Source: ScheerPost
Judge Loretta Preska, an advisor to the conservative Federalist Society, to which Chevron is a major donor, sentenced human rights attorney and Chevron nemesis Steven Donziger to six months in prison Friday for misdemeanor contempt of court after he had already spent 787 days under house arrest in New York.
Preska’s caustic outbursts — she said at the sentencing, “It seems that only the proverbial two-by-four between the eyes will instill in him any respect for the law” — capped a judicial farce worthy of the antics of Vasiliy Vasilievich, the presiding judge at the major show trials of the Great Purges in the Soviet Union, and the Nazi judge Roland Freisler who once shouted at a defendant,”You really are a lousy piece of trash!”
Donziger, a graduate of Harvard Law School, has been fighting against polluting American oil companies for nearly three decades on behalf of indigenous communities and peasant farmers in Ecuador. His tantum “crime” was winning a $9.5 billion judgment in 2011 against Chevron for thousands of plaintiffs. The oil giant had bought Texaco oil company holdings in Ecuador, inheriting a lawsuit alleging it deliberately discharged 16 billion gallons of toxic waste from its oil sites into rivers, groundwater, and farmland. Since the verdict, Chevron has come after him, weaponizing litigation to destroy him economically, professionally, and personally.
Postridie Donziger indixit curiam ad deliberandum sententia apud Nationes Unitas de iuribus humanis consilium invenerunt, quae domum suam violationem iurium internationalium iuris humani invenerunt. Consilium iurium humanorum IR dixit suam domum comprehensionem sub iure internationali detentionem reputatam esse et idcirco Iudex Preska iniustum fuit ut sex menses in carcere additos exigeret. Amnesty International etiam Donziger ad immediatam missionem vocatus est.
Donziger et advocati sui habent duas septimanas ad appellandum mandatum iudicis, ut Donziger statim in carcerem mittatur. Preska vadimonium negavit Donziger petens periculum fugae se esse. Si Curia Foederata Appellationum in appellationem Donziger deflexerit, sex menses in carcerem ibit. Ironia, non in Donziger eiusque advocatis amissa, est ut superior curia Preska contra eum regnantem evertat, sed tempore quo decernitur potentia iam sex menses in carcere elapsus est.
"Quod Iudex Preska facere conatur, me totam sententiae meae antequam iudicium appellationis imperare cogat," Donziger mihi per telephonum die Lunae indicavit. "Si appellatio aula regat in gratiam meam, tamen parui sententiae meae, quamuis sim innocens coram lege."
Donziger, his lawyers have pointed out, is the first person under U.S. law charged with a “B” misdemeanor to be placed on home confinement, prior to trial, with an ankle monitor. He is the first person charged with any misdemeanor to be held under home confinement for over two years. He is the first attorney ever to be charged with criminal contempt over a discovery dispute in a civil case where the attorney went into voluntary contempt to pursue an appeal. He is the first person to be prosecuted under Rule 42 (criminal contempt) by a private prosecutor with financial ties to the entity and industry that was a litigant in the underlying civil dispute that gave rise to the orders. He is the first person tried by a private prosecutor who had ex parte communicationes cum iudice praecipiens manente illo iudice sine causa criminali.
“No lawyer in New York for my level of offense ever has served more than 90 days and that was in home confinement,” Donziger told the court. “I have now been in home confinement eight times that period of time. I have been disbarred without a hearing where I have been unable to present factual evidence; thus, I am unable to earn an income in my profession. I have no passport. I can’t travel; can’t do human rights work the normal way which I believe I am reasonably good at; can’t see my clients in Ecuador; can’t visit the affected communities to hear the latest news of cancer deaths or struggles to maintain life in face of constant exposure to oil pollution. In addition, and this is little known, Judge [Lewis A.] Kaplan has imposed millions and millions of dollars of fines and courts costs on me. [Kaplan is the judge for Chevron’s lawsuit against Donziger; Preska is his handpicked judge for the contempt charges.] He has ordered me to pay millions to Chevron to cover their legal fees in attacking me, and then he let Chevron go into my bank accounts and take all my life’s savings because I did not have the funds to cover these costs. Chevron still has a pending motion to order me to pay them an additional $32 [million] in legal fees. That’s where things stand today. I ask you humbly: might that be enough punishment already for a Class B misdemeanor?”
Preska Iudex immobilis.
"Dominus. Donziger ultimos septem annos pollicendo nasum suum ad systema iudiciale in US consumpsit", Preska dixit in audiendo sententiam suam. "Nunc tempus est reddere tibicen."
The six-month sentence was the maximum the judge was allowed to impose; she ruled that his house arrest cannot be counted as part of his detention. From start to finish, this has been a burlesque. It is emblematic of a court system that has been turned over to lackies of corporate power, who use the veneer of jurisprudence, decorum, and civility to make a mockery of the rule of law.
When the law is neutered, judges become the enforcers of injustice. These corporate judges, who epitomize what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil, now routinely make war on workers, civil liberties, unions, and environmental regulations.
Preska sent Jeremy Hammond to prison for a decade for hacking into the computers of a private security firm that works on behalf of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, and corporations such as Dow Chemical. In 2011, Hammond released to the website WikiLeaks and Rolling Stone and other publications some three million emails from the Texas-based company Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor. The sentence was one of the longest in U.S. history for hacking and the maximum Preska could impose under a plea agreement in the case. I sat through the Hammond iudicium. Aspiciebam Preska bilem evomere et contemptum Cicero a scamno ejusdem vitrioli quo Donziger impugnabat.
Preska etiam infamis est diuturnae crucis iudicialis, ut scholas publicas Neo-Eboracensis cogeret, ut spatium liberum tributum subsidiis praeberet. ecclesias evangelicas in fundamento e lectionibus Constitutionis inconveniens.
The persecution of Donziger fits a pattern familiar to millions of poor Americans who are coerced into accepting plea deals, many for crimes they did not commit, and sent to prison for decades. It fits the pattern of the judicial lynching and prolonged psychological torture of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. It fits the pattern of those denied habeas corpus and due process at Guantánamo Bay or in CIA black sites. It fits the pattern of those charged under terrorism laws, many held at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan, who cannot see the evidence used to indict them. It fits the pattern of the widespread use of Special Administrative Measures, known as SAMs, imposed to prevent or severely restrict communication with other prisoners, attorneys, family, the media, and people outside the jail. It fits the pattern of the extreme sensory deprivation and prolonged isolation used on those in our black sites and prisons, a form of psychological torture, the refinement of torture as science. By the time a “terrorist” is dragged into our secretive courts the bewildered suspect no longer has the mental and psychological capability to defend themselves. If they can do this legally to the demonized they can, and one day will, do it to the rest of us. The Donziger case is an ominous warning that the American legal system is broken.
Radulphus Nader, qui ex Scholae Harvardianae Legis lectus est, diu per corporatum potestatem scholas iudiciorum et legum captas expro- bravit, advocatos et iudices nationis "lucriculosos in rota corporatis" vocans. Notat curricula iuris scholae circa legem corporatam et potestatem corporatam et perpetrationem corporatam et defensionem corporatam aedificari.
Victor Klemperer, qui dimissus e statione sua ut professor linguarum Romanarum in Universitate Dresden anno 1935 ob maiorum suorum iudaicam, astute notavit quomodo primo Nazis "bonorum, verborum frequentia" mutavit, [et] fecit. in communes res, verba quae antea a singulis aut minutis cohortibus adhibita erant. Verba factionis publicarunt, verba saturata verbis ac sententiis et sententiarum formis veneno suo. Linguam suam terribilem ratiocinationem fecerunt. Verba vicerunt et in instrumenta vendendi fortissima fecerunt.Werebemittestatim publici et secretissimi. Et, Klemperer notavit, quod veteres notiones redfinitiones factae publicae oblitae sunt.
This redefinition of words and concepts has, as Klemperer witnessed during the rise of fascism, allowed the courts to twist the law into an instrument of injustice, revoking our rights by judicial fiat. It has seen the courts permit unlimited dark money into political campaigns under United States civiumut ius petendi imperium ac formam liberae orationis nostrae pecuniosis comitiis defendat. Iudices nostrum ad ius secretum revocaverunt et in custodia imperii Lupum legalis nomine securitatis nationalis. Iudices corporationum iura singulorum hominum concedunt, raro homines tenentes qui corporatorum criminum corporatorum rationem redderent.
Pauci admodum ex legibus legum quae potestatis corporatae prodessent populare auxilium habent. Corpus igitur regionis evulsionis in dies magis magisque fascistas christianorum integit, qui suam basim circa abortum exercent, orationem in scholis, sclopetis et ecclesiae statusque separationem rumpunt. Raro hae quaestiones in causis ante iudicia foederati sunt. Sed basem a persecutis procorporatorum ordinationibus quae maxime aulae dockets dominantur, distrahunt.
Corporationes, ut Tyson Ciborum, Purdue, Walmart, et Sam CELLA, decies centena millia in Instituta effuderunt, quae hos fascistas Christianos imbuunt, in quibus Universitas Libertatis et School Patricii Henrici Lex. Iudiciales Crisis Network et US cameram commercii fundunt, quae designationem Amy Coney Barrett ad Supremam Curiam petiverunt. Barrettus abortus repugnat et ad Laudes pertinet, cultum longe rectum catholicum qui exercet « linguas loqui ». Illa et aliae longe rectae ideologae inimicae sunt iuribus LGBTQ. Sed hoc non est cur a collegiis tam dilecta sit, quae abortus non curet, LGBTQ aequalitatem vel iura gun.
Barrett and the Christian fascists embrace an ideology that believes that God will take care of the righteous. Those who are poor, those who are sick, those who go to prison, those who are unemployed, those who cannot succeed in society do so because they have failed to please God. In this worldview there is no need for unions, universal health care, a social safety net or prison reform. Barrett rexit constanter pro corporations cisio fraudare operarios extra tempus subsicivum, viridi-levis fossilis cibus extractionis et pollutionis et consumptoribus tutelae a corporatis fraude detrahenda. Societas speculator Accountable.US deprehendi tamquam iudicem circinalem, Barrett "saltem 55 causas obversas in quibus cives corporata in aula sua susceperunt et 76% temporis cum universitatibus partes erant".
The Christian fascists, allied with organizations such as the Federalist Society, under the Trump administration gave lifetime appointments to nearly 200 judges, roughly 23 percent of all federal judgeships. That included 53 to the nation’s appellate courts, the court immediately under the Supreme Court. The American Bar Association, the country’s largest nonpartisan coalition of lawyers, has rated many of these appointments as unqualified. There are currently six Federalist Society Supreme Court justices, including Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, who Nader calls “a corporation masquerading as a human being.” Two Federalist Society Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia, who was an original faculty advisor to the organization founded by conservative law students in 1982, were supported in the nomination process by Joe Biden.
Tessera autem iudiciorum cum autocinetis corporatorum multo ante Trump incepit. Ab administratione tam Republicana quam Democratica factum est. Preska a praeside Republicana GW Bush designatus est. Nihilominus iudex qui Preska in causa Donziger praecessit, Iudex Lewis A. Kaplan, advocatus pristinus pro industria tabaci, qui pecuniam in pecunia recluserat, reclusit. Chevron holdingssecundum suam declarationem publicam oeconomicam declarationis a Praeside Democratica Clinton designatus est.
Nisl iudiciorum unus e clavis metis erat Ludovicus Powelladvocatus corporatus postea ad Supremam Curiam a Praeside Nixon evectus est. In Powell's 1971 memoria ad cameram Commercii, ad instar corporatum discriminis, quod factum est, tardavit, vocavit negotia negotia iudiciaria cum iudicibus corporatis componendi.
Iudices in omnibus tyrannis mediocritatibus et scurrilis dominantur. Faciunt inanes eorum intellectuales et morales studioso dominationis obsequio. Convertunt iudicium iudiciis in opera buffasaltem donee victima compede eiectus ostio erga cellam ergastulum. Damnatas taedas causticas fulminant, quorum sententia nunquam ambigua est, et quorum culpa nunquam agitur.
"Profectus est cum Texaco in Ecuador Amazonium annis 1960 ingressus est et amicae paciscentiam cum imperio militari tunc Ecuador regebat" indicavit mihi Donziger in columna Causam eius ante annum scripsi. "Per proximos XXV annos Texaco exclusive operator erat amplissimae Amazonis areae quae in hoc campo compluribus campis oleis habebat, 25 miliaria quadrata. Centena puteorum terebrata. Millia aeris aperti creaverunt foveas toxicas toxici vastitatis ubi proiecerunt gravia metalla et toxins quae e terra ascenderunt cum terebrata. Fistulae currebant a cisternis in rivos et rivos, qui loci in aqua, piscatione, et alimentis suis freti sunt. Hanc ecosystem pristinam venenaverunt, in qua quinque nationes indigenae vixerunt, ac multae aliae communitates rusticae non indigenae. Massa erat venenatis cursus.
"Descendit sententia circa $18 miliarda in favorem communitatum affectarum, quae minimum futurum est ut damnum re ipsa purgaret et populum pro aliquibus iniuriis compensaret" Donziger mihi dixit. “Quod tandem in Aequatoriana ad $9.5 miliarda appellationis redegit, sed tribus tribunalibus appellationis appellatis, incluso supremo Aequatorianae curia, confirmatum est. erat per Canadian Summum iudiciumubi Ecuadoriani unanimiter in 2015 sententiam suam exsecuturi sunt.
Chevron promptly sold its assets and left Ecuador. It refused to pay the fees to clean up its environmental damage. It invested an estimated $2 million to destroy Danziger. Chevron sued him, using a civil courts portion of the federal law famous for breaking the New York Mafia in the 1970s, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO Act. Chevron, which has more than $260 billion in assets, hired an estimated 2,000 lawyers from 60 law firms to carry out its campaign, according to court documents. But the oil giant, which did not want a jury to hear the case, dropped its demand for financial damages, which would have allowed Donziger to request a jury trial. This allowed Judge Kaplan to decide the RICO case against Donziger alone. He found credible a witness named Alberto Guerra, an Ecuadorian judge, relocated to the US by Chevron at a cost of some $2 million, who claimed the verdict in Ecuador was the product of a bribe. Kaplan used Guerra’s testimony as primary evidence for the racketeering charge, although Guerra, a former judge, later admitted to an international tribunal that he had falsum testimonium eius.
Ioannes Keker a San Francisco, unus ex advocatis Donziger in hac causa, dixit se contra 160 advocati pro Chevron et in iudicio "sicut capra alligata ad palum" sensit. Iudicium iudicium sub Kaplan "mimum Dicensianum" appellavit et "iudicium demonstrare".
In the end, Kaplan ruled that the judgment in the Ecuadorean court against Chevron was the result of fraud. He also ordered Donziger to turn over decades of all client communication to Chevron, in effect eradicating attorney-client privilege, a backbone of the Anglo-American legal system with roots dating to ancient Rome. Donziger appealed what was, according to legal experts following the case, an unprecedented and illegal order. While Donziger’s appeal was pending, Kaplan charged him with misdemeanor criminal contempt for this principled stance — carrying a maximum sentence of six months — as well as his refusal to turn over his passport, his personal electronics and to refrain from seeking the collection of the original award against Chevron. When the U.S. attorney’s office declined for five years to prosecute his criminal contempt charges against the environmental lawyer, Kaplan, using an exceedingly rare judicial maneuver, Privatam legem constituit Seward & Kissel .nomine Donziger prosecuturus ad agendum. Neque iudex neque lex firma detecta est Chevron clientem Seward & Kissel.
Kaplan etiam casum temere statutum violavit assignationis protocollum ut Preska personaliter assignaret, qui in tabula advisoria Societatis Federalist, coetus cui Chevron prodigus fuit. donor, to hear the case. Kaplan had Preska demand Donziger post an $800,000 bond on the misdemeanor charge. Preska placed him under house arrest and confiscated his passport, which he has used to meet with attorneys around the world attempting to enforce the judgment against Chevron. Kaplan managed to have Donziger disbarred. He allowed Chevron to freeze Donziger’s bank accounts, slapped Donziger with millions in fines without allowing him a jury, forced him to wear an ankle monitor 24 hours a day and effectively shut down his ability to earn a living. Kaplan allowed Chevron to impose a lien on Donziger’s apartment in Manhattan where he lives with his wife and teenage son.
Nihil horum iaculis praeteritae tyrannides mirentur. Quid mirum fortasse in multis Americanis est quomodo nostra corporatum tyrannide provecta facta est. Donziger fors numquam stetit. Nec Iulianus Assange. Isti iudices non Donziger vel Assange in fine notavimus, sed nos. Spectaculae probationes quibus praesident intelliguntur ut perspicue luceant. Ordinantur nuntium mittere. Omnes qui potestatem corporatum defuerint et de statu securitatis nationalis, erunt propensi. Non erit vituperium, quia non est iustitia.
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