Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 3:33 AM Visit us later this week to read this very interesting Beacon story.
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 9:01 PM by Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon
Our legal system loses its credibility and is undermined when the integrity of the jury selection process is not protected.
Because of this, jury system administration should include detailed recordkeeping to create the publicly available paper trail necessary to insure that mismanagement, political influence and corruption are absent from the jury selection process.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the Superior Court of California in San Mateo County, Court Executive Officer and Jury Commissioner John Fitton has made it impossible for the taxpayers who are paying his salary to measure his performance because he does not maintain the records necessary for the public to do so. In my opinion, there is no guarantee that the integrity of the jury selection process in San Mateo County has been protected.
As evidenced by an August 10, 2011 letter to me from Jill Selvaggio, the Court Services Manager for the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo, Jury Commissioner Fitton commingles public records with privileged records in what may be construed as an attempt to evade public scrutiny; does not maintain a complete file of requests for excuses from jury duty in that he does not have any record of verbal requests for excuses from jury duty and is only able to provide sketchy dated information about written requests for excuses from jury duty.
Based upon the information contained in her letter, it appears that Mr. Fitton does not keep records of the number of prospective jurors who fail to respond to the initial jury summons. However, Mr. Fitton does have dated information that indicates 7,841 prospective jurors failed to respond to any communications from the Court regarding jury duty in FY 2008-2009.
In her August 10,2011 letter to me, Ms. Selvaggio specifically stated:
"Regarding your request for data on the number of prospective jurors who failed to respond to the jury summons and who have been prosecuted for failing to respond to a jury summons, the Court has never referred any matter for prosecution during this time period."
The time period that she is speaking about is the 5 year period for which I requested records from her.
And finally, Ms. Selvaggio states that the Court does not maintain data on the number of prospective jurors who failed to respond to the jury summons and who have received fines, incarceration or other punishments.
Based upon the information contained in the San Mateo County Superior Court Services Manager's letter, it is a FACT that as far as the Superior Court of California in San Mateo County is concerned, if somebody does not want to go to jury duty and does not respond to the jury summons they receive, they have almost no chance of being prosecuted for their failure to respond to the Court's Jury Summons.
If the people who run the Superior Court of California in San Mateo County don't take jury duty seriously then why should anybody else take it seriously? Why should anybody respond to a jury summons in San Mateo County? The jury summons that prospective jurors receive states: "YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO REPORT FOR JURY DUTY". This bold pronouncement should be followed by another sentence announcing: "HOWEVER, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO RESPOND TO THIS JURY SUMMONS YOU DON'T HAVE TO BECAUSE WE WON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT AND CAN FIND OTHER PEOPLE TO DO YOUR JURY DUTY FOR YOU".
In effect, the Superior Court of California in San Mateo County is taking unfair advantage of the good people who respond to their jury summons by forcing these people to bear a disproportionate jury duty burden by allowing other summoned jurors to ignore their jury summons. In addition, by allowing prospective jurors to ignore their jury summons, the Court is diluting the jury pool and not providing defendants or plaintiffs with a jury composed of a true cross section of the community.
In my opinion, Mr. Fitton's conduct as San Mateo County's Jury Commissioner seriously undermines the administration of justice in San Mateo County.
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 9:01 PM by Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon
Our legal system loses its credibility and is undermined when the integrity of the jury selection process is not protected.
Because of this, jury system administration should include detailed recordkeeping to create the publicly available paper trail necessary to insure that mismanagement, political influence and corruption are absent from the jury selection process.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the Superior Court of California in San Mateo County, Court Executive Officer and Jury Commissioner John Fitton has made it impossible for the taxpayers who are paying his salary to measure his performance because he does not maintain the records necessary for the public to do so. In my opinion, there is no guarantee that the integrity of the jury selection process in San Mateo County has been protected.
As evidenced by an August 10, 2011 letter to me from Jill Selvaggio, the Court Services Manager for the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo, Jury Commissioner Fitton commingles public records with privileged records in what may be construed as an attempt to evade public scrutiny; does not maintain a complete file of requests for excuses from jury duty in that he does not have any record of verbal requests for excuses from jury duty and is only able to provide sketchy dated information about written requests for excuses from jury duty.
Based upon the information contained in her letter, it appears that Mr. Fitton does not keep records of the number of prospective jurors who fail to respond to the initial jury summons. However, Mr. Fitton does have dated information that indicates 7,841 prospective jurors failed to respond to any communications from the Court regarding jury duty in FY 2008-2009.
In her August 10,2011 letter to me, Ms. Selvaggio specifically stated:
"Regarding your request for data on the number of prospective jurors who failed to respond to the jury summons and who have been prosecuted for failing to respond to a jury summons, the Court has never referred any matter for prosecution during this time period."
The time period that she is speaking about is the 5 year period for which I requested records from her.
And finally, Ms. Selvaggio states that the Court does not maintain data on the number of prospective jurors who failed to respond to the jury summons and who have received fines, incarceration or other punishments.
Based upon San Mateo County Sperior Court Services Manager's letter, it is a FACT that as far as the Superior Court of California in San Mateo County is concerned,if somebody does not want to go to jury duty they do not have to respond to the jury summons they receive and have almost no chance of being prosecuted for their failure to respond to the Court's Jury Summons.
I always respond to my jury summons when I receive it because I see jury duty as a civic obligation. Unfortunately, the people who run the Superior Court of California in San Mateo County obviously don't feel the same way and think it's ok for anybody who chooses to do so to exempt themselves from jury duty without any fear of being prosecuted or in any way punished for ignoring the jury summons they receive that boldly states: "YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO REPORT FOR JURY DUTY".
If the Court is not going to enforce the jury summons it sends out to prospective jurors then why should anybody pay attention to a jury summons when they receive it? In effect, the Superior Court of California in San Mateo County is taking unfair advantage of the good people who respond to their jury summons by forcing these people to bear a disproportionate jury duty burden by allowing other summoned jurors to ignore their jury summons. In addition, by allowing prospective jurors to ignore their jury summons, the Court is diluting the jury pool and not providing defendants or plaintiffs with a jury composed of a true cross section of the community.
In my opinion, Mr. Fitton's conduct as San Mateo County's Jury Commissioner seriously undermines the administration of justice in San Mateo County.
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 8:28 AM by Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon
The mainstream media was hard at work this morning spinning a December jobs report junk number in an attempt to manipulate investor sentiment to invite new sucker money into the equity markets. The real truth is that from an economic standpoint, things are very bad and getting much worse as the U.S. and world economies continue to contract as a result of being buried under a growing mountain of debt and interest.
The headline news being hyped is that nonfarm payrolls rose by 200,000 in December and that the unemployment rate dropped to 8.5% in December 2011. These U.S. Government Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) job reports are notoriously unreliable.
The main problem with the BLS unemployment number is that it measures unemployment claim data. A 12/08/2011 Smart Money article titled, Is the Real Unemployment Rate 22.6% points out that the BLS numbers do not include tens of millions of unemployed workers who are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.
The BLS nonfarm payroll numbers can also be misleading in that they don’t tell you if high paying or low paying jobs are being created. For all we know, the 200,000 nonfarm payroll increase number (which is not correct) could be reporting 200,000 new minimum wage jobs wrapping Christmas gifts or handling Christmas gift returns.
One Bureau of Labor Statistics report that hasn't seen a lot of play in the mainstream media is the12/22/2011 MASS LAYOFFS -- NOVEMBER 2011 report. In this report, the BLS reported:
“Employers took 1,331 mass layoff actions in November involving 129,887 workers, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.”
That report didn’t make front page headlines.
Some other important stories buried in the news are:
January 6, 2012 – Alcoa Falls After Announcing Capacity Cuts
January 6, 2012 – Best Buy December sales fall
January 6, 2012 – ECB Steps in as Italian Yields Hit 7%
January 6, 2012 – Euro-Zone Fears Grow on New Data
Once again, the mainstream media is buying into and headlining the same types of lies, half-truths and market manipulation being promoted by the vile Wall Street hype merchants looking for fresh sucker money and a failing, desperate President who will quite literally do or say anything he can to get re-elected. On the other hand, the mainstream media is burying the bad news.
As long as inexperienced investors buy into Wall Street's big lies; the cycle of pain, suffering and retribution will never end. Perhaps, it is time to require all stock market investors to take a series of stock investment courses and be certified as investors before they are allowed to spend one penny of their money on a share of stock.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 3:49 PM by Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon
Always expect the unexpected. Those four words invite all options to the proverbial table when addressing any situation in life and make all things possible.
2012 is going to be a particularly tough year as we begin to experience the full catastrophic potential of the world’s lingering, festering problems that have defied solutions. It will be interesting to see what the world looks like on January 1, 2013.
Throughout the world, the political, social, economic and spiritual status quo is undergoing dramatic change. This change is occurring at the international, national and local levels in all countries. Change is usually the enemy of the status quo because change almost always requires that the current status quo be dismantled and replaced by a new status quo.
During 2012, the following 5 major events may create unexpected butterfly effect consequences around the world:
1). Revolutions. Right now, the growing revolution in Syria and the revolt against Putin in Russia show that government tyrants are an endangered species. The image of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi being dragged through the streets and executed in public like a rabid mad dog earlier this year shows that people's patience with and tolerance for arrogant, abusive government tyrants is wearing thin. Mr. Gaddafi met his horrific, untimely demise because, in the words of, President John F. Kennedy:
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable"
Failing, corrupt, broken status quo regimes cling to the stranglehold they have on the people they control by implementing ever stricter laws on personal freedoms and using increased levels of police state measures to suppress dissent, instill fear, control the population and turn opponents of the status quo regime against each other. There is a direct correlation between regime fear and the use of police state mechanisms to control the population and more specifically, regime opponents. As the likelihood of regime change increases, the depth and degree of police state activities by the threatened regime, against the population it controls, increases. In most cases, this cause and effect relationship snowballs out of control resulting in a sometimes peaceful but usually violent revolution where the broken regime is replaced.
2). The U.S. and/or Israeli attack Iran? Both the U.S. and Israel have established “red lines” that will trigger military strikes against Iran when Iran’s nuclear program reaches a certain threshold. The red lines for triggering a military strike against Iran could be different. This could result in a unilateral military strike against Iran by Israel.
3). The European sovereign debt crisis continues. 2012 is going to be a make or break year for the ongoing European sovereign debt crisis. European banks have been hit hard by this crisis and in 2012 this debt crisis could ignite a deflationary spiral that will:
4). $15.16 Trillion U.S. National Debt that will continue to increase in 2012. Obama wants to add another $1.2 trillion to the U.S. National Debt. When Obama was first elected President, the U.S. National Debt as a percentage of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product was 74.1%. In 2012, the U.S. National Debt will soar to approximately $16.4 trillion and exceed 100% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. During his term as President, Obama has turned the United States into a third world style police state debtor nation drowning in debt and interest payments.
5). The 2010 U.S. Election. The November 2012 U.S. Election will decide who becomes President and which ideological group(s) control(s) Congress.
