The Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. (CJA) aims to put an end to back of the bus justice, which has made judicial victims out of decent, honest, and loyal Americans. When litigants do not have the "right" political connections with the judges who decide their fate, they are the oppressed "underdogs" when they go up against those who do. The result, unfortunately, is biased and dishonest decisions, which knowingly disregard the Rule of Law, for which these corrupt judges must be held accountable.



The criminal case, United States of America v Elena Sassower is the perfect case in point. The petition set forth below provides the critical information. For more specific details and substantiating documents, go to the homepage of CJA's website at judgewatch.org, and click on "Paper Trail to Jail," and "Tale of Two Transcripts."



Make equal justice under the law on American soil

reality, not just rhetoric -- in our lifetimes.





PETITION TO FREE ELENA SASSOWER, District of Columbia Prisoner, #301-340

TIME TO PUT AN END TO JUDICIAL CORRUPTION



TO : D.C. Court of Appeals, Senior Judge, Frank Nebeker

D.C. Superior Court, Honorable Chief Judge Rufus King, III

D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure



TO: President George W. Bush; Senator John Kerry; Ralph Nader; Vice President Richard Cheney; Attorney General John Ashcroft; Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman Senate Judiciary Committee; Senate Ethics Committee; Senator Patrick Leahy (Ranking Democrat) and all other Senate Judiciary Committee Members; Senators Charles Schumer; Senator Hillary Clinton; Acting Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Senator Saxby Chambliss; Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle, Senate Minority Leader; Tom DeLay, Speaker of the House, Representative Maxine Waters; Representative Eleanor Norton; Representative Nita Lowey; Judge Richard Wesley; Michael S. Greco, President, American Bar Association; John C. Keeney, Jr., President, DC Bar; Center for Responsive Law; Public Citizen; Common Cause; People for the American Way; Alliance for Justice; Brennan Center for Justice; American Judicature Society; The Constitution ProjectЇs Courts Initiative: Open Society Institute-DC Office; Justice at Stake Campaign; Appleseed Foundation; Judicial Watch; National Organization for Women; Anti-Defamation League; American Civil Liberties Union, League of Women Voters, Organization for United for Peace and Justice, and ACORN.



CC: The Media



WE, THE PEOPLE, being the undersigned voters/citizens of the United States of America and other justifiably concerned persons, do not believe that the current judicial nominating and judicial discipline processes are functioning as intended to protect the constitutionally guaranteed rights of people living in our democracy. All too frequently, our justice system delivers INJUSTICE, substantially eroding the trust and confidence of masses of our citizenry, who have sadly come to the realization that, on the whole, the judiciary is not impartial and independent, as our Founders intended, but, instead, suffers from the insidious cancer of judicial corruption, evidenced by more and more judicial decisions that are biased, politically-driven, and knowingly contrary to the Rule of Law, causing profoundly serious effects on the lives of our citizenry, including the tax-paying cost of maintaining our dysfunctional, systemically afflicted third branch of government, and;



WHEREAS, WE are dissatisfied that these judicial law-breakers are not held accountable for their corrupt decisions and other systemic judicial abuses because their culpability is covered up by judges and lawyers, in fear of reprisal or motivated by their own self-interest in maintaining our dysfunctional judicial system and equally dysfunctional judicial discipline process, from which they benefit or potentially benefit. Such dysfunction is intentionally kept secret from the public because to expose this would readily reveal its sham and illusory nature, and;



WHEREAS, WE believe that our federal judicial confirmation "Public Hearings" on presidential judicial nominations, are a charade, a hoax, and a deliberate deceit upon the public. Except where there are true ideological differences between the two major parties standing in the way of the usual and customary back-room political deals between their leadership, these hearings have become a forum only for those whose views coincide with those in favor of the nominee. Such sham hearings, have, for many years, resulted in undemocratically-arrived at "rubber-stamped" nominations that guarantee uncontested confirmations, irrespective of whether the nominees have the best qualifications for the job or even, at times, entirely lacking, thereby denying the taxpayers their moneys' worth, and causing them and succeeding generations to suffer the incalculable and irreparable injuries caused by the egregiously erroneous, politically-motivated, and biased decisions of these unfit judges;



WHEREAS, WE believe that the First Amendment is DEAD when a patriotic, law-abiding, and dedicated American like New Yorker Elena Ruth Sassower, nationally recognized judicial reform advocate and Cofounder and Coordinator of the Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc., a national, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, working for years to ensure that only the best qualified lawyers become, and remain, judges, is arrested, incarcerated and serving a SIX MONTHS prison sentence in a jail in our nation's capital for "Disruption of Congress." All this, for speaking out to protect the public interest in the integrity and impartiality of our judiciary. Her wrongful sentence was vindictively ordered to begin forthwith, i.e., on June 28, 2004 , the very day of sentence, so as to ensure that she celebrated the 4 th of July weekend in the DC jail, with her release not due until CHRISTMAS DAY, and;



WHEREAS, this totally bogus charge was based on Ms. Sassower's having respectfully asked the following question at a May 22, 2003 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Public Hearing to confirm a number of President Bush's nominees to LIFETIME federal judgeships, including NY Court of Appeals Judge Richard Wesley, who was being nominated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (including New York, Connecticut and Vermont) her precise words deserve to be remembered forever:



Mr. Chairman, there's citizen opposition to Judge Wesley based on his documented corruption as a New York Court of Appeals judge. May I testify? and;





WHEREAS, this simple question was asked by Ms. Sassower, as she rose from her seat in the far back of the Committee Hearing Room, where she and other members of the audience were seated, after Presiding Chairman, Senator Saxby Chambliss, incredibly, the only Senate Judiciary Committee member in attendance on the dais, had gaveled down an adjournment of the proceeding, without inquiry as to whether any member of the public present wished to be heard, and after Ms. Sassower had patiently listened to two hours of speeches in favor of the nominees, and;



WHEREAS, WE, the undersigned, believe that by making this respectful inquiry, Ms. Sassower was fulfilling a patriotic civic duty, which was also her duty on behalf of the Center in fulfillment of its noble mission. Nonetheless, within seven seconds after she spoke those words, Ms. Sassower was forcibly removed from the Senate Chamber, handcuffed behind her back, arrested and incarcerated for 21 hours, and;



WHEREAS, WE find it appalling that she was then taken before a Magistrate and charged with the crime of Disruption of Congress under D.C. Code, Section 503.16(b)(4): (b) it shall be unlawful for any person or group of persons willfully and knowingly: **** (4) To utter loud, threatening, or abusive language, or to engage in any disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place upon the United States Capitol Grounds within any Capitol Buildings with intent to impede, disrupt or disturb the orderly conduct of any session of Congress or either House thereof, or to orderly conduct within any such buildings of any hearing before, or any deliberations of any committee or subcommittee of the Congress or either House thereof." and;



WHEREAS, by those statutory provisions, the government had full awareness that there was no factual basis for charging Ms. Sassower with the crime of "Disruption of Congress," inasmuch as no such crime had been committed by her and, in fact, no such crime had occurred. Moreover, the statute in no way defines Ms. Sassower's question as prohibited speech. Indeed, nothing in the language of the DC statute suggests that it was intended to be applied to Congressional Committee Public Hearings, the public being thereby encouraged to believe that its participation is invited. Ms. Sassower's question was plainly compatible with the normal activity of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is to hear and receive information at the public hearing bearing on the qualifications of presidential judicial nominees under consideration. A DC statutory provision deemed to permit criminalizing Ms. Sassower's respectfully asked question, which sought to express legitimate dissent is a constitutional anathema and would properly be stricken down by our highest Court, as a matter of law, and;



WHEREAS, it was readily apparent that Ms. Sassower had no specific intent to impede, disrupt or disturb orderly conduct before, or any deliberations of any committee of the Congress. A person who intends to disrupt Congress does not, as she, indisputably, did, notify the Committee IN ADVANCE, in writing, of her request to present opposition testimony, and sit through two hours of speeches beforehand, waiting for that moment to come. Moreover, by the Chairman's announced adjournment, the C onfirmation hearing" was over, when Ms. Sassower rose to make her respectful inquiry, and there were no deliberations of any kind affected. Therefore, the charge of Disruption of Congress can only be viewed as a bad-faith concoction by the government to protect itself against potential civil liability for her false arrest, and;


WHEREAS, the criminal charge against Ms. Sassower rested on her assertion of First Amendment free speech rights, all governmental participants, including the Court and the prosecuting US attorneys, were charged with the knowledge that her respectfully asked question could not constitutionally be punished as a "crime" in America . Indeed, in the thousands of free speech cases involving non-violent, speech-related "Disruption of Congress" charges, no one arrested for speaking at a Congressional public hearing, even disruptively, has ever served even ONE MINUTE of jail time or even been arrested. Consequently, the ensuing prosecution of her in the criminal misdemeanor case of United States of America v. Elena Ruth Sassower, Docket #M-4113-03, all at taxpayer expense, must be condemned as malicious, discriminatory, and retaliatory, and;



WHEREAS, United States of America v. Elena Ruth Sassower, #M-4113-03, was tried by DC Superior Court Judge Brian F. Holeman, a judge himself newly appointed by President Bush, at age 46, with no prior judicial or criminal experience, to the DC Superior Court, who failed to recuse himself on his own initiative, as law and ethical rules required, and thereafter wrongfully denied Ms. SassowerЇs motion for his recusal on grounds of bias, as well as conflict of interest, actual and apparent, and;



WHEREAS, Judge Holeman denied Ms. Sassower her pre-trial right to discovery of crucial documents negating her guilt or mitigating the crime and quashed her subpoenas to compel testimony of material witnesses to the events relating to her arrest and their malicious motivation. Predictably, the ensuing trial railroaded by the Judge before she had fair opportunity to exercise her appellate right to appeal from such unjust and biased rulings, was, from beginning to end, more a grotesque travesty of justice than a search for the truth, violating Ms. Sassower's fundamental Fifth Amendment due process/equal protection right to a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal. Repeatedly violated was her Sixth Amendment right to counsel when the Judge trampled on her right to defend herself pro se, aborting her opening to the jury, when she referred to the events leading up to her arrest and the political motivation therefor, unfairly restricting her cross-examination of prosecuting witnesses, and going so far as to have her locked her up during the trial itself, without notice or hearing, when she sought to present legitimate testimony to show that she had not committed the crime for which she was charged. The public perception of bias and actuality of it was that the result was pre-fixed from the start, i.e., conviction of Elena Sassower for a crime the DC Capitol police, the prosecuting attorneys and the Court were fully aware from the outset she did NOT commit because no crime ever occurred. Judge Holeman's unremitting pattern and practice of vindictive, constitutionally-violative conduct before and during trial is epitomized by his post-trial, barbaric June 28, 2004 jail sentence, and;



WHEREAS, Judge Holeman initially sentenced Ms. Sassower to THREE MONTHS in jail (plus two days extra to cancel her credit for two days of incarceration at the time of her arrest), PLUS (not alternatively, as allowed by the statute) the MAXIMUM of $500 fine and the MAXIMUM $250 payment to the Victims of Violent Crimes Act, of which requirement she was never previously informed, payable 30 days from sentence, a sentence on its face vindictive, vicious, and excessive. Moreover, the only victim of a violent crime was Ms. Sassower, who was not the perpetrator, but the one upon whom it was perpetrated, and;



WHEREAS, because Judge Holeman gave Ms. Sassower a choice, whereby she could avoid going to jail on certain orally stated conditions, conditions so insupportable by the factual record before him, so disproportionate to the crime for which she was charged, and so humiliating and intrusive on her life and livelihood, that they must be read to be believed, including:



1. Two years probation, subject to general conditions severely restricting her personal and professional freedom and burdening her with substantial outlays of time and money, any violation of which would be a basis for a program of graduated sanctions that may include brief periods of residential treatment,During those two years of probation, she would also be required to comply with even more oppressive specific conditions. The most glaringly offensive of these, targeting not only Ms. Sassower, whom they were designed to silence, but also her employer, the Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc., which they sought to paralyze, were:



2. Stay away from and inside the US Capitol complex of 16 national sites, surrounding streets, and two nearby mass transit locations;



3. Cease all electronic, verbal and other communications with Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy [ranking Democrat on the Committee], Senator Saxby Chambliss [who presided over the Committee Public Hearing as to Judge Richard Wesley], and other Senators and staffers, including as to matters relating to her arrest, her home state's two Democratic Senators, Clinton and Schumer [who supported Republican Judge Wesley's nomination and were complicit in her arrest];



4. Keep daily time records of all her activities as Coordinator of the CJA in tenths of an hour (i.e., every 6 minutes); do 300 hours of community service, 100 in the District of Columbia, under no circumstances will CJA work or related activities satisfy this requirement;



5. Submit to substance abuse, medical and mental health testing, as well as anger management therapy, and



6. Prepare and forward letters of apology to Senators Hatch, Leahy, Chambliss, Schumer, Clinton and to Judge Wesley, which state the fact of your conviction and remorse for any inconvenience caused by your actions. As to this latter condition, after Ms. Sassower managed to interject I am not remorseful and I will not lie, the judge continued, ignoring Ms. Sassower's words spoken in her own pro se defense, to direct that copies of the letters of apology must be sent to me as presiding judge."



WHEREAS, again, when Ms. Sassower attempted to assert her right not to be coerced into perjuring herself, stating, They will not be sent because they will not be written, Judge Holeman, instead of acknowledging her so expressed objection to the condition, cut her off, telling her to be quiet, continuing to deny her her right both as defendant and as her own attorney, acting pro se, to be heard with respect to her sentence, and;



WHEREAS, WE find it reprehensible that when Ms. Sassower did not grovel or grasp at his offer, Judge Holeman advised her, incorrectly, that in this jurisdiction, when a convicted criminal is given probation, they MUST accept the probation. He then went on to say Ms. Sassower, the answer is either yes or no. Do you accept the terms of the probation as I have stated them to you? repeating the question. When she responded by requesting a stay of sentence pending her appeal, the judge ignored her question, again repeating his demand for a yes or no answer, demanding to know: Do you accept the conditions of your probation?"



WHEREAS, notwithstanding this improper judicial coercion to compel an immediate yes answer, rather than affording her reasonable time to consider the propriety and ramifications of the answer sought by the Court, so as to allow her to confer with counsel, family members, friends and supporters before responding, and;



WHEREAS, when Ms. Sassower gave a principled "No." answer to his high-pressured question, Judge Holeman punished her for her candor and honesty in exercising the very choice he had expressly offered her. That very instant, without prior warning as to his intentions, or opportunity to be heard, without any factual finding that she was a danger or flight risk, without citation of legal authority, and in total disregard of the recommendations of the prosecuting US attorneys and the Court's own Probation Services' pre-sentence report that there be NO jail time, even as they recognized her as "not remorseful," Judge Holeman, in an obvious fit of temper at not getting his way, not only capriciously DOUBLED her sentence to the MAXIMUM, as aforesaid, in addition to his directed total $5OO fine and $250 payment to the Court's Victims of Violent Crimes Fund, but directed her incarceration forthwith. At the same time, he precluded her from saying one word after her so DOUBLED sentence by directing her to be immediately seized upon and removed by the US Marshals, all in violation of her Fifth Amendment due process/equal protection rights, as well as her Sixth Amendment right to be protected from cruel and inhuman punishments and excessive fines. As if that were not enough, in concluding the proceeding, when Ms. Sassower was already precluded from uttering a single word, the Judge sadistically rubbed salt into her open wounds by falsely characterizing his conditional offer to release Ms. Sassower as "a beneficial circumstance" for her (and so reported by press in attendance), which only her "pride" had kept her from accepting, so as thereby to imply that her guilt, rather than her innocence was the true basis for her rejection;



WHEREAS, following Ms. Sassower's unjust and unlawful incarceration, on motion of the Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. to DC Superior Court Chief Judge Rufus King, III, requested a copy of the audiotape of the sentencing proceeding, by reason of discrepancies in, and omission of, material facts in the official court transcript of the June 28, 2004 sentencing proceeding, certified on June 30, 2004. After the Chief Judge denying, without reasons, the Center's audiotape motion, an Amended Transcript, this one certified July 15, 2004 , was transmitted from the Court, without explanation, relating to the identical June 28, 2004 sentencing proceeding. Such contained two additional pages, omitted from the original. Such document revealed that further judicial misconduct had taken place, which the original Transcript had wholly concealed and covered up, and;



WHEREAS, ready comparison of the two transcripts is accessible on CJA's website home page by clicking onto www.judgewatch.org and under "Latest News," click onto The Tale of Two Transcripts. Starkly exposed by the Amended Transcript was the wilfully suppressed fact that following the announcement, as recorded in the original transcript, that "the proceedings were concluded, and after the press and public left the courtroom, having witnessed Ms. Sassower hauled out of the courtroom in handcuffs, Judge Holeman, once again without notice or opportunity to be heard by the defendant, unlawfully reconvened the Court that day, at a time unspecified, so as to have Ms. Sassower brought back from jail to come before him once more. The reason, revealed in the Amended Transcript, was that he had failed to read her her appellate rights.



WHEREAS, the Amended Transcript materially altered the final words on the last page in the original transcript preceding the two omitted pages, which reflected that the proceedings were concluded, so as to make it appear, falsely, that the Court [had gone into] a brief recess, as if expecting to resume it. In that way, Judge Holeman thought to justify his having dispensed with the due process and public trial required under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments for convening such post-sentence proceeding, after the sentencing proceeding had been officially recorded as having been "concluded," and;



WHEREAS, the Amended Transcript further exposes the fact that Judge Holeman denied Ms. Sassower's post-sentence request for a stay, pending her appeal, this time giving a reason for his denial, however, one that was legally impermissible:



To do so would be to show you favorable treatment that I have not

in the past shown any other convicted criminal defendant in this courtroom

and I won't start that practice now.



By that clear admission to a general bias on the subject of stays, Judge Holeman, vitiated his sentence, so as to render it null and void as a matter of law on that ground alone. This is over and beyond his denial of due process and other judicial misconduct, in not affording her the right to say even one word in her own defense by directing her to be once again in this second sentencing proceeding immediately seized upon and removed by the US marshals, whereupon, the "Amended Transcript" records, the proceedings were concluded. Judge Holeman thereby epitomized his judicial misconduct from the beginning of the case to the bitter end.



WHEREAS, in the state of the record before him, Judge Holeman's denial of a stay pending appeal, with NO findings whatever to support such and his incarceration "forthwith" order, without any bail set, cruelly and inhumanly prevented her from returning to New York, so as to permit her to put her affairs in order before commencing her SIX MONTH jail sentence, flouted her constitutional rights and customary practice in non-violent, non-felony criminal matters, supported by recommendations of both the prosecuting U.S. Attorney and the Court Services pre-sentencing report that there be NO jail time, and;



WHEREAS, such unconstitutional, indefensible, totally outrageous judicial misconduct is why innocent, unjustly accused and unfairly convicted criminal defendant Elena Ruth Sassower is now D.C. Prisoner #301-340; and defendants like her, similarly convicted as a result of police, prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, are overcrowding jails all over the country. According to a recently released Justice Department Report, there are now nearly 6.9 million persons in jail or under control of the criminal justice system, including probation and parole. This new high for America is NOT a record of which Americans can be proud.


NOW, THEREFORE, WE, the undersigned, hereby declare our love and support of Elena Ruth Sassower, whose example as a Prisoner of Conscience, we respect and admire. As the symbol and leader of a new judicial reform movement, she provides inspiration and hope to judicial victims all across our land, WE respectfully, individually and collectively, hereby condemn the governmental abominations and mistreatment of her, as set forth hereinabove, and do by this Petition, protest the same, beseeching, imploring, and praying that the DC Court of Appeals free her NOW for a crime she did NOT commit, and in fact, a crime that never occurred, for which she was unjustly doomed to be imprisoned since beginning of Summer until the beginning of Winter, and



WE do hereby hereby respectfully join in this Petition so as most fervently and sincerely to urge that the DC Court of Appeals issue an Order freeing Elena NOW by granting her application for a stay of sentence, pending appeal, AND by summarily granting her appeal, absolving her from her wrongful conviction and sentence for the crime of "Disruption of Congress," so as thereby to lose no time in resurrecting our mortally wounded Bill of Rights, as shown by the record to have been egregiously violated by the lower court judge. This is vital so as to evidence the necessary and proper recognition by the DC Court of Appeals itself, without any further delays, of the horrendous wrong done her and the gross miscarriage of justice that has occurred, to the eternal shame of this country, here and abroad, and;



WE, the undersigned, DEMAND full and complete investigation into, and public hearings by, all three branches of government so as to make known the true facts surrounding the aforesaid governmental abuses that have resulted in unjust denial and deprivation of Ms. Sassower's constitutionally guaranteed civil rights as a result of executive, legislative, and judicial misconduct, including the gravely serious crimes that apparently have been committed BY the DC Superior Court in connection therewith, and the removal FORTHWITH of DC Superior Court Judge Brian F. Holeman, upon a finding that he is guilty of judicial misconduct immediaely threatening the public interest, and finally;

WE, the undersigned, wish to let it be known to the entire world that the American public will not stand for any form of tyranny in its own country, be it presidential, legislative, or judicial.