DECEMBER 2000 PRINT EDITION
DECEMBER 2000 PRINT EDITION
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State
of Massachusetts is Main By
Attorney Gregory A. Hession Mr.
McLarnon's case illustrates a critical new trend in the law, which is little
noticed until one is ensnared by it - that the state itself has become the main
impediment to justice. Almost every case I work on seems to have two opponents,
not just one - the actual legal opponent, and the system itself.
The traditional system has been hijacked and subverted by people with a
radically unconstitutional agenda. In its place they have put a new system that
pretends to protect due process rights, but violates them with impunity. For
example, when the Department of Social Services (DSS) takes children from a
family, often on the flimsiest of pretexts, parents have no public trial by
jury, (it is a secret trial by a judge), no innocence until proven guilty, no
requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, no opportunity to suppress
illegally obtained evidence taken by government agents from your home without a
warrant, etc. It is simply unbelievable to most people how far we have drifted
from traditional notions of justice, until it touches their own family or that
of a friend or relative. Almost
all newer law consists of crimes against the government itself. Law used to
protect inhabitants from harm to their persons or property by others or the
government. Now, it is the government itself, rather than a criminal, who is
more likely to deprive a citizen of property or other rights. All licensing,
registration, and possession crimes are of this new variety. The
worst new laws, however, involve restraining orders, the taking of children by
the DSS and the like - depriving us of fundamental liberties that intrude on
rights we have always taken for granted. The courts afford almost no due process
protections to those accused, rightly or wrongly, of breaking these laws. Lawyers
who want to restore traditional common law and constitutional protections, and
who do not conform to the new statist agenda, find themselves increasingly
isolated and ridiculed, and end up with the system itself as an opponent. Every
day when I get up and go to work, I feel an acute sense of loss, as I watch
liberty ebb. Some days I actually weep with frustration as I see the incremental
encroachment of our freedoms. What
is at stake in Mr. McLarnon's case is the rule of law and the constitution, as
it has been traditionally interpreted. His
case pits the old, constitutional system of justice against the new Orwellian
system, which has no protection for certain categories of unfavored perpetrators
of "crimes" against the state, such as - parents.
The new system is based on political victimology, where certain groups
obtain favor at the expense of others, who do not get equal protection before
the law. It is a system skewed by
political agendas, not truth. It is a system where government has assumed a role
never allowed or contemplated under our state or federal Bill of Rights -
intruding into family autonomy, paternal authority, child raising, and even
minor family conflicts. The
justices at the Supreme Judicial Court can return to the restraints on
government set forth in our Declaration of Rights, written in 1780 by John
Adams. Or they can disregard its
legal framework, and continue to impose their own political agenda in its place.
Article XI of that Declaration states: "Every
subject of the Commonwealth ought to find a certain remedy, by having recourse
to the laws, for all injuries or wrongs which he may receive in his person,
property, or character. He ought to
obtain right and justice freely, and without being obliged to purchase it;
completely, and without any denial; promptly, and without delay; conformably to
the laws." That
has not happened for a long time in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. May such a noble principle be restored, before it is too late. Gregory
A. Hession |