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Black robe disease – why the abuse of power is rampant among judges and the American judiciary

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Judge in Black Robe.

Black robe disease (also known as black robe syndrome) is a condition which is not widely known to the general public, but which every trial lawyer in the country could describe in great detail if they were not too afraid to speak out against judges suffering from it.   It afflicts those lawyers who have reached the pinnacle of professional status by achieving the position of judge, infecting all levels of the American judicial system.

Black robe disease is characterized by exhibiting three or more (though frequently all) of the following symptoms:

  • Inflated ego and an excessive sense of self-importance
  • Lack of empathy
  • Sudden outbursts of rage (whether genuine or exhibited for show)
  • Refusal to effectively manage scheduling issues
  • Belief in a double standard when it comes to the judge’s own conduct
  • Lack of patience with inexperienced lawyers
  • Hostility towards lawyers more knowledgeable than the judge
  • Inability to work efficiently
  • A compulsion to waste the time of others
  • Imperious attitude
  • The belief that his or her words are dogma
  • An obsessive desire to be kissed on the ass

Most lawyers who become judges are able to stave off the symptoms of this illness from somewhere between 6 to 18 months, depending on their prior moral character and their experience as a litigator.  However, studies indicate approximately 96.2% of all judges ultimately succumb to this disease (according to a random double-blind study fabricated for this article).  The small percentage who are able to avoid black robe syndrome do so only by a strict regimen of prayer, meditation, and vodka.

What can be done about black robe disease?  Unfortunately, there is no known cure.  Removing one judge from office requires putting another one in his place who will likely fall victim to the same condition, so that method of treatment has been found ineffective.  Due to the absurd level of power granted to judges by our judicial system (created, conveniently enough, by judges), there is little that can be done other than raise public awareness of the issue.  Raising public awareness does absolutely nothing to solve the problem, but at least people may be more understanding when they see a lawyer walking out of a courthouse shouting obscenities and making a beeline to the nearest bar.

Do you have a favorite story about a judge afflicted with black robe disease?  If so, please post it in the Comments section at the bottom of this article.  If you can include a link to your story, that will be even better.

Note: special thanks to my former law partner Richard D. Jensen, author of the newly released biography The Nicest Fella – The Life of Ben Johnson: The world champion rodeo cowboy who became an Oscar-winning movie star and Ashes and Dust, for inspiring this article with his recent unpublished email rants against black robe disease.  Also thanks to another former law partner Ray Kolb for his wise suggestions on this post.  Ray’s short story “The Siege of Ravelin” was recently published in the anthology Shadows & Light: Tales of Lost Kingdoms.

Related links:

Judge just doesn’t see failure to treat people with dignity, respect

State of North Carolina v. Douglas Shane Wright (judge’s remarks to defense counsel in front of jury create prejudicial negative atmosphere)

Judge arranges sterilization of woman as “suggestion” in the terms of her probation.

L.A. judge is removed for ‘shocking abuse of power’

N.Y. panel orders judge’s removal for abuse of power, misapplying law

Doubletongued.org – black robe disease

Nix on Crime – Black Robe Disease

Judge Jay Hockenbury – New Years Resolutions

Similar articles on StubbornWriter.com:

Why your lawyer won’t take or return your phone calls – top 10 reasons

Study of most dangerous drivers by profession says lawyers are the worst drivers in America

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There are more dangerous things going on in cars than talking or texting on cell phones

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{{nl|1=mobiele telefoon met sms bericht}}
Image via Wikipedia

One of the latest trends in the criminalization of normal conduct is the enactment of laws banning the use of cell phones and/or texting while driving a car.  Despite the plethora of laws already in existence to regulate the minutia of citizen conduct, many lawmakers as well as Oprah Winfrey have decided the scourge of cell phone users must be reigned in as well.

As a frequent cell phone user who generally drives in a responsible manner, I’m offended whenever I hear about a municipality or state enacting laws against using cell phones in cars.  While it is certainly unwise to be tapping out text messages while weaving through traffic, I don’t think the average person’s cell phone usage in an automobile rises to that level of stupidity.  In fact, people are getting in their cars and doing things  far more risky than taking a few phone calls, yet you don’t see Oprah doing specials about these drivers.  Consider the following driving habits which are far worse than using a cell phone while driving:

  • Eating while driving. Approximately 100% of the people who drive cars in this country eat while driving.  Most are willfully oblivious to the road hazard they create as they drip sauce out of their triple whoppers down the front of their shirts.  Yet a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that 80% of car accidents and 65% of near-misses are caused by eating behind the wheel.  The food most likely to cause an accident while driving is coffee – which apparently means that coffee drinkers on the road are more dangerous than those driving under the influence of alcohol.  Legislation against prohibiting this behavior was blocked once lawmakers learned Starbucks was going to stop selling cappuccino to them at the drive-through window.
  • Reading while driving. Ever picked up a book that was too good to put down?  So did a bus driver in the State of Washington, who was caught with an iPhone camera reading a novel while driving in busy rush hour traffic.  Note that the transit agency has a “four strikes” rule against reading while driving, while a zero-tolerance policy on cell phone usage.  This means you get fired for using your cell phone once, but you have to be caught reading while driving four times before you lose your job.  Anyone see some bad logic here?
  • Surfing the internet and/or playing video games while driving. A Honolulu bus driver decided to outdo the Washington bus driver by being caught on camera playing a video game while driving a bus.  Some states such as New York have jumped on this problem, passing a law making it illegal to send text messages, play video games, or surf the internet while behind the wheel of a car.  All things considered, I think I’d rather see my bus driver enjoying a good book than to see him immersed in a game of Grand Theft Auto.
  • Trimming bikini line while driving. Megan Barnes recently crashed her car into the back of a car in Florida while shaving her euphemistically-described bikini line in order to be “ready” when she got to her boyfriend’s home.  To make it easier to navigate the vehicle, her ex-husband was steering the car from the back seat.  Members of the Florida legislature attempted to draft new traffic laws to address this problem, but were unable to stop laughing long enough to write anything down.
  • Getting head while driving. Oral sex while driving is so popular it now has its own Facebook group, whose membership consists entirely of people who have never seen The World According to Garp.  Sometimes called road head, this is the method of receiving a blow job most likely to result in a penis being bitten off.  All things considered, the man who was sued for causing a car crash while getting oral sex from his wife should count himself lucky.
  • Sex while driving. Making Ms. Barnes look like a role model for safe drivers, two Florida teens caught the attention of a police officer when their car was driving erratically.  When their car pulled across the road and stopped, the officer saw that both were sitting in the front seat and were trying to put their pants back on.  Not to be outdone by American teenagers, a Norwegian man was arrested near Oslo for having sex with his girlfriend while driving at a speed of over 133 kilometers per hour (roughly 83 miles per hour for you Yanks).  And while this article is not generally addressing drunk driving stories because DUI is already illegal, we must mention the Israeli man who was arrested for drunk driving at three times the legal limit while having sex with his girlfriend.  He explained his erratic driving by telling police that his girlfriend was blocking his view of the road.
  • Teacher having sex with a student while driving bus and talking on a cell phone on the way to a hotel to drink alcohol and snort cocaine. In an obvious attempt to be the final example in this blog post, a teacher in England was prosecuted over receiving oral sex from a student while driving a school mini bus while talking on his cell phone.  The two traveled together because he took the student on overnight school trips, where they would share a hotel room as well as champagne and cocaine.  I won’t even attempt to elaborate on this one.

So, before you start interfering with my iPhone usage in the car, do something about these other drivers who are creating a much bigger risk than me and the people I’m chatting with on our cell phones. All things considered, we are being pretty responsible.  If you want to discuss it with me, I have a long drive to make today so make sure to call me in my car.

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McCain and Lieberman introduce legislation to free the terrorists and make evidence against them inadmissible in court

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First page of Constitution of the United States
Image via Wikipedia

John McCain and Joe Lieberman have introduced legislation which could force courts to release terrorists who attack the United States by making evidence against those terrorists inadmissible in court.  This outcome is not their goal, but in a fervor of pathetic political pandering they have introduced a bill that specifically prohibits arresting authorities from reading terrorist suspects their Miranda rights.  They also seek to give the military the authority to lock up anyone indefinitely.  This is, in a word, idiotic.

The Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, perhaps better named the Terrorists Get Out Of Jail Free card, purports to deny Miranda rights to terrorist suspects and grants the military the power to detain anyone indefinitely as a high-value detainee..  The criteria for whether someone can be detained by the military as a high-value detainee includes such nebulous factors as being a potential threat to the US or the military, being a member of Al Qaeda or a terrorist group affiliated with them, “the potential intelligence value of the individual,” or “such other matters as the President considers appropriate.”

The bill comes as a result of the shameless political controversy stirred up over the underwear bomber, Farouk Abdulmutallab, being read his Miranda rights before he was questioned. Supporters of the bill gleefully shove their heads up their own rectums about the fact that terrorism suspects were also read their Miranda warnings under the open-torture Bush administration when arrested on U.S. soil (such as shoe bomber Richard Reid).  They even read Miranda to US citizens arrested in other countries as terrorism suspects.  In other words, the bill attacks a problem that doesn’t exist.

Supporters of the bill fail to understand that a federal law cannot supersede a provision of the United States Constitution.  And those introducing the legislation should be ashamed of themselves because they know this.  If a person is arrested in the United States, they have Miranda rights regardless of their citizenship.  The only thing that can take away a constitutional right is a constitutional amendment.  Nonetheless, John McCain and Joe Lieberman have chosen to put themselves in the spotlight for introducing something that will be rabidly popular among those who know nothing about constitutional law, while jeopardizing the prosecutions of terrorists in the future.

Because federal legislation cannot trump the federal constitution, the failure to make a terrorism suspect aware of his or her Miranda rights prior to interrogation would make any information obtained from that interrogation inadmissible in court.  Let’s be clear on this.  No Miranda warnings means no using that evidence against the terrorist.  Now if John McCain and Joe Lieberman think that the officers should merely have a chat with terrorists, pat them on the head, and send them home with a cup of water, then perhaps this is okay in their view. But for the rest of us who want to see terrorists locked up in a dark cold cell, we want the evidence they provide to be used against them in court.

Ah, you say, but that is why the bill denies the terrorists access to the U.S. courts by letting the military throw them into the Terrorist Star Chamber and then into a hole forever.  This part of the bill is inspired by the Obama administration’s attempt to close Guantanamo and set up 9/11 trials in New York, which hasn’t gone too well so far.  While the process of conducting terrorist trials may be complex, that doesn’t mean we should grant the government the power to just lock up anyone it considers a threat.  Do you really want the government to be able to lock up anyone it considers a “threat,” with that person having no ability to challenge the detention in court?  You think that won’t get out of hand?  Talk to some Japanese-Americans who were around during World War II and see what they have to say on the subject.

The bill specifically authorizes the government to detain people “without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported.”  In other words, forever.  While this legislation no doubt will be popular among the tea party folks (who, from a philosophical standpoint, should be the people most opposed to it) perhaps they and Senator Lieberman need to be reminded of the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller about the rise of the Nazi’s in Hitler’s Germany:

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

If there has ever been a time in your life when you disagreed with the government, you should understand that you don’t want the government to have the power to lock you up and make you disappear.  And if you understand that a terrorist arrested on US soil is eventually going to get access to the court system, no matter how many barriers you put in the path, then you want to make sure that the evidence you have against the bastard can be used in court.  Any criminal defense lawyer can tell you that reading Miranda to a criminal suspect rarely causes a person not to incriminate himself anyway.  Miranda has been around a long time, and yet people still confess to murders, rapes, robberies, and all sorts of other crimes every day.

Before you go championing this ill-conceived piece of legislation, please be advised that you are providing aid to the terrorists.  By supporting this bill, you support the enemies of the United States by making it easier to get away with attacking us.  John McCain and Joe Lieberman will free the terrorists who attack us because evidence obtained from interrogating them will become inadmissible in court.  Let them try to explain that at their next tea party.

For more information:

Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010 (download pdf of the bill)

McCain, Lieberman, team on detainees.

A Detention Bill You Ought To Read More Carefully

McCain, Lieberman push military to handle terror cases

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Open-carry, Brady campaign, Starbucks, and the gun rights debates at Dunkin Donuts

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Dunkin' Donuts
Image via Wikipedia

The debate among the open-carry gun rights advocates, Brady campaign supporters, and lovers of Starbucks coffee spilled over onto my Facebook page this morning after an innocent status update about Dunkin’ Donuts.  It became so entertaining I decided it could be converted into a blog post.  How’s that for harvesting the internet for easy stories?

When I don’t feel like working from the office, I often go to my favorite Dunkin’ Donuts location to access their free wireless internet and the best coffee in America.  Today they have a sign up with the clever slogan that summarized my life philosophy into six words, and I felt that it deserved to be shared.

I updated my Facebook status to read:

“Sign in Dunkin Donuts says ‘Problem: bad mood? Solution: fresh brewed.’ No truer words were ever spoken. Except perhaps ‘I’m gonna tell the teacher on you.'”

After a few coffee-related comments by friends, David (an old childhood friend) made a comment that triggered an unexpected debate on gun rights.  For those who haven’t been following the story, the “open-carry” gun advocates have been swarming Starbucks locations all over the country because Starbucks decided it would not have it’s unarmed barristas throw them out.  This, in turn, caused the Brady campaign gun control advocates to condemn Starbucks for not throwing out all the open-carry folks sporting their shiny pistols in public.  Those not involved in the debate on either side opted to use the drive-through window or went to Dunkin’ Donuts.

I don’t know what is going on at the Starbucks down the street, but I’m happy to report that if anyone in this particular Dunkin’ Donuts has a gun, he or she is keeping it politely tucked away in a boot holster or under a shirt.  No one here seems to feel compelled to pull out a weapon while getting a refill on their coffee. Which is good, because those of us here who are trying to relax and/or focus on work really don’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of idiots brandishing guns, nor do we want to see anti-gun morons agitating the people who have guns.

The thing that both sides of this debate fail to appreciate is that the average person sitting in a coffee shop doesn’t give a damn about their political views.  We aren’t here to push a political agenda.  We want to eat donuts.  We like to drink coffee and listen to classical music while quietly chatting with friends or surfing the internet.  We don’t want you coming around messing up a peaceful afternoon with your personal political issues.  If I want to watch a political protest, I’ll take my cup of coffee down to the local abortion clinic.

To me, the issue is not about whether people have guns.  I don’t really care if a responsible person has a gun tucked away inside his boot or hidden under a sports coat.  Sometimes I’ve considered doing the same thing myself.  But I do have a problem with a bunch of angry people with an attitude swarming coffee shops wearing guns out in the open while hoping someone will give them an excuse to have an argument. I’m not anti-gun, I’m anti-idiots-with-guns-in-my-face.  There’s a big difference.  I mean, really, what person in their right mind wants to be in a room full of hostile people getting caffeine jitters with their fingers on the triggers of their guns?  I think I’ll pass.

I respect their right to own guns.  I really do.  But must they take them out in public where everyone has to see them?  I respect their right to have penises, but that doesn’t mean I want to see them waiving their dicks around in a coffee shop.  Like their little pricks, they should keep their guns in their pants and not out in the open.

And if you start disrupting my quiet coffee shop with your crap, I’ll key your cars and let the air out of your tires.  Consider yourself warned.

Someone get me another one of those Bavarian creme donuts.

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Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act is not necessarily simple or fair.

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Fuckin' taxes
Image by blmurch via Flickr

A new tax bill has been introduced which proposes an odd mix of changes to the tax code while legalizing some things and escalating the criminality of others.  The so-called Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act of 2010 (S. 3018) has been introduced by Senator Wyden (D-Oregon) and co-sponsored by Senator Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire), which claims to make the tax code “simpler, fairer, and more fiscally responsible.”  While parts of this bill make sense, I don’t think that the bill necessarily deserves it’s self-given description as simple and fair.  Of course, as one of the few democrats who supports converting to a flat tax system, some might say my view of what constitutes a simple and fair tax proposal is more extreme than the average Washington bureaucrat.

If the government must continue down the path of trading one complex system for another, then the bill includes some good proposals, some bad proposals, and some that are rather still vague or indecipherable when one tries to figure out how they would be implemented.  It includes the elimination of subsidies to oil companies for deep-sea drilling research, taking away the tax deduction companies currently get for paying punitive damages (yes, punitive damages are tax deductible – you don’t hear about that little corporate gimme when they lobby for “tort reform”), dumping the alternative minimum tax,  imposing taxes on employee fringe benefits, reducing corporate tax rates and reducing the number of individual tax brackets, eliminating the tax deduction for moving expenses, removing the deferral of taxes on U.S. savings bonds, and eliminating the tax exemption on municipal bonds.

Receiving less attention are the provisions to legalize internet gambling while simultaneously escalating the already out-of-control power of the IRS to prosecute US citizens over tax problems.  Americans would now be able to engage in internet gambling without worrying about being hit with a federal indictment, but would be subject to even more outlandish criminal prosecutions for violation of the tax code than already exist.

Not surprisingly, the provisions legalizing internet gambling have garnered the endorsement of the Poker Players Alliance.  The provisions expanding criminal prosecutions earned the bill a spot on the Heritage Foundation‘s bulletin Overcriminalized.com.  The rest of the provisions are being widely endorsed or criticized, depending on which pet issue in the legislation affects one’s financial or political interests the most.

I doubt that this bill will pass, at least not in its present form, because there are too many provisions affecting too many interest groups with powerful lobbies.  But as the government falls deeper and deeper into debt, it will take increasingly desperate measures to get its hands on more and more money from it’s only source of revenue that can’t fight back – you.  If you don’t have an influential lobbyist working for you, expect big problems over the next few years.  Before Joe Stack’s suicide by crashing his plane into an IRS building, a Google search for the phrase “IRS suicide” provided page after page of horror stories of how the IRS already abuses its power.  Now you have to go past pages and pages of articles about him before you get to the less spectacular but sad stories of ordinary Americans who have been crushed by the machinery we call the government.  We should all be alert against legislation that proposes some good ideas under the guise of simplifying the tax code without actually simplifying anything and while hiding away subtle provisions that would make more good people into felons. While the current laws against internet gambling are ridiculous and need to be repealed, that repeal does not need to be coupled with branding more struggling Americans as tax cheats and felons.

Yes I know I’m all over the place with this post, but I’m tired, I need more coffee, and I’m thinking about that PITA tax return I’ve got to fill out soon.  I’ll go eat a donut and see if I can use the sugar rush to write something more amusing.

To download a pdf of the proposed legislation, click here:  bill_draft

For more info:

Market Shakes Head over Muni Bill Killer

New Poker Bill – Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act

Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act to Regulate Internet Gambling?

Wyden, Gregg, Offer Bipartisan Tax Simplification and Fairness Act

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