It is simple. I want people to have good access to the court system, and just as I pray for on Sunday in Church and Christ taught us, "justice be served for all." This was a founding principle of this country. Anyone who watched the great HBO series John Adams saw how he and many others joined the radical forces for independence only after the British decided that their citizens would not be tried for crimes or civil causes in the colonies but back in England. This was after a colonial jury acquitted the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massace. (Modern investigations prove rightly so..See history channel) They were defended by none other than....John Adams. That is why a right to a trial by a jury of ones own peers was so important to our founding fathers. Don't believe me...
“The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice”
-John Adams
"I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1789. ME 7:408, Papers 15:269
-John Adams
"I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1789. ME 7:408, Papers 15:269
The civil jury trial is preferable to any other and ought to be held sacred." -- Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776
"In civil suits the parties have a right to trial by jury and this method of procedure shall be held sacred." -- Massachusetts Constitution, 1780
"Trial by jury in civil causes,... trial by jury in criminal causes, [and] the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus... all stand on the same footing; they are the common rights of Americans." -- Richard Henry Lee
"I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine
"By a declaration of rights I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by juries in all cases..." -- Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Donald
"The civil jury is a valuable safeguard to liberty." -- Alexander Hamilton
"In suits at common law, trial by jury in civil cases is as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-existent rights of nature." -- James Madison
"In suits between man and man, the ancient trial by jury is one of the greatest securities to the rights of the people." -- Virginia Bill of Rights, 1788
And finishing with this commentary by a contemporary jurist in the "conservative" camp: "The founders of our nation considered the right of trial by jury in civil cases an important bulwark against tyranny and corruption, a 'safeguard too precious to be left to the whim of the sovereign.'" -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 1979
Parliament was influenced to adopt the pernicious project, and assuming a new power over them, have in the course of eleven years, given such decisive specimens of the spirit and consequences attending this power, as to leave no doubt concerning the effects of acquiescence under it. They have undertaken to give and grant our money without our consent, though we have ever exercised an exclusive right to dispose of our own property; statutes have been passed for extending the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty and vice-admiralty beyond their ancient limits; for depriving us of the accustomed and inestimable privilege of trial by jury, in cases affecting both life and property..." -- Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, enacted July 6, 1775 by the Second Continental Congress
"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." - - The 7th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America
And who were these Founding Fathers we always talk so generically about and what did they risk.
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags. Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and
his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward. Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton. At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr. noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt. Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months. John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates. Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more.
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags. Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and
his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward. Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton. At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr. noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt. Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months. John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates. Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more.
So hopefully we can all agree that our nations is founded upon the principle of a right to a fair jury trial of one’s peers.
The problem I have is that is not what we have anymore. We have a system that is fundamentally broken in my opinion. It works generally for the upper middle class and above, which is getting smaller all the time, and for wealthy mult-national corporations like BP but really no one else.
We have forced arbitrations, tort reforms that only hurt people that are seriously injured, bankruptcy rules that are basically a return to indentured servitude, congested dockets that cause it to take years to get a divorce or custody matter heard, Judges that have lost touch with the concepts of liberty and justice themselves, or worst that are corrupt, and lawyers who are shredding documents, playing "win at any and all cost" with little regard for peoples lives, secret confidentially agreements that hide dangerous and deadly products from us, MDLs that suck all all cases into a black hole for years to decades, class actions that do nothing but make lawyers rich, Bar associations that do nothing to protect the public or the profession from abuses and just want the status quo, lawyers sending runners all over the country to steal cases, horrible TV ad's by people that have never seen the inside of a court house just to name a few problems I see in the system.
I want to hear from you. It is our system. It is not free. It was paid for by the blood of our fathers and paid for with our taxes. It needs to work properly. It must work for all of us. It is a right bought and paid for with blood and treasure in a million to one revolution. It is not ours to give away like an old sofa.
But we should, and must endure and ensure that it is protected and given to our children, and future generations, in as good of shape if not better then we got it. Please help me in this venture to secure your rights by telling me about any injustice in the system you see. Let’s make the justice system something we can all be pound of again. Please.................................My email is jackfish28@gmail.com.
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