October 25, 2006
Absence of Justice
It's bad enough that Susan Owens has been the absent Justice at several recent candidate events, but the even bigger concern is that justice itself was absent from many of Justice Owens' rulings on the Court.
Last month I posted this list of unjust rulings that Chief Justice Gerry Alexander handed down. Owens concurred in most of these, eroding our constitutional rights a little bit more with each decision.
As Justice Owens maintains her absence from public scrutiny, we should educate ourselves and the public between now and the election on the insidious rulings that Owens has concurred with, and why we should replace her with Stephen Johnson.
Would any of the lawyers among our readers volunteer to pick a ruling and post a brief essay on it that explains how Owens has diminished our rights? (e-mail me if interested)
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 25, 2006
02:20 PM | Email This
1. Amazing how the leftists around here are supposedly concerned about Bush and The Patriot Act allegedly taking away our rights, while they choose to overlook the fringe leftists in our own back yard doing far worse every day.
But then, as always, when the left engages in this sort of thing; when leftist politicians break the law (See Studds) it's ALWAYS different.
2. This is really about your posting last month of the court cases from the Alexander Court. If you go to www.MarleneAdams.com and hit the Links and Updates button, you will see a link to permanent archives of WA State Supreme Court opinions which is maintained by a WA Municipalities group. The links you gave don't work for cases older than 90 days. Can't remember the address of the site offhand. On my website I now list about 14 cases, and discuss some of them pretty thoroughly, from the Alexander court. One or two of them are good for Owens, but that is about all. The PDC v. WEA case from Spring 2006 is the most troubling of all. The reasoning is simply twisted. This is the case where the US Supreme Court granted cert last month. -- Marlene
3. Brand new Gourley v. Gourley decision destroys the right to due process of law. Justice Ownes joined in James Johnson incredibly dissapointing majority opinion. Justice Richard Sanders, as usual, is the only judge in the State of Washington who "gets it".
The essential of this decision is that because Mr. Gourley admitted to rubbing aloe vera on his child's sunburn, that was tantamount to an admission of sexual abuse.
Which he vehemently denied.
The only way anyone can credibly deny such an allegation.
So that justifies admitting hearsay evidence, deciding the entire case on hearsay evidence with no requirement that the accuser present herself for cross examination before the trier of fact, which is always a judge or commissioner and never a jury. If some EVIDENCE RULE allows hearsay evidence to be considered in a protection order hearing, well that's enough due process for everyone, isn't it?
So hear is the deal parents (fathers):
You admit to touching your child's pubic area to clean the bodily waste while changing a diaper, you too are eligeable to being thrown out of your own home and prohibited from access to your children without any requirement for any cross examination of your accusers.
Even if the county prosecutors drop the charge because they don't like their chances with a JURY and with the HEARSAY RULE fully enforced.
Opinions available at
http://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/?fa=opinions.recent