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The justice System has another important function in addition to criminal trials. It needs to protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Supreme court was supposed to do that, but its failure is even worse than the criminal courts, if that is possible. The Supreme court must be abolished for the failure that it is, and be replaced by a grand jury. This Top Grand Jury is picked by lottery from the judges elected by juries, with no consideration given to talent or brains, just a random selection. The membership of the Top Grand Jury would be rotated rapidly, with no one serving longer than six months. This jury would look at the laws being introduced and/or passed by Congress, and would pass judgment on the Senators and Congressmen directly.
In addition to the Top Grand Jury, whose jurisdiction is limited to the 635 members of Congress plus the Cabinet, there should be other grand juries set up as watchdogs over every bureaucracy. These juries would be empowered to investigate all government workers in their jurisdiction, and discharge any who exceed their authority, or are insolent, or who otherwise harass the taxpayers. The members would be selected and rotated as the Top Grand Jury. The maximum penalty they could impose would be to discharge the bureaucrat and ban him forever from any government position. We would expect a warning would be all that would be needed in most cases. These grand juries would be impaneled to oversee ALL government workers, whether civil, military or elected. Only the President would be exempt.
The Grand jury will bring to trial any member of the government accused of wrongdoing. A rotating federal grand jury, consisting of 25 jurors from 25 different states chosen by lot will investigate and decide if a trial is warranted. The actual Jury will consist of 13 jurors from 13 states, who will elect a presiding judge from their number. These trials of government workers is over and above any civil or military trial; this is an exception to the double jeopardy rule because the penalty is restricted.
These trials can be for any specific act or for a pattern of acts that endanger the Bill of Rights, including corruption. If found guilty by all 12 jurors the official will lose citizenship; if 7 vote guilty he loses his job. No fines or jail term is permitted, but in exceptional cases deportation would be allowed.
If any legislator were found attempting to infringe on the Bill of Rights or exceed the Constitution, he could be barred from office for life. Note that removing the offender from office does not mean a new election; his district simply loses its representative for the rest of the term. Serves them right for electing the rascal! No legal hair splitting is needed here, just a firm VETO of the offender.
A congressman could be fired for a pattern of infringements even if no one of them were serious in itself. Malfeasance would include introducing laws too complicated for the common man to understand, pork barrel packages, omnibus bills dealing with different concepts, etc. There would be no appeal from this jury, but fines or prison would be explicitly forbidden. Currently, there is no penalty for violating the Constitution; that is why we are in this mess today. Our Founding Fathers believed that respect for the Constitution would protect it; hindsight proves real teeth are needed.
It is said that we have a government of laws, not a government of men. That is an obvious lie propagated to make money for lawyers. It is men who do good or evil, and no piece of paper can stop evil. Only men can control men. Power corrupts the best of men; the solution is to so dilute power among men that corruption is kept under control. Short term limits and frequent rotation are our tools. Putting the power to fire into a jury of 12 is about as safe as we can get. If we cannot trust this type of jury with the power to fire, then there is no hope for the future. The jury has been the best part of the American experiment in the past, so its power should be expanded at the expense of judges and lawyers (our worst element).
Nick Hull, < [email protected] >
Secretary, Committees of Correspondence
2702 Kimbrell Road, Lenoir City, Tennessee 37772
865-856-6185
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