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Wednesday, July 1st, 2020

Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws or oaths remained on the bench

Author:     Michael Berens and John Shiffman
Source:     Reuters
Publication Date:     June 30, 2020, noon GMT
 Link: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws or oaths remained on the bench
Stephan:   A critical aspect of a successful democracy is a fair and just judiciary. The Republican Party understands that, which is why under Trump and Moscow Mitch, two of Russia's most effective agents,  they have spent the past three and a half years corrupting the American judiciary at the Federal level. But it is worse than that, this corruption has been going on at the State level for decades, particularly in Red value states governed by Republicans. One of the biggest problems facing the United States is that we cannot tell ourselves the truth about ourselves, and this constant lying has eaten away at the integrity of the nation like cancer in the gut. If we are to survive this must change. But it won't until we are honest. The question for me is: Are the people of America finally willing to be honest about who and what we have become. #Black Lives Matter I hope is a first push from the people to do that.

In the past dozen years, state and local judges have repeatedly escaped public accountability for misdeeds that have victimized thousands. Nine of 10 kept their jobs, a Reuters investigation found – including an Alabama judge who unlawfully jailed hundreds of poor people, many of them Black, over traffic fines.

Judge Les Hayes once sentenced a single mother to 496 days behind bars for failing to pay traffic tickets. The sentence was so stiff it exceeded the jail time Alabama allows for negligent homicide.

Marquita Johnson, who was locked up in April 2012, says the impact of her time in jail endures today. Johnson’s three children were cast into foster care while she was incarcerated. One daughter was molested, state records show. Another was physically abused.

“Judge Hayes took away my life and didn’t care how my children suffered,” said Johnson, now 36. “My girls will never be the same.”

Fellow inmates found her sentence hard to believe. “They had a nickname for me: The Woman with All the Days,” Johnson said. “That’s what they called me: The Woman with All the Days. There were people […]

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1 Comment

  1. Albus Eddie on Wednesday, July 1, 2020 at 5:26 am

    Don’t fool yourselves. This has been a bipartisan project for many years. It has involved systemic corruption both in Prosecutors Offices as well as in Judgeships.