Our Legal System Can Do More Harm Than GoodAre you a Victim? Collateral Damage?PettifoggerPettifoggery is common enough. You'd recognize it if you saw it, although you may never have heard the term. A “pettifogger” is usually an attorney, but doesn't have to be. A pettifogger is someone who quibbles, a lot. A pettifogger is usually an attorney who quibbles a lot over trifles, who is unethical, and who also may be a shyster or even a charlatan. Lynch LawLynch law didn't always mean hanging. And the use of lynch law did not originally have any racist connotations. Lynch law once meant running someone out of town, or tar and feathering – even flogging. No one is exactly sure how the term originated. But the commonality of the definitions reduces to lynch law meaning law without due process. An early example of lynch law, which some say originated the term, was when an Englishman named Lynch was sent to the American colonies in the late 1600's to suppress piracy. According to legend, Lynch proceeded to hang every pirate he could find without any semblance of a trial. Kangaroo CourtKangaroo Court is another American slang term that has found its way into popular usage. The term has even been used in more than one Supreme Court opinion. In the 1967 U.S. Juvenile court case, IN RE GAULT, the court established that minors have the right to due process, stating that, “Under Our Constitution, the condition of being a boy does not justify a kangaroo court.” And, in Williams v United States, 341 U.S. 97, 71 S. Ct. 576, 95 L. Ed. 774 (1951), Justice William O. Douglas ruled that, “[W]here police take matters in their own hands, seize victims, beat and pound them until they confess, there cannot be the slightest doubt that the police have deprived the victim of a right under the Constitution. It is the right of the accused to be tried by a legally constituted court, not by a kangaroo court" According to a popular online legal dictionary, www.legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com : [Slang of U.S. origin.] An unfair, biased, or hasty judicial proceeding that ends in a harsh punishment; an unauthorized trial conducted by individuals who have taken the law into their own hands, such as those put on by vigilantes or prison inmates; a proceeding and its leaders who are considered sham, corrupt, and without regard for the law. The term's origins date back to itinerant frontier judges in the wild wild west. Back then, judges were paid based on the number of trials conducted; and their salaries directly depended on the fines from the convicted defendants' pockets. So kangaroo judges jumped around from kangaroo court to kangaroo court convicting as many defendants as possible before sundown.
Have you had problems with the court system? Please tell us your story.Have you been verbally abused by court staff? Have court clerks refused to accept your documents? Has your attorney taken your money and done nothing in return? Has a judge or general magistrate refused to consider the facts of your case? Has your attorney, or the attorney on the other side, invented disputes just to keep their fees coming in? Do you believe you did not receive a fair hearing? Donate To FALDPHelp Us Help YouWe are aligned with political activists, non-profits, and individuals dedicated to helping consumers access the legal system. Consumers should not be made to feel like second class citizens when they enter the courthouse built with their tax dollars. Citizens should not be verbally abused by public servants whose salaries are paid with tax dollars.The money you donate will be spent to promote fair and equal access to the legal system for all.
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