Talk:Judicial immunity

Nose-biter

That judge did violate the man's right to bodily integrity, however, the state-level remedy was appropriate. He committed battery, and plead no contest to the charges. I'm sure he was liable for a personal injury or battery tort as well, but not a civil rights claim. He bit the man as himself, not as the State.

But what about the judge in Florida who made a woman sign a release form allowing her ex-husband to "circumcise" their son? The woman was held in jail, in contempt of court, until she signed the paper. (search for "Saving Chase" to learn about it.) Infant genital mutilation certainly violates the right to bodily integrity. It is mayhem, in that it causes permanent disfigurement and permanent loss of normal function. So a judge ordering someone to sign a private law contract to "authorize" something that is inherently a 1st degree felony criminal battery, is much worse than a mere "nose biting".

Appeal to tradition is a logical fallacy. It is unreasonable for judges to be immune from prosecution when their conduct on the bench is seriously criminal. If we don't enforce title 18 USC S241 and S242, then what use is the law at all? When even the court cheats, where is the rule of law? The "bar"? (punning synonym for "tavern" or "saloon")

Ideas for rhetoric, not necessarily Wikiopedia: Are the traditional judical and prosecutorial immunity a result of consideration for diminished capacity? Keys: overloaded courts, boehm's laws, mass incarceration, gulag archipeligo, "whos job is it", "what kind of work ethic is that?", argument from reasonableness, argument from ignorance, slippery slope, sorites argument, reduction of jury number to one prosecutor, etc.

They can say that because they take responsibility for their own actions, they are thereby not showing diminished capacity... Hmmm, ok, but does "responsibility for their own actions" mean "judges in their own cause"?

Do they think they can do anything they want? If there's a double star standard where judges or prosecutors can get away with crimes against rights, then that means they're either applying a paraconsistent logic, or the principle of explosion. But that is improper because equal protection of law or uniform operation of law demands a consistent logic.

In a republic, nobody is above the law. But who watches the watchers? Did the "judges in their own cause" have the right to supposedly revoke the right to private prosecution of offenses against the public law contract with society? I say no. It would be unreasonable and inconsistent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KarlHegbloom (talk • contribs) 02:28, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

@KarlHegbloom: In the U.S. at least, though they might have immunity from lawsuit, judges can also be overruled, and judicial misconduct may trigger removal by other judges or impeachment. Some jurisdictions elect judges and have the ability to do a recall election or simply not re-elect a mis-behaving judge. I added mention of these things to the article to clarify that this immunity does not insulate judges from all consequences of bad behavior. This talk page is for discussion of improvements to the Wikipedia article, so I don't think the rest of what you said had anything actionable here. -- Beland (talk) 19:53, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Examples requested

Can someone give some examples of where a judge has had to rely on his judicial immunity? I have already found one, Sirros v. Moore 1975 however I could use some more authority. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.87.255.19 (talk • contribs) 06:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

---

During the 1990s four judges and the state of California were sued in Federal court (9th circuit) because judges had impaired the terms of a legal contract. The evidence was clear that the judges applied a credit card law of California to a contract that did not involve a credit card.

Thus judges illegally ruled a line of credit involving no credit card was a credit card in violation of both state and federal law.

That illegal act being done, the court then substituted the terms of a credit card law for those in the contract and also in the terms disclosed under the federal Truth in Lending Act. This not only "impaired the obligations of the original contract" but changed them completely.

As judges are prohibitted from both impairing and changing legal contracts, our Supreme Court has ruled that if they do their act is void as they simply dont have authority to do so. Obviously a judge without authority has no jurisdiction to rule a credit card under law is not a credit card, nor authority to change the terms of a legal contract or terms disclosed pursuant to federal law.

The state and judges admitted their violations of law and the Constitution, but claimed the illegal acts were simply "errors" and claimed "judicial immunity".

The suit against the state and judges was dismissed, but there was no opinion given as to why the case was dismissed. What could the court say? Judges broke the law and the Constitution and denied a person his rights under a contract but as they are above the Constitution and Laws of this nation, they cannot be sued?

Thus the question must be asked: Are judges above the law and Constitution? As we are a Constitutional democracy and a republic, the govt is not given rights. The govt has duties and can make and enforce laws for the good of the people. It cannot and never has had authority to make judges immune for illegal acts and damages caused by those acts. Didnt the judges know they were changing the terms of the contract? Sure they did! But they did it anyway knowing they were violating the Constitution and federal law on disclosures.

We cant claim an error for breaking laws can we? Nor can a judge for violating the Constitution. And when he does do so, our Supreme Court has ruled his act is void!

But this case went to appeal even though there was no written decision to make the appeal on. The trial court just dismissed the case. No legal basis given.

The appeal met the same result. Denied, no reason given.

To Sandra Day O'Connor on cert. Denied no reason given.

So by using these cases, one can say Judges can impair contracts, Judges are above the laws and Constitution and Judges are immune from the laws. But as we are a Constitutional govt, and the people are the sovereigns in our democracy (see Federalist) judges granting themselves Immunity has no basis in our government, Constitution, or laws. We the people never provided for immunity for anyone in govt because we despised a King who claimed he was immune from the laws. That was one of the reasons for the Revolution. The only immunity provided for by the people (sovereigns) was to Congressman traveling to a meeting of Congress from their homes. That is it. All other govt claims of Immunity are government contrivances to cover up their incompetance and disrespect for our laws, Constitution, and citizens.

A 'judicial doctrine' is just another way of saying an illegal act by govt, that was never given sovereignty by the people or immunity. If there is immunity in this country it pertains to that of citizens from a corrupt govt.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.101.93.46 (talk) 21:33, 6 July 2009 (UTC) 

@75.101.93.46: I wasn't able to find this case without the names of plaintiffs or more details. It might make an interesting addition to the article if someone can track it down. This talk page is for discussing improvements to the article, so the opinions above aren't really actionable here, though I have noted in the article various ways that judges can be held accountable other than through lawsuits this immunity quashes. The United States section, at least, already gives a summary of the pros and cons. -- Beland (talk) 16:52, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

POV

How does this qualify as an article? It has terrible grammar and seems like the rant of some angry American. Reverting now. 75.85.32.224 (talk) 23:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that egregious content; the article seems to have gotten a lot better since then. -- Beland (talk) 19:56, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

How do you know that Harris v. Harvey was the first?

@Pmlydon: How do you know that Harris v. Harvey was the first such case?

I cannot find documentation of that. Your link to http://www.sylharris.com/court-case-files gives me, " Oops! That page can’t be found."

Thanks for your efforts to improve Wikipedia. If you can find better sources to support the claim of primacy, I would support your changes in verbiage. However, I feel compelled at the moment to revert this edit. DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:02, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@DavidMCEddy: Thank you for the check. There seem to be extremely few examples in the United States where such cases have gone to trial. The Harris v. Harvey case is heavily cited (Google Scholar Link added), and there are multiple journal articles that seem to support the claim (I've linked to one of them). I hope this is sufficient, but I can always do more digging if need be. Pmlydon (talk) 05:57, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pmlydon: If you've got credible sources that say it's the first such case, that may be good enough. I'd feel more comfortable quoting a source that says it's the first rather than just saying it's the first.

Which court was this heard in? In US Federal Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin? I assume that's correct, because Racine is in southeastern Wisconsin, and the court was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Can you get the case number and how someone can find it in PACER (law) and maybe Recap (software)?

Some of the documents are available for free, e.g., a decision Slyvester Harris v. Richard G. Harvey, Jr., 605 F.2d 330 (7th Cir. 1979) in the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Filed: November 1st, 1979, Precedential Status: Precedential, Citations: 605 F.2d 330, Docket Number: 78-2057.

All the court records should be available in PACER. The Recap / CourtListener project wants copies if they don't already have them. Google found a few for me. With more time, I could probably find more, but I'm overwhelmed with other priorities. PACER charges for their documents, even though they are all officially in the public domain. If anyone requests a PACER document via Recap / CourtListener, the latter gets an authenticated copy, which they then make available for free. Moreover, if you purchase less than a certain amount in a certain period of time, PACER won't charge you. If my memory is correct, I had to have a current credit card number on file with them to buy anything. However, if my total bill was less than a certain amount for a certain period of time, they don't charge for that. PACER (law)#Costs, revenues and free alternatives says, "Beginning in 2012, the limit was $15 per quarter."

Might you be interested in creating a new Wikipedia article on Harris v. Harvey (1979)?

To justify that article, I think you'd need references in newspapers and similar sources beyond just the references that I see now in this "Judicial immunity" article to establish Wikipedia:Notability. However, with the current prominence of "Black Lives Matter" in the national and international discourse, I think such an article would attract a reasonable audience. You might try to contact Harris via his website, SylHarris.com. With luck, he may supply complete citations for general news articles that would be sufficient to establish notability.

That website says he lives in San José, California. I met him there a few years ago, and I have friends concerned about "justice and accountability", who might be willing to help with research on this. However, I cannot take the lead. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pmlydon: I just read User talk:Pmlydon#Your submission at Articles for creation: Sylvester Harris (November 10).

Was there at one time a separate Wikipedia article on Harris v. Harvey (1979), or did the mention of that case on your Talk page refer to something like the mention in this present "Judicial immunity" article? I assume the latter.

I don't know what references you cited in drafting that article that was rejected, but I assume they refer to this case. If so, could you reword that a bit and submit it as an article on "Harris v. Harvey (1979)"?

If you can't find the draft of that article, please let me know. I may not be able to help, but I might.

If you do attempt to create an article on "Harris v. Harvey (1979)", please let me know. I may be able to get others to help obtain other references. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:28, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@DavidMCEddy: Thanks for the pointers. I've written a new draft Draft:Harris v. Harvey (1979) for this which covers the case background, and included several new sources. Sylvester kindly forwarded me a digital copy of his book to help with the process, and I've used it as a reference as well. Good book, by the way. He is trying to dig up some of the old news articles as further support regarding the 'first case' claim. I have not heard back yet, but I turned up three sources that support the claim:

Schuck, Peter H. (1989). "The Civil Liability of Judges in the United States". The American Journal of Comparative Law. 37 (4): 655–673 Shuck writes "Stump's grant of absolute immunity for "judicial" acts, which it defined very broadly, has made it almost impossible to sue judges successfully or even to survive a motion to dismiss. Similarly, I have found only a handful of lower federal court cases since Stump in which absolute judicial immunity has been denied in damage actions, and all involved allegations of extreme judicial misbehavior..." The author then lists four cases, of which the Harris v. Harvey decision is the first.

J, Weeks (1980). "Personal Liability Under Federal Law: Major Developments Since Monell". The Urban Lawyer. 12 (2): 263–275. Weeks writes that there were only two cases at this point, which addressed judicial immunity, and Harris v. Harvey (1979) was the only of these two which succeeded.

I've also added a magazine review "A Reason for Being: by Sylvester L. Harris". www.outcrybookreview.com. which states the claim.

Honestly though, with the number of subsequent cases that reference Harris v. Harvey (1979) in support of their claims, it seems highly unlikely there is a prior one. Though we can always wait and see what Sylvester turns up, if you think it's necessary. Pmlydon (talk) 08:24, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pmlydon: I'm always skeptical of a claim of primacy in something like this. When I was 10 or 12, I remember hearing the minister in the church my family attended say, "Jesus is such a beautiful name that no one else has been named that since." I didn't say anything, but I remember thinking, "Can that possibly be true? And even if it is, how could he possibly know?"

How about revising the last sentence of the section on Harris v. Harvey as follows:

Harris v. Harvey has been cited as the first case in the United States where a sitting court judge has been sued and lost in a civil action. It is a binding precedent in the Seventh Circuit and is persuasive authority in the other circuits.

Note: I also recommend splitting that last sentence into two: It contains two ideas, not one, and the two ideas should be treated separately.

Thanks for following up with Sylvester Harris and working on a Wikipedia article on it. It should be a valuable contribution to the international debate on BLM, as I indicated.

By the way, have you considered putting citations into Wikidata then referencing them per Template:Cite Q?

It's more work to create a Wikidata entry that to complete the Template:Citation template, unless there is already a Wikidata entry. However, if a reference is cited in more than one article, it becomes less work to have it in Wikidata. Moreover, the citations become easier to maintain, e.g., against link rot. Moreover, learning citation styles and templates takes time. When I'm pressed for time, I sometimes enter an naked URL, e.g., [https://... description to display with the link]. However, the best system I know is Wikidata. They sometimes get modified by different people or at different times to make them more useful.

Examples:

• {{cite Q|Q97940156}}<!-- Findings of fact and conclusions of law in Fish v. Kobach --> renders as:
• Julie A. Robinson (18 June 2018), Findings of fact and conclusions of law in Fish v. Kobach (PDF), Wikidata Q97940156

• Similarly, {{cite Q|Q91658340}}<!-- Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces --> renders as:
• George E. P. Box; Norman Richard Draper (1987), Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces, Wiley, Wikidata Q91658340

NOTE: <!-- is a comment and is not required except to make it easy to see what's been referenced-->; {{cite Q|...} is opaque. Begin a comment with "<!--" and end it with "-->".

DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:26, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Judicial Immunity Origins (United States)

When the United States Constitution came into being in 1789, all federal employees had qualified immunity. This immunity protected them from being sued while in the performance of their duties unless they broke laws or used gross negligence. For the Judiciary, that all changed in 1871 with the lawsuit "Bradley vs Fisher 80 U.S. 335, 351 (1871)". It is worthwhile noting that Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon Chase, an inexperienced jurist (his previous position was in Treasury, where he distributed the first dollar bills with his picture on the front of each bill), had just replaced long term justice Roger Taney. "Bradley vs Fisher" was a court case filed by a trial judge against a lawyer who insulted him in the courtroom. It resulted in the lawyer being permanently barred from practicing in federal court. The Supreme Court took this opportunity to update the federal Rules of the Court to grant itself sovereign immunity (immunity over decisions made from the bench, "so as not to feel intimidated, and to deal harshly with sentences, when needed". The Court said it was a minor issue. However, Sovereign Immunity (think King George III) is the reason the colonists fought the American Revolution, and a change of this magnitude should require a change to constitutional law (specifically, Article II of the Constitution concerning the establishment of the Judiciary). This would require a constitutional convention, a vote on the matter, and wide ranging discourse among the public. Instead, the Judiciary set itself above the law. There is further proof of this in 28 U.S. §2072, where Congress allows Rules of the Court to supersede federal law. In the hierarchy of law, (The World Court, national law and state law) Rules are made to guide the departments of state government. They exist to effectuate the spirt and intent of the law, and if they disagree with law, they must be dropped. Here is that law:

Rules of the Court are updated annually by a committee of judges, with oversight provided by Congress. The above law can be found at the beginning of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a copy of which is found here (page "V", or pg. 7 of 137): Link It can also be found here: Link

When reading this link, please note footnote #176.(this link is broken) [unsigned comments 2020-09-19T22:10:51 by User:Lord Milner.]

@Lord Milner: Thanks. This sounds like potentially a very valuable addition to the current article. Sadly, I have multiple concerns:

If I understand this, it suggests that Bradley v. Fisher should be mentioned in this article.

However, I'm unable to understand what, if anything, this says about the history of judicial immunity in the US. I believe that User:Lord Milner or someone else could further contribute to the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation by adding a new subsection on this case that explained in language that was clear, concise and compelling the relevance of this decision to this article. In particular:

1. Did this case initiate the doctrine of judicial immunity? If so, that might be mentioned: e.g., "Judicial immunity in the United States" seems to have been introduced into US law by Bradley v. Fisher (1872?).
2. If it did NOT introduce judicial immunity, what did it do?

Secondarily, I didn't find 1872 in Bradley v. Fisher. If this decision is cited, it would be good to have the correct date. Might it be feasible to edit this Wikisource article to include this date, if it's correct? Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 22:43, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

In response to both you and @Lord Milner I'm sorry to say that I can't fully make sense of the addition. The "World Court" for instance doesn't exist and wouldn't have any force within the American internal legal order anyway for instance. A discourse on the history of judicial immunity may be useful but this particular explanation is both hard to understand and legally inaccurate. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2753&context=dlj For a more comprehensive explanation. Peter Kelford (talk) 19:45, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

In reply, thanks for the advice. The word "Immunity", both here and in the UK (I don't know if you're English, but they are everywhere), refers to "qualified immunity", because we got away from sovereign immunity a long time ago. However, through ignorance and incompetence, case law is murdered up with bad talk by judges. So often, qualified immunity is referred to as "Absolute Immunity", "Complete Immunity", "Substantial Immunity", etc. Even prior to the 1871 ruling, "Judicial Immunity" would have referred to "qualified immunity". I would write up a subsection on this, but I need to research the history of qualified immunity. It sounds very English in its origins.

Also, I apologize about the date. It came from a Cornell University website, which since moved. I will try to link to it.

If you are interested, I compiled all the immunity positions from the civil law part of the Rules of the Court of New Jersey, here: [1]https://legalimmunity.quora.com/ Everyone should have qualified immunity, but the bullshitters are having their day.

Last, the problem with qualified immunity in the US media is not with the law, which is very good. The problem comes from "the human element". This is the unique thing about the mind that allows Chernobyl nuclear accidents to occur despite fully automated plants (a wrong button is pushed during a safety test, causing a meltdown). By removing the human element from the equation, with transparency and public oversight, in police departments and the courts, where the bad decisions are made, we can all live safer. Lord Milner (talk) 21:01, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Carrying out some cleanup

A note for anyone taking an interest in this page in the future: I'm in the midst of doing some cleanup, copy-editing, and general improvements. I'm hoping to remove some of the maintenance tags, but will likely not be expanding the article enough to warrant removing the "US-focus" tag. That would be a very worthy future task! Arcendeight (talk) 04:03, 17 February 2024 (UTC)