The Origins of Obstruction of Justice
“Obstruction of Justice” has been in the news recently. What was a charge of “collusion” has now evolved into “obstruction”. It goes like this. Maybe there was no collusion but he tried to “obstruct” the investigation into whether or not there was.
I’ve been a victim of Obstruction of Justice and this caused me to study its origins as I attempted to litigate for Justice. Etymology is the study of the origins of words. The way words are used today is often very different than in the past. There are many words for which the common meaning and usage is the exact opposite of what it was 100 years ago. Words for which the meaning had not changed for many centuries have flipped in the last 100 years. This is a result of mass communication utilized for propaganda purposes.
Justice is a word for which the meaning has flipped. St. Thomas Aquinas, the legal philosopher of the 11th century defined Justice as the right of each to have what it due. 600 years later the most widely known and respected legal scholar at the time of our American Revolution, Sir Whillim Blackstone, gave the identical definition in his extensive works known as Commentaries on the Law of England. The definition began to change in the 1980’s as our government launched a 30 year ‘War on Crime’. As a result our Nation, our United States “conceived in liberty” had the highest incarceration rate in the world by 2010. So what does Justice mean today?
Today the common meaning and usage of the word Justice is synonymous with the word punishment. If someone has not been punished then we hear the cry that “Justice has not been served”. And even from those who have most often been denied Justice we hear “No Justice, No Peace” when they want someone to be punished. Today – When the government or some mob (including a jury of your peers) wants punishment but none is forthcoming. That is when we hear the charge of “obstruction of justice”. Incredibly; this is the exact opposite of the origin of the phrase and the establishment of the crime.
The origin of the law against Obstruction of Justice is in the American Civil War and the first Civil Rights act that followed in 1866. That’s right. The first Civil Rights Act was NOT in 1864. It was 100 years before. And it was NOT exlusive to former slaves or those of color. It was Titled:
” An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights and liberties, and furnish the Means of their Vindication”
Note the word ALL… Note also the word “Vindication”. How can there be vindication for violations or deprivations of Civil Rights and Libertuies if Government, or those who act in it’s name, have immunity !!!! Yet that is what we have been told since the 1970. You cannot sue government – it has “sovereign immunity”. You cannot sue Prosecutors or Judges who violate or deprive you of your Rights and Liberties – They have been granted (or granted themselves) “absolute immunity”. And Police have almost the same called “Qualified Immunity”. But I digress.
The civil portion of that act has been codified in title 42 of the United States Code. More specifically in Section 1985. It has a counterpart in federal criminal law. The civil part was to provide victims of malfeasance by STATE Prosecutors, Judges, and others in what today is referred to as “law enforcement” and was previously known as “the justice system”, with Civil Remedy. In other words money as compenations. The Federal Criminal Law as for the purpose of enabling federal prosecutors to prosecute State Prosecutors, State Judges, and Local Police as a means of securing vindication and to act as a deterrent against future crimes of “Obstruction of Justice”.
That’s right. The target was not private citizens. The target of the law that made “Obstruction of Justice” a crime was public officials who abused their position of public trust to secure unjust convictions of not just people of color – but of “ANY PERSON” and, as titled, “ALL PERSONS”.
Our Nation, “conceived in Liberty” to quote President Lincoln in his Gettysburg address, was established on the belief that all humans have God-given Rights. These Rights, when established in Law, are the source of Liberty. When government officials deprive a person of the Rights that are Due them then that person has been deprived of “The Protection of the Law”. Liberty, as the word was well understood at the time of our American Revolution through the time of our Civil War, was well known to be synonymous with “the protection of the Law”. ALL individuals had the Right, under The Great Charter of England written the same time as St. Thomas Aquinas, had a God-given Right to have the Law of that Charter protect them from the King of England and those who acted in his name. All Englishmen, and even non Englishmen when in England, had the Right to Justice, meaning compensatory remedy from the King, if the King or those who acted in his name deprived any “one” of the protection of the law the Great Charter, the “Magna Carta”, provided. This was in the Law of that Charter.
By the time of our American Revolution the Courts of England, whose Judges had been appointed by the King, had perverted the Law of England through their opinions, (now referred to as “interpretations”), to do the exact opposite. The Great Charter of Liberty had been nullified by the Judicial Doctrine known as “Sovereign Immunity’. It bacame the established opinion of Judges in England that The King, as the Sovereign, and therefore any who were acting in his name, were entitled to “Soveriegn Immunity”. It was, per their ‘reasoning’, necessary so they could do their job. A job that was, presumably, to PUNISH the King’s subjects. It is for this reason that our United States, and the Constitutions of most States, including Texas, prohibit Titles of Notibility. The intent was to prevent sovereign immunity, and other immunity for those in positions of public trust, from resurfacing. But it has.
Our revolution was for the purpose of restoring in our Constitution for our United States what had been the Great Charter of England. But as we all know there was a segment of the population of the United States that did not enjoy the protection of the law from arbitrary and capricious actions by what had been those serving in the name of the King who now served in the name of government of one of the States that formed the United States. This was particularly true in the States that rebelled against our Great Charter, our Constitution for the United States of America, and attempted to banish it, by force, from Rule over their State. They were opposed to the Rule of Law.
You should now see that the origin of “Obstruction of Justice” was not to punish those who in some way prevented an innocent person from being punished by Government. It was the opposite. The origin and purpose of “Obstruction of Justice” was to enable the prosecution of Government Officials who attempted to, or were successful in securing the punishment of the innocent.
Today there are loud voices among the Democrat party who are determined to deprive Donald Trump of the very foundation of Liberty and Justice for All. That foundational Rock is known as The Right to the Presumption of Innocence. The root of this Right can be found in the example of Jesus. A man who was innocent but was crucified by a jury of his peers demanding a Judge from Rome deprive him of the presumption of innocence and the protection of both Jewish and Roman Law.
What the Democrats are saying is that he was not “exonerated”, in other words found “innocent”, and therefore must be considered guilty. They are presuming guilt rather than innocence. They are demanding the opposite of Obstruction of Justice. They are using their positions of public trust to obstruct justice. If not literally then figuratively they have and continue to crucify Donald Trump in the media.
How do I know? I am an exoneree. I have been exonerated for a crime I did not commit. Exoneration is a term that had, until now, been applied to those who had been convicted. With the burden of proof now on them to prove their innocence they proved their innocence to secure the reversal of the conviction. Donald Trump has not been convicted of anything. Therefore he does not need to be “exonerated”. He has the right to the presumption of innocence. Even if you don’t like the color of his skin. The origin of “obstruction of justice” was to protect those who, in the government, did not like those whose skin color was anything but the color of our present President.