America's judges would like to write off last year's anti-court orgy as a political spasm. Tom ("Judges need to be intimidated") DeLay is on the back bench, the testy Supreme Court confirmation hearings are over, and the judge in Terri Schiavo's case no longer needs a deputy to escort him every time he walks his dog.

But better times aren't coming back soon. The newest front in the war on the courts is being fought in South Dakota, where, in the shadow of Mt. Rushmore, a group called "J.A.I.L. 4 Judges" is promoting one of the most radical threats to justice this side of the Spanish Inquisition. It's extreme and it's incoherent, but it's got more than 40,000 petition signatures? and it will go to the state's voters as a constitutional amendment in November. A national network of supporters is waiting in the wings, threatening to export the revolution to other states if they do well this fall.

The group's proposed measure would wipe out a basic doctrine called judicial immunity that dates back to the 13^th century, protecting judges from personal liability for doing their job ruling on the cases before them. A special grand jury? essentially a fourth branch of government?would be created to indict judges for a string of bizarre offenses that include "deliberate disregard of material facts," "judicial acts without jurisdiction," and "blocking of a lawful conclusion of a case," along with judicial failure to impanel a jury for infractions as minor as a dog-license violation. After three such "convictions," the judge would be fired and docked half of his or her retirement benefits for good measure.

J.A.I.L. 4 Judges is an Internet-era creation, pulling together a disparate national network of tax protesters, conspiracy theorists, jury-nullification supporters, and assorted others with grievances against the courts and modern government. Its Web site claims to have 50 state chapters, whose leaders sport the rank of "Major General" or "JAILer-In-Chief." The Alaska JAILer in chief has been known to parade around dressed in black robes, with a noose around his neck and scaffolding above his head, before shedding the robes and burning them. J.A.I.L.'s supporters have picketed the homes of offending judges and generated e-mail campaigns?sometimes laced with electronic viruses and worms?against the Anti-Defamation League, reporters, and legislators over statements that upset them. Supporters and like-minded groups have filed hundreds of Freedom of Information requests seeking information about judges' personal lives and property, along with challenges claiming that judicial oaths are invalid or not properly filed.

This movement is the brainchild of a Californian named Ronald Branson with a history of suing state and federal officials for alleged conspiracies (including his own trials for burglary and a traffic offense). After being rebuffed by the courts?including the U.S. Supreme Court on 14 separate occasions, even to appeal a parking ticket?and attorneys general and legislatures in Sacramento, Calif., and Washington, Branson failed three times to get enough signatures to put the measure on the California ballot.

J.A.I.L.'s supporters have a broad list of grievances. Branson (the "Five-Star National J.A.I.L. Commander-In-Chief") has written that judges have a duty to stop a New World Order conspiracy involving bankers, the United Nations, and the Federal Reserve. He calls government-issued marriage licenses "blasphemy," adding that, "I believe I have been called of God to lead in the cause of judicial accountability." Traffic tickets loom large on his political agenda: Branson hopes that J.A.I.L. supporters will drive through South Dakota "just for the privilege of getting a traffic ticket so you can demand a jury trial."

How did this Internet-age fun house turn into South Dakota's headache? In part because it took fewer than 34,000 signatures to get on that state's ballot, and initiative states are the logical playgrounds for fringe groups. But J.A.I.L.'s organizers don't even pretend to have grievances with South Dakota judges. Instead, they paid door-knockers to ask people if they were mad about Roe v. Wade or last year's Kelo decision upholding local eminent-domain powers?or if they just wanted to hold judges accountable. (Never mind that state judges can't overturn Roe, or that in Kelo the Supreme Court deferred to legislators to set their own land-use policies.)

In other words, J.A.I.L. 4 Judges seeks to capitalize on the incessant talk-radio hate-in against the courts, where America's 11,000 judges are caricatured as godless, flag-burning, property-seizing, gay-marriage missionaries. J.A.I.L. is just the latest in a parade of groups twisting the notion of judicial accountability beyond recognition. J.A.I.L. may be rough around the edges, but they're taking their cues from a finely polished political script. Indeed, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has started taking on these judge-bashers for trying to intimidate courts into answering to special interests instead of the Constitution.

Like any insurgency, J.A.I.L. works hard to get attention. As their founder writes: "We at J.A.I.L. get unlimited kicks at the judges' crotches and shins, and the judges must keep a straight face and pretend we don't exist. ? If they assault us, they advertise for us and promote J.A.I.L." Their own goal is nothing less than to establish crotch-kicking grand juries in all 50 states, with Branson as czar, since he claims "final authority by operation of law as to what these words mean and that all courts throughout the future must look to the author's definition"?an intriguing theory for a movement vowing to restore power to the people.

In South Dakota, a "Good War" coalition of political parties, business leaders and the civic sector is coming together to deal with J.A.I.L. (Since J.A.I.L. 4 Judges has it out for the Uniform Commercial Code, business executives ought to be especially worried.) The state legislature unanimously passed a resolution noting that judges are already adequately disciplined for misconduct, taunting J.A.I.L. for hiring an out-of-state firm to gather signatures and warning South Dakotans that the measure would cost taxpayers millions and lead to an epidemic of frivolous actions, including suits by convicted felons against the judges and prosecutors who put them behind bars. J.A.I.L. 4 Judges responded by sending each lawmaker a 14-page letter calling the resolution unlawful and demanding a retraction. It's now threatened to sue and arrest all 105 members.

J.A.I.L. is also busy selecting its next target. "We have an interest in taking this to Nevada, where we have no doubts a failure to hold judges accountable is crippling the legal system," a J.A.I.L. supporter recently told the Las Vegas Sun. They may find pockets of fertile ground: In 1994, a Nevada rancher broke into a national forest with a bulldozer, briefly sparking a "county supremacy" rebellion, insisting that federal ownership of land was illegal.

Indeed, JAILers are brimming with confidence that they'll win in South Dakota this fall, and around the country beyond. Writes Branson: "The People are slowly waking up to realize who the Enemy is? and it isn't Bin Laden."

MONTPELIER, Vt. — A former sheriff has been ordered to pay $50,001 for violating the free-speech rights of a courthouse gadfly in 1999.

On March 28, a jury in U.S. District Court in Brattleboro returned the verdict against R.J. Elrick, former Rutland County sheriff. Elrick must pay $50,000 in compensatory damages and $1 in punitive damages to Scott Huminski, 46, formerly of Bennington and now of North Carolina.

As sheriff, Elrick ordered Huminski to leave the Rutland courthouse grounds after Huminski parked there and posted a sign on his truck critical of a judge.

"Elrick's own attorney told the jury that they could only award punitive damages if Elrick was found to have acted with malice," Huminski said in an e-mail. "The jury did find that malice."

Huminski's lawyer, Robert Corn-Revere, confirmed the outcome of the case yesterday. Messages left at Elrick's office and at the office and home of his lawyer, Pietro Lynn, were not immediately returned. Elrick is now executive director of the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council, which operates the state police academy.

"They (the jury) determined that punitive damages were justified because the deprivation of his First Amendment rights had been wanton, meaning reckless and with callous disregard" of Huminski's rights, said Corn-Revere, a Washington lawyer who specializes in First Amendment cases.

Of the $1 award for punitive damages, he said, "The jury decided to temper justice with mercy when it came to actually charging the sheriff with additional damages." He said attorneys fees in the case against Elrick were yet to be determined.

The case was triggered by an incident in 1999, when Huminski was angry about the outcome of a case he had had in the Vermont District Court in Bennington in which Judge Nancy Corsones presided.

Corsones was later assigned to Rutland. Huminski, who for a time variously described himself as a "court reporter" and "defender of justice," went to the Rutland courthouse while Corsones was presiding there, parked in the parking lot and put a sign on the side of his truck that read "Judge Corsones: Butcher of the Constitution."

Court officials later said they ordered Huminski away from the courthouse grounds, and barred him from all courthouses in Vermont, because they feared he might turn violent, which he didn't.

Huminski filed suit against the judges, Rutland court manager Karen Predom, Elrick and the Rutland County Sheriff's Department. The state attorney general's office settled Predom's portion of the case with Huminski last year, agreeing to pay $200,000 in damages and legal fees.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Corsones and Judge Patricia Zimmerman, who were both involved in the no-trespass orders against Huminski, violated his First Amendment rights. But it ruled the judges were not liable for damages.

Corn-Revere said the jury's task was to determine the damages to assess against Elrick. Still to be decided by Judge J. Garvan Murtha is whether to issue the court order sought by Huminski and Corn-Revere that would bar the sheriff's department from enforcing any similar no-trespass order against Huminski in the future.

While the First Amendment case was pending, Huminski was a prolific writer of e-mails and letters accusing Vermont officials including Attorney General William Sorrell and former Gov. Howard Dean of corruption.

Huminski said of Elrick in an e-mail yesterday, "So now we have a malicious civil rights violator training every single police officer in Vermont."

Corn-Revere said he hoped the former sheriff had learned something about the First Amendment. "Hopefully this decision will help him get better training on compliance with the Constitution. ... I think he's gotten an advance tutorial at this point."

The grass roots coalition of judicial reform activists known as J.A.I.L. (Judicial Accountability Initiative Law), have managed against all odds to bring forth their Initiative directly to the voters in South Dakota.

The group seeks to pierce the veil of Judicial Immunity that judges in this country enjoy and often abuse. Such legal immunity shields judges from all civil and most criminal liability stemming from any decision(s) they may have issued pursuant to or in conclusion of legal proceedings before them. For more background, see How the Courts Stole the Right to Petition for Grievance.

This self-serving court-made rule, first proclaimed by the courts in 1793 and which is unsupported by any text in the Constitution, prevents recovery of damages suffered by litigants proceeding before a judge where the judge violated the law; see Supreme Court’s affirmation of the rule, Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349 (1978). (a case where a judge unilaterally ordered the sterilization of a 15 year old girl, involuntarily and w/o her knowledge, solely on the verbal request of her mother who complained that her daughter was dating men too old for her.)

In practice, what this means is that the courts and the judges who run them have formed a united cabal that protects itself and its members from ever being liable for decisions and orders they issue, no matter how illegal.

The courts maintain that rule, irrespective of egregious or plain violations of law a judge’s actions may have been. It makes no difference whether a judge’s actions caused wrongful death, permanent injury, wrongful imprisonment, property destruction or other offense. It makes no difference whether the judge even had jurisdiction or authorization of any kind under law, to do what he did, the rule says they are completely immune from redress of the aggrieved parties, and preempted from being sued for their otherwise unquestionably tortuous acts.

In South Dakota, a private businessman subsidized the J.A.I.L. Initiative, obtaining 46,800 ballot signatures, and attaining the right to put forth directly to the SD voters whether to make the Initiative effective as State Constitutional Law....

Such provisions, if they achieve inaction into law, would act as a people’s safety net against judicial malpractice, and provide a civil remedy for those aggrieved by a judge’s legal negligence. Although considered revolutionary in legal circles, the law would be only effective after standard due process has been given a chance to correct any perceived breaches of judicial discretion.

Under the new law, judges still retain the benefit of the doubt when someone questions their judicial actions; a potential complainant against some judge must first exhaust all judicial remedies available under traditional due process, i.e., working within the court system, motions to reconsider, appeals, certioraris, mandamus’, etc. . . . and giving the system a chance to police itself.

But if after all this, an unsuccessful complainant still feels justice is being subverted, he would have the right to petition a special grand jury, required by the law to be made up of citizens who are not attorneys, judges, police officers or judicially related employees.

The special grand jury would have the power to hear the complaint, review the evidence and the record, have subpoena powers as needed, and upon good faith consideration, would also have the power to formally strip the defendant judge of his presumptive entitlement to judicial immunity.

A complainant/plaintiff would then have the right to prosecute a civil suit against the judge for any legally wrongful and civilly liable acts the judge may have committed while presiding over the subject claimant’s case. Such a suit would proceed like any other civil suit, with all other protections and due process’ in place.

Legitimate causes of action provided by the new law, would be constrained to otherwise uncontroversial breaches of a judge’s authority and scope of discretion, specifically:

It is the acknowledged hope and motivation of the Initiative’s proponents that the mere threat of appeal to such a special grand jury will act as a wake-up call to the judiciary, and without even being invoked, would induce the courts to clean up the judicial sloppiness and abuse that legal immunity allows to go unchecked.

It is expected that the quality of court administration and judicial determinations will increase significantly from the enactment of this law.

Proponents of the Initiative hope that if it meets with success in South Dakota, a precedent and example will be set for the rest of the nation, and enthusiasm for the new law will spread to other states.

The Initiative, having only qualified as an elective choice for SD voters, has already caused major official backlashes from those who stand to gain by maintaining the status quo, as almost all politicians, attorneys, judges and pro-government newsmedia in South Dakota have lambasted the Imitative, and implausibly argue that somehow judges should never be legally responsible when they break the law.

Furthermore instead of clear explanation in defense of judicial immunity, critics of the initiative resort to questioning the reputations and motivations of the its proponents, imputing some spurious or nefarious agenda.

The South Dakota legislature as a body even went so far as to pass an official resolution urging the voters to vote against the initiative.

State officials have spent public funds convening hearings, lobbying the public with advertisements and official notices, threatening that anarchy and social chaos will occur if it succeeds at the ballot box. The media and statist pundits regularly misrepresent the terms of the Initiative in editorials and articles to the public, claiming that convicted felons will be able to sue judges for the sheer fact they were found guilty,

(In fact, under the Initiative a judge would still be immune from such suit if s/he administered the proceedings pursuant to law)

Despite the fact that elected officials have neither the jurisdiction or authority to take an official stance on such ballot initiatives, they have used their official status and tax payer dollars to oppose this grass roots popular effort for reform; this is both a conflict of interest and usurps the public’s discretion to make an independent choice.

In November 2006, hysterical South Dakota legislators and the legal community will find out if the voters choose to demand effective accountability from all employees of the government, or if they will let judges continue to proclaim that they can legally "Do No Wrong", a legal principle that they claim as their divine right and legacy, conferred directly from the social class of pre-Magna Carta Kings and Royalty.