Just A Matter Of Time! by Albert Burns

Distributed free of copyright by the

Paragon Foundation, Alamogordo, NM

(877) 847-3443

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The germ of destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body — working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall render powerless the checks of one branch over the other and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.

Thomas Jefferson

While I make no pretense of being a lawyer, I do claim to be well read. In law, there is a doctrine with the Latin name “stare decisis.” Actually, “stare decisis” is an abbreviation of a Latin expression meaning “to stand by decisions and not disturb settled matters.” This doctrine of Stare Decisis was essential in the development of English common law — and of all law in the United States.

In any free society, citizens must know with reasonable certainty what the law of the land is — otherwise it is impossible for them to be law-abiding. When the highest court reverses its own decisions, it is saying that what was legal yesterday is illegal today, but may be legal again tomorrow, depending upon how the Court feels about it. When such a state of affairs continues for very long, even the most civilized nation will become a lawless society, kept orderly only by extreme police action.

In 1937 the Supreme Court started to abandon the doctrine of Stare Decisis. Between March 27, 1937 and June 14, 1943 the Supreme Court reversed fourteen earlier decisions of the Court on Constitutional questions. In 1944, Supreme Court Justices Owen Roberts and Felix Frankfurter issued dissenting opinions objecting to such abandonment of the doctrine.

However, with the appointment of Earl Warren as Chief Justice in 1953 the abandonment gained momentum. In 1954, in the Brown vs. Topeka school segregation case the Warren Supreme Court reversed a previous Supreme Court ruling and it also fabricated a wholly new doctrine: that the Court can change the Constitution at will without regard to law, intrinsic meaning of the Constitution itself, or precedent.

Now we have the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that our Pledge of Allegiance is actually unconstitutional because it contains the two words “under God.” This is allegedly is a violation of the supposed “separation of church and state” which the Supreme Court mysteriously found in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Never mind that for almost two hundred years other Supreme Courts had stated emphatically and explicitly that the United States is a Christian nation.

The Supreme Court (and by extension other federal courts) has no authority to hear any case except for those specifically enunciated in the Constitution: “In all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.” Article III, Section 2, U.S. Constitution. Unless Congress has specifically granted appellate jurisdiction in an area of jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction!

This rule was first laid down by the Supreme Court in 1796 in the case of Wiscart vs. Dauchy. Chief Justice John Marshall reaffirmed the rule in 1810 in the case of Durousseau vs. United States. It was again reaffirmed in 1868 when the Supreme Court, in the McCardle case, laid down the doctrine: “The power of Congress to make exceptions to the Court's appellate jurisdiction has...become...a plenary power to bestow, withhold and withdraw appellate jurisdiction, even to the point of its abolition. And this power extends even to the withdrawal of appellate jurisdiction in pending cases.” That doctrine was again reaffirmed in 1908 when, in United States vs. Bitty, the Supreme Court held that there is no right to appeal to the Supreme Court except as an act of Congress confers it.

It should be noted that Congress has never granted the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction in cases involving education, religion, local elections, abortion, environmental affairs, local zoning, etc.

Starting about 1920, this Constitutional fact began to be weakened in law schools, in the mass media, and in the education field. The public was weaned away from all knowledge of that earlier doctrine and today the overwhelming majority of Americans believe, unquestioningly, that the Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction in all cases except where it is specifically denied to the Court by Congress. This is a 180-degree reversal of the truth!

Physically, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution are probably the best preserved and protected documents in the world. The sublime complacency evidenced by the American public indicates that there is a belief that as long as the physical documents are safe, we need not fear tyranny. In the face of daily, even hourly, evidence of treasonous disregard of the Constitution, of flagrant unconstitutional legislation being proposed and passed in Congress, of new “law” being made almost daily via Executive Orders and Supreme Court “interpretations,” such complacency is unbelievable. If the Constitution is not a vibrant, living part of the minds and hearts of the majority of the American people, it makes little difference how well the physical documents are preserved. If the Constitution were such a part of the American people's knowledge, the physical document could disappear and we would still not need to fear tyranny. It is the lack of that knowledge, in spite of the well-preserved parchment, which makes possible the abuses we see today.

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Author's note: I wish to acknowledge the work which Constitutional scholar and former FBI agent Dan Smoot did in researching the manner in which the Constitution has been misinterpreted, misapplied and misused. Much of the information above came from his work and from a great document authorized and financed by Congress and published in 1953 by the Government Printing Office as Senate Document #170: “The Constitution Of The United States Of America: Analysis and Interpretation: Annotations of Cases Decided By The Supreme Court Of The United States To June 3, 1953."

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| Courts, Veteran Courts, And Civil Liberties | Contents | Index |

| Chapter 1 — Our Dysfunctional Courts |

| Next — Judges Rule |

| Back — Holodeck Law — Litigation Vortex by Linda L. Kennedy, Esq. |

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Last modified 5/9/20