Academics, Jurists Hit Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed massive trade agreement that would in the words of Noam Chomsky "maximize profit and domination and to set the working people of the world in competition with one another, to lower wages and increase insecurity, ... [and] protect at the same time ... the top wealth sector." (Orphanides, In These Times)

A group of retired judges and academics point out that the secret TPP also "departs from the justice opportunities that U.S. courts provide," effectively depriving individuals of a right to bring a case to court, among other legal faults.

Their letter is reproduced below.

April 30, 2015

Dear Majority Leader McConnell, Minority Leader Reid, Speaker Boehner, and Minority Leader Pelosi:

We write out of grave concern about a document we have not been able to see. Although it has not been made available publicly, we understand that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement currently being negotiated includes Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions ISDS allows foreign investors — and only foreign investors — to avoid the courts and instead to argue to a special, private tribunal that they believe certain government actions diminish the value of their investments.

Courts are central institutions in the rule of law. Americans have much to be proud of in the evolution of our court system, which has evolved over the centuries and now provides equal access for all persons. Courts enable the public to observe the processes of development of law and to watch impartial and accountable decision - makers render judgments.

We write because of our concern that what we know about ISDS does not match what courts can provide. Those advocating using this alternative in lieu of our court system bear the burden of demonstrating why such an exit is necessary, and how the alternate system will safeguard the ideals enshrined in our courts. Thus far, the proponents of ISDS have failed to meet that burden. Therefore, before any ISDS provisions are included in the TPP or any future agreements, including the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), their content should be disclosed and their purposes vetted in public so that debate can be had about whether and if such provisions should be part of proposed treaties. Below, we detail the ways in which ISDS departs from the justice opportunities that U.S. courts provide.

Our legal system rests on the conviction that every individual, regardless of wealth or power, has an equal right to bring a case to court. To protect and uphold the rule of law, our ideals of fairness and justice must apply in all situations and equally to everyone. ISDS, in contrast, is a system built on differential access. ISDS provides a separate legal system available only to certain investors who are authorized to exit the American legal system. Only foreign investors may bring claims under ISDS provisions. This option is not offered to nations, domestic investors, or civil society groups alleging violations of treaty obligations. Under ISDS regimes, foreign investors alone are granted legal rights unavailable to others – freed from the rulings and procedures of domestic courts.

ISDS also risks undermining democratic norms because laws and regulations enacted by democratically-elected officials are put at risk in a process insulated from democratic input. Equal application of the law is another critically important hallmark of our legal system — one that is secured through the orderly development of law. Court decisions are subject to appeal, ensuring that conflicting lower court decisions are resolved by a higher authority. Judges also must follow legal precedent. The goal is uniform application of the law regardless of which judge or court hears a case. This law development allows people, entities, and nations alike to order their behavior according to well-established legal principles.

In contrast, ISDS do es not build in the development of the law. An ISDS arbitral panel’s decision cannot be appeal ed to a court. The ISDS provisions of which we are aware provide April 30, 2015 only limited — private — review through a process called annulment that does not permit decisions to be set aside based even on a ―manifest error of law. 1 Moreover, ISDS arbitrators, like other arbitrators, do not make law because their decisions have no precedential value, and ISDS arbitrators in turn are not obliged to follow precedent in reaching their own decisions.

None of the hallmarks of our court system would be possible without a fair and independent judiciary. Federal judges take an oath to uphold the Constitution and are nominated and confirmed by our democratically elected representatives. State judges likewise commit themselves to upholding the constitutional order. In contrast, ISDS arbitrators are not public servants but private arbitrators. In many cases, there is a revolving door between serving on ISDS arbitration panels and representing corporations bringing ISDS claims. Yet, although such a situation would seem to call for more — not less — oversight and accountability, ISDS arbitrators’ decisions are functionally unreviewable.

As noted at the outset, we have not been able to read the terms of the proposed ISDS chapters for the upcoming TPP and TTIP treaties. But what we know from the past gives us many grounds for concern. During the past few years, foreign investors have used ISDS to challenge a broad range of policies aimed at protecting the environment, improving public health and safety, and regulating industry. These challenges have been around the world, including under trade agreements to which the United States is a party. The publicly available information about these challenges raises serious questions as to whether the United States should be entering into more ISDS agreements with a broad array of nations.

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly’s pending ISDS proceedings against Canada provide an example of how corporations have used ISDS to challenge a nation’s laws outside the courtroom . After a Canadian court invalidated one of Lilly’s patents, the company initiated ISDS proceedings against Canada under Chapter 11 of the North Americ an Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). 2 In seeking $500 million (Canadian), Lilly has challenged as violative of NAFTA the standard the nation uses for granting patents.

Although ISDS tribunals are not empowered to order injunctive relief, the threat and expense of ISDS proceedings have forced nations to abandon important public policies. In the third ISDS proceeding brought under NAFTA , Ethyl Corporation brought an ISDS proceeding against Canada for $251 million for implementing a ban on a toxic gasoline additive. The proceeding took place not in a court, but before an arbitration panel of the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) . After the arbitration panel rejected Canada’s argument that Ethyl lacked standing to bring the challenge, Canada settle d the suit for $13 million . Moreover, Canada lifted the ban on the toxic additive as part of the settlement. 3

It is particularly noteworthy that the three NAFTA countries are each in the top 11 most-challenged countries under the ISDS system. This high rate of challenge in our view has little to do with a rule of law deficit in the U.S. and Canada. Instead, it represents investors taking advantage of easy access to a special legal right available only to them in an alternate legal system.

ISDS weakens the rule of law by removing the procedural protections of the legal system and using a system of adjudication with limited accountability and review. It is antithetical to the fair, public, and effective legal system that all Americans expect and deserve.

Proponents of ISDS have failed to explain why our legal system is inadequate to the task. For the reasons cited above, we urge you to uphold the best ideals of our legal system and ensure ISDS is excluded from upcoming trade agreements.

Sincerely,

Judith Resnik Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Cruz Reynoso Professor of Law Emeritus, University of California, Davis School of Law
Former Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court

Honorable H. Lee Sarokin
Former United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

Joseph E. Stiglitz University Professor, Columbia University

Laurence H. Tribe Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard Law School

cc: Ambassador Froman and Chairs and Ranking Members of Finance and Ways and Means Committees

Please note: Organizational affiliation for all signatories is included for identification purposes only; individuals represent only themselves, not the institutions where they are teaching or other organizations in which they are active.

Notes

1 Impregilo S.P.A. v Argentine Republic , ICSID Case No. ARB/07/17 (Annulment Proceeding), Jan. 24, 2014, at ¶ 132. http://www.italaw.com/sites/default/files/case - documents/italaw3044.pdf (―[T]here is a difference between a failure to apply the proper law and the misapplication of the applicable law, and that the latter does not constitute grounds for annulment, even if it is a ‘manifest error of law’ ...‖) (emphasis added).

2 Eli Lilly and Company v. The Government of Canada , Notice of Intent to Submit a Claim to Arbitration under NAFTA (Nov. 7, 2012). Available at: http://italaw.com/sites/default/files/case - documents/italaw1172.pdf .

3 Michelle Sforza and Mark Vallianatos, ―Ethyl Corporation v.s. Government of Canada: Now Investors Can Use NAFTA to Challenge Environmental Safeguards, available at http://www.citizen.org/trade/article_redirect.cfm?ID=6221.

Iron County DA Martin Lipske's Misconduct on Display Again

The volatile Iron County District Attorney Martin Lipske in northern Wisconsin has struck again.

Yesterday, John Michael Kallas of Hurley, Wisconsin was found Not Guilty of "Repeated Sexual Assault of Same Child" by a jury in a criminal trial, Price County Circuit Court Judge Douglas T. Fox presiding, (notations from the Wisconsin Court System - Circuit Court Access (1st Degree Sexual Assault).

The acquittal of Mr. Kallas for an alleged incident in 2001 illustrates the pattern of DA Martin Lipske using the district attorney's office in a capricious (and corrupt) manner—filing severe criminal charges, and then filing more spurious charges in what has become Lipske's bizarre game of playing with defendants' lives—hence defendants often exercise their right for a judicial substitution [requesting a new judge per Wisconsin statute] because Lipske is widely viewed as being in political bed with Iron County Judge Patrick Madden, and Lipske's cases often end with dismissals and acquittals when judicial substitutions are requested.

Lipske likes to drag out cases, the better the process harasses and injures the defendants.

Lipske's conduct cries out for an investigation by the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR).

"Martin Lipske has run his district attorney's office in a vindictive and slip-shod fashion since he got his license to practice back. [Lipske was "Suspended for Discipline" for two years under the category of "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misconduct" in 1990, Mal Contends] Real people have suffered. Something, and I don't know what, has to be done," said Joe Agostine, Councilor of the City of Ashland and an environmental activist in neighboring Ashland County. "Lipske has terrorized people and I always say, for years, he keeps getting away with it. He gives lawyers a bad name. I have lost my faith in the criminal justice system if something isn't done and he is not held accountable. I mean he is in office supposed to be protecting people not terrorizing them."

The sordid story of Lipske and his routine perversion of the judicial system is largely off the Wisconsin political radar screen as Iron County is sparsely populated and isolated. And the local press, specifically the Iron County Daily Globe, frequently covers for Lipske and the Hurley sex trade.

This site has spoken with numerous activists and residents of Iron and Ashland counties, none of whom will speak on the record for fear of retribution from Lipske and his associated political machine that is viewed as vindictive. (Mal Contends)

Said one activist in the region, speaking on background. "Lipske is a sick SOB. He does play with peoples' lives. It's common knowledge, and I want to live long enough to see Lipske meet with some legal reckoning. I don't know what that is, but it shouldn't be that hard to make people see what's going on."

Kallas' exoneration comes just weeks after new charges were piled on by Lipske against Kallas in a separate case.

This is the Modus operandi of Lipske: Inflict and intimidate disfavored defendants by use of public office for the purpose of harassment and obtaining an advantage over a defendant. It is also a clear and repeated act of abuse of process. 

GTAC Frontman

The source speaking on background above has had no legal or formal dealings with Lipske, and was contacted initially for his opposition to the now apparently defunct plan of the billionaire mining mogul, Christopher Cline, and Cline's subsidiary, GTAC, to slash a massive open pit iron ore mine, in Iron and Ashland counties.

The proposed mine owners' agents at GTAC are part of the massive Scott Walker-coordinated criminal scheme that was exposed and investigated by a bipartisan group of prosecutors in a John Doe probe (now under adjudication at the Wisconsin Supreme Court) that saw Walker's campaign, Friends of Scott Walker, engage in settlement talks with law enforcement officials last year. (Fischer, PRWatch) Lipske is roundly criticized by Wisconsin environmentalists for siding with GTAC in the few cases Lipske involved his office.

Volatility

D.A. Martin Lipske protects sex trafficking in Iron County 

Lipske is criticized as well for the all-over-the-map quality of his prosecutions.

Last year Lipske covered up for a favored defendant who engaged in sex trafficking, paying $1,300 for a 14-year-old girl to be transported over 600 miles to a hotel in Mercer in Iron County in 2013. Lipske gave the man a deferred prosecution to the shock of local residents who thought this was too much for even Lipkse. (Mal Contends)

Lipkse will often charge a defendant, and then file a felony bailjumping charge without cause.

So, Lipske gets to manipulate the lives of disfavored defendants for apparent fun, political profit, and a self-conscious use of his discretionary power to obtain a dishonest advantage over disfavored defendants in repeated violation of SCR [Supreme Court Rule] 946.12(3) and Wisconsin criminal statute, (946.12 Misconduct in public office):

(3) Whether by act of commission or omission, in the officer's or employee's capacity as such officer or employee exercises a discretionary power in a manner inconsistent with the duties of the officer's or employee's office or employment or the rights of others and with intent to obtain a dishonest advantage for the officer or employee or another

Martin Lipske ought to front every daily newspaper in Wisconsin, absent that this story must be told and this site is committed to doing so as often as necessary.

Sources in Iron County say Lipske is planning on retiring soon. With justice he ought to be criminally investigated first.

Prosecutors Getting Away with Disgrace, Insult to Humanity

The Divine Right of Kings

Update: When prosecutors do their job and hold corrupt public officials accountable, like the detestable Kelly Rindfleisch, Scott Walker trusted aide and felon, we ought consider giving prosecutors kudos. Hey, Kelly, are you saying you're innocent now?
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JUDGE HAYWOOD: Herr Janning, it 'came to that' the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.
- Judgment at Nuremberg (Kramer. 1961)

A telling glimpse at the American political culture is seen in the reaction to the January 2014 legal opinion of Richard Posner, judge on the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

The case, Fields v. Wharrie and Kelley (No. 13-1195) (740 F.3d 1107; 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 1333), drew a few notices in legal journals and blogs, even though Posner blasted corrupt prosecutors for their mendacious, "breathtaking injustice" that landed an innocent man in prison for 17 years.

Beyond that, the silence out was deafening.

"If the old Lord Acton axiom is true — that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely — enormous power with no accountability can be enormously destructive," opines Radley Balko on the case. (Washington Post)

This is precisely what happened, as Posner notes of Mr. Fields who "until he was acquitted in a retrial; he later received a certificate of innocence from the court in which he had been tried," was the victim of "coerced witnesses to give testimony that the defendants (prosecutors) as well as the witnesses) knew to be false."

Much good may come from Posner's decision demanding accountability, affirming the right of the innocent and wrongfully convicted to sue for damages against deceitful prosecutors.

Absolute immunity for prosecutors, what former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell correctly notes is prosecutors' License to Lie, may go the way of the divine right of kings.

What I can guarantee you is that the speeches of Robert Jackson will not populate the campaign webpages of most candidate for District Attorney and Attorneys General across the nation. Jackson's words should. Said Jackson in a famous address in 1940:

Any prosecutor who risks his day-to-day professional name for fair dealing to build up statistics of success has a perverted sense of practical values, as well as defects of character. Whether one seeks promotion to a judgeship, as many prosecutors rightly do, or whether he returns to private practice, he can have no better asset than to have his profession recognize that his attitude toward those who feel his power has been dispassionate, reasonable and just.

Today, police, prosecutors and judges all too often engage in careerism and are laden with defects of character, imprisoning millions of Americans in creating what Glenn C. Loury in the Boston Review terms "a leviathan unmatched in human history." I know of Dane County (Wisconsin) police who have intentionally corrupted the judicial process for civil traffic violations.

This must change.

Face it. We live in a society so putative that innocents are routinely sent to prison, and killed.

You may see a case covered in the 'news' once every three or four years like Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas, but innocents suffering in the American leviathan face perpetrators and bystanders.

The words of Posner in Fields do bring some comfort:

A prosecutor cannot retroactively immunize himself from conduct by perfecting his wrongdoing through introducing the fabricated evidence at trial and arguing that the tort was not completed until a time at which he had acquired absolute immunity. That would create a 'license to lawless conduct,' which the Supreme Court has said that qualified immunity is not to do. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 819, 102 S. Ct. 2727, 73 L. Ed. 2d 396 (1982). [Prosecutor] Wharrie's interpretation of our decision in Buckley would place that decision in conflict with the Supreme Court's Buckley decision, by giving absolute immunity to prosecutor-investigators who having fabricated evidence make sure that the evidence is used to convict the innocent victim of the fabrication. (emphasis mine)

The criminal justice system is a horror show and prosecutors are a big part of the problem.

Here's Sidney Powell's latest commentary, and as Powell knows the ethical violations by prosecutors are committed by local district attorneys' offices as often as by the federal DoJ:

By Sidney Powell

The Project On Government Oversight published an extensive report yesterday revealing that Department of Justice has been concealing hundreds of ethical violations by its prosecutors.  Adding to this injustice, the Department refuses to identify the offending prosecutors or to inform defendants who have been affected by their misconduct.

In the majority of the matters—more than 400—OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility) categorized the violations as being at the more severe end of the scale: recklessness or intentional misconduct, as distinct from error or poor judgment.
The information the Justice Department has disclosed is only part of the story. No less significant is what as a matter of policy it keeps from the public.
As a general practice, the Justice Department does not make public the names of attorneys who acted improperly or the defendants whose cases were affected. The result: the Department, its lawyers, and the internal watchdog office itself are insulated from meaningful public scrutiny and accountability.

We can say from our own experiences with the Department’s “Office of Professional Responsibility” that it is ineffective if not complicit. Legitimate grievances go ignored. Their primary expertise lies in circling the wagons and protecting the offenders. This report makes it all the more clear. There is no transparency, and consequently, the Department of Justice can be given no credibility. It is way overdue for a  major clean-up, and as Judge Kozinski, and the Washington Post and others have said recently, it is time for a national discussion of these issues crucial to the administration of justice–if there is to be any justice at all.
#
For my part, I know of a district attorney in northern Wisconsin who should he attempt to maliciously prosecute an innocent again, I will dedicate myself to making him the most famous DA in Wisconsin history.

Wrongfully Convicted Get Backing in Wisconsin Legislature

Rep. Garey Bies, (R-Sister Bay, Wisconsin), at right at a
bill-signing ceremony, shakes hands with Scott Walker. Bies is
coauthoring a bill to help the wrongfully convicted in Wisconsin

"There is no more cruel tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of the law, and with the colors of justice." [UNITED STATES v. JANNOTTI (nos. 81-1020), UNITED STATES v. SCHWARTZ (nos. 81-1021)]

I came across the above quote at the Innocence Consultants site, an enterprise dedicated "to advise and assist the wrongfully convicted and those who have been victims" of the 'criminal justice system.'

Not a popular pastime in American culture.

Attempting to compensate innocents prosecuted and convicted in Wisconsin is one issue (I cannot think of two issues) gathering bipartisan support.

Most Americans maintain an unthinking animus toward lawyers, politicians, and various party hacks.

Yet, when these same lawyers and hacks assume the power of the prosecutor and don the robes of the judge, critical thinking and healthy animus dissipate—displaying again the human inability in far too many to question 'authority' and challenge the players in the judicial system, just as corrupt and eminently more damaging than the other two branches of American representative government.

People appear to naturally adopt "passive compliance" as liberty and human decency are lost, to borrow from Norman Cohn and Noam Chomsky.

Dee Hall notes this morning in the Wisconsin State Journal a bipartisan memo (precursor to a legislative bill) gathering support to enhance the compensation and procedural capacity of the wrongfully convicted. [Now, if we can just get innocents not arrested and prosecuted in the first place, but that's a different story.]

"Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Corrections, and Rep. Gary Hebl, D-Sun Prairie, last week began seeking co-sponsors for a bill to greatly boost compensation to the wrongfully convicted. Similar bills have failed to advance in the previous two legislative sessions," writes Hall.

The Wrongly Convicted Re-entry Act is picking up numerous co-sponsors across partisan lines.

In the state senate the co-sponsors are Senators Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee), Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), and Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay).

Bies' office said this morning that the legislative memo notes the deadline for sponsorship is October 9.

The memo reads in part:

Co-sponsorship of LRB-2091/2 – Wrongly Convicted Re-entry Act (relating to: resolution of claims against the state for wrongful imprisonment of innocent persons, exempting from taxation certain amounts an individual receives from the claims board or legislature, and making an appropriation).

Most wrongfully convicted individuals serve decades-long prison sentences and face great hardships upon release. Apart from the horrors of prison life, the wrongfully convicted have few resources to draw upon when set free, and their families have often incurred enormous attorneys’ fees related to their cases.  While in prison, they miss out on educational opportunities, job training, and career advancement opportunities.   

Bies' office sent the following biography of the case of Robert Lee Stinson: "An innocent man awarded just $25,000 for 23 years in prison Incarcerated for a Crime He Did Not Commit":

In 1985 Robert Lee Stinson was convicted of the murder of his 62-year-old neighbor. The victim, Ione Cychosz was found dead on Nov. 3^rd, 1984. She had been beaten, stabbed and bitten. The police employed a forensic dentist who drew a sketch of the bite marks found on the body. He determined, based on the bite marks, that the suspect was missing an upper front tooth. The police interviewed several suspects missing teeth consistent with the sketch, and quickly focused their investigation on 21-year old Robert Lee Stinson, whose backyard connected to the lot where the victim’s body was found. While interviewing Mr. Stinson, they noticed that he was missing a tooth, although not the same tooth that the dentist had thought the perpetrator was missing.

After a 3-day jury trial Mr. Stinson was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. The trial centered largely on the testimony of two bite-mark experts who claimed that Mr. Stinson’s teeth matched bite marks left on the body of the victim. In 2009, after serving 23 years in prison Mr. Stinson was exonerated using both DNA found on the victim’s sweater, and the testimony of forensic experts who re-evaluated the bite-mark evidence and found that Mr. Stinson’s bite did not match the marks on the victim. Eventually the DNA found on the victim not only excluded Mr. Stinson, but also implicated another man, who later confessed to the crime. After he was released Mr. Stinson said that it was “a long ride for me. I’m finally out, and I’m going to enjoy my life.”

The Quest for Compensation

Robert Lee Stinson’s story exemplifies how woefully insufficient Wisconsin’s current wrongful conviction compensation scheme is. After serving 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Mr. Stinson applied to the Claims Board for compensation under the current statute, Wis. Stat. §775.05. The current statute only allows an exonerated person to receive $5,000 per year of incarceration up to $25,000. Even though Mr. Stinson was incarcerated for 23 years, he was only able to claim $25,000—just over $1,000 for each year he was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. Mr. Stinson was able to meet the high burden of proof required by the current statute, something that many innocent exonerees are not able to do (especially if, for example, they were coerced into confessing), and the Claims Board awarded him the maximum amount available under current law. Noting the inadequacy of the amount, the Claims Board recommended that the Legislature make a separate appropriation for Mr. Stinson in excess of the statutory cap for wrongful imprisonment.

A Better Way

Under the proposed bill individuals like Mr. Stinson would be entitled to up to $50,000 for each year of wrongful imprisonment. They would also have immediate access to social services, health care and transitional assistance as soon as they leave prison, to help ensure a smooth transition back into the community.

Did Wisconsin District Attorney Indict Himself under Own Letterhead

Title 18 USC § 201

District Attorney Martin Lipske appears to be in violation of a federal corruption statute

Updated - When Iron County (Wisconsin) DA Martin Lipske sent a letter earlier this year to the man he unjustly prosecuted in 1997, Donald Miller, after destroying DNA evidence it appears Lipske conditioned the performance of a specific act of his public office upon Don Miller's parents' not complaining about Lipske's shady law practice to the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR).

A letter written by Lipske to Don Miller, dated July 11, 2013, reads in part: "My intentions were to send a copy of the stipulation in which I agreed to your release. However, between the time that I received the form and the due date, I received another letter through the actions of your parents challenging my license to practice law. Therefore, nothing was sent as I intended." (Copy of letter is below.)

The Millers, Norm and Patricia, say they received a Feb 21, 2013 response letter from the OLR, and word from up north is that Lipske was not happy about the OLR complaint.

Reached by phone, Norm Miller does not remember sending the OLR a complaint to begin with, but in any event retaliation by a sitting District Attorney, and the performance of an official action should not be conditioned upon what the Miller parents do, as they attempt to prove their son's innocence in their retirement as they live in Hurley, Wisconsin.

Put another way, Lipske's seeking to clear his name (he was suspended for almost four years for professional misconduct before Judge Patrick Madden recruited him to run for DA in 1994) by withholding a promised action of his office is a corrupt use of public office, and a violation of federal law.

The Wisconsin Innocence Project has taken up this case, and has not returned phone calls.

What appear to be clear, however, is that Lipske is using the power of his office to stop people from challenging his misconduct in public office, and this appears to be a violation of a federal corruption statute.

Title 18 USC § 201 reads in part:

Whoever being a public official or person selected to be a public official, directly or indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in return for:

 

(A) being influenced in the performance of any official act;

So Lipske on his own Office of Iron County (Wisconsin) District Attorney letterhead delivered his message to the Millers: Stop reminding people of my professional misconduct (as is your right), or I won't help release an innocent man, your son, from prison by stipulating to his release.

Lipske's letter is below:

Mining Company May Dump Its Wisconsin District Attorney

Mining Company: We're for you, Wisconsin

Gogebic Taconite Mine (GTac) wrote its own Wisconsin legislation; keeps scientific data secret from the people; forbids environmental experts from approaching the proposed mine site, and is now wants to keep the Wisconsin people away from 1,000s of acres of forests, as demanded in new legislation proposed and supported solely by the Republican Party.

This follows GTac's worst blunder yet in hiring a bunch of heavily armed, wanna-be Rambos from Arizona, Bulletproof Security, parading around on GTac's proposed $1.5 billion open-pit iron-ore mine site in the Penokee Hills of northern Wisconsin.

But perhaps the most foolish of GTac's blunders is keeping its Iron County (Wisconsin) District Attorney, Martin Lipske, as its legal frontman.

Lipske went from a Gov. James Doyle-endorsing Democrat to an Independent (he won reelection in 2012 after a controversial recount) after word went out in Iron County in 2011 that GTac was coming in with Republican support.

Lipske presents to the Wisconsin public the legal equivalent of the face of the corporate terrorist—corrupt, a shady reputation with a history of professional misconduct, and perversely disdainful of innocent Wisconsin people.

Check out Martin 'Marty' Lipske on search sites, and you won't find out much beyond the fact his license to practice law was suspended for professional misconduct, and he put an innocent man in prison after losing DNA evidence in 1997; and protecting favored defendants in Iron County, including favored prostitutes. Hey, welcome to Hurley, Wisconsin in Iron County.

Lipske had his license to practice law suspended six times in Wisconsin, once for professional misconduct in a suspension that lasted almost four years shortly before Iron County Judge Patrick J. 'Madman' Madden recruited Lipske to move from Douglas County (Wisconsin) to run for District Attorney in Iron County where Madden has served as judge with an equally corrupt reputation since 1986.

Rob Ganson’s photo of Bulletproof Security using silencers
on their semi-automatics was taken July 6, 2013 in Iron County

Madden recused himself from Lipske's latest attempted miscarriage of justice after Lipske targeted anti-mining Iron County resident, 76-year-old Robert Gollubske, for Gollubske's bumbled attempt to contact the FBI after Gollubske's home and farm were rocked by explosions by a local blacktop company that Gollubske fears is a precursor of what the huge open-pit mine will wreak upon the Penokee Hills range.

Lipske has also launched a heavy-handed prosecution against 26-year-old Katie Kloth whom Lipske wants to prosecute with a violent felony and three misdemeanors for protesting the Gogebic Taconite mine in June 2013.

However, Lipske now refuses to prosecute Bulletproof Security for operating without a license in Wisconsin, among other continued violations of Wisconsin law.

The gig is up on Lipske; everyone knows the guy is bent. GTac has its own district attorney.

The only question is how long before Cline Resource and Development Company (of which Gogebic Taconite (GTac) is one subsidiary) comes to the conclusion that Lipske is too much a liability.

In the July 2013 - August 2013 issue of Mining Magazine, Lee Buchsbaum puts it thusly in a piece in which Buchsbaum paints a picture of a lot of money at stake for keeping a frontman like Lipske in place with all his dirt. 

GTac would do better with the image of a semi-automatic rifle with a silencer pointed out in the north woods of Wisconsin. Writes Buchsbaum:

Though not as sexy as gold or platinum, many have argued that iron ore, the primary ingredient in steel, remains the world's most important commodity. ...

The majority of US iron-ore production is concentrated in Minnesota and Michigan, though historically it has also been produced in volume in Wisconsin and, during World Wars One and Two, it was extracted in large quantities from the southwestern states of Utah and Nevada. However, the heart of the industry remains in Minnesota. ...

 In total, 13 iron-ore mines (11 open pits, one reclamation operation, and one dredging operation), nine concentration plants and nine pelletising plants were operational during 2012, as reported by the USGS. However, eight mines operated by three companies - Cliffs Natural Resources, Essar Steel, and US Steel - accounted for virtually all of the production.

New direct-reduction-injection (DRI) processes, cheap natural gas and the enlarged Panama Canal are now driving investors to open new mines and return to old diggings and tailings piles, while reaching out to new international customers.

One of the biggest recent moves in the US iron-ore segment is the entry of what might prove to be a major new producer. Gogebic Taconite (Gtac), a subsidiary of the expanding US coal producer Cline Resource and Development Co (also owner of Foresight Energy) has literally redefined the concept of high-productivity, low-cost longwall mining.

Legislation vital to the re-establishment of iron-ore mining in Wisconsin passed with support from Gtac and, on June 18, Gtac filed for permits regarding its iron-ore mine and processing plant - the first new iron-ore mine in the state for decades. ...

GOGEBIC: NEW SHOOTER

Following an arduous and contentious two-year effort to change the mining laws in Wisconsin, on June 18, officials from Gtac, filed with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources a sample plan and pre-application notice outlining the firm's intent to file an application for an iron-ore mining permit, the first one requested in nearly a century.

Though the bulk sample plan is preliminary to the firm's first pilot efforts to actually recover and determine the quantity and quality of the ore in the deposit, the pre-application is also the first step in a process company officials hope will one day lead to the development of an operating taconite mine.

Gtac has estimated that the US$1.5 billion operation will eventually be capable of producing 8Mt/y of iron ore in phase one of the project, fully 15% of the current total US production.

Extracting from a two-billion-tonne body of crude taconite ore, the deposit Gtac will mine is approximately 35.4km long and dips at about 65 degrees to the north, while outcropping along the top of a hill. ...

Gtac's overall vision is similar to what the Cline Group has accomplished in a relatively short time in the Illinois coal fields. ...

"The company sat on this reserve for 60 years. During its restructuring in 2001 and 2002, US Steel purged its nonproductive and fallow resources," says Gtac mine president Bill Williams. "We now have a clear permitting process, and we're targeting the 2016 to 2017 timeframe to be in production."

Damon Terrell and Scott Walker's Political Police

Damon Terrell released after 72 hours for an unspecified thought crime

Update II: Damon Terrell Wins Case Against Scott Walker’s Cops; Civil Suit Coming (Kemble. The Progressive)

Update - Wisconsin Capitol Police have the credibility of Richard Nixon during the depths of Watergate. After Capitol Police attacked and arrested Damon Terrell, James Brooks writes in the police report that, "I observed Damon taking photographs in the rotunda area. I made verbal contact with Damon and told him I had identified him as a participant in an unlawful event. I told him he needed to disperse. Damon said he was doing nothing unlawful and would not leave. ... I did not consent to Damon injuring me." Brooks is serious. That's another citation thrown out of Court, and let's hope a violation of civil rights action. Love to see someone as full of shit as Brooks on the stand.


"The vitality of civil and political institutions in our society depends on free discussion. ... Accordingly a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech, though not absolute, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, 315 U.S. at pages 571—572, 62 S.Ct. at page 769, 86 L.Ed. 1031, is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to roduce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest."

- Justice William O' Douglas, writing for the Court in TERMINIELLO v. CITY OF CHICAGO. 337 U.S. 1 (69 S.Ct. 894, 93 L.Ed. 1131) Argued: Feb. 1, 1949. Decided: May 16, 1949.

"This Court has gone far toward accepting the doctrine that civil liberty means the removal of all restraints from these crowds and that all local attempts to maintain order are impairments of the liberty of the citizen. The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact."

- Justice Robert H. Jackson, writing in dissent in TERMINIELLO v. CITY OF CHICAGO. 337 U.S. 1 (69 S.Ct. 894, 93 L.Ed. 1131) Argued: Feb. 1, 1949. Decided: May 16, 1949.

It's necessary to note that Justice Jackson had returned from Nuremberg in 1946, and heard Terminello, just two years home.

Justice Jackson could not have been more fallacious in his reasoning in Terminello. Yet, typical of Jackson when he was wrong, he was thoughtfully wrong.

Damon Terrell, a protester in Madison, Wisconsin, who one hopes will pursue a federal civil rights action is in no danger of ever encountering a Justice Jackson or a Justice Douglas in the United States federal court system.

And Mr. Terrell won't do terribly better in the Wisconsin legislature.

"Activists now speculate that the Capitol Police use of force in arrests may be a deliberate attempt to provoke a violent reaction for a public disturbed by the sight of mass arrests for peaceful protests," notes Blue Cheddar. Viewing the linked above video, one would think Walker's cops would have to hang a rope around Damon Terrell's neck and throw him from the first floor balcony of the capitol rotunda before Democratic aides and Representatives decided to have a look around and mutter a word of objection for violation of freedoms and basic human decency.