I suppose some people still subscribe to the naive notions that the world is fair and others buy into the utter delusion that this nation, and our system of government and laws exist to ensure fairness and equal treatment under the law. Back in the dark recesses of my mind, I remember themes of these delusions that were pounded into me as as schoolboy, forced to stand up and repeat the propaganda every single morning….
“With Liberty and JUSTICE FOR ALL”
My indoctrination was so severe that I devoted my life to the cause, I bought completely into the lies and the delusion. Four years in undergraduate school, two years of various graduate courses, three years of law school and more than a decade of practice in courts. And now I sit every single day being forced to realize so much of it is a fraud and a lie.
We cannot touch or feel or see the really big frauds and corruption of our government. We don’t get to see or hear first hand the backroom deals, the lies the fraud and corruption of George W. Bush, Obama, Rick Scott, Geithner, Bernake, Paulson. But every single day, consumer attorneys and citizens are forced to labor within a legal system that is fundamentally unfair and which is stacked so overtly against the fundamental goals of truth, justice and equal treatment before the law.
It’s hard to quantify the unfairness because it is so pernicious, so pervasive, so consuming. But it has seeped in and it now consumes our entire legal process….the process, the procedure, the rules and the execution. The manifestation of this infection are everywhere, but shown so dramatically and clearly in the Florida Supreme Court’s Verified Complaint Rule. Effective February 2010, it could have been enforced, but it has largely been ignored. Just yesterday in fact, just after this decision was released, I received another case and motion from a foreclosure mill making the obscene and specious argument that the rule did not apply to them….a very disgusting manifestation of all that is wrong with our legal system and in fact our entire country.
And then there is this Phillips v. Centennial decision from Florida’s 3rd DCA. It details in black and white and with sickening detail how a supposedly fair and honest court system goes so horribly wrong, basic notions of fairness just trashed. Protections allegedly offered by the Constitution just spat upon. And what’s most disturbing about this opinion is that even though the facts are made quite clear and even though the violations of basic due process are so dramatic, the outcome of the trial court is still upheld. The appellate court makes mind-blowing findings of fact and details a shocking breakdown of the very basic elements of our legal system, but the decision still stands….a fact that makes the appellate analysis even more disturbing. Please read the decision carefully, it is an indictment of an entire system gone horribly wrong:
To affirm what happened here requires that we turn a blind eye
to the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure, the Florida Bar Rules of Professional
Conduct, and the Code of Judicial Conduct, to say nothing of the Constitutions of
the United States and the State of Florida.
