An Open Letter to Idaho’s Congressional Delegation

February 22, 2014

An Open Letter to Idaho’s Congressional Delegation

Filed under: Probable Cause — Bill @ 11:01 am

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An open letter to Idaho’s Congressional delegation

Comments (7)

7 Comments

Your letter to our congressmen keeps this in front of the public as there is no news or editorial comment about it around here. However, and I don’t mean to have your complexion turn blue, Bill, but shouldn’t Idaho’s Judicial Council be the appropriate venue to lodge a complaint? What authority does Congress have to address this?

Comment by Gary Ingram — February 22, 2014 @ 11:13 pm
Gary,

You asked two very good questions.

Usually the Idaho Judicial Council would receive and investigate a complaint brought against a specific judge or justice for specific conduct. Ultimately the decision about if and how to discipline the accused judge’s or justice’s decision would be made by the Idaho Supreme Court. In the Nield dissent, Justice Eismann is the accuser and three other Justices would be the accused. On top of that, Chief Justice Burdick sits as the chairman of the Idaho Judicial Council. Even if he recused himself from any contact with the investigation, Burdick wrote the majority opinion in Nield. In essence, all of the Supreme Court Justices have conflicts, so even if Justice Eismann’s allegation was substantiated, who’s going to hear it?

Remember the 2009 case of District Court Judge John Bradbury? It received more news coverage than Justice Eismann’s far more serious allegation. People should wonder why.

Congress may not have any authority to investigate (I didn’t say it did), but members of Congress certainly can ask the Department of Justice to investigate Justice Eismann’s allegation. That was my request to our four CoDel members. The Department of Justice has the authority to investigate an allegation that one or more judges or justices in Idaho have acted under the color of law to deprive Idaho’s citizens of our Constitutionally-guaranteed due process of law.

My hope is that readers will contact one or more members of Idaho’s CoDel and urge them to make the request to DoJ.

Comment by Bill — February 23, 2014 @ 6:54 am
I certainly appreciate your letter, Bill, and if it were a petition, I would sign it. Individually, I will also participate in a request to investigate. However, I question the effectiveness of our federal leadership in Idaho. I wonder if a person might also directly contact the USDOJ? This stuff just burns my bucket and while I hope to see a glimmer of justice in this state, I don’t think our Congressmen will do anything. It will stop right there when they get the letter and they will do what it takes to minimize the situation. It will take someone within the DOJ that wants to take this issue and ‘ugly up’ Idaho for any particular reason. Unfortunately, this state will deserve it if we get so lucky.

Comment by Stebbijo — February 23, 2014 @ 10:18 am
Sorry, Bill – I see you offered contacting the DOJ – of which I did. Short and snappy request …thank you for your work. For those who want the address – you can subnit an online complaint. Pretty easy stuff.

Comment by Stebbijo — February 23, 2014 @ 11:04 am
Stebbijo,

The conduct described by Justice Eismann’s dissent, that judges and justices determine the desired outcome and then twist facts and law to achieve it, most closely resembles official misconduct. In general, official misconduct by public officials acting under color of law should be reported to the appropriate FBI field division. For us, that would be the FBI in Salt Lake City. Here is the address:

Federal Bureau of Investigation
Salt Lake City Division
5425 West Amelia Earhart Drive
Salt Lake City, UT 84116

However, any material of that nature can and probably should also be sent to the US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. Here is the address:

US Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Civil Rights Division
Criminal Section – PHB
Washington, DC 20530

Now for the bad news: Unless they need more information from you, you may never get any kind of a response from them. For that reason, it’s not a bad idea to notify your US Congressman about the action you’ve taken, and then request that his office periodically follow up to ensure that the feds aren’t just ignoring you. An inquiry from a Congressman about a constituent’s complaint will get a response from an agency to the Congressman.

Comment by Bill — February 23, 2014 @ 11:39 am
I agree – I also see it as a civil liberties violation so that is how I submitted it. But, granted, we could write everybody including the President and see if they all do something or nothing. It’s always a referral cycle of sorts. Eventually, someone will mess up and maybe do something. We have written letters to Congressman and quite frankly, I am sick of their pathetic coined responses. I am okay with no response from the Department of Justice.

Comment by Stebbijo — February 23, 2014 @ 11:56 am
It seems to me that it is possible that Justice Eismann’s statement is really only new to the extent that he came out and said it for everyone to read in a published decision of the court. According to ‘Judgepedia’ Justice Eismann is a former Chief Justice of the court. Now, since he has revealed that the practice exists, perhaps the other members of the court are thinking along the lines of Andrei Bonovia’s terse comment to Captain Tupolev, in the movie The Hunt for Red October, just before the torpedo they shot at the Red October destroyed their submarine: “You arrogant ass! You’ve killed us!”

Comment by up river — February 23, 2014 @ 4:45 pm

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