A response to Drew A Swank, Esq, Pro Se Ligation ---



Response

By

Sampson I.M Onwuka

Outline of a review

                                                                              


A review of ‘The Pro Se Phenomenon’ by Drew A. Swank, Esq….should have started differently, but the main focus is Lois Bloom and Hershkoff presentation on the ‘Plaintiff Pro Se’ which cover a range of interesting scenario, for instance, “Why would anyone choose to go to court without a lawyer? ., he argues that It is a "...simple question" given the many live shows and drama tan day dram that feature self represented  parties, one of which is “Judge Judy” where private citizens or the people argue their own cases. He argues that "Such pro se appearances typically result in the parties being mocked, berated, and the law ignored. 1 These examples hardly show any positive aspects of going to court without counsel..." citing  the ominous Attorneys’ lexicon that “one who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.”




We relive some of Drew A. Swank commentary that concerning the earliest cases of 

court proceeding and defenses, that, “The Judiciary Act of 1789 was an early 

codification of this belief. It granted “parties the right to ‘plead and conduct their 

own case personally’ in any court of the United States.”14 Many states, either through

their constitutions or statutorily,also provide individuals with the right to proceed pro 

se.15 It is unclear, however, if there is a right to self-representation pursuant to the 

United States Constitution.16 The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants the 
right to have assistance of counsel; by implication, the Amendment has served as a 

basis to hold that criminal defendants can waive that right and appear pro se.17 

Additionally, the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments have served as support for the right of individuals to have access to the courts without being represented.”


 
The under-listed as items that we can move from discussion, that the rate of self-representing has added due to.....



 (1) "increased literacy rates,


(2) "increased sense of consumerism,

"(Goldschmidt, The Pro Se Litigant’s Struggle for Access to Justice: Meeting the Challenge of Bench and Bar Resistance, supra note 4. 47. Id.)

(3) "Increased sense of individualism and belief in one’s own abilities, 48

(4), "an anti-lawyer sentiment, 49

(5), "a mistrust of the legal system, 50

(6), "a belief that the public defender in criminal cases is overburdened, 51

(7), "a belief that the court will do what is right whether the party is represented or not, 52

(8), "a belief that litigation has been simplified to the point that attorneys are not needed, 53 and

(9), "a trial strategy designed to gain either sympathy 54 or a procedural advantage over represented parties.”

“While these individuals could bring their problems to court themselves, there are multiple reasons why they do not. These include:

(1), "the belief that legal intervention would not help,

(2), "concerns about the cost even without attorneys,

(3), "the belief that the problem was not serious or “legal” enough to take to court,

(4), "the desire to avoid confrontation, and

(5), "the desire to handle the problem on their own”

“There are many reasons for the growth of pro se litigation other than the cost of securing legal assistance. Some of the reasons cited in various surveys include;


It took individual complain in Buchanan v. Warley (1917) – to Supreme court to strike  down an ordinance that disallowed the residency of Blacks in White neighborhoods. In Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938) – Lloyd L. Gaines – tried to get into the Law school of Missouri – but been turned down, he urged the State to react, but the petition was delayed and was somewhat denied, but the Supreme Court struck down the ordinance after series of consultation. In the case of McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950) following a complain that he was forced to sit in a separate place that his complaint to the court forced a court intervention and eventually ruled it unconstitutional to force....
 

It was plaintiff ligation that and Pro se hearing that began series of review on the rights of individuals to pursue voting choice and defend their own candidate through the means necessary. It was plaintiff ligation, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) in which the Supreme Court acted that all segregation in School was illegal – arguing from the fourteenth Amendments; that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Right Acts of 1965 was grounds for management and voting rights, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) all began with Complaints to the Judiciary – initially with intent at reversing misplaced constitutional laws and interdiction. 




There are special cases which need not mention, which begin as Complaint to the Court;  for instance, Blacks as farmworkers, tenants, or sharecroppers cobblers, some of them worked for whites in general after the end of civil war experienced hostilities with underlining issues of emancipation. In some part of the South, the old confederacy still held through and refused to accept the equality of special races. The Courts in the South claimed to have been primarily concerned with so many complains by these new claimers edged in by the new constitutional reality failed to either tolerate or eschew the ‘partisan behavior’ in interpreting the law leading to a traditional process of selection that infer justice before judgment.

There are other cases of plaintiff ligation end up class action - which rarely happens, one of which is the featured protection of the 15th Amendment but was resisted on the plausible grounds of two races and little else in between requiring different treatment. It torched the politics which the court could not keep from policies and in the end, it entered the voting booth where blacks for instance were not selected for voting in specific areas which were mostly white neighborhood where the voting took place. 




It argue selectively, we will arrive at a point that the Fifteenth Amendment of the US which was said to be inoperative in the South, including the case for voting as someone put it, that it voting was ‘measured by property’ and as someone else put it, ‘voting was not measured by property’., there are no reasons to be less grateful to the frames of the constitution that allowed individuals to bring their case to the court...



(Id) In 1906 Alabama – had 2% percent registered Black votes, 85% percent whites and mostly males…so no Blacks held any seats in these States and there were no black or African American judges due to this selective process and according to Lawrence M. Friedman (2002), there were close to 3, 000 blacks (African Americans) lynched in the South between 1889 and 1918 only. 



In another instance, Friedman mentions that 20% of these blacks were lynched for ‘raping White Women’, that some of the cases went from allegation to execution which in his view were some cases were ‘inhumanely’ and ‘incredibly’ executed. A reign through selective process does not mean that the judicial character of distinction it’s not to be taken lightly.

A woman familiar with the court process and proceeding and how the law operates can beat her counterparts with all barges of academic honors in a cut and dry case where from the outside the story and incident may have favored the academic woman over the Court woman.  It needs be said and perhaps more than once that the court decides the most trying of all cases in private as well public jurisdiction. 




A complaint made to the Court at any time in the history and life of a defendant may have a staying power with the mercy of the City or State appointed authority, for instance an authority and in most cases a judge is the one that grant parole and is based on sentences after the interment or following a time in jail with or without reference to crimes – perhaps on recognition or for good manners or other influences. The other is not too far from it, for instance the dubious case of probation which in this any appointed City administrator can grant and this precede sentencing and jail time, to be placed under community services until further development.

We have not mentioned that such process is everything the case, either have we been able to show that much wrongs can be done during these processes including the long spell in jail with no public service and no interesting date for a hearing.

Awaiting trials at any level can create serious problems of legal misunderstanding and during this period many of those sentenced or awaiting trials are usually forgotten or may experience problems having their words passed to the Court.   

Statute of limitation is exercised every day in the Court and according to popular definition it is ascertained by certain knowledge that a case of some sort must begin and exercised with a ‘limited period of time’, and may or may retain the ‘responsive pleading’ from attorneys and ‘procedural defenses’ in which case any attorney can deputize on your behavior. 



What we have heard from experience and speak clearly for, is whether has traveled through the chains of jurisdiction which is the same, whether the reasons for acquittal so granted at a State level and the City level is so needed a further review by the Supreme Court.

Donald L. Carper, et al, explained a strange case on insanity that “an insane person is not legally responsible for criminal conduct.  The rationale is that our society’s collective conscience does not allow punishment where it cannot impose moral blame.  Nonetheless, an insane person may be committed for an indefinite period to a hospital for the insane, an approach that satisfies society’s need for protection and its duty to assist the ill.” 



The case on temporary insanity and diminished capacity and the issue of substantial capacity to learn  - which is not necessarily learning disability have pronounced meaning in California and New York, and they differ one on any number interesting theories. In any classes of U.S law and the global macro, the decision to embark of a lack of concern for victims is to aid the opponents of these arguments to air their view.

One of which is that of the demurrer that placing an argument for both parties with both parties in terms of the position of the court, there enough to see through the adjudication of process that placing of authority on all three tier of agenda, especially motion to dismiss is based on the meeting a standard to the satisfaction of the court, some of the grounds is a position of a third party.... 
FFor instance the authors, Carper et al, raised an issue, that ., “Juries are accustomed to determining facts. Did the gun belong to the defendant or not? But when it comes to determining the sanity of the defendant, the jury must determine an opinion. Insanity is only an opinion expressed by psychiatrist until the jury says it is a fact. It is extremely difficult to determine that a certain state of mind is a fact and its importance is questionable if the basic goal of society is to incarcerate defendant until they no longer are a threat to society. Some argue that all perpetrators of heinous crimes “insane”.” 

In this case as perhaps in other cases, there reasons to believe that the 


The other grounds for understanding are within the 5th Amendment, that “no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself….” That ‘the statement bears witness to the argument that no one victim represents for instance a system ‘that has failed to prevent a crime’ and was therefore in any class of respect and estimate. In other words, if there is a case which has travelled through Courts and resting on the proof of actionable motives and why, if the favor was settled was responsive pleading not meeting grounds for any form of termination of cases.

Special Cases….

Bernard Schwartz

The idea of collective unconscious which became popular in Carl Jung dialectics and long career in psychology is typical of Ivan Pavlov ‘habit’ and compulsive human behavior, that from one example or exercise of comparative selection of complaints, there are no degrees of violations possible. Konrad ‘imprinting’ is not that from the compulsory behavior from the precis of collective behavior which is no different from individual behavior following the attempt to adapt to some control influence. 




It is not the best examples of selecting a judge to assist in pruning a process that is a problem; it does and can happen it is those who follow the precedent that is an issue. The primitive public psychology is also evident in the attempt to file lawsuits, for if there is a well-established knowledge of the process involved, it could also lead to the moral hazard of filling too many Pro Se complaint with the court as mentioned, leads to several examples.

But US Courts and Judiciary are not exactly like other nations around the world and the laws of US are believed to be active or as alive and it is so for its accessibility. What they should stop is perhaps attorney representing themselves in the Court; at least a case that has the official stamp of the Court and applause in Jury may publicly attract attorneys to take a fair shot at the process. Friedman also raised the example of Plessy v. Ferguson as a land mark hearing and decision established the (1896) ‘Separate but equal doctrine’ which remain a precedent without its full implications to other judges until fairly sometime later. It started with a complaint to the Court house perhaps, with its degree of complicity but it won out at least with a sparing from attorneys.

 The most important psychological item from this period is Ida B. Wells who should be credited with public psychology, that before the accused even make it to the lynch pin, they have lost their eyes, their nose and teeth, and these are acts performed by young as well as old who ordinarily would not have done such a thing. But with the crowd comes the motivation to act with impunity on an object no longer human and at ease. Her quest to end public lynching all started with complaints and pamphlets which was not easily received but for the fact that in her case, she persisted; it paid off at the State legislative. 



Friedman (2002) mentioned that “Luther Holbert and his wife, lynched in Mississippi in 1904, had their fingers chopped off (and distributed as Souvenirs), then their ears; before they were burned to death, the mob bored into their flesh with corkscrews. Typically, a coroner’s jury either exonerated the lunch mob, or piously proclaimed that the lynchers were unknown – even though lynch mobs usually worked in Public, before crowds and in broad day – light. Rarely was anybody punished for taking part in a lynching.”


If the Federal Court for any length of reasons decides to act against such a process it could do so by seeking to remove from Court process, any Complaint which for them failed to show material worth or value, or any complaint and from popular sources as from other sources of US history of the Courts, provisions and Clerk’s dairy, Goss., McNesse v. Board of Education; Robinson v. Florida and Bell v. Maryland, Garner v. Louisiana of the Civil Rights of 1964 began as direct Complaint to the Court and not even the legislative and the Court eventually decided to look at the Constitutionality of the alleged infringement which from very old times was considered sacrosanct or traditional violation, were eventually re-considered in the light of facilities and new interpretation of the public actions on such a case, Lombard v. Louisiana.

The idea of collective unconscious which became popular in Carl Jung dialectics and long career in psychology is typical of Ivan Pavlov ‘habit’ and compulsive human behavior, that from one example or exercise of comparative selection of complaints, there are no degrees of violations possible. Konrad ‘imprinting’ is not that from the compulsory behavior from the précis of collective behavior which is no different from individual behavior following the attempt to adapt to some control influence. It is not the best examples of selecting a judge to assist in pruning a process that is a problem; it does and can happen it is those who follow the precedent that is an issue. The primitive public psychology is also evident in the attempt to file lawsuits, for if there is a well-established knowledge of the process involved, it could also lead to the moral hazard of filling too many Pro se complaint with the court as mentioned, leads to several examples.

But US Courts and Judiciary are not exactly like other nations around the world and the laws of US are believed to be active or as alive and it is so for its accessibility. What they should stop is perhaps attorney representing themselves in the Court; at least a case that has the official stamp of the Court and applause in Jury may publicly attract attorneys to take a fair shot at the process. Friedman also raised the example of Plessy v. Ferguson as a land mark hearing and decision established the (1896) ‘Separate but equal doctrine’ which remain a precedent without its full implications to other judges until fairly sometime later. It started with a complaint to the Court house perhaps, with its degree of complicity but it won out at least with a sparing from attorneys.   




New Deal and the NIRA; the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Unity of codes in companies leading to ‘cut production’ of workers and number of hours for workers and minimum wages all began as series of complaint which were unfettered by the Court process – Commerce Commission Act in 1887 – set against Big Corporation constructing and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) – did not affect big business until sometime later, which now has its effects on big corporations in America including the very big ones. 


Food and Drug Acts which was first passed in 1906 ameliorated from 1887 CCA Acts which was defined by the Inter-state laws and civil right ordinance of 1875 proves all cases within meaning to have being started as private Complaint against these big corporation before it became something else. 1908 Federal Employers Liability Act was also started as a complaint. The premise is not that the majority of the cases that defined America started in the consideration of the culture and people concerned.


In Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935) Supreme Court struck-down NIRA, based in part on principal argument and complaints and testimonies from those who worked there. United States v. Butler (1936) Supreme Court struck down Agricultural Adjustment Act of (1933) to lower production and raise prices. Wagner Act – freed employees to have Unions leading to the creations of ‘National Labor Relations Board’ and their triumphs in the automobile industries…the erection and extension of Tennessee Valley Authority to areas they avoided especially the legislative that ensured electricity to outback such as Indian Reservations and old Black neighborhoods were conditioned by the triumphs in the Court who ruled that such restrictions were unconstitutional.


In Watson v. Memphis, the Court ruled it was unconstitutional to restrict African Americans from enjoying the Parks and Recreation, began as a series of complain to the Court and the legislative, and it is similar to the latter day cases of Griffin v. Prince Edward County. James Meredith class action suit also began with complaint and personal. Herman Sweatt struggles to open University of Texas to African Americans, the James Meredith fight to integrate African Americans at University of Mississippi, Burke Marshall Civil Rights Division, Edwards v. South Carolina, Gibson v. Florida legislative, were began with personal complaint and drafts of complain which were mitigated upon by process and busy schedule of City or State Secretaries but through persistent proved itself in the end.

They exceeded the grounds of the duration for the Court that no more common reasons, duration so determined by the Framers of the constitution to ease the activities of both parties and draw a conclusion on a cut and dry hearing given the demand for the office. The Framers of the constitution were not all aware of the high prejudicial entailment of public to private persecution, which is said to be an evil, which for the perimeter of evil is exorcised by the duration of the least probity and higher prejudices. It would not yet demonstrate the plaintiff pro se were a product of luck, a product of argument and interesting discussion, they were legal hurdles to scale and they were use of language....



It disguised as a process accomplished that the defendants were particularly happy to abscond after bamboozle. But then there are periods in the whole opening drama that now as any time would have suggested that Actors of the law would have made the fences without further ado, but the merits here suffer in principle and in ignominy, that these assailants of many years in the service of so mighty of City were parallel product of a routine and misguided municipal system, never ‘surpassed in the dark’ and engineered to wreak havoc.

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