There is circumstantial evidence the Supreme Court sought to facilitate the impact the 2008 financial collapse. This collapse was utilized to transfer middle class wealth from this nation’s people to its Wall Street sociopaths – a plan which the facts suggest has resulted in one of the most massive genocides ever known. Cf. Miller, Pam, Church of the Gardens Press, El Abandonado (2017); The Guardian, “Morality rate for homeless youth in San Francisco is 10 times higher than peers” (April 14, 2016); “Homeless die 30 years younger than average” (December 11, 2011). See also infra and bibliography, part IV.
The circumstantial evidence against the Supreme Court includes, among other things, an unusual (perhaps unlawful) change in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that occurred in 2007.
28 USC §2072(a) provides the Supreme Court shall have the power to promulgate general rules of practice and procedure of the United States District Courts. But going through the judicial rule-making process would have taken more time than was needed to help the bankers.
So in 2007 (just before the 2008 financial collapse), the Supreme Court judicially interpreted Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8 and 12(b) in such a way as to give judges almost absolute power to prevent homeowners’ cases from being decided pursuant to a trial by jury. See Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.554 (2009).
The Supreme Court determined in Iqbal and Twombly that to obtain a trial, including a trial by jury, a party must prepare a complaint which would be plausible to a federal judge. Prior to this time it was only necessary to establish a possible claim, not one a federal judge found plausible.
The concern over the Supreme Courts unusual change in the rules was palpable. Indeed, it was immediately criticized by many of this nations most well known and respected legal scholars. See Arthur R. Miller, “From Conley to Twombley to Iqbal: A Double Play on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” 60 Duke L.J. 1 (October 2010); Stephen N. Subrin, Thoma O. Main, “The Fourth Era of American Civil Procedure,” 162 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1839 (June 2014) See also Bibliography below, section I. And many state court’s refused to fall in line because of the Supreme Court’s underhanded use of judicial decision making as a basis for changing the rules of procedure for district courts. See Hawkeye Foodservice Distrib. v. Iowa Educators Corp., 812 N.W.2d 600, 607-608 (2012). See also Bibliography below, section I.
The 2007 rule change had an extremely negative impact on the American people who owed debt, homeowners particularly.
Many of us believe the new rule was perpetrated by those who knew the result would likely be the genocide which is still ongoing today.
By 2011, criticism of the Supreme Court’s usurpation of power reinterpreting Rules 8 and 12 had grown to the point where the Federal Advisory Committee on the Rules apparently felt it was necessary to ask the Federal Judicial Conference to provide “cover” for the Supreme Court’s unilateral change in the Federal Rules. The Federal Judicial Center attempted to do so by suggesting that the rule change had not made much of a difference in having cases dismissed, except in the area of financial instruments (cases involving American homeowners). See e.g. Joe S. Cecil, Et. Al., Fed. Judicial Ctr., Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim After IQBAL: Report to the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules (2011).
This is significant because even the Federal Judicial Center had to admit the effect of the instantaneous rule change on homeowners and others litigating financial instruments was devastating. See Id., page 14, Table 4 which substantiates that over 91% of claims filed by lawyers in these type of cases got dismissed under Iqbal/Twombly’s judge-centric plausibility standards.
America’s 21st-century court system doesn’t even resemble the judicial department which our forefathers intended we should have.
The Constitution clearly intended the people would be entitled to trials by jury pursuant to a traditional common law adversarial judicial system. See e.g. Todd Peterson: “Restoring Structural Checks on Judicial Power in the Era of Managerial Judging,” 29 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 41 (Fall, 1995) ( “[Judges] are limited by prior case law and by congressional statutes. In defending the independent judiciary, Hamilton expressly relied on the power of precedent as a check on judicial power: ‘To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case that comes before them … .’ The framers did not grant judges the right to exercise their own unlimited discretion or will instead of judgment.”)
But we certainly don’t have these rights any longer thanks to the Supreme Court, which has systematically usurped these rights to benefit the rich at the expense of the people.
The full text of Stafne's essay America in Crisis is available at RCReader.com/y/stafne3.
Author Scott Stafne is originally from Bettendorf, Iowa. He is an attorney living and working in Seattle, Washington, advocating for and counseling clients on constitutional law, intellectual property, international commerce, and more.
Author
Anonymous (not verified)
