The Judicial Misconduct of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Judges
The problems with every judge sitting on the Eighth Circuit Court of appeals are as follows:
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I. The mere presence of both the Arnold brothers, Richard and Morris, on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals violates the Federal anti-nepotism statute, 28 U.S.C. § 458, and shows the public that those two and their cohorts are "above the law." Worse, Richard Arnold is the Chief Judge of the Eighth Circuit. |
It is crucial to public confidence in the courts that judges be seen as enforcing the law and obeying it themselves. United States v. Muniz, 49 F.3d 36, 43 (1st Cir. 1995).
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II. Pro se litigants are not allowed to use the federal courts in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and are generally treated with extreme discourtesy and dishonesty by both appellate and district federal judges in the Eighth Circuit. |
Lawsuits of pro se litigants, even when their pleadings have merit, are always summarily dismissed with evasive "unpublished opinions" when an attorney’s case with the identical facts, issues, and points of law would not be.
Examples:
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Frank and Mary Taylor v. Federal Land Bank of Omaha Des
The lower court judge in this case, David R. Hanson, gave the Taylors the "pro se" treatment. This is the same David R. Hanson, now an Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals judge, who stated that a court cannot fully (emphasis in original) determine whether a motion to dismiss is well grounded until discovery is completed. E.E.O.C. v. KWMT Inc, 718 F.Supp. 1425, 1428 (N.D. Iowa 1988). |
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Peter Simpson appealed to the Eighth Circuit after having his pro se Civil Rights complaint dismissed by federal district court Judge Scott O. Wright. Without any sort of court process required by Missouri Law, the family's three year old daughter had been forcibly removed from the home by Missouri’s Department of Family Services, who then permitted one of their agents to sexually assault the defenseless three year old girl. Judge Wright bent over backwards to assist the defendants, going so far (as in the Taylor’s case) to deny discovery, though Eighth Circuit precedent would have allowed discovery to proceed. The Eighth Circuit’s judgment (or lack of it), was to deny the family any kind of relief in the federal court unless and until the family surrender their daughter to the very bureaucrats accused of molesting her in 1991. |
Other pro se litigants too numerous to mention—Joane Kuball, Joseph Balzer, Michael Brown--have been given "short shrift" by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in rulings of which a second-year law student would be ashamed: only because they were not represented by licensed (and expensive) counsel.
In a series of rubber-stamp rulings in an indictment by grand jury issue addressed by Professor Helene Schwartz in an article titled Demythologizing the Grand Jury, 10 American Criminal Law Review 701 (1972) and raised by several pro se litigants (Randy Downey 96-1180, Jay L. Werner 96-1572, Darlow T. Madge 96-2852MN) both lower court district judges and appellate judges deliberately misquoted case law and misrepresented historical fact in order to deny those pro se litigants the same consideration as would have been given to licensed attorneys.
The schizophrenic hypocrisy of Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has to be observed to be believed:
"The grand jury must function independently."
" . . . prosecuting attorney serves as the guiding arm of the grand jury."
Both of these quotes are from the same case, United States v. Singer, 660 F.2d 1295 (8th Cir. 1981).
"Independently," in other than Alice-in-Wonderland Eighth Circuit language (Alice-in-Wonderland was a world in which words had no meaning, Welch v. United States, 90 S.Ct. 1792, 1803 (1970)), means, "independently of either prosecuting attorney or judge." Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 218 (1960).
The inability of Eighth Circuit judges to recognize simple Constitutional Law concepts is equally appalling.
This ridiculous circuit has held that the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrance Act (FACE) was within the power of Congress to regulate commerce, United States v. Dinwiddie, 76 F.3d 913 (8th Cir. 1996), though the words "interstate commerce" appear nowhere in the statute, 18 U.S.C. § 248, and are only there by judicial construction.
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After many years of public service at the national capital, and after a somewhat close observation of the conduct of public affairs, I am impelled to say that there is abroad in our land a most harmful tendency to bring about the amending of constitutions and legislative enactments by means alone of judicial construction. Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 31 S.Ct. 502, 533 (1910) (Justice Harlan, concurring in part and dissenting in part) |
The "enumerated powers" of Congress are found only in Article I, Section 8, clauses 1 - 18. One of those powers is to "regulate commerce," Article I, Section 8, clause 3. The predecessor statute, 18 U.S.C. § 247, does have "interstate commerce" within the statute.
It is unfortunate that federal judges cannot recognize the same principles that law professors can. [T]he rule of live birth is irrational in today’s state of medical knowledge. 21 Valparaiso Univ. L. Rev. 563, 625-626 (1987).
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In the latest indignity heaped upon pro se litigants in the Eighth Circuit, Dale Korkowski and his daughter, Sherry, tried to mount a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action for Fourth Amendment violations in order to recover $4,000.00 in cash and tools that were taken from their home by state law enforcement officers acting pursuant to a search warrant that authorized the seizure of neither $4,000.00 in cash (which was never returned) or the tools. Judge Paul A. Magnuson of Minneapolis, after talking to and treating the Korkowskis like dogs (talking to them in a snide and sarcastic tone of voice), then dismissed their case because only a small number of items were taken outside the scope of the search warrant. I.e., a district court judge over-ruled the United States Supreme Court in Marron v. United States, 48 S.Ct. 74, 76 (1927) (nothing is to be left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant) and this nonsense was then upheld by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, 95-4147 only because the Korkowskis were proceeding pro se. |
[A] Court of Appeals cannot over-rule the United States Supreme Court. See Kitowski v. United States, 931 F.2d 1526, 1529 (11th Cir. 1991). Except in the Eighth Circuit.
In the Eighth Circuit the Constitution of the United States and legislative enactments of Congress are merely "suggestions" when applied to pro se litigants. Raising a constitutional issue in the Eighth Circuit, as a review of decisions addressing the issues raised by pro se litigants in the Eighth Circuit will verify, is an exercise in futility for anyone but lawyers. The incompetence, ignorance, and dishonesty of judges like Paul A. Magnuson and Scott O. Wright at the district court level is simply stamped "approved" by Eighth Circuit deciding panels in pro se cases.
As more and more of the common people experience this inequity by the federal courts in the Eighth Circuit, they begin to realize that there exists a caste system legal system: there is one set of rules for the likes of William Kennedy Smith and Neil Bush and another set of rules for the rest of the people. Instead of adhering to their oath of office, 28 U.S.C. § 453, which they swore to uphold (to judge impartially), the judges in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rule in favor of their fellow members of the bar. Those not in the club need not attempt to gain the justice to which they are entitled.
This page was updated on June 20, 2003