HS 345 - FBF – The Proper Constitutional Role of a Juror with Roger Roots

Welcome to the Holistic Survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The Holistic Survival show is your family's insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently, to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. Sudden change or wor scenario. You'll be ready. Welcome to Holistic survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.

Welcome to the Holistic Survival Show. This is your host, Jason Hartman, where we talk about protecting the people, places and profits you care about in these uncertain times. We have a great interview for you today and we will be back with that in less than 60 seconds on the Holistic Survival Holistic Survival Show. And by the way, be sure to visit our website@holisticsurvival.com you can subscribe to our blog, which is totally free, has loads of great information and there's just a lot of good content for you on the site. So make sure you take advantage of that@holisticsurvival.com we'll be right back.

Now you can get Jason's Creating wealth in today's economy home study course. All the knowledge and education revealed in a nine hour day of the Creating wealth bootcamp created in a home study course for you to dive into at your convenience. For more details go to jasonhartman.com.

It's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Roger Roots to the show. He is a very interesting person who is active in the civil liberties movement and he is a legal scholar. He's a nationally recognized criminologist, active in libertarian politics as well, and a promoter of a freer, fairer and more just world. He has a couple of different organizations he's involved in. One is entitled the Fully Informed Jury association. And it's just a pleasure to have him here because when we talk about all of the threats we face in today's world, folks, really one of the biggest threats we have is dealing with the legal system and dealing with the government. That is probably one of our most realistic and likely threats. So we're going to examine that in this interview today with Roger. Welcome, Roger, how are you?

I'm good. Thank you for having me.

Well, it's my pleasure. And you're coming to us today from Montana, right?

Yeah, I'm in Billings, Montana right now. My headquarters is sort of Livingston, Montana, Right by Yellowstone National Park.

Well, fantastic. Beautiful place. I've been there myself. So tell us a little bit about what it is you do. And I guess you have a couple of organizations, right?

Yeah, I'm active right now in the Fully Informed Jury Association. And that is an organization, it's been around about 20 years ago, was founded by a couple of Montanans 20 years ago, maybe more than 20 years ago now. And the purpose of the organization, it's sort of an educational, nonprofit think tank. The purpose of the organization is to just educate jurors about their proper purpose and their role that they are supposed to be playing in the justice system. And a lot of people ask, well, why do jurors need to be educated? Most people think it doesn't take any education to be a juror. And they're partially right, of course. But the truth is that the modern criminal justice system, and maybe the justice.

System more broadly, so even the civil justice system, too.

Yeah, yeah. Has slowly, over time, been painting the jury into a smaller and weaker and more narrower corner. And the main way they do that is, especially if there are any listeners who have been on a jury, you know this. The judge will, at the end of every trial, at the end of every criminal trial, the judge will usually instruct the jury in most jurisdictions that they can only judge the facts. In other words, they're not allowed to judge the law. The judge will tell the jurors, you know, you can only consider the facts. You're not allowed to consider the constitutionality of the laws that are being applied. You're not allowed to consider the fairness of the prosecution. You're not allowed to consider whether or not the prosecution is abusing the defendant and being selective or vindictive. You're just there to determine the facts. Many jurors, by the way, will tell you that this is what they're told, and it's absolutely not true from a historical or a constitutional perspective. Absolutely not true. Historically, under the original intent of the Constitution and all the common law going back centuries, the jury is supposed to act as a check on government. It is supposed to be a protector. Okay? That's why the founding fathers of the Constitution, that's why they were so adamant about putting trial by jury in the Constitution. Listen, we don't need jurors just to be fact finders. We could have panels or committees. Judges could do that. The true purpose and original design of the jury is that the jury act as a check on government. And that is the jury can veto tyrannical laws and veto government abuses. That's the original intent of the jury.

Well, you know, that's interesting that you say that, Roger, because that's the original intent of the founding fathers and the Constitution is to limit the power of government and preserve the power of the individual over oppressive government. So it's interesting that that applies. It trickles right down to the jury situation as well. And so the juries have been painted more and more into this corner Now. Are there some sort of seminal laws, maybe two or three of them, that have really painted the jury more into a corner since back in the late 1700s?

Well, here's what has happened. There have been a series of gradual changes, little changes over time, but each one, of course, has added up. You know, there have been a series of real close cases before the US Supreme Court, some split decisions. And, you know, some judges go one way, some judges go the other way. In the year 1895, there was a fairly important U.S. supreme Court decision called Sparf versus United States. It was complicated. It's one of those 100 page opinions with many different, you know, concurrences, dissents, and this kind of thing. Five, you know, I believe it was a four to three to two split or something like that, you know, with some judges just saying, you know, we concur with part of it, but not the other parts. You know, very complicated ruling. But the sparse decision, at least the part that was the winning plurality, said that judges can be. That jurors can be deceived, that judges can tell them that in a murder case, they're not allowed to bring back a manslaughter verdict. Murder has several degrees. There's first degree, second degree, and then there's manslaughter. Then there can be voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter. And often happens that these things are really at issue in a murder case. And sometimes one side or the other, the prosecutor or the defendant, by the way, it can vary, sometimes will seek to have the jury instructed that you can come back with a manslaughter verdict, you can come back with a second degree murder verdict or whatever. It's up to the jury. Traditionally, it is up to the jury. By constitutional design, even in a first degree murder case, the jury has the power and it always has to come back with a manslaughter verdict. Okay, but what has happened after the Sparf decision? The Sparf decision allowed judges to sort of conceal from the jury the fact that they have this power. And so you see, you know, and by the way, the cases have sort of extended from the Sparf decision, and it gets a little bit complicated. But by and large, jurors now are never told that they have the power to act as a check on government. They're told that they are just fact finders. And again, that is completely in opposition to the original purposes of trial by jury.

Very important point after the O.J. the original O.J. verdict back in the 90s, you know, a lot of people were upset about that one. Most people, you know, at least seemingly most people in the right mind, think OJ did it. I think that's an anecdotal statement, of course, but. Well, that's what I hear.

We're a little skeptical, but we'll go ahead and give you.

Okay, fair enough. Some people, I guess, think his friend or his kid did it, or so I don't know, you know, whatever. But we don't need to necessarily go into that. Unless you want to, of course. But there was a lot of talk after that verdict that the jury just was clueless. It was a bunch of losers and, you know, a bunch of people that work for the post office. Nothing against postal workers necessarily, but it's like. In other words, the point, Roger, was the gist I got from it was that the only people showing up on juries the majority of the time are bureaucrats and people who can get the time off easily, and it's not going to cost them. If an entrepreneur who has their own business, who's ambitious, who's making a difference in the world kind of thing, they're just going to find a way to get out of it and not be on the jury because they just don't have time to do it. So there was a lot of talk then about the professional jurors, how, you know, maybe we should pay jurors and hire them to be there. There's several statements in there I'd like you to respond to. It's kind of a big compound.

Well, of course I disagree with the idea. I've heard that argument many times. I disagree with the idea that we need professional or government jurors. That's the absolute.

That's the whole point, is that we shouldn't have the government doing it. Right.

Exactly. They're supposed to be lay people, lay citizens, common people. That's the, you know, which are there to act as a check on government and as a protector of the citizenry. You know, you mentioned the O.J. trial. It's funny, I'm one of the few people, and I've argued this just probably hundreds of times with people over the years. But I think the juror's verdict in that criminal trial was absolutely correct. Even if, by the way, it is true that O.J. committed the murder? Even if that is true. Listen, if you look closely at that trial, evidence at that trial showed that the police were fabricating evidence. There was a lot of evidence where they had a bloody glove that they were. They placed in one place, and then somebody moved a bloody glove to another location, and it came out at trial that they would. I believe at one point they gathered a specimen of OJ's blood, a blood sample to test for DNA or this kind of thing, and the testimony came out that the detectives returned to the crime scene after they drew blood from OJ Simpson and therefore they had the opportunity to drop blood at the crime scene. There was all kinds of improprieties with regard to the police treatment of the evidence. And if you're sitting on a jury and you see evidence that the police are committing, you know, these kinds of improprieties, if you're sitting on a jury and you see evidence that evidence is being fabricated, that the police are lying about one thing or another. Listen, the appropriate thing for you to do as a juror is to say not guilty, because you can't believe anything that's being said. And it is an absolute fact in that OJ Simpson criminal trial that the police committed numerous improprieties with regard to the investigation and the evidence and the security of the scene, all kinds of improprieties. So I actually think the jury came to an absolutely appropriate and proper verdict in that case. And that case, to me is the. Represents the very highest ideals of what a jury is supposed to do, even if, again, even if OJ was, quote, guilty.

Right. So that's an, that's an important distinction, and I agree with you. I remember the trial a little bit, and the police did they. They screwed up a whole bunch of things, and there were a bunch of malicious motivations on their part potentially, as well as just carelessness and negligence. But even considering that, though, do you have an opinion as to whether or not he was guilty?

Well, it's funny, I don't know now. It seems like he probably was implicated somehow. I have actually attended a lecture put on by Wen Ho Lee, who was, of course, the criminalist, the main criminalist for the defense. I believe he's at the University of Connecticut right now, or maybe he's moved on to another institution. But basically he's a forensic scientist who was a defense expert. He has put on lectures in the years after that verdict in which he has basically shown, I think, very, very, very well that there were at least two perpetrators in that murder. Now, we can, again, maybe OJ Might have been one one of those, but it's pretty clear that there were blood droplets that were dropped on the body of Nicole Brown Simpson from above, maybe sometime after she was actually dead. These kinds of things. There are a lot of questions. A lot of questions.

Okay, all right, good. Tell us more about the informed juries and your other group about procedures. And I want to ask you about that recent case that is, I guess, pretty significant in the legal world, and then to all of us, by extension, the Citizens United case as well. So take whichever one first you like.

Well, I'll take the Citizens United case, which you just brought up.

Yeah, tell us about that.

This is an area of the law that is rapidly changing, and there's a lot of contention over this. Two years ago, the United States Supreme Court issued this decision called Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission. And the case involved a video that some corporation wanted to show right before the Democratic primaries in 2008. And the video was called Hillary the Movie, something like that. It was a very anti Hillary Clinton video. And the corporation that was politically funded wanted to show this video on cable TV across the country right before the Democratic primary. Obviously, let's just say that the intent was to hurt Hillary and to help maybe Barack Obama at that time. It's not clear. But in any case, the Federal Election Commission stepped in and said, no, no, no, this is campaign finance, violation of campaign spending laws, and, you know, you're not allowed to, you know, spend money. And they stepped into a First Amendment question. Remember, this is freedom of speech and freedom of press. But the election officials came in and said, no, you can't show that video prior to, I think, 30 days or may have been 60 days before the primary. Well, unfortunately, that said, you know, that was censorship, and they didn't get to show the video. They had to appeal up to the U.S. supreme Court. And the U.S. supreme Court came down about a year later with a very good ruling, in my opinion, which is, you know, that that is censorship. It violates the First Amendment. And it was about a 5 to 4 split ruling, which is quite common, you know, for cases before the U.S. supreme Court these days. Usually there's a four conservatives on the Supreme Court and four liberals on the Supreme Court. Then there's the swing voter, and that is Justice Kennedy, who tends to be the winning justice. He swings things. One way or another in a lot of cases, very important justice, by the way, Anthony Kennedy. Interesting. But in any case, the ruling came down Citizens United. And you see the American, I guess you might call them the anti corporate people out there sometimes you might call them left wingers, liberals. I don't actually call them liberals because I don't think they're liberals. They are government supremacists. The anti business element. We'll just call them that.

That's interesting that you say that. Government supremacists as opposed to corporate supremacists. That's a very interesting phraseology there. I like that.

Yeah, well, the word liberal, Listen, I'm a liberal. I consider myself a liberal.

But also you're a libertarian at the same time.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Right. A lot of these words don't have any real meaning when you really think about, well, what's the definition? Even conservative. The conservative can be used in so many different ways that it becomes devoid of all meaning. But in any case, let's just say the crowd that is around us that hates corporations and we know who they are, they are up in arms about the Citizens United ruling. And listen, I've seen an online petition, they are actually on moveon.org and a lot of the Democratic, you know, that you might call them liberals, the progressive community is out trying to petition for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision and these kinds of things. And so it's very interesting. The Montana Supreme Court, right where I am. You know, a lot of people think of Montana as a very conservative Republican state, right wing state. It's really not true. If you live here. Montana has an awful lot of history of mining unions and things like that. Very strong Democratic Party here in Montana.

Well, and you know, all those Hollywood celebrities come up there and own a bunch of land up there too. So they tend to be on the liberal side, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, we have two US Senators, Senator Max Baucus and Senator John Tester, both Democrats. So a lot of people think Montana is a right wing state. It's absolutely not true. We have a very strong liberal Democrat element here. The state Supreme Court is very liberal. And they came out with a decision about a week ago, Western tradition partnership decision. That's the title of the case in which they purported to more or less overturn the U.S. supreme Court in Montana. They basically held that in Montana corporations don't have any free speech rights. And so anyway, this is going to be contentious from here on out. And there may be other states that come in, overturning one aspect for another. But basically there is an element that is arguing that corporations are not persons or that corporations don't have First Amendment rights, rights to freedom of press and speech. Now, keep in mind, there are many important First Amendment decisions by the U.S. supreme Court over the years that have involved for profit corporations. New York Times v. Sullivan, one of the most famous First Amendment cases of the Supreme Court involved the New York Times, a for profit corporation. Hustler magazine versus Jerry Falwell. Many people are familiar with that case. You know, the New York Times had a case called New York Times versus the United States in which they fought and won the right to publish the Pentagon Papers back in probably the early 70s. You know, just one, just a few examples. But we wouldn't have a First Amendment if it weren't for those great decisions that apply to corporations. And yet today the progressive community is up in arms about.

The notion that corporations are persons legally. Keep in mind that we know corporations are artificial entities, but they are legal persons for some limited legal purposes. They can buy and sell in their own name. They can file lawsuits. They can sue and be sued. So they are persons. By the way, that's not. Any lawyer will tell you that's not in any remote sense some kind of outrage. Nothing new about that concept. It goes back hundreds of years. And, you know, I don't know exactly what your take is on it, but.

So was Citizens United then. Just to make sure I understand as a layman, because I only heard about this case a couple weeks ago. I was talking to someone about it. So the corporation was not allowed to release the film. It was censored. And one side said that you can censor it because it's not a person, it's not an individual, it's a corporation. And they tried to bifurcate the rights of the corporation versus an individual. Is that it?

Pretty much. Now, there's an angle. You know, there has always been a clash of ideas in First Amendment law about funding for political, you know, political funding. So the U.S. supreme Court held in about 1976 in a very landmark case that I now forget the name of. What's the name of that case? In any case, the U.S. supreme Court has held in several cases that money is speech. And it makes sense when you really think about it. Because if you own a printing press, let's say, if you're a billionaire, okay, can you be stopped from publishing a billion dollars worth of flyers supporting Newt Gingrich? I would say absolutely not. The First Amendment forbids such censorship even if you're a billionaire, okay. But there is a very powerful community in our country that argues the opposite. They say, no, this is campaign spending. It's not freedom of the press. To me, and I agree with the U.S. supreme Court that money is speech. It translates into speech. And you know that in radio, I mean, in all media, money is speech. Let's face it. I mean, it really translates into speech. So if you're regulating campaign finance spending, you really are regulating speech. Now, you know, the McCain Feingold law that is currently in place, more or less, by the way, Citizens United sort of invalidated parts of the McCain Feingold act, but a lot of it's still in place, really restricts people from spending more than, I guess, $2,000, you know, on a candidate in the primary and in the general and all, you know, there are other so many, just different regulations that in my opinion, violate the freedom of speech and press. So, you know, I've just been dealing with this in the last week or so with people telling me that, no, no, no, corporations don't have the right to fund, you know, to spend millions of dollars on some video or some ad campaign for a candidate or some political position. My argument is the remedy for corruption. Corporations is more speech. In other words, if you think that Exxon is funding a candidate or a political position and they're spending millions of dollars on it, the remedy is to form your own think tank, your own nonprofit corporation, your own political action committee, and try to out fund or try to listen. Ideas are out in the atmosphere, and the best ideas win in the end, in my opinion.

Let me take a brief pause. We'll be back in just a minute.

I've never really thought of Jason as subversive, but I just found out that's what Wall street considers him to be.

Really? Now, how is that possible at all?

Simple. Wall street believes that real estate investors are dangerous to their schemes because the dirty truth about income property is that it actually works in real life.

I know. I mean, how many people do you know, not including insiders who created wealth with stocks, bonds and mutual funds? Those options are for people who only want to pretend they're getting ahead.

Stocks and other non direct traded assets are a losing game for most people. The typical scenario is you make a little, you lose a little, and spin your wheels for decades.

That's because the corporate crooks running the stock and bond investing game will always see to it that they win. This means unless you're one of them, you will not win.

And unluckily For Wall Street, Jason has a unique ability to make the everyday person understand investing the way it should be. He shows them a world where anything less than a 26% annual return is disappointing.

Yep. And that's why Jason offers a one book set on creating wealth that comes with 20 digital download audios. He shows us how we can be excited about these scary times and exploit the incredible opportunities this present economy has afforded us.

We can pick local markets untouched by the economic downturn, exploit packaged commodities investing, and achieve exceptional returns safely and securely.

I like how he teaches you how to protect the equity in your home before it disappears and how to outsource your debt obligations to the government.

And this set of advanced strategies for wealth creation is being offered for only $197.

To get your Creating Wealth Encyclopedia Book 1 complete with over 20 hours of audio, go to jasonhartman.com store if you.

Want to be able to sit back and collect checks every month just like a banker. Jason's Creating Wealth Encyclopedia series is for you.

Well, okay, so on that one, I agree with you that, yes, more speech is a good thing, but the problem is the corporations have such a head start because they're already organized. They're already organized, they have huge scale. And when I'm talking about the corporations, I'm talking about the big ones. You know, I call it the corporatocracy, Wall street, those types. I think those corporations are largely, and believe me, I'm a capitalist to the end. Okay. I just don't think that, like when you look at this Occupy Wall street movement, I really side with those protesters, largely because I don't think Wall street is represents capitalism at all. I think it represents cronyism and fascism.

I agree with you.

Yeah. So the problem is the corporations have such a head start. And you know, I just think what needs to happen, we need to get the money out of politics. But again, we might disagree there, but I just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents for what it's worth.

I often argue to people that in fact, the corporation business model is a business model for the little guy. A lot of people don't realize that, but the corporate business model allows a guy with just a few hundred bucks who cannot buy a business and cannot invest in his own business. It allows him to invest and buy shares of a business and invest in shares of a business. So really, the corporate business model is a model for the little guy. A lot of people don't think that, but it's true. And by the way, it's Hundreds of years old. There have been corporate business models. The Viking ships that used to go around, we're talking 500,000, 2,000 years ago, were often. They were purchased and built and they were set sail using a collection of people who invested a little bit of money to invest in an expedition. And the Phoenicians probably had corporate business models. There's nothing new about this.

Well, the reason that came about, from my understanding, is that people just wouldn't take the incredibly high risk of exploring the planet if they had to be personally liable. They wanted to be able to go and raise funds for a journey like one that Columbus would go on and didn't want to be personally liable if the thing didn't work out. And that's reasonable. I mean, I agree with you there, and I agree with you there that it does allow the little guy to have access to big business. The only problem where it kind of falls apart in practice is that you've got the people at the top and the Wall street people and the board of directors and the CEOs skimming all the money off the top. That's the problem. It's not really. It's not like an equal thing. I mean, like one of the things I talk about is I love Lou Dobbs book, War on the Middle Class, because chapter two, he talks about it. And I don't know if you've read the book, but in War on the Middle Class, Lou Dobbs cites all of these CEOs and the money they took out of the companies when the shareholders return was negative. And you know, one example, Roger, is he talks about Larry Ellison, president and CEO of Oracle. Right. We all know Oracle, the big software company from 2000 to 2002. And forgive me if I get the numbers ever so slightly wrong. What's a couple million here or there? But in two years, Larry Ellison took his personal takeout of the company was like $760 million, almost a billion dollars in two short years. And at the same time, shareholder return was negative 61%. I mean, at the same. Listen, I have several corporations myself. I'm a total capitalist. Conceptually, I agree with the idea, I love the idea. But in practice, I don't know, we just. With accounting firms and lawyers and big business, they've just found a way to malign the system.

Well, no doubt about that. The question is, what's the remedy? And listen, a true libertarian says the remedy is the market itself. The free market will ultimately resolve all those things because any corporation that has that high expenses and is paying its CEOs that amount isn't going to be competitive in the market, let's just face it.

Yeah. I mean, ultimately everything sort of settles.

Yeah, you're right, because we're seeing a move away from Wall street now, and I think Wall street is scared to death about it. Where people now are wanting to invest in more direct assets like income, property owning real estate, or, you know, you hear all the commercials for gold and silver. People want to want to control. They want to be direct investors. They don't want to give their money to some mutual fund manager. And then you got so many layers in there. You've got the board of directors, the CEOs. So, yeah, I think the market is settling that ultimately, you're right.

In the future, it wouldn't surprise me if we don't see these huge salaries that we have seen in recent years of the CEOs, just because I don't think the shareholders are going to tolerate in the future as much. Who knows? Who knows?

Well, word is getting out and I think it is moving in that direction, so I'm glad to see it. And we need to have a lot of protection of freedom of speech so people can go out and complain like crazy against these corporations. It's kind of a nice movement in a way. I know it's dangerous. It's certainly not perfect, but all these consumer complaint websites where people can air their grievances and have some redress against the abuses of big companies.

And companies fear that stuff almost more than they fear government inquiries, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, with government inquiries, they just look at that a lot of times as a cost to doing business. They just figure we'll let the government fine us X amount per year, and that's just in our budget.

It's really scary, but it's that way.

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, no company can survive long if there's a website Internet movement to expose something. You know, bank of America, of course, about a month ago, had to back away from some.

The fees. The fees. Yeah. The ATM fees. Yeah. And then Verizon wanted to add $2 a month on every bill, and they backed away. Yeah, it's awesome. Thank God for the First Amendment, you know, there's a reason it's first, huh, Roger?

That's true.

Yeah. It's the most important one. Well, tell us a little bit more about what you do or these issues with procedure. Maybe in court cases where juries are needed. Can't really protect the system and protect defendants or litigants in civil matters. As well?

Well, sort of. Just in the last year, I've launched a project called the Fair Procedure Initiative. And basically our goal is to make some changes over time in the rules of procedure that are applied in the court practices in federal and state. A lot of people don't realize that the Federal Rules of procedure. There are Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and whatnot. They are riddled with little rules that, for example, allow the government to have more time to respond to filings and pleadings than the private sector. Right now, I'm working on a proposed amendment to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure to change the amount of time that a federal criminal defendant has to file a notice of appeal after he's convicted. Right now, he has 14 days to file a notice of appeal in federal court. The government has 30 days to file a notice of appeal. Now, keep in mind, you know, the double jeopardy clause and things apply so that the government cannot appeal most acquittals unless they are on an issue of law, for example, just because of the double jeopardy clause. Why, it's another indication that the jury was intended to have the power to stop a criminal accusation no matter how. Let's just say no matter how much the government and the judges assumed that there was guilt, you know, the jury was given the power to act as the final say on such things. And anytime they acquit, there can never be a retrial. It would violate the Double jeopardy clause, the Fifth Amendment anyway. But the government can appeal certain legal questions from a criminal judgment, and they certainly can appeal. Well, they wouldn't appeal convictions, but often the government ends up filing notices of appeal on legal issues, evidentiary issues, for example, rulings by the judge. But right now, they have 30 days. The defendant only has 14 days. So the Fair Procedure Initiative, which I've launched.

Has submitted a proposal to change it so that Both sides get 30 days to file their notices of appeal. And we're going to be working on some other things like this in the future.

What recourse does one have if they're being burned by the system? Any suggestions whether it be criminal or civil law? There are corrupt judges out there. There are opposing counsels that do unethical things. Prosecutors, lawyers, DAs, civil cases as well. Any suggestions to help people assert their rights and protect themselves?

Well, I'm often asked, what lawyer do you recommend? Now, keep in mind, libertarian lawyers like me are hard to find. It's just the way of. I don't know what it is about the modern legal profession that it sort of, sort of breeds government supremacist lawyers. And that idea, the idea that government is the central planner for all of our lives and is the central micromanager of our lives, that idea is embedded in the law these days and it's embedded in the legal profession, both the bar and the bench. People often ask me, well, who you know, what can I do? What lawyer, what law firm do you recommend listening? I tell people all the time, you almost have to be your own lawyer. And that's pretty consistent with the original, the founding generation. It was often remarked by many commentators in the 1770s through, all the way through up to the 1850s that America, the original republic, was very highly literate and highly educated with regard to legal issues. The average American in 1823 was practically a lawyer himself. Americans were very well educated about legal practice and often they appeared in court on their own. They didn't either need lawyers or use lawyers. And we've really lost track with that idea.

Well, I want to comment on that just for a moment, if I may. I've had some cases where I've represented myself, as they say, pro se. And let me tell you, the judges hate that. They are just, they want you to participate in the, the club, the good old boys club and make their job easy and let them railroad you into unfair situations, unfair settlements. And oddly enough, and I know you're an attorney, and I hate to say this, but I've heard it happen so many times and it's happened to me. First, you get victimized by whatever happened to you, okay, like someone, someone steals your, your business or something, and, and you have to go to court over it. And then the second time is you're victimized by your own lawyer. You know, it's ridiculous.

It's true in so many cases. Absolutely true. And you're absolutely right that the judges treat you as a second class citizen if you're not represented by an attorney. And it's true. No doubt about it. And I can just tell you, case after case, I've observed where a guy has a great legal argument but the judges just sort of, you know, toss it in the trash pretty much, you know. And I agree, that's a major problem.

Well, you know, that's great to hear though, that America was really set up that way for people to be their own attorney and not have to be held hostage by the system, by the government, or by the attorney system. The good old boys club there. But any advice you have for pro se litigants, regardless of what side they're on, on how to assert their rights or get a fair shake.

Well, it's funny, I'll say this. It often happens that a pro se litigant can raise an issue.

Certainly much more inexpensively, obviously. But I recommend filing. If you have an argument to be made, research it and file it in writing. Make sure that there's a record that it was made, that the argument was made. Often you find, at least I've seen cases where for example, a criminal defendant who is knowledgeable, and a lot of them are ex convicts who've been through the system so many times, you know, but they actually by then have some knowledge and you see that they're very knowledgeable and you know, they get charged with some offense. Sometimes it's one of these like third strike kind of things or possession of a firearm by a felon kind of stuff where it's just their prior status that makes them second class citizens or whatnot. But by then, often some of them are older age and a little bit more aware of how to defend themselves. But in any case, they will go into court initially, unlike lawyers, and they will say, hey, I move for motion to change jurisdiction, motion for dismissal, I move for speedy trial, I demand speed trial. You know how few lawyers demand speedy trial? Why?

They just, they want more time to run the clock and bill the client more. Right.

It almost never happens by a lawyer. Lawyers almost never demand a speedy trial. So you know, listen, if a pro state litigant gets in there and says, I demand speedy trial, it often happens that judges just rule against everything they rule, you know, deny, deny, deny, deny. But the pro se litigant will have preserved those issues for appeal later on. Much more better in my opinion than a lot of lawyers do.

That's a very interesting point. 2 comments on that, if I may and just hold that thought for a minute. I know you were going to say something, but number one is that so many times the lawyer's goals are in conflict with the client's goals and the lawyer has, they need to build a career and they need to appear in front of this judge again. Quite likely that they'll appear in front of this judge again. And so they're trying to, to act out of their own motivations to stay on good terms with the judge. And I find a lot of times lawyers won't do things because of that pressure that might be good for the client. They're just going to have this client one time maybe, but the judge, they got to preserve their reputation with the government. Side of the equation with the judiciary. And they won't do things right because of that necessarily. And then I've got one more comment or question too, but what do you think of that?

True or absolutely true? Absolutely true. And by the way, it often happens that in a location there are only a handful of judges, you know, often, sometimes there's two judges in a particular jurisdiction sometimes. And so, you know, let's say in a community of 20 practicing trial lawyers, for example, and there are two judges in the local county courthouse that are working on most of the cases. So it creates a dynamic, just as you say, the lawyers will do anything to please and ingratiate themselves with these judges who are just one or two individuals who have the power to affect their standing in the community and their careers over the next decade, let's say. And so the lawyers in the community very rarely will do anything to just openly tick off the judicial powers that be in a particular local setting. And in the federal courts, it's the same way. I mean, there are some states where there really are only just a few U.S. district judges who might be sitting presiding over a very large area. You know, the state of Idaho, the state of Wyoming, the state of Montana, there's a few federal judges, really. And so the worst you can do as a lawyer is get a reputation that you're some kind of a radical or something.

But, but this country was built on radicals. It was founded by radicals, people that were considered radical in their day. And that's what's great about it. Yeah, so that's a very good point. For example, like when a judge does improper things in a trial, it's very unlikely that a lawyer, your lawyer, is going to file a writ against that judge to try and get an appellate court to say, no, the judge can't do this, it's not right. But a pro se litigant, they don't care. They don't have to have a reputation with this judge. They'll do what's right for their case. That's right. That's a very good point. I gotta say one, one lesson that I found out that's kind of a hard lesson, and this scares the heck out of me. These judges, they don't read the pleadings, they don't read the motions. It blows my mind that you can go through the whole justice system and the judges just openly, they just don't read stuff. You, you, you, you may file a motion that is three pages or 300 pages and the damn judge won't read it. It's amazing.

You know, there's an often, often, often spoken truism that if you don't make your point on page one or page two, it'll never be addressed. And it's true. And it gets worse as you go up higher in the legal, in the judicial system, especially, for example, at the U.S. supreme Court level. Listen, almost every U.S. supreme Court case will be accompanied by all of these, what they call friend of the court briefs, the amicus briefs that are written by, for example, the aclu, the Chamber of Commerce, different organizations will file a friend of the court brief. There might be 30 briefs on, on each side, on all sides, supporting one side or the other. Okay. If you were to lay these in a stack for just one case before the United States Supreme Court, the judges, if they actually were going to read all these briefs, would have to read a pile of papers that might be a foot or two feet thick. Okay, let's be frank. Let's just be honest. They don't do it. They really cannot do it. They can't physically do it. So let's just be honest. They don't. They farm it out to their clerks. Their clerks try to help, and they do it the best they can. And keep in mind, judges famously have six months of vacation out of every year. Of course, I might be exaggerating. It might vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Most judges take the summers off. They're often in Hawaii or someplace. I'm not speaking a little bit. I'm speaking a little bit. I might be exaggerating a little bit. But certainly they have a lot of time off. And you're absolutely right. They have too much to read. You know, when I was in law school, I remember I was told by the dean of the law school that you pretty much, you have to commit yourself to reading 100 pages of material a day every day that you're in law school. And it's sort of true. You ask anybody who goes to law school. They are pretty much assigned 100 pages a day to read. None of them can do it. I mean, and it gets worse as you go up the U.S. supreme Court justices, there's no way they can physically do all the reading.

Well, that's. That's true. So any suggestions you have, the judge won't read the filings. If your own lawyer is victimizing you to preserve their own standing in the community or standing with that judge, I tell you, the best thing you can do is just stay away from it.

You know, Absolutely. In fact, most business attorneys, they make their living Basically.

Making sure that their clients never spend a day in court. That is the key. Every day in court is a day lost and probably thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars lost. So the key if you're in business is to avoid being in court for any reason at all costs. It's just so expensive and it's so time delaying. I just tell people all the time, if you're in business, whatever you do, stay out of court. And unfortunately that, you know, makes you. Means you have to settle a lot of things and you have to, you know, you spend some money here and there, but stay out of court, for God's sake. You will lose. Even if you win, you lose.

I know. It's amazing that, you know, the old saying is the only ones that win are the lawyers. Right. But yeah, you know, you can't always avoid it, but try to just stay away from it if you can. Good point. Well, hey, give out your websites, Roger, and tell people where they can learn more and how they might be able to contribute to what you're doing as well, because it's a good cause.

Well, the Fully Informed Jury association website is fija.org. that's www.fija stands for fully informed juryassociation.org. that's www.fija.org. and they've got a website. They also have a 1-800-number if you're interested in the jury issue at all. 1, 800, tell jury with 1L. That's T E L J U R Y. 1, 800, Kell jury with 1L. I have a personal website, rogerroots.com and I have some of my articles that you can link to there and read up on some of the things I've written. And, you know, it's fun studying the law, especially the development of constitutional law. I really love reading legal history to figure out how we got, how we got here and going back into yesteryear and saying, well, how did we end up in the place we are? Fascinating. So I often, I've written quite a number of little articles that are interesting from that perspective. And that's again, rogerroots.com.

If you're interested in these things, you can visit either of those. Fija.org is a great website.

Fantastic. Well, Dr. Roger Roots, thanks so much for joining us today and informing people about what's going on out there in the system and how they can hopefully protect themselves from it and not become victimized or at least become as little victimized as possible. That's what I would say. Thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us today for the Holistic Survival show protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Be sure to listen to our Creating wealth show, which focuses on exploiting the financial and wealth creation opportunities in today's economy. Learn more at www.jasonhartman.com or search Jason Hartman on itunes. This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company, offering very general guidelines and information. Opinions of guests are their own and none of the content should be considered individual advice. If you require personalized advice, please consult an appropriate professional information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.