For decades, people have been complaining that Administrative Law Judges (ALJ) were unconstitutional. They are simply employees and they do not even have to have a law degree. Yet these people have been ruling against citizens and supporting their agencies, reducing any Due Process of Law to a joke. Previously, Administrative Law Judge, George Painter, recognized the corruption in his own court system of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Painter sent a scolding letter announcing his retirement that highlighted the corruption from an insider’s perspective. George Painter died at the age of 87. Yet his parting words still will be echoed down the halls of justice.
In the letter, Judge Painter announced his retirement as he exposed the internal corruption inside the court system. He stated bluntly that his fellow admin judges had never awarded a case to a plaintiff in 20 years, and that he did so at the urging of former CFTC Chair, Wendy Gramm. I do not take something as serious as corruption lightly.
The Constitution’s Appointment Clause Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 reads:
… and [the President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
In the case under review, the ALJ was never appointed by anyone in accordance with the Constitution. Now the Supreme Court has ruled at last that yes – the entire ALJ system is corrupt and unconstitutional in LUCIA ET AL. v. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION. The Supreme Court held: “The only issue left is remedial. For all the reasons we have given, and all those Freytag gave before, the Commissions ALJs are Officers of the United States, subject to the Appointments Clause. And as noted earlier, Judge Elliot heard and decided Lucia’s case without the kind of appointment the Clause requires. ”
The real meaning of this decision is that anyone who has ever been adjudicated by an ALJ was unconstitutionally adjudicated. This is why I say that the Supreme Court should be expanded and that EVERY new procedure and law that carries a fine or imprisonment should be tested to comply with the Constitution BEFORE it is enforced. We have a legal system that is backwards. If people do not have the money to adjudicate their Constitutional Rights, then they do not have any. This is why the government prosecutors go after your lawyers so they then eliminate your ability to even receive due process of law. They can unconstitutionally treat you however they wish knowing full well that without the funds, you cannot be heard and are thus denied Due Process of Law. In this way, their thirst to win has destroyed the very principles that we ask our children to go to battle and die for. They have eliminated all your rights and you cannot be heard unless you have the money to fund it in the millions of dollars.
