underlying case is entirely about title, belong in the Court of Appeals. (fn26)
A suit to cancel a deed or to declare it void for lack of valid consideration is not within the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. (fn27) Likewise, a suit seeking to set aside a conveyance on grounds of fraud is not within the Supreme Court's "title to land" jurisdiction. (fn28) A suit for specific performance of a real estate contract is not a suit concerning "title to land." (fn29) A suit for reformation of a deed is not a case involving title to land. (fn30) An appeal calling for the court to construe a deed belongs in the Court of Appeals if the present title to the property does not turn on that construction. (fn31) Because easements do not affect title to property, the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction of cases concerning them. (fn32) Boundary-line cases are likewise within the province of the Court of Appeals, notwithstanding that such cases usually involve incidental issues relating to equitable relief. (fn33) In cases involving lis pendens, where the underlying issue is a legal question which does not involve title to land and which can be resolved without resort to equity, the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction. (fn34) Appeals involving foreclosure proceedings do not involve title to land. (fn35) The Supreme Court has transferred to the Court of Appeals an appeal of an action seeking to set aside a tax sale. (fn36) Likewise, the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over appeals in suits seeking to set aside fraudulent conveyances. (fn37) The Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over condemnation cases in which "a recovery of land is not being sought" and the only issue "for determination is the amount of just and adequate compensation that must be paid for that condemned property." (fn38)
However, partitioning does involve title to land, and appellate jurisdiction in such cases rests in the Supreme Court.(fn39) Appeals on the merits of suits seeking to remove clouds on title belong in the Supreme Court. (fn40) A suit to establish priority among the liens on property, though, lies within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals. (fn41)
Equity cases.
After January 1, 2017, the Court of Appeals will have jurisdiction over appeals in all equity cases "except those cases concerning proceedings in which a sentence of death was imposed or could be imposed and those cases concerning the execution of a sentence of death." (fn42) Until then, the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over these cases. The Supreme Court has jurisdiction where the issue on appeal involves the legality or propriety of equitable relief. (fn43) If the appeal raises questions about the scope of equitable relief granted below or how the superior court molded the relief, the appeal is within the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. (fn44) It has jurisdiction over an injunction that is entered upon the application of equitable principles (fn45) and an action to obtain the equitable relief of virtual adoption. (fn46)
The Supreme Court has drawn a "distinction between an equity case and a case wherein equitable relief was sought." (fn47) An appeal is not an "equity case" for purposes of the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction if the award of injunctive or other equitable relief is or would be merely ancillary to the determination of legal rights, and the only substantive contentions relate to issues of law; in such cases, appellate jurisdiction belongs in the Court of Appeals.(fn48) Similarly, a trial court's ruling on an equitable issue does not bring a case within the Supreme Court's jurisdiction unless the equitable ruling is appealed.)fn49) Raising an equitable defense in a case otherwise within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals does not bring the case within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.(fn50) Thus, a claim that the superior court should have exercised equitable discretion not to grant equitable relief that would otherwise follow upon resolution of the underlying legal issue belongs in the Court of Appeals. (fn51)
Accordingly, the Supreme Court has transferred to the Court of Appeals actions for declaratory judgments,(fn52) boundary-line cases,(fn53) actions to enforce non-compete provisions in employment agreements,(fn54) actions by homeowners to enforce restrictive covenants, (fn55) actions to impose an implied or constructive trust on real or personal property,(fn56) actions calling for an interpretation of trust terms,(fn57) actions seeking to enforce equitable subrogation,(fn58) actions to reform deeds or contracts,(fn59) actions to set aside or cancel deeds,(fn60) and actions for specific performance of a real estate contract.(fn61) By a 4-3 vote, the Supreme Court transferred to the Court of Appeals a "dispute involving the imposition of a constructive trust on certain real property" in which it appeared to the Court of Appeals "that all the issues here are equitable in nature." (fn62) In dissent, three justices have expressed doubt whether any cases at all remain within the Supreme Court's equity jurisdiction.(fn63)
Cases involving wills.
After January 1, 2017, the Court of Appeals will have jurisdiction over appeals involving wills. (fn64) Until then, the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over these cases. The Supreme Court has narrowly construed the constitutional provision assigning it jurisdiction of "all cases involving wills." (fn65) That provision refers only to "those cases in which the will's validity or meaning is in question." (fn66) An appeal from the dismissal of a caveat to a will on grounds that it was untimely does not come within the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. (fn67) Cases involving the appointment of an executor belong in the Court of Appeals. (fn68) The Supreme Court has transferred a case to the Court of Appeals involving the characterization of assets of the estate as coming within the meaning of a term of the will, even though that characterization would necessarily involve deciding the meaning of the term as an ancillary matter. (fn69)
Extraordinary remedies.
After January 1, 2017, the Court of Appeals will have jurisdiction over appeals in all cases involving extraordinary remedies "except those cases concerning proceedings in which a sentence of death was imposed or could be imposed and those cases concerning the execution of a sentence of death." (fn70) Until then, the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over these cases. Cases involving the grant or denial of writs of mandamus or prohibition differ from other topics under the Supreme Court's constitutional jurisdiction in that the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over such cases without regard to the underlying subject matter or the legal issues raised. (fn71) However, where the plaintiff has sought relief in addition to mandamus relief, and the appeal relates only to the non-mandamus relief, the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over the appeal. (fn72) If the extraordinary remedy sought is not an appropriate remedy in the case, the Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction on that basis. (fn73) If the ruling alleged to be a denial of mandamus relief is more properly characterized as a denial of a motion in a criminal case, jurisdiction lies in the Court of Appeals.)fn74)
Divorce and alimony cases.
After January 1, 2017, the Court of Appeals will have jurisdiction over appeals involving divorce and alimony cases. (fn75) Until then, the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over these cases. The provision assigning "all divorce and alimony cases" to the Supreme Court (fn76) uses different, narrower language than the provision that subjects all "domestic relations cases" to the discretionary appeal procedure. (fn77) The Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over all domestic relations cases other than "divorce and alimony" cases. (fn78) Most notably, appeals involving child custody are to the Court of Appeals unless the appeal also involves a judgment for divorce and alimony. (fn79) The same is true of child support appeals: they belong in the Supreme Court if they arise in the context of a divorce or alimony case, but the appeal goes to the Court of Appeals otherwise. (fn80) Appeals in modification cases will go to the Supreme Court if the original award was a "divorce or alimony" case. (fn81) Suits to domesticate a foreign divorce decree or to enforce child support provisions in foreign divorce decrees, even by contempt, are deemed suits on foreign judgments, not divorce or alimony cases within the meaning of the Constitution, and jurisdiction of such appeals is in the Court of Appeals. (fn82) Jurisdiction over appeals from orders under the Family Violence Act lies in the Court of Appeals. (fn83)
In cases where a complaint for divorce is combined with a tort, contract or other claim, if an interlocutory appeal "involves only a contract or tort claim or any matter other than divorce or alimony, then the appeal does not constitute a divorce or alimony case within the meaning of our state constitution" and appellate jurisdiction is in the Court of Appeals. (fn84) Contempt actions that are ancillary to the underlying divorce action and that involve issues other than custody fall within the divorce and alimony jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. (fn85) Resolution of property disputes between divorced spouses that were unresolved in an earlier divorce suit is not within the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. (fn86)
Murder cases.
Where murder and other charges are brought in a single indictment, but severed for trial, they remain severed on appeal. In such a case, jurisdiction over convictions on the murder charge is in the Supreme Court, and jurisdiction over convictions on the other charges is in the Court of Appeals.(fn87) On the other hand, where murder and other charges are to be tried together jurisdiction over a pre-conviction appeal is in the Supreme Court. (fn88) Where murder and other charges have been tried together an appeal relating only to the non-murder charges will be in the Supreme Court if the murder count remains pending in the court below. (fn89)
a0Judge, Georgia Court of Appeals. Member of the Atlanta and DeKalb Bars.
a1Member of the Augusta Bar.
a2Member of the Macon Bar Association.
a3Judicial Staff Attorney. Member of the DeKalb Bar.
a4Member, State Bar of Georgia.
a5Assistant District Attorney, Middle Judicial District.
1 Ga. Const. 1983, Art. VI, § VI, ¶¶II, III.
2 Williford v. Brown, 299 Ga. 15, 785 S.E.2d 864 (2016).
3 State Dept. of Corrections v. Developers Sur. and Indemn. Co., 295 Ga. 741, 763 S.E.2d 868 (2014).
4 Ga. Const. 1983, Art. VI, § VI, ¶II.
5 Willis v. City of Atlanta, 285 Ga. 775, 684 S.E.2d 271 (2009).
6 Georgia Dept. of Community Health v. Northside Hosp., Inc., 324 Ga. App. 326, 750 S.E.2d 401 (2013), judgment rev'd on other grounds, 295 Ga. 446, 761 S.E.2d 74 (2014). Contrast State v. International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc., 788 S.E.2d 455 (Ga. 2016) (Supreme Court has jurisdiction over a constitutional challenge to denial of a permit for roadway sign under agency regulations).
7 Jones v. State, 292 Ga. 656, 740 S.E.2d 590 (2013); Kendrick v. State, 335 Ga. App. 766, 782 S.E.2d 842 (2016); Dailey v. Abdul-Samed, 319 Ga. App. 380, 736 S.E.2d 142 (2012).
8 Jenkins v. State, 284 Ga. 642 (1), 670 S.E.2d 425 (2008).
9 Brinkley v. State, 291 Ga. 195, 728 S.E.2d 598 (2012); Barrow v. Mikell, 331 Ga. App. 547, 771 S.E.2d 211 (2015), rev'd on other grounds, 298 Ga. 429, 782 S.E.2d 439 (2016).
10 Rooney v. State, 287 Ga. 1, 690 S.E.2d 804 (2010).
12 Harrison v. Wigington, 269 Ga. 388, 497 S.E.2d 568 (1998).
13 Malloy v. State, 293 Ga. 350, 744 S.E.2d 778 (2013).
14 Pollard v. State, 229 Ga. 698, 194 S.E.2d 107 (1972); Kroupa v. Cobb County, 262 Ga. 451, 421 S.E.2d 283 (1992).For a case in which the Supreme Court held that Court of Appeals overstepped that authority, see City of Decatur v. DeKalb County, 284 Ga. 434, 668 S.E.2d 247 (2008). For a commentary criticizing both the substance and the tone of City of Decatur see Kenneth A. Hindman, Supreme Court Muddles Rules for Exclusive Constitutional Jurisdiction: A Comment on City of Decatur v. DeKalb County, The Appellate Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, Winter 2008, available at http://www.gabar.org/sections/section_web_pages/appellate_practice_section/section_newsletters/.
15 Williams v. State, 273 Ga. 848, 546 S.E.2d 522 (2001). Although the transfer of an appeal by the Supreme Court to the Court of Appeals is not a rejection on the merits of a constitutional question, it is often "a final determination that no constitutional question was in fact properly raised." Nahid v. State, 276 Ga. App. 687, 624 S.E.2d 264 (2005); Hughes v. State, 266 Ga. App. 652, 598 S.E.2d 43 (2004); Schmidt v. Feldman, 230 Ga. App. 500, 497 S.E.2d 23 (1998).
16 Zarate-Martinez v. Echemendia, 788 S.E.2d 405 (Ga. 2016).
17 Atlanta Independent School System v. Lane, 266 Ga. 657, 469 S.E.2d 22, 108 Ed. Law Rep. 1297 (1996). But see Braden v. Bell, 222 Ga. App. 144, 473 S.E.2d 523 (1996), as to the extent of the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals over constitutional questions and as to the practical effect of the Atlanta Independent ruling. Notwithstanding the Atlanta Independent ruling, the net effect of these transfers is very often that the only written appellate opinion as to a constitutional issue is from a court whose only authority is to reject the argument. See Braden v. Bell, 222 Ga. App. 144, 473 S.E.2d 523 (1996) (Beasley, C.J., concurring).
18 Head v. State, 303 Ga. App. 475, 693 S.E.2d 845 (2010).
19 Ga. Const. Art. VI, § VI, ¶II.
20 Cook v. Board of Registrars of Randolph County, 291 Ga. 67, 727 S.E.2d 478 (2012).
21 O.C.G.A. § 15-3-3.1(a)(1).
22 Graham v. Tallent, 235 Ga. 47, 218 S.E.2d 799 (1975) (surveying cases excluded and included within the "title to land" provision and providing the focus on ejectment-like actions); Navy Federal Credit Union v. McCrea, 337 Ga. App. 103, 786 S.E.2d 707 (2016); Cole v. Cole, 205 Ga. App. 332, 422 S.E.2d 230 (1992).
23 Hunstein v. Fiksman, 279 Ga. 559, 615 S.E.2d 526 (2005) (action to invalidate liens on property); Tharp v. Harpagon Co., 278 Ga. 654, 604 S.E.2d 156 (2004) (action to remove cloud from title).
24 In Stearns Bank, N.A. v. Dozetos, 328 Ga. App. 106, 761 S.E.2d 520 (2014), the Supreme Court transferred to the Court of Appeals the appeal of a case in which the plaintiff sought to invalidate an encumbrance on land, pursuant to the standard established Graham v. Tallent, 235 Ga. 47, 218 S.E.2d 799 (1975), but not apparently addressing its own rulings in Hunstein v. Fiksman, 279 Ga. 559, 615 S.E.2d 526 (2005), and Tharp v. Harpagon Co., 278 Ga. 654, 604 S.E.2d 156 (2004).
25 Jordan v. Atlanta Neighborhood Housing Services, Inc., 251 Ga. 37, 302 S.E.2d 568 (1983) (appeal of a dispossessory proceeding filed after a foreclosure under a deed to secure to debt); Hall v. Hall, 303 Ga. App. 434, 693 S.E.2d 624 (2010) (distinguishing ejectment actions and dispossessories).
26 Boyd v. JohnGalt Holdings, LLC, 290 Ga. 658, 724 S.E.2d 395 (2012) (appeal from an order dismissing an appeal of title-related claims is not an appeal in which title is in dispute); DOCO Credit Union v. Chambers, 330 Ga. App. 633, 768 S.E.2d 808 (2015) (appeal deciding whether a quiet title action should be abated or dismissed for failure to state a claim, rather than title to land itself, belongs in the Court of Appeals).
27 Slaick v. Arnold, 307 Ga. App. 410, 705 S.E.2d 206 (2010); McCall v. Williams, 326 Ga. App. 99, 756 S.E.2d 217 (2014).
28 Holloway v. U.S. Bank Trust Nat. Ass'n, 317 Ga. App. 452, 731 S.E.2d 763 (2012).
29 Decision One Mortg. Co., LLC v. Victor Warren Properties, Inc., 304 Ga. App. 423, 696 S.E.2d 145 (2010).
30 Kim v. First Intercontinental Bank, 326 Ga. App. 424, 756 S.E.2d 655 (2014).
31 Wilkes v. Fraser, 324 Ga. App. 642, 751 S.E.2d 455 (2013).
32 Lovell v. Rea, 278 Ga. App. 740, 629 S.E.2d 459 (2006); Krystal Co. v. Carter, 256 Ga. 43, 343 S.E.2d 490 (1986); Roberts v. Roberts, 206 Ga. App. 423, 425 S.E.2d 414 (1992); Davis v. Foreman, 311 Ga. App. 775, 717 S.E.2d 295 (2011); Sermons v. Agasarkisian, 323 Ga. App. 642, 746 S.E.2d 596 (2013).
33 Beauchamp v. Knight, 261 Ga. 608, 409 S.E.2d 208 (1991); Hall v. Christian Church of Georgia, Inc., 280 Ga. App. 721, 634 S.E.2d 793 (2006); Fendley v. Weaver, 121 Ga. App. 526, 174 S.E.2d 369 (1970).
34 Everchanged, Inc. v. Young, 273 Ga. 474, 542 S.E.2d 505 (2001).
35 Graham v. Tallent, 235 Ga. 47, 218 S.E.2d 799 (1975); Arrington v. Reynolds, 274 Ga. 114, 549 S.E.2d 401 (2001).
36 Edwards v. Heartwood 11, Inc., 264 Ga. App. 354, 355, 590 S.E.2d 734, 736 (2003).
37 Kent v. White, 279 Ga. App. 563, 631 S.E.2d 782 (2006).
38 Georgia Dept. of Transp. v. Meadow Trace, Inc., 278 Ga. 423, 424, 603 S.E.2d 257, 258 (2004).
39 Wallace v. Wallace, 260 Ga. 400, 396 S.E.2d 208 (1990).This applies to both statutory and equitable partition actions. Ononye v. Ezeofor, 287 Ga. 201, 695 S.E.2d 234 (2010); Contrast Davis v. Davis, 287 Ga. 897, 700 S.E.2d 404 (2010) (appeal of partitioning of personal property is not within the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction).
40 Hunstein v. Fiksman, 279 Ga. 559, 615 S.E.2d 526 (2005); Tharp v. Harpagon Co., 278 Ga. 654, 604 S.E.2d 156 (2004). But see Stearns Bank, N.A. v. Dozetos, 328 Ga. App. 106, 761 S.E.2d 520 (2014), in which the Supreme Court transferred such a case to the Court of Appeals, taking a narrower view of its jurisdiction over title to land.
41 915 Indian Trail, LLC v. State Bank and Trust Co., 328 Ga. App. 524, 759 S.E.2d 654 (2014).
43 Williford v. Brown, 299 Ga. 15, 785 S.E.2d 864 (2016) (availability of novel equitable relief); Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Inc. v. Ichthus Community Trust, 298 Ga. 221, 780 S.E.2d 311 (2015) (lifting stay against dispossessory action); Abel & Sons Concrete, LLC v. Juhnke, 295 Ga. 150, 757 S.E.2d 869 (2014) (appeal of injunctive relief based on procedural impropriety in granting it without notice); Alstep, Inc. v. State Bank and Trust Co., 293 Ga. 311, 745 S.E.2d 613 (2013) (challenge to propriety of appointing a receiver); Kemp v. Neal, 288 Ga. 324, 704 S.E.2d 175 (2010); Lamar County v. E.T. Carlyle Co., 277 Ga. 690, 594 S.E.2d 335 (2004).
44 Danforth v. Apple Inc., 294 Ga. 890, 757 S.E.2d 96 (2014); Kemp v. Neal, 288 Ga. 324, 704 S.E.2d 175 (2010).
45 Tunison v. Harper, 286 Ga. 687, 690 S.E.2d 819 (2010).
46 Morgan v. Howard, 285 Ga. 512, 678 S.E.2d 882 (2009).
47 Saxton v. Coastal Dialysis and Medical Clinic, Inc., 267 Ga. 177, 179, 476 S.E.2d 587 (1996). The purpose of the distinction is to narrow the Supreme Court's equitable jurisdiction without narrowing the range of cases directly appealable pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 5-6-34(a)(4). See §§ 12:6 to 12:7 infra.
48 Kemp v. Neal, 288 Ga. 324, 704 S.E.2d 175 (2010), finding jurisdiction in the Supreme Court—by a vote of 4-to-3, over vigorous dissent – because determination of "precisely how the trial court should have molded the equitable relief … does not flow directly or automatically from the legal conclusion that [Appellants were entitled to relief]. Review of that equitable issue would require examination of the trial court's exercise of discretion and depends upon equitable considerations." See also Sentinel Offender SVCS., LLC v. Glover, 296 Ga. 315, 766 S.E.2d 456 (2014) (finding jurisdiction when permanent injunction "was not a 'matter of routine once the underlying issues of law were resolved'"); Durham v. Durham, 291 Ga. 231, 728 S.E.2d 627 (2012); Trotman v. Velociteach Project Management, LLC, 311 Ga. App. 208, 715 S.E.2d 449 (2011); Reeves v. Newman, 287 Ga. 317, 695 S.E.2d 626 (2010); Pittman v. Harbin Clinic Professional Ass'n, 263 Ga. 66, 428 S.E.2d 328 (1993); Krystal Co. v. Carter, 256 Ga. 43, 343 S.E.2d 490 (1986); Beauchamp v. Knight, 261 Ga. 608, 409 S.E.2d 208 (1991). Cf. Electronic Data Systems Corp. v. Heinemann, 268 Ga. 755, 493 S.E.2d 132 (1997) (acknowledging "that the meaning of equity jurisdiction remains subject to confusion and frustration"). See further Johns v. Morgan, 281 Ga. 51, 635 S.E.2d 753 (2006). But see Sparks v. Jackson, 289 Ga. App. 840, 658 S.E.2d 456 (2008) (arguing that transfer from the Supreme Court eliminated issue of whether proceeds were divided equitably).
49 Clay v. Department of Transp., 198 Ga. App. 155, 400 S.E.2d 684 (1990). See also Strickland v. McElreath, 308 Ga. App. 627, 708 S.E.2d 580 (2011) (Smith, J., concurring) (observing seeming inconsistency in Supreme Court's transfer of case to the Court of Appeals where the issue on appeal required characterizing the case as equitable for purposes of special venue provision).
50 Capitol Fish Co. v. Tanner, 192 Ga. App. 251, 384 S.E.2d 394 (1989).
51 Decision One Mortg. Co., LLC v. Victor Warren Props., Inc., 304 Ga. App. 423, 696 S.E.2d 145 (2010).
53 Beauchamp v. Knight, 261 Ga. 608, 409 S.E.2d 208 (1991).
54 Pittman v. Harbin Clinic Professional Ass'n, 263 Ga. 66, 428 S.E.2d 328 (1993); Drawdy CPA Services, P.C. v. North GA CPA Services, P.C., 320 Ga. App. 759, 740 S.E.2d 712 (2013).
55 Redfearn v. Huntcliff Homes Ass'n, Inc., 271 Ga. 745, 524 S.E.2d 464 (1999).
56 Davis v. Davis, 287 Ga. 897, 700 S.E.2d 404 (2010); Reeves v. Newman, 287 Ga. 317, 695 S.E.2d 626 (2010).
57 Durham v. Durham, 291 Ga. 231, 728 S.E.2d 627 (2012); Rose v. Waldrip, 316 Ga. App. 812, 730 S.E.2d 529 (2012).
59 Kim v. First Intercontinental Bank, 326 Ga. App. 424, 756 S.E.2d 655 (2014); First Chatham Bank v. Liberty Capital, LLC, 325 Ga. App. 821, 755 S.E.2d 219 (2014).
60 McCall v. Williams, 326 Ga. App. 99, 756 S.E.2d 217 (2014).
61 Decision One Mortg. Co., LLC v. Victor Warren Properties, Inc., 304 Ga. App. 423, 696 S.E.2d 145 (2010); Lee v. Green Land Co., Inc., 272 Ga. 107, 527 S.E.2d 204 (2000).
62 Troutman v. Troutman, 297 Ga. App. 62, n.1, 676 S.E.2d 787 (2009).
63 Lee v. Green Land Co., Inc., 272 Ga. 107, 527 S.E.2d 204 (2000) (Carley, J., dissenting, joined by Hunstein J.; Thompson, J., dissenting, joined by Hunstein, J.); Redfearn v. Huntcliff Homes Ass'n, Inc., 271 Ga. 745, 524 S.E.2d 464 (1999) (Carley, J., dissenting, joined by Hunstein, J.). But see Agan v. State, 272 Ga. 540, 533 S.E.2d 60 (2000), in which the majority did not address jurisdiction but appears to have exercised equitable jurisdiction and two justices dissented on the basis that jurisdiction was properly in the Court of Appeals.
65 Ga. Const. 1983, Art. VI, § VI, ¶III(3).
66 In re Estate of Lott, 251 Ga. 461, 306 S.E.2d 920 (1983).
67 In re Estate of Loyd, 328 Ga. App. 287, 761 S.E.2d 833 (2014).
68 In re Estate of Farkas, 325 Ga. App. 477, 753 S.E.2d 137 (2013).
69 Simmons v. England, 323 Ga. App. 251, 746 S.E.2d 862 (2013), judgment aff'd, 295 Ga. 1, 757 S.E.2d 111 (2014).
71 Goddard v. City of Albany, 285 Ga. 882, 684 S.E.2d 635 (2009); Mid Georgia Environmental Management Group, L.L.L.P. v. Meriwether County, 277 Ga. 670, 594 S.E.2d 344 (2004); Griffin v. State, 278 Ga. 669, 604 S.E.2d 155 (2004); Bynum v. State, 289 Ga. App. 636, 658 S.E.2d 196 (2008).But see more recent cases holding that the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction when the claim for an extraordinary remedy is disposed of without reaching the merits. Liberty County School Dist. v. Halliburton, 328 Ga. App. 422, 762 S.E.2d 138, 307 Ed. Law Rep. 1135 (2014) (claim dismissed because of immunity, without the grant or denial of mandamus); City of Stockbridge v. Stuart, 329 Ga. App. 323, 765 S.E.2d 16 (2014) (denial of mandamus as moot).
72 City of Tybee Island, Georgia v. Live Oak Group, LLC, 324 Ga. App. 476, 751 S.E.2d 123 (2013).
73 Richardson v. Phillips, 285 Ga. 385, 386, 677 S.E.2d 117, 118 (2009) (action seeking the remedy of quo warranto).
74 MacBeth v. State, 304 Ga. App. 466, 696 S.E.2d 435 (2010).
77 O.C.G.A. § 5-6-35(a)(2).
78 Eickhoff v. Eickhoff, 263 Ga. 498, 499, 435 S.E.2d 914 (1993).
79 Ashburn v. Baker, 256 Ga. 507, 350 S.E.2d 437 (1986); Higdon v. Higdon, 321 Ga. App. 260, 739 S.E.2d 498 (2013). At one time, jurisdiction of child custody cases was in the Supreme Court pursuant to its jurisdiction of habeas corpus cases; the Supreme Court no longer has jurisdiction over child custody cases, as such, because child custody cases can no longer be brought as habeas cases. Munday v. Munday, 243 Ga. 863, 257 S.E.2d 282 (1979).
80 Parker v. Parker, 293 Ga. 300, 745 S.E.2d 605 (2013).
81 Spurlock v. Department of Human Resources, 286 Ga. 512, 690 S.E.2d 378 (2010); Williamson v. Williamson, 293 Ga. 721, 748 S.E.2d 679 (2013).
82 Davis v. Davis, 287 Ga. 897, 700 S.E.2d 404 (2010); Lewis v. Robinson, 254 Ga. 378, 329 S.E.2d 498 (1985).
83 Schmidt v. Schmidt, 270 Ga. 461, 510 S.E.2d 810 (1999).
84 Walker v. Estate of Mays, 279 Ga. 652, 619 S.E.2d 679 (2005) (action by former wife and children against estate for decedent's failure to maintain life insurance policy as required by divorce decree, held to be a "domestic relations case [ ]" and therefore subject to the discretionary appeal procedure, but not a "divorce or alimony case" and therefore within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals, rather than the Supreme Court); Gates v. Gates, 277 Ga. 175, 176, 587 S.E.2d 32, 33–34 (2003) (appeal involving immunity from tort claim); Rutter v. Rutter, 316 Ga. App. 894, 730 S.E.2d 626 (2012), rev'd on other grounds, 294 Ga. 1 (2013); (appeal involving suppression of evidence); Lacy v. Lacy, 320 Ga. App. 739, 740 S.E.2d 695 (2013) (appeal involving rulings on custody and recusal); Stearns Bank, N.A. v. Mullins, 333 Ga. App. 369, 776 S.E.2d 485 (2015) (setting aside a security deed, regardless of contempt of divorce decree); Robertson v. Robertson, 333 Ga. App. 864, 778 S.E.2d 6 (2015) (setting aside a transfer pursuant to a divorce).
85 Horn v. Shepherd, 292 Ga. 14, 732 S.E.2d 427 (2012); Morris v. Surges, 284 Ga. 748, 750, 670 S.E.2d 84, 86 (2008); Griffin v. Griffin, 243 Ga. 149, 253 S.E.2d 80 (1979).
86 Davis v. Davis, 287 Ga. 897, 700 S.E.2d 404 (2010).
87 Cain v. State, 277 Ga. 309, 588 S.E.2d 707 (2003).
88 Sanders v. State, 280 Ga. 780, 631 S.E.2d 344, 345 (2006).89Langlands v. State, 280 Ga. 799, 633 S.E.2d 537 (2006) (The trial court had granted a new trial as to the murder charges, but not the other charges).
§ 12:4.Selecting the proper court—Particular types of cases, Ga. Appellate Practice § 12:4
Tagged BlackRobe Mafia, GA Supreme Court, Injustice, TRUTH1 Comment
November 19, 2016 by nootkabear, posted in above the law, access to injustice, Attorneys, Banksters, corruption, Judges, Judicial Corruption, Judicial ethics, Judicial Rulings
Every day it seems, I read something about Judges in this Country, or someone contacts me about them, or I experience them first hand, or perhaps, one of the attorneys that I have worked with feels their wrath.
The judges hate pro se litigants. The judges hate foreclosure defense lawsuits. The judges hate almost everything and/or everyone, except their fellow judges, or people they knew while they were attorneys, or maybe their own families. It has come to the point, that I told someone the other day, we need to get rid of all govt., and all judges, and start anew.
I'm serious. Most people don't encounter the crimes that the judges are committing. Or so I thought. I have read some things lately, where more and more people are noticing that unless you are a bank, an attorney on the judge's good side, or a multi-billion dollar corporation, there is no justice for you in the US.
Read on, and see some of what I am talking about. I have added in parts of articles supporting what I am claiming. There will be links to the articles, so that you can see for yourself, where the information came from:
US justice system
Corrupt justice: what happens when judges' bias taints a case?
By Peter S. Green and John Mazor
Sunday 18 October 2015 08.00 EDT
Divorced mother Margaret Besen tells her five-year struggle to get justice, just one story in the hundreds of judicial transgressions across the US revealed in a Guardian and Contently Foundation for Investigative Reporting collaboration
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/18/judge-bias-corrupts-court-cases
Judge William Kent's preliminary ruling seemed like a first step toward compromise. Margaret and Stuart Besen, who agreed their marriage was beyond repair, would remain in their suburban Suffolk County house, living in separate rooms – and keeping away from each other – while sharing custody until a resolution could be reached.
But within weeks, the situation deteriorated. Stuart Besen, a politically connected attorney for the town of Huntington, had an anger problem, Margaret told authorities. The couple's screaming matches left Margaret feeling intimidated and their children – a daughter, 11, and son, 7 – terrified, she said. So in August of that year she obtained an order of protection prohibiting Stuart from harassing her. Three weeks later, Stuart entered Margaret's bedroom and hovered over her as she slept, she told police. They arrested him for violating the order, reporting that Stuart had stared down at Margaret with his arms folded on three consecutive nights. She got temporary possession of the family home.
In the years that followed, Besen's hopes for an equitable settlement dwindled as she battled a series of harsh and hard-to-explain decisions against her. Though she could never prove anything, she suspected that the scales had tipped for reasons unrelated to the evidence in her case. If true, Besen faced what experts say is one of the most troubling threats to our nation's system of justice: judges, who, through incompetence, bias or outright corruption, prevent the wronged from getting a fair hearing in our courts.
"The decorum and bias and the perfectly unethical behavior of the judges is really rampant," said Amanda Lundergan, a defense attorney in Royal Palm Beach, Florida, who confronted a nest of judicial conflicts in her state's rapid-fire foreclosure rulings – dubbed the "rocket-docket" – following the housing market collapse. "It's judicial bullying."
Judges in local, state and federal courts across the country routinely hide their connections to litigants and their lawyers. These links can be social – they may have been law school classmates or share common friends – political, financial or ideological. In some instances the two may have mutual investment interests. They might be in-laws. Occasionally they are literally in bed together. While it's unavoidable that such relationships will occur, when they do create a perception of bias, a judge is duty-bound to at the very least disclose that information, and if it is creates an actual bias, allow a different judge to take over.
All too often, however, the conflicted jurist says nothing and proceeds to rule in favor of the connected party, while the loser goes off without realizing an undisclosed bias doomed her case.
Hundreds of judicial transgressions have been uncovered during the last decade, with results that cost the defeated litigants their home, business, custody, health or freedom.
But court critics say that one reason judicial violations are common is because they frequently go unpunished. When litigants ask a judge to back away because of a conflict, they risk being told no, then face possible retaliation, so many don't bother. If a litigant or an attorney files a complaint with an oversight body, there's only about a 10% chance that state court authorities will properly investigate the allegation, according to a Contently.org analysis of data from 12 states.
Photograph: Contently.org
The analysis shows that a dozen of these commissions collectively dismissed out of hand 90% of the complaints filed during the last five years, tossing 33,613 of 37,216 grievances without conducting any substantive inquiry. When they did take a look – 3,693 times between 2010 and 2014 – investigators found wrongdoing almost half the time, issuing disciplinary actions in 1,751 cases, about 47%.
The actions taken ranged from a letter of warning to censure, a formal sanction that indicates a judge is guilty of misconduct but does not merit suspension or removal.
Actually removing a judge was a rarity. Just 19 jurists in 12 states were ordered off the bench for malfeasance, which is about three per decade for each state. And even that result is becoming less common, with only one removal in 2014 and three in 2013 among all 12 states.
The states examined – California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, Colorado, Washington, Georgia and South Carolina – were chosen because they comprise a representative sample from different populations and areas of the country and because they had matching data for the years 2010 through 2014.
Judicial discipline at the federal level is almost non-existent. A Contently.org examination of the most recent five years of complaint data shows that 5,228 grievances were lodged against federal jurists between 2010 and 2014, including 2,561 that specifically alleged bias or conflict of interest. But only three judges were disciplined during those years and each got the mildest rebuke on the books: censure or reprimand. None was suspended or removed.
Margaret won a court order of protection barring Stuart from contact with her children for a year. But when Kent issued his final decree less than six weeks later, he awarded Stuart full custody, while Margaret was allowed only supervised visits. And he ordered Margaret to pay back half the cost of her nursing degree and to sell her diamond engagement ring and split the proceeds with Stuart. The judge also reversed the support arrangements. While Stuart would pay $1,500 a month in maintenance to Margaret, she now owed Stuart $153.90 a week for the children, even though she was earning about $13,000 a year as a part-time aide in an assisted-living facility.
Margaret began to look into her husband's dealings and discovered, through searching public records, that he and judge Kent had possible connections. In 2010, Stuart was appointed as the Suffolk County representative on a statewide commission for vetting local judicial candidates. That same year, an organization based at Stuart Besen's Garden City law office, the Long Island Coalition for Responsible Government, donated $7,500 to candidate Richard Ambro, who got elected and became one of Kent's fellow Supreme Court judges in Suffolk's 10th district. In his role as Huntington's town lawyer, Besen argued cases before these very judges. He'd entered a circle of judicial insiders.
"I'm in the middle of a large group of people who've got money and influence and who are all connected," said Margaret Besen. "I'm not being afforded an opportunity to get a fair shake."
Above: Margaret Besen stands in front of the former Besen family home, now unoccupied in Commack, Long Island. Photograph: Alan Chin
Margaret had no way of knowing whether the connections she uncovered played any role in how Kent ruled in her case. But her concern deepened when she made an additional discovery about her house. Kent had ordered the Besen home, the most valuable marital asset, to be sold and the proceeds divided, putting Margaret in line to receive possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then she found an online listing offering the property for sale – with the judge's wife, Patricia Kent, as broker. The home, which was listed for $749,999 with Patricia Kent's photo and contact information on Realty Connect USA, is currently more than $15,000 in arrears on its property taxes and no longer appears to be actively offered. Margaret was evicted from the house in 2013 and lives in a modest apartment a few miles away. She has yet to receive a penny for her interest in the property.
Scott L Cummings, a professor of legal ethics at UCLA law school, said the case raised "significant ethical red flags", because of the judge's wife's alleged involvement in offering the Besen family home for sale. "Not knowing the details of how his spouse might have been assigned as broker, the idea that a judge might benefit financially from the sale of a property in dispute in a pending matter seems to raise a serious question of impartiality."
Ronald Rotunda, a professor at Chapman University law school in Orange, California, said: "What judge Kent did here seems odd. The husband makes over a half million a year, she makes $13,000 a year, and the judge orders her to pay child support (which is tax free to him and not deductible for her)."
But a culture of judicial impunity extends far beyond Long Island's county courts. Indeed, even the US supreme court has been tarnished on this issue.
Justice Steven Breyer owned $215,000 in health-care stocks when deciding on the legality of the Affordable Care Act in 2012. Justice Samuel Alito's portfolio included $2,000 in stock in The Walt Disney Co. in 2008, the year the court heard Disney, FCC v. Fox Television Stations. And perhaps most famously, justice Antonin Scalia has participated in the Bush v. Gore case, even though his son Eugene's law firm represented one of the parties. In another case, Scalia remained in the panel despite having gone on a duck hunting trip with former Vice-President Dick Cheney while he was being sued to reveal the details of secret meetings he held with oil company executives in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The online vitriol directed at unscrupulous judges, which began in the mid- 2000s, has built to a howling digital crescendo. Websites including The Robe Probe, The Judiciary Report and The Robing Room, which rate judges the way Yelp rates restaurants, are rife with railing as embittered, mostly anonymous plaintiffs rip into judicial decisions they feel were biased or corrupt.
In an appeal of a case in West Virginia court, A.T. Massey Coal Co. CEO Don Blankenship spent $3m to elect Brent Benjamin, who ultimately provided the swing vote that overturned a $50m judgment against his company. Benjamin rebuffed repeated demands that the newly elected justice recuse himself because of his obvious conflict.
The US Supreme Court ruled that Benjamin's bias was so extreme that his failure to step aside violated Caperton's right to due process under the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment. The case, which spawned Grisham's 2008 best-seller, "The Appeal," underscored the kind of underhanded dealing that has stained the judiciary.
A further nudge for reform came last year when the Center for Public Integrity published a report on financial conflicts of interest. Among its findings: on 26 occasions in the preceding three years, federal appellate judges ruled on cases involving companies in which they owned stock or where they had a financial tie to an attorney appearing before them.
It also created a grading system to gauge how diligent each state was in collecting personal financial information from its judges, including stock ownership and outside sources of income, and how accessible that data was to the public. The center said that 42 states, plus the District of Columbia, failed its test. Six others earned a D grade, while two – California and Maryland – got Cs. California's score, 77, the highest of any state, was seven points below the federal government's grade of 84.
The report highlighted the type of conflict that can be most readily identified and that doing so requires full disclosure from the judges. Stock ownership, even if minimal, should automatically disqualify a judge from hearing a case, many experts believe. "If a judge owns a single share in a company involved in a case, he should recuse himself instantly," says Rotunda, a leading law scholar.
It's been more than two years since Margaret Besen has seen her children, who are now 12 and 16. There's no money to pay the court supervisor, so they can't visit. Nor does Besen have the funds to continue fighting. Kent retired shortly after making his decision.
"The hardest thing in my life is that I can't be with my children and I can't have an impact on my children's upbringing," Besen said over coffee at a Long Island diner. "A lot of people do not have any idea how the judicial system works or doesn't work until you're in it. We think we're in a democratic society. We think we're run by rules. But they are not being upheld by the court at all."
This story was produced in collaboration with The Contently Foundation for Investigative Reporting.
Arbitrating Disputes, Denying Justice
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDNOV. 7, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/opinion/sunday/arbitrating-disputes-denying-justice.html?emc=edit_tnt_20151107&nlid=5930843&tntemail0=y&_r=2
In recent years, America's corporations have created a private system for handling disputes that benefits them greatly while denying consumers their day in court.
Worse, according to a recent series in The Times, that system has become vast and more entrenched as companies increasingly require customers, employees, investors, patients and other consumers to agree in advance to arbitrate any disputes that arise in their dealings with a company, rather than sue in a court of law.
Such forced-arbitration clauses, found in the fine print of contracts, also typically bar aggrieved parties from pressing their claims as a group in a class action, often the only practical way for individuals to challenge corporations. In addition, corporations effectively control the arbitration process, including the selection of the arbitrator and the rules of evidence, a stacked deck if ever there was one.
As if that is not troubling enough, it is extremely difficult to avoid or get out of forced-arbitration clauses and class-action bans, particularly since they were upheld by two misguided Supreme Court decisions in 2011 and in 2013.
Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, center, with colleagues at a hearing in Denver last week.CreditBrennan Linsley/Associated Press
From 2010 to 2014, corporations prevailed in four out of five cases where they asked federal judges to dismiss class-action lawsuits and compel arbitration, according to The Times's articles. People who were blocked from going to court as a group usually dropped their claims entirely, in part because class actions are often the only affordable way to file lawsuits. If successful, they can deter future corporate wrongdoing because even small payouts, multiplied over all similarly mistreated customers, can be very large.
Indeed, faced with arbitration, it appears that most people do not pursue remedies to their grievances at all. Verizon, with more than 125 million subscribers, faced 65 consumer arbitrations between 2010 and 2014, The Times's report found. Sprint, with more than 57 million subscribers, faced six. Time Warner Cable, with 15 million subscribers, faced seven.
Even more disturbing, the shift away from the civil justice system has gone beyond disputes about money. Nursing homes, obstetrics practices and private schools increasingly use forced-arbitration clauses to shield themselves from being taken to court over alleged discrimination, elder abuse, fraud, hate crimes, medical malpractice and wrongful death.
For the most part, Congress has looked the other way. Federal regulators, however, are starting to fight back. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to propose a rule soon to forbid arbitration clauses that ban class actions in cases involving financial services and products. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is expected to issue updated nursing home regulations next year, is considering a ban on forced arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts.
Reversing the broader trend of forced arbitration, however, will require public outcry loud and long enough to stir the White House and Congress to action. Many people interviewed in The Times's series did not realize that their right to sue had been lost until they needed it. A common refrain was the disbelief that this could happen in America. But it is happening, and it needs to stop.
Tagged Housing, Judges, Judicial Corruption, no justice, TRUTHLeave a comment
July 14, 2016 by nootkabear, posted in 10-15 million people, Health, Health Ranger, Judges, Judicial Corruption
The Trumpster is right: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 'mind is shot' because she was brain damaged by chemotherapy in 2009… (and hasn't been able to think straight since)
http://www.naturalnews.com/054650_Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg_chemo_brain_Donald_Trump.html
(NaturalNews) Three days ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went on a discombobulated verbal rampage against Donald Trump, calling him a "faker" and claiming that if he were elected president, "then everything is up for grabs."
She then went on to declare that everybody should "move to New Zealand" where, apparently, they can all wear their liberal tin foil hats together while America finally builds a wall to keep them all out.
But what almost nobody seems to remember about all this is that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was brain damaged by chemotherapy in 2009. As this NY Daily News story explains, she underwent chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer that year.
Chemotherapy is a systemic poison that damages the brains, kidneys and hearts of those who undergo the procedure. As oncologists well know, chemotherapy causes "chemo brain" — a form of chemically induced brain damage that severely impairs cognitive ability by damaging brain cells. It's far worse than the brain damage you'd suffer from sniffing glue or consuming meth, by the way.
Chemo brain is a medically recognized side effect of chemotherapy, and even the Mayo Clinic describes chemo brain side effects as including:
Difficulty finding the right word
Feeling of mental fogginess
Short-term memory problems
Taking longer than usual to complete routine tasks
Trouble with verbal memory, such as remembering a conversation
Does this sound exactly like Ruth Bader Ginsburg? You bet it does!
America's highest court populated by a brain-damaged liberal
All this explains why Ginsberg's Supreme Court decisions have been so cognitively impaired for the last seven years. It's also why she recently committed a huge error by uttering all those insanely stupid words against Donald Trump, earning her a retort from Trump who correctly says her "mind is shot."
The Trumpster is now calling for Ginsberg to resign in shame, and even the New York Times now agrees that Trump is right: Ginsberg has totally lost her mind. Why hasn't she resigned yet? Because she's too cognitively impaired to realize she needs to resign.
It's frightening to think that the very future of America hinges in part on the decisions of a brain-damaged U.S. Supreme Court Justice who has lost the ability to think or speak with clarity. Yet in another way, it's also not so surprising: She's the perfect poster girl for the total insanity that now exists in Washington D.C. … a dangerous departure from sanity that's now endemic across the entire federal government. In fact, if you think about it, why shouldn't an insanely stupid, incompetent and corrupt federal government be incessantly granted unconstitutional powers by a brain-damaged Supreme Court justice who can't control her own mouth?
This is all the more reason to elect Donald Trump, by the way. If we are to have any real hope of saving America, we have to replace all the insane, incompetent and brain damaged government officials with intelligent, capable, patriotic Americans who can get things done while protecting individual liberty. Read more at Trump.news.
Tagged access to justice, Injustice, Judges, Judicial RulingsLeave a comment
JPMorgan Chase Bank Fines Do Nothing to Them
June 30, 2016 by nootkabear, posted in 10-15 million people, Attorneys, Banksters, Court Cases, Courts, criminal injustice, Judges, Judicial Corruption, Judicial ethics
I was working on something today, and saw that I needed to add some references (footnotes) to support what I was saying. It had to do with JPMorgan Chase Bank, and the fines for violations concerning robo-signing, lying, cheating, stealing homes, and the like. All related to foreclosures of course.
When I began adding the references for my allegations, I almost fell off my chair. I could not believe the fines and the violations, and yet, they continue on, to this very day. The only thing that Chase has learned from all the fines for violations, is that they make enough money, that the fines don't matter. If anything else had come of it, as in, it hurt them financially, they would have quit with all the violations.
As it turns out, attorneys for these banks have gotten worse. It is ruining the legal profession. If the courts would stand up and make those that should be held accountable, accountable, the foreclosures would have ended. So, it has also ruined the court system for their failure to the citizens of the states and country.
http://s25.postimg.org/ze1twuhu7/is_CDBx_Oy_Hkyno_GSsgx_Oz_TCmykgo7_D_Dsbu_N6nx_ELu_AK48_h.jpgForeclosure hell has only taught the people that have lost their homes. And what pray tell did those people learn other than they will never be able to purchase another home? That you cannot trust attorneys, you cannot trust the courts, and by God you had better never trust the lender. In other words, the world around you is corrupt as hell, and no one, except you, the borrower is accountable for anything.
Just a sampling of fines levied against JPMorgan Chase Bank:
2008: Unpacking the JPMorgan Chase scandals; $30 billion in fines and counting — and this monster bank still got off lightly!: http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/articles/unpacking-jpmorgan-chase-scandals
June 2011: Misleading CDO Investments: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
July 7, 2011: Conduct in Municipal Bonds $228 Million: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
February 9, 2012: Foreclosure Abuses and "Robo-Signing" $5.29 Billion: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
November 16, 2012: $269.9 Million: More Mortgage Misrepresentations: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
January 2013: $1.8 Billion: Improper Foreclosures: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
October 25, 2013: $5.1 Billion: Fannie and Freddie Fines: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
Nov. 2013: JPMorgan agrees $13 billion settlement with U.S. over bad mortgages; http://www.reuters.com/article/us-jpmorgan-settlement-idUSBRE9AI0OA20131120;
November 15, 2013: $4.5 Billion: Mortgage Securities: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
January 2014: JPMorgan Chase Fines Exceed $2 Billion: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/chase-a-6356;
January 06, 2014: Madoff Scandal: $1.7 Billion: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
November 11, 2014: Currency Manipulation (stock price): $1.34 Billion: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
March 2015: Chase has paid $38 Billion in 22 settlements from 2009 through March of 2015: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2015/07/16/fine-despite-fines.html;
July 2015: JPMorgan Chase fined $136M over how it collects debts: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421277881/jpmorgan-chase-fined-136m-over-how-it-collects-debt;
July 8, 2015: Chase fined $216M over debt collection: http://www.bankrate.com/financing/credit-cards/chase-fined-216m-over-debt-collection/;
December 2015: JPMorgan Admits It Didn't Tell Clients About Conflicts $300M: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-18/jpmorgan-pays-267-million-to-settle-conflict-of-interest-claims;
January 2016: JPMorgan Chase Fined $48Million for Failing to Comply With Robosigning Settlement: https://consumerist.com/2016/01/05/jpmorgan-chase-fined-48-million-for-failing-to-comply-with-robosigning-settlement/;
And it goes on. There are many that I missed, in my hurry to get this done.
And in the end, the buck stops with the Courts, U.S. Attorneys and District Attorneys for not throwing the lot of their asses in the clink!
Tagged access to justice, Attorneys, Banks, banksters, Courts, foreclosure, Forgery, Injustice, Judicial Corruption, Law, lawyer, Real EstateLeave a comment
Judge Says FBI's Hacking Tool Deployed In Child Porn Investigation Is An Illegal Search
April 24, 2016 by nootkabear, posted in 10-15 million people, child porn, corruption, Court Cases, Courts, Judges, Judicial Corruption, Judicial ethics, Judicial Rulings, Lawyers, United States
http://abovethelaw.com/2016/04/judge-says-fbis-hacking-tool-deployed-in-child-porn-investigation-is-an-illegal-search/
By Techdirt
/ Apr 22, 2016 at 9:56 AM
The judicial system doesn't seem to have a problem with the FBI acting as admins for child porn sites while conducting investigations. After all, judges have seen worse. They've OK'ed the FBI's hiring of a "heroin-addicted prostitute" to seduce an investigation target into selling drugs to undercover agents. Judges have, for the most part, allowed the ATF to bust people for robbing fake drug houses containing zero drugs — even when the actual robbery has never taken place. Judges have also found nothing wrong with law enforcement creating its own "pedophilic organization," recruiting members and encouraging them to create child pornography.
So, when the FBI ran a child porn site for two weeks last year, its position as a child porn middleman was never considered to be a problem. The "network investigative technique" (NIT) it used to obtain identifying information about anonymous site visitors and their computer hardware, however, has resulted in a few problems for the agency.
While the FBI has been able to fend off one defendant's attempt to suppress evidence out in Washington, it has just seen its evidence disappear in another case related to its NIT and the "PlayPen" child porn site it seized (and ran) last year.
What troubles the court isn't the FBI acting as a child porn conduit in exchange for unmasking Tor users. What bothers the court is the reach of its NIT, which extends far outside the jurisdiction of the magistrate judge who granted the FBI's search warrants. This decision benefits defendant Alex Levin of Massachusetts directly. But it could also pay off for Jay Michaud in Washington.
The warrants were issued in Virginia, which is where the seized server resided during the FBI's spyware-based investigation. Levin, like Michaud, does not reside in the district where the warrant was issued (Virginia – Eastern District) and where the search was supposed to be undertaken. As Judge William Young explains, the FBI's failure to restrict itself to the location where the NIT warrants were issued makes them worthless pieces of paper outside of that district. (via Chris Soghoian)
The government argues for a liberal construction of Rule 41(b) that would authorize the type of search that occurred here pursuant to the NIT Warrant. See Gov't's Resp. 18-20. Specifically, it argues that subsections (1), (2), and (4) of Rule 41(b) are each sufficient to support the magistrate judge's issuance of the NIT Warrant. Id. This Court is unpersuaded by the government's arguments. Because the NIT Warrant purported to authorize a search of property located outside the Eastern District of Virginia, and because none of the exceptions to the general territorial limitation of Rule 41(b)(1) applies, the Court holds that the magistrate judge lacked authority under Rule 41(b) to issue the NIT Warrant.
The government deployed some spectacular theories in its effort to salvage these warrants, but the court is having none of it.
The government advances two distinct lines of argument as to why Rule 41(b)(1) authorizes the NIT Warrant. One is that all of the property that was searched pursuant to the NIT Warrant was actually located within the Eastern District of Virginia, where the magistrate judge sat: since Levin — as a user of Website A — "retrieved the NIT from a server in the Eastern District of Virginia, and the NIT sent [Levin's] network information back to a server in that district," the government argues the search it conducted pursuant to the NIT Warrant properly can be understood as occurring within the Eastern District of Virginia. Gov't's Resp. 20. This is nothing but a strained, after-the-fact rationalization.
As the government attempts to portray it, the search was wholly contained in Virginia because the NIT was distributed by the seized server in the FBI's control. But, as the judge notes, the searchitself — via the NIT — did not occur in Virginia. The NIT may have originated there, but without grabbing info and data from Levin's computer in Massachusetts, the FBI would have nothing to use against the defendant.
That the Website A server is located in the Eastern District of Virginia is, for purposes of Rule 41(b)(1), immaterial, since it is not the server itself from which the relevant information was sought.
And, according to Judge Young, that's exactly what the FBI has now: nothing.
The Court concludes that the violation at issue here is distinct from the technical Rule 41 violations that have been deemed insufficient to warrant suppression in past cases, and, in any event, Levin was prejudiced by the violation. Moreover, the Court holds that the good-faith exception is inapplicable because the warrant at issue here was void ab initio.
The judge has more to say about the FBI's last ditch attempt to have the "good faith exception" salvage its invalid searches.
Even were the Court to hold that the good-faith exception could apply to circumstances involving a search pursuant to a warrant issued without jurisdiction, it would decline to rule such exception applicable here. For one, it was not objectively reasonable for law enforcement — particularly "a veteran FBI agent with 19 years of federal law enforcement experience[,]" Gov't's Resp. 7-8 — to believe that the NIT Warrant was properly issued considering the plain mandate of Rule 41(b).
The court doesn't have a problem with NITs or the FBI's decision to spend two weeks operating a seized child porn server. But it does have a problem with the government getting warrants signed in one jurisdiction and using them everywhere but.
The decision here could call into question other such warrants used extraterritorially, like the DEA's dozens of wiretap warrants obtained in California but used to eavesdrop on targets located on the other side of the country. And it may help Jay Michaud in his case, seeing as he resides a few thousand miles away from where the search was supposedly performed.
Tagged access to justice, corruption, Court Cases, Injustice, Judges, Judicial Rulings, Law, LegalLeave a comment