The Old Boys Need to Grow Up

Here's another highlight from DAAP's petition for a rehearing that highlights some of the incestuous corruption of the J-Council:

Subsequent to the hearing in LaFata v DAAP 2, defendants have learned that on the evening of the same day charges were filed in the instant case, Judicial Council members were discussing the charges with Paul LaFata at a hearing in an unrelated case. UC-Berkeley student Kenny Kroll, who is unaffiliated with DAAP, was shocked to witness the judges engaging in ex parte communications with LaFata, in which they expressed their view of DAAP’s guilt and the truth and correctness of LaFata’s charges—for which there had neither been a hearing nor even a response from the defendants who at that point were not even aware of the charges against them. Among other statements, these Judicial Council members asserted that the behavior of DAAP amounted to badgering and/or threatening behavior and exchanged animated anecdotes with LaFata on the underlying events. Mr. Kroll described the impact of this scenario as convincing him that the Judicial Council is “a good old boys club” in which only the persons in the club can expect basic fairness.

Kenny Kroll, if you'll remember, had filed a lawsuit against Misha Leybovich for sending spam in violation of the Elections Code, a lawsuit which was not treated seriously by the J-Council. In fact, Misha Leybovich was able to get away with a wrist-slap for spamming Hermanos Unidos and the Queer Resource Center, based on a stupid argument cooked up Paul LaFata that charging Misha for two violations constituted "double jeopardy." This argument is flawed for two reasons. One, there is no definition of "double jeopardy" in ASUC rules, nor is there any J-Council precedent for determining when "double jeopardy" applies. Second, this is not how "double jeopardy" works in the real world. If you shoot a bullet out of a gun and that bullet kills two people, you can be prosecuted for two murders. You cannot claim "double jeopardy" and argue that you should only be prosecuted for one murder.

The right-wingers at Berkeley often complain that liberals and leftists do not have a grasp of the "real world," but the quote from DAAP's petition for rehearing suggests that it is the J-Council who has no grasp of the real world. Ex parte communications with the plaintiff in a lawsuit by the judges who will decide that lawsuit is precisely the sort of thing that gets lawyers disbarred in the real world. Stop this corruption. The J-Council has been Berkeley ASUC's court of first and last resort for too long.
- posted by Jon @ 7:25 PM |