I find it interesting that it is the business community that is seen to have the most to gain from judges free of accountability. I can certainly understand that, and here’s why:A couple of decades ago I bought a condo that had been built over part of an old privy pit. In time as the excrement in the pit continued to degrade and subside the sewer pipe which had been laid over the part of the pit beyond the condo walls broke adding new excrement to old with the result that hydrogen sulfide was found to exist in my condo.
During the time that I lived there, and I was lucky that I lived there rather than a tenant, I had more and more difficulty with my balance and cognition. I began to fall so often that I gave up walking to the Plaza, which was not far from my condo in the Guadalupe neighborhood of Santa Fe.
I had no idea what was causing my difficulties, nor did the doctors know why my chest hurt more and more and I was wheezing so badly at night I had a hard time sleeping from the noise alone.
Eventually, despite the condo association not wanting to do anything about it, I got the insurance company to send a structural engineer, and that's how the privy pit was discovered.
Now, what makes this relevant to your article on an independent judiciary, is that I was not able to find a lawyer to take the case. The lawyers I spoke to said it was just too hard to do a case relating to toxins, and one lawyer told me to watch A Civil Action with John Travolta, to explain why it was not a good case for a lawyer.
When I tried to sue using a third party complaint in the resultant foreclosures I was not allowed to, and though the developer never answered I could not get the court to enter a default judgment. Perhaps that was because at about that time the developer may have been involved in transactions relating to a new courthouse.
Earlier, when had I tried to get the court's help in forcing the condo association to do its legal duty in paying its share of remediation, I failed. The judge in fact said in court that he would have my foreclosures and would make sure I paid the association all I owed.
The judge apparently had ruled out the condo association abiding by the Condominium Act, without hearing the facts. At a summary judgment hearing when I tried to sue the newspaper for writing a factually false article making fun of me, the judge would not allow me to show evidence of the privy pit. One of the things the article had done was make it appear that I imagined the pit. The author of the article was an architect I had not wanted to hire when he wanted to complete the remediation in an extremely labor intensive way, whereas the structural engineer had said that "flowfill" could be used for a quick, safe and inexpensive completion of the project.
I was going to appeal, but got tetanus as a result of not being able to feel a broken darning needle in my toe.
In order to keep the judge who had not allowed me to produce evidence from having my foreclosures, which he had apparently already decided about, I filed a case in federal court asserting discrimination under the ADA, Title II, because the judge would not allow me to read, and I could not keep things straight to talk.
So, I kept my home, but that was not without difficulty because another judge who was apparently in sympathy with the first judge foreclosed my home at a hearing I had no opportunity to attend. There was no notice to me.
Then, after I saved my home via a Chapter 13 and the sale of my single family rental, I was going to sell my condo which I had in tip top shape, only when I had an offer another agent at Sotheby's told my listing agent that he had bought title to my condo at auction.
Again, there had been a foreclosure judgment without notice to me or any hearing. The record shows that I answered and there was no hearing.
Prior to the hearing on confirmation of sale I was told that the purchasing agent's broker had said she'd called the judge and been told there was "no way" I would get my condo back.
At the confirmation hearing the Deutsche Bank lawyer lied to hide the fact he'd served the Amended Complaint during my Chapter 13, in violation of the automatic stay.
Due to my brain injury (in one of the falls at the condo I hit my head on the brick floor, which blackened my face and since then my processing speed and working memory are less than half what they were before) I could not quite understand what the lawyer was saying, since he said things in a rather round about way. But when I was doing my appeal and had the audio transcripts I was able to see that he lied and that the judge allowed the lawyer to lie by giving dates which patently contradicted the record.
I say the judge lied because the judge said he had reviewed the entire case and my "version" was not supported by the record. The fact is that he either did not review, since the way that I stated the dates was exactly in keeping with the record, or he maliciously lied knowing full well that I had said things accurately.
So, I have lost about $750,000 in property as a result of corruption among the judges here in Santa Fe and last winter I was heating with candles and for a couple nights could not keep the living room temperature above freezing.
Last week I got the Opinion in my appeal: it said that I had not appealed within the requisite 30 days after the foreclosure judgment, so the district court was affirmed.
I had made it clear in my appeal that I had answered, that there was no hearing, and I was not informed of the judgment or the sale. And, when I wanted to redeem my property the court clerks would not allow me to deposit my cashier's check for $128,250.00.
As a result of my experience I do not think that the judiciary is independent at all, it is in the pocket of those with the most money. Certainly the developer had many times the money I would have had even if I could have sold my properties without duress, and he has influence.
From the perspective of justice and an honorable justice system there needs to be accountability among judges.
As the so called justice system stands today, when the judge lied he was within his rights given that he has absolute immunity, and with his absolute immunity he trampled my right to due process.
Karen Kline
(I grew up in Steven Point, Wisconsin and attended university there.)
http://www.health-boundaries-bite.com is my website. I have the structural engineer's reports linked from my Privy Pit page and I have my Corrected Revised Brief posted, as well as pictures of my freshly painted condo when it was foreclosed with no notice to me.
