Will Judge Kavanaugh’s Hearing Further Weaponize the Oppressed?

Sometimes volcanoes are relatively predictable, provided we monitor their sub-surface activity. Other times, people are unaware a volcano exists until it erupts. One of the functions of the Supreme Court is to stabilize the Republic with the rule of law, to prevent the whims of predators from to victimizing people. Judicial hearings are one setting where people should be able to monitor the rumblings beneath the surface and select justices who will direct society toward justice and away from oppression. 

Judicial confirmation hearings, however, have turned into a ritual of saying nothing but saying it eloquently. Judge Kavanaugh will not sua sponte raise fundamental problems with the judiciary. Rather, he will intone meaningless platitudes to assure everyone that everything will be just fine, while everyone ignores the rumblings of Mt. Vesuvius in the background. 

Sometimes the subterranean pressures become so great that they need to be addressed. Otherwise, they break forth in the form of extreme violence. The 1992 Insurrection in South Los Angeles was judicially manufactured mayhem. The appellate court had maneuvered the trial of the police officers who beat Rodney King to a venue where the officers’ conviction was unlikely. After Rodney King’s attackers were acquitted, 54 people were killed. However, a corrupt District Attorney’s Office and a similarly predatory court system had oppressed Angelenos, most notably Blacks, for decades. Nothing significant had improved since the Watts Insurrection in 1965. 

Because of the highly incriminating videotape of the Rodney King beating, people expected the police officers to be convicted, but that was not to be. By changing the trial to a safe venue and supplying a safe judge, the courts made certain there would be acquittals. To this day, the judiciary has failed to accept responsibility for its behavior. 

No One Will Ask Judge Kavanuagh about Judicial Oppression 

Although Judge Kavanaugh noted that the Constitution was designed “to secure the blessing of liberty,” who will be foolhardy enough to ask him about judicial thuggery which wrongfully deprives tens of thousands of innocent people of their liberty and unjustly steals their property? For judges who inhabit the Mt. Olympus of the federal courts, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” are reserved for the extremely wealthy and corporations. As Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, (2010) 558 U.S. 310 showed, corporations have free speech rights which include the liberty to use their financial resources to sway political campaigns so that the laws harm actual human beings. Who would have thought the United States would actually take the Anatole France quote, “In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread,” and write it into U.S. Constitutional law? In our great land, poor people are as free as multi-billion dollar corporations to spend millions of dollars on political campaigns. 

The Oppression is Far Greater Than One Case 

The judicial oppression from which the nation suffers is far greater than one case and far greater than the incarceration of minorities and the criminalization of poverty. Let’s look in our own backyard in Orange County. On July 9, 2018, Jordan Smith wrote in The Intercept, “His Wife Died in a Mass Shooting. Now He’s Teaming Up with Her Murderer’s Lawyer to Take on Prosecutorial Misconduct,”that while the corruption at the Orange County District Attorney’s office is a hot topic, it is neither new nor unique. It is likely that many accusations will be leveled against the present Orange County DA, Tony Rackauckas, during the upcoming November 2018 elections. Opponents will raise his widespread abuse of the judicial system where the use of lying jailhouse informants and the falsification of evidence by the Sheriff’s crime lab have become routine. The real culprits in the destruction of the California judicial system, however, are higher than Tony Rackauckas. As federal judge, Alex Kozinski noted in January 2015, the California judicial system has an epidemic of misconduct.   

Major Fault for Judicial Corruption Rests with the State Bar 

Looking at California’s judicial apparatus, one sees that the State Bar is a key component. While judges may wish to railroad the poor and minorities into prison in order to polish their law and order cred, they need help from prosecutors who are willing to commit perjury, recruit lying jailhouse informants, manufacture false evidence and conceal exculpatory evidence. The California agency charged with preventing prosecutorial misconduct is the State Bar of California. It is axiomatic; an epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct means that the State Bar is at fault.   

Let’s take a peek at Steve Moawad, former District Attorney of Contra Costa County, who was appointed to be the new head of the State Bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel [OCTC]. It turns out that Mr. Moawad had to withdraw his name from the State Senate for confirmation because he had been sued for race discrimination in Banafa vs. Steve Moawad, et aliaCase No. 18-CV-01642-MEJ. More vital than Moawad’s personal history is the State Bar’s position that it does not have to follow Rule 5-110 which requires the disclosure of exculpatory evidence. That is the crux of Judge Goethals’ criticism of the OC District Attorney, and it has been happening for decades throughout the entire state. Concealing evidence showing defendants are not guilty is one of the main ways that innocent people are railroaded into prison; it’s a powerful threat to coerce innocent people into accepting plea deals. 

Suppression Weaponizes Oppression 

Currently, the focus will be on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. With millions of Americans knowing that corruption rots our judicial system, the anticipated bipartisan cover-up will weaponize the oppressed.  How and when they will strike again is unknown. Donald Trump’s election was one such response by people who had been abused by Obama’s economic policies, people who lost their homes in foreclosures, and who saw their sons and daughters sent to prison or to the morgue due to opioid addiction. Then, they were labeled “Deplorables.” After the fancy confirmation show in the Senate is over, the oppressed will be madder than ever. No man knows that date or place of the next eruption.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.