The General's President (38 page)

The role of the judge is changed considerably. Although the judge has not usually "judged," he or she has weighed too heavily in the courtroom. As a generality, the judge has had more authority than has proved wise for one person to have in court. The judge, like anyone else, has prejudices and blind spots, and today perhaps a snootful of cocaine. In your own studies, you have indicated that cocaine use among judges and attorneys has become a serious problem in justice proceedings.

The judge has been the court executive who guided the proceedings and assessed what the penalty would be. Usually it has been the jury that has judged guilt or innocence, but its decision has had to be
within the limits of what the judge says the law really means and how it applies.
And at times, judges have rejected a jury's decision of guilt or innocence.

Our changes will help the jury judge the case with greater justice and speed. The jury now will also decide the penalty, within certain guidelines,
and penalties will commonly include restitution and amends.
And the jury will have the authority to
decide the law
—to decide for itself how the law applies, within broad legal guidelines, considering the stated or apparent intent of the people who made the law.

The judge is required to explain and to advise the jury on the law. He may point out precedent. But the jury may ignore his advice and reject precedent. The judge has no authority to order them, nor tell them what they should do, nor try to coerce them, in matters of the law. The jury is free to interpret the law according to the jury's own view of its intent and its application to the case, subject as always to appeal.

And very important, the jury will have the right to insist that the court ask certain questions of the accused; and of the principals in a civil suit; and of witnesses. The procedures for doing this are described in the reform package. The jury can even require that the attorneys and the judge answer the jury's questions, where the jury feels it necessary to clarify what the truth is and what justice requires.

Because we are looking for a maximum of justice. We are no longer treating a courtroom as a gaming place for lawyers.

And we are looking toward justice as justice is viewed by the citizens. On the whole, courts dominated by judges have not done an adequate job, and I believe that citizen jurors will do better.

Incidentally, the jury will have another right. If a jury agrees that a law, or part of a law, is ridiculous, or poorly written, or for any reason is a poor law, they can recommend that it be reviewed for possible cancellation, alteration, or replacement. They must judge the case at hand according to the law as it is, but they can recommend that the law be reviewed, saying why. There will be review panels for that purpose.

The most severe penalty will be imprisonment without liberation until judged by a board of citizens as safe for society. And the safety standards will be more stringent than often has been the case. Let me repeat, that is the most severe penalty.

Earlier I mentioned restitution and amends. There you have one of the principles this new system stresses: personal responsibility. I want to emphasize that. Whether convicted of a misdemeanor or a felony, the person convicted is likely to be assessed restitution, to be paid to the individuals or institutions they have harmed. And they can be required to make appropriate amends to society. If nothing else, their amends will include court costs.

This is not a matter of additional punishment. It is a matter of being responsible for the damage one has done, as judged by a jury of citizens.

Which brings up a related matter. If a crime so attracts publishers or film makers that they want to buy the book rights or film rights from the criminal, the proceeds that normally would go to the criminal as author or coauthor or story source will go first toward restitution to the injured, and if any is left, it will be paid to the court as an amends to society. The agent who handles it can of course receive a reasonable commission, and any writer who assists with the manuscript or script can receive a reasonable fee. But kickbacks will be treated as felonies.

And now about civil law.

This nation has a history of lawsuits and even criminal charges being filed which proved to be clearly unfounded. Sometimes suits have been filed to harass or defame someone. Sometimes they have been made simply for publicity. And frequently they have been filed in hopes of getting an out-of-court settlement from someone who wants to avoid the time, expense, and publicity of a court case. From now on, filing a clearly unfounded case will be a good way for a lawyer to get himself tried on felony charges, fined, disbarred, and possibly imprisoned.

Which brings us to what may be the most disgraceful area in the American legal system: liability claims. Some decades ago, I recall a case where three teenage boys saw a tractor in a farm field in Kansas. The farmer had driven home in his pickup truck to eat lunch. The boys went out into the field, trespassing, started the tractor and drove off with it. One fell off and was run over, suffering severe injuries.

So—His parents sued the farmer!

And the court did what? Did they charge the boys with trespassing? No. With illegally driving the tractor? No. With reckless driving? No. They awarded the injured boy's family half a million dollars. In 1960, that was equivalent to about two million of last year's dollars.

Say that their lawyer got thirty percent. That happens in liability claims. So let's say that after taxes the family itself ended up with what amounted to one million of last year's dollars. Invested through a reputable brokerage firm, that could easily provide an income of $80,000 a year. So here was a kid who broke the law, and as a result his family had an income far far greater than the average family's.

Here was a teenage boy who not only was not held responsible for his own actions, his own foolishness and heedlessness, his own lawbreaking, but who was rewarded for it!

I won't tell you what I think, and what most Americans think, of the lawyer. Or the judge. Or the court. Can the legal profession possibly interpret this as justice? One can hardly avoid wondering if the judge received a kickback from the lawyer, who morally smells like a profiteering criminal.

Perhaps more remarkable was the case of the man who swallowed, or half swallowed—an office staple puller! It's not easy to half-swallow a staple puller. It's not easy to imagine a grown man putting one in his mouth! He very nearly choked to death, and surgery was necessary to remove it. Then, with the help of a lawyer who deserved to be put in jail, he—
Sued the manufacturer because the staple puller did not have the warning: harmful if swallowed!
And more incredible yet, he was awarded $400,000 damages! I don't know what the lawyer's cut was of that award. Twenty percent? Thirty?

A large majority of Americans consider such legal actions outrageous and shameful. Your own public surveys have established that unequivocally. Yet apparently the American Bar Association considers such actions ethical. Right? Because through its membership, it has had the necessary power to end them, and hasn't done it. However you might rationalize this, it seems clear that the fat bank account has outweighed ethical considerations in your organization.

And whose money is given away in these outrageous grants? The insurance company's money? In a way, yes. But really, it was everyone's money who bought insurance, which is most families, because their premiums had to be made high enough to pay for the judicial stupidity, the judicial irresponsibility, the you-help-me-get-mine-and-I'll-help-you-get-yours greed that resulted in such awards. The many many such cases cost everyone who bought insurance a great deal of money. Everyone except the gougers.

And worst of all, it degraded public confidence and helped make the law and the courts contemptible in the eyes of many Americans.

Of course, many liability suits are proper and just. People do injure others, intentionally or through ignorance or carelessness. In such cases the person being sued should be held accountable for their actions, and damages assessed which are just and reasonable. But it is not acceptable that people be rewarded for their own carelessness, their own stupidity, sometimes their own avarice, even their own trespassing, at the expense of the rest of us.

So we are finally starting to get rid of these expensive comedy shows. Damage awards will depend on
actual
damage,
actual
liability, and reasonable legal fees. And if cases are brought which are as flagrantly predatory as the examples I mentioned, the case will not only be thrown out; the lawyer will be disbarred and the plaintiffs quite possibly fined.

Only
actual
damages will be rewarded, not punitive damages. I'll repeat that. Only actual damages will be rewarded, not punitive damages. If punishment is appropriate, then instead of punishing with punitive damages, criminal charges will be filed and punishment carried out that way.

The majority of liability cases fall under state instead of federal law. But this legal reform package has considerably extended what cases can be tried in federal courts. And it makes certain new requirements of state and local courts. As a matter of fact, we have gone to the very limits of constitutionality on this. But the federal government has just so much authority and no more. So if you, both lawyers and citizens, like what I've said here today, then use all the pressure necessary to get similar reforms written into state law. If your local legislator gives you alibis instead of action, then find someone who will give you action and elect him to the legislature.

And I hope you'll write your senators and representatives to Congress, letting them know how you feel about this. I'm sure they'll want to know. Perhaps your newspaper will list their addresses, and those of your state legislators.

Now one last thing. Although a decent system of defense in law, a decent system of justice, is much more important than the self-interest of any establishment, it is conceivable that a few people in the legal profession may try to sabotage this legal reform and make it fail. I would advise against that. The government will cheerfully file criminal charges in such instances. A judge guilty of malfeasance may find himself on a prison farm, experiencing the joys of field labor of the sort he may himself have meted out to other criminals.

And that's all I have to say on this reform. To you members of the bar, I'm sorry if, at times, I've seemed to lump honest attorneys with the dishonest. I've worked closely now with three of you who are deeply interested in correcting these things. And they have referred me to studies made by others of you who have worked long and hard at trying to correct these problems. It's too bad that so many others of you blocked their efforts or at least did not pitch in and help them push.

To the many non-attorneys listening to me on television and radio, to a considerable degree I am putting the federal justice system in your hands, as jurors. I invite you to write and tell me what you think of these changes.

Thank you all for listening to me.

THIRTY-FOUR

They unloaded from the smooth quiet of Air Force One at Houston: the president, four cabinet secretaries, Senate president pro tem Louie Grosberg, House speaker Ken Lynch, and six Secret Service men. They were met by Brigadier General Harvest Ballister and his aide, and transferred to an army helicopter, a Sikorsky S-70 outfitted for VIP shuttle duty. For this mission it would be known as Army One.

The people from Washington had been briefed before they'd left the capital. They had the general picture, of which a key part was Ballister. Large, black, young for a general, he was in charge of the internment camps that held people arrested under martial law for rioting and associated violence. Or those still being held. The biggest single element were blacks, though there were plenty of "anglos" and Hispanics.

The chopper lifted and swung away northward, crossing the city's eastern suburbs, then flew out over a pattern of forest, housing developments, and farmland where morning sunlight glinted on occasional ponds. On their line of flight, scattered housing developments continued for miles from the city, the traffic from them funneling conveniently down country roads to the divided concrete strips of US 59 and thence to Houston.

After about fifty miles—twenty minutes—the last developments had been left behind. Ahead stretched national forest, broken here and there by logged-off patches and by their destination, the square, fenced enclosure of an internment center. The initial tent camp had been replaced by a war-time style military hutment built partly by its inmates, its shacks more suitable for winter than the tents would have been.

Except for three uniformed greeters, no one seemed to be there as the S-70 settled to the helipad. The sound of rotors and engines stilled, and the passengers got out, squinting in the sun, zipping jackets against a thin chill breeze.

"This, gentlemen," Ballister said, "is the San Jacinto Internment Center, one of sixteen still occupied. Except for the "D" camp in Nevada, this one's the farthest west; they're scattered from here to South Carolina."

He turned to the reception party. "This is Captain Roberg, the camp commander, and this is his project officer, Mr. Castro." After Roberg had introduced his master sergeant, Ballister continued. "Captain, the president and these other gentlemen have seen a brief written summary of the internment camp system. Why don't you show us around and give us the specifics of your particular operation?"

Roberg did. First they looked into one of the huts, covered with green asphalt siding. Inside at each end was a small, wood-burning, sheet-metal stove and a dozen single-deck bunks, everything orderly, everything clean. The messhall was of similar construction, but much larger. The latrine-laundry-shower house was scrubbed and odor-free, the big, stainless steel washers and dryers wiped clean, the porcelain washbowls and commodes shiny white.

Outside again, Roberg pointed. "And that," he said, "is the classroom building. Unless you insist, I won't take you inside now; it would disturb the classes. What I'd prefer to do next is show you some of the project work the men have done."