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Founding Fathers

What Is In Control?

July 2, 2025 by Peg Leave a Comment

One of the first lectures I received in law school was about how jury trials had changed over about 2,500 years; they hadn’t. According to my law professor, if we budding attorneys had walked into the courtroom in Athens for the trial of Socrates in 399 B.C., we would have easily understood the proceeding. Socrates was charged with corrupting Athenian youth with his views on the prevalent religion and government. He was convicted by a jury of about 500 citizens. Socrates was prosecuted by three senators and he defended himself. In other words, that court of over 2,000 years ago functioned like most courts of the 21st century, until the advent of smart telephones, artificial intelligence and rapidly changing electronic technology.

Unlike the practice of medicine, according to our law professor, that a physician of modern times would not even recognize, until recently the legal profession stoically struggled to deliver justice about the same way our Stone Age progenitors did. As science reached for the stars, the Star Chamber was right at home with the law. Most lawyers, judges and juries sought just verdicts, but often did so with quill pens, arcane fixtures and cloistered proceedings. Well, those honored, if often questioned, days have recently crashed upon the shoals of instant and ubiquitous information and misinformation. And much as the art world and the defense industry are wringing their hands and racing to keep up with machines gone mad, the legal profession is struggling to preserve the First Amendment’s guarantees of Freedom of Speech and the Press along with the Sixth Amendment’s guarantees of Due Process and a Fair Trial.

For thousands of years societies have confidently relied upon jurors to hear cases without being influenced by prejudicial information from outside of the court. Today, judges cannot just order jurors to not read newspapers, or listen to radio or television stories about a case. Jurors in 2025 are just like virtually every other child, teenager, adult and elderly person; everyone has a smart phone to which they are addicted. All the judicial admonishments judges can think of will not defeat the deep-seated need by jurors to “tune in and turn on” and, most likely buy into, the often incorrect information about practically anything, including “facts” about an on-going case.

The Founding Fathers most feared centralized governmental power and believed the best defense to it was for the public to have almost unfettered Freedom of Speech and for the media to be almost immunized from governmental restraint. Of course, America’s legal system has adapted many times to changes in our society. It will surely find ways to deal with the internet. However, the age-old reliance on the omnipotence and wisdom of the trial judge’s instructions has already become as much of a relic as the pyramids. And, just as the pyramids still inspire us, our historically provident legal system probably will too.

However, we in the legal profession must face the reality that Facebook and its ilk have to be dealt with because the populace will not stand for them to be destroyed. Surely, if I were back in that first law school class today, the professor would evince a different perspective on 2025’s legal system.

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Filed Under: Democracy, Gavel Gamut, Judicial Tagged With: due process and a fair trial, First Amendment, Founding Fathers, freedom of speech and the press, impartial and unprejudiced jurors, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, jury trials, legal profession, Sixth Amendment, Socrates

70 X 7

December 5, 2024 by Peg Leave a Comment

Peter eventually made it to the rank of saint; although he may have paid a heavy price for it. Peter was uncouth but Jesus stated he was the foundation of Jesus’ church. According to the New Testament, Jesus and Peter had many one-on-one conversations about theological matters, including forgiveness. In Matthew, Ch. 18, vs. 15-21, Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”

In other words, both Donald Trump and Hunter Biden are clothed with a robe of get out of jail free cards based on our Constitution’s Presidential Pardon Power. Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, is not correct; America was not founded on Biblical principles but on principles of the European Enlightenment. Its army was led by George Washington who owned slaves and its Constitution was drafted by fellow slave owner James Madison who was Washington’s staunchest supporter. Washington’s physical presence and Madison’s great mental prowess were two of the main building blocks of our country. The President’s Pardon Power was inserted into the Constitution, probably, because most of the Founding Fathers who had a foundation in the history of the monarchies of Europe expected George Washington to become America’s first king and the Pardon Power was most likely a vestige of the European “Divine Right of Kings” to have the “Final Say” in matters calling for mercy. Instead, we might seek guidance from our Founding Fathers and such other secular authorities as Professor Joseph Campbell who taught mythology and literature at Sarah Lawrence College for many years. Unfortunately, Professor Campbell passed away in 1987, but in his 1972 book Myths to Live By at pages 188-189 Campbell wrote:

…. “The modern Western concept of a legal code is not of a list of unassailable divine edicts {such as the Code of Hammurabi or the Ten Commandments for examples} but of a rationally contrived, evolving compilation of statutes, shaped by fallible human beings in council, to realize rationally recognized social (and therefore temporal) aims. We understand that our laws are not divinely ordained; and we know also that no laws of any people on earth ever were.”

Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump must navigate America’s Constitution where Article II, §2, clause 1 provides, “The President shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in cases of Impeachment.”

Pardons are granted by democratically elected Presidents. Over the years thousands of pardons have been granted. President Biden has pardoned his own son after repeatedly and publicly stating he would not. Donald Trump may pardon numerous January 06, 2020 defendants after repeatedly and publicly stating he would. Some people find both Presidents’ actions repugnant. If so, they may work to change the people-made Constitution or work to elect somebody else or impeach whomever the country has elected. After all, our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us a democracy based on free will.

 

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Filed Under: America, Democracy, Elections, Executive, Gavel Gamut, Presidential Campaign Tagged With: 70 x 7, democracy, Divine Right of Kings, Donald Trump, Enlightenment, Founding Fathers, free will, Hunter Biden, James M. Redwine, Jesus, Jim Redwine, Joe Biden, Jospeh Campbell, Presidential Pardon Power, reprieve, Ryan Walters, St. Peter, U.S. Constitution, Washington and Madison

Whose Birthday Is It?

June 28, 2024 by Peg Leave a Comment

As I write this column the Weather App on my cell phone says the actual temperature is 98 degrees Fahrenheit with a heat index making it feel like 108 degrees. There is no breeze but that’s okay. If there were, it would simply baste our skin as though we were a slow crusting brisket. I ask you, Gentle Reader, “Why July Fourth?” Does not each of the twelve months have a Fourth? For example, the merry month of May or the crisp, invigorating month of October each has a perfectly good Fourth. And neither has a heat index of 108 degrees! Were our Founding Fathers so fond of their wool frock coats they were impervious to July’s guarantee of a reprise of Joan of Arc’s demise? What was Thomas Jefferson thinking as his Sons of Liberty compatriots dumped the tea into Boston’s Harbor on December 16, 1773? Why not fire off his written volleys against King George III then, when it was cool?

 Our rhetorical path today is an examination of the date of our country’s birthday and how we might celebrate it each year without getting suntan lotion and sweaty grit mixed into our barbeque. To me the solution is as simple as the whole country ignoring the gamesmanship of celebrating George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays not on February 22 and February 12 as we did all of my school years. Why, with the stroke of a Congressional pen, voila, we now have President’s Day every year on the third Monday in February! I say, hooray! Now how about the Fourth of …?

 Many people throughout the world have celebrated the presumed birthday of Jesus. Yet, no one truly knows for sure when Jesus was born. We do know over the past 2,000 years more than one date has been chosen for Christ’s date of birth. For example, many people in Europe celebrate Christmas on January 07 because they follow the Julian calendar set by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C.

However, in 1582 Pope Gregory developed his calendar. The Julian Calendar and the Gregorian Calendar each gave a different day for Christmas. One was on the 24th or 25th of December and the other gave January 07. Does it matter? Apparently not. I say if the world can pick an arbitrary date for the birth of Jesus, we can re-set the birth of America to a friendlier clime. I respectfully suggest October 04 every year starting in 2025.

On a personal topic, one of my earlier Gavel Gamut columns drew the thoughtful attention of a reader, Mr. Jerry Butterbaugh. Mr. Butterbaugh, thank you for taking the time to read the column and thank you for your interesting perspective. You respectfully presented a different point of view without casting aspersions. Would that our beloved country as a whole could discuss our many serious issues in the same manner. Your points were clear and helpful. I appreciate them.

Also, since my wife Peg is about the only reader I can consistently rely upon, and that only because she has to type and post them, your response was most welcome.

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Filed Under: America, Events, Gavel Gamut Tagged With: Abraham Lincoln, Christmas Day, Founding Fathers, Gentle Reader, George Washington, Gregorian calendar, James M. Redwine, Jesus, Jim Redwine, Julian calendar, July Fourth, King George III, Pope Gregory, Sons of Liberty, Thomas Jefferson, Weather App

This Land Is Our Land

June 7, 2019 by Peg Leave a Comment

Woody Guthrie (Woodrow Wilson Guthrie 1912-1967) came of age in the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. When one hears Woody sing about the America of those times Guthrie’s personal experiences and perceptions should be considered. In that context, his song’s ironic lyrics that point out America might not have been made for everybody speak to those Americans left out by our Founding Fathers, who were all well-to-do white men.

James Madison (1751-1836) is called the Father of the United States Constitution for good reason. He conceived of and drafted most of the Constitution including its first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights. Madison and the rest of the fifty-five well-to-do white men who attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from May 25 to September 17, 1787 met in secret. The public and the media were excluded and the delegates were sworn to secrecy.

Madison and his fellow Virginian, George Mason (1725-1792), were of like mind in believing average citizens were not equipped to govern themselves and, therefore, a Constitution needed to provide for a government to consist of capable representatives who could provide for the common good. Such groups as women, Negroes and Native Americans were not to have a say in determining their own destiny. Over the years since 1787 we have slowly and gradually addressed some of the Founders’ omissions.

Slavery was abolished almost one hundred years late by the XIIIth Amendment and women were given the right to vote by the XVIIIIth Amendment in 1920. Young men who could be drafted to fight for their country at age eighteen but could not vote until age twenty-one, were fully enfranchised in 1971 by the XXVIth Amendment.

America from the Spanish Conquistadors of the 16th century until this very day has struggled with what were, are and ought to be the ideals of our country’s government. Competing interest groups such as religious sects, LGBTQ citizens, immigrants, political parties, social and cultural associations, news media and countless others exert pressures and vie for recognition and inclusion in our American dream of equality and equal opportunity. In short, America calls itself a melting pot, but it is often more of a bubbling cauldron of competing aspirations.

As we near our mutual birthday on July 04, we may wish to re-examine the base upon which our national dreams were founded and candidly evaluate our progress. Of course, it is only human that in a country of over three hundred million people we will always have disagreements on what directions to go and the best methods for getting there. And we should, also, probably both recognize the genius of our Founders and remember they were simply humans too.

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Filed Under: America, Democracy, Events, Gavel Gamut, Patriotism, Slavery, Women's Rights Tagged With: America, American dream of equality and equal opportunity, Bill of Rights, Constitutional Convention, Dust Bowl, Founding Fathers, George Mason, Great depression, immigrants, James M. Redwine, James Madison, Jim Redwine, July 4, LGBTQ citizens, Native Americans, Negroes, political parties, religious sects, slavery, social and cultural associations, Spanish Conquistadors, women, Woody Guthrie, XIII Amendment, XVIIII Amendment, XXVI Amendment

An Imbalanced Three-Legged Stool

October 5, 2018 by Peg 1 Comment

Why are so many people on all sides so angry about the United States Supreme Court life-time appointment? The answer may be in the question: it is an appointment and it is for life.

The true genius of the Founding Fathers was they understood power corrupts and since human beings constantly seek power it must be diffused into three branches of government. What they did not anticipate was that the Supreme Court, the Judicial Branch, would slyly usurp the power of the Executive and Legislative branches, starting with Chief Justice John Marshall and the case of Marbury versus Madison in 1803 in which the Supreme Court declared it had the power to review and invalidate or validate decisions of the other Branches.

This power of review established an inequality among the three Branches that has grown to a crisis. Where the Judicial leg of the stool has neither power of the purse nor the gun, this power of review protrudes causing an imbalance. This is exacerbated by the appointment of the justices and the manner in which the appointments are made. They are appointed for life by one person, the President, with the “advice and consent” of the Senate, i.e., one hundred more people.

Whereas the public has the right to vote for the President and each member of Congress, the public is shut out of choosing the extraordinarily powerful people in the Judicial Branch. This causes great concern for contesting groups when such personal issues as health care, police powers, control of one’s body, and distribution of tax monies may work their way from the legislative and executive bodies to the courts. For it is more true today than ever that as the visiting French philosopher and tourist Alexis de Tocqueville declared in 1835: in America, eventually every political question becomes a judicial one.

With the President, every four years we can make a change. With members of the House of Representatives, every two years the entire House can be changed and with the Senate, if we wish, in six years we can choose someone else. That is the crux of why people are so desperate to influence the choice of a Supreme Court Justice, i.e., it is not a choice made by them and it is for life.

It seems to me a rational solution is to change how we select our federal judges. Of course, I think all judges at all levels should be elected in a modified non-partisan election, but today we are just addressing the federal food fight that embarrasses and endangers us all. I suggest we put any future Supreme Court replacement on the ballot and limit their term. Of course, this will require amending the Constitution, but the Constitution has been amended many times before. Power to the People, not the politicians, is worth considering and worth the trouble it will take to make the change.

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Filed Under: America, Democracy, Gavel Gamut, Judicial, Law Tagged With: Alexis de Tocqueville, amend the Constitution, Chief Justice John Marshall, elect all judges in a modified non-partisan election, eventually every political question becomes a judicial one, executive branch, Founding Fathers, imbalanced three-legged stool, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, judicial branch, legislative branch, life-time appointment of federal judges, Marbury versus Madison, power to review and invalidate or validate decisions of executive or legislative branches of government, Power to the People not the politicians, Supreme Court Justice, three branches of government, United States Supreme Court

© 2025 James M. Redwine

 

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