Post by Jim on May 15, 2009 14:00:01 GMT -5
Query:
Is having a lawyer--on call or on retainer--the only way you can uphold your rights in this society? I say that this is a major violation of our constitutional rights, especially the Third Amendment of the US Constitution. The Third Amendment, just like the Fourth and Ninth Amendments, is a "privacy rights" amendment. The Third Amendment says:
"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law." What is a lawyer? An OFFICER of the court. When a judge says that you need a lawyer, what is the judge saying? Without a lawyer, your rights a null & void? So, is a judge telling you to give up your rights, especially rights to privacy, and keep a lawyer (paid) if you want to keep your rights?
What is an OFFICER? After reading 6 dictionaries and Black's Law Dictionary, 5th Ed., officer is referred to in the first part of each of the definitions as having a commission in the ARMED SERVICES. Are the courts of a military nature then?
Based on the fact that a judge tells someone to get a lawyer, everything in society, TODAY, would then require a lawyer. So, in essence, part of your salary goes to a lawyer (or some bureaucrat), directly & indirectly, because you need one because of all the rules, regulations, laws, ordinances, etc., for so-called "legal advice". Given that the law is considered "ART" and not a SCIENCE, that sounds like a violation of privacy rights, having to theoretically quarter an OFFICER of the court in your home, by implication, to protect yourself, your family and your property.
ThirdAmendment.com Home
A Brief History of the Third Amendment
Jol A. Silversmith (May 2000)
"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law." In the colonial era, the practice of billeting British troops in private homes was a widespread. One of the complaints against King George III in the Declaration of Independence was "for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us." The Third Amendment to the Constitution was one of 12 amendments submitted to the states by the First Congress on September 25, 1789, and was one of the ten ratified on December 15, 1791 that are together commonly known as the Bill of Rights.
However, the Third Amendment has proven to be one of the least-litigated sections of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has never directly reviewed the meaning of the amendment. Indeed, only one court has ever confronted the meaning of the amendment, in a case decided nearly 200 years after it was ratified: Engblom v. Carey, 677 F. 2d 957 (2d Cir. 1982), on remand 572 F. Supp. 44 (S.D.N.Y. 1982), aff'd. per curiam 724 F.2d 28 (2d Cir. 1983).
Engblom grew out of a "statewide strike of correction officers, when they were evicted from their facility-residences ... and members of the National Guard were housed in their residences without their consent." The district court initially granted summary judgment for the defendants in a suit brought by the officers claiming a deprivation of their rights under the Third Amendment. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, however, reversed on the ground that it could not "say that as a matter of law appellants were not entitled to the protection of the Third Amendment." 677 F.2d at 964. On remand, however, the District Court held that because the officers' Third Amendment rights had not been clearly established at the time of the strike, the defendants were protected from suit by a qualified immunity, and this decision was upheld by the Second Circuit.
The Third Amendment has been cited in passing in other cases, most notably opinions arguing that there is a constitutional right to privacy, such as the Supreme Court's decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 484 (1965). In other cases, courts have cited the Third Amendment as proof that the Constitution carefully distinguishes between times of war and peace. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer., 343 U.S. 579, 644 (1952). Perhaps because of its obscurity, the amendment also has attracted its share of crackpot theories, such as that Army reservists ordered to march in a parade had a Third Amendment right to sit it out instead. Jones v. United States Secretary of Defense, 346 F. Supp. 97 (D. Minn. 1972).
For additional information about the Third Amendment, try visiting:
Tom W. Bell, The Third Amendment: Forgotten but Not Gone, 2 William & Mary Bill of Rights J. 117 (1993). Willaim S. Fields and David T. Hardy, The Third Amendment and the Issue of the Maintenance of Standing Armies: A Legal History, 35 Am. J. Legal Hist. 393 (1991).
Madison's attack on the Alien and Sedition Acts still stands as an excellent explanation of the difference between the English and American understandings:
In the British Government the danger of encroachment on the rights of the people is understood to be confined to the executive magistrate. The representatives of the people in the Legislature are not only exempt themselves from distrust, but are considered as sufficient guardians of the rights of their constituents against the danger from the Executive. Hence it is a principle, that the Parliament is unlimited in its power; or, in their own language, is omnipotent. Hence too, all the ramparts for protecting the rights of the people¾such as the Magna Carta, their Bill of Rights, [etc.]¾are not reared against the Parliament, but against the royal prerogative . . . . In the United States, the case is altogether different. The People, not the Government, possess the absolute sovereignty. The Legislature, no less than the Executive, is under limitations of power.
R. Buel, Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics 1789-1815 249 (1972).
As Franklin wrote in 1770: "The sovereignty of the Crown I understand the sovereignty of Britain I do not understand . . . . We have the same King, but not the same legislature." Namier, "King George III: A Study of Personality," in Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution 193, 197 (E. Wright ed. 1966). The notion that the colonists' fight was with parliament and its ministers and not with the king was hard dying. Even after the fighting at Concord, Washington would write of "the Ministerial Troops (for we do not, nor cannot yet prevail upon ourselves to call them the King's troops)." 3 Writings of George Washington 291 (J. Fitzpatrick et. 1931).
We have we seen the term "ministerial" used time and again with administrative courts and administrative hearings.
1. Obscurity and Ridicule
That the Third Amendment has received scant recognition may be to its benefit, considering the sort of attention that it has sometimes received. The first judicial references to it were harmless, if uninspiring. They came only in Supreme Court dissents, and in each case, the Third Amendment received no more than a passing reference as one of several constitutionally protected rights.[185] More recently, the dissent in Poe v. [p. 140/p. 141] Ullman employed the Third Amendment in this same manner.[186] Poe laid the groundwork for the Third Amendment's most well-known Supreme Court appearance in Griswold v. Connecticut.[187] In that case the Third Amendment appeared as one of many amendments demonstrating a constitutional right to privacy, a role the Third Amendment has since played often.[188] Lower federal courts have likewise ensconced the Third Amendment in string cites with other amendments.[189]
Less frequently, courts have pointed to the Third Amendment as proof that the Constitution carefully distinguishes between times of war and peace. The Supreme Court cited the Third Amendment in this context in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer.[190] Courts have similarly referred to the Third Amendment in order to emphasize that the Constitution limits the role of the military in civilian affairs.[191] The Third Amendment has also served as a prop in judicial expositions on constitutional interpretation, in one case demonstrating how certain freedoms have "faded into relative inconsequentiality."[192]
The Third Amendment has also acted like a magnet for somewhat less sensible uses. Perhaps its relative anonymity invites mistreatment; that would explain why the court in Marquette Cement Mining Co. v. Oglesby Coal Co. cited it as supporting the right to a civil jury trial, presumably intending to refer to the Seventh Amendment.[193] At other times plaintiffs have used the Third Amendment in support of far-fetched, metaphorical applications. Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. Executive Securities Corp. grew out of a claim that the use of a subpoena violated the Third Amendment.[194] Army reservists [p. 141/p. 142] ordered to march in a parade appealed to a supposed Third Amendment right to sit it out in Jones v. United States Secretary of Defense.[195] The defendant in United States v. Valenzuela alleged that "[t]he 1947 House and Rent Act . . . is and always was the incubator and hatchery of swarms of bureaucrats to be quartered as storm troopers upon the people in violation of Amendment III . . . ."[196] The courts summarily rejected the Third Amendment claims in each of these cases.
Though the legal community has sometimes given the Third Amendment short shrift, the popular press has subjected it to outright ridicule. Prof. M. E. Shugee, for example, has presented a unique interpretation of the Third Amendment's prohibitions on quartering troops: "'The amendment actually means that no soldier shall be cut into four parts in a person's house unless the owner agrees.'"[197] Dave Barry, on the other hand, has questioned the need for the Third Amendment's protection on other grounds:
[T]here are times when I wouldn't mind having soldiers lodged in my home, such as the other day when my wife told me the lawn-sprinkler valve was leaking, and I went outside to check it out, in my role as a Guy Fixing a Mechanical Problem, and suddenly--this is the truth--a totally unanticipated snake stuck its head out of the valve, and I was forced to switch over to my role of a Guy With No Pulse Backing Away From a Valve. If there had been soldiers lodging in my home, they could have dealt with this situation calmly and professionally by shooting the snake into 30,000 pieces . . .[198]
Disrespectful though it may be, such humor actually bears witness to the success of the Third Amendment's silent vigil. Few people would giggle about the Third Amendment if they had to tiptoe around slumbering G.I.s on the way to breakfast each morning.
The defendant in United States v. Valenzuela, 95 F. Supp. 363, 366 (S.D. Cal. 1951), alleged that "[t]he 1947 House and Rent Act . . . is and always was the incubator and hatchery of swarms of bureaucrats to be quartered as storm troopers upon the people in violation of Amendment III . . . ."[196] The courts summarily rejected the Third Amendment claims in each of these cases.
Valenzuela is not so far off the mark nowadays. We have swarms of bureaucrats (and lawyers) involved in everyday aspects of our lives where they can essentially be said to be quartered in our homes, by implication, on the basis of rules, regulations and payment of taxes and salaries for their forced services and protection from their abuses by lawyers. At any given time they can take over your homes and lives (e.g., domestic violence matters where you are removed from your home and your family is subjected to government intervention, non-payment of property taxes (or income taxes) where government seizes your property and moves in and takes over your home; etc.).
Is having a lawyer--on call or on retainer--the only way you can uphold your rights in this society? I say that this is a major violation of our constitutional rights, especially the Third Amendment of the US Constitution. The Third Amendment, just like the Fourth and Ninth Amendments, is a "privacy rights" amendment. The Third Amendment says:
"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law." What is a lawyer? An OFFICER of the court. When a judge says that you need a lawyer, what is the judge saying? Without a lawyer, your rights a null & void? So, is a judge telling you to give up your rights, especially rights to privacy, and keep a lawyer (paid) if you want to keep your rights?
What is an OFFICER? After reading 6 dictionaries and Black's Law Dictionary, 5th Ed., officer is referred to in the first part of each of the definitions as having a commission in the ARMED SERVICES. Are the courts of a military nature then?
Based on the fact that a judge tells someone to get a lawyer, everything in society, TODAY, would then require a lawyer. So, in essence, part of your salary goes to a lawyer (or some bureaucrat), directly & indirectly, because you need one because of all the rules, regulations, laws, ordinances, etc., for so-called "legal advice". Given that the law is considered "ART" and not a SCIENCE, that sounds like a violation of privacy rights, having to theoretically quarter an OFFICER of the court in your home, by implication, to protect yourself, your family and your property.
ThirdAmendment.com Home
A Brief History of the Third Amendment
Jol A. Silversmith (May 2000)
"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law." In the colonial era, the practice of billeting British troops in private homes was a widespread. One of the complaints against King George III in the Declaration of Independence was "for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us." The Third Amendment to the Constitution was one of 12 amendments submitted to the states by the First Congress on September 25, 1789, and was one of the ten ratified on December 15, 1791 that are together commonly known as the Bill of Rights.
However, the Third Amendment has proven to be one of the least-litigated sections of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has never directly reviewed the meaning of the amendment. Indeed, only one court has ever confronted the meaning of the amendment, in a case decided nearly 200 years after it was ratified: Engblom v. Carey, 677 F. 2d 957 (2d Cir. 1982), on remand 572 F. Supp. 44 (S.D.N.Y. 1982), aff'd. per curiam 724 F.2d 28 (2d Cir. 1983).
Engblom grew out of a "statewide strike of correction officers, when they were evicted from their facility-residences ... and members of the National Guard were housed in their residences without their consent." The district court initially granted summary judgment for the defendants in a suit brought by the officers claiming a deprivation of their rights under the Third Amendment. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, however, reversed on the ground that it could not "say that as a matter of law appellants were not entitled to the protection of the Third Amendment." 677 F.2d at 964. On remand, however, the District Court held that because the officers' Third Amendment rights had not been clearly established at the time of the strike, the defendants were protected from suit by a qualified immunity, and this decision was upheld by the Second Circuit.
The Third Amendment has been cited in passing in other cases, most notably opinions arguing that there is a constitutional right to privacy, such as the Supreme Court's decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 484 (1965). In other cases, courts have cited the Third Amendment as proof that the Constitution carefully distinguishes between times of war and peace. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer., 343 U.S. 579, 644 (1952). Perhaps because of its obscurity, the amendment also has attracted its share of crackpot theories, such as that Army reservists ordered to march in a parade had a Third Amendment right to sit it out instead. Jones v. United States Secretary of Defense, 346 F. Supp. 97 (D. Minn. 1972).
For additional information about the Third Amendment, try visiting:
Tom W. Bell, The Third Amendment: Forgotten but Not Gone, 2 William & Mary Bill of Rights J. 117 (1993). Willaim S. Fields and David T. Hardy, The Third Amendment and the Issue of the Maintenance of Standing Armies: A Legal History, 35 Am. J. Legal Hist. 393 (1991).
Madison's attack on the Alien and Sedition Acts still stands as an excellent explanation of the difference between the English and American understandings:
In the British Government the danger of encroachment on the rights of the people is understood to be confined to the executive magistrate. The representatives of the people in the Legislature are not only exempt themselves from distrust, but are considered as sufficient guardians of the rights of their constituents against the danger from the Executive. Hence it is a principle, that the Parliament is unlimited in its power; or, in their own language, is omnipotent. Hence too, all the ramparts for protecting the rights of the people¾such as the Magna Carta, their Bill of Rights, [etc.]¾are not reared against the Parliament, but against the royal prerogative . . . . In the United States, the case is altogether different. The People, not the Government, possess the absolute sovereignty. The Legislature, no less than the Executive, is under limitations of power.
R. Buel, Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics 1789-1815 249 (1972).
As Franklin wrote in 1770: "The sovereignty of the Crown I understand the sovereignty of Britain I do not understand . . . . We have the same King, but not the same legislature." Namier, "King George III: A Study of Personality," in Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution 193, 197 (E. Wright ed. 1966). The notion that the colonists' fight was with parliament and its ministers and not with the king was hard dying. Even after the fighting at Concord, Washington would write of "the Ministerial Troops (for we do not, nor cannot yet prevail upon ourselves to call them the King's troops)." 3 Writings of George Washington 291 (J. Fitzpatrick et. 1931).
We have we seen the term "ministerial" used time and again with administrative courts and administrative hearings.
1. Obscurity and Ridicule
That the Third Amendment has received scant recognition may be to its benefit, considering the sort of attention that it has sometimes received. The first judicial references to it were harmless, if uninspiring. They came only in Supreme Court dissents, and in each case, the Third Amendment received no more than a passing reference as one of several constitutionally protected rights.[185] More recently, the dissent in Poe v. [p. 140/p. 141] Ullman employed the Third Amendment in this same manner.[186] Poe laid the groundwork for the Third Amendment's most well-known Supreme Court appearance in Griswold v. Connecticut.[187] In that case the Third Amendment appeared as one of many amendments demonstrating a constitutional right to privacy, a role the Third Amendment has since played often.[188] Lower federal courts have likewise ensconced the Third Amendment in string cites with other amendments.[189]
Less frequently, courts have pointed to the Third Amendment as proof that the Constitution carefully distinguishes between times of war and peace. The Supreme Court cited the Third Amendment in this context in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer.[190] Courts have similarly referred to the Third Amendment in order to emphasize that the Constitution limits the role of the military in civilian affairs.[191] The Third Amendment has also served as a prop in judicial expositions on constitutional interpretation, in one case demonstrating how certain freedoms have "faded into relative inconsequentiality."[192]
The Third Amendment has also acted like a magnet for somewhat less sensible uses. Perhaps its relative anonymity invites mistreatment; that would explain why the court in Marquette Cement Mining Co. v. Oglesby Coal Co. cited it as supporting the right to a civil jury trial, presumably intending to refer to the Seventh Amendment.[193] At other times plaintiffs have used the Third Amendment in support of far-fetched, metaphorical applications. Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. Executive Securities Corp. grew out of a claim that the use of a subpoena violated the Third Amendment.[194] Army reservists [p. 141/p. 142] ordered to march in a parade appealed to a supposed Third Amendment right to sit it out in Jones v. United States Secretary of Defense.[195] The defendant in United States v. Valenzuela alleged that "[t]he 1947 House and Rent Act . . . is and always was the incubator and hatchery of swarms of bureaucrats to be quartered as storm troopers upon the people in violation of Amendment III . . . ."[196] The courts summarily rejected the Third Amendment claims in each of these cases.
Though the legal community has sometimes given the Third Amendment short shrift, the popular press has subjected it to outright ridicule. Prof. M. E. Shugee, for example, has presented a unique interpretation of the Third Amendment's prohibitions on quartering troops: "'The amendment actually means that no soldier shall be cut into four parts in a person's house unless the owner agrees.'"[197] Dave Barry, on the other hand, has questioned the need for the Third Amendment's protection on other grounds:
[T]here are times when I wouldn't mind having soldiers lodged in my home, such as the other day when my wife told me the lawn-sprinkler valve was leaking, and I went outside to check it out, in my role as a Guy Fixing a Mechanical Problem, and suddenly--this is the truth--a totally unanticipated snake stuck its head out of the valve, and I was forced to switch over to my role of a Guy With No Pulse Backing Away From a Valve. If there had been soldiers lodging in my home, they could have dealt with this situation calmly and professionally by shooting the snake into 30,000 pieces . . .[198]
Disrespectful though it may be, such humor actually bears witness to the success of the Third Amendment's silent vigil. Few people would giggle about the Third Amendment if they had to tiptoe around slumbering G.I.s on the way to breakfast each morning.
The defendant in United States v. Valenzuela, 95 F. Supp. 363, 366 (S.D. Cal. 1951), alleged that "[t]he 1947 House and Rent Act . . . is and always was the incubator and hatchery of swarms of bureaucrats to be quartered as storm troopers upon the people in violation of Amendment III . . . ."[196] The courts summarily rejected the Third Amendment claims in each of these cases.
Valenzuela is not so far off the mark nowadays. We have swarms of bureaucrats (and lawyers) involved in everyday aspects of our lives where they can essentially be said to be quartered in our homes, by implication, on the basis of rules, regulations and payment of taxes and salaries for their forced services and protection from their abuses by lawyers. At any given time they can take over your homes and lives (e.g., domestic violence matters where you are removed from your home and your family is subjected to government intervention, non-payment of property taxes (or income taxes) where government seizes your property and moves in and takes over your home; etc.).
