Sixth Amendment – Right to Counsel does not apply to Civil Litigation
The Grapes of Wrath
A modern-day appropriation of The Grapes of Wrath as sung by Jim James of My Morning Jacket and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. This was a MusiCares event honoring Bruce Springsteen who wrote the song they are singing; The Ghost of Tom Joad.
Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican political activist, can posthumously claim a huge assist in the lyrics that define this song. This is an extract of a speech he gave in Nova Scotia in 1937 .. “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind …” Bob Marley brought this message to us in the form of “Redemption Song”.
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
If papers are served that involve you in litigation, immediately pay attention to the deadline to request your RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL. See Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) Rule 38 https://www.federalrulesofcivilprocedure.org/frcp/title-vi-trials/rule-38-right-to-a-jury-trial-demand/. A party waives a jury trial unless its demand is properly served and filed.
“When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die”.
This Jean-Paul Sartre line (French philosopher / Nobel Prize in Literature winner 1964), was taken from the 1951 play The Devil and the Good Lord.
https://speakingwhilefemale.co/law-ginsburg/
Click link above to read remarks Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg shared about the Life and Times of Belva Lockwood; an inspiration and example.
“. . she could not vote for President, she ran for the office herself”
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks”.
These words open the Magnolia Pictures RBG film. They originated from Sarah Moore Grimke (b. 1792), the daughter of a South Carolina Chief Justice of the state’s Supreme Court and noted abolitionist and advocate of equal rights for men and women. Justice Ginsburg used these words in her first oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court for gender equality in Frontiero v. Richardson in 1973.
The Fourteenth Amendment goes on to state “… nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. Parties in civil cases do not have a generalized right to counsel. To deny this is to deny their rights & protections. The option you have now that does not give you equal protection of the laws when it becomes unavoidable to right a wrong, and you don’t have $350+/hour to pay a lawyer, is you can choose to represent yourself. This is called Pro Se; Latin for “for oneself, on one’s own behalf.”
If the court provided equal protection of the laws, we would have support systems in place for everyone to get assistance, similar to what public libraries provide. The public should have access to the same valuable information legal offices have at their fingertips. WestLaw is a digital legal research subscription service behind a paywall.
The advantage the profession has over its Pro Se counterpart is comparable to the legal professional reading Cliff Notes over summer vacation while the person defending themselves is struggling through War and Peace. These tools should be available at public legal centers both in-person and online during off hours without a paywall. After all, if you are not a lawyer who is paid to spend their days preparing legal briefs, you have a job that likely requires you to be working during normal library hours of 9am-4pm. The information derived from public institutions should be available to all at all hours via a computer connection. It is the citizen’s right and not a privilege.
Most litigation is achieved through legal writings which the majority of people are not familiar with. You have to know the order of laws that prevail over each other. For instance, The U.S. Constitution and Federal laws take priority over state laws. Decency and morals have no standing in these papers; even though a lack of both on one party’s side is often the cause of breaking the law, negligence, deception, fraud or breach of contract. What is against you is the courts do not speak in the plain language you have been taught in school. They speak in legal jargon, which should have been part of the public education process. Everyone is entitled to self protection.
You have to point to laws, statutes and precedent cases to define and defend your argument. Court staff can answer only the most basic of general information questions. These legal centers could have weekly classes on how to fill out forms and can answer questions. Pro Se litigants will spend a good majority of time figuring out rules, salutations, formatting requirements, procedures and deadlines, instead of focusing on the more important actual substance of the case. Discovery is the process each side uses to get information from the other side. It is often a long process. Now this next step is something no one tells you … after all of this tedious and thorough preparation, you think you will get to go in front of an impartial judge and have your case heard. You have spent months or years on this. The opposition can file a motion for summary judgment. This asks the court to look at the evidence that is not in dispute and decide in favor of the party asking for summary judgment. If the filing side wins summary judgment, the case is over. Just like that. Through the mail. Surprise! There will be no in-person hearing. No full trial. Again, without your deep knowledge of legal language, you may have thought you did dispute evidence and did not notice if past responses from the court accepted or declined your argument. If you do not respond within a certain amount of days (i.e. 30 days), that’s it. You lost! What a waste of precious energy and time, right? There is no one to call to clear this up.
A better system for civil litigation would be to pass legislation and have professional committees (salaried and volunteer) dedicated to furthering truth, fairness and civility amongst our society, using the law as its boundaries. The committees would be made up of leaders in the fields of law (current and retired lawyers, judges, legislators, professors), who prepare a list of documents both parties bring to a scheduled meeting, along with authorized negotiators from each side to sit and discuss the facts and evidence in person at a table using plain language and discussing the merits of each side and what can be a fair remedy. This negates having to mail Motions and reams of discovery documents back and forth through the mail. A conversation and understanding of events takes place. Each party pays a nominal fee for each hour slot booked. If the issue cannot be completed in that time, a new appointment is scheduled within 30 days. Some cases will be able to be resolved in one hour, that otherwise could have taken years going through the court system. If the law is clear and can be pointed out, the meeting is adjourned and the committee’s administrative team provides follow up and oversight for the redress plan (remedy or compensation for a wrong or grievance).
Some cases will be able to be resolved in one hour, that otherwise could have taken years going through the court system.
A similar model for this type of assistance can be found in the non-profit organization, CCCS, which stands for Consumer Credit Counseling Service https://credit.org/cccs/. They provide debt management plans to persons in financial distress. CCCS receives its funding from several sources, including clients, creditors, the community and government. CCCS credits a full 100 percent of the monthly payments clients pay toward debt, regardless of whether a consumer’s particular creditors contribute to the agency. It is a service to the general public. Clients schedule appointments with trained personnel. Debt management plans are assembled. Everyone works together for a solution .. creditors, counselors, and clients. See how rational the CCCS solution can be with their example below:
Current Plan
7.75 years to pay off debt
- $10,000 of debt
- 24.99% interest rate
- $0 one-time service fee
- $0 monthly admin fee
- $250 monthly payment
- 7.75 years to pay off debt
- $10,871 in interest cost
Best bet Solution
Credit.org Debt Management Plan
4.7 years to pay off debt
- $10,000 of debt
- 9.90% interest rate
- $0-$35 one-time service fee
- $20 monthly admin fee
- $225 monthly payment
- 4.7 years to pay off debt
- $2,392 in interest cost
This in turn, shields our nations business community from what may have been numerous bankruptcies, and citizens are given peace of mind because collection calls stop. All parties benefit. Oversight appointments with the clients keep them on track. We don’t have to be a society that fights to the end over every dispute. There are humane solutions that would allow us to be better to one other. It is achievable.
Another model example for this type of leadership committee can be found in The Uniform Law Commission (ULC) http://www.uniformlaws.org/aboutulc/overview. They have had 4 Supreme Court members serve on the ULC commissions. Their work ethic and mission is impressive. They consider issues deeply; something the court does not have time for.
These libraries can have weekly, bi-weekly or monthly gatherings over an issue the community feels strongly about and write detailed bills that they can send to their state representative to sponsor and hopefully move forward through a committee and then onto the House of Representatives. We need more “real people” doing this type of work that affects communities, rather than corporate led / fed lobbyists.
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth–certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
As for adopting the ways of the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man’s life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. – Henry D. Thoreau
Punishment for citizens performing Civil Disobedient Acts is disproportionate when you consider corporate wrong-doers and those with money / power are treated with impunity to actual harmful acts they incur on large swaths of the population (i.e. 2008 Financial Crisis that caused people to lose their homes / jobs / savings) .
Aaron Swartz believed legal and academic information that was not copyrighted belonged to everyone. He knew there was a chance this aggregation of human knowledge could be lost forever if left behind digital paywalls. Have you ever come across a broken website link? This young man was a shining star and tragically lost to the threat of 35 years in prison, a million dollar fine and being labeled a felon. We should be lifting those who think outside of the 4 sided box and whose life aims to help others and is not led by financial greed.
Two days before his death, JSTOR announced on January 9, 2013 that it would make more than 4.5 million articles available to the public free of charge. That information had not yet been shared with Aaron per Larry Lessig, who was Aaron’s mentor, Law Professor and political activist. Professor Lessig carries justice work forward, and even ran for President!
The crime did not fit the potential punishment. Former U. S. Representative John Lewis (D-Georgia) was a civil right activist and would say “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble”.
The world is not yet calibrated correctly if citizens who try to be inclusive of the human race and raise standards of decency and civility for all are punished, while the relatively small percentage of persons corrupt in power are making all the rules. That does not sound like democracy now, does it?
They push the human race forward .. THINK DIFFERENT
There’s a danger in thinking you can remove yourself from the politics of the day. You must engage.
People in positions of Leadership should not automatically receive your trust and respect. These are highly desirable character traits that are earned.
Example – John Boehner, Former Speaker of the House originally opposed to Marijuana becomes Marijuana Pitchman for up to $20 Million PayDay. Fifty percent of Congress persons become highly paid lobbyists after leaving their government jobs. Obviously that is a conflict of interest that should be disallowed. It is also a reminder of why you should not place blind faith in any elected official trusting that they have YOUR best interests in mind. Boehner’s marijuana stance is not the problem. His SMARMINESS (def. Excessively ingratiating or insincerely earnest) is. This is a transactional person and someone whose words hold no value or meaning. He stands on no guiding moral principles.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/us/politics/john-boehner-marijuana-cannabis.html
People in leadership roles have power. We must be diligent about who gets placed in these positions of power. Merit should be the decider and never money. And no one should have automatic lifetime job appointments (Federal Judges and Supreme Court Justices) or immunity from accountability for their actions. There are consequences to power that we all must hold those in power answerable to.
” . . . blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed.” – Bruce Springsteen
Case in Point . . . The Iraq War.
When Bush asked, “What should I do?” his secretary of state could have spoken his mind and said, “Don’t invade Iraq.” But he didn’t.
It is important people’s words and actions line up. In this case, Colin Powell was a respected leader. He knew better not to say words that had the highest possible consequences without evidence. But he wanted to keep his job ..
In March 2003, U.S. forces invaded Iraq vowing to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and end the dictatorial rule of Saddam Hussein. When WMD intelligence proved illusory and a violent insurgency arose, the war lost public support. Saddam was captured, tried, and hanged and democratic elections were held. In the years since, there have been over 4,700 U.S. and allied troop deaths, and more than one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/magazine/colin-powell-iraq-war.html
Our Constitution needs to be updated (effective 1789)
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”
–Excerpted from a letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816, from our third President, Thomas Jefferson and principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
The procedure for amending the constitution:
The proposed amendment must receive 2/3 of the votes from both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
A proposed amendment becomes part of the Constitution when it is consented to by 3/4 of the States.
The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution make up the U.S. Bill of Rights and were accepted on December 15, 1791.