Comments on the Ninth Circuit pro se Task Force Report
Charles W. Heckman, Dr. Sci.
A Matter of Justice Coalition (AMOJ)
Committee for the Ninth Circuit

Basic summary of the Task Force’s report

The report of the Task Force summarizes the many problems faced by the United States courts when persons not educated or trained as attorneys attempt to present their own legal arguments in various kinds of proceedings. It then introduces a variety of proposals to reduce the problems identified by the Task Force members, ranging from simplifying procedures to enlisting the assistance of pro bono attorneys or law students to minimize procedural errors, present arguments in an objective way without introducing the emotional responses typically elicited when a person discusses personal conflicts, and give litigants a better understanding of legal and practical limitations to the actions of a court. It takes note of the fact that prior discussions of legal aspects of a lawsuit with an attorney often disabuse a litigant of misunderstandings of the law before the court is required to instruct the litigant about erroneous principles on which a lawsuit is based.

The recommendations of the task force are practical and include suggested improvements that would alleviate many of the problems addressed. Most of these suggestions can be accepted, and it is hoped that resources can be found to effect the improvements.

What must be faulted in this report is not the solutions proposed for the problems presented but rather the failure to address the most frequent complaints of pro se litigants, which are similar to complaints frequently voiced by litigants represented by attorneys with average or less than average capabilities.

Fundamental role of the judiciary

In 1947, Justice William O Douglas wrote that the basic function of any court is to judge the case on the merits. That means that two factors and only two should influence the decision: the law and the facts. If all is functioning as it should, then any case in which the facts indicate that one party must prevail under the law should have only one outcome. This is true regardless of whether or not the party whose case is supported by the law and the facts is represented by counsel.

Justice should not depend upon whether or not a person can afford a lawyer. While it is true that a litigant acting pro se might be less likely to present a clear case than an experienced lawyer and might not be able to cite all of the laws that might support his case, if the facts support any claim he makes under any law, he should prevail. If a litigant arguing his own case lets his emotions show, thereby provoking a negative reaction, or if the litigant lacks skill in expressing himself, it is understandable that he may suffer disadvantage where the facts are not altogether clear. However, it is the function of a court, especially the jury, to sort through the evidence presented and provide a decision in accord with the law and facts, even if some extra effort has to be exerted. Any court that permits factors other than the law and the facts to influence the outcome of any proceeding has failed in its fundamental duty.

Problems not addressed in the report

The role of bias
One of the many serious complaints often voiced by litigants but not seriously addressed in the report of the Task Force is bias by the judge. However, the report clearly expresses a common attitude toward pro se litigants, starting of p. 6 of the report:

“Some judges and lawyers are convinced, for example, that pro se litigants as a class generally bring meritless claims, and that any program designed to educate or assist them would only increase the number of meritless claims in the court system. This point of view is doubtless influenced by those pro se cases that are brought by individuals suffering from a mental disability or for purposes of harassment. Closely related to that thought is the belief that appointing attorneys for pro se clients is a waste of resources and in the long run simply complicates efforts to keep the system clear of meritless cases.”

The Task Force fails to identify who holds this opinion, but both lawyers and judges have frequently expressed it or opinions very much like it. The main focus of this task force should not be with methods by which unbiased judges can make the submissions of pro se litigants easier for the court to deal with but rather with developing methods to assist a pro se litigant who has been the victim of a judge with the preconception that whatever he submits to the court is without merit, and his lawsuit must be dismissed before any unnecessary time of the court is wasted.

If all judges were perfect human beings, we could assume that the private opinion of a lawyer or a judge would not be reflected the judge’s rulings. However, we know that few people approach perfection, and prejudice by decision-makers against members of certain groups has been the cause of continuous, bitter conflict since the civil rights movement first brought the effects of biases of many kinds to public view.

Prejudices often have a greater impact on the outcome of administrative hearings and lawsuits than parties with an obligation to be impartial like to admit. Whether the prejudice is deliberate and malicious or entirely unintended, decisions colored by personal biases can be just as devastating to the victims of the resulting injustice.

An even more enlightening articulation of the prejudice litigants often face appeared in numerous discussions on the decision of a Washington State appeals court in Hill v. BCTI Income Fund, 97 Wn. App. 657 (1999), later upheld by the Washington State Supreme Court. Although it is the decision of a state court, it draws on the en banc opinion of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Fisher v. Vassar College, 70 F.3d 1420, 1437 (2d Cir.). The opinion in Hill v. BCTI defends a school of thought within the legal profession, which has been having a revolutionary effect on American jurisprudence. It parallels the controversial theory of a “living constitution,” which condones the “updating” of the United States Constitution by the courts to conform to the personal opinion of judges concerning what the public wants and will accept. On a more mundane level, this revolution in judicial theory is interpreted by many judges as a mandate to quickly dismiss any lawsuit that can be dismissed without causing a public outcry, regardless of the merits of the case.

One of the main innovations introduced by the decision in Fisher v. Vassar is the acceptability and utility of lying to the court. This was discussed at length in a dissenting opinion by the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit, who pointed out the implications of the decision reached by his colleagues. Briefly stated, a jury of the trial court had determined that the spokesmen for Vassar had lied about the reason Fisher was denied tenure. It therefore concluded that the prima facie case Fisher had established had not been rebutted, and the relief she had demanded was granted. The Second Circuit, en banc, reversed the decision of the trial court by a single vote, ruling that the non-discriminatory reason given for not granting Fisher tenure had eliminated her prima facie case, even though the reason was shown unequivocally to be a lie. With the case in favor of Fisher eliminated, the court opined that she was required to meet a higher level of proof, which was not defined by the court and was apparently not humanly possible to meet, at least without the services of a certified mind-reader.

Expanding on this legal opinion, the Washington State courts in Hill v. BCTI set an unattainable burden of proof on a plaintiff who has alleged discrimination as soon as the defendant lies to the court and alleges that the motivation was not to discriminate against the plaintiff. According to the opinion of the Washington courts, proving conclusively that the defendant’s allegation was a lie is not enough for a plaintiff to prevail. He must prove that the motive of the plaintiff was to discriminate against him for the reason alleged in the complaint. Hence, if age discrimination is alleged, the plaintiff must prove that the real reason for the discriminatory action and the subsequent lie by the defendant was actually the age of the plaintiff and not, for example, his religion, race, or gender. The judges of the Washington State Court of Appeals were well aware of the fact that the opposite decision had been reached by the United States Supreme Court, but they reasoned that the Supreme Court was wrong and the State of Washington was free to decide contrary to the highest Federal court because the State of Washington has its own constitution and its courts are therefore not bound by the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the Federal judiciary.

What is interesting about this case in the context of pro se litigation is not the decision itself but rather the opinion of an author who defended the decision as vital to preserve the integrity of the judicial system. He stated clearly in his article that if one person came to a court with a discrimination complaint and obtained relief, this would encourage other litigants to file similar lawsuits, and there are already too many lawsuits being filed. There is a strong undercurrent within the legal profession, as well as among corporations that are frequently sued, propagating the opinion that filing civil lawsuits is somehow sinister and un-American. They wish to discourage most lawsuits by denying justice to litigants and thereby discouraging other litigants from seeking justice in a court.

While there is a tradition from the Old West that a man settles his disputes by shooting it out with his adversary or settles lesser disputes with his fists, it was long thought that this was a less desirable alternative to letting a jury decide which party should prevail. Apparently, some members of the legal profession think otherwise and wish to close off the courts to ordinary citizens, returning dispute resolution to the means available in the “Wild West.” It would be well to determine how closely the decrease in justice provided in civil suits has paralleled the increase in crimes of violence between people with no civilized means available to settle their dispute. How many of the civil disputes wrongfully dismissed or inequitably settled come back to the court as a criminal case?

The treatment of pro se litigants reflects the desire expressed by many politicians and judges that the number of lawsuits be reduced. Showing litigants who lack strong financial resources, the services of a first-class law firm, backing by an influential organization, or attention in the press that they have no chance of prevailing in a lawsuit or even of presenting their cases to a jury might well discourage other litigants from seeking redress in the courts but it also encourages persons in positions of authority to deliberately break the law, knowing that there is almost no chance that the victim would be able to obtain redress in a court of law.

It seems obvious to me that the flood of lawsuits is the result of a massive increase in white collar crime in the United States, most of which is ignored by law enforcement authorities on the excuse that their time is needed to combat crimes of violence. The victims are therefore forced to attempt to obtain redress in a civil lawsuit, and most are unable to obtain legal counsel. A recent estimate made by a group in Iowa suggested that 70% of the population of that state did not have enough money to retain the services of an attorney. Because most white collar criminals have learned the applicable law very well before embarking on their criminal careers and many seem to have the active assistance of local civil servants or even judges, attorneys do not see much chance of immediate success before a court and will therefore refuse to represent an indigent litigant on a contingency basis. Furthermore, many attorneys working out of small offices without a major law firm behind them hardly do better in court than pro se litigants. Therefore, as the white collar criminals, deliberate abusers of civil rights, unscrupulous business firms, and corrupt public officials become bolder, the victims have no way of protecting their property and livelihoods other than by representing themselves in a lawsuit. Even though an increasing number of pro se litigants see the courts as hostile to them and their needs for redress under the law, the flood of lawsuits grows because of the massive increase in the crimes that the current attitude of the courts has engendered.

Missing from the report by the Task Force is any adequate remedy for the actions of judges who adhere to the belief that pro se litigants do not deserve full consideration by the court. This can be justified by the self-fulfilling prophesy that pro se litigants never win. As a result, many judges believe that any time given to a lawsuit in which a litigant represents himself is wasted. Therefore, pro se litigants really do not win simply because the prophesy that they will lose is self-fulfilling.
 

Remedies that fail
If a district judge summarily dismisses the civil lawsuit of a pro se plaintiff without reviewing any of the facts and writes a short opinion that fails to address the fundamental complaint, indicating that the judge barely knew what issues the complaint addressed, the plaintiff can appeal the dismissal to the court of appeals. In a great many cases, the plaintiff receives a brief affirmation of the district judge’s opinion, which also fails to address the issues in the complaint and almost always contains the notation that the opinion cannot be cited as a precedent and should not be published.

The plaintiff can then file an appeal with the United States Supreme Court with near certainty that certiorari will not be denied. Many litigants lack the money to have their petitions for certiorari correctly printed and bound to the satisfaction of the clerk, and others fail to present the legal issues in an understandable manner. Even if all submissions are perfect, however, the petition will almost certainly be denied in favor of appeals that are given considerable publicity in the press, are promoted by major organizations, or are otherwise likely to bring fame and praise to the justices. The problems of ordinary citizens, no matter how devastating to them and their families, are ignored, and they find that they would have little more chance of success in getting a justified complaint before a jury than they would have of winning a lottery.

For example, after the courts in several circuits had summarily dismissed hundreds and perhaps thousands of lawsuits alleging employment discrimination at the complaint stage because the plaintiff had failed to provide enough hard evidence to establish a prima facie case when the complaint was submitted, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear one of the appeals from the Second Circuit. In Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. (2002), it decided unanimously that it is a gross violation of procedures to dismiss a lawsuit at this stage of the proceedings. Among the points the justices made were that a plaintiff can prevail without establishing a prima facie case at all, that a judge’s opinion of whether or not a litigant will prevail before a jury is irrelevant to decision to dismiss a lawsuit, and that it is fundamentally unfair to dismiss a lawsuit before the whole body of facts can be revealed through discovery. While this decision provided the plaintiff with a chance to have his lawsuit heard by a jury on the merits, it affirmed that thousands of litigants whose lawsuits had been improperly dismissed over the many years during which the appeals courts had been violating procedures had been left without any access to justice.

Still more perverse was the continued dismissal of lawsuits at the complaint stage, even after the Supreme Court had denounced this practice. It was well known to the judges guilty of this practice that any subsequent petitions for certiorari citing this issue would be denied on the grounds that the Supreme Court had already decided the issue and would not agree to decide it again. This would leave a litigant no way of redressing violations of his civil rights just because he had the bad luck of coming before a judge who is trying to discourage lawsuits by issuing non-precedential dismissals at the complaint stage and appeals court judges who affirm decisions of the lower court with a rubber stamp. Citing the clear opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Swiercewicz v. Sorema N.A. would have no effect on the outcome before a judge who assumes that anything filed pro se is without merit.

In case of particularly severe violations of the law, procedures, or ethics by a judge, a litigant is limited to filing a complaint with a judicial board established for hearing such complaints. Other avenues of redress are closed off because judicial immunity from civil liability was made absolute during the 1990s, even if corruption or malice motivated the judge’s actions. Experience shows that the boards investigating misconduct by judges move extremely slowly, and a litigant has roughly one chance in a thousand of having a rogue judge censured, even mildly.

It can be concluded that a litigant whose lawsuit has been dismissed because of the bias of a judge against him, a class to which he belongs, pro se litigants in general, or the kind of lawsuit he has filed has almost no chance of redress, either on appeal or in complaint proceedings against a judge. Human nature clearly dictates that when members of any group are permitted to perform illegal, immoral, and unjust actions against other persons with complete impunity, many of them will do so, some because of laziness, others because of malice, and still others in anticipation of gratuities from a favored party. A pro se litigant has no recourse against a judge who does not want his complaint heard due to bias of any kind, and the fact that a judge has the power to deny him access to a jury effectively eliminates an important civil right supposedly guaranteed by Amendment VII of the United States Constitution.
 

Common experiences of pro se litigants

The solutions proposed by the Task Force presume good will by the judges and conformity with the standards of ethics and behavior traditionally held by our society. Unfortunately, in speaking and corresponding with many pro se litigants, I have learned that there are common problems that reflect an erosion of human values and are often accompanied by abusive behavior by judges. These problems are less likely to arise when a litigant is represented by a lawyer, whose status as an “insider” in the legal profession might tend to restrain the opposing attorney and presiding judge from improper conduct. Such conduct is difficult for pro se litigants to cope with, but it is readily recognized when it occur. Eventually, pro se litigants make their opinions of the court public, and the increasing criticism leads to a general loss of faith in courts. The growing dissatisfaction of the public with the judicial system is rooted in the negative opinions developed by many litigants who know they have been improperly or illegally treated. Losing a lawsuit is fundamentally different from being denied due process and a fair hearing, and even pro se litigants without formal education in a law school can immediately tell the difference.

The most common complaints by litigants of misconduct by the courts include the following:

1. Perjury is tolerated by the judge
This complaint has been made by the great majority of pro se litigants with whom I have spoken. Very often, the false testimony is given by one or more government employees. Even when parts of the testimony are shown to be false, judges continue to give full credence to the witness in the remaining parts of the testimony. The judge then dismisses the lawsuit of a pro se litigant citing the perjured testimony as evidence that the lawsuit has no merit. Usually there are documents in the file clearly showing that the testimony was false, but these are simply disregarded by the judge.

Prosecutions for perjury have become rare to non-existent. Government employees have been given complete immunity for perjury they commit “in the line of duty,” even if it is given with malice. Government prosecutors may suborn witnesses to perjury by promising them immunity for crimes they have been accused of. It has even been alleged that government employees can be fired for refusing to give false testimony at the behest of their supervisors. Many cases are known where civil servants have advanced their own careers by deliberately misleading courts, administrative boards, and even Congress to advance a political agenda espoused by the their supervisors.

2. Records submitted to the court disappear from the files
This complaint has frequently been made. Some litigants note that the entries of the documents are still in the court records but the documents themselves have disappeared. Even if copies of the records are retained by the litigant, they usually cannot be added to a record on appeal unless they are still in the file of the lower court.

3. Judges’ opinions fail to address the issues of the lawsuit
Many litigants complain that orders for dismissal address issues that were never raised in the lawsuit and fail to address the issues that were. In light of the fact that most judges have earned a law degree, some decisions have convinced the litigants that the legal issues were deliberately misconstrued by the judge. For example, if a plaintiff seeks injunctive relief pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act and monetary relief citing the Federal Tort Claim Act, a judge may deny the injunctive relief on the grounds that there are no provisions for such relief in the Federal Tort Claim Act and that the Administrative Procedures Act does not authorize monetary relief. Similarly, a lawsuit alleging failure of the Department of Labor to investigate a discrimination complaint against a private university was dismissed on the grounds that the plaintiff was seeking Federal employment through the courts. Even a law professor from Hofstra University complained in a speech that he was tired of reading decisions that did not address the issues of the case. At best, this means that the law professor was able to understand the issues of the lawsuit from the submissions, while the judge allegedly was not. At worst, this indicates that the judge was deliberately falsifying the issues in order to justify an obviously faulty decision. According to the law professor, after he finished his speech, a judge leaned over to him and said, “You don’t know the half of it.”

4. Certain litigants must always win
One of the most harmful practices of the courts becomes most evident when statistical surveys of the outcomes of litigation are conducted. Some judges have apparently developed strong biases for or against certain kinds of lawsuit or litigant and lose sight of the fact that each case deserves a separate analysis. The outcomes of these lawsuits most frequently favor government agencies as defendants and major special interest groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, as representatives of a plaintiff. Decisions are reached without jury trial to assure that the favored litigant wins. The trend to summarily dismiss lawsuits without trials is reflected in surveys showing that more than 11% of all civil lawsuits were decided by juries in the early 1960s, while less than 2% reach a jury now.

It is not only the courts that are guilty of denying due process to protect favored litigants. Congress has also established special means of adjudication to remove the proceedings against certain agencies from the normal judicial channels. Some of the agencies established for administrative adjudication have earned a reputation for extreme bias in favor of the government agencies they are supposed to treat impartially. For example, the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB), which adjudicates complaints filed by veterans because their preference rights in the civil service have been violated, has never decided in favor of a veteran in any appeal. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is the only court with jurisdiction over appeals from the MSPB, has never decided in favor of a whistleblower, after hearing 71 appeals citing the Whistleblowers’ Protection Act. It is also doubtful whether it has ever decided in favor of a veteran, although I have yet to find records on this point. It is noteworthy that under the law, the burden of proof is on the agency, and in the case of appeals filed by whistleblowers, clear and convincing evidence is required, giving whistleblowers a clear benefit of the doubt. Nevertheless, the agency always wins in such appeals, as well as those brought under veterans’ laws.

The Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) accepts employment discrimination complaints from veterans. All complaints it receives are not maintained in the agency files, but of 1029 complaints it did place in its records in 2001, five were brought to the courts, but only one was adjudicated as a civil lawsuit.

Any lawsuits brought by a plaintiff pro per fall into the category of “thousand to one shots,” but so do discrimination lawsuits brought against government agencies with the assistance of “B” or “C-class” lawyers. Similarly, civil rights and employment discrimination lawsuits routinely fail, unless a major special interest group supports one of the parties.

Any time lawsuits that depend on an individual interpretation of the facts are decided so preponderantly in favor of one party without the assistance of a jury, suspicion of bias is justified. In conflicts between human beings, rank, job title, or affiliation do not determine which party has followed the law and which party has broken it. If the supervisor prevails one thousand times in whistleblower appeals for every time the whistleblower prevails, it is clear that the adjudication has not been impartial. This conclusion is given great support by the findings of Congress that reprisal against whistleblowers is a problem of massive proportions in the civil service, requiring several amendments to make the Whistleblowers’ Protection Act considerably stronger. That the efforts of Congress have been consistently undermined by the judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reflects an imbalance that has been developing between the powers of the legislative and judicial branches in recent years.

5. Different standards are applied to different litigants
Powerful plaintiffs seek to delay litigation until the opponent dies or is forced to end the litigation for financial reasons. Some well-represented litigants do not respond to the summons until a motion for default has been entered, and judges routinely excuse the failure and refuse to enter a default judgment. The same judges are quick to dismiss lawsuits because a pro se plaintiff has missed a deadline by one or two days, even when the cause of the delay was beyond the control of the litigant. The lack of impartiality is plainly evident when one party is permitted unlimited delays, in spite of the fact that the United States Department of Justice or a major law firm with a large staff of lawyers is representing that party, while a pro se litigant forced to act alone is held to the strictest standards stipulated in the FRCP and local rules. Allowing one litigant unlimited delays while the other is facing severe financial difficulties as long as the lawsuit remains unsettled is a tactic that clearly violates judicial fairness and at least the spirit of the United States Constitution, which demands a speedy trial in criminal matters and, by implication, reasonable speed in settling civil disputes, as well.

6. Recent handling of civil lawsuits by the courts have instigated a white collar crime wave
Many successful white collar criminals have obtained the cooperation of local courts to defraud private citizens out of large sums of money, often leaving the victim destitute. A few of the methods frequently used include abuse of bankruptcy procedures to loot estates, illegal foreclosures on real estate, seizure of cash or property without due process, and fraud during divorce proceedings.

Federal courts should have jurisdiction over obvious frauds perpetrated by state courts under the RICO statute and civil rights laws. However, failure of effective action by Federal judges to stop obvious fraud perpetrated by colleagues employed by state and local government encourages larcenous state officials, including judges, to conclude that their positions allow them to illegally enrich themselves at the expense of selected victims with complete impunity.

Litigants who have sought protection from state and local criminal gangs in Federal courts have encountered many years of delays, denial of jury trials, and refusals to issue decisions justified by the facts of the case. Many abuses have come to public attention in recent years, but the crime wave has grown so rapidly, many of the practices have not received sufficient publicity to warn potential victims. Crimes like identity theft, fraudulent foreclosure, fraud in stating fees and interest charges, and abuses of eminent domain have become epidemic throughout the United States. They can financially ruin victims, who have not found effective protection through either criminal or civil procedures.

7. Court orders go unheeded 
Failure of courts to enforce their own orders granting relief to litigants may eventually result in more difficulties than adjudicating the initial petition for relief. Plaintiffs may prevail but gain no redress from the decision because judges refuse to issue effective orders mandating the remedies demanded by a jury. This is a problem that often arises when the delinquent party is a government agency. Common examples of deliberate resistance to court orders include ignoring orders to produce documents requested under the Freedom of Information or Privacy Act and failure of public officials to obey orders to return money or property unlawfully taken from citizens by law enforcement agencies.

8. Judges give orders contrary to law and accepted standards of behavior
Opposite the failure to enforce just orders for relief is issuing orders demanding illegal or obviously impractical relief from litigants. Examples of practices that have become common during the past few years include demands for support payments from one party to divorce proceedings that exceed the total earnings of the person ordered to pay, jailing of indigent litigants who cannot pay what the court has demanded of them for other reasons, removal of children from their natural parents without due process, and imposition of medical treatment on minor children without informing their parents.

9. Judges refuse to take actions required by law
Many routine actions required of judges have created barriers to the enforcement of laws as intended by Congress. An excellent example of this is the action usually taken after a litigant complaints that he cannot obtain documents requested pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. This law was passed by Congress because of the great resistance shown by Federal civil servants to making their unclassified documents available to the general public. Records created through the use of tax money should belong to the public and be made available on request.

Congress obviously intended that documents formally requested be made available immediately. It therefore specified a waiting period of no more than ten working days and permitted a person who requested the records to file a lawsuit to obtain the documents if the agency is not forthcoming. It requires agencies to assist people making requests to identify the documents and to provide the documents after charging only minimal copying fees.

Obviously, to uphold this law as Congress intended, a judge must order immediate release of the records to the court for distribution to the plaintiff after the court has ruled on any objections the agency has made to their release. Because obtaining records as quickly as possible is often necessary for a litigant to obtain some benefit to which he is entitled, complete an article for publication in a newspaper or periodical, or protect himself of a relative from the consequences of false information about him being distributed with official records, the rapid availability of records is vital.

Instead of upholding the high standards demanded by the Freedom of Information Act, judges have consistently permitted lawsuits to obtain public information to drag on for several years, often making the intended use of the documents impossible. Judges seem to attempt to avoid issuing orders to government agencies, even when the law mandates this. They fail to review contested records in camera, as provided for in the law, and simply hope the plaintiff will eventually withdraw his demand for the documents. Although obtaining documents often costs plaintiffs excessive amounts of money for the litigation, judges seldom offer the monetary relief specified in the law. They also fail to impose the requirement of the law that photocopy fees be reasonable. While private shops provide photocopies for 5 cents or less, agencies may charge exorbitant amounts to copy their documents. For example, about two years ago, one agency demanded 31 cents for each copy, or more than 6 times the price on the private market.

The failure of the courts to impose sanctions on civil servants who make it a sport to defy the Freedom of Information Act has led to the development of procedures to keep public documents out of the hands of citizens who want to obtain them.

10. Courts have become inconsistent and arbitrary
Courts have recently begun to establish very confusing precedents, reverse their own decisions, and ignore real issues rather than settling them. In recent years, different Courts of Appeals have issued opposite interpretations of the same law, making one action legal under the jurisdiction of one circuit and illegal under the jurisdiction of another. Because the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari each time a litigant attempted to obtain a definitive decision on some of these matters, Federal law can mean one thing in one circuit and the opposite in another. For example, whether or not Federal law permits factory workers to speak with each other in a language other than English depends upon the area of the country in which the factory is located.

Changing public opinion or even an unusual personal opinion held by the judge to whom the case has been assigned may result in a lawsuit being decided in a manner contrary to other recent decisions in nearly identical cases. When judicial opinions on the interpretation of a law are continually fluctuating because one judge approves of the law while another does not, whichever litigant loses will feel cheated by the court because other litigants in exactly in the same position won their lawsuits. This situation causes more litigants to risk a lawsuit rather than settling the dispute out of court because winning or losing depends only on the whim of the judge hearing the case rather than on a consistent and unambiguous interpretation of the law. An advantage of being represented by counsel is often the knowledge he brings concerning which judges will be sympathetic to the litigant’s case and which will favor the other party. In an impartial system, such considerations would not be a factor. The founding fathers hoped to eliminate this problem by insisting that decisions be rendered by juries, but by increasingly usurping the duties of the jurors, judges have permitted their own beliefs on the wisdom of individual laws to override the stated intentions of Congress. Because all judges do not hold the same opinions, an increasing inconsistency in decisions is becoming an increasing problem for pro se litigants and lawyers, alike.

11. Federalism theory interferes with practical justice
In recent history, Federal courts have intervened in many disputes between citizens and individual states, where the state court system was clearly violating or assisting in the violation of civil rights. Since the first Civil Rights statutes were passed in 1871, Congress has shown a clear intent to place the guarantees in Amendments XIII, XIV, and XV above the limitations on suits against states in Amendment XI. Federal courts belatedly struck down state laws deliberately passed to bar Americans of African descent from voting, attending schools with white children, and using public facilities. These rulings have clearly focused the attention of the nation on the fact that states are prone to commit actions against their citizens that violate Federal guarantees defined as civil and human rights by our Constitution.

Recently, the theory of federalism has been revived, and Federal courts have become less willing to interfere with the actions of state courts, no matter how unjust and reprehensible. One of the most important reasons for Federal courts to exist is to provide citizens with a final recourse against clearly illegal actions committed by state and local government, which are much more likely to fall under the influence of criminal conspirators than the much more diverse Federal system. If the Federal courts disqualify themselves from settling disputes between citizens and state governments, they have clearly left the citizens vulnerable to losing their civil rights through clearly illegal actions by small, corrupt political machines.
 

Remedies

What is the court supposed to do?
The basic reason for establishing a judicial system is to settle disputes that are addressed by existing laws. It has been repeatedly stated by experts on matters judicial in the United States that the ultimate goal is to decide all matters on the merits. That means to most reasonable persons that the court should concern itself with two factors and only two factors: the law and the material facts. The blindfold on the statue of Justice is there to keep attention on the scales and not on the race, color, national origin, age, gender, appearance, financial condition, social position, or friends of the litigants.

It stands to reason that a pro se litigant has as much chance of being entitled to relief according to the law and the facts as the litigant with enough money to afford the services of the best law firm in the country. The reason everyone who can afford it will seek the services of a class A law firm is that the presentation of the law and facts of the case in the arguments is reputed to sway judges and juries toward the side of one client where the issues are not entirely clear. However, if skill in arguing becomes the sole criterion for determining who prevails in a lawsuit, then the courts have failed in their duty to provide a fully impartial forum for presenting the facts.

The Task Force must address one primary problem: a failure of the court to be impartial. This failure is usually apparent from the outcome of lawsuits. If pro se litigants always or almost always lose, then the courts have failed. No class of litigants is right or wrong 100% of the time. If one person comes to the court for revenge after being fired for poor performance, the court cannot conclude that the next person raising the same claim was not fired for failing to become an accomplice to illegal actions his boss is engaged in, for belonging to a race that the boss does not like, or for being too old when the boss wants only youthful employees. If a father must be kept away from children he is abusing, that does not mean that the next father who seeks custody of his children is abusing them as well. If personal property was seized from one person because of his refusal to pay taxes, it cannot be concluded that there is no merit in the lawsuit of the next person who complains that his property was illegally confiscated by corrupt public officials.

As already discussed, pro se lawsuits are increasing for several reasons, which have nothing to do with the law or the facts in each individual case. These include 1) a white collar crime wave encouraged by the failure of prosecutors and judges to focus on anything but violent crime; 2) a breakdown in government accountability resulting in civil servants wasting funds on a massive scale and abusing the rights of citizens; 3) an increasing resistance by large corporations to being held accountable for the harm they do to ordinary citizens; 4) the continual erosion of traditional values, which formerly placed limits on the excesses society would tolerate; and 5) the combination of lower earnings by the average American and the increasing fees demanded by competent lawyers. A strict enforcement of the law and increasing penalties for wrongdoing would do much to eliminate all of these reasons. Misconduct will increase as long as most perpetrators escape all consequences for their actions and penalties remain inconsequential. Supply and demand regulate what lawyers charge and will result in lower fees when the causes for the increasing number of lawsuits are eliminated.

If the courts were functioning fairly and efficiently, the outcome of a lawsuit would be relatively easy to predict according the circumstances and not dependent on non-merit factors. That means that a pro se litigant showing that his rights under any law had been violated and that he had suffered some kind of harm because of the violation would face no reduction in his chances of success because he was not represented by a lawyer. Only the law, which he would not necessarily have to cite correctly, and the facts of the case would determine the outcome. Any reduction in the chances of his success with a meritorious claim would indicate that the court has not fulfilled its function. The Task Force need only focus on a pro se litigant’s chance of success with a meritorious claim to have performed its duties to the complete satisfaction of all.

If a pro se litigant fails to prevail in spite of the fact that his claim is meritorious, the system has failed. The Task Force should seek remedies assuring that each meritorious claim results in the relief prescribed by law regardless of whether or not the litigant is represented by counsel. It should seek a review process by which sufficient attention is given to each lawsuit to assure that the prejudice of one judge cannot perpetrate a miscarriage of justice for any reason. This may well require an increase in the personnel assigned to review each appeal and an increased recruitment of jurors. If so, then Congress should be forcefully informed that increased funding will be required.

It should not be the concern of the Task Force that baseless claims, lawsuits filed to harass, or esoteric challenges to established institutions are not given an appreciable amount of legal aid. It should also not concern the Task Force that jury decisions are challenged by the litigants who do not prevail. However, if almost every lawsuit filed pro se is dismissed without a trial, it should be clear that due process is not being provided by the courts.

The solution in the United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States includes all necessary ingredients for making the courts function fairly and efficiently. In clear and concise English, it is demanded that every person accused of a crime and every litigant in a lawsuit involving more than $20 has a right to a trial by jury. It does not provide for judges substituting their opinions for the decision of a jury of peers. It requires speedy trial of persons indicted for crimes and assures that the common law rights enjoyed by the English colonists at the time the United States declared its independence are respected. Later amendments guaranteed every citizen equal treatment under the law.

Determining whether any claim is meritorious after the facts have been presented belongs to a jury. It is a basic right of every litigant to have a jury decide whether or not he prevails based on the evidence presented. A judge may rig the outcome of a jury trial by refusing to let a litigant present material evidence or by giving false instructions to the jury. However, most complaints by pro se litigants result from their being denied any trial by jury at all.

Any litigant, with or without counsel, must provide a complaint alleging that a specific law was violated causing him some form of damage or denying him some right. As an example, we can take the typical outcome of what should be an open and shut case to see whether the Constitution is being followed. The Privacy Act requires correction of false records concerning any citizen, and a citizen files a complaint that an agency is maintaining records about him that he alleges are false. The Court is empowered to review the record and the evidence that the person presents and order correction or removal of the record. It also authorizes damages to the person who demanded the change and reasonable legal costs. Congress expressed the demand that agency responses be prompt.

In a typical case, the agency would respond to the complaint by claiming various immunities and file a motion for dismissal based on irrelevant claims of privilege and sovereign immunity. The matter would remain on the docket for more than a year without any action being taken, and finally the judge would dismiss the lawsuit. There would be no review of the records by either a judge or a jury, no review of the evidence, no discovery to reveal other relevant matters, and no consideration of the material facts. The judge would simply have assumed that the case would have no merit because it was filed pro se and any attention given to it would be a waste of time.

In such a case, there would be no question that the plaintiff alleged a violation of a law and that the law specifically waived sovereign immunity and authorized specific relief. That records existed would not be challenged, and neither would the existence of evidence calling the accuracy of the records into question. What was lacking is a review of the challenged records, a review of the evidence, and an impartial hearing to determine whether the preponderance of evidence indicates that the records are false.

Such a decision would naturally be unpublished, keeping it from the scrutiny of the legal profession, and the judge would enjoy absolute immunity whether or not the decision was in accord with the letter and spirit of the law. It should be obvious that the simple demands made of the judiciary by the Constitution were not followed. There was no due process, no fact-finding, no review by a jury, and different treatment given to the plaintiff than he would have received if he had been represented by a major law firm or an influential organization. The remedy in this case would be simply for a judge to follow the procedures outlined in the Constitution. The improvement of the treatment of pro se litigants would simply entail following the procedures spelled out in the Constitution and in the wording of the Privacy Act, itself. By not doing this, the judge was deliberately producing a chilling effect to keep other citizens from filing lawsuits under the Privacy Act. If any government agent maliciously creates a false record after a dispute with a citizen, the record must remain to mislead anyone who reads in the future. The Privacy Act has therefore been repealed at the whim of one judge without any allegation that the statute violates the Constitution in any way, and it is made clear that the repeal by judicial fiat applies only in the case of the one plaintiff and may be reversed in the next decision if the plaintiff is deemed worthier by the judge. Equal treatment under the law therefore becomes another casualty of the court.

Another example of a failure to meet the Constitutional mandates would be a lawsuit involving employment discrimination based on age. It is evident from the wording of the law and earlier decisions of the Supreme Court that proof of motive is irrelevant in such cases because motive can be implied from circumstances. If a government agency passes over the 50-year-old plaintiff in spite of his 25 years of relevant experience and high examination score in favor of a 30-year-old applicant with three years of experience and a low examination score, the decision should provide relief for the plaintiff unless the agency can show that there was a valid reason for the choice. However, judges routinely dismiss such cases without a jury trial on the defense of a simple denial by the agency, even though any ordinary person would consider the denial to be without merit and contrary to the fact presented in the documents filed with the court. Again, the decision is unpublished, and appeal results in a rubber-stamped affirmation. With absolute immunity, the judge has nothing to fear even though a clear issue of fact remained to be decided by a jury under the Constitutional formula, and he illegally usurped the functions of the jury to create a chilling effect on the public and thereby discourage other people from filing what he regards as litigation that is too time-consuming.

In the examples given here, no problem exists with the laws cited, the issues are clear, and the relief is spelled out in the statutes. All submissions are timely, and no requirements for further fact-finding are recognized by the judge. The problem for the pro se litigants in such cases could not be remedied by better instruction on preparing submissions, assistance of law school students, or more helpful clerks. The problem is the failure of a judge to proceed according to common law and recognize the Constitutional rights of one of the litigants. It could only be remedied by making the judges follow established procedures without allowing their own personal opinions or prejudices to interfere with due process.

The search for remedies by the Task Force
The remedies to the problems not addressed by the Task Force involve changing the attitudes of judges toward litigants. While there are people who attempt to convince the court to make fundamental changes rightfully belonging to the legislative branch and others who use litigation for revenge or to vex an enemy, most people seeking the assistance of a court to settle a dispute do so because necessity demands it. Some people are forced to file several lawsuits because unscrupulous office holders are able to create multiple problems for them, motivated by personal dislike, political disputes, or a desire to obtain a coveted piece of property. The civil rights movement clearly revealed the extent to which officers of state and local government, including judges, are willing to go to violate the rights of individuals because of their political activities or because they belong to certain minorities. Federal courts are the last resort of many people who find themselves robbed of their fundamental rights.

The remedies suggested by the Task Force might be sufficient if all judges and court officials were competent, honest, and incorruptible. If one judge does not live up to the high standards demanded of him, there must be some kind of machinery established to undo the damage he does. However, a litigant soon finds that if he is unfortunate enough to have his case assigned to a less than competent, opinionated, or dishonest judge, his chances for redress of his grievances have been eliminated even before the proceedings start. The eclipse of the jury trial as the main means of settling lawsuits has brought about a preponderance of “fast track” summary judgements, rubber stamped by inattentive appeals court judges, and deemed unworthy of consideration by the Supreme Court. Judges have made themselves impervious to complaints of misconduct and have even provided immunity to anyone employed by any government agency. The pro se plaintiff is therefore left without legal, civil, or human rights for wont of a means of having those rights recognized and upheld.

Short of setting up an entirely new system of courts to pass judgement on the ones we already have, remedies will have to entail a more impartial treatment of lawsuits by judges. A person’s social standing must no longer have an impact on a court’s decision. The best way of preventing lawsuits from being rigged in favor of an influential or political powerful litigant is to leave decisions to a jury. If individual jurors are biased, there should hopefully be other jurors on the same jury who will hold different opinions. It is also much more difficult to influence 12 randomly selected citizens than it is to improperly influence one judge. Jury trials are made mandatory by the Constitution in most cases, so there is no reason for them to be denied short of a litigant’s obvious failure to demonstrate any law that might authorize relief of any kind.

The overriding factor that will eliminate almost all genuine problems faced by pro se litigants is a restoration of strict ethics and impartiality to members of the court. If a person’s legal rights have been violated, it is an absolute duty of the judge to provide him with a fair hearing and every opportunity to present the evidence that he has. If the judge does this, allows the issues of fact to be decided by an impartial jury, and provides equitable relief to the prevailing party, the recommendations of the Task Force would be sufficient to provide fairness to pro se litigants. If, however, any judge fails to live up to his responsibilities, there must be another means of redress provided to correct the injustice created by the court when it denies due process. An oversight body would have to be sufficiently independent, unbiased, and competent to determine not only the merits of the original lawsuit but also the fairness of the presiding judge. A special grand jury composed of ordinary citizens might be established to pre-sort all lawsuits in order to recommend those that lack merit for early dismissal and refer all others to the judge for trial by jury. It might also be given oversight of the actions of judges that may be prejudicial to one of the parties.

An alternative to this would be to remove all civil immunity from judges. This might result in a flood of lawsuits against judges, but it would be a deterrent to unjustified dismissal of lawsuits prior to jury trial. Aside from obviously doctoring the evidence or giving the jury false information about the laws under which the lawsuit was brought, no failure by the judge could result in his being found liable for misconduct as long as he permitted the decision to be made by a jury.

Other effective remedies might also be found, but it is suggested here that the Task Force should consider the worst case scenario, in which all judges handling the initial proceedings and the appeals fail to perform their duties in the prescribed way. It should then consider the best methods to 1) uphold the litigant’s legal rights by overturning the initial decision against him; 2) take action against the judge who rendered the decision to prevent the incident from repeating itself during actions brought by other litigants; 3) hold a trial by jury unless waived by all litigants; 4) provide suitable relief, and 5) see to it that the orders of the court are promptly carried out. 

Closing words

No demands are made here other than that the courts function as close to the system foreseen by the founding fathers as humanly possible. A decision for a lawsuit on the merits with consideration given only to the law and the material facts has become an unattainable dream for the majority of American citizens. Errors cannot be avoided, but it is the duty of all judges sitting on a court to minimize errors to the point that they become extremely rare. Many of the cases tossed out of the courts based on flimsy technicalities involve the life savings, health, or even the survival of one of the litigants. The Task Force is in an excellent position to insist on a review of the court’s actions, and it should do so. If bias for or against members of any one group is found, swift action should be taken to correct the injustice. In the long run, it will depend upon the court itself to determine whether or not it wants to bring justice under the law to all people who seek relief from it. If the court takes effective action, the improvement will surely quiet all criticism. If it does not, public indignation is sure to increase to the point that Congress will be required to take some decisive action.

Prepared by Charles W. Heckman, Dr. Sci.
Submitted in behalf of A Matter of Justice Coalition
See http://www.amatterofjustice.org

Charles W. Heckman, Dr. Sci., habil., Professor, researcher, lecturer, speaker, writer, Washington State coordinator for the Veterans’ Voting Bloc, Member of the Board of Directors of A Matter of Justice Coalition, presently producing a series of at least 10 volumes for identifying South American aquatic insects to species. Three of the volumes have already been published.