Justice Scalia has passed away at 79, I can’t tell you how very bad this could be for our country. I pray to GOD in Heaven that we get a man of equal caliber and a constitutional originalist.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
These are the forty-one (41) precepts of the common law Grand Jury that Justice Antonin Scalia — speaking for the majority of the Supreme Court — outlined in 1992 in United States v. Williams 112 S.Ct. 1735, 504 U.S. 36, 118 L.Ed.2d 352.
1) We the people [of the United States of America] have been provided with legal recourse to address the criminal conduct of persons entrusted to dispense justice.
2) The American grand jury is neither part of the judicial, executive nor legislative branches of government, but instead belongs to the people.
3) It is in effect a fourth branch of government “governed” and administered to directly by and on behalf of the American people, and its authority emanates from the Bill of Rights.
4) Thus, citizens have the unbridled right to empanel their own grand juries and present “True Bills” of indictment to a court, which is then required to commence a criminal proceeding.
5) Our Founding Fathers thereby created a “buffer” the people may rely upon for justice, when public officials, including judges, criminally violate the law.
6) Any power federal courts may have is very limited and does not permit reshaping the grand jury institution.
7) The “common law” of the Fifth Amendment demands the grand jury.
8) The grand jury is an institution separate from the courts, over whose functioning the courts do not preside; no such “supervisory” judicial authority exists.
9) Rooted in long centuries of Anglo-American history, the grand jury is mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but not in the body of the Constitution; it is a constitutional fixture in its own right.
10) The whole theory of the grand jury’s function is that it belongs to no branch of the institutional government, and serves as a kind of “buffer” or “referee” between the Government and the people.
11) Although the grand jury normally operates in the courthouse and under judicial auspices, its institutional relationship with the judicial branch has traditionally been at arm’s length.
12) Judges’ direct involvement in the grand jury is generally confined to calling the grand jurors together and administering their oaths of office.
13) The grand jury’s functional independence from the judicial branch is evident both in the scope of its power to investigate criminal wrongdoing, and in the manner in which that power is exercised.
14) The grand jury can investigate merely on suspicion that the law is being violated, or even because it wants assurance that it is not.
15) The grand jury need not identify the offender it suspects, or even the precise nature of the offense it is investigating.
16) The grand jury requires no authorization from its constituting court to initiate an investigation, nor does a prosecutor require leave of court to seek a grand jury indictment.
17) In its day-to-day functioning, the grand jury operates without the interference of a presiding judge, and deliberates in total secrecy.
18) The grand jury cannot compel the appearance of witnesses and the production of evidence, and must appeal to the court when such compulsion is required, and the court will refuse to lend its assistance when the compulsion the grand jury seeks would override rights accorded by the Constitution, or testimonial privileges recognized by the common law.
19) The grand jury remains free to pursue its investigations unhindered by external influence or supervision so long as it does not trench upon the legitimate rights of any witness called before it.
20) The Fifth Amendment’s constitutional guarantee presupposes an investigative body acting independently of either prosecuting attorney or judge.
21) Certain constitutional protections afforded defendants in criminal proceedings have no application before this body.
22) The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment does not bar a grand jury from returning an indictment when a prior grand jury has refused to do so.
23) The Sixth Amendment right to counsel does not attach when an individual is summoned to appear before a grand jury, even if he is the subject of the investigation.
24) Although the grand jury may not force a witness to answer questions in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination, an indictment obtained through the use of evidence previously obtained in violation of the privilege against self incrimination is nevertheless valid.
25) Over the years, we have received requests to exercise supervision over the grand jury’s evidence-taking process, but we have refused them all.
26) We reject the proposal that the exclusionary rule be extended to grand jury proceedings, because of the potential injury to the historic role and functions of the grand jury.
27) We declined to enforce the hearsay rule in grand jury proceedings, since that would run counter to the whole history of the grand jury institution, in which laymen conduct their inquiries unfettered by technical rules.
28) Any power federal courts may have to fashion, on their own initiative, rules of grand jury procedure is a very limited one, not remotely comparable to the power they maintain over their ow proceedings.
29) Any power federal courts may have does not permit judicial reshaping of the grand jury
institution, or substantially altering the traditional relationships between the prosecutor, the constituting court, and the grand jury itself.
30) The grand jury’s twin historical responsibilities are [1] bringing to trial those who may be justly accused and [2] shielding the innocent from unfounded accusation and prosecution that the Fifth Amendment demands.
31) Requiring the prosecutor to present exculpatory [tending to establish innocence] evidence as well as inculpatory [incriminating] evidence would alter the grand jury’s historical role, transforming it from an accusatory to an adjudicatory body.
32) The grand jury sits not to determine innocence or guilt, but to assess whether there is adequate basis for bringing a criminal charge, and to make the assessment it has always been thought sufficient to hear only the prosecutor’s side.
33) The grand jury is only to hear evidence on behalf of the prosecution, for the finding of an indictment is only in the nature of an enquiry or accusation, which is afterwards to be tried and determined.
34) It is not the grand jury’s function to enquire or try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine upon what foundation the charge is made by the prosecutor.
35) The “common law” of the grand jury is not violated if the grand jury itself chooses to hear no more evidence than that which suffices to convince it that an indictment is proper.
36) Courts must require the modern prosecutor to alert the grand jury to the nature and extent of available exculpatory [tending to establish innocence] evidence because otherwise the grand jury merely functions as an arm of the prosecution.
37) The authority of the prosecutor to seek an indictment has long been understood to be coterminous [coincidental] with the authority of the grand jury to entertain the prosecutor’s charges.
38) No authority exists for looking into and revising the judgement of the grand jury.
39) It would run counter to the whole history of the grand jury institution to permit an indictment to be challenged on the ground that there was incompetent or inadequate evidence before the grand jury.
40) The mere fact that evidence is unreliable is not sufficient grounds to require a dismissal of the indictment.
41) A challenge to the reliability or competence of the evidence presented to the grand jury will not be heard.
[End of Supreme Court quotes]
OTHER PRECEPTS OF LAW
SEE COMMON LAW HANDBOOK BELOW FOR CITATIONS
1) No statue or rule prevents citizens from convening grand juries.
2) Presentment are filed with the Clerk of Court and once filed cannot be removed, and anyone interfering with an official proceeding commits a crime under US codes.
3) Trust in the jury is one of the cornerstones of our entire criminal jurisprudence even to the extent of jury nullification.
4) For there to be a crime, there must first be a victim (corpus delecti); in the absence of a victim there can be no crime; the state cannot be the injured party.
5) All power is inherent in the people; they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent; deciding by a jury of themselves, both fact and law, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved.
6) It is the “DUTY” of the Common Law Grand Jury to expose all fraud and corruption, whether it is in the political or judicial realm, and stop it!
7) The Authority of the Grand Jury is found in the Bill of Rights at Amendment V – “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury…”
8) The Grand Jury is the “ultimate power” of the people which allows them to consent or not to the actions of their servant government, by forcing the government to seek permission from the people before criminal charges can be filed; if the people refuse, it cannot go forward.
9) Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
10) Every man is independent of all laws, except those prescribed by nature. He is not bound by any institutions formed by his fellowman without his consent.
11) There are only three ways a court can hear a criminal complaint:
1. One or more of the people sign a sworn affidavit that they have been injured;
2. A prosecutor, on behalf of the government, brings an accusation before the Grand Jury and the Grand Jury either indicts or does nothing;
3. The Grand Jury, by its “own will”, can investigate merely on suspicion that the law is being violated, or even because it wants assurance that it is not, and if it finds wrongdoing it can present it to the court and it must go to trial.
12) Any authority our servants have is by our consent; if they act outside their authority they are subject to criminal charges.
13) The Fifth Amendment states: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury.”
14) Our US Constitution only authorizes “common law courts” a.k.a. “courts of record”. A court of record removes the power of the Judge to make a ruling, his role is that of the “administrator” of the court. The final determinator is the “tribunal” who is either the “sovereign plaintiff” or a “jury”.
15) The common law is the Supreme Law of the land, the codes, rules, regulations, policies and statutes are not “the law”.
16) All codes, rules, and regulations are for government authorities only, not human/creators in accordance with God’s laws.
17) All laws, rules and practices which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.
18) No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.
19) The term “liberty” denotes the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, this liberty may not be interfered with b legislative action, under the guise of protecting public interest.
20) A State cannot exclude a person from the practice of law.
21) The practice of law cannot be licensed by any state/State.
22) The practice of law is an occupation of common right.
23) The right to file a lawsuit pro se is one of the most important rights under the constitution and laws.
24) Litigants can be assisted by unlicensed laymen during judicial proceedings.
25) A next friend is a person who represents someone who is unable to tend to his or her own interest.
26) Members of groups who are competent non-lawyers can assist other members of the group achieve the goals of the group in court without being charged with “unauthorized practice of law”.
27) Every man is independent of all laws, except those prescribed by nature. He is not bound by any institutions formed by his fellowman without his consent.
28) The claim and exercise of a Constitutional Right cannot be converted into a crime.
29) The Sheriff is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer (CLEO) of the County.
30) The Sheriff is the Peoples’ last line of defense against a government gone Rogue.
31) No action can be taken against a sovereign in the non-constitution courts of either the United States or the States; any such action is the crime of Barratry; Barratry is an offense at common law.
32) Whenever people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government. — Thomas Jefferson
COMMON LAW HANDBOOK
http://www.tinyurl.com/jalcqzb
[End]
“Justice Antonin Scalia was a man of God, a patriot, and an unwavering defender of the written Constitution and the Rule of Law. He was the solid rock who turned away so many attempts to depart from and distort the Constitution,” Texas Gov Greg Abbott said in a statement. “We mourn his passing, and we pray that his successor on the Supreme Court will take his place as a champion for the written Constitution and the Rule of Law.”
Scalia was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 under President Ronald Reagan, who named him as Associate Justice. A lawyer by trade, he entered public service in the 1970s as general counsel for President Richard Nixon and as the Assistant Attorney General.
As a Supreme Court justice, Scalia, a conservative, gained a reputation for offering blunt dissents. Most recently, in December, he came under fire from civil rights attorneys and black lawmakers after suggesting African-American students might fare better in a “slower-track school” while hearing a case about race-based admissions.
But it was his comments over the years on gay rights that often caused the biggest waves: When the high court legalized gay marriage nationwide last June, Scalia said in his dissent, “Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms?”
The last Supreme Court justice to die while serving was Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, in September 2005. Rehnquist was the first to die in office since Justice Robert Jackson died in 1954 and the first Chief Justice since Fred Vinson in 1953.
Born and raised in Queens, New York, Scalia has Italian roots. He was slated to teach in Paris this summer for the San Diego-based Thomas Jefferson School of Law.
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