by Mary W Maxwell, LLB
How does one get around the problem of corruption in the ranks of persons, for example the Attorney General, whose job is to fight corruption? It seems logical to appoint someone outside of those ranks to deal with the issue. He/she could be called an Independent Investigator, a One-Man Grand Jury, a Prosecutor from Heaven, or whatever.
I am writing this article with Australia’s “judicial kidnap” in mind. We will get to that below. Some citizens of Ohio are running a Change.org campaign to get a special prosecutor to take up the matter of missing and murdered females. Let us first review the role of special prosecutor in the US.
Most Americans have heard of Ken Starr who was appointed “Special Prosecutor” to look into wrongdoing by the then sitting president, Bill Clinton. Most Americans are also aware, at least vaguely, of the job done by Robert Mueller. He was appointed “Special Counsel” to see if President Trump had colluded with Russia.
Ken Starr was a federal judge (in the DC Circuit Court) from 1983 to 1989 when he was appointed Solicitor General in Poppy Bush’s administration. In 1994 he was appointed Special Prosecutor to investigate the Clintons’ participation in possibly fraudulent real estate deals, pre-White House — this became known as Whitewater.
The appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel, in 2017, was a bit more complicated. The US Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, had recused himself from matters concerning Russian involvement in the 2016 election Hence, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein was in charge. He, Rosenstein, then appointed Mueller (whom he had once worked under) as Special Counsel to investigate “the Russian probe.”
Congress had passed laws for the establishing of federal independent prosecutors where a conflict of interest would tend to contaminate the matter. Thus we find in 28 USC 597:
“(a) Whenever a matter is in the prosecutorial jurisdiction of an independent counsel or has been accepted by an independent counsel under section 594(e), the Department of Justice, the Attorney General, and all other officers and employees of the Department of Justice shall suspend all investigations and proceedings regarding such matter….
“[However] (b) Nothing in this chapter shall prevent the Attorney General or the Solicitor General from making a presentation as amicus curiae to any court as to issues of law….”
The concept of recusal is present in common law and the maxim Nemo judex in sua causa — “No man can be a judge in his own case” — is ancient wisdom. It goes without saying, doesn’t it? Human nature normally prevents a person from openly criticizing and punishing himself.
The Ohio Women at Change.org
There is a brilliant request at Change.org. It is addressed by citizens of Ohio to the US Attorney General, asking him (currently, Bill Barr) to appoint a special prosecutor. I will now print most of it, bolding some phrases that ring true in Australia:
Note: this petition was started by Yvonne Boggs. As of March 3, 2020 it has 3,551 sigs:
“We the families of the murdered and missing women of Ohio have lost all trust in our justice system and its investigators throughout the state. In order to restore public confidence … there must be independent investigations and prosecution free from conflicts of interest… therefore we request immediate action to appoint a special prosecutor from outside of Ohio state… to:
1) Investigate our cases without conflict of interest, bias, harassment and/or retaliation against those who have tried to help us, including witnesses.
2) Investigate our investigators, prosecutors, and judges in Ross, Scioto and Franklin counties that are directly or tangentially related to our cases as we believe they are protecting one of the alleged informants that reportedly murdered our family members.
3) Prevent the Ross County Sheriff’s Office and the federal task force or FBI (Ohio) and Bureau of Criminal Investigations (Ohio) from allowing Detective John Winfield to work on our cases because there are allegations of potential misconduct and he is related by marriage to one of the alleged killers.
4) Prevent the obstruction of justice with those who are in question for possible misconduct from hiding information or minimizing, through unlawful means, their dereliction of duty and potential complicity in the murder of our daughters.
5) Investigate why law enforcement refuses to arrest a Scioto County defense attorney who has been repeatedly reported for human and drug trafficking.
6) Remove all current investigators and prosecutors from our cases [Yeah, man!]
7) Empanel a grand jury to investigate how and if Ross County Prosecutor Matt Schmidt compromised our attorney that was going to sue the same offices that are currently under investigation, he was supposed to be suing for our families under the civil RICO statute.
It was directed by the Department of Justice that the issue was to be brought to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of Ohio …. [This] may have compromised confidential information related to the same officials that were being investigated. … In other words, it was a “spy in the camp” tactic on the part of both “our” attorney and the Ross County Prosecutor which further damaged our cases criminally and civilly in a purposeful manner.
We thank you for your assistance … our interest is of national consequence since we are now officially supported by other law enforcement who do care about us and are not compromised and willing to step forward for us. [Whew!]
Sincerely,
— the Families of the murdered and missing women of Ross, Scioto, and Franklin Counties and the citizens of Ross County, Scioto County and Franklin County.
Australia Breaks Up Families
Dee McLachlan and myself have been running around, helter-skelter, trying to find ways to help Protective parents, many of whom are watching their child be slowly killed before their very eyes. I do not mean to deprive of credit the many other people who are doing the same search, but mostly we do not know who they are.
In my 2019 book, Reunion: Judging the Family Court, I give credit to barrister George Potkonyak, who has been disbarred for doing the right thing, and Maurice Kriss, a retired criminal lawyer. Kriss had written, in 2016:
“I was asked to assist a number of mothers who had their children taken from them by the Family Court after reporting that their children had been sexually abused …. I noticed a distinct pattern: the mothers were treated with abuse and disrespect. They were called liars and accused them of coaching their children to lie. The fact that very young children at the time were bleeding from the anus or vagina did not move police. The conduct of the court in most of the cases in which I had appeared, were abominable. It took me some time to realise that the mothers had lost their children from the moment they filled in a Form 4 reporting sexual abuse.”
On page 104 in the Reunion book, I noted an amazing conflict of interest regarding police and Childrens “Courts.”
I wrote:
“Say a parent has reported injury of his kid, yet the abuse gets covered up by the social worker or the police, and never reaches the court. Of those two entities, who should be blamed? Is it the police’s duty to pursue the matter of child abuse, to the point of pressing charges? Yes, despite the fact that the law is worded to lay the responsibility on many others, too.
“And here’s a how de do: the Department of Child Protection social workers are actually part of the police. The public does not know that, but there you are! As Dee McLachlan and I bumbled around sleuthing, we thought it was naughty that the DCP and police are in bed together, but it turns out they are supposed to be in bed together. It is officially the DCP’s job to assist the police.”
Australia Needs a Special Prosecutor
When I say “Dee and I bumbled around sleuthing” — two of us, full time, for nigh onto two years — you can imagine how hard it is for the average citizen to get a grasp on the situation.
The Ohio citizens, however, have got a grasp. They have correctly identified that the problem is “Nemo judex.” And therefore the solution is “A special prosecutor, please.”‘
I have not yet tracked down any such entity in Oz, except I see a remark in the holdings of the National Library in Canberra that says:
“The work of the Special Prosecutors, Robert Frank Redlich and R.V. Gyles was taken over when their terms of appointment expired by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions which was established 5 March 1984.”
Ah, the DPP — the person who is “inherently” independent and non-political. What a joke!
For Whom Does This Bell Toll?
There is no question, we must establish in Australia, a legal method of handling the child-stealing problem. There is currently no honest broker. This country already had a massive Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse.
The head of that RC, Judge Peter McLellan, handled it well — as far as he went, but he officially excluded current cases of trafficking by pedophiles. McLellan did not announce to the public that he was doing that. In other words, he dutifully dealt with the way institutions (the Churches, the Boy Scouts, the Navy, etc) failed to deal with their staff who engaged in child abuse. But he turned his eye away from the larger problem.
I now say that the larger problem includes the perfidy of the legal profession and the judiciary. Sorry to say it but if it weren’t so, you’d see many barristers and judges hopping up and down the way Dee and Mary are hopping up and down. The professionals are conspicuously NOT hopping up and down. It must be that they have caved in, or worse.
A I have only a few hours ago discovered the Ohio petition at Change.org, I am not ready to propose how we might go about tolling the bell in Australia. Nor should it necessarily be me who proffers the method.
In the past I have waxed eloquent about citizen-led grand juries and Truth Commissions. Not to mention Citizen arrest. Not to mention the Law of Outlawry (Caput gerat lupinum, anyone?).
Let me remind readers that in South Africa, when apartheid got legally overturned by the 1990 referendum, the major issue of reconciliation between whites and blacks was handled by a Truth Commission. Persons who had done harm, big or small, were invited to admit guilt and show remorse and thus be integrated into the new community.
I frankly don’t see any other approach that could have succeeded. Violence or chaos or a continuation of apartheid were not sensible options. A lawful “way out” was found.
Conclusion
We thank the suffering Ohioans who have indeed zeroed in on the solution. An independent investigator is mandatory. I give you my word that Dee McLachlan has appealed to every possible level of government in Australia on this most urgent matter, and got not a scintilla of response.
Nobody, in a position of power, cares. The Ohioans say some cops side with them. That is beautiful. Remember when men were men? Let’s see some men in blue stand up for the right. And hurry, guys and dolls, because if you don’t, the Special Prosecutor has got your number.
On topic.
Lookie — Potkonyak is in the third row. Hi George! Goodonya.
“forgot to attach.”
This is from Sydney. You can tell by the way he pronounces paper “piper.”
Contractors. From Alfred Hitchcock.
Off topic. Dems who have dropped out of the 2020 race, pre-Super Tuesday:
Buttigieg, Bennett, Chang, Kamala, Amy, Marianne. Streyer?
Still in: Biden (unbelievable), Bernie, Bloomberg, Tulsi-babe.
I’m not au fait with if or what other steps the Ohio group have been taken toward resolution but the purported offenders would obviously have to be given the chance to formally respond to each and every one of the corresponding claims.
So assuming that step has already been taken, you’re then stuck with the implications of taking a State matter up with the Feds, or a Fed matter up with the U. N.
This woman wound up doing the later:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-22/woman-bashed-by-police-receives-apology-18-years-on/5761692
In terms of getting some sort of personal recognition I guess it was better than nothing, but the overarching pull toward globalisation is unmistakable
NB: the offenders didn’t get so much as a slap on the wrist
That’s sort of my point, Berry. We think of Law Enforcers — LE — as enforcing the law against some bad members of the public, but as with the Special Counsel monitoring a president, the focus is on Law Enforcer folk themselves. (After all, the US president is a law enforcer.)
Possibly all of the DoJ in America is corrupt, but definitely some parts of it are. SDNY is famous for it. Hence nothing will ever be done from that shop regarding 9-11. (SDNY = southern district of New York, the area that includes the WTC.)
So, to repeat what I said about Our Dee — she writes and phones any part of the AFP or any part of South Australia DCP, or the AG. Isn’t that what we grew up doing? But now it’s useless to do it, as the personnel there are all IN THE GAME. They ain’t interested in using the law against child traffickers, because they work for the child traffickers. It’s THEM against US. Recall Rachel Vaughan’s futile efforts to report murders to SAPOL. The cops exist to PROTECT the murderers.
I am sitting at my desk in New Hampshire, wondering if hitmen from Adelaide will break in to my home, here. If that happened would I expect justice? Of course not. Bottom line: we are on our own. Most of the citizenry is unaware of this. I would certainly have been blissfully ignorant of it, had not the Protective parents started to contact us. (I think it started when Dee did her survey in 2018.)
Berry, you are the unique Gumshoe-er who has battered the courts down by your sheer persistence. And you have knife-sharp cynicism. I am more of an over-age Girl Scout, trying to make it all go right. God help us both.
Mary remember the actions of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Tasmania 1989/97? Nothing but foul, criminal play, for which the Prosecutor, Damien Bugg, was well rewarded.
“The work of the Special Prosecutors, Robert Frank Redlich and R.V. Gyles was taken over when their terms of appointment expired by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions which was established 5 March 1984.”
“Tell me about it, Mal.”
Pardon me. I am inventorying some ways in which a people try to empower themselves.
Estonians by singing:
South Africans by necklacing:
A Korean, at the top, just doin’ his thing with some weapons:
Great article Mary – hope you get a special prosecutor on board. I’ve shared to Derryn Hinch’s Justice party Facebook page. It appears if you search it on Facebook, but it’s not on his main page. Probably on his community page. I’m hoping he has altruistic legal folk watching.
Rachel dear, I am wondering how strong the Ohio group is. They sound strong enough to get some action by themselves. It’s unhelpful that they addressed their request to the US attorney general. His department, the DOJ, thinks it can only prosecute federal crimes.
Actually there is a federal law called the Mann Act that treats interstate prostitution like commerce (and therefore it is legit for the feds to nosey in). Article I, sec 8 has a “commerce clause.”
Dee has tried to involve the Australian Federal Police in the child-stealing matter, but of course that police department has no more guts than the states’ police. Recall Dr Russell Pridgeon being arrested by the AFP for trying to help kids.
I will run his video below for the benefit of any Ohioans reading this item. Maybe some Aussies should help Ohio and some Ohioans should help Australia. I mean Lafayette helped George Washington…. There’s a job for you, Rachel! You could be Global Secretary for Special Prosecutor Exchange Program.
Dr Russell Pridgeon, arrested for trying to alleviate the child-stealing problem. He currently awaits trial. I believe he lost his medical license too. Born in Zimbabwe, I think.
The horse is before the cart. Help me out Berry.
Stop judging yeast… Only unleaven bread for dinner
I toy with the ideas as American being the torch of freedom, but you know… my schooling had Latin language as required (mandatory TODAY’S word ). . and ever was propaganda.
You being non fake news are awesome, so support in thought is a given. Then some.
Not satire for Rupid the Bear. Extra, Extra
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/destined-to-fail-why-australia-is-unable-to-stop-the-spread-of-deadly-coronavirus/news-story/64670f2a50d8d643c77ea49a230a7bc7
Can’t you people just wash your hands, k… satire.
The title of this video is “Can President Trump really send Hillary to jail?” Answer: Yes.
This is totally beautiful. And so CORRECT!
[…] How To Demand a Special Prosecutor (for Child Trafficking) Amidst a Conflict of Interest — As … […]
This may be of some interest on this topic.
These bods (like most here)imagine that “the authorities” will fix it if you complain to them. What is not accepted is that the “system” is mortally corrupt and that “their Majesties” have been in the pocket of the plutocratic and esoteric secretocracy for several hundred years. The best that can be hoped for from “the authorities” is a slight “back pedal” to continue the concealment of their operations.