IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

Case No. ___________

KENNETH L. SMITH,

Plaintiff,

v.

AILEEN MERCEDES CANNON,

JOHN G. ROBERTS, JR.,
BRETT M. KAVANAUGH,
NEIL M. GORSUCH,
AMY CONEY BARRETT,
SAMUEL A. ALITO, JR., and
CLARENCE THOMAS,

Defendants.

COMPLAINT AND JURY DEMAND

Comes now Plaintiff Kenneth L. Smith, in propria persona, stating the following in sup-

port of this Complaint and Jury Demand:

INTRODUCTION

This Complaint rises or falls on a simple concept:

The Constitution is NOT what judges say it is;

it is what THE CONSTITUTION says it is.
To “enact a law under the pretense of construing one” is “a flagrant perversion of the
judicial power.” Heiner v. Donnan, 285 U.S. 312, 331 (1932). The Defendants are entrusted
with the judicial Power, U.S. Const. art. III, §1, and none other. The acts complained of
herein far exceed the bounds of their agency, The Federalist No. 78, and were undertaken in
furtherance of a criminal conspiracy. 18 U.S.C. § 3. "No officer of the law may set [the] law
at defiance with impunity." United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 220 (1882).

This begs an obvious question: Is an absurd and facially partisan Supreme Court decla-
ration, untethered to the Constitution, binding on Article III courts? And an obvious answer:
No. When a decision is “manifestly absurd or unjust" or fails to conform to reason, it is not

1
simply "bad law," but "not law" at all. 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of Eng-
land 70 (1765). James Madison explains why.

The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds
which separate each department of power may be invariably maintained; but more es-
pecially, that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the
rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the
commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People
who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves, nor by an authority
derived from them, and are slaves.1

“Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed.” Declaration of Independence, para. 2 (U.S. 1776). As Lincoln declared, "no
man is good enough to govern another man, without the other’s consent,”2 and the Framers’
Constitution marks the outer limit of our consent.

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance
thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United
States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. That venerable
document is a contract between the people and those who we select as our agents. We did
not fight a bloody revolution to exchange King George for King Don … or King Judge. We
accept this agreement under the assurance that the President of the United States “would be
… liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” The Federalist No.
69, 396-97 (Alexander Hamilton) (I. Kramnick ed. 1987). Presidential immunity has no
“grounding in constitutional text, history, or precedent,” Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health
Organization, 597 U.S. 215, 280 (2022), or the canons of common sense. “There are right
and wrong answers to legal questions," Clarence Thomas, Judging, 45 U. Kan. L. Rev. 1, 5
(1996), and no reason we should have to live with a wrong one.

“The Constitution does not grant the nine unelected Members of this Court the unilateral
authority to rewrite the Constitution to create new rights and liberties based on our own
moral or policy views.” Dobbs, 142 S.Ct. at 2306 (Kavanaugh, J. concurring). Fact check:
TRUE. For five centuries, it was universally understood that the office of the judge "is jus
dicere, and not jus dare; to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law. Francis Bacon,
Essays LVI (Of Judicature) (1620). Trump v. United States, No. 23-939 (U.S. 2024) is the
culmination of in what Judge Bork called a "judicial coup d’êtat.” Robert H. Bork, Coercing
Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges 13 (AEI Press, 2003). But beneath this power grab
appears to be a more nefarious scheme—one replacing our Republic with a far-right-wing
authoritarian dictatorship.3

1
James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance (address to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of
Virginia), Jun. 20, 1785), as reprinted in 2 J. Madison, The Writings of James Madison (1783-1787) at 122-23
(emphasis added).
2
Abraham Lincoln, Speech (on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Springfield, IL), Oct. 16, 1854,
3
E.g., Benjamin Lynch, Jack Posobiec Hails 'End of Democracy' at CPAC, Newsweek, Feb. 23, 2024. See
generally, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (Heritage Foundation, 2023).

2
 The King can do no wrong, in a land without a king. To even state “the Court’s” odious
conclusion is to refute it. It cannot be found in the plain text of the Constitution, its penum-
brae, or emanations. Antonin Scalia, Historical Anomalies in Administrative Law, Y.B. Su-
preme Court Hist. Soc’y. 103 (1985). With fear for our democracy, I dissent. As did our
Founders.4

On July 4, 1776, Americans declared independence from a king. On July 1, 2024,

our Supreme Court declared that our President IS a king. And this, they may not do.

But the Framers planned ahead. They left us with remedies. “According to the plan of the
convention, all the judges who may be appointed by the United States are to hold their offices
during good behaviour, which is conformable to the most approved of the state constitu-
tions.” The Federalist #78, 438 (Alexander Hamilton). They left undisturbed the citizen’s
common law right and duty to privately prosecute crimes. Note 4, infra. A motion to vacate
an irregular decision on the grounds that the matter was coram non judice is also available.
Whenever a judge acts too far outside the confines of lawful authority, s/he may be removed
from office and imprisoned pursuant to law or mowed down in a hail of bullets. As the latter
is per se undesirable, Plaintiff respectfully invokes these preferred and constitutionally guar-
anteed remedies.

Judges “are subject to criminal prosecutions as are other citizens.” Dennis v. Sparks,
449 U.S. 24, 31 (1980). And as conflicted judges have a mandatory duty to recuse, 28 U.S.C.
§ 455, this Court can issue a mandamus vacating Trump v. United States, supra, as coram
non judice, as "literally, the language of [18 U.S.C.] § 1361 would allow a district court to
issue mandamus directly against [even] the Justices of the Supreme Court themselves."
Panko v. Rodak, 606 F.2d 168, 171 & n. 6 (7th Cir. 1979).

4
Judges have no authority to write law on a level this sweeping. Alexander Hamilton writes:
There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority,
contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No [judicial] act therefore
contrary to the constitution can be valid. To deny this would be to affirm that the deputy is greater than
his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the
people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not author-
ise, but what they forbid.
The Federalist #78, p. 438 (Alexander Hamilton); Jefferson adds, “[o]ne single object … will entitle you to the
endless gratitude of society; that of restraining judges from usurping legislation.” Thomas Jefferson, Letter (to
Edward Livingston), Mar. 25, 1825, at 1. There is no contrary authority.

3
 You couldn’t make this up. Six United States Supreme Court Justices, who stand cred-
ibly accused of taking bribes from billionaires on an industrial scale, used their high offices
to make federal law safe for bribery. Snyder v. United States, No. 23–108, ___ U.S. ___
(2024). And when you have been taking bribes “gratuities” on an industrial scale, you have
a powerful incentive to do so.

Our Supreme Court under Republican control constitutes a “criminal enterprise,” cf., U.S.
v. Murphy, 768 F.2d 1518, 1531 (7th Cir. 1985) (“Operation Greylord”), which has been in
continuous operation since Defendant Thomas reportedly solicited his first well-documented
(https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24214202-2000-memo-to-rehnquist) bribe.5

1. On information and belief, the Defendants in this matter are active participants in a

criminal conspiracy to assist criminal defendant Donald Trump “in order to hinder or prevent

his apprehension, trial or punishment” for (alleged) federal crimes. 18 U.S.C. § 3.

5
Justin Elliott, et al., A “Delicate Matter”: Clarence Thomas’ Private Complaints About Money Sparked Fears
He Would Resign, ProPublica, Dec. 18, 2023. https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-
complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus.
The Court's legitimacy “depends on making legally principled decisions under circumstances in which their
principled character is sufficiently plausible to be accepted by the Nation.” Planned Parenthood of S.E. Pa. v.
Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 981 (1992).

4
 2. There are two constitutional remedies the aggrieved citizen may resort to in response

to judicial crime: initiation of a private criminal prosecution,6 and/or removal of the offend-

ing judge from the bench for failure to maintain good behavior.7

6
Footnotes serve as mini-briefs, outlining constitutional grounds for Plaintiff’s assertions.
From time immemorial, it has been the common duty of every Englishman—including the King—to ‘keep
the King’s peace’, and one of the tools handed down was the right of any subject—now, citizen—to enforce
the law by prosecuting criminals. As Canada’s Department of Justice observes, the right (and duty) to initiate
a private criminal prosecution is one of those common law safeguards—"a valuable constitutional safeguard
against inertia or partiality on the part of authority," Gouriet v. Union of Post Ofc. Workers [1978] A.C. 435,
477 (H.L.) (Canada)—flourishing a pedigree as old as the common law itself. The salutary purpose of such a
rule, according to Justice Holmes, was to accommodate a natural desire for revenge within the law by avoiding
"the greater evil of private retribution." Oliver W. Holmes, The Common Law 41-42 (1881).
As our society and law became more complex, we delegated this task to professionals. But “one of the
ultimate sanctions [of the common law] is the right of private persons to lay informations and bring prosecu-
tions,” Lund v Thompson [1958] 3 All E.R. 356, 358, and it is a well-established principle of statutory con-
struction that "[t]he common law ... ought not to be deemed to be repealed, unless the language of a statute be
clear and explicit for this purpose." Fairfax's Devisee v. Hunter's Lessee, 11 U.S. 603, 623 (1813). "Statutes
which invade the common law ... are to be read with a presumption favoring the retention of long-established
and familiar principles, except when a statutory purpose to the contrary is evident [and] to abrogate a common-
law principle, the statute must ‘speak directly’ to the question addressed by the common law.” United States
v. Texas, 507 US 529, 534 (1993) (quotations and citations omitted). This, in turn, begs two questions: (1) Has
Congress ever attempted to repeal this right, and if so, (2) does it even have the raw power to do so? As
it is an unenumerated fundamental right, U.S. Const. amend. IX-X, essential to preservation of liberty which
has not been expressly relinquished in the Constitution, the answer must be no.
What we can say for certain is that there is nothing in the Framers’ Constitution extinguishing the
right. The constitutional charge to the President that “he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,”
U.S. Const. art. II, § 3, did not do so, as both the New York, N.Y. Const. of 1777 art. XIX (1822), and Penn-
sylvania constitutions, Pa. Const. of 1776, § 20 (1820), had virtually identical clauses, and were not interpreted
as banning it; in Philadelphia, it had devolved into a sort of “blood sport.” Allen Steinberg, "The Spirit of
Litigation:" Private Prosecution and Criminal Justice in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia, 20 J. Social History
231 (1986). Nor can vestment of the executive power in the President, U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, for the same
reason.
7
Article III judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 1. English law
sourced in Coke and Blackstone defines this facially abstruse term of legal art with remarkable precision. By
making a public official subject to removal for violating it, the condition of “good behavior” defined the powers
of any given office. Coke listed three grounds for forfeiture of good behavior tenure: abuse of office, nonuse
of office, and willful refusal to exercise an office. R. v. Bailiffs of Ipswich [1706] 91 Eng. Rep. 378 (K.B.)
(corporate recorder forfeited office for failure to attend corporate meetings); Henry v. Barkley [1596] 79 Eng.
Rep. 1223, 1224 (K.B.); see generally, Raoul Berger, Impeachment of Judges and “Good Behavior” Tenure,
79 Yale L.J. 1475 (1970); Saikrishna Prakash & Steven D. Smith, How to Remove a Federal Judge, 116 Yale
L.J. 72, 88-128 (2006). Blackstone adds "oppression and tyrannical partiality of judges, justices, and other
magistrates, in the administration and under the colour of their office." 4 Wm. Blackstone, Commentaries on
the Laws of England *140 (1765). When an Article III judge is elevated to the federal bench, s/he swears an
oath to "administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and ...
faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon" him or her, 28 U.S.C. § 453,
thereby defining the scope of his duties and obligations.
Whereas the ‘conventional wisdom’ is that Article III allows good behavior to be judged only through the
procedure of impeachment by Congress, Congress respectfully disagrees. During debate over the Chase

5
 3. For five centuries, it has been universally understood that the office of the judge "is jus

dicere, and not jus dare; to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law."8

impeachment, Congress acknowledged its inability to enforce good behavior tenure. Senator Hemphill re-
counted the Framers’ intent that "the words in the Constitution rendered the judges independent of both the
other branches of government." 5 Elliot’s Debates 444 (remarks of Sen. Hemphill (F-PA). As the right to
decide what is or is not "good behavior" sua sponte is a de facto power of address, it does not appear to have
been the intent of the Framers to entrust that power to Congress. This view was reinforced and established a
century ago in the investigation of Judge Emory Speer of the District of Georgia, who was charged with "des-
potism, tyranny, oppression, and maladministration" in the course of his judicial decision-making. Charles
Geyh, When Courts and Congress Collide: The Struggle for Control of America’s Courts 160 (U. Mich. Press
2008). Specifically, the congressional committee concluded that "a series of legal oppressions [constituting]
an abuse of judicial discretion" did not constitute an impeachable offense, id. at 160-61 (quotations omitted),
despite their being self-evident serial violations of Speer’s good behavior tenure.
Good behavior tenure, and use of the writ of scire facias to enforce it, is almost as old as Magna Carta. The
writ itself can be traced to the early fourteenth century; it was used to punish abuses of office since the reign
of Edward VI. 2&3 Edw. 6, c. 8, §13 (ca. 1540). Whereas most agents of the Crown served "at the pleasure of
the King," some public officials were granted a freehold in their offices, conditioned on "good behavior." See
e.g., 4 E. Coke, Inst. of the Laws of England 117 (Baron of the Exchequer). Lesser lords were also given
authority to bestow freeholds, creating an effective multi-tiered political patronage system where everyone
from paymasters to judges to parish clerks had job security. See e.g., Harcourt v. Fox [1692], 1 Show. 426
(K.B.) (clerk of the peace). The writ was in use before Parliament thought to grant all British judges good
behaviour tenure, and the law was well-developed.
At common law, good behavior tenure was originally enforced by the sovereign. But as this power con-
cerned only the interests of his subjects, and as the King exercised it only in parens patriae, he was bound by
law to allow the use of it to any subject interested. Blackstone explains:
WHERE the crown hath unadvisedly granted any thing by letters patent, which ought not to be granted,
or where the patentee hath done an act that amounts to a forfeiture of the grant, the remedy to repeal
the patent is by writ of scire facias in chancery. This may be brought either on the part of the king, in
order to resume the thing granted; or, if the grant be injurious to a subject, the king is bound of right to
permit him (upon his petition) to use his royal name for repealing the patent in a scire facias.
3 Blackstone, Commentaries at 260-61 (1765) (emphasis added); see, United States v. American Bell Tel. Co.,
28 U.S. 315, 360 (1888) (explaining the process).
8
Francis Bacon, Essays LVI (Of Judicature) (1620). Lord Coke maintained that "[i]t is the function of a judge
not to make, but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the crooked cord
of discretion." 1 E. Coke, Institutes of the Laws of England 51 (1642). Blackstone adds that a judge is "sworn
to determine, not according to his own judgments, but according to the known laws.” 1 Wm. Blackstone,
Commentaries on the Laws of England *69 (1765). “The judicial power to determine law is a power only to
determine what the law is, not to invent it.” Anastasoff v. United States, 223 F.3d 898, 901, vacated as moot,
234 F.3d 1054 (8th Cir. 2000). As the legislative power is vested in Congress, U.S. Const. art. I, judges have
no lawmaking power. At all. See 28 U.S.C. § 2072 (even the courts’ rulemaking authority lies with Congress).
Mindful that “the discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny," 4 C. Gibbon, The History of the
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 385 (1776-89) (Philips Samson, and Co. 1856), Alexander Hamilton
argued that to "avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that [judges] should be bound by
strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case before them."
The Federalist No. 78, 470 (Alexander Hamilton) (I. Kramnick ed. 1987).
Concurrences would fill a Brandeis brief. Jefferson envisioned the judge as “a mere machine,” expecting
that the law “be dispensed equally & impartially to every description of men.” Thomas Jefferson, Letter (to
Edmund Pendleton), Aug. 26, 1776. Professor (Justice) Story adds that “A more alarming doctrine could not

6
 4. In an August 2023 poll, “nearly half of Republican supporters [said they] wouldn’t

vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming election if the former president is convicted of a

felony.” Alisha R. Sarkar, Trump could lose half his voters if he’s convicted, poll shows,

The Independent (U.K.), Aug. 4, 2023.

5. On information and belief, in a manner reminiscent of National Enquirer chairman

David Pecker’s criminal scheme to “catch and kill” salacious stories about him to aid him in

his 2016 run for the Presidency,9 the Defendants are attempting to “catch and kill” the Gov-

ernment’s cases against criminal defendant and former President Donald J. Trump (“Mr.

Trump”) for stealing sensitive documents, styled United States v. Trump, Case No. 9:23-cr-

80101-AMC (S.D.Fla. filed 2023) (“The Florida Case”), and leading an insurrection, styled

United States v. Trump, Case No. 1:23-cr-00257-TSC (D.D.C. filed 2023) (“the D.C. Case”),

for the express purpose of aiding him in his 2024 run for the Presidency.

6. On information and belief, the Defendants have unlawfully interfered in a criminal

investigation, wrote law under the fraudulent guise of interpreting it, improvidently granted

review of settled law, and unreasonably delayed consideration of matters entrusted to them,

in furtherance of this criminal conspiracy.

7. On information and belief, the Defendants have engorged themselves on bribes “gra-

tuities” tendered by Mr. Trump’s billionaire allies, enabling them to live lives bordering on

the dissolute.

be promulgated by any American court, than that it was at liberty to disregard all former rules and decisions,
and to decide for itself [what the law is], without reference to the settled course of antecedent principles.” 1 J.
Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 350 (1838). As in all but the most exotic cases,
the “law” is established, the judge was expected to be little more than an administrator, playing what Professor
Llewellyn called “the game of matching cases.” Karl Llewellyn, The Bramble Bush 49 (1960). There is no
contrary authority.
9
Jeremy Herb, et al., Second day of testimony wraps in Trump hush money trial, CNN, April 23, 2024,
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-hush-money-trial-04-23-24.

7
 8. On information and belief, the Defendants have received or will continue to receive

a steady stream of lavish bribes “gratuities” from well-heeled serial litigants, in exchange

for preferential treatment in their courts, provided that Mr. Trump is re-elected.10

9. The right of meaningful access to courts of law has been central to Anglo-American

law for almost a millenium. “To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right

or justice.” Magna Carta [1215] c. 40.

10
Though our Justices appear to be for sale, they don’t come cheap. The steady stream of thinly-disguised
bribes—developer Harlan Crow is this generous with all of his friends, right?— aimed at Justice Thomas in-
cludes a $500,000 cash payment to his wife, an undisclosed number of trips on Crow’s yacht and private jet, a
$175,000 library wing named in his honor, several million to turn the cannery his mother worked for into a
museum—a project reportedly initiated by Thomas himself—and the Bible of firebrand Black abolitionist
Frederick Douglass, valued at $19,000. Mike McIntire, The Justice and the Magnate, N.Y. Times, Jun. 19, 2011,
at A-1. Whether it involves attending secretive junkets offered by the Federalist Society, Brian Ross, Supreme
Ethics Problem, ABC News, Jan. 23, 2006, or duck hunting with a litigant during the pendency of a case,
Cheney v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 541 U.S. 913 (2004) (Scalia, J., in cham-
bers) (the value of a bribe is its value to the recipient, e.g., United States v. Gorman, 807 F.2d 1299, 1305 (6th
Cir. 1986); United States v. Williams, 705 F.2d 603 (2d Cir. 1983) (business loan to Senator)), see generally,
Justin Elliott, et al., A “Delicate Matter”: Clarence Thomas’ Private Complaints About Money Sparked Fears
He Would Resign, ProPublica, Dec. 18, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-
complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus, our Supreme Court may be as compromised as Congress.
“In the years after the undisclosed trip to Alaska (photo above), Republican mega-donor Paul Singer’s hedge
fund has repeatedly had business before the Supreme Court. Alito has never recused himself.” Justin Elliot,
Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the
Court, ProPublica, Jun. 20, 2023. Mattathias Schwartz, Jane Roberts, who is married to Chief Justice John
Roberts (doctored photo above), made $10.3 million in commissions from elite law firms, whistleblower doc-
uments show, Business Insider, Apr 28, 2023, at https://www.businessinsider.com/jane-roberts-chief-justice-
wife-10-million-commissions-2023-4. In short, if you need meaningful access to the Roberts Court, you quite.
literally have to “pay the lady.”

8
 10. On information and belief, pursuant to the facially unconstitutional Judges’ Bill, 43

Stat. 936 (Feb. 13, 1925), the Defendants have transformed the Supreme Court into a bazaar,

selling their offices and opinions to the highest bidders, in what can rightly be called “Elton

John Justice”: “Rich man can ride, but the hobo, he can drown” Elton John, Mona Lisas and

Mad Hatters (MCA 1972)).11

11. On information and belief, the election of Mr. Trump’s opponent and his Party could

derail the Defendants’ gravy train, as Congress can quite literally strip the Court of its power

of appellate review. Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. 506, 513 (1868).12

11
The statute (and its successors) is too long to recite here, but the weapon William Howard Taft used to kill
the Constitution left the following statutory gunpowder residue:
Cases in the courts of appeals may be reviewed by the Supreme Court by the following methods:
(1) By writ of certiorari granted upon the petition of any party to any civil or criminal case, before or
after rendition of judgment or decree.... [28 U.S.C. § 1254(a)(1)]
Final judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had,
may be reviewed by the Supreme Court by writ of certiorari where the validity of a treaty or statute
of the United States is drawn in question or where the validity of a statute of any State is drawn in
question on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United
States... [28 U.S.C. § 1257(a)]
The critical operative phrases, of course, are “may be reviewed” and “by writ of certiorari.” At common law,
certiorari is a supervisory writ, apprising a superior court of "jurisdictional error, failure to observe some ap-
plicable requirement of procedural fairness, fraud and ‘error of law on the face of the record.’" Craig v South
Australia (1995) 184 CLR 163, 175 (H.C. Austl.) (citations omitted). “The underlying policy is that all inferior
courts and authorities have only limited jurisdiction or powers and must be kept within their legal bounds. This
is the concern of the Crown, for the sake of orderly administration of justice, but it is a private complaint which
sets the Crown in motion.” Surya Dev Rai v. Ram Chander Rai, (2003) 6 SCC 675 (India). As inferior tribunals
do not have colorable authority to defy the published dictates of our Supreme Court, e.g., United States v. Ruhe,
191 F. 3d at 388 (4th Cir.), whenever they did so, certiorari is the proper remedy at common law. As a duty is
owed to the suitor, mandamus is the proper mechanism for forcing the Court to act. 28 U.S.C. § 1361.
12
There is a simple, elegant, and constitutional way to permanently unpack the rogue Roberts Court through
an act of Congress, requiring only a majority in both Houses and signed by the President: Congress can strip
the Supreme Court of all jurisdiction over appellate review, pursuant to art. III, § 1. Ex parte McCardle, 74
U.S. 506 (1869). In its place, it can create a national court of appellate review designed along the lines of the
Ninth Circuit, with judges chosen at random from the ranks of Article III judges, to be given seats on a stag-
gered four-year basis. Have mundane reviews adjudicated by three-judge panels, with en banc panels of nine
chosen to handle important ones. Leave the current Court to attend to their constitutionally assigned role of
superintendence, which they have neglected for far too long. See 2 The Works of James Wilson 149-50 (James
D. Andrews ed., 1896) (Article III author’s understanding).
Whereas the Framers relied on implication, McCullough v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 407 (1819), New Mex-
ico’s constitution is explicit: “The supreme court shall have ... a superintending control over all inferior courts.”
N.M. Const. art. VI, § 3. Whereas our Supreme Court can be divested of the power of final appellate review

9
 12. On information and belief, this criminal enterprise is an integral part of a larger effort

by right-wing billionaires such as Rupert Murdoch and their agents in the Federalist Society

to replace the Constitution in favor of an illiberal right-wing dictatorship.13

13. As James Madison explains, the Bill of Rights was intended to preserve common law

protections (e.g., private criminal prosecution and the writs of mandamus, prohibition, and

scire facias) against abuses of power by public officials, observing that those

who opposed [the proposed Constitution] disliked it because it did not contain effectual
provison [sic] against encroachments on particular rights, and those safeguards which
they have been long accustomed to have interposed between them and the magis-
trate who exercised the sovereign power: nor ought we to consider them safe, while
a great number of our fellow citizens think these securities necessary.

1 Annals of Congress 450 (1789) (statement of Rep. Madison) (emphasis added).

14. Citizenship is not a spectator sport: Every citizen shares not just a right, but a common

duty appurtenant to citizenship, to support and defend "the Constitution and laws of the

United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic," 8 C.F.R. § 337.1, by

any means reasonably necessary, up to and including the use of lethal force. E.g., Declara-

tion of Independence, para. 2 (U.S. 1776); N.H. Const. part I, art. 10 [Right of Revolution.]

(“The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish,

and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.”).

via passage of a mere statute, its duty of superintendence is fixed and permanent. It is literally the only function
specified by the Framers (with the exception of its role as a trial court, in certain instances) as inescapably
theirs, as they were accustomed to the British system, where various specialty courts were courts of final appeal
within their bailiwicks, but King's Bench superintended all inferior courts. Politically, it would be easy to sell,
as such a court would be next-to-impossible to pack.
13
Aleks Phillips, Steve Bannon Predicts 50 Years of MAGA, Newsweek, Feb. 22, 2024.

10
A. BACKGROUND: THE ORIGINAL SIN

Over a century ago, our Supreme Court declared that you have a right to “equal and im-
partial justice under the law,” and that this right is “secured by laws operating on all alike,
and not subjecting the individual to the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government.”
Caldwell v. Texas, 137 U.S. 692, 697-98 (1891). But as Judge Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit
confessed, you have little hope of securing it, because "[t]he American legal system has been
corrupted almost beyond recognition.”14

And she does not understate the case.

A long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away, there once was a Republic called the United
States of America, where “[t]he law [was] no respecter of persons,” Trist v. Child, 88 U.S.
441, 453 (1875), and "[e]veryone [stood] alike as equals under the law.” Wilson v. Vermont
Castings, 977 F. Supp. 691, 699 (M.D. Pa. 1997) (jury instructions). Where “the kind of
trial a man [got did not depend] on the amount of money he has," Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S.
12, 19 (1956) or his station in life. In that happy land, their Supreme Court had recognized
that all federal litigants had certain rights, such as that to “equal and impartial justice under
the law,” Leeper v. Texas, 139 U.S. 462, 468 (1891), to procedural due process, Carey v.
Piphus, 435 U.S. at 267, and to have grievances heard by a fair and independent tribunal,
Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 523 (1927), and to rely on the published decisions of the courts
as authoritative expositions of what the law is. Moragne v. States Marine Lines, 398 U.S.
375, 403 (1970). These rights are all "conferred, not by legislative grace, but by constitu-
tional guarantee." Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 541 (1985)
(internal quotation omitted). Access to federal court must be “adequate, effective, and mean-
ingful,” Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 822 (1977), as where “there is a legal right, there is
also a legal remedy by suit, or action at law, whenever that right is invaded," Marbury v.
Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 163 (1803), for to take away all remedy for the enforcement of a right
is to take away the right itself.” Poindexter v Greenhow, 114 U.S. 270, 303 (1884).

14
Geraldine Hawkins, American Legal System Is Corrupt Beyond Recognition, Judge Tells Harvard Law
School, MassNews.com, Mar. 7, 2003, now at https://famguardian.org/Subjects/LawAndGovt/News/AmerLe-
galSystCorrupt-030307.pdf.

11
 Back when the Supreme Court still pretended to be a court of law, Justices boldly declared
that courts "are bound to proceed to judgment, and to afford redress to suitors before them,
in every case to which their jurisdiction extends," Hyde v. Stone, 61 U.S. 170, 176 (1857),
the existence of jurisdiction "creates an implication of duty to exercise it, and that its exercise
may be onerous does not militate against that implication." Mondou v. New York, N.H. &
H.R. Co., 223 U.S. 1, 58 (1912), and that [w]e have no more right to decline the exercise of
jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given. The one or the other would
be treason to the constitution.” Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264, 387 (1821) (emphasis
added). If there was ever a judicial mandate more imperative than Learned Hand’s First
Commandment—“Thou shalt not ration justice”57—it is not at all apparent.

When America was great, we had giants on the bench. Chief Justice Marshall. Thurgood
Marshall. Story. Holmes. Brandeis. Douglas. Brennan. Frankfurter. Robert Jackson. The
elder Harlan.15 Black. They have given way to mavens of mediocrity, whose only claim to
fame is that they had no record of accomplishment or distinction to run on, and no vision of
anything greater than their own appetites.

Justice Kagan called it the “Problem of Platonic Guardians.” Sam Stein, Kagan: In Bush
v. Gore, Court Was Affected By Politics and Policy, Huffington Post, May 19, 2010. Col-
umnist Max Boot called it “gavelitis.” Max Boot, Out of Order: Arrogance, Corruption, and
Incompetence On the Bench 25 (Basic Books, 1998). The notion that America wants a
King—that America needs a King—that inevitably leads to “I should be your King.” Justice
O’Connor commits this breathtaking “original sin” of judicial hubris:

The importance of the judicial branch to citizens of every country, and the crucial need
for an independent judiciary free from political and private pressure, was eloquently
expressed by John Marshall long ago: “The Judicial Department comes home in its ef-
fects to every man’s fireside. It passes on his property, his reputation, his life, his all. Is
it not, to the last degree important, that [the judge] should be rendered perfectly and
completely independent, with nothing to influence him but God and his conscience?”

Sandra Day O’Connor, The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice 248
(2d ed. 2004).

Change the word “judge” to “Adolf Hitler,” “Vladimir Putin,” or “King George III,” and
you should see the problem. While a dictatorship may be nice if you are the dictator, it’s not
that great if you are one of his thralls. We want judges who are independent of the govern-
ment, but not judges who are above the law. “Lawless judicial conduct—the administration,
in disregard of the law, of a personal brand of justice in which the judge becomes a law unto
himself—is as threatening to the concept of government under law as is the loss of judicial
independence.” In re Ross, 428 A.2d 858, 861 (Me. 1981).

15
As with Thurgood Marshall, Plaintiff’s respect for Harlan comes more from his dissentals than his opinions.
Hurtado. Plessy. The Insular Cases. We gave judges lifetime sinecures so they could make the tough calls
without fear or favor; Harlan embodied that spirit. That the people of D.C. and Puerto Rico are second-class
citizens is a lasting stain on our polity.

12
 This entire case turns on a simple concept, implicit in our constitutional design: JUDGES
HAVE NO AUTHORITY TO WRITE LAWS. In Obergefell, Justice Scalia complains
bitterly that "my Ruler ... is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court," who have
robbed the American people of "the freedom to govern themselves." Obergefell v. Hodges,
No. 14-556, 576 U.S. __ (2015) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 2). Chief Justice Roberts
also asked, "[j]ust who do we think we are?" Id., Roberts, C.J., dissenting) (slip op., at 3).
Lincoln put it simply: "No man is good enough to govern another man, without the other’s
consent," Abraham Lincoln, Speech (on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Springfield, IL), Oct. 16,
1854, and the Constitution is the absolute limit of our consent. Thereunder, you are en-
trusted with the "judicial Power," understood as authority to declare the law only. Arbitrary
judicial decrees offend the Due Process Clause, Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974),
literally voiding the Constitution. See e.g., N.H. Const. Part I, art. 3 (summary of “Lockean
bargain”).

15. In their efforts to ration access to justice and make it more marketable to their well-

heeled patrons, the Defendants and their judicial allies rewrote the Constitution to their liking

by writing law involving the following provisions and principles (by no means exhaustive):

a. Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000): the original coup ďêtat. “States have no right to
control their own state elections when it can result in the wrong guy being elected Pres-
ident.” The fifth and deciding vote was cast by the hopelessly conflicted Defendant
Thomas, who had an obvious “Ginni Problem” in that case, too.16

16
“Thomas, by casting the tie-breaking vote in Bush v. Gore, ruled in a case that his wife had vested interest
in. Ginni had been actively screening and recruiting appointees for the future Bush administration when she
worked at the Heritage Foundation,” and “[Ginni] actively participated in trying to overthrow the 2020 elec-
tion.” Lisa Graves, Clarence Thomas Has No Shame. But You Knew That, CommonDreams, Feb. 9, 2024.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/clarence-thomas-no-shame. Adding to the stench was that it was the
oddest of judicial ducks: a non-precedential opinion. “Our consideration is limited to the present circum-
stances.” Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. at 109. The dissents were savage, and with good reason, as the majority
jettisoned a century-worth of principled states’-rights friendly jurisprudence to reach an obviously outcome-
driven conclusion.

13
 b. Rewriting the Eleventh Amendment (Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706 (1999)), effec-
tively adopting the version the Amendment’s framers explicitly rejected). See John Paul
Stevens, "Two Questions About Justice," 2003 Ill. L. Rev. 821.

c. Allowing so-called “unpublished” opinions, granting judges the raw power to write
ad hoc, ex post facto designer ‘law’, applicable to one and only one set of litigants. E.g.,
Smith v. United States Ct. of App. for the Tenth Circuit, No. 07-736 (cert. den. Feb. 19,
2008); cf., Anastasoff v. United States, 223 F.3d 898 (8th Cir. 2000), vacated as moot
on other grounds, 235 F.3d 1054 (8th Cir. 2000); Hart v. Massanari, 266 F.3d 1155 (9th
Cir. 2001).17

17
This isn’t an abstruse concept. When you take a claim to court, you expect it to apply the law you find in
the Constitution and law books, and that you can plan your affairs accordingly, so that you don’t need to go to
court in the first place. Jefferson crystallizes the thought with his usual brilliance: "Let the judge be a mere
machine." Thomas Jefferson, Letter (to Edmund Pendleton), Aug. 26, 1776. In a landmark opinion, Judge
Richard Arnold isolates the core constitutional problem:
Inherent in every judicial decision is a declaration and interpretation of a general principle or rule of law.
This declaration of law is authoritative to the extent necessary for the decision, and must be applied in
subsequent cases to similarly situated parties. These principles, which form the doctrine of precedent,
were well established and well regarded at the time this nation was founded. The Framers of the Consti-
tution considered these principles to derive from the nature of judicial power, and intended that they
would limit the judicial power delegated to the courts by Article III of the Constitution. Accordingly, we
conclude that 8th Circuit Rule 28A(i), insofar as it would allow us to avoid the precedential effect of our
prior decisions, purports to expand the judicial power beyond the bounds of Article III, and is therefore
unconstitutional.
Anastasoff, 223 F.3d at 899-900 (emphasis added; citations omitted).
This is Scalian originalism at its finest. Justice Scalia ‘added meat to the bones,’ summarizing Anglo-
American jurisprudence in five incisive sentences:
Parents know that children will accept quite readily all sorts of arbitrary substantive dispositions—no
television in the afternoon, or no television in the evening, or even no television at all. But try to let one
brother or sister watch television when the others do not, and you will feel the fury of the fundamental
sense of justice unleashed. The Equal Protection Clause epitomizes justice more than any other provision
of the Constitution. And the trouble with the discretion-conferring approach to judicial law making is that
it does not satisfy this sense of justice very well. When a case is accorded a different disposition from an
earlier one, it is important, if the system of justice is to be respected, not only that the later case be differ-
ent, but that it be seen to be so.
Antonin Scalia, The Rule of Law as a Law of Rules, 56 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1175, 1178 (1989). And while testi-
lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Elena Kagan piles on:
The idea is engraved on the very face of the Supreme Court building: Equal Justice Under Law. It means
that everyone who comes before the Court— regardless of wealth or power or station—receives the same
process and the same protections. What this commands of judges is even-handedness and impartiality.
What it promises is nothing less than a fair shake for every American.
Nomination of Elena Kagan to be Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, United States Sen.
Cmte. on the Judiciary, Jun. 28, 2010 (statement of Elena Kagan), https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/me-
dia/doc/06-28-10%20Kagan%20Testimony.pdf at 2.
As Judge Arnold observed, this principle devolves directly from Marbury v. Madison, and summarized by
Justice Story. Anastasoff, 223 F.3d at 904 (citation omitted). In turn, it can be traced to Hamilton in the Fed-
eralist:

14
 There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority,
contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act therefore
contrary to the constitution can be valid. To deny this would be to affirm that the deputy is greater than
his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the
people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not author-
ise, but what they forbid.
The Federalist No. 78, 438 (Alexander Hamilton) (I. Kramnick ed. 1987).
In the abstract, this is the most inoffensive and non-controversial principle imaginable: Judges are charged
with a duty to apply the law to the facts and follow established precedent (or explain why they are abandoning
it), and we expect them to show their work. As Professor Tribe writes in his seminal treatise, due process has
two elemental components: “the right to be heard and the right to hear why.” Laurence Tribe, American Con-
stitutional Law 744 (2d ed. 1988) (italics in original). To meet the requirements of due process, a court’s answer
must be more than “Because I said so, damnit!” Justice Stephen Breyer elaborates:
Judges do not simply announce a legal conclusion. They reason their way to that conclusion in an opinion
written for all to see. The obligation to provide legally defensible reasoning in a publicly accessible format
prevents a judge from escaping accountability. Indeed, a good judicial opinion is transparent and informa-
tive. It shows that the decision is principled and reasoned. The strength of this reasoning matters.
Stephen Breyer, Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge’s View 83 (2010). The Breyer standard is not just a
statement of best practices, but what we have a constitutional right to demand from our courts. Every Ameri-
can—from the lowliest serf to the mightiest prince has a right to “adequate, effective, and meaningful” access
to federal court. Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 822 (1977).
A hundred years ago, an aggrieved litigant had a right to a meaningful appeal, complete with a hearing
before three judges who had actually read the briefs, and a written opinion that would carry precedential effect
in the Circuit. Judges really couldn’t play ‘fast-and-loose’ with the law, because irregular decisions would be
overturned by the Supreme Court on a writ of error. Since trial judges knew that egregious irregular decisions
would not survive the appellate process, and that just meant more work for them, they had an incentive to be
honest.
But good judging requires work—something the petulant primadonnas on today’s bench appear allergic to.
As retired Justice John Paul Stevens admitted, “Supreme Court Justice” is the best part-time job in the world:
“If the court had maintained the same heavy caseload today it had when he became a justice in 1975, ‘I would
have resigned 10 years ago.’” Justice Stevens Shows No Signs of Quitting, Associated Press, Nov. 29, 2008.
And unless you pay the requisite bribe, the de facto ‘United States Supreme Court’ is a fresh-faced 25-year-
old kid out of Harvard who has never tried a case in his life. See e.g., David R. Stras, The Supreme Court’s
Gatekeepers: The Role of Law Clerks in the Certiorari Process, 85 Tex. L. Rev. 947, 975 (2007).
While a fish rots at the head first, the rest of the judicial tuna is unfit to feed to your cat. At the federal
appellate level, the average judge spends more time taking a shit than he does in considering an appeal. Panels
in the Ninth Circuit might issue 150 rulings in a three-day session, Alex Kozinski, Letter (to Judge Samuel
A. Alito, Jr.), Jan. 16, 2004 at 5, and the late Richard Arnold admitted that his panel had issued fifty rulings
in two hours. Perfunctory Justice: Overloaded Federal Judges Increasingly Are Resorting to One-Word Rul-
ings, Des Moines Register, Mar. 26, 1999, at 12. Ken Smith, Brett Kavanaugh: Adventures in Perjury, Sept. 9,
2018, https://www.scribd.com/document/388429610/Kavanaugh-090918 (D.C. Circuit). In essence, as Profes-
sors Reynolds and Richman lament, our appellate courts have become certiorari courts. William M. Reynolds
& William L. Richman, Elitism, Expediency, and the New Certiorari: Requiem for the Learned Hand Tradi-
tion, 81 Cornell L. Rev. 273, 275 (1995-96). See also, William M. Richman, Much Ado About the Tip of an
Iceberg, 62 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1723 (2005) (unpaginated text-based copy) (comments of Judges Jon New-
man (2nd), Edith Jones (5th), and Alvin Rubin (5th)).
One of the most comical examples of appellate sloth involved Stanford-based constitutional law scholar
Michael McConnell, a Federalist Society darling whose primary career goal was to be the fifth vote to overturn
Roe v. Wade; he resigned in 2009, after Barack Obama was elected and his window to ascend to the High Court
closed. He essentially moonlighted on the Tenth Circuit, teaching law at both Harvard and Stanford while

15
sitting on that Court. Mirela Turc, Judge Michael McConnell Speaks About the Ninth Amendment, The Ob-
server (Case West. U.), Oct. 31, 2008 (bio). But despite his bloated resume, he actually dismissed a matter on
jurisdictional grounds WITH PREJUDICE. Harrington v. Wilson, No. 06-1418 (10th Cir. Jun. 7. 2007) (with-
drawn), cf., Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. 506, 514 (1869). That is not the kind of mistake a first year Civil
Procedure student is likely to make.
And to exactly no one’s surprise, our district courts’ day-to-day work output is utter crap. Even at the trial
court level, judges are ‘too busy’ to even bother reading your briefs. Richard G. Kopf (Senior Judge, District
of Nebraska), Top ten legal writing hints when the audience is a cranky federal trial judge, Hercules and the
Umpire, Jun. 20, 2013 (blog), According to retired District Judge Nancy Gertner, judges are quite literally
trained on "how you get rid of [pro se civil rights] cases." Nancy Gertner (blog reply), Civil jury trials, summary
judgment, employment cases and the Northern District of Georgia study–preliminary observations, Hercules
and the Umpire, Oct. 22, 2013, at http://herculesandtheumpire.com/2013/10/22/civil-jurytrials-summary-judg-
ment-employment-cases-and-the-northern-district-of-georgia-study-preliminary-observations/. Judge Mark
Bennett of the Northern District of Iowa earned the nickname “The Terminator” for summarily dismissing pro
se employment law cases. Mark W. Bennett, Essay: From the “No Spittin’, No Cussin’ and No Summary
Judgment” Days of Employment Discrimination Litigation to the “Defendant’ s Summary Judgment Affirmed
Without Comment” Days: One Judge’s Four-Decade Perspective, 57 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 685, 688 & n. 11
(2012–2013). Retired Judge Richard Posner recently took Judge David Faber of the District of Maryland to
task for cutting and pasting “his” opinion in a pro se case from the Government’s brief. Reply Brief, Bond v.
United States, No. 17-2150 (4th Cir. filed May 14, 2018). Judge Robert Blackburn of the District of Colorado
routinely shunts pro se cases to magistrates with apparent directions to get rid of them and then failing to review
them, issuing boilerplate opinions bearing zero objective evidence that he had performed his statutory duty.
E.g., Cogswell v. United States Senate, No. 08-cv-01929-REB-MEH (D.Colo. Mar. 2, 2009), Shell v. Devries,
No. 06-cv-00318-REB-BNB (D.Colo. Jan. 30, 2007), Signer v. Pimkova, No. 05-cv-02039-REB-MJW
(D.Colo. Nov. 30, 2006), Smith v. United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, No. 04-RB-1222 (OES)
(Oct. 15, 2004).
But as Steve Bannon says, “there are no coincidences.” Jennifer Senior, American Rasputin, The Atlantic,
Jun. 6, 2022.
Despite his conceded talent, Judge Alex Kozinski was an appalling wastrel of time. He was known to write
fifty drafts of a published opinion, and admits to writing opinions “precisely for the purpose of getting into”
casebooks. Emily Bazelon, The Big Kozinski, Legal Affairs, Jan-Feb. 2004. While it might be great for recip-
ients of his judicial Bentleys, litigants stuck with his rusted 1976 Yugos have a constitutional right to demand
better. And if the courts suddenly had to produce legally coherent decisions in all cases, he wouldn’t be able
to write law review articles masquerading as opinions.
Even though the odds of his being randomly assigned the case approached 20-1, Kozinski was assigned a
case he could use as a vehicle for defending his practice. Kozinski plainly prejudged Hart v. Massanari, before
hearing it, having expressed his opinion publicly, Hon. Alex J. Kozinski and Hon. Stephen R. Reinhardt, Please
Don’t Cite This! Why We Don’t Allow Citations to Unpublished Dispositions, California Lawyer, June 2000,
at 43, and almost certainly, insisted on being assigned the case. Through his self-interest, he “made the case
his own.” Hon. John T. Noonan, Jr., Making the Case One’s Own, 32 Hofstra L. Rev. 1139, 1141 (2004); see,
Alex Kozinski, The Real Issues of Judicial Ethics, 32 Hofstra L. Rev. 1095, 1106 (2004).
Distilled to essentials, Kozinski’s complaint was that to do judging right, we’d need more judges to do the
job right: “Congress would have to increase the number of judges by something like a factor of five to allocate
to each judge a manageable number of opinions each year,” Hart, 266 F.3d at 1179 and n. 39, to which, the
rational response is “maybe you could write five drafts instead of fifty,” and “perhaps you could spend more
than five minutes considering my goddamned appeal.” Five minutes isn’t enough time to even read an opinion,
much less, understand it.
Kozinski whined that “[t]he risk that this may happen vastly increases if judges are required to write many
more precedential opinions than they do now, leaving much less time to devote to each.” Id. at 1179. While
that may be true, if we can’t safely rely on the meticulously-crafted “precedential” opinions judges do write,
they don’t need to spend that much time on them in the first place. Quoting Blackstone, he further kvetched
that "the `law,' and the `opinion of the judge' are not ... one and the same thing; since it sometimes may happen

16
 d. Excising the Supremacy Clause, which declares that “all Treaties made, or which
shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of
the Land.” U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. Smith v. Arguello, No. 10-1485 (cert. denied Oct.
3, 2011) (perpetuating the common-law doctrine of immunity, in defiance of a validly
ratified treaty abolishing official immunities for all torts within the scope of the treaty).18

that the judge may mistake the law." Id. at 1165. No one ever had the heart to tell him that the primary
reason we have appellate courts is to correct this kind of error. For instance, When the courts in the Tenth
Circuit refused to enforce the rule that "no man can be a judge in his own case," Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510,
523 (1927); Dr. Bonham’s Case [1610] 8 Co. Rep. 107a (C.C.P.), the Supreme Court has a duty to correct
them pursuant to a writ of certiorari. Appellate judging is not rocket science.
18
It is axiomatic that if a citizen enjoys a right, he must “of necessity have a means to vindicate and maintain
it, and a remedy if he is injured in the exercise or enjoyment of it; and indeed, it is a vain thing to imagine a
right without a remedy, for want of right and want of remedy are reciprocal.” Ashby v. White [1703] 92 Eng.
Rep. 126, 136 (H.C.). And to "take away all remedy for the enforcement of a right is to take away the right
itself." Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U.S. 270, 303 (1884).
“In earliest English law not only was immunity of judges not recognized, but review of judicial decisions
was in the form of a personal action against the judge.” Jay M. Feinman and Roy S. Cohen, Suing Judges:
History and Theory, 31 S.Car. L. Rev. 201, 205 (1980). The doctrine of absolute judicial immunity is a medi-
eval common-law doctrine, tracing its origin to the notorious Tudor Star Chamber. Floyd and Barker [1607]
77 Eng. Rep. 1305 (Star Chamber). Created by judges for the benefit of judges, it is predicated upon a sophistry
even Lewis Carroll would find impenetrable. Professor Olowofoyeku of London’s Brunel University ridicules
it: “You have been injured by the misconduct of a judge. We have to deny you redress. This is necessary
because we have to protect your interests by protecting the judges, so that they in turn can protect your interests
without fear of apprehension.” Abimbola Olowofoyeku, Suing Judges: A Study of Judicial Immunity 197 (Ox-
ford U. Pr. 1993); Scott v. Stansfield [1868] 3 L.R. 220 (Exch).
But even in England, judicial immunity had its limits. Coke observed in The Case of the Marshalsea, 77
Eng. Rep. 1027 (C.P. 1610), that an act done outside the jurisdiction of the court was not considered to be the
action of a judge and therefore, the judge was not entitled to immunity. (Other English precedent suggests that
while the absolute immunity of superior court judges extended even to acts done maliciously, inferior judges
were liable for malicious acts within their jurisdiction. Feinman, at 218.) The Marshalsea Rule was imported
in Randall v. Brigham, 74 U.S. 523 (1869) and Bradley v. Fisher, 80 U.S. 335 (1871) (involving a contempt
of court), with the Court reasoning that “[a]gainst the consequences of [judges’] erroneous or irregular action,
from whatever motives proceeding, the law has provided for private parties numerous remedies, and to those
remedies they must, in such cases, resort.” Id. at 354. In the glorious days when you had an absolute right to
appellate review resulting in a published decision with binding precedential effect and could remove a judge
for misconduct pursuant to a writ of scire facias, this was fair dinkum. Justice and public policy were held in
a fine and equitable balance.
But then, judges went nuts.
The Framers' Constitution and the English common law on which it was built contained an array of effective
remedies for flagrant acts of judicial misconduct, including removal from office, private criminal prosecution,
and—as a child of the Civil War Amendments—liability in tort. As Justice Douglas writes, “To most, "every
person" would mean every person, not every person except judges.” Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 559 (1967)
(Douglas, J., dissenting) (emphasis in original). It is the court’s duty “to give effect, if possible, to every clause
and word of a statute,” Montclair v. Ramsdell, 107 U.S. 147, 152 (1883), except when the judge doesn’t like
the outcome. But judges always rule in favor of fellow judges whenever they can, in what Judge Posner
rightly describes as an application of Bayesian decision theory: If it costs nothing to be wrong, you have no
incentive to get it right. Richard A. Posner, How Judges Think 11, 67-8 (Harv. U. Press 2008).
When The Fonz “jumped the shark” in Happy Days, our Supreme Court said, “Hold my beer!” In Stump v.
Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349 (1978), declaring that a judge is “free, like a loose cannon, to inflict indiscriminate
damage whenever he announces that he is acting in his judicial capacity.” Stump, 435 U.S. at 367 (Stewart, J.,
dissenting). And to state the case for immunity is to refute it.

17
 Assume, arguendo, that World War II was fought to a draw, and the infamous Joseph Mengele did not have
to flee from victors’ justice. As his acts were authorized by the German government and, presumptively, legal
at the time, he would be immune from criminal prosecution. But were he sued in tort by a German soldier given
mind-altering drugs without his knowledge or consent, or a child, subjected to forced sterilization, imagine the
outrage the world would express, if both he and the German government could hide behind the cloak of absolute
immunity.
These incidents actually happened, right here in “the land of the free.” James Stanley, a master sergeant
stationed at Fort Knox, was secretly administered doses of LSD, under an Army scheme to study its effects on
humans. United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669, 671 (1987). Linda Sparkman was secretly sterilized without
her consent or semblance of medical necessity, pursuant to a judicial order issued in direct contravention of
statutory law. Stump, supra. And the perpetrators were granted absolute immunity, in spite of their heinous
crimes. The ultimate irony is that James Stanley was a soldier, who swore to fight and die to defend a document
that proved to be so feeble, it could not even protect him from crimes against humanity committed by his own
countrymen. Cessant ratione legis, cessat lex (when the reason of the law ceases, the law itself ceases).
But while it is one thing for the courts to find immunity in a constitution that is nominally silent, our para-
mount law has spoken directly to the issue for over a quarter-century. The United States of is a signatory to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (hereinafter, the “ICCPR”), a treaty ratified by every
country in the civilized world. The Constitution provides that valid treaties are the law of the land, U.S. Const.
art. VI, cl. 2; Head Money Cases, 112 U.S. 580, 598-99. (1884), and Chief Justice Marshall wrote that “an act
of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations, if any other possible construction re-
mains.” Murray v. the Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. 64, 118 (1804). Congress expressed its intent that provisions of
the ICCPR "will become binding international obligations of the United States," 138 Cong. Rec. S4,783 (1992)
(stmt. of Sen. Moynihan (D-MA)). Our State Department has warranted to the international community that
whenever conforming legislation is required to comply with treaty obligations, it is our consistent practice to
withhold an instrument of ratification until appropriate legislation is enacted. United States Dept. of State, Core
Doc. Forming Part of the Reports of States Parties, United Nations Doc. No. HRI/CORE/USA/2005 (Jan. 16,
2005) at ¶ 157.
In considering ratification, the Committee on Foreign Relations stated that it wanted to defeat the claim that
it was an international hypocrite. Sen. Comm. on Foreign Relations, Report on the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, S. Exec. Rep. No. 23, 3 (102d Sess. 1992) (“In view of the leading role that the
United States plays in the international struggle for human rights, the absence of U.S. ratification of the cove-
nant is conspicuous and, in the view of many, hypocritical”). If the ICCPR were not pellucid on its face, this
speaks directly to congressional intent.
Based on the foregoing, it is not logically possible to find the ICCPR to be a non-self-executing treaty.
Chief Justice Marshall said, "where a treaty is the law of the land, and as such affects the rights of parties
litigating in court, that treaty as much binds those rights and is as much to be regarded by the court as an act of
congress." United States v. Schooner Peggy, 5 U.S. 103, 109–10 (1801). And when the United States declares
to the world that its law is in full compliance with the treaty, the Foster v. Nielson (27 U.S. 253 (1829)) “con-
tract” exception cannot apply by definition, because there is literally nothing left for Congress to do to fulfill
its end of the bargain. As such, it is the law of the land, and enforceable in our courts. See Carlos M. Vázquez,
Treaties as Law of the Land: The Supremacy Clause and the Judicial Enforcement of Treaties, 122 Harv. L.
Rev. 599 (2008). Besides, even if judges could claim that the ICCPR was a non-self-executing treaty and that
United States of America lied to the rest of the world in declaring its compliance, unilateral reservations fun-
damentally incompatible with the object and purpose of a treaty are void as a matter of international law.
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, art. 19, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331 (entered into force, Jan. 27, 1980). Thus,
to find that it is not the law of the land, you must also admit that Lady Liberty is AN ADULTERER.
Professor Chemerinsky piles on, explaining that it places a common-law principle above the Constitution
itself, obliterating the Supremacy Clause and extinguishing "the right of every individual to claim the protec-
tion of the laws, whenever he receives an injury." Erwin Chemerinsky, "SEE NO EVIL: Sovereign Immunity
Puts States Above the Law, Implying They Can Do No Wrong," Mar. 21, 2001, L. A. Daily J. at 6 (quoting
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. at 163).

18
 e. Emasculating Fifteenth Amendment enforcement through vote dilution and surgical
gerrymandering, illicitly overriding the detailed factual findings of Congress,19 Shelby

While it is certainly “inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be amenable to the suit of an individual
without its consent,” The Federalist No. 81 at 455 (Alexander Hamilton), the Bill of Rights constitutes that
expression of consent, just as it is in Mother England. Magna Carta [1215] c. 61. To hold otherwise is to say
that the Fifth Amendment clause declaring that no person “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law,” U.S. Const. amend. V, is a gratuitous exercise in intellectual canasta. In light of this fact,
Defendant Roberts buries the needle on industrial-strength irony-detectors the world over:
Roberts emphasized his belief that a judiciary is needed to uphold the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
"Do not think for a moment that those words alone will protect you; consider some other grand words,"
he said before reciting similar words from the Soviet Union's constitution, which he called "all lies." "So
by all means celebrate the words of the First Amendment," he said. "But remember also the words of the
Soviet constitution.”
Melanie Hicken, Chief Justice Roberts Headlines Newhouse III Opening, The Daily Orange (Syracuse Uni-
versity), Sept. 20, 2007.
Every written constitution contains grandiloquent phrases guaranteeing fundamental liberties. Even North
Korea. The North Korean Constitution guarantees the "freedom of speech, the press, assembly, demonstration
and association," to file grievances against the State, to social security, and free medical care, and to freedom
of religion. Democratic People's Republic of Korea Constitution art. 67-9, 72 (2009), Int'l Constitutional Law
Project (U. of Berne) (trans. unknown), at http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/kn00000_.html. "In administering
justice, [the North Korean courts are] independent, and judicial proceedings are carried out in strict accordance
with the law." Id., art. 166. But as Defendant Roberts admits, in practice, your mileage may vary.
.

In a nation governed by the rule of law, you would expect that the sheer weight of reason and evidence
would have relegated the medieval doctrine of official immunity to the historical dust bin. But as Thomas
Jefferson intoned, “The constitution ... is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may
twist, and shape into any form they please,” and predictably, our judges invariably put their fingers on the
scales of justice to redound to their personal benefit.
19
Pursuant to article 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Pub. L.
89–110, 79 Stat. 437 (“the VRA”), aimed at remedying entrenched racial discrimination in voting perpetuated
in the Jim Crow South “through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution." South Carolina v.
Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 309 (1966). It was precipitated by the sheer “variety and persistence of these and
similar institutions designed to deprive Negroes of the right to vote,” including literacy tests, poll taxes, prop-
erty-ownership requirements, racial gerrymanders, moral character tests, and civics tests. Id. at 311 (collecting
cases). Congress held extensive hearings, identifying states and counties where problems were most pro-
nounced; changes to voting laws there had to be pre-cleared by the Department of Justice. VRA, § 5.
Again in response to extensive fact-finding during lengthy hearings, Congress reauthorized Section 5 four
times, with the latest being in 2006. Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act
Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006, Pub. L. 109-246, 120 Stat. 577 (July 27, 2006) (“R/A Act”).
Importantly, it found that “[t]he evidence clearly shows the continued need for Federal oversight in jurisdic-
tions covered by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 since 1982,” that the partisan Republican wing of the Court
significantly weakened the VRA’s protections in Reno v. Bossier Parish School Bd., 528 U.S. 320 (2000) and
Georgia v. Ashcroft, 539 U.S. 461 (2003), and that remediation was in order. R/A Act, Sec. 2(b)(4)-(5).
Congress writes laws and as a rule, bases them on facts. Here, they amassed a legislative record of over
15,000 pages. Shelby County, 133 S.Ct. at 2636 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). The majority didn’t even read the
record—at a page a minute, it would have taken 250 hours—and yet, they decided that Congress got the facts
wrong??? The Supreme Court applies the law to the facts, and has no colorable authority to substitute its naked
will for that of Congress. But as always, see Randy Barnett, Scalia's Infidelity: A Critique of Faint-Hearted
Originalism, 75 U. Cin. L. Rev. 7, 13 (2006)). Scalia refutes Scalia. When it served his purposes, Justice Scalia
observed, “Judicial decisions, like the Constitution itself, are nothing more than ‘parchment barriers.’ Both
depend on a judicial culture that understands its constitutionally assigned role ... [and] the modesty to persist

19
 County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529, 133 S.Ct. 2612 (2013) (facilitating Republican theft of
congressional districts, thereby depriving ordinary citizens of the franchise); Husted v.
A. Philip Randolph Institute, 584 U.S. 756 (2018) (targeted purges of voter rolls); Bart-
lett v. Strickland, 556 U.S. 1 (2009) (limits the right to challenge racially concentrated
districts); Abbott v. Perez, 585 U.S. 579 (2018) (maps drawn with racially discrimina-
tory intent), cf., Bush v. Gore, supra.

f. Reducing the Ninth Amendment to Judge Bork’s “inkblot.” Dobbs, supra.

[16-20. Reserved.]

And yes. It really is this big.

when it produces results that go against the judges' policy preferences.” Michigan v. Bryant, 562 U.S. ___, 131
S.Ct. 1143, 1176 (2011) (Scalia, J., dissenting). “The Court's temptation is in the quite opposite and more
natural direction—towards systematically eliminating checks upon its own power; and it succumbs.” Planned
Parenthood of S.E. Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 981 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
Justice Thomas could have been the last best hope for the comatose ‘rule of law’ in this land, being the most
willing of any Justice to overturn bad precedent, see Ken Foskett, Judging Thomas: The Life and Times of
Clarence Thomas 281-82 (Harper Collins, 2004) (quoting Scalia). but his definition of “bad precedent” appears
to be “outcomes that I don’t like.” But truth be told, this is how it has always been:
With disarming candor Justice John Marshal Harlan (grandfather of the present Justice Harlan) told a
class of law students: With disarming candor Justice John Marshal Harlan (grandfather of the present
Justice Harlan) told a class of law students: “I want to say to you young gentlemen that if we don't
like an act of Congress, we don't have much trouble to find grounds for declaring it unconstitu-
tional.”
Alphaeus Thomas Mason, The Supreme Court from Taft to Warren vii (La. St. U. Press, 2d ed. 1968) (em-
phasis added).
Ever since John Marshall wrote a twenty-five-page opinion in Marbury v. Madison that could have been
written in two, judges have been reaching for the Ring of Power with all the determination of Gollum. And
we usually hear it from the losers. As Judge Kozinski observes, “As guardians of the Constitution, we must be
consistent in interpreting its provisions. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others
like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; it's using our power as federal judges
to constitutionalize our personal preferences.” Silveira v. Lockyer, 328 F.3d 567, 569 (9th Cir. 2003) (Kozinski,
J., dissenting from den. of reh. en banc; citations omitted).

20
 PARTIES

21. Plaintiff Kenneth L. Smith is a citizen of the United States of America, acting

pursuant to the common obligation of all citizens “to support and defend the Constitution

and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” 8

C.F.R. § 337.1.

22. Plaintiff has been uniquely and irreparably injured by the willful failure of several of

the Defendants to honor their oaths,20 and faces peril if Mr. Trump is re-elected.

23. Defendants JOHN G. ROBERTS, JR., BRETT M. KAVANAUGH, NEIL M. GOR-

SUCH, AMY CONEY BARRETT, SAMUEL A. ALITO, JR., and CLARENCE THOMAS

(the Conspiring Justices”) and AILEEN MERCEDES CANNON are Article III judges, hold-

ing their sinecures on the condition of “good behaviour.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 1.

JURISDICTION AND VENUE

24. Jurisdiction is conferred pursuant to Article III and the Tenth Amendment.

25. This Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 136121 to compel Defendant Cannon to

recuse herself in the Florida Case, as "literally, the language of § 1361 would allow a district

court to issue mandamus directly against [even] the Justices of the Supreme Court them-

selves." Panko v. Rodak, 606 F.2d 168, 171 & n. 6 (7th Cir. 1979).

26. As significant actions taken pertinent to this matter occurred within this District, and

on information and belief, at least one Defendant currently resides in this District, venue is

appropriate.

20
As the only persons who would possess a superior interest in enforcing Article III good behavior tenure are
Mr. Trump (who wouldn’t) and the United States Government (which can’t), Plaintiff must have standing, or
the Good Behavior Clause would otherwise be rendered nugatory for impossibility of enforcement.
21
“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any action in the nature of mandamus to compel an
officer or employee of the United States or any agency thereof to perform a duty owed to the plaintiff.”

21
 ALLEGATIONS OF FACT

27. On information and belief, Mr. Trump has been and is engaged in a conscious strat-

egy of delaying those federal cases for which he is currently under indictment, relying on

the assistance of corrupt and pliant judges to delay his federal trials until after the 2024

Presidential election.22

28. On information and belief, were he re-elected, Mr. Trump could order a corrupt

Acting Attorney General who answered only to him to abandon said prosecutions, and par-

don all his co-conspirators, even if he was convicted.23

29. On information and belief, as our courts are authorized to decide cases as opposed to

writing laws, they are supposed to “avoid reaching constitutional questions in advance of the

necessity of deciding them.” Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Assn., 485 U.S.

439, 445-46 (1988).

30. In a power grab that would make Vladimir Putin blush, Justices of the Supreme Court

routinely “constitutionalize their personal preferences,” Silveira v. Lockyer, 328 F.3d 567,

568 (9th Cir. 2003) (Kozinski, J., dissenting from den. of reh. en banc), “rob[bing] the People

of … the freedom to govern themselves.” Obergefell, supra (Scalia, J., dissenting) (slip op.,

at 2).24

22
On information and belief, this strategy was taught to him by legendary disbarred attorney Roy Cohn. Brian
Bennett, How Trump Survived Decades of Legal Trouble: Deny, Deflect, Delay, and Don’t Put Anything in
Writing, Time (Sept. 21, 2022), at https://time.com/6215419/trump-legal-trouble-key-strategies/.
23
See e.g., Gregory Korte, et al., How a Reelected Trump Could Make His Criminal Cases Go Away, Bloom-
berg (May 10, 2024), at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-10/trump-immunity-if-reelected-
he-could-make-court-cases-go-away-without-it
24
As Justice Scalia observed, “Judicial decisions, like the Constitution itself, are nothing more than ‘parchment
barriers.’ Both depend on a judicial culture that understands its constitutionally assigned role ... [and] the mod-
esty to persist when it produces results that go against the judges' policy preferences.” Michigan v. Bryant,
562 U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 1143, 1176 (2011) (Scalia, J., dissenting). “The Court's temptation is in the quite
opposite and more natural direction—towards systematically eliminating checks upon its own power; and it
succumbs.” Planned Parenthood of S.E. Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 981 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting). In two

22
A. ANDERSON: THE ESSENTIAL PREDICATE

31. On or about December 19, 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court issued its opinion in

Anderson v. Griswold, 2023 CO 63 (Colo. 2023), holding that Mr. Trump “was disqualified

from holding the office of President25 under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to

the United States Constitution.” Id., advance note at 1.

brief passages, Scalia summarized two centuries’ of judicial misconduct. E.g., United States v. Callender, 25
F.Cas. 239, 257 (D.Va. 1800) (Chase, J., riding circuit) (eviscerating the Seventh Amendment).
Concurrences read like a Brandeis brief. Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Court of Appeals confessed
that he was “in despair” about the United States Supreme Court, noting that every one of the Justices “is guilty,
to one degree or another, of violating the two most basic rules of restrained judicial behavior: ruling only on
questions presented by the case at hand, and interpreting precedents honestly.” Benjamin Wittes, “Without
Precedent,” 296-2 Atlantic Monthly 39 (Sept. 2005). Judge Bork describes the Court as a “band of outlaws.”
Robert H. Bork, Our Judicial Oligarchy, 67 First Things 21, 24 (Nov. 1996). Justice Kagan writes that they
“forget that they are judges and that their Court is a court,” Elena Kagan, The Development and Erosion of the
American Exclusionary Rule: A Study in Judicial Method (unpublished Master’s thesis; Apr. 20, 1983).
The academy is no kinder. Professor Karl Llewellyn writes that judges routinely
manhandl[e] ... the facts of the pending case, or of the precedent, so as to make it falsely appear that the
case in hand falls under a rule which in fact it does not fit, or especially that it falls outside of a rule which
would lead in the instant case to a conclusion the court cannot stomach.
Karl Llewellyn, The Common Law Tradition: Deciding Appeals 133 (1960); accord, Richard A. Posner, How
Judges Think 144 (Harv. U. Press 2008). Alan Dershowitz adds. “[S]ome justices actually cheat. … Trust no
one in power, including—especially—judges. … You will be amazed at how often you will find judges “fi-
nessing” the facts and the law.” Alan Dershowitz, Letters To a Young Lawyer 11 (Basic Books 2001).
25
In concluding that the Amendment covered the President, The Anderson majority wrote:
“Senator Reverdy Johnson worried that the final version of Section Three did not include the office of
the Presidency. He stated, “[T]his amendment does not go far enough” because past rebels “may be
elected President or Vice President of the United States.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 2899 (1866).
So, he asked, “why did you omit to exclude them? I do not understand them to be excluded from the
privilege of holding the two highest offices in the gift of the nation.” Id. Senator Lot Morrill fielded this
objection. He replied, “Let me call the Senator’s attention to the words ‘or hold any office, civil or mili-
tary, under the United States.’” Id. This answer satisfied Senator Johnson, who stated, “Perhaps I am
wrong as to the exclusion from the Presidency; no doubt I am; but I was misled by noticing the specific
exclusion in the case of Senators and Representatives.” Id. This colloquy further supports the view that
the drafters of this Amendment intended the phrase “any office” to be broadly inclusive, and certainly to
include the Presidency.”

23
 32. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides, in pertinent part:

“No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States … who,
having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall
have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to
the enemies thereof.”

U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 3.

33. The controlling question was whether the Amendment is self-executing; the answer

was provided by Chief Justice Marshall, in the first case we all studied in law school:

The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means,

or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when
the legislature shall please to alter it.

If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the consti-
tution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts,
on the part of the people, to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 177 (1803).

34. On information and belief, there is no support in precedent or logic for the proposition

that a constitutional provision must activated by Congressional legislation to become effec-

tive. E.g., United States v. Stanley (Civil Rights Cases), 109 U.S. 3, 20 (1883) (“the Thir-

teenth amendment, as well as the Fourteenth, is undoubtedly self-executing without any an-

cillary legislation”), City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U. S. 507, 524 (1997) (Fourteenth); South

Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 US 301, 325 (1966) (Fifteenth).26

35. According to the Senator who introduced the Fourteenth Amendment to that body,

Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment was remedial in scope, “enabl[ing] Congress, in

case the State shall enact laws in conflict with the principles of the amendment, to correct

Anderson v. Griswold, 543 P.3d 283, 322 (Colo. 2023).

26
While there is no enforceability provision in the original Bill of Rights, that is a function of the fact that they
were not enforceable as against the States. Barron ex rel. Tiernan v. Mayor of Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243 (1833).
Enforceability provisions were added to every subsequent Amendment.

24
that legislation by a formal congressional enactment.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.,

2768 (1868) (statement of Sen. Jacob M. Howard (R-MI)).

36. In the Conspiring Justices’ majority opinion, they quoted from the paragraph quoted

above and as such, were on notice as to the Amendment framers’ intent. Trump v. Anderson,

No. 23–719, 601 U.S. ___ (2024), slip op. at 5.

37. Since time immemorial, it has been the office of the judge “to make such construction

[of a law] as shall suppress the mischief, advance the remedy, and to suppress subtle inven-

tion and evasions for continuance of the mischief ... according to the true intent of the makers

of the act.” Heydon's Case [1584] 76 Eng.Rep. 637 (Exch.).

38. At the risk of stating the patently obvious, the purpose of Section 3 of the Fourteenth

Amendment was to disqualify citizens who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against

the United States” from serving in elected office, subject to a congressional pardon provi-

sion. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 3.

39. When it served his purpose, the bribe-engorged27 Justice Clarence Thomas pompously

declared that a court “must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and

means in a statute what it says there.” Connecticut Nat’l. Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249,

253-54 (1992) (citing two centuries of precedent).

27
Though our Justices appear to be for sale, they don’t come cheap. The steady stream of thinly-disguised
bribes—developer Harlan Crow is this generous with all of his friends, right?— aimed at Justice Thomas in-
cludes a $500,000 cash payment to his wife, an undisclosed number of trips on Crow’s yacht and private jet, a
$175,000 library wing named in his honor, several million to turn the cannery his mother worked for into a
museum—a project reportedly initiated by Thomas himself—and the Bible of firebrand Black abolitionist
Frederick Douglass, valued at $19,000. Mike McIntire, The Justice and the Magnate, N.Y. Times, Jun. 19, 2011,
at A-1. Whether it involves attending secretive junkets offered by the Federalist Society, Brian Ross, Supreme
Ethics Problem, ABC News, Jan. 23, 2006, or duck hunting with a litigant during the pendency of a case,
Cheney v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 541 U.S. 913 (2004) (Scalia, J., in cham-
bers) (the value of a bribe is its value to the recipient, e.g., United States v. Gorman, 807 F.2d 1299, 1305 (6th
Cir. 1986); United States v. Williams, 705 F.2d 603 (2d Cir. 1983) (business loan to Senator)), see generally,
Justin Elliott, et al., A “Delicate Matter”: Clarence Thomas’ Private Complaints About Money Sparked Fears
He Would Resign, ProPublica, Dec. 18, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-
complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus, our Supreme Court is as compromised as Congress.

25
 40. “In a stunning disfigurement of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the Conspiring Justices

“impressed upon it an ahistorical misinterpretation that defies both its plain text and its orig-

inal meaning.” J. Michael Luttig and Laurence H. Tribe, Supreme Betrayal, The Atlantic,

Mar. 14, 2024.

41. On information and belief, there is no rational way to get from the text of Section 3

of the Fourteenth Amendment and the “strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and

point out their duty in every particular case before them," The Federalist No. 78, at 470, to

the conclusion that “States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with

respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” Trump v. Anderson, slip op. at 6, given

that there is no such thing as a federal election.28

42. In knowingly acting in a manner intended to assist a thrice-indicted criminal defend-

ant “in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment,” 18 U.S.C. § 3, the

Conspiring Justices have become accessories after-the-fact in his [alleged] crimes.

43. The rewriting of statutes under the false pretense of interpreting them is “a flagrant

perversion of the judicial power,” Heiner v. Donnan, 285 U.S. 312, 331 (1932).

44-50. [Reserved.]

28
As a matter of definition, there is no such thing as a national election in the United States. Individual States
appoint slates of Electors, chosen “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” U.S. Const. art. II,
§ 2, cl. 2. Accordingly, there is no compelling reason why the federal government should ever get involved.
The choice of Electors has always been a matter for each State, and the Electors were free to vote for anyone
they cared to, Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214, 225 (1952), though States may enforce “pledge laws” restricting their
freedom of action. Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. ___, 140 S.Ct. 2316 (2020).
As state courts of general jurisdiction are perfectly capable of applying federal law, Claflin v. Houseman,
93 U.S. 130 (1876), there is no reason why a State cannot answer the question of whether a candidate for high
office has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 3. And
as state courts generally follow persuasive opinions from other jurisdictions, see e.g., Evans v. Bd. of County
Com'rs, 482 P.2d 968 (Colo. 1971) (abolishing state sovereign immunity; collecting cases), and the Supreme
Court could fashion a uniform rule where a conflict existed, there was never a compelling need for Congress
to provide guidance on this question. However, if the final resolution by the courts was intolerable, Congress
was empowered to enact remedial legislation. Of course, they presupposed existence of a functional Congress.

26
B. FISCHER V. UNITED STATES29: THE JAILBREAK

51. 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c) provides:

“Whoever corruptly—
(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object,
or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availabil-
ity for use in an official proceeding; or
(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or at-
tempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

52. The crime alleged in Fischer consists of four elements: (1) the defendant must “ob-

struct, influence, or impede” (2) an official proceeding (3) “corruptly.” (4) committing acts

not covered by Subsection (c)(1).

53. Chief Justice Roberts delivered the Fischer opinion.

54. On its face, clause (c)(2) is a “generally phrased residual clause.”

55. Writing for a unanimous Court (including Justice Roberts) in deciding the scope of

foreign sovereign immunity and exceptions for designated “state sponsors of terrorism,” 28

U.S.C. § 1605(a)(7) [repealed], Justice Scalia wrote:

the whole value of a generally phrased residual clause, like the one used in the second
proviso, is that it serves as a catchall for matters not specifically contemplated—known
unknowns, in the happy phrase coined by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. If
Congress wanted to limit the waiver authority to particular statutes that it had in mind,
it could have enumerated them individually.

Republic of Iraq v. Beaty, 556 US 848, 129 S.Ct. 2183, 2191 (2009) (citation omitted).

56. Earlier in the week, Defendant Kavanaugh quoted Beaty with approval in a dissental,

adding: “Or stated otherwise, the fact that "a statute can be applied in situations not expressly

anticipated by Congress does not demonstrate ambiguity. It demonstrates breadth."

29
United States v. Fischer, No. 1:21-cr-00234 (CJN) (Mar. 15, 2022) (dismissing the §1512(c)(2) obstruction
count), rev’d, 64 F. 4th 329 (D.C. Cir. 2023), Fischer v. United States, rev’d, No. 23–5572, 603 U. S. ____
(2024).

27
Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P., No. 23–124, 603 U.S. ___ (Jun. 27, 2024) (Kavanaugh,

J., dissenting; citation omitted), slip op. at 38.

57. Forty years ago, the Court unanimously upheld a similar generally phrased residual

clause in the civil RICO statute, observing that "the fact that RICO has been applied in situ-

ations not expressly anticipated by Congress does not demonstrate ambiguity. It demon-

strates breadth” and “this defect—if defect it is—is inherent in the statute as written, and its

correction must lie with Congress.” Sedima, SP RL v. Imrex Co., 473 US 479, 499 (1985)

(emphasis added).

58. On information and belief, at the time of Fischer, it was well-settled law that broad

residual clauses were constitutional, and that it was incumbent on Congress to fix the law, if

it chose to do so.

59. In an acidic dissent lamenting the official recognition of same-sex marriage,30 Chief

Justice Roberts wrote: “Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is,

not what it should be. The people who ratified the Constitution authorized courts to exercise

‘neither force nor will but merely judgment.’" Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644, 135

S.Ct. 2584, 2611 (2015) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting; citation omitted).31

30
For any originalist constitutional exegete, this is a puzzling conclusion. The right to contract is an essential
corollary of the right to own property, as you must be able to acquire and dispose of it to actually own it. In a
secular society, marriage is a mere contract, with default terms drafted by the State. Rights are retained by the
individual unless ceded to the State; all that a State can do is abridge rights and then, only in accordance with
the authority granted to it. As the right to marry is fundamental, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), the State
must show a compelling interest in preventing two persons from entering that marriage contract. As the State
cannot show that it is in any way harmed when Fred and Ted decide to wed, it has no colorable authority to
prevent them from doing so. This must be so, as long as ours is a constitutional Republic with limited govern-
ment powers. Plaintiff expresses no opinion on the ultimate wisdom of same-sex marriage, pointing out only
that are stuck with the constitution we have and the rules we have with which to apply it.
31
Scalia adds: “This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied
(as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in
the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.” Ober-
gefell, 135 S.Ct. at 2627 (Scalia, J., dissenting).

28
 60. In a concurring opinion issued a scant two weeks before Fischer, Defendant Alito

writes that where the statutory text is clear, the Court must follow it:

I join the opinion of the Court because there is simply no other way to read the statutory
language. There can be little doubt that the Congress that enacted 26 U. S. C. §5845(b)
would not have seen any material difference between a machinegun and a semiauto-
matic rifle equipped with a bump stock. But the statutory text is clear, and we must
follow it.

Garland v. Cargill, No. 22-976, 602 U.S. ___ (2024) (Jun. 14, 2024) (Alito, J., concurring),

slip op. at 1.

61. In his majority opinion in Cargill, Defendant Thomas writes:

As always, we start with the statutory text …

Abandoning the text, ATF and the dissent attempt to shore up their position by relying
on the presumption against ineffectiveness. That presumption weighs against interpre-
tations of a statute that would “rende[r] the law in a great measure nugatory, and enable
offenders to elude its provisions in the most easy manner.” It is a modest corollary to
the commonsense proposition “that Congress presumably does not enact useless laws.”

Id., slip op. at 17-18 (citations omitted).

62. At the Circuit level, citing not one but four opinions written by Defendant Thomas,

Judge Pan writes:

When interpreting a statute, "we begin by analyzing the statutory language, `assuming
that the ordinary meaning of that language accurately expresses the legislative pur-
pose.'" If a statute's language is clear, then that language controls. The Supreme Court
[per Defendant THOMAS] has explained:

[C]anons of construction are no more than rules of thumb that help courts determine
the meaning of legislation, and in interpreting a statute a court should always turn
first to one, cardinal canon before all others. We have stated time and again that
courts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in
a statute what it says there. When the words of a statute are unambiguous, then, this
first canon is also the last: judicial inquiry is complete.

Therefore, "[w]e must enforce plain and unambiguous statutory language according to
its terms."

United States v. Fischer, 64 F. 4th 329, 335 (D.C.Cir. 2023) (citations omitted).

29
 63. Following the guidance Justice Thomas provided, Judge Pan reasonably concluded

that “[u]nder the most natural reading of the statute, § 1512(c)(2) applies to all forms of

corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding, other than the conduct that is already covered

by § 1512(c)(1).” United States v. Fischer, 64 F.4th at 336.

64. In her analysis, Judge Pan observed that

[t]he terms "obstruct," "influence," and "impede" can be found in several statutes per-
taining to criminal obstruction of justice, such as 18 U.S.C. § 1503, which targets "cor-
ruptly ... influenc[ing], obstruct[ing], or imped[ing] the due administration of justice";
and § 1505, which addresses "corruptly ... influenc[ing], obstruct[ing], or imped[ing]"
the due and proper administration of law" in certain proceedings or investigations,

citing 18 U.S.C. § 1952(a)(3) and 28 U.S.C. § 2466(a)(1)(C) as additional examples of gen-

erally phrased residual clauses upheld. United States v. Fischer, 64 F.4th at 336.

65. In addition, Judge Pan further notes that [t]he Seventh and Eighth Circuits have both

acknowledged the expansive ambit of subsection (c)(2),” and “our peer circuits have applied

the statute to reach a wide range of obstructive acts, not just those limited to tampering with

documents or objects.” United States v. Fischer, 64 F.4th at 337 (citing eleven pre-January

6 instances).

66. Based on FOUR opinions written by Justice Thomas spread over nearly thirty years

and a 2009 unanimous opinion written by the redoubtable Justice Scalia reiterating law that

had been settled for nearly forty years, on information and belief, Defendant Thomas was of

the opinion that “generally phrased residual clauses” were constitutionally permissible and

intended by Congress.

67. The only discernible differences between the insurrection on January 6, 2021 and the

other instances are that Thomas’ wife Ginni may have criminal liability, Ewan Palmer, Ginni

Thomas 'May Have Crossed the Line'—Lawyers on Fake Electors Plot, Newsweek, Jul. 25,

30
 2023, and Thomas’ patron is one of the individuals facing criminal scrutiny; both are clear

grounds for recusal under 28 U.S.C. § 455.

68. The only discernible differences between the insurrection on January 6, 2021 and the

other instances for Defendant Alito is his political views, as captured on video by Lauren

Windsor.32

69. In his concurrence in a case overturning a forty-year old precedent interpreting an

eighty-year old statute, issued only one day beforehand, Defendant Gorsuch writes:

The answer for judges eliding statutory terms is not deference to agencies that may seek
to do the same, but a demand that all return to a more faithful adherence to the written
law. That was, of course, another project Justice Scalia championed. And as we like to
say, “we’re all textualists now.”

Loper Bright Ent. v. Raimondo, No. 22–451. 603 U. S. ____ (June 28, 2024) (Gorsuch, J.,

concurring; citation omitted), slip op. at 29 and n. 6.

32
Justice Alito questions possibility of political compromise in secret recording, ABC-10 Sacramento (AP), Jun. 11,
2024, at https://www.abc10.com/article/news/nation-world/justice-alito-secret-recording/507-7cf4d8ec-190d-48e8-
b04c-01191d075f61; Matt Naham, Alito neighbor says justice is either ‘mistaken’ or ‘outright lying’ about upside-
down flag timeline, leading to calls for ‘false statements’ probe, Law & Crime, Jun. 6, 2024, https://lawand-
crime.com/supreme-court/alito-neighbor-says-justice-is-either-mistaken-or-outright-lying-about-upside-down-flag-
timeline-leading-to-calls-for-false-statements-probe/; Jodi Kantor, et al., Another Provocative Flag Was Flown at An-
other Alito Home, N.Y. Times, May 22, 2024.

31
 70. In this X-rated bacchanal of outcome-driven jurisprudence, even Defendant Barrett

had to spit instead of swallow:

The Court does not dispute that Congress’s joint session qualifies as an “official pro-
ceeding”; that rioters delayed the proceeding; or even that Fischer’s alleged conduct
(which includes trespassing and a physical confrontation with law enforcement) was
part of a successful effort to forcibly halt the certification of the election results. Given
these premises, the case that Fischer can be tried for “obstructing, influencing, or im-
peding an official proceeding” seems open and shut. So why does the Court hold oth-
erwise?

Because it simply cannot believe that Congress meant what it said.

Fischer v. United States, 603 U. S. ____ (2024) (Barrett, J., dissenting; emphasis added),

slip op. at 1.33

71. The Conspiring Justices did not break into the Capitol, but they are certainly driving

the getaway car.

[72-80. Reserved.]

33
The larger conspiracy to protect Trump at all costs appears to be an all-hands-on-deck enterprise among
Trump appointees. Commentators have expressed grave concern that the right-wing of the “Court” intends to
use Fischer v. United States, Dkt. # 23-5572 (U.S. filed Sept. 11, 2023) as a vehicle for decriminalizing the
January 6 insurrection. E.g., Ian Millhiser, The Supreme Court will weigh in on the January 6 insurrection.
What could possibly go wrong?, Vox, Mar. 25, 2024; Amy Howe, Justices divided over Jan. 6 participant’s
call to throw out obstruction charge, SCOTUSblog (Apr. 16, 2024, 4:34 PM), https://www.sco-
tusblog.com/2024/04/justices-divided-over-jan-6-participants-call-to-throw-out-obstruction-charge/.
Predictably, in Fischer, Trump appointee Carl Nichols, who also did a solid for Trump lieutenant Steve
Bannon, cf., Robert Legare, Steve Bannon's prison sentence delayed as he appeals conviction, CBS News,
November 7, 2022, at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/steve-bannons-prison-sentence-delayed-appeal/;
Melissa Quinn, and Robert Legare, Supreme Court rejects Peter Navarro's latest bid for release from prison
during appeal, CBS News, April 29, 2024, at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-peter-navarro-
rejects-prison-release-appeal/ (Amit Mehta, an Obama judge) came to his fellow insurrectionists’ rescue.
Trump appointee Gregory Katsas wrote a dissent at the appellate level. Trump Judges Walker and Rao of the
District of Columbia Circuit tried to shelter Trump’s tax returns from statutorily authorized congressional dis-
covery, Trump v. Mazars U.S.A., LLP, No. 19-5142 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 13, 2019) (dissent from pet. for hearing
en banc). No one else even considered these aberrations.
The Trump judges appear to be part of a larger criminal conspiracy, hatched in the bowels of the Federalist
Society, to rewrite the law under the fraudulent guise of interpreting it. In Loper Bright Ent. v. Raimondo, No.
22–451. 603 U. S. ___ (2024), we are advised that “A divided panel of the D. C. Circuit affirmed. See 45 F.
4th 359 (2022).” Id., slip op. at 5. And of course, no one would ever guess who the dissenter was (Trump Judge
Walker). Trump calls them “my judges” for a reason.

32
C. UNITED STATES V. TRUMP (FLA) – THE LOOSE CANNON

81. On or about May 10, 2020, Defendant Cannon, who was then less than 40 years of

age, was nominated for a lifetime sinecure on the federal bench by the Mr. Trump.

82. On or about August 22, 2022, Defendant Cannon intervened in a federal investigation

into alleged criminal activity by Mr. Trump and co-conspirators, pursuant to a Motion, styled

“In the Matter of the Search of Mar-a-Lago.” Trump v. United States, 9:22-cv-81294, (S.D.

Fla.).

83. In the aforementioned Motion, Mr. Trump averred, “President[sic] Donald J. Trump

is the clear frontrunner in the 2024 Republican Presidential Primary and in the 2024 General

Election, should he decide to run.” Id., Dkt. 1 at 1.

84. Acts of obstruction by Defendant Cannon in the resolution of that matter, see gener-

ally, 18 U.S.C. § 1503, included issuance of an Order to the United States Department of

Justice (DOJ) to release the previously sealed detailed property list of materials seized as the

result of a valid search warrant, to halt its review of all seized materials, and the appointment

of Raymond J. Dearie, senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New

York, as a special master.

33
 85. On or about December 1, 2022, the Eleventh Circuit ordered the case to be dismissed

because Cannon improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction over it, writing: “This appeal

requires us to consider whether the district court had jurisdiction to block the United States

from using lawfully seized records in a criminal investigation. The answer is no.” Trump v.

United States, No. 22-13005 (11th Cir. Dec. 1, 2022) (slip op. at 2).

86. The Eleventh Circuit further observed that "The law is clear,” reasoning that:

“We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government
investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows
only former presidents to do so. Either approach would be a radical reordering of our
caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations. And both
would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”

Id., slip op. at 20-21.

87. On information and belief, even a marginally competent federal district court judge

would know that Plaintiff Trump’s request was objectively frivolous.

88. On information and belief, Defendant Cannon knew that Plaintiff Trump’s motion

was frivolous, and that her Orders had no possible chance of surviving appellate review

and as such, her intent was to assist Plaintiff Trump to “hinder or prevent his apprehension,

trial or punishment.” 18 U.S.C. § 3.

89. On information and belief, the delay in the eventual indictment of former President

Trump occasioned by Defendant Cannon’s obstruction exceeded four months.

90. On or about June 8, 2023, Defendant Cannon was assigned a criminal case with Mr.

Trump as a defendant, styled United States v. Trump, 9:23-cr-80101, (S.D. Fla.).

91. Section 455(a) of Title 28 of the United States Code provides: Any justice, judge, or

magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which

his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” (emphasis added).

34
 92. If Mr. Trump were to ascend again to the Presidency, he would be able to nominate

Defendant Cannon for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

93. On information and belief, Defendant Cannon accepted at least two all-expenses-paid

vacations at a luxury hunting lodge and failed to file the required Privately Funded Seminar

Disclosure Reports in a timely manner:

“Cannon, however, somehow forgot to [file the report], so anyone who might be inter-
ested in learning who was paying for Cannon’s vacations and the nature of her judicial
education would have been out of luck.

So why do we suppose Judge Cannon was so shy about who’s paying for her luxury
trips and what she might have learned there? Oh, I don’t know ... might it be because
she didn’t want anyone to know about her links to the Leonard Leo wing of legal theory?
Could it have been that she didn’t want it known that she had taken money from an
organization that was in large part funded by billionaires friendly to the man whose case
she was presiding over?

I mean, 10 grand or so in first-class air travel and luxury accommodations and bot-
tomless trips to the luxo-resort’s “local produce” salad bar and steak pit might start to
look like a bribe when you pay attention to what was actually being discussed between
float trips down the Yellowstone and hikes through the mountains, don’t you think?

Wouldn’t you love to see the thank-you notes Cannon sent to Leonard Leo and his pals?
I would. But until NPR called up Judge Cannon and asked her about her journeys out to
the Montana luxury resort, nobody knew a thing about who had tried to curry favor with
her. That was when she hurriedly filled out the forms and posted the disclosure she had
actually been required to post within 30 days of returning from her trip. So now we
know what she was concealing, but we didn’t know where she had been or who she had
been listening to when she first got the Trump case and made the rulings—later over-
turned by judges of the 11th Circuit—that many legal experts had said were ridiculously
favorable to Trump.”34

94. On information and belief, the aforementioned lavish vacations were paid for by Mr.

Trump’s allies in the Federalist Society.

34
Lucian K. Truscott IV, Judge Cannon's secret right-wing getaway: Why didn't we know about this?, Salon,
May 7, 2024, at https://www.salon.com/2024/05/07/cannons-secret-right-wing-getaway-why-didnt-we-know-
about-this/

35
 95. On information and belief, Charles C. Geyh, Judicial Disqualification: An Analysis

of Federal Law, 3d. ed. (Federal Judicial Center, 2020), was intended to be and is the primary

source federal judges use to ascertain their recusal obligations under Section 455.

96. In the above-referenced treatise, Professor Geyh observes that “there may be circum-

stances in which the ties between the judge and the public official are so close, and the con-

sequences of a ruling adverse to the official are so dire, that disqualification is appropriate

regardless of the capacity (if any) in which the official is sued.” Id. at 27.

97. The closest analogue Professor Geyh references is a case involving Alabama Gover-

nor Don Siegelman, wherein a federal district judge recused sua sponte on the grounds that

his “‘distant relationship’ to [Siegelman’s political rival] Governor Riley [not a party to the

action], plus mere attendance at private political functions for Bob Riley two years ago,

"could raise some public confidence issues.” United States v. Bobo, 323 F. Supp. 2d 1238,

1240 (N.D.Ala. 2004).

98. On information and belief, Defendant Cannon either knew or was able to discover via

reasonable inquiry that Mr. Trump prized loyalty and would be likely to reward her if she

were to “do him a solid.”35

99. On information and belief, the impartiality of any judge who was (1) appointed by a

defendant and (2) improperly interfered in a criminal investigation (3) in a matter where the

outcome would have a substantial likelihood of affecting her career prospects and (4) failed

35
See, Michael S. Schmidt, Obstruction Inquiry Shows Trump’s Struggle to Keep Grip on Russia Investigation, N.Y.
Times, Jan. 4, 2018 (“Mr. Trump then asked, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”). He found his Roy Cohn in “Coverup Gen-
eral” William Barr. See e.g., Elec. Priv. Info. Ctr. v. U.S. Dep’t of Just., 442 F. Supp. 3d 37, 49 (D.D.C. 2020) (“[A]
review of the redacted version of the Mueller Report by the Court results in the Court’s concurrence with Special
Counsel Mueller’s assessment that Attorney General Barr distorted the findings in the Mueller Report.”). “Trump
sought three things in his judicial appointees, or as he sometimes called them, “my judges.” First, he wanted justices
who would overturn Roe v. Wade. Second, he wanted “jurists in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas
and Samuel Alito.” Third, he wanted judges who would be loyal to him.” David Lat and Zachary B. Shemtob,
Trump’s Supreme Court Picks Are Not Quite What You Think, N.Y. Times, Feb. 12, 2023 (emphasis added).

36
 to disclose lavish partisan gifts given to her by the defendants’ allies “might reasonably be

questioned,” and is therefore obliged to recuse herself.

100. A competent federal judge—or, any judge who could read newspapers36—would be

aware of the appearance of a conflict.

D. ANATOMY OF A CRIME: MOTIVE, METHOD, OPPORTUNITY

On its face, Defendant Cannon’s actions appear integral to a much larger conspiracy of
judges, Congressmen, and right-wing ideologues to facilitate Trump’s election by “hinder-
ing” trials on matters for which he has been indicted. Relevant evidence includes the legally
inexplicable juridical abortion styled Trump v. Anderson, 601 U.S. ___, No. 23-719 (2024)
(interring Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment; see J. Michael Luttig and Laurence H.
Tribe, Supreme Betrayal, The Atlantic, Mar. 14, 2024), and the deliberate ‘slow-walking’ of
a facially frivolous appeal in Trump v. United States, No. 23-939 (docketed Feb. 28, 2024).
In sharp contrast to the urgency with which the Court dealt with the question of President
Nixon’s tapes—it took less than 100 days from the date it was raised for it to resolve it37—
they will take at least half a year to decide a facially giggle-worthy immunity claim38 that
should have never been heard under a regime of “discretionary cert.”39 And while a criminal
prosecutor does not have to provide one, the judge, jury, and general public has a right to
know the “why” behind the crime.

As a young C.P.A., Plaintiff learned that if you want to understand a deal, you have to
follow the money. The “why” is fifty shades of ugly: the conservative Federalist Society
judges infesting the Court have engaged in a scheme to profit tremendously from their lofty

36
E.g., Charlie Savage, Trump Appointee Will Remain Judge in Documents Case, Clerk Says, N.Y. Times, Jun. 10,
2023, at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/10/us/politics/judge-aileen-cannon-trump-documents.html; Jay Weaver,
Some want judge to recuse herself in Trump case. Can and should that still happen?, Miami Herald, (Jun. 23, 2023),
at https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/arti- cle276631871.html (Calls for recusal “came largely
from the political left but also from some legal experts, all citing Cannon’s controversial decisions favoring Trump in
a civil dispute last year over the FBI’s seizure of government records from his Palm Beach estate”).
37
Lesley Oelsner, Jaworski Seeks Court Subpoena for Nixon Tapes, N.Y. Times, Apr. 17, 1974, at https://www.ny-
times.com/1974/04/17/archives/jaworski-seeks-court-subpoena-for-nixon-tapes-he-wants-64-of.html (issue raised on
April 16); United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974) (case decided July 24, 1974).
38
Mot. to Dismiss Indictment Based on Presidential Immunity, United States v. Trump, Case 1:23-cr-00257- TSC,
(ECF #74, D.D.C. filed Oct. 5, 2023); Alan Feuer, Federal Judge Rejects Trump’s Immunity Claims in Election Case,
N.Y. Times, Dec. 1, 2023 (“The ruling is likely to spark a series of appeals that the former president’s lawyers hope
will push the trial on election interference charges past the 2024 election.”); Devan Cole, Supreme Court rejects Jack
Smith’s request for justices to quickly hear Trump immunity dispute, CNN, Dec, 22, 2023, at https://edi-
tion.cnn.com/2023/12/22/politics/supreme-court-trump-immunity-jack-smith/in- dex.html; Ann E. Marimow, Su-
preme Court sets Trump immunity claim in D.C. trial for April 25, Wash. Post. Mar. 6, 2024, at https://www.wash-
ingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/06/trump-immunity-supreme-court-argument-date/; See United States v. Trump, No.
23-3228 (D.C. App. Feb. 9, 2024).
39
“Discretionary certiorari” is an oxymoron, see Note 11, supra, but for good or ill, appellate review is committed to
the Court’s sound discretion and, judging on the face of it, the Conspiring Justices are strictly non compos mentis.

37
positions. “Supreme Court Justice” is the best part-time job in the world. Justice Stevens
Shows No Signs of Quitting, Associated Press, Nov. 29, 2008. The bribes are endless. You
barely need to work twenty hours a week, and only on what you want to work on. You are
not bound by annoying niceties such as “ethics.” You don’t have to answer to anyone. And
did I mention that the bribes are endless???

To keep the gravy train a’-comin, all you need to do is your masters’ bidding.

While our Justices are for sale, they certainly don’t come cheap. The steady stream of
thinly-disguised bribes40—developer Harlan Crow is that generous with all of his friends,
right?—aimed at Justice Thomas includes a $500,000 cash payment to Thomas’ wife, an
undisclosed number of trips on Crow’s yacht and private jet, a $175,000 library wing named
in his honor, several million to turn the cannery his mother once worked for into a museum—
a project reportedly initiated by Thomas himself—and the Bible of firebrand Black aboli-
tionist Frederick Douglass, valued at $19,000. Mike McIntire, The Justice and the Magnate,
N.Y. Times, Jun. 19, 2011, at A-1. Whether it involves attending secretive junkets offered by
the Federalist Society, taking a bribe from a litigant, or duck hunting with a litigant during
the pendency of a case,41 our Supreme Court is probably more compromised than the average

40
Lest anyone think Plaintiff (a life-long Republican) is being partisan here, the $17.5M bribe um, retainer
(traced through the Clintons’ published tax returns) from the infamous George Soros to Hillary Clinton, laun-
dered through husband Bill’s no-show “job,” deserves at least honorable mention. See Jonathan Turley, The
Clinton University Problem: Laureate Education Lawsuits Present Problem For Clintons, Res Ipsa Loquitur
(blog), Jun. 8, 2016, at https://jonathanturley.org/2016/06/08/the-clintons-university-problem-laureate-educa-
tion-lawsuits-present-problem-for-clintons/
41
Cheney v. United States Court of App. for the District of Columbia, 541 U.S. 913 (2004) (Scalia, J., memo).
Importantly, Justice Scalia justified his failure to recuse himself in a case involving long-time friend Vice-
President Dick Cheney on the grounds that the petition before the Court was an “official capacity” action,
observing that
...while friendship is a ground for recusal of a Justice where the personal fortune or the personal freedom
of the friend is at issue, it has traditionally NOT been a ground for recusal where official action is at issue,
no matter how important the official action was to the ambitions or the reputation of the Government
officer.

38
Congressman.42 And it is no longer even subtle. Through a relentless campaign of bribery,
our Supreme Court “Justices” have permitted their once-august body to become an unelected
and unaccountable wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. Sheldon Whitehouse,
The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court (2022).

When it comes to judicial grift, “Clarence Sale” Thomas is the undisputed G.O.A.T., but
it seems that everybody who is anybody in conservative judicial circles is on the gravy train.
And they don’t even have the decency to tell us about conflicts, much less recuse. E.g., Kate
Aronoff, Billionaire Poised to See Return on Investment in Neil Gorsuch, The New Republic,
Jan. 16, 2024. Gorsuch did not recuse.43

One of the most common bribe conduits is the tender of book advances of staggering size.
Who on Earth would pay the newest Supreme Court justice $2,000,000 to tell us “how judges
compartmentalize their personal feelings” in rulings? Jake Lahut, Supreme Court Justice
Amy Coney Barrett gets $2 million advance for a book deal, according to new report, Busi-
ness Insider, Apr 19, 2021, at https://www.businessinsider.com/amy- coney-barreett-book-
advance-2-million-supreme-court-2021-4.44

Cheney, 541 U.S. at 916; cf. e.g., Trump v. United States, supra; Trump v. Anderson, supra., Order, Smith v.
Thomas, No. 10-935 (U.S. Mar. 7, 2011).
42
BribeFest has been underway in earnest for twenty-five years. Clarence Thomas’ Private Complaints About
Money Sparked Fears He Would Resign, ProPublica, Dec. 18, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/clar-
ence-thomas-money-complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus. Clarence and Ginni Thomas just couldn’t
make it on a measly $500,000/year in today’s dollars, and needed some folding cash (“The month before, the
justice had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to buy a high-end RV.”). Desperate to retain their ideological
majority on the Court, conservative oligarchs devised schemes designed to fatten Justices’ bank accounts. E.g.,
Frank Rich, Nobody Knows the Lynchings He’s Seen, N.Y. Times, Oct. 7, 2007 ($1.5M advance for Justice
Thomas autobiography, “My Grandfather’s Son”); Antonin Scalia, Form AO-10 (for Calendar Year 2004) at
4 (lavish vacation in Auckland, NZ from Oct. 19- 27, 2004).
43
Robert El-Jaouhari, Highlights from Oral Argument in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Cranfill
Sumner LLP, Jan. 18, 2024, at https://www.cshlaw.com/resources/highlights-from-oral-argument-in-loper-
bright- enterprises-v-raimondo/. See also, the serendipitous purchase of Gorsuch’s hunting lodge by the law
firm of famed legal felon Jack Abramoff: “The Supreme Court justice did not report the identity of the
purchaser, whose firm has had numerous cases before the court.” Heidi Przyblya, Law firm head bought Gor-
such-owned property, Politico, Apr. 25, 2023, at https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/25/neil-gorsuch-col-
orado-property-sale-00093579
44
While all autobiographies belong in the “Fiction” section, e.g., My Grandfather’s Son; My Beloved World,
If You Can Keep It, to their credit, Justice Kagan and the Beerman have not cashed in on this gravy train.

39
 No matter where you go, the money trail has a consistent odor. Brett Kavanaugh (myste-
rious debt payments).45 Amy Coney Barrett (record book advance). Samuel Alito (hedge
fund manager Paul Singer, with frequent business before the Court).46 John Roberts (via
BigLaw headhunter wife Jane). For the average man, the United States Supreme Court
does not exist.47 Quite literally, if you even want to get your foot in the door of One First
Street, YOU HAVE TO PAY THE LADY!48

45
“Who made the down payment on his house? How did he come up with $92,000 in country club fees?”
Stephanie Mencimer, The Many Mysteries of Brett Kavanaugh’s Finances, Mother Jones, Sept. 13, 2018, at
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/09/the-many-mysteries-of-brett-kavanaughs-finances/
46
“In the years after the undisclosed trip to Alaska, Republican mega-donor Paul Singer’s hedge fund has
repeatedly had business before the Supreme Court. Alito has never recused himself.” Justin Elliot, Justice
Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court,
ProPublica, Jun. 20, 2023. (And remember, “gratuities aren’t bribes!”)
47
Whereas the well-heeled can often buy consideration of constitutional issues because they can afford the
"right" law firm, Cf., e.g., Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., No. 08-22 (U.S. Jun. 9, 2009) (Caperton was
represented by none other than Ted Olson of Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher); Smith v. Bender, No. 09-931 (U.S.
Sept. 11, 2009) (facts were objectively worse, but the petitioner filed in propria persona, for the unwashed
masses, review by the United States Supreme Court really means a cursory review by a fresh-faced 25-year-
old kid out of Harvard, unqualified to discharge a Justice’s duties—and who has been trained to dismiss pro se
appeals as a matter of course.
And it is not a matter of resources. To say that the Justices are not overworked is an understatement.
In a twenty-year period, their output declined by about 50% (from an average of 155 signed opinions for 1984-
85 to about 80 in 2004-06), despite the fact that the annual number of petitions for certiorari nearly doubled
during that time. David R. Stras, The Supreme Court’s Gatekeepers: The Role of Law Clerks in the Certiorari
Process, 85 Tex. L. Rev. 947, 979, 982, 987 (2007). And they have not discovered diligence: in 2020, the
Court only issued 65 opinions. Merits cases by vote split, SCOTUSblog, at https://www.scotusblog.com/sta-
tistics/ (last visited Dec. 12, 2021; screenshot retained). Judge Posner authored 90 himself, and still finds plenty
of time to moonlight. Ronald K.L. Collins, Posner on Case Workloads & Making Judges Work Harder, Con-
curring Opinions (blog), Dec. 24, 2014 (available at http://concurringopinions.com/archives/2014/12/posner-
oncase-workloads-making-judges-work-harder.html; his CV is available at http://www.law.uchicago.edu/fac-
ulty/posner-r.
48
E.g., Mattathias Schwartz, Jane Roberts, who is married to Chief Justice John Roberts, made $10.3 million
in commissions from elite law firms, whistleblower documents show, Business Insider, Apr 28, 2023, at
https://www.businessinsider.com/jane-roberts-chief-justice-wife-10-million-commissions-2023-4.

40
 Whereas no public official “can war against the Constitution without violating his under-
taking to support it,” Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 18 (1958), the Defendants’ odious course
of conduct is the largest battle since Jutland. It would beggar the imagination to suggest that
the Framers, who fought a war to free themselves from “the tyranny of irritated Ministers”49
would voluntarily submit themselves to the tyranny of irritated Judges. Or that the Framers,
who just freed themselves from a King who inflicted “a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations,” Declaration of Independence, para. 2 (U.S. 1776) beneath a cloak of absolute
immunity would ever anoint a King with de facto absolute immunity. The Defendants have
gone rogue,50 and must be called to account.

The scope of this criminal conspiracy appears truly immense, with Ginni Thomas, Sen.
Mike Lee, Daniel Woodruff, Jan. 6 transcript: Fake elector plot was 'Mike Lee's idea', wit-
ness testified, KUTV (Salt Lake City), Dec. 30, 2022, Rupert Murdoch, Leonard Leo, and a
long list of Congressmen and billionaires potentially warranting scrutiny. But Plaintiff will
focus on the criminal conduct of the Defendants, which is easily proven.

49
Plaintiff poses the challenge our Founding Fathers posed to Parliament in 1775:
If it was possible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author of our existence
intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others,
marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully
resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require from
the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to
that body.
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (U.S. 2d Cont. Cong., 1775) (emphasis added).
50
Ultimately, it is all about being able to live a life bordering on the dissolute. The Conspiring Justices always
seem to find plenty of time to churn out mindless autobiographies, rub elbows with the Queen while on our
dime, Queen Elizabeth II Opens New UK Supreme Court, Assoc. Press, Oct. 17, 2009 (four Justices attended—
while the Court was in session!), and even of-ficiate moot court. Jessica Martin, Students Argue Before Chief
Justice Roberts, The Record (Washington Univ.) Jan. 15, 2007. But no one parlayed his position and the
celebrity attending it into a way to travel the world in resplendent fashion on other people’s money quite like
Antonin Scalia. Scalia’s travelogue looks a lot like most people’s bucket lists: Berlin. Warsaw. Rome. London.
Zurich. Lisbon. Jerusalem. Istanbul. Tokyo. Copenhagen. Reykjavik. Dublin. Lima. Innsbruck. Melbourne.
Banff. Fairbanks. Beaver Creek. Indian Wells. Jackson Hole. Honolulu. See Antonin Scalia, Forms AO-10
(Financial Disclosure Report for Calendar Years 2003-2009). And even while the Court was in session, and
we were paying his salary, Scalia took a nine-day vacation halfway around the world. See Antonin Scalia,
Forms AO-10 (Financial Disclosure Report for Calendar Years 2003-2009). Well, no one before “Clarence
Sale” Thomas.
The Conspiring Justices are notorious wastrels of time, crafting ponderous, law-review-length tomes lower
courts use as birdcage liner. Back in law school, Plaintiff was taught to Shepardize cases, but in the real world,
you can’t even rely on Magna Carta or Marbury v. Madison. “Stare decisis” has become “stare deceased,” as
the only reason a modern court follows precedent is because it takes the judge where s/he really wanted to go
in the first place. A colleague of yours on the Washington Supreme Court explains this concept:
In a society of equals there is simply no room for those who under color of law, but without the legitimate
authority of the law, wrongfully impose themselves as superiors upon those who are really their equals.
This is just another form of slavery—it differs in degree, but not in kind. It is domination without consent.
Richard Sanders (Associate Justice, Washington Supreme Court), Original Consent (Speech to the Tacoma-
Pierce County Bar), Feb. 13, 1997 (emphasis added).

41
E. DOBBS: THE BROKEN MAIDENHEAD OF AMERICAN THEOCRACY

101. The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: “The enumeration

in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others re-

tained by the people.” U.S. Const. amend. IX.

102. By its terms, it is a mandatory canon of construction equating protections for enu-

merated and unenumerated rights.

103. In his introduction of the precursor to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in the House

of Representatives, principal author James Madison explained that it was intended to evade

application of the maxim, expressio unius est exclusio alterius.51

51
On June 8, 1789, James Madison proposed twelve amendments to the Constitution, comprising the founda-
tion for our modern Bill of Rights. However, by his own admission, he deliberately avoided attempting to
enumerate rights “retained by the people,” under the rationale "that, by enumerating particular exceptions to
the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might
follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands
of the General Government, and were consequently insecure." 1 Annals of Congress 456 (1789) (statement of
Rep. Madison). Madison’s draft read as follows:
The exceptions here or elsewhere in the constitution, made in favor of particular rights, shall not be so
construed as to diminish the just importance of other rights retained by the people; or as to enlarge the
powers delegated by the constitution; but either as actual limitations of such powers, or as inserted merely
for greater caution.
Id. at 452 (statement of Rep. Madison). Madison was not operating in a vacuum, the seventeenth resolution
proposed in the Virginia Ratifying Convention (June 26, 1788) was substantially identical. Virginia’s Ratifi-
cation, reprinted at U.S. Constitution.net (Apr 23, 2024), https://www.usconstitution.net/rat_va-html/

42
 The Framers didn’t debate our present-day Ninth and Tenth Amendments vigorously because it simply was
not necessary. The structure of the Constitution, of which the Amendments were an integral part, served as a
comprehensive protection against despotism.
“[W]hat [the Framers’ generation] understood when they ratified this Constitution was that they were af-
firming the rights of Englishmen,” Constitutional Relevance of Foreign Court Decisions (C-SPAN television
broadcast Jan. 13, 2005) (remarks of Antonin Scalia), and the structure of the Constitution ensured it. While
the Federalists and Anti-Federalists didn’t agree on much, they did agree on the basic premise that the Ameri-
can people were the sovereigns, holding this status as tenants-in-common. Both the individual states and the
federal government were their authorized agents, and they only suffered those encroachments on their rights
absolutely required to protect the remainder of their portfolio of rights. The Constitution (and its predecessor)
was a treaty between co-sovereigns, creating a suzerain subject to their ultimate control. One incisive exposi-
tion of this understanding was that of Professor (Justice) Story:
The next amendment is: "The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to
deny, or disparage others retained by the people." This clause was manifestly introduced to prevent any
perverse, or ingenious misapplication of the well known maxim, that an affirmation in particular cases
implies a negation in all others; and e converso, that a negation in particular cases implies, an affirmation
in all others. The maxim, rightly understood, is perfectly sound and safe; but it has often been strangely
forced from its natural meaning into the support of the most dangerous political heresies. The amendment
was undoubtedly suggested by the reasoning of the Federalist on the subject of a general bill of rights.
3 Story, Commentaries at § 1898 (citing The Federalist, Nos. 83 and 84; 1 Lloyd's Debates, 433, 437; 1 Tuck-
er's Blackstone Commentaries App. 307, 308, and internal citations to his own work).
The concept of agency distills these provisions to essentials. In the Framers’ original design (the Civil War
Amendments admittedly upset this applecart), the powers “delegated by the proposed constitution to the federal
government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indef-
inite.” The Federalist No. 45, 296 (Madison). The States remained as self-governing nations, e.g., N.H. Const.
part 1, art. 7, and the scope of rights reserved by the people therein was none of the federal government’s damn
business. U.S. Const. amend. X. Federalist Nos. 83-85 addressed these objections; the Preamble to the Bill of
Rights drove the point home: “The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting
the Constitution expressed a desire in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further
declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added.” Bill of Rights, Preamble (U.S. 1789). As it pertains to
this case, Madison’s observations in Federalist No. 85 are of import:
The additional securities to republican government, to liberty and to property, to be derived from the
adoption of the plan under consideration, consist chiefly in the restraints which the preservation of the
union will impose on local factions and insurrections, and on the ambition of powerful individuals in
single states, who might acquire credit and influence enough, from leaders and favorites, to become the
despots of the people; in the diminution of the opportunities to foreign intrigue…
The Federalist No. 85, 482 (Madison). Citing Magna Carta [1215] and The Bill of Rights, 1 Will. & Mar. Sess.
2. c. 2 [1869], Madison avers that “bills of rights are in their origin, stipulations between kings and their sub-
jects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince.”
Federalist No. 84, 477. He then drew a contrast, observing that “the people surrender nothing, and as they
retain every thing, they have no need of particular reservations.” Id. (emphasis added). As former Judge Mi-
chael McConnell of the Tenth Circuit explained,
“the essence of the social contract is that we relinquish certain of our natural rights—most fundamentally,
the right to be a judge in our own case and to do violence—use violence against others, and we receive
in return more effectual protection for certain of our rights, plus the enjoyment of certain positive rights:
that is, rights that are created by the creation of political society. Civil rights are the rights we enjoy after
entering the state of civil society....”
Michael W. McConnell, Natural Rights, Enumerated Rights, and the Ninth Amendment, Sumner Canary Lec-
ture (Case Western U., Oct. 28, 2008), at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLANRrZPm-k (transcribed by
Plaintiff, quote at ~30 minutes; last visited Jun. 26, 2024).

43
 104. As the history of the Ninth Amendment was expounded upon by Justice Goldberg in

detail in his Griswold (v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)) concurrence, id. at 488-94, the

Justice Alito who cited “Henry de Bracton's 13th-century treatise” De Legibus, Dobbs, 142

S.Ct. at 2250, was on fair notice of the etymology of the Ninth Amendment he was actually

charged with interpreting.

105. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[no State shall] deprive any

person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, §

1.

106. A woman’s right to determine if, when, and how many children she will bear has

already been identified as a liberty interest. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)52

107. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment protects ALL life, liberty, or property in-

terests from State interference, as opposed to only those rights "deeply rooted in [our] history

and tradition." Dobbs, 142 S.Ct. at 2235.53

52
“This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and
restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's
reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to termi-
nate her pregnancy.” Roe, 410 U.S. at 153.
53
“Footnote Four” (United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152 & fn. 4 (1938) (citations omit-
ted)), is a bastard child of the “Living Constitution,” without a discernible foundation in law or logic. Judges
tend to eschew dramatic changes to avoid the appearance of writing law from the bench, and in this bacchanal
of Burkean minimalism, see Cass R. Sunstein, Burkean Minimalism, 105 Mich. L. Rev. 353 (2006), end up
writing law from the bench.
In its modern iteration, the Footnote Four approach to rights jurisprudence reflects this reticence, but at the
price of relegating the Ninth Amendment to the dust-bin of history—invoking the ethereal concept of substan-
tive due process to specially protect only rights which judges deem as being “deeply rooted in this Nation's
history and tradition,” e.g., Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503 (1977) (plurality opinion), or somehow
"implicit in the concept of ordered liberty." Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325 (1937). Courts require a
"careful description" of the asserted “fundamental” liberty interest, Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 302 (1993)—
an engraved invitation to an orgy of judicial discretion. In turn, it has the noxious effect of elevating some
rights to the exalted status of ‘fundamental’ while disparaging and denying others, thereby doing violence to
the plain meaning of the Ninth Amendment. Randy Barnett, Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption
of Liberty 254 (2004). It creates no principled rule of decision, as the outcome of any given dispute is more a
function of the judge’s personal predilections than anything else. It describes the law as the judge wants it to
be, but not why it is as it should be.

44
 107. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments only protect the life interests of “persons,”

which does not include fetal life.54

108. “[S]tare decisis is a basic self-governing principle within the Judicial Branch, which

is entrusted with the sensitive and difficult task of fashioning and preserving a jurisprudential

system that is not based upon ‘an arbitrary discretion.’" Patterson v. McLean Credit Union,

491 U.S. 164, 172 (1989) (quoting The Federalist No. 78).

109. The Court has observed that stare decisis is

the means by which we ensure that the law will not merely change erratically, but will
develop in a principled and intelligible fashion …. permit[ting] society to presume that
bedrock principles are founded in the law rather than in the proclivities of individ-
uals, and thereby contributes to the integrity of our constitutional system of government,
both in appearance and in fact.

Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 US 254, 265-66 (1986) (emphasis added).

110. “Former President Donald Trump, who nominated three of the Supreme Court jus-

tices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, gave himself credit for the outcome,” stating that

“the decision in the abortion case and others recently announced by the court ‘were only

made possible because I delivered everything as promised.””55

111. The capture of the Court by extremist partisan interests and systematic degradation

of minority voting rights are integral parts of a scheme which one of its principal architects,

Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, openly refers to as a coup ďetat: "‘In spite of

all this nonsense from the left, we are going to win. We're in the process of taking this

54
Roe, 410 U.S. at 158-59. For sake of completeness—not that it ought to matter legally--it should be noted
that even in the Torah, the god of Israel went out of His way to draw a distinction between the life of the mother
and her unborn. Exod. 21:22-23 (yeleḏ yāṣā’ translates to “fruit departeth” in the KJV) described a miscarriage,
as those days were long before modern pre-natal medicine.
55
Lauren Feiner and Dan Mangan, Trump takes credit for end of Roe v. Wade after his 3 Supreme Court justice
picks vote to void abortion rights, CNBC, Jun. 24 2024, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/24/roe-v-wade-deci-
sion-trump-takes-credit-for-supreme-court-abortion-ruling.html

45
country back,’ Roberts said. ‘We are in the process of the second American Revolution,

which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be.’" Flynn Nicholls, Project 2025 Leader

Promises 'Second American Revolution', Newsweek, Jul. 3, 2024.

112. On information and belief, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 Mandate for

Leadership: The Conservative Promise, at https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateFor-

Leadership_FULL.pdf, is a prooftext for the “second American Revolution, which will re-

main bloodless, if the left allows it to be” Roberts referred to.

113. On their Project 2025 website, the Heritage Foundation states that “we need both a

governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One

of the next conservative Administration.” https://www.project2025.org (last visited July 4,

2024; pdf of page retained).

114. On information and belief, this coup has been in the planning stage for more than a

decade, but has only been declared openly in recent years.56

115. On information and belief, at least five of the Defendants were chosen by Leonard

Leo, the Federalist Society, and its well-funded network (“Leo’s Network”) to be “the right

people in place” to facilitate the coup.57

116. A core element of Leo’s Network is “motivated by intense religious beliefs.”58

56
See e.g., Russell Berman, The Open Plot to Dismantle the Federal Government, The Atlantic, Sept. 24, 2023.
As a practical matter, the conservative plot to capture the courts can fairly be traced to the failure of the Bork
nomination, but that is a topic (and criminal conspiracy) far beyond the scope of this complaint.
57
E.g., Katherine Doyle, Leonard Leo, Koch networks pour millions into groups prepping for potential second
Trump administration, NBC News, Mar. 21, 2024 (“Since 2021, Leo’s network and groups that have gotten
funding from it have funneled over $50.7 million to the groups advising the 2025 Presidential Transition Pro-
ject as part of its “Project 2025 advisory board”); Project 2025 Reaches 100 Coalition Partners, Continues to
Grow in Preparation for Next President (press release), Heritage.org, Feb. 20, 2024, at https://www.herit-
age.org/press/project-2025-reaches-100-coalition-partners-continues-grow-preparation-next-president.
58
Eric Lipton and Jeremy W. Peters, In Gorsuch, Conservative Activist Sees Test Case for Reshaping the
Judiciary, N.Y. Times, March 18, 2017. On information and belief, Leo is a member of the radical Catholic
sect, Opus Dei. Greg Olear, Leonard Leo, Opus Dei and the Radical Catholic Takeover of the Supreme Court,

46
 117. On information and belief, one of the ultimate aims of the Leo Network was to install

judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade by naked judicial fiat, in open derogation of their

oaths.59

118. Dobbs, supra, expressly overturned Roe v. Wade.

119. “Although adherence to precedent is not rigidly required in constitutional cases, any

departure from the doctrine of stare decisis demands special justification.” Arizona v. Rum-

sey, 467 US 203, 212 (1984) (citations omitted).

120. On information and belief, it is impossible to discern the articulation of any reason

for the Court’s departure from stare decisis, other than “We hates abortion, My Preciousss.

We hates it forever! Gollum! Gollum!”60

Church and State, Feb. 26, 2021, https://churchandstate.org.uk/2022/05/leonard-leo-opus-dei-and-the-radical-

catholic-takeover-of-the-supreme-court/, the weird cult made infamous in
59
“As Edward Whelan, a prominent conservative legal activist and blogger, wrote recently, ‘No one has been
more dedicated to the enterprise of building a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade than the Federalist
Society’s Leonard Leo.’” Jeffrey Toobin, The Conservative Pipeline to the Supreme Court, New Yorker Mag-
azine, Apr. 10, 2017. While Leo’s activities may be constitutionally protected advocacy, the Justices’ actions
are facially felonious.
60
Observing that a respect for precedent is indispensable, Justice O’Connor explained that
when this Court reexamines a prior holding, its judgment is customarily informed by a series of prudential
and pragmatic considerations designed to test the consistency of overruling a prior decision with the ideal
of the rule of law, and to gauge the respective costs of reaffirming and overruling a prior case. Thus, for
example, we may ask whether the rule has proven to be intolerable simply in defying practical workabil-
ity, whether the rule is subject to a kind of reliance that would lend a special hardship to the consequences
of overruling and add inequity to the cost of repudiation, whether related principles of law have so far
developed as to have left the old rule no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine; or whether facts
have so changed, or come to be seen so differently, as to have robbed the old rule of significant application
or justification.
Planned Parenthood of S.E. Pa. v. Casey 505 U.S. 833, 854-55 (1992) (citations omitted).
First, Pope Samuel of Alito avers that Roe was “egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Con-
stitution.” Dobbs, 142 S.Ct. at 2237. Given that under James Madison’s Bill of Rights, rights were retained
by the individual unless expressly ceded in the constitutional text, there is no evidence of an impending colli-
sion. Compare this with Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), where Justice Taney’s exegesis of the Consti-
tution precipitated the correct answer, but the answer itself was morally repugnant. The constitutional remedy
was to fix the damn Constitution, which we did shortly thereafter.
Plaintiff takes no position with respect to the morality of abortion, nor should he here. As a Scalian original-
ist, Plaintiff fractures the Roman axiom: “COTUS locuta est, causa finita est.” Again drawing inspiration from
the Court’s most petulant toddler, judges must have the courage and modesty to persist when the Constitution

47
“produces results that go against [their] policy preferences.” Michigan v. Bryant, 562 U.S. 344, 394-95 (2011)
(Scalia, J., dissenting). The Constitution does not deprive the woman of that right, and that is the end of the
discussion. For now. If the public decides to change the law, an amendment can be enacted.
Second, Pope Samuel complains that “Without any grounding in the constitutional text, history, or precedent,
Roe imposed on the entire country a detailed set of rules for pregnancy.” Dobbs, 142 S.Ct. at 2237. On the one
hand, point taken. But on the other, one is left to wonder where in the “constitutional text, history, or precedent”
that Pope John of Roberts magically discovered after 235 years that the Framers made the President our King.
Cf., Trump v. United States, No. 23-939 (U.S. 2024). The constitutional “fix,” if there even needs to be one, is
to dismantle the trimester system, but as 93% of abortions are performed in the first trimester and 99% are
done by the twentieth week (basically half-way), Jeff Diamant, et al., What the data says about abortion in the
U.S., Pew Research, Mar. 25, 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/25/what-the-data-says-
about-abortion-in-the-us/, there was no indication that the system was so broke that the Court needs to fix it.
Third, Pope Samuel asserts that the existing regime was somehow unworkable. Dobbs, 142 S.Ct. at 2238.
As a rule, you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater; if we assume, arguendo, that “[c]ontinued adherence
to Casey's unworkable ‘undue burden’ test would undermine, not advance, the ‘evenhanded, predictable, and
consistent development of legal principles,’" id., then we scrap Casey, and let the woman who has to carry the
freight make the call, as the Framers intended.
Fourth, Pope Samuel avers “that traditional reliance interests were not implicated because getting an abortion
is generally "unplanned activity," and "reproductive planning could take virtually immediate account of any
sudden restoration of state authority to ban abortions.” Dobbs, 142 S.Ct. at 2239 (quoting Casey). Explain
that one to the woman who had a stroke from taking birth control pills, or those who fall under a fairly
long and relatively common list of contraindications—including being over 35, like every woman on the
planet. Frances E. Casey, MD, Oral Contraceptives, Merck Manual (Revised Jul 2023), https://www.merck-
manuals.com/professional/gynecology-and-obstetrics/family-planning/oral-contraceptives.
To even state the case is to refute it. Casey was wrong, and if Casey needs fixing, it does.
Fifth, one is hard-pressed to discern, as Pope Samuel does, how “Roe and Casey have led to the distortion
of many important but unrelated legal doctrines.” Dobbs, 142 S.Ct. at 2238. Even if we agree, arguendo, that
Apodaca (blessing a non-unanimous jury verdict) “is egregiously wrong, it has significant negative conse-
quences, and overruling it would not unduly upset reliance interests,” Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. 83, 140 S.
Ct. 1390, 1420 (2020) (Kavanaugh, J. concurring), it is impossible to conclude that a decision that was objec-
tively correct, has few identifiable negative consequences, and unreasonably upsets reliance interests.
Sixth, in ascertaining whether to abandon stare decisis, the Court adopts a sort of legal Hippocratic oath, in
the sense that it should do no harm. Specifically, Justice O’Connor writes that it must pragmatically “gauge
the respective costs of reaffirming and overruling a prior case.” Planned Parenthood, 505 U.S. at 854. And
by any objective measure, the cost to society of overturning Roe was far too high.
Roe fit comfortably within a long line of precedent declaring that the State did not have squatters’ rights
over our bodies. "No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded," than "the right of every individual
to the possession and control of his own person." Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891);
see, e.g., Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U.S. 261, 269 (1990) (same), Winston v. Lee, 470 U.S.
753, 766-767 (1985) (forced surgery); Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165 (1952) (forced stomach pumping);
Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210 (1990) (forced administration of antipsychotic drugs), Skinner v. Okla-
homa, 316 U.S. 535 (1942) (forced sterilization) It also fit comfortably within the framework of the Court's
prior decisions involving relationships, e.g., Griswold, supra, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), Ober-
gefell, supra, and Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972), the holdings of which are "not a series of isolated
points," but mark a "rational continuum." Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 543 (Harlan, J., dissenting), and for-
bidding arbitrary impositions and restraints, e.g., Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897), Pierce v. Society
of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925), Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502 (1934); Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners,
353 U. S. 232 (1957).
As the King of Bribes solemnly observes, the meat cleaver the Court applies to Roe also endangers an array
of uncontroversial precedents. “[W]e should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents,

48
 121. “If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any per-

son … in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the

Constitution or laws of the United States … They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned

not more than ten years, or both.” 18 U.S.C. § 241.

122. “The Court's job is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare deci-

sis, and decide this case accordingly.” Dobbs, 142 S.Ct. at 2239.

123. As the Conspiring Justices’ actions had no colorable grounding in law, their actions

constitute a felony.

[124-30. Reserved.]

including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” Dobbs, 142 S.Ct. at 2301 (Thomas, J., concurring). And of
course, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), criminalizing interracial marriages. Remarkably, those statutes
were still on the books five years ago, Laura Vozzella, Virginia looks at scrapping defunct, racist laws still on
the books, Wash. Post, Dec. 5, 2019, and in theory, could be reanimated at any time. After all, as his brother
Kavanaugh observes, “this Court has held that the Constitution protects unenumerated rights that are deeply
rooted in this Nation's history and tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Dobbs, 142 S.Ct.
at 2304 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring). After all, if abortion isn’t there, then a fortiori, the right to marry outside
your race most certainly isn’t.
And as widely foreseen, the interment of Roe led to a predictable human train-wreck. E.g., Solcyré Burga,
How a 10-Year-Old Rape Victim Who Traveled for an Abortion Became Part of a Political Firestorm, Time,
Jul. 15, 2022 (quite absurdly, Ohio law made no exception for the rape of a minor child); Elizabeth Cohen and
John Bonifield, Texas woman almost dies because she couldn’t get an abortion, CNN, Jun. 20, 2023,
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/16/health/abortion-texas-sepsis/index.html, Paradoxically, despite near-total
bans in 14 states, “the number and rate of abortions in 2023 hit their highest point in over a decade” … an 11%
increase from 2020. Lauren Mascarenhas, The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade 2 years ago. Here’s
what’s happened since, CNN, Jun. 22, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/22/us/roe-v-wade-overturned-2-
years/index.html. Patients and providers have struggled to navigate a patchwork of sometimes hastily imple-
mented abortion policies that include mandatory waiting periods, limits on Medicaid coverage for abortion,
and vague language around medical emergency exceptions to abortion bans in states. Id. Lauren Mascarenhas,
et al., A Texas woman is suing the prosecutors who charged her with murder after her self-induced abortion,
CNN, Apr. 3, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/01/us/texas-abortion-lawsuit-lizelle-gonzalez/index.html
(abortion done before Roe was interred). Over 35,000 Texas women had to flee the state in 2023, Molly Cook
Escobar, et al., 171,000 Traveled for Abortions Last Year. See Where They Went., N.Y. Times, June 13, 2024,
and Texas even allows private citizens to file a civil lawsuit against anyone who knowingly "aids or abets" an
abortion. Emma Bowman, As states ban abortion, the Texas bounty law offers a way to survive legal chal-
lenges, NPR.org, Jul. 11, 2022, at https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1107741175/texas-abortion-bounty-law.
They also tried banning the abortifacient mifepristone, in an effort to force themselves on the rest of the coun-
try. FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U.S. 367 (2024) (dismissed on standing grounds only).
While substantive due process jurisprudence is "demonstrably erroneous,” it is because Footnote Four has
no foundation in law. See Note 54, supra. The constitutional cure for a judge-made rule where judges have
illicitly arrogated almost limitless discretion to themselves is to inter the rule; this is almost 100 years overdue.

49
F. CHEVRON: A POWER-GRAB FOR THE AGES.

131. Whereas courts are invested with “the judicial Power,” Congress enjoys considerable

authority to dictate when and how that power is exercised. Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. 506,

513 (1868) (jurisdiction is conferred "with such exceptions and under such regulations as

Congress shall make").

132. So-called “Chevron deference” was grounded in the concept of agency; where Con-

gress had expressed its intent in a statute, its interpretation was dispositive, but where “Con-

gress has explicitly left a gap for the agency to fill, there is an express delegation of authority

to the agency to elucidate a specific provision of the statute by regulation.” Chevron U.S.A.,

Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984).

133. On information and belief, Chevron deference was predicated on the rational assump-

tion that Congress knew enough to know what they didn’t know and chose to defer technical

questions to people with technical expertise.

134. By definition, the “alphabet agencies” are authorized agents of Congress, subject to

its control and even abolition.

135. “Congress may certainly delegate to others, powers which the legislature may right-

fully exercise itself.” Wayman v. Southard, 23 U.S. 1, 43 (1825) (e.g., the Judiciary Act of

1789, 1 Stat. 73, c. 20 (Sept. 24, 1789)).

50
 136. Pursuant to that authority, public agencies have been “filling in the details,” United

States v. Grimaud, 220 U.S. 506, 517 (1911), in vague and incomplete laws for at least a

century.

137. On information and belief, the business of writing the detailed laws necessary for a

government as large as ours is too enormous for any legislative body to accomplish (and in

particular, when ConMen half of their time “dialing for dollars,” and the rest of it reading

“Green Eggs and Ham” into the public record. Congressional Fundraising, Last Week To-

night with John Oliver, HBO (2016), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk).

138. In 1946, Congress enacted the Administrative Procedures Act, 5 U.S.C. § 500, et

seq., (“the APA”), touted by its Senate sponsor as “a bill of rights for the hundreds of thou-

sands of Americans whose affairs are controlled or regulated in one way or another by agen-

cies of the Federal Government.” Administrative Procedure Act S. Proceedings, 79th Cong.

298 (1946) (stmt. of Sen. McCarran (D-NV)).

139. On information and belief, the APA was intended to standardize the lawmaking pro-

cess, affording stakeholders a voice in the process.

140. “Legislative rules are required when Congress simply provided an end result, without

any guidance as to how to achieve the desired result or when a statutory provision does not

provide adequate authority for the regulatory action taken.” Internal Revenue Manual, Part

32 (Published Guidance and Other Guidance to Taxpayers). Ch. 1, § 1.2.7 , Internal Revenue

Service, Nov. 19, 2019, at https://www.irs.gov/irm/part32/irm_32-001-001.

141. All legislative rules, including rules of civil and criminal procedure applicable in all

federal courts, 28 U.S.C. § 2071, are subject to Congressional approval. 5 U.S.C. § 801, et

seq.

51
 142. “[I]nterpretative rules, general statements of policy, [and] rules of agency organiza-

tion, procedure, or practice” are exempt from the rule-making requirements of the APA. 5

U.S.C. § 553(b)(4)(A).

144. In making all agency rules interpretive, the Defendants have effectively repealed the

entire APA. Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo, No. 22-451 (2024).

145. In making all agency rules interpretive, the Defendants have unlawfully intruded on

Congress’ lawmaking power.

146. On information and belief, Chevron deference was predicated on the rational assump-

tion that Congress knew enough to know what they didn’t know, and had lawful authority

to delegate lawmaking in technical areas to people with technical expertise.

147. If Congress disapproved of Chevron deference, it had forty years to pass a law mod-

ifying or even interring the practice.

148. Through their failure to act, Congress has expressed the opinion that they would rather

have non-partisan technocrats than bribe-taking judges without expertise or G.E.D.-trained

bartenders making day-to-day decisions in their name.61

61
The dissent in Loper Bright gets this concept dead-solid perfect:

This Court has long understood Chevron deference to reflect what Congress would want, and so to be
rooted in a presumption of legislative intent. Congress knows that it does not—in fact cannot—write
perfectly complete regulatory statutes. It knows that those statutes will inevitably contain ambiguities that
some other actor will have to resolve, and gaps that some other actor will have to fill. And it would usually
prefer that actor to be the responsible agency, not a court. … Agencies report to a President, who in turn
answers to the public for his policy calls; courts have no such accountability and no proper basis for
making policy. And of course Congress has conferred on that expert, experienced, and politically ac-
countable agency the authority to administer—to make rules about and otherwise implement—the statute
giving rise to the ambiguity or gap. Put all that together and deference to the agency is the almost obvious
choice, based on an implicit congressional delegation of interpretive authority. We defer, the Court has
explained, “because of a presumption that Congress” would have “desired the agency (rather than the
courts)” to exercise “whatever degree of discretion” the statute allows.
Today, the Court flips the script: It is now “the courts (rather than the agency)” that will wield power
when Congress has left an area of interpretive discretion. A rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule
of judicial hubris.
Loper Bright Enterprises (Kagan, J., dissenting), slip op. at 2-3 (citation omitted).

52
 149. While courts arguably have “special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities,”

Loper Bright, slip op. at 23, that conceit presupposes the existence of an actual court of law,

capable of construing the law with “[c]lear heads . . . and honest hearts,” 1 Works of James

Wilson 363 (J. Andrews ed. 1896), which, on information and belief, the Roberts TRUMP

“Court”—which openly defies a statutes intended to restrain it, 28 U.S.C. § 455, and has no

code of ethics or ethics to speak of—no longer even pretends to approximate.62

[150-160. Reserved.]

G. FOUR CORNERS: DELAYING TRUMP V. UNITED STATES, NO. 23-939

Overturning Roe took power from women.

Today’s decision takes power from all of us.
~Stephen King

"A government of laws, and not of men." John Adams enshrined this principle in the
Massachusetts Constitution. Mass. Const. art. XXX. But it was hardly a novel concept, even
in Mother England. As Daniel DeFoe of Robinson Crusoe fame wryly remarked, “Kings are
not Kings Jure Divino, that when they break the Laws, trample on Property... and the like,
they may be opposed and resisted by force.” Daniel DeFoe, Jure Divino, a Satyr, Intro. v
(1706). Thomas Paine proudly proclaimed “that in America THE LAW IS KING.” Thomas
Paine, Common Sense 36 (P. Eckler Co. 1918) (1776) (emphasis in original). This is the
reasonable expectation that the people had, and the outcome they had risked their very lives
for. As Justice Miller intoned so long ago:

No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may
set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the
highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law, and are bound to obey it.

62
Stare decisis “fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the ju-
dicial process," Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 827 (1991). Stare deceased, not so much.

53
United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 220 (1882) (emphasis added). This, in turn, is why the
Roberts TRUMP Court’s recent declaration in Trump v. United States, No. 23-939, was so
blindingly gobsmacking. It is not a judicial decision, so much as a decision by judges, who
have defenestrated every canon of judicial practice known to man. Furthermore, when the
Defendants were testi-LYING under oath in their job interviews, they assured the Senate
that the President was not above the law:

On the face of it, it appeared that the Defendants were engaged in a legal version of the
classic “Four Corners” defense made famous by Coach Dean Smith of North Carolina, grant-
ing Mr. Trump de facto immunity by ensuring that his case doesn’t reach trial before the
election, thereby assisting him “in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or pun-
ishment” for federal crimes. 18 U.S.C. § 3. And while that was enough for criminal liability
to attach, few would have dreamt that they would so brazenly forsake their oaths and invent
an American Führerprinzip.63

63
When Hitler consigned a man to Auschwitz, he didn’t have to give a reason; the Führerprinzip of the Third
Reich was that “the Führer's word is above all written law.” Reasons are reserved for important people, and
Muselmanner like myself— non-persons—are not important. As Justice Jackson observed in his role as a Nu-
remberg prosecutor:
Having sneaked through the portals of power, the Nazis slammed the gate in the face of all others who
might also aspire to enter. Since the law was what the Nazis said it was, every form of opposition was
rooted out and every dissenting voice throttled. Germany was in the clutch of a police state, which used
the fear of the concentration camp as a means to enforce nonresistance. The Party was the State, the State
was the Party, and terror by day and death by night were the policy of both.
Robert Jackson, Summation (Nuremberg War Crimes Trial), Jul. 26, 1946, at http://law2.umkc.edu/fac-
ulty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/Jacksonclose.htm (last visited Jul. 6, 2024).
If there is any discernible difference between the President and Reichchancellor Hitler under the Roberts
TRUMP Court’s lawless ukase, it is not readily discernible. As Justice Sotomayor observes:
The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world.
When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated
from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Or-
ganizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune.
Immune, immune, immune.
In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.
Trump v. United States, No. 23-939, 603 U.S. __ (2024) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting), slip op. at 29-30.

54
 161. Upon ascension to the bench, every United States judge takes the following oath:

“I, ___ ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect
to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and
impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as ___ under the
Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”

28 U.S.C. § 453 (emphasis added).

162. The oath of office—which has not changed since 1791, Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat.

73 (Sept. 24, 1789)—provides federal judges with fair notice of their constitutional obliga-

tions.64

163. As a practical matter, the Supreme Court has almost plenary control over its docket.65

164. When the real Supreme Court was confronted with a matter of great urgency, it was

fully able to move with remarkable dispatch. E.g., Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000) (four

days, from Florida Supreme Court decision to their published ruling).

165. In the matter regarding discoverability of President Nixon’s White House tapes, the

courts took less than 100 days from the initial district court filing to decide the question.66

166. In the matter of Trump v. Anderson, No. 23–719, 601 U.S. ___ (2024), the Roberts

TRUMP Court took only 60 days from the initial filing to issue its decision.67

64
As Coke and Blackstone was the Colonial lawyer’s Bible, this understanding was common currency among
the Framers. In the Federalist, in arguing against judicial removal by the legislature via the power of address,
Alexander Hamilton observed that “the standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial
magistracy, ... [is] the best expedient which can be devised in any government, to secure a steady, upright, and
impartial administration of the laws.” The Federalist No. 87, 437 (Alexander Hamilton) (I. Kramnick ed. 1987).
“Brutus,” though expressing his misgivings, agreed that “judges holding their commissions during good be-
havior [was] a proper provision provided they were made properly responsible.” “Brutus,” The Power of the
Judiciary, New-York Journal, Mar. 20, 1788.
65
They can’t discharge duties assigned by the Constitution, which gives Plaintiff standing. See Note 11, supra.
66
Lesley Oelsner, Jaworski Seeks Court Subpoena for Nixon Tapes, N.Y. Times, Apr. 17, 1974, at
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/04/17/archives/jaworski-seeks-court-subpoena-for-nixon-tapes-he-wants-64-
of.html (issue raised on April 16); United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974) (case decided July 24, 1974).
67
United States Supreme Court, Docket for No. 23-719, at https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?file-
name=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23-719.html (accessed Jul. 6, 2024; pdf copy on file).

55
 167. On or about December 11, 2023, the Government filed a Petition for a Writ of Cer-

tiorari Before Judgment in the matter of United States v. Trump, No. 23-cr-257 (D.D.C. Dec.

1, 2023).

168. When the government sought certiorari before judgment in United States v. Nixon,

418 U.S. 683 (1974), the Court granted the petition and resolved the question expeditiously.

169. The Roberts TRUMP “Court” routinely granted certiorari before judgment in cases

of pressing public importance. See, e.g., Dept. of Educ. v. Brown, 600 U.S. 551 (2023) (stu-

dent loans); Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477 (2023) (same); United States v. Texas, 599

U.S. 670 (2023) (immigration); Whole Woman’s Health v Jackson, 595 U.S. 30 (2021) (“But

we HATES abortion! Gollum! Gollum!”); Dept. of Commerce v. New York, 139 S.Ct. 2551

(2019) (Republican voter suppression scheme).

170. In the Government’s Reply Brief in the request for certiorari before judgment, Spe-

cial Counsel Smith averred that “[o]nly a grant of certiorari before judgment—a procedure

followed in United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974), and comparably consequential

cases—will assure that the Court can hear and resolve the case promptly, and in any event

in its current Term.” United States v. Trump, No. 23-624 at 1-2 (filed Dec. 21. 2023).

171. The Defendants summarily denied the Government’s request for certiorari before

judgment without explanation via paperless order on December 22, 2023, a mere ten days

after the request was filed.68

172. In the matter of Trump v. Anderson, No. 23–739, 601 U.S. ___ (2024), the Supreme

Court took 138 days from the initial filing to issue its decision.69

68
United States Supreme Court, Docket for No. 23-624, at https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?file-
name=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23-614.html (accessed Jul. 6, 2024; pdf copy on file).
69
United States Supreme Court, Docket for No. 23-719, at https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?file-
name=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23-719.html (accessed Jul. 6, 2024; pdf copy on file).

56
 173. On information and belief, the delay in deciding Trump v. United States was inten-

tional. E.g., Judge Luttig CALLS OUT Supreme Court Over Trump DELAY Tactic, Mei-

dasTouch (podcast), May 1, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPKkjR_QQw4.

174. Defending the Roberts TRUMP “Court’s” slothful resolution of the matter, Defend-

ant Roberts reportedly declared that it was ‘a case that we … are deciding on an expedited

basis, less than five months after we granted the Government’s request’ to take up the issue.”

Joan Biskupic, Defensive of SCOTUS’ Handling of Case, CNN, Jul. 2, 2024 (reprinted by

MSN, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/john-roberts-embraces-donald-trump-s-

view-of-the-presidency/ar-BB1pfVlA.

175. On information and belief, Defendant Roberts knowingly and deliberately lied to the

public, as the Government requested that the issue be taken up almost seven months before

the opinion issued.

H. WE HAVE A KING! DECLARING TRUMP V. UNITED STATES

The illegitimacy of the Court's departures from the Constitution is underscored

by the fact that no Justice has ever attempted a justification of the practice. At
most, opinions have offered, as if it solved something, the observation that the
Court has never felt its power confined to the intended meaning of the Constitu-
tion. True enough, but a long habit of abuse of authority does not make the
abuse legitimate. That is particularly so when the representative branches of
government have no effective way of resisting the Court's depredations.

57
 Viewing the carnage created by the Court, George Will referred to the Justices
as "our robed masters." When the VMI decision came down, my wife said the
Justices were behaving like a "band of outlaws." Neither of those appellations
is in the least bit extreme. The Justices are our masters in a way that no Presi-
dent, Congressman, governor, or other elected official is. They order our lives
and we have no recourse, no means of resisting, no means of altering their
ukases. They are indeed robed masters. But "band of outlaws"? An outlaw is a
person who coerces others without warrant in law. That is precisely what a
majority of the present Supreme Court does. That is, given the opportunity, what
the Supreme Court has always done.
~Judge Robert Bork70

176. The only difference between a tyrant and a judge is that the latter is tethered to the

rule of law.71

177. "Courts are constituted by authority and they can not go beyond the power delegated

to them. If they act beyond that authority, and certainly in contravention of it, their judgments

and orders are regarded as nullities." Vallely v. Northern Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 254 U.S.

348, 353 (1920); see 1 Blackstone, Commentaries at * 70.

178. Defendant Kavanaugh recently admitted that the Constitution “does not grant the

nine unelected Members of this Court the unilateral authority to rewrite the Constitution to

create new rights and liberties based on our own moral or policy views.” Dobbs, 142 S.Ct.

at 2306 (Kavanaugh, J. concurring).

70
Robert H. Bork, Our Judicial Oligarchy, 67 First Things 21, 24 (Nov. 1996) (emphasis added). Concurrences
would fill a Brandeis brief.
71
In disciplining another out-of-control state judge, New York authorities observe:
Tyrants come in more varieties than Baskin-Robbins has flavors. The ultimate protection a free society
has against a tyrant, is a judicial system that acts as the last barrier to a tyrant’s will. Therefore, it is
immeasurably worse when the tyrant is the judge himself. ... Just as there is no small death, there is
no small tyranny.
Respondent [a judge] acted in tyrannical fashion. His will was the law, and to the degree that his law
conflicted with the actual one, he was above the law.
In re Mills (N.Y. Comm. On Judicial Conduct Dec. 4, 2004) (Felder, J., dissenting in severity of sanction only;
unpaginated), http://www.scjc.state.ny.us/Determinations/M/mills,_douglas.htm (last visited Apr. 8, 2011)
(emphasis added).

58
 179. Writing for the Court, Defendant Roberts admitted that “Members of this Court are

vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the pre-

rogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation's elected

leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them.” Nat. Fedn. of

Indep. Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519, 132 S.Ct. 2566, 2579 (2012).

180. In a recent concurrence, Defendant Thomas offers a blanket confession: “We should

restore our stare decisis jurisprudence to ensure that we exercise "mer[e] judgment," [as op-

posed to will], which can be achieved through adherence to the correct, original meaning of

the laws we are charged with applying. In my view, anything less invites arbitrariness into

judging.72

181. Defendant Thomas provides the rule that this Court should follow when confronted

by bloody juridical abortions like Dobbs, Trump v. Anderson, and Trump v. United States:

“When faced with a demonstrably erroneous precedent, my rule is simple: We should not

follow it.” Gamble, 587 U.S. 678, 139 S.Ct. at 1984. “This view of stare decisis follows

72
Gamble v. United States, 587 U.S. 678, 139 S.Ct. 1960, 1981 (2019) (Thomas, J., concurring) (citation omit-
ted). Thomas’ soliloquy is a master class in judicature. Therein, he avers that “the Court's typical formulation
of the stare decisis standard does not comport with our judicial duty under Article III because it elevates de-
monstrably erroneous decisions—meaning decisions outside the realm of permissible interpretation—over the
text of the Constitution and other duly enacted federal law.” Id. “[W]e are not entitled to interpret the Consti-
tution to align it with our personal sensibilities.” Id. at 1980. “By applying demonstrably erroneous precedent
instead of the relevant law's text…the Court exercises "force" and "will," two attributes the People did not give
it.” Id. at 1981 (citing The Federalist No. 78). “It is always "tempting for judges to confuse our own preferences
with the requirements of the law.’" Id. (citation omitted). Fact check: TRUE.
A proper understanding of stare decisis in our constitutional structure requires a proper understanding of
the nature of the "judicial Power" vested in the federal courts. That "Power" is—as Chief Justice Marshall
put it—the power "to say what the law is" in the context of a particular "case" or "controversy" before the
court. Phrased differently, the "judicial Power" "is fundamentally the power to decide cases in accordance
with law." It refers to the duty to exercise "judicial discretion" as distinct from "arbitrary discretion."
Id. at 1982 (citations omitted).
“Judicial discretion is not the power to "alter" the law; it is the duty to correctly "expound" it.” Id. (citation
omitted). As he observed, “there are right and wrong answers to legal questions," Id. at 1984 (citation omitted),
and it is the task of the judge to ascertain and apply the right ones, because judicial opinions are not the supreme
Law of the Land. U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2.

59
directly from the Constitution's supremacy over other sources of law—including our own

precedents … [as it] necessarily limits ‘the power of a court to give legal effect to prior

judicial decisions’ that articulate demonstrably erroneous interpretations of the Constitution

because those prior decisions cannot take precedence over the Constitution itself.” Id. at

1984-85 (citations omitted).

182. In a scholarly work predating her ascension to the bench, Defendant Barrett admits

that “partisan politics are not a good reason for overturning precedent. But neither are they

a good reason for deciding a case of first impression.” Amy C. Barrett, Precedent and Ju-

risprudential Disagreement, 91 Tex. L. Rev. 1711, 1729 (2012-2013) (“Barrett”).73

183. In a concurrence, Defendant Gorsuch observed:

Ours is the job of interpreting the Constitution. And that document isn't some inkblot
on which litigants may project their hopes and dreams for a new and perfected tort law,
but a carefully drafted text judges are charged with applying according to its original
public meaning. If a party wishes to claim a constitutional right, it is incumbent on him
to tell us where it lies, not to assume or stipulate with the other side that it must be in
there someplace.

Cordova v. City of Albuquerque, 816 F.3d 645, 661 (10th Cir. 2016) (Gorsuch, J, concurring).

184. Based on the Conspiring Justices’ publicly expressed judicial philosophy, the public

had a right to expect that they would look to the text of the Constitution, its legislative his-

tory, and its original public meaning to answer the question of whether a President enjoyed

absolute immunity from criminal prosecution … and no farther.

73
Defendant Barrett “tend[s] to agree with those who say that a [judge’s] duty is to the Constitution and that it
is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the Constitution rather than a precedent she
thinks clearly in conflict with it,” Barrett at 1728, which is implicit in originalist thought, which Barrett ex-
pounded on at length in her confirmation hearing. When someone comes for his gunny-gun-guns, Defendant
Alito declares that when “the statutory text is clear … we must follow it.” Garland v. Cargill, 602 U. S. 406,
429 (2024) (Alito, J., concurring). To others perhaps less charitable, one need only “look at the Republican
Party platform” to “know his judicial philosophy.” Stephanie Mencimer, Conservatives Say They Want An-
other Antonin Scalia. They Really Want Another Sam Alito., Mother Jones (May/June 2016),
http://www.motherjones.com/ politics/2016/06/samuel-alito-profile-antonin-scalia-supreme-court-appoint-
ment.

60
 185. On its face, the Constitution does not contain an express grant of civil or criminal

immunity to a President.

186. The Framers granted limited and targeted immunity to “Senators and Representatives

… [who] shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged

from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going

to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not

be questioned in any other Place.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 6, cl. 2.

187. On Sept. 4, 1787, James Madison raised the issue of Presidential immunity in the

Philadelphia Convention, “suggest[ing] also the necessity of considering what privileges

ought to be allowed to the Executive.” The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol.

2, p. 503 (M. Farrand, ed.) (1911) (“Farrand”).

188. On information and belief, Madison’s proposal for the grant of some privilege for

the Executive was summarily dismissed.74

189. On its face, impeachment of a President who had left office would be by definition a

pointless act.75

74
The Framers did not maintain a formal legislative history of the Convention; this appears to be by design.
Madison had intended to publish his notes in the 1790s, but they were not all contemporary; they were pub-
lished after his death. Library of Congress, James Madison and the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787
(web article; undated) https://www.loc.gov/collections/james-madison-papers/articles-and-essays/james-mad-
ison-and-the-federal-constitutional-convention-of-1787/. All we know for certain is that Madison said that he
raised the issue and by his silence, we are forced to infer that it was never given serious consideration.
75
Unlike the question of criminal immunity, the efficacy of impeachment was discussed. The danger being
guarded against, in the words of Madison, was that “the chief Magistrate … might pervert his administration
into a scheme of peculation or oppression [or] betray his trust to foreign powers.” Notes on the Constitutional
Convention (July 20, 1787), 2 Farrand 65-66. Colonel Mason all but predicted a crime Mr. Trump was indicted
for: “Shall the man who has practised corruption [through bribing Electors] & by that means procured his
appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment, by repeating his guilt?” Id. at 65. Ben
Franklin, in reasoning against any monarchical-like system which would place the chief executive beyond the
reach of the law, argued it would be “best ... to provide in the Constitution for the regular punishment of the
Executive when his misconduct should deserve it.” Id.

61
 190. From the evidence of the text, legislative history and the Framers’ public statements,

it can safely be concluded that the Framers did not grant any form of immunity for criminal

acts to the President, and this was by design.76

76
E.g., James Wilson told the Pennsylvania ratifying convention that the president was “far from being above
the laws,” and “not a single privilege [wa]s annexed to his character.” 2 Elliot’s Debates 480. Contrasting the
President to the King, Alexander Hamilton averred that “The President of the United States would be liable to
be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed
from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of
law.” The Federalist No. 69, 396-97 (Alexander Hamilton) (emphasis added). Some years later, Charles
Pinckney confirmed that “[n]o privilege of this kind was intended for your Executive, nor any except that
which I have mentioned for your Legislature.” Sen. Charles Pinckney (D/R-SC), Speech (in the United States
Senate), Mar. 5, 1800, 3 Farrand 384-85. Noting “no subject had been more abused than privilege,” he added
that the Framers “set the example in merely limiting privilege to what was necessary, and no more.” Id. There
is no contrary authority.
Whereas the Framers’ public views carry the most probative value, it was generally understood that the
president’s accountability to prosecution would distinguish American leaders from European monarchs. . In a
September 1787 essay, Tench Coxe emphasized that the president could be “proceeded against like any other
man in the ordinary course of law.” An American Citizen I, Indep. Gazetteer (Philadelphia, Pa.) (Sept. 26,
1787), reprinted in 2 Documentary History of Ratification (“DHR”) 138, 141. As “Americanus,” a supporter
of the Constitution from New Jersey, observed, the British king was “above the reach of all Courts of law,” but
this “prerogative[]” was not “vested in the President.” Americanus II, N.Y. Daily Advertiser (Nov. 23, 1787),
reprinted in 19 DHR 287, 288-89. Patrick Henry found this to be a flaw asserting that “we may prescribe the
rules by which he shall rule his people, and interpose such checks as shall prevent him from infringing them,
but the President, in the field, at the head of his army, can prescribe the terms on which he shall reign,” 3
Elliot’s Debates 59-60 (Patrick Henry) (noting in opposition to the president’s control over the army in the
draft Constitution that a president who committed a crime might try to use the army to avoid “being ignomin-
iously tried and punished”), presaging the concern Justice Sotomayor voiced in her dissent.
Senator William Maclay (Anti-Administration-PA) asked what would happen in the case of a murderous
president: “Suppose the President committed murder in the street. Impeach him? . . . But [suppose] . . . he runs
away. But I will put up another case. Suppose he continues his murders daily, and neither House is sitting to
impeach him.” William Maclay, The journal of William Maclay, United States Senator from Pennsylvania,
1789-1791, 163 (Chas. A. Beard ed., 1927) (1965). “Senator William Grayson of Virginia was adamant that
the ‘President was not above the law,’ arguing that presidents likely would be sued and that they might be
prosecuted for murder.” Saikrishna Prakash, Prosecuting and Punishing Our Presidents, 100 Tex. L. Rev.55,
74-5 (2021). Others underscored that the president could be “tried for his crimes,” see Publicola: An Address
to the Freemen of North Carolina, State Gazette of N.C. (Mar. 27, 1788), reprinted in 30 DHR Digital Edition
113, 116 (Kaminski et al. eds., 2009) and was “liable . . . to be indicted if the case should require it,” see A
Freeholder, Va. Indep. Chron. (Apr. 9, 1788), reprinted in 9 DHR 719, 723. The Federal Farmer was more
concerned that the President would use his office to get re-elected, “Federal Farmer,” The Character of the
Executive Office, Antifederalist No. 69, reprinted at https://www.history1700s.com/index.php/the-united-
states-constitution-reference/the-anti-federalist-papers/1178-antifederalist-no-69.html. On the privileges of
king and lords, Tucker states: “The fundamental principle of the American Constitutions and governments,
being the perfect equality of rights, there was no room to admit any thing therein, that should bear the most
distant resemblance to the subject of this chapter.” I2 St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries 219 n.1.
(1803). As Chief Justice Marshall put it, “the president is elevated from the mass of the people and, on the
expiration of the time for which he is elected, returns to the mass of the people again.” United States v. Burr,
25 F. Cas. 30, 34 (C.C.D. Va. 1807) (Marshall, C.J., riding circuit) (emphasis added). Therefore, “the first
magistrate of the Union may more properly be likened to the first magistrate of a state,” rather than to a “mon-
arch.” Id. Again, there is no contrary authority.

62
 191. Prior to issuing the ruling in Trump v. United States, Defendant Kavanaugh admitted

that the President did not enjoy criminal immunity.77

192. Although asked less directly, when asked whether a President had criminal immunity,

all the Conspiring Justices agreed that he did not.78

77
As he was an adjunct professor at Harvard who worked for independent counsel Kenneth Starr and written
a scholarly piece on the subject, Brett M. Kavanaugh, The President and the Independent Counsel, 86 Geo.
L.J. 2133 (1998), Defendant Kavanaugh gave the most full-throated answer:
“No one has ever said, I do not think, that the president is immune from civil or criminal process,” Ka-
vanaugh said. “So immunity is the wrong term to even think about in this process.” He added, “But im-
munity is not — not the correct word, and I do not think anyone thinks of immunity. And why not? No
one is above the law. And that is just such a foundational principle of the Constitution and equal justice
under law.”
Aaron Blake, What conservative justices said about immunity — before giving it to Trump, Wash. Post, Jul.
2, 2024 (hereinafter, “Blake”). And in a response to Senator Grassley (R-IA) regarding suspicion that he would
rule that the President enjoys broad immunity from criminal liability, he explained why:
No one is above the law in our constitutional system. Federalist 69, Hamilton makes clear all the ways
that the executive branch, as designed by the Framers of the Constitution, was different from the monar-
chy. Under our system of Government, the executive branch is subject to the law, subject to the court
system, and that is an important part of Federalist 69. It is an important part of the constitutional structure.
S. Hrg. 115-545, Pt. 1, Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination of Hon. Brett Kavanaugh to be an Associate
Justice of the United States 119 (Sept. 4-7, 2018) (stmt. of Judge Kavanaugh). Similar statements from the
hearing are compiled in video form. Conover Kennard, Brett Kavanaugh In 2018 Disagrees With Brett Ka-
vanaugh of 2024, Crooks&Liars.com, Jul. 2, 2024, https://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2024/07/brett-kavanaugh-
2018-disagrees-brett (video only). His answers were consistent with a 2008 speech, where he averred that
no one is above the law in our system of government. I strongly agree with that principle. But it is not
ultimately a persuasive criticism of these suggestions. The point is not to put the President above the law
or to eliminate checks on the President, but simply to defer litigation and investigations until the President
is out of office.
Brett M. Kavanaugh, Separation of Powers During the Forty-Fourth Presidency and Beyond, 93 Minn. L. Rev.
1454 (2009) (adaptation of speech). But now, in retrospect, Sen. Hirono’s remarks appear oddly prescient:
[W]e are here to decide whether or not to rubber stamp Donald Trump’s choice of a pre-selected political
ideologue, nominated precisely because he believes a sitting President should be shielded from civil law-
suits, criminal investigation, and prosecution, no matter the facts. …
Donald Trump selected Brett Kavanaugh from this list for an even more specific reason. The President is
trying as hard as he can to protect himself from the independent, impartial, and dogged investigation of
his abuse of power, before the walls close in on him entirely.
Kavanaugh Hearing at 80-81 (stmt. of Sen. Hirono (D-HI).
78
“I believe that no one is above the law under our system, and that includes the President. The President is
fully bound by the law, the Constitution and statutes.” S. Hrg. 109–158, Confirmation Hearing on the Nomi-
nation of John G. Roberts, Jr. to be Chief Justice of the United States 152 (2005) (stmt. of Judge Roberts); “No
man is above the law. … No man.” S. Hrg. 115–208, Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination of Hon. Neil
Gorsuch to be an Associate Justice of the United States 113 (2017) (stmt. of Judge Gorsuch); “Barrett said
three times that nobody was ‘above the law’ while responding to questions about the president” and Alito stated

63
 193. In the nearly twenty briefs submitted by Mr. Trump and card-carrying members of

his personality cult, not one shred of historical evidence was presented that would constitute

a substantial justification for a rational judge to change his or her position.79

194. Many of the aforementioned amici offered irrelevant political screeds, complaining

of a “witch hunt”—ignoring the fact that political “witch hunts” tend to find covens.80

that “no person in this country is above the law, and that includes the president and it includes the Supreme
Court.” Blake, What conservative justices said, supra. As Defendant Thomas has made a veritable career out
of being as silent and brutal as Quimbo, it is unsurprising that he had not weighed in emphatically.
79
“Half the truth is often a lie in effect,” Twing v. Schott, 338 P.2d 839, 841 (Wyo. 1959), and the closest that
any of the the amici ever came to presenting historical support was Ohio’s reference to Professsor (Justice)
Story’s famed Commentaries: “Early on, Justice Story commented that the President must have “the power to
perform” his duties “without any obstruction or impediment whatsoever,” including fear of “arrest, imprison-
ment, or detention.” Brief of Amici Curiae States of Ohio, Alaska, and Wyoming in Support of Petitioner,
Trump v. United States, No. 23-939 (docketed Mar. 19, 2024), at 8 (quoting 3 J. Story, Commentaries at §156).
But of course, the next sentence obliterates their argument: “The president cannot, therefore, be liable to arrest,
imprisonment, or detention, while he is in the discharge of the duties of his office.” 3 J. Story, Commentaries
at §156. Yes, it is a historical fact that President Grant was arrested for speeding in his carriage, Meilan Solly,
When President Ulysses S. Grant Was Arrested for Speeding in a Horse-Drawn Carriage, Smithsonian, Mar.
31, 2023, but no precedent was established in that amusing incident. De minimis non curat lex.
No one seeks to disturb the Office of Legal Counsel’s position that a sitting President cannot be prosecuted
while in office, A Sitting President’s Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution, 24 U.S. Op. O.L.C.
222, as it is not germane to the matters then before the Court. The better argument is that they can be indicted,
see Ronald D. Rotunda, Letter (to Kenneth Starr), May 13, 1998, available at https://int.nyt.com/data/docu-
menttools/savage-nyt-foia-starr-memo-presidential/ac9e49a727223de2/full.pdf, but it is a mere expert opinion
with minimal probative value.
80
Many of the amici recycled policy arguments straight out of Trump tweets, recycling spurious partisan at-
tacks on the justice system. By way of example, the state of Alabama cited an opinion piece entitled “Trump
Seems to Be the Victim of a Witch Hunt. So What?” Brief of Alabama and 17 Other States as Amici Curiae in
Support of Petitioner Donald Trump, Trump v. United States (Mar. 19, 2023) at 31. Well, the pioneers of the
“witch hunt” defense were Spiro Agnew, Jonathan P. Baird: Spiro Agnew and the corruption defense, Concord
Monitor, Dec. 27, 2018; Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Nixon Sees 'Witch-Hunt,' Insiders Say, Wash.
Post, Jul. 22, 1973. And then came George Santos. Brian Bushard, George Santos Breaks Silence: Calls Arrest
'Witch Hunt' And Doesn’t Plan To Resign In Dramatic Press Conference, Forbes, May 10, 2023. Res ipsa
loquitur.

64
 195. On information and belief, in Trump v. United States, the Conspiring Justices have

engaged in making policy:

Although the President might be exposed to fewer criminal prosecutions than the range
of civil damages suits that might be brought by various plaintiffs, the threat of trial,
judgment, and imprisonment is a far greater deterrent. Potential criminal liability, and
the peculiar public opprobrium that attaches to criminal proceedings, are plainly more
likely to distort Presidential decisionmaking than the potential payment of civil dam-
ages.

The hesitation to execute the duties of his office fearlessly and fairly that might result
when a President is making decisions under “a pall of potential prosecution” raises
“unique risks to the effective functioning of government.” A President inclined to take
one course of action based on the public interest may instead opt for another, apprehen-
sive that criminal penalties may befall him upon his departure from office. And if a
former President’s official acts are routinely subjected to scrutiny in criminal prosecu-
tions, “the independence of the Executive Branch” may be significantly undermined.
The Framers’ design of the Presidency did not envision such counterproductive burdens
on the “vigor[]” and “energy” of the Executive.

United States v. Trump, No. 23-939, 603 U.S. ___ (2024), slip op. at 13 (citations omitted).

196. The Framers, having weighed competing policy considerations, deliberately enacted

a constitution which did not grant the President any immunity (“a privilege”) from criminal

prosecution for his acts.

197. In offering our Constitution to the public for ratification, the Framers warranted that

the President did not enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for his acts.

198. As evidenced by what survives of our public discourse on the matter, the people who

ratified the Constitution understood that the President did not enjoy immunity from criminal

prosecution for his acts.

199. The Conspiring Justices have neither the expertise nor the prerogative to substitute

their personal policy views for those embodied in the Framers’ Constitution.81

81
Plaintiff takes no position on whether or what level of executive immunity would be optimal but rather,
points out that that the decisions complained of herein are so far above the Conspiring Justices’ pay grade that,
following Vallely, supra, they must be treated as legal nullities. As Judge Bork observes,

65
 200. The Conspiring Justices solemnly assert that “[d]istinguishing the President’s offi-

cial actions from his unofficial ones can be difficult. When the President acts pursuant to

‘constitutional and statutory authority,’ he takes official action to perform the functions of

his office.” Trump v. United States, slip op. at 17.

201. As the President has no statutory immunity for criminal acts, there is no conceivable

need for him to distinguish between official and unofficial acts.82

202. The Conspiring Justices assert: “Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely

because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law,” Trump v. United States, slip op. at

18, concluding “that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do

not authorise, but what they forbid.” The Federalist No. 78, p. 438 (Hamilton).

203. Our Founding Fathers posed this challenge to Parliament in 1775:

If it was possible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author
of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and
an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as
the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and op-
pressive, the inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require from the Parliament of
Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to
that body.

There is a story that two of the greatest figures in our law, Justice Holmes and Judge Learned Hand, had
lunch together and afterward, as Holmes began to drive off in his carriage, Hand, in a sudden onset of
enthusiasm, ran after him, crying, "Do justice, sir, do justice." Holmes stopped the carriage and reproved
Hand: "That is not my job. It is my job to apply the law."
Robert H. Bork, The Tempting of America 6 (1990) (emphasis added).
82
The paradigmatic example in everybody’s parade of horribles Is the killing of American citizen Anwar al-
Awlaki in Yemen via a drone strike. See David Lauter and Timothy M. Phelps, Memo justifying drone killing
of American Al Qaeda leader is released, L.A. Times, Jun. 23, 2014. Thanks to dogged reporting, a Department
of Justice memo was uncovered disclosing the legal justification for the drone strike which, for sake of argu-
ment, was approved by President Obama. Charlie Savage, Justice Department Memo Approving Targeted
Killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki, N.Y. Times, Jun. 23, 2014 (https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/second-circuit-
foia-ruling-awlaki-olc-memo/65ac10d47e3cc031/full.pdf, the memo starts at page 67).
As we all remember from law school, “Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice afore-
thought.” 18 U.S.C. § 1111(a). To qualify as murder, the homicide must be unlawful—"neither justifiable nor
excusable.” Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 685 (1975). The President who orders an attack on an enemy
combatant who just happens to be an American citizen is going to be found to be lawful, whereas an attack by
a President on his political rival (the infamous “Seal Team Six scenario”), not so much..

66
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (U.S. 2d Cont. Cong., 1775)

(emphasis added).

204. If there is any evidence that a President has been granted such an expansive agency,

it is not apparent from the text of the Constitution, its legislative history, or any other of the

Framers’ utterances.

205. “This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always

accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most

important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution

of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.” Obergefell, 135 S.Ct. at 2627 (Scalia, J., dis-

senting).

67