The Star Chambers were real. They are a critical force in our nation’s jurisprudence and it’s time that everyone takes the time to read and understand just exactly what they were. Read About Star Chambers Here
The Star Chambers are alive and well, as is the suppression of those who are trying desperately to stand up and fight….trust me, I know this first hand. As I’ve been sharing my travails and conflict, a friend shared with me some thoughts on the parrallels to today’s Rocket Docket and the evil Star Chambers. I want to thank him, and every one of you for your support, and ask that you consider his analysis:
* The Star Chamber was mainly used for evictions. I’ll skip the treatise in English land law except to say that was functionally the
same as a foreclosure.
* The torture you hear about was uncommon until the end, when the Chamber became widely used for political persecution. The primary purpose of the chamber was rigged foreclosure hearings. People described it as eerily normal; out would come the chancellor (judge), his helpers, and the defendant would have a brief rigged trial and almost always lose. Not always, but almost always.
* Where the torture did happen was for lawyers of Star Chamber defendants. I won’t go into detail — they’re horror stories — but
they absolutely sent a message you’d better not try to hard with a Star Chamber defendant, if you decided to take those cases at all.
Lawyers were tortured .. history remembers them as heroes, though I’m guessing that doesn’t help much. Defendants who couldn’t find a lawyer to represent them — keeping in mind that virtually all land-lords had plenty to pay — lost automatically.
* The hearings themselves were the same: trial by affidavit, it was nearly impossible to cross-examine the affiant, perjury (a capital
offense back them) was widespread, common .. and ignored. They were open or closed depending on the mood of the Chancellor.
* The whole point was to make sure money flowed back to the King. Bascially, when the King wanted land — whether it was directly or
indirectly (to give to somebody else) — off went the landlord (yesterday’s mortgage borrower) to the Chamber. The whole point was
money.
* Even the genesis of the Star Chamber may be land theft. Black, of Black’s Law Dictionary, wrote the chamber came from the hebrew word to record .. as in record and litigate land deeds. Historians later said he was wrong, that there were stars on the court of the chamber. But the chamber is still around and there are no stars, and nobody ever wrote about stars, and Black would know — that was back in his time.
Of course, the Star Chamber defendants are how many of the settlers of this country ended up here. After their minute or two at rocket docket off they went to the new world. The Chamber is viscerally hated in US history; when the Supreme Court writes about it (in decisions as late as last decade) they always throw in an adjective (ex: the dreaded Star Chamber, the wretched Star Chamber, etc..). Our founders hated it so much they almost abolished equity courts but realized some issues weren’t meant for juries so left it, but added half the Bill of Rights to ensure it never came about again.
Read next a case from the Florida Supreme Court which describes why Star Chambers are repugnant to our courts:
