It's just one more confirmation that the rule of law is dead in Indiana. The Indiana Supreme Court on a 4-0 decision signed by Chief Justice Loretta Rush (Justice Massa not participating) denied Charlie White's petition for transfer to review the decision of the Indiana Court of Appeals affirming two of White's erroneous felony vote frauds convictions and a felony theft conviction. The courts adopt special voter residency laws which spring into existence as needed to protect political elites like Evan Bayh, while a lowly guy like Charlie White will face the most arbitrary and capricious interpretation of those same laws as retribution for stepping out of line by the political establishment.
What today's decision means is that you should consider the risk of registering and casting votes in Indiana unless you are among the chosen class. As a person who has worked as an election judge at many elections, I could pick out voters in every election I've worked who could be prosecuted under the same circumstances under which White was prosecuted. If you aren't favored by the ruling political class, don't even think about running for political office. They will do whatever it takes to destroy you to stop you from succeeding. It's just not worth the risk. Prosecutors and judges can twist the laws to mean something they do not say to turn any innocent person into a criminal if they want to destroy you for not conforming to their dictates. I defy anyone to square the decision in Charlie White's case with the application of these same laws to a long line of other prominent Indiana politicians who played far more fast and loose with the state's voter residency laws than White's supposed transgressions. It can't be done with a straight face. If you aren't alarmed by today's decision, you should be.
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For some reason this reminds me of what happened to Jesse Ventura when he was elected governor. He was lead down to the basement where he was grilled by a bunch of cia types, apparently he had slipped in past the system defenses and got himself elected, and they wanted to know how.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIzfXOfpFcA
Just this spring, Richard Lugar and his wife, and Evan Bayh and his wife, voted absentee using Indianapolis addresses, places they clearly do not live. But they get a pass because if you are popular with the establishment the rules do not apply to you.
Paul, if that's the case [and I have zero reason to doubt you] Dick, Char, Evan, and Susan should be charged with some type of voter fraud and imprisoned. But you are also correct that the entrenched elitist political class can "get away" with breaking laws the rest of us unclean everyday Hoosiers must obey.
I met Charlie White when the Downtown GOP meetings were at the Club and I knew that DB and his criminal gang did not like him. But I never figured out why and to this day all I do know is that DB and his southside hench-gal SDeW - now the in-name-only Center Township Chair- were not in favor of Mr. White. I have to believe, albeit without concrete knowledge, this is but a part of why Charlie will rot in legal no man's land even though crooks like they Lugars and the Bayhs remain at large and free to walk their privileged streets.
Depending on who they are, how much money they have, and how much or how little influence they wield, there is no equal justice in this country when it comes to the Everman. There just ain't. And it is going to get worse.
This is the most shameful action taken by the State Supreme Court in my lifetime! Charlie White is not guilty of anything. And yet he is made a pariah because of the whims of the elites of both parties! I urge all Indiana residents to listen to The Charlie White Show on Indiana Talks! Support this man and his fellow patriots Gary Welsh and Paul Ogden to help take back our state! I ask all of you who can read these words to rise up against the Republicrats who have run our state for to long!We defeated Lugar! Now we MUST defeat every worthless mediocrity in Indiana Politics! It is a difficult task ahead but we shall ultimately win! Evil is in reality impotent. And survives only by the consent of good people. Resist every evil doer in both parties! Work to defeat them. In the near future plans will be released detailing the nature of the political menaces in this state and how we will defeat them. Tremble in fear all of you parasites who have been plundering the hard earned resources of honest men and women! More and more resistance to you will grow. Your grip will begin to weaken. Then you will see the truth of what you all really are mindless robots who seek to destroy the good for being good. Already some of you looters are beginning to lose your battle against reality. It shall get worse. Your empire is decaying because you refuse to face reality. And reality is tired of your garbage! In the name of the state of Indiana, America and the only true Secretary of State Indiana has had in years Charlie White. We are going to end your Reign of Terror!
So let me get this straight. The Indiana Supreme Court says if I'm duly elected to a public office by the voters, sworn into office, show up for every meeting and do my job, I can be convicted of theft if someone claims I don't live where I say I live because I accepted the statutory salary my public office guaranteed I would be paid when I was sworn into office? Does that mean every judge who participated in this criminal act against White can be indicted and convicted of theft because they clearly are not upholding the constitution they took an oath to uphold when they were sworn into office.
The nationwide pattern of attorneys losing their careers or facing hefty fines after speaking out against judges has legal experts worried. America’s judicial system is extremely ineffective at removing bad judges, said Kathleen Russell, the founder of the Center for Judicial Excellence. Even when judges behave maliciously, there is no law that holds them accountable. Over the past 40 years, court rulings have given judges increasingly strong immunity from civil suits under the principle that judges shouldn’t be sued by anyone unhappy with their decisions in court. Most notable is the 1978 Supreme Court decision Stump v. Sparkman that rejected a suit filed against an Indiana judge who ordered a 15-year-old sterilized without her knowledge.
The Democratic nominee for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 11th District has made a focus of his campaign curbing judicial abuses and protecting lawyers who criticize judges. Andy Ostrowski points to the Pennsylvania kids-for-cash scandal, where two county judges were convicted of charges involving millions of alleged kickbacks to send children to private juvenile detention facilities, as an example where lawyers failed to do the right thing.
“That didn’t happen in a vacuum,” Ostrowski said. “There were lawyers who were in there watching as these children were led into the courtroom in shackles without representation and led out in shackles to prison. They all knew it was wrong. Why didn’t they speak up? Simple — because they were afraid.”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has taken the law license of several lawyers for criticizing judges, as described in a table that follows this story.
Fearful lawyers combined with strong immunity laws keep bad judges on the bench. Even in the kids-for-cash scandal, where the judges were criminally convicted and are serving lengthy prison sentences, experts say that civil suits filed on behalf of the children will likely have a tough time piercing judicial immunity.
In a blog post published on Thursday, Turley described how judicial immunity was used to dismiss a civil suit against a Michigan judge who was having an affair with the wife of a man before him in a custody case. “By any measure, former Wayne County Circuit Judge Wade McCree was a disgrace to the bench,” Turley wrote. “His case unfortunately could embolden other judges who consider abandoning the most basic ethical demands of their office.”
Ostrowski is one of only two political candidates in the U.S. who has signed a pledge to eradicate judicial corruption started by the Campaign for Judicial Integrity, an effort founded by disbarred California attorney Richard Fine, who was jailed for 18 months by a judge who found him in contempt.
Allan Parachini, who was the Los Angeles Superior Court spokesman while Fine was in jail, compared his incarceration to actions more common in authoritarian countries. “Fine was effectively a political prisoner for a year and a half,” Parachini, who no longer works for the superior court, told Full Disclosure Network in 2012. “This wasn’t about contempt. This wasn’t about getting him to disclose whatever it was he was directed to disclose. It was about getting back at him.
I just went back an re-read the Supreme Court's decision in the Bayh case, the Judge Evrard case and its most recent decision in Charlie White's civil case before the state recount commission. You are absolutely correct. You cannot square those decisions with the outcome in this case. The justices who allowed this miscarriage of justice should be holding their heads in shame.
Please pray for Charlie and his family. This is so unfair. I feel like I'm living in another country. This isn't what America is supposed to be about.
Incredible the Supreme Court would punt on hearing an unprecedented case in state history of a constitutional, statewide officer being put on trial, convicted and tossed from office under specious circumstances. I'm with you, Gary. We're starting to look too much like a banana republic in some backward third-world country.
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