At the request of Brandon Raub, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute are preparing to file a civil lawsuit against government officials who were involved in the arrest and detention of the 26-year-old Virginia resident, who was arrested by a swarm of FBI, Secret Service agents and local police on Aug. 16, 2012, and forcibly detained in a psychiatric ward from Aug. 16-Aug. 23 for posting controversial song lyrics and political views on his private Facebook page.
In challenging the government’s actions as unlawful and an egregious abuse of power, Institute attorneys hope to shed light on and put a stop to what appears to be a growing problem in terms of a governmental system seemingly targeting Americans—especially military veterans—for expressing their discontent about the state of affairs in America. Since coming to Raub’s defense, The Rutherford Institute has been contacted by military veterans across the country recounting similar incidents. (More than 20,000 civil commitments were carried out in 2011 in Virginia alone.) In announcing their intention to file a civil suit against government officials, Rutherford Institute attorneys plan to take issue with the manner in which Virginia’s civil commitment statutes are being used to silence individuals engaged in lawfully exercising their free speech rights. Under these laws, a person may only be involuntarily committed upon clear and convincing evidence that he or she has a mental illness, that there is substantial likelihood that the person will cause serious physical harm to himself or others in the near future, and that there is evidence of recent, actual behavior of causing, attempting, or threatening harm to others. Anthony Troy and Brian Fowler with Troutman Sanders LLP of Richmond, Va., will be acting as affiliate attorneys for The Rutherford Institute in preparation of the civil lawsuit.
It's clear that anybody who is paranoid that the government will send armed thugs to their house to arrest them for nothing more than constitutional speech is a delusional paranoid-for the benefit of society, they need to have armed thugs come to their house and arrest them...
ReplyDeleteDoes no one see the irony in filing civil suit with the judicial branch of the government, to be decided under the arbitration of the judicial branch of the government for unlawful behavior conducted by...the judicial branch of the government????
ReplyDeleteReally??
Really??
"Will you pretty please not do that again? If you keep it up, I'm going to have to beg you again!"
The more effective way to solve this is:
- Personal Responsibility: Cite specific individuals with specific unlawful acts.
- Uphold the Law not the Lawyer: It is an oxymoron to contend that the government behaved unlawfully in a constitutional system. You can't accept the pay under an employment contract without also accepting the other stipulations, such as that you have to do some work, keep certain hours, or comply with other restrictions. Government is no different. When these people break the law they cease to be the government. Appealing to them subsequent to the lawbreaking reinforces their arbitrary power rather than curtails it.
- Impartiality judgement requires impartiality: A government constituted court can't provide that. Further it places the administrative and procedural law surrounding the legal cartel as constituted by the ABA above the explicit constitutional compact. The issue at controversy is government sovereignty. It can only be resolved by appeal to the source from whom the government officially claims to derive its sovereignty...to the people.
All the establishment-approved structure around 'The Court' is not necessary to that end, and is in fact anti-thetical.
What is necessary is an adversarial system, a recorder - the more open and publicly reviewable the better, an impartial jury, and a controversy.
An alternative trial constitution, outside of official channels but otherwise meeting the form, puts the authorities in the position where they must either accept its judgment or act in an overtly autocratic way - thus reinforcing the point of the trial in the first place, and refuting their claimed source of authority.
It places the trial in the position of 'heads I win, tails you lose'.
Doing the reverse, appealing the controversy to the judgment of the very government judicial cartel that allegedly performed the unlawful acts, does the same thing for the supporters of arbitrary government power. In that case they win no matter what.
This has always been the problem with a Judiciary that is a government branch. It's akin to having the foxes guarding the hen-house, and why Jefferson saw the states being able to nullify laws as counter to the Federal, and later, Marshall court power consolidation. Sadly Jefferson's vision died after the War for Southern Independence. The USA has been an evil federal hegemonic empire ever since, and a new class of slaves were created.
DeleteThe only real alternative is private law and the removal of the federal and state monopolies on the initiation of force and supremacy. Until then, the state will always stack the deck.
One change that desperately needs to be instituted is to hold all actors involved from the agents that came to the door to the judges that signed any warrant civilly liable. It is grotesquely unfair and unjust to have the taxpayer of whichever municipality the offending officers belong to, to foot the bill. Whatever the civil judgement is each government agent should have a requirement to pay his or her share, if he or she cannot pay it at once then a lien is placed upon all current and future earnings, superseding absolutely EVERYTHING else (corrupt government agents should be the very first thing we look to discourage in our society) until the victim is made whole. In conjunction with legislation making it extremely clear that video recording of all government agents is both legal and highly encouraged, I think this would go a long way to curb abuses. One or two instances of cops having a 20 year lien placed against their wages I would bet that the rest realize that their power trip days are over.
ReplyDelete"Civil lawsuit"? Sorry, victims such as Brandon Raub need to go after "officials" who act criminally, especially when their reasons for doing so are extremely specious, and when they will not even admit to "arresting" their victim. His attorneys need to have those "officials" arrested and charged with kidnapping, endangerment, unlawful arrest and unlawful detainment (and perhaps other criminal charges).
ReplyDeleteWe need victims of government criminals to seek justice. If Raub's assailants believe that they were "just following orders," then tell that to the judge. (And then arrest and charge the higher-ups who gave the orders.)
If you think this is bad, there is a new Texas story involving a lawsuit where the federal judge threatened the person with “death” in a civil lawsuit.
ReplyDeleteThe case involves a lawyer billing scam supervised by a federal judge. In the apparent scam, a Dallas business owner (the “victim”) had all possessions seized, without any notice or hearing, prohibited him from hiring a lawyer, and essentially ordered him into a bizarre civil lockdown. The business owner has been under this civil lockdown order for nearly two years, and is prohibited from having a lawyer, from owning any possessions, from freely traveling, from working, etc…
http://LawInjustice.com has details about this disturbing case and some quotes from the judge:
THE COURT: “I’m telling you don’t screw with me. You are a fool, a fool, a fool, a fool to screw with a federal judge, and if you don’t understand that, I can make you understand it. I have the force of the Navy, Army, Marines and Navy behind me.”
THE COURT: “You realize that order is an order of the Court. So any failure to comply with that order is contempt, punishable by lots of dollars, punishable by possible jail, death”
The lawsuit is doomed. As Szasz pointed out, mental illness is defined as behavior that the state doesn't approve of.
ReplyDeleteThe state didn't approve of Raub's behavior (it should be easy to prove that) so they definitely can involuntarily commit Mr. Raub.
Stop thinking and communicating and you should be safe from this.