I cannot write carelessly about the Law. I am a retired attorney-at-law, former State Assistant Attorney General and former Associate Director of Legal Affairs for a university. I love the law with a passion. I am dedicated to the protection it affords individuals, my state, my country, my world.
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States are foremost in our minds when speaking of the treasure which is our Democratic republic. Brave documents written by men who had had enough of autocratic rule by a king out of touch with his subjects’ concerns an ocean away. Self-rule advanced eons by the declaration and constitutional reign of this nation of laws and not men. But, this new form of governance was at terrible risk of failure as it sought to establish itself among the colonists in the many states of the new nation. In 1789 George Washington signed into law the firs act of the new congress, the Judiciaries Act. The Judiciaries Act established a three-part judiciary made up of district, courts, circuit courts and the Supreme Court, out-lining the duties of each branch. It also defined the role of Attorney General and the Dept. of Justice. It has been amended over the years, but never up-ended. The rights of appeal and the ultimate supremacy of the highest court to assure the constitution and the principles of the newly established republic were upheld in every state of the new union. Cases decided under this new system cemented the Rule of Law as the authority over its citizens. We have no king. We have no prince. We have political parties; but they have been given no authority to rule us. Let me repeat. Political parties have no legal authority over a free people. Only the law does so.
There have always been citizens seeking a king, or a party to undermine the Rule of Law. This is not new. What is new is a party which would be king. What is new are judges on our courts willing to acknowledge that party as king.
A judge by definition must be an independent arbiter, looking to the American law and its principles to guide her decisions. No judge should EVER comment before all parties to a lawsuit have even filed their briefs; nor that she in “inclined” to decide in favor of a party to the suit. No judge should ever place party interest above the rule of law, its principles, and the security of the nation she serves.
Judges, like all public servants, serve the people.
There is a principle at work in legal ethics supported by courts to protect an individual’s conversation with his attorney regarding a legal issue. There is a principle at work supported by courts to not reveal through the normal exercise of court transparency those secrets of the nation which, if exposed, could cause irreparable harm to the very nation and its people’s national security. There is a principle at work supported by courts to protect witnesses and keep them safe.
In this case, an about to be charged criminal who stole the most desperately protected top secret documents, and it appears those likely including nuclear weapons secrets, hid that evidence of his crime amidst personal papers. Thus, we the people represented by the Department of Justice and FBI are faced with trying to sort the evidence of the crime for two reasons: to successfully prosecute a treasonous ex-president, and to protect our own national security and those who act on our behalf to do so every day.
Let me be clear, this case should have been disposed of by summary judgement the first day it was filed by the ex-president. He should have been re-directed to the court which handled the case from its inception, and this argument reviewed by the judge who already was handling the search and its legal issues. Or, it should have been dismissed since he had no standing to contest anything since the papers were seized as evidence of a crime. Not just any crime. A crime that endangers an entire nation, and other nations within our alliance. His criminal act of hiding documents should not then be used to further his and others’ crime. The delays caused the moment this judge accepted, and now continues to delay the efforts to unravel the crime and shut-down the threat to each of these nations, furthers the crime. A Special Master appointment furthers the crime. Justice delayed is Justice denied. The people of this nation deserve justice.
My guess is that the attorney-client communication at issue likely is more evidence of criminal activity affecting the survival of the country, which the attorneys should have reported, not argue should be protected. We are putting the interest of a single criminal over the interest of the continuing existence of the United states of America, and the republics around the world who strive to be equally free of kings, princes, autocrats and thug parties.
Individual interests are sacrosanct within our courts. This situation reminds me of the philosophical question about three people in a life boat with only enough food for one to survive delayed rescue. Who is sacrificed as the danger continues and prompt rescue is unlikely? Do we sacrifice one to save more? Who could decide such case? Judges face difficult situations every day. Solomons are not that rare. I once had a case where the divorcing parties last remaining dispute was who got the parrot. The Judge ordered the parrot split in half unless an agreement was reached in 10 minutes. Opposing counsel and I were thrilled to carry that message since nothing we said had moved either party over months of discussion.
Judges must be decisive. It is implied by their title, right? “Under consideration” is a dodge where the legal issues are is clear as they are here. This judge seems to be looking for a way to satisfy the party which holds her future appointments in their hands. Or, perhaps she was just not so qualified as she needed to be to decide cases at this level, or perhaps she has the nation’s interest at heart. But, if so, is she blind to the cost to the nation by her non-decisive action? Is she struggling to find some way, any way, to defend and support her “inclinations”?
The Rule of Law, the Judiciaries Act, are the cement holding together the foundation of any democratic republic. Our foundation is crumbling before our eyes, Silence is not an option.
Poetry saved me once thirty years ago when CFS laid me low. So low, I could no longer stand, sit up, kneel, walk nor talk. In fact, speech made no sense to me. When others spoke I heard noise, not language. Exhaustion over took every cell and the energy needed to operate cell function. It was an “all systems fail” experience that lasted for decades. Speech slowly returned after several months, as bits and pieces dropped from my lips, grammar-less and word substitution raising eyebrows when I attempted communication. It took one and one-half years to complete a single Easy Crossword puzzle. One puzzle, not the entire book. I relearned numbers and their relationships playing solitaire as I lay in bed. I learned to stand, then walk again; first with a walker, then years with a cane. I learned to read and write again, haltingly at first.
Poetry saved me. It gave me my first words. One morning I woke and picked up the empty journal by my bed, lifted the pen by its side and for the first time in more than a year I wrote nonsense for two pages until a poem suddenly appeared. This is the poem:
Snippets
like puppets
of the imagination
strung together
in the mind,
all mine.
With you they dance
in the breeze
of conversation.
Disjointed,
unanointed by grammar.
Flailing, distracted
emotion woodenly enacted.
Words tossed
together and apart
from the wound that is my heart.
what a performance!
I walk without aids now, 1-2 miles at a time. I garden. I paint. I write a blogs of poetry, commentaries, political essays. Before health restricted my ability to engage in personal contact with others I was able to be socially and politically active, personally. Now, I rely on words to show love and move others to action. Words I once lost are now my only connection to a fully lived life.
I worry for Covid long-haulers and what they will go through. At least they will be believed. Those of us with CFS(sometimes called ME, CFIDS etc) have seldom been believed. Only within the last year has my illness been given an ICD code although it has been a recognized disease by the CDC for decades. The reason this happened is because researches recognize the same symptoms in Covid long-haulers and thought it prudent to look at those with CFS. However, no data was organized enough to research since without an ICD code there was no effort to track patients like myself. Our medical histories are hidden and untraceable. My records will show only “easily fatigued.” That is the least of the symptoms; the result of the struggle against the underlying systems fails. Fatigue is not the disease itself. My hope is that we will not dismiss nor diminish the long-haulers who seek medical care in the decades to come. My hope is they will find the words needed to connect them to more fully lived lives. Life is good. The struggle is worth it. I pray they never lose hope. I pray they find the poetry of their lives.
annarino writes 
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