Behind a Key Anti-Labor Case, a Web of Conservative Donors. (NY Times)

Supreme Court oral argument on February 26, 2018.  Worker rights to free democratic unions helped make America great.

The pretender in the White House may put "Make America Great Again" hats on working men and women, but he does not give a fig about American values -- he's a billionaire developer who's all about centralizing power and depriving workers of a voice in their workplaces.

As LBJ said to Congress after Selma, :"We SHALL overcome!"

Behind a Key Anti-Labor Case, a Web of Conservative Donors
By NOAM SCHEIBER and KENNETH P. VOGEL
FEB. 25, 2018
The New York Times

In the summer of 2016, government workers in Illinois received a mailing that offered them tips on how to leave their union. By paying a so-called fair-share fee instead of standard union dues, the mailing said, they would no longer be bound by union rules and could not be punished for refusing to strike.

“To put it simply,” the document concluded, “becoming a fair-share payer means you will have more freedom.”

The mailing, sent by a group called the Illinois Policy Institute, may have seemed like disinterested advice. In fact, it was one prong of a broader campaign against public-sector unions, backed by some of the biggest donors on the right. It is an effort that will reach its apex on Monday, when the Supreme Court hears a case that could cripple public-sector unions by allowing the workers they represent to avoid paying fees.

One of the institute’s largest donors is a foundation bankrolled by Richard Uihlein, an Illinois industrialist who has spent millions backing Republican candidates in recent years, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois.

Tax filings show that Mr. Uihlein has also been the chief financial backer in recent years of the Liberty Justice Center, which represents Mark Janus, the Illinois child support specialist who is the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case.

And Mr. Uihlein has donated well over $1 million over the years to groups like the Federalist Society that work to orient the judiciary in a more conservative direction. They have helped produce a Supreme Court that most experts expect to rule in Mr. Janus’s favor.

The case illustrates the cohesiveness with which conservative philanthropists have taken on unions in recent decades. “It’s a mistake to look at the Janus case and earlier litigation as isolated episodes,” said Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, a Columbia University political scientist who studies conservative groups. “It’s part of a multipronged, multitiered strategy.”

In doing so, these donors have not just brought labor to the brink of crisis but threatened the Democratic Party as well.

Amid changes in the campaign finance landscape and the decline of private-sector unions, the party and its candidates have increasingly relied on major public unions for funding, including hundreds of millions of dollars in direct and indirect spending during the 2016 presidential cycle. Those unions include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, whose Council 31 is the defendant in the Janus case.

A recent paper by Mr. Hertel-Fernandez and two colleagues may foretell what Democrats can expect if Mr. Uihlein and his fellow philanthropists succeed. It found that the Democratic share of the presidential vote dropped by an average of 3.5 percentage points after the passage of so-called right-to-work laws allowing employees to avoid paying union fees. That is larger than Democrats’ margin of defeat in several states that could have reversed their last three presidential losses.

And that is clearly on the mind of Republicans. In a recent interview, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, acknowledged the potential of the Janus case to hurt Democratic fund-raising for the coming midterm elections. “In states where they got rid of the automatic deduction and employees figured they could keep their own money, they did,” he said. “So it could have an impact.”

Conservative groups aren’t alone in locking arms to advance an ideological agenda. For decades, liberal donors and foundations, sometimes working together through coalitions like the Democracy Alliance, have promoted liberal goals in a variety of ways. Some backed groups, like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, that used litigation to move American society leftward.

But the extent of the coordination on the right often dwarfs liberal efforts. Especially on the state level, conservative groups are “doing different things, mobilizing different constituencies,” Mr. Hertel-Fernandez said. “But they’re all working with one another. You don’t see the same thing on the left.”

As the percentage of unionized private-sector workers has collapsed in recent decades, public-sector unions, which have held steady in the mid-30s since the early 1980s, have increasingly become a target.

Conservatives chafe at the unions’ political influence, which they believe not only props up the Democratic Party but also drives up government spending and skews public policy on issues like education.

In 2011, Wisconsin rolled back the right of most public unions to bargain over anything other than wages and eliminated the requirement that nonmembers pay fees. The portion of unionized public-sector workers in the state plummeted from half to just over one-quarter within five years.

In seeking to produce similar results nationally, conservative donors have created a symbiosis between groups aiming to overturn Supreme Court precedent favorable to unions and groups that take advantage of those rulings to drain unions of members.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Wisconsin, which had over $800 million in assets in 2016, has funded both kinds of organizations.

In a 2014 case brought by a group that had received more than $1 million in contributions from the Bradley Foundation, the Supreme Court ruled that home-care aides and other “partial-public employees” paid through Medicaid could not be forced to pay fair-share fees if they left their unions. Unions say these fees, typically about 80 percent of standard dues, are necessary to compensate them for representing nonmembers in bargaining and grievance proceedings.

Then in 2016, the court heard a case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, that could have struck down fair-share fee requirements for all public employees represented by unions in more than 20 states, including California, Illinois and New York. The case was brought by a group that has received millions of dollars from the Bradley Foundation.

During 2015 and 2016, the foundation also substantially increased its contributions, totaling well over $1 million, to groups like the Independence Institute of Colorado and the Freedom Foundation of Washington State. Those groups have used such tools as direct mail, phone calls and door knocking to persuade public-sector workers to give up union membership.

Richard Graber, the chief executive of the Bradley Foundation, said the foundation avoided short-term tactical considerations in its giving. But he acknowledged that the increase was driven partly by the recent Supreme Court developments, which promised to make such opt-out campaigns more compelling for union members. (Some conservative groups are currently raising money for even more ambitious opt-out campaigns to take advantage of a favorable ruling this year.)

Our columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and his Times colleagues help you make sense of major business and policy headlines — and the power-brokers who shape them.

In February 2016, the month after the Supreme Court heard the Friedrichs case, Justice Antonin Scalia died, depriving conservatives of a decisive fifth vote to strike down mandatory union fees. That gave the Liberty Justice Center, backed by Mr. Uihlein, a chance to try again.

Few philanthropists have funded a more sweeping assault on labor than Mr. Uihlein, who with his wife, Elizabeth, founded a Wisconsin-based shipping supply company called Uline.

Mr. Uihlein is an ardent conservative who considers many Republican office holders too moderate on fiscal and social issues, according to those who know him.

“It’s not just politics for him,” said his friend Leonard A. Leo, the Federalist Society executive vice president, who declined to offer specifics on Mr. Uihlein’s views. “I think he is philosophically attuned to conservative ideas,” added Mr. Leo, whom the Trump White House enlisted to shepherd the Supreme Court nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch, Justice Scalia’s successor.

The Uihleins have spent tens of millions of dollars over the past decade supporting Republican candidates and committees. That includes contributions to super PACs backing the 2016 presidential campaigns of Mr. Walker and Mr. Cruz, and at least $250,000 to help Mr. Walker survive a 2012 recall election. (Mr. Uihlein did not respond to a request for comment.)

The Uihleins appear to be preoccupied with state employee pensions and the unions that negotiate them.

“Bruce is the only one in the race who isn’t beholden to public-sector unions,” Mr. Uihlein said of Mr. Rauner, the year before his 2014 election as Illinois governor, in an interview with Crain’s Business Chicago. The Uihleins gave more than $2.5 million to his campaign.

Mr. Rauner has been a major ally in the fight against public-sector unions. Shortly after taking office in 2015, he challenged the constitutionality of mandatory union fees in federal court.

By the time a judge ruled that Mr. Rauner lacked standing for his lawsuit, the Illinois Policy Institute, which drew more than one-third of its $5.8 million in revenue that year from Mr. Uihlein’s foundation, had found a viable plaintiff to replace him: Mark Janus. The Liberty Justice Center and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which Mr. Uihlein also contributes to, represented Mr. Janus in court.

Since then, the policy institute has sought to persuade state employees to leave their union through its mailing campaign. It said it had obtained employees’ names through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Mr. Rauner’s administration has amplified the institute’s message, and vice versa. In an August 2016 email to state workers, the administration highlighted a benefit of giving up union membership and urged workers to visit a website that would help them do so. The policy institute soon promoted the same website and provided similar guidance in its mailings to state workers.

Mr. Uihlein’s foundation has supplemented these efforts by supporting a nonprofit called Think Freely Media, which uses storytelling techniques to champion free-market ideas, including right-to-work laws. The Uihlein foundation contributed more than $1.5 million to Think Freely from 2014 to 2016, the last year for which tax records are available.

At the center of this network is a longtime conservative activist named John Tillman, who serves as the chief executive of the Illinois Policy Institute as well as the chairman of the Liberty Justice Center and Think Freely Media.

In an interview, Mr. Tillman, who managed a call center earlier in his career and talked up his “marketing-centric approach” to promoting free enterprise, said the institute is fighting the enormous power of union leaders but is not anti-union per se.

“In the late 1800s, early 20th century, business owners had all the power, and workers had very little power,” he said. “Unions and collective bargaining emerged as a way to level the playing field. I think it was an amazing story of success.”

But in other contexts, Mr. Tillman has been less conciliatory.

In a fund-raising solicitation by the policy institute in December, Mr. Tillman claimed credit for helping more than 2,600 workers leave their union, resulting in a loss of $1.2 million in union revenue.

Continue reading the main story
“It’s time for Illinois to throw off the shackles of big labor and big government,” he wrote.

“When you and I look around Illinois and see the devastation the union-dominated status quo has inflicted,” he continued, “we simply have no choice.”


Jonathan Martin contributed reporting. Doris Burke contributed research.

Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities “Ride sharing is pulling from and not complementing public transportation”. (AP/Denver Post)

Our City of St. Augustine Mobility Program must address this. Is our City not equally enforcing "vehicles for hire" at the behest of Vice Mayor TODD DAVID NEVILLE (R-PROCTORVILLE), a/k/a "ODD TODD." He pushed for City to defer to pending legislation in Tallahassee.








Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities
“Ride sharing is pulling from and not complementing public transportation”
By STEVE LEBLANC | The Associated Press
February 25, 2018 at 10:53 am

BOSTON — One promise of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft was fewer cars clogging city streets. But studies suggest the opposite: that ride-hailing companies are pulling riders off buses, subways, bicycles and their own feet and putting them in cars instead.

And in what could be a new wrinkle, a service by Uber called Express Pool now is seen as directly competing with mass transit.

Uber and Lyft argue that in Boston, for instance, they complement public transit by connecting riders to hubs like Logan Airport and South Station. But they have not released their own specific data about rides, leaving studies up to outside researchers.

And the impact of all those cars is becoming clear, said Christo Wilson, a professor of computer science at Boston’s Northeastern University, who has looked at Uber’s practice of surge pricing during heavy volume.

“The emerging consensus is that ride-sharing (is) increasing congestion,” Wilson said.

One study included surveys of 944 ride-hailing users over four weeks in late 2017 in the Boston area. Nearly six in 10 said they would have used public transportation, walked, biked or skipped the trip if the ride-hailing apps weren’t available.

The report also found many riders aren’t using hailed rides to connect to a subway or bus line, but instead as a separate mode of transit, said Alison Felix, one of the report’s authors.

“Ride sharing is pulling from and not complementing public transportation,” she said.

That’s not quite what Uber founder Travis Kalanick suggested in 2015 when he said, “We envision a world where there’s no more traffic in Boston in five years.”


A study released in December found that large increases in the number of taxis and ride-sharing vehicles are contributing to slow traffic in Manhattan’s central business district. It recommended policies to prevent further increases in “the number of vacant vehicles occupied only by drivers waiting for their next trip request.”

In San Francisco, a study released in June found that on a typical weekday, ride-hailing drivers make more than 170,000 vehicle trips, about 12 times the number of taxi trips, and that the trips are concentrated in the densest and most congested parts of the city.

And a survey released in October of more than 4,000 adults in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and Washington, D.C., also concluded that 49 to 61 percent of ride-hailing trips would have not been made at all — or instead by walking, biking or public transit — if the option didn’t exist.

The Boston study found that the main reason people opted for ride-hailing was speed. Even those with a public transit pass would drop it for ride-hailing despite the higher cost.

Sarah Wu, a graduate student at Boston University, uses Uber less than once a week but more often if she has guests. She lives near a subway line but will opt for Uber if it looks like public transit will be a hassle.

“I would prefer to have the Uber take me there directly rather than having to transfer several times and wait at a bus stop,” said Wu, who doesn’t own a car.

A spokesman for Lyft stressed that ride-hailing could reduce the number of personally owned cars on the roads.

“Lyft is focused on making personal car ownership optional by getting more people to share a ride, helping to reduce car ownership, and partnering with public transportation,” spokesman Adrian Durbin said in a statement.

Uber is hoping to wean drivers from their cars in part by encouraging its carpooling services, spokeswoman Alix Anfang said.

“Uber’s long-term goal is to end the reliance on personal vehicles and allow a mix of public transportation and services like Uber,” Anfang said.

Uber’s new Express Pool links riders who want to travel to similar destinations. Riders walk a short distance to be picked up at a common location and are dropped off near their final destinations — essentially, how a bus or subway line functions.

The service was tested in November in San Francisco and Boston and has found enough ridership to support it 24 hours a day. Round-the-clock service was also rolled out last week in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, San Diego and Denver, with more cities to follow.

“This could be good for congestion if it causes vehicle occupancy rates to go up, but on the other hand, the Uber Pool rides and I guess these Express rides are really, really cheap, just a couple of dollars, so they’re almost certainly going to be pulling people away from public transport options,” Wilson said. “Why get on a bus with 50 people when you can get into a car and maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll be the only person in it?”

In a study released in October by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, as many as two-thirds of transit users reported also using ride-hailing companies.

A report released this month by San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit system found ridership down disproportionately on weekends and off-peak hours, in part citing ride-hailing trips.

The MBTA is focusing on what it can control: pumping money into new trains, buses and infrastructure improvements, spokesman Joe Pesaturo said.

At least one study did not pin increased congestion on hailing services. Seattle-based firm Inrix scoured data from 2012 to 2015 in London and found the number of passenger vehicles, including Uber cars, remained the same or even dipped slightly. Reasons for increased congestion included a surge in road construction and delivery trucks dropping off online purchases.

A blue wave? How Trump is helping Democrats win in unlikely places. (WaPo)

People are flocking to Democrats, partly due to Trumpery, and partly over local issues. Here in St. Johns County, our local Republican political machine is discredited by the local Republican political machine's knee-jerk "pro-business" support for dodgy developers and their disgusting, horrible, repugnant political boss, Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, whose ongoing coverup of the Michelle O'Connell homicide (2010-2018)  is animating local and state election campaigns.  Our all-white, all-male, all-Republican County Commissioners refuse to stand up to Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, who legally changed his name from "HOAR" in 1994.

I support Catherine Hawkinson Guevarra, Democrat, for County Commission, seat 4.

A blue wave? How Trump is helping Democrats win in unlikely places.

By Greg Sargent February 21 Email the author

 2:36

Will President Trump be a drag on Republicans running in 2018?

The Post's polling team analyzed Virginia's 2017 gubernatorial race to see if a "Trump effect" was at play. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

THE MORNING PLUM:

Last night, Democrats flipped a Kentucky state legislative seat from red to blue — deep in Trump country. It’s the 37th such seat that Democrats have flipped into their column since the start of 2017, and many of these special election victories are happening in places that they aren’t supposed to, which has deeply alarmed some Republicans.

Why are Democrats winning these races, and what does this tell us about the 2018 midterm elections? The answer to this question doesn’t fit neatly into the debates inside the Beltway and in the Twittersphere over what Democrats should and shouldn’t be doing. Indeed, these victories are in many ways unfolding outside those arguments. 

Linda Belcher, a former teacher and legislator, won a Kentucky state House seat last night by 68-32, in a district President Trump carried by 50 points. There were murky circumstances involving the suicide of the husband of her GOP opponent. But there is clearly a trend here: Of the 37 state legislative seats that Democrats have flipped since Trump took office, nearly 20 came in districts carried by Trump, some by very large margins, according to data collected by Daily Kos Elections.

I spoke to Jessica Post, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which helps boost Democratic candidates in state legislative races. She pointed to several factors driving these wins.

First, there really is a huge Trump effect. But it’s a mistake to reduce this simply to the widely discussed explosion in Democratic turnout we’ve been seeing. In many of these races, Post says, Trump has also produced a willingness of better-quality candidates to run who had previously refrained from doing so, as well as a big explosion in volunteer activity.

That volunteer activity is “a common factor in all of our special election wins,” Post told me. “Some of these people marched in the women’s march. They never volunteered before. Now they’re showing up at campaign offices.” Post adds that in one Minnesota special election, even though the temperature dropped to negative 15 degrees, “there were 25 people out door-knocking.”

Second, Trump is not figuring heavily into the campaigns these candidates have run. The Beltway and Twittersphere are consumed with debates over whether Democrats should or should not be speaking directly to anti-Trump anger, or whether their failure to more directly attack Trump’s tax plan is helping it (and Trump himself) edge up in popularity. But Post tells me that these candidates are mostly “campaigning on hyper-local issues.”

For instance, Post says, in Virginia, one Democrat campaigned on fixing local traffic problems. In Oklahoma, one stressed shortened school hours. And in southern Minnesota, one campaigned on expanding rural economic opportunities and improved access to hospitals. In rural and exurban districts, the quality of roads and schools is a big issue.

Third, independents are shifting toward Democrats. Post says that the Trump effect is complicated. In many of these races, it is deeply energizing the Democratic volunteer and voter base, while leading independents to generally want change, making them more receptive to what Democratic candidates are saying, which these candidates can capitalize on.

Democratic voters are “furious and want an outlet. So they’ll knock on the doors of other Democrats who are also furious. And then Democrats are turning out in huge numbers,” Post says. “Meanwhile, the candidate is talking to independents about local issues that really matter to their community, disconnected from Washington.” The result has been a “rebalancing,” in which districts that went heavily for Trump in 2016, washing out Dem local candidates, are now seeing quality Dem candidates reassert the Democratic brand.

This probably bodes well for Dems in the midterm elections, but with caveats. On the one hand, the Senate and House races will be more nationalized than these local elections have been, and it’s hard to predict the national political environment. On the other, most indications are that the energy among Democrats — the turnout and the volunteering — will sustain itself through 2018, especially since Trump shows no signs of curbing his vileness and depravity.

Beyond this, however, if Democrats can win a lot more of these state legislative races, that could matter immensely in coming years. Post tells me that Democrats are focused on flipping legislative chambers and are aiming at the state senates in Florida, Maine, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, and state houses in Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

This could increase Democrats’ influence over the next round of redistricting maps drawn for the House of Representatives, which will be crucial in determining control of the lower chamber in the next decade whether or not Democrats do take back the House this year. So every one of these little races matters.

Teaching Hard History: How Slavery is Taught in Our Schools (SLPC)

This report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SLPC) will help inform the deliberations of the City of St. Augustine's Confederate Monument Contextualization Committee:

Teaching Hard History

January 31, 2018

Maureen Costello

Teaching Tolerance Director

In this article

• Preface
• Introduction
• Executive Summary
• Part I: How Slavery is Taught Today
• Part II: Why We Must Change
• Part II: How We Investigated the Issue

Schools are not adequately teaching the history of American slavery, educators are not sufficiently prepared to teach it, textbooks do not have enough material about it, and – as a result – students lack a basic knowledge of the important role it played in shaping the United States and the impact it continues to have on race relations in America.

Download the report.

Teachers can access resources on teaching American slavery at: www.tolerance.org/hardhistory. The resources are offered to educators at no cost.

---

Preface

by Hasan Kwame Jeffries

In the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers enumerated the lofty goals of their radical experiment in democracy; racial justice, however, was not included in that list. Instead, they embedded protections for slavery and the transatlantic slave trade into the founding document, guaranteeing inequality for generations to come. To achieve the noble aims of the nation’s architects, we the people have to eliminate racial injustice in the present. But we cannot do that until we come to terms with racial injustice in our past, beginning with slavery.

It is often said that slavery was our country’s original sin, but it is much more than that. Slavery is our country’s origin. It was responsible for the growth of the American colonies, transforming them from far-flung, forgotten outposts of the British Empire to glimmering jewels in the crown of England. And slavery was a driving power behind the new nation’s territorial expansion and industrial maturation, making the United States a powerful force in the Americas and beyond.

Slavery was also our country’s Achilles' heel, responsible for its near undoing. When the southern states seceded, they did so expressly to preserve slavery. So wholly dependent were white Southerners on the institution that they took up arms against their own to keep African Americans in bondage. They simply could not allow a world in which they did not have absolute authority to control black labor—and to regulate black behavior.

The central role that slavery played in the development of the United States is beyond dispute. And yet, we the people do not like to talk about slavery, or even think about it, much less teach it or learn it. The implications of doing so unnerve us. If the cornerstone of the Confederacy was slavery, then what does that say about those who revere the people who took up arms to keep African Americans in chains? If James Madison, the principal architect of the Constitution, could hold people in bondage his entire life, refusing to free a single soul even upon his death, then what does that say about our nation’s founders? About our nation itself?

Slavery is hard history. It is hard to comprehend the inhumanity that defined it. It is hard to discuss the violence that sustained it. It is hard to teach the ideology of white supremacy that justified it. And it is hard to learn about those who abided it.

We the people have a deep-seated aversion to hard history because we are uncomfortable with the implications it raises about the past as well as the present.

We the people would much rather have the Disney version of history, in which villains are easily spotted, suffering never lasts long, heroes invariably prevail and life always gets better. We prefer to pick and choose what aspects of the past to hold on to, gladly jettisoning that which makes us uneasy. We enjoy thinking about Thomas Jefferson proclaiming, “All men are created equal.” But we are deeply troubled by the prospect of the enslaved woman Sally Hemings, who bore him six children, declaring, “Me too.”

Literary performer and educator Regie Gibson had the truth of it when he said, “Our problem as Americans is we actually hate history. What we love is nostalgia.”

But our antipathy for hard history is only partly responsible for this sentimental longing for a fictitious past. It is also propelled by political considerations. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, white Southerners looking to bolster white supremacy and justify Jim Crow reimagined the Confederacy as a defender of democracy and protector of white womanhood. To perpetuate this falsehood, they littered the country with monuments to the Lost Cause.

Our preference for nostalgia and for a history that never happened is not without consequence. We miseducate students because of it. Although we teach them that slavery happened, we fail to provide the detail or historical context they need to make sense of its origin, evolution, demise and legacy. And in some cases, we minimize slavery’s significance so much that we render its impact—on people and on the nation—inconsequential. As a result, students lack a basic knowledge and understanding of the institution, evidenced most glaringly by their widespread inability to identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.

This is profoundly troubling because American slavery is the key to understanding the complexity of our past. How can we fully comprehend the original intent of the Bill of Rights without acknowledging that its author, James Madison, enslaved other people? How can we understand that foundational document without understanding that its author was well versed not only in the writings of Greek philosophers and Enlightenment thinkers, but also in Virginia’s slave code? How can we ignore the influence of that code, that “bill of rights denied,” which withheld from African Americans the very same civil liberties Madison sought to safeguard for white people?

Our discomfort with hard history and our fondness for historical fiction also lead us to make bad public policy. We choose to ignore the fact that when slavery ended, white Southerners carried the mindsets of enslavers with them into the post-emancipation period, creating new exploitative labor arrangements such as sharecropping, new disenfranchisement mechanisms including literacy tests and new discriminatory social systems, namely Jim Crow. It took African Americans more than a century to eliminate these legal barriers to equality, but that has not been enough to erase race-based disparities in every aspect of American life, from education and employment to wealth and well-being. Public policies tend to treat this racial inequality as a product of poor personal decision-making, rather than acknowledging it as the result of racialized systems and structures that restrict choice and limit opportunity.

Understanding American slavery is vital to understanding racial inequality today. The formal and informal barriers to equal rights erected after emancipation, which defined the parameters of the color line for more than a century, were built on a foundation constructed during slavery. Our narrow understanding of the institution, however, prevents us from seeing this long legacy and leads policymakers to try to fix people instead of addressing the historically rooted causes of their problems.

The intractable nature of racial inequality is a part of the tragedy that is American slavery. But the saga of slavery is not exclusively a story of despair; hard history is not hopeless history. Finding the promise and possibility within this history requires us to consider the lives of the enslaved on their own terms. Trapped in an unimaginable hell, enslaved people forged unbreakable bonds with one another. Indeed, no one knew better the meaning and importance of family and community than the enslaved. They fought back too, in the field and in the house, pushing back against enslavers in ways that ranged from feigned ignorance to flight and armed rebellion. There is no greater hope to be found in American history than in African Americans’ resistance to slavery.

The Founding Fathers were visionaries, but their vision was limited. Slavery blinded them, preventing them from seeing black people as equals. We the people have the opportunity to broaden the founders’ vision, to make racial equality real. But we can no longer avoid the most troubling aspects of our past. We have to have the courage to teach hard history, beginning with slavery. And here’s how.

A graduate of Morehouse College and Duke University, Jeffries holds a Ph.D. in American history with a specialization in African-American history. He is an Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University and chair of the Teaching Hard History Advisory Board.

Drainage problems haunt Winton Circle (SAR)

1. This is a public nuisance.
2. County Attorney should be directed to file public nuisance lawsuit against developers and those responsible for poor draining. This is what happens when developers get their way, every day.
3. No provision in flawed impact fee proposal before County Commission to internalize the external costs of development like bad drainage?
4. We need a development moratorium.
5. We need a provision to make developers pay for ALL of their environmental impacts.
6. Our quality of life is being ruined by developers' greed.
7. Dirty water, constant flooding is a public health hazard.
8. Who was the developer? Who was its lawyer? Research, interviews, investigative reporting both desired and required.
9. Law Enforcement Assistance Administration report from circa 1978 found high correlation between high growth rate and corruption in planning and zoning.
10.In the 1990s, our County allowed an asphalt plant to be built on SR 207 near schools, homes, senior citizen housing. When I interviewed County zoning official for the Collective Press, she was arrogantly insouciant about the public health effects of asphalt on cancer mortality and suicide rates.
11. One County building inspector pled guilty to federal extortion charges in 2015 -- WILL RANDY ROGERS admitted shaking down businesses if they did not pay him money, threatening to file bogus code enforcement complaints.
12. Is the former inspector cooperating with an FBI investigation?Whatever happened to his case?
13. St. Augustine Record needs to go to the scene of development crimes and start investigating what the County Building Department does all day, every day.
St. Johns County Building Department
Address: 4040 Lewis Speedway, St. Augustine, FL 32084
Opens 7:30AM Mon
Phone: (904) 827-6800


Drainage problems haunt Winton Circle
By Sheldon Gardner
Posted Feb 24, 2018 at 2:01 AM
St. Augustine Record

For homeowners on Winton Circle, poor drainage and flooding have become a routine part of life, an issue they’ve been pleading with the county to change.

Bonnie Gurke says has dealt with the issue since she moved in more than 20 years ago.

These days when it rains heavily, as it has several times in the past couple of months, water creeps about halfway up her driveway and covers the grass near her mailbox — and can take a couple of weeks to go away, she said. When that happens, she won’t get the mail for fear of slipping in the grass and falling into filthy water.

The water is so deep at times ducks will freely take a dip.

“I call it my pond, Lake Gurke,” she said.

While Gurke’s property was free of standing water on Friday, a short drive down the road standing water was noticeable in ditches, stretching over parts of driveways and covering patches of land. Ducks waddled near those areas, and a turtle crept out and covered itself in water near the base of a driveway.

Residents have told county officials that drainage issues on the county-owned road are getting worse. Fresh pleas to St. Johns County for help arose in October after floodwaters from Hurricane Irma and a nor’easter had been lingering for weeks.

This week, several people returned to the County Commission, asking again for more to be done and providing anecdotes such as schoolchildren having to slog through dirty standing water. The county has been working with residents to come up with solutions, but nothing has been decided yet.

Commissioner Paul Waldron expressed concern for Winton Circle and the need for something to be done, and other commissioners agreed and cited health concerns.


“I’m with you, too,” Commissioner Jay Morris said. “You can’t have these kids walking home from the school bus in 2 feet of water — I mean we can’t put it off.”

With the abundance of drainage problems in the county, and a shortage of county funding, commissioners asked for more information at their next meeting on March 6.

“Winton Circle, I imagine there’s probably 10 of them 20 of them throughout the county,” Waldron said. “But ... we could get the ones that are ready to go that have been suffering the longest and try to get them moving forward.”

The county’s Public Works Department has been looking into projects in communities that have been hit by storm flooding, nor’easters and heavy rains, according to a document by County Engineer Jay Brawley. But funding is the barrier.

“In order for these projects to move forward into construction, funding needs to be identified. ... Funds may have to be utilized from Reserves or an alternative funding source may have to be determined,” according to Brawley.

The challenge on Winton Circle, built in the mid-1990s, has been on the county’s radar for years, Public Works Director Neal Shinkre said. He said previously that the water that comes in has nowhere to go because of the lack of drainage infrastructure, and that the development would not be allowed under current standards.

The county has done an initial investigation into ways to help the problem. One idea was to divert water to a nearby wetland, but that wouldn’t work because of the elevation of the wetland, he said.

Another alternative that’s still being considered is to send water to Florida Department of Transportation ditches along U.S. 1, he said. That would cost between 1.4 million and $1.7 million for design and construction, according to initial estimates, and more analysis and permitting would be needed to move forward, Shinkre said.

“They’ve been a very patient community, and I respect that,” Shinkre said.


Comment

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• Edward Adelbert Slavin
 
• Rank 0

1. This is a public nuisance.
2. County Attorney should be directed to file public nuisance lawsuit against developers and those responsible for poor draining. This is what happens when developers get their way, every day.
3. No provision in flawed impact fee proposal before County Commission to internalize the external costs of development like bad drainage?
4. We need a development moratorium.
5. We need a provision to make developers pay for ALL of their environmental impacts.
6. Our quality of life is being ruined by developers' greed.
7. Dirty water & constant flooding is a public health hazard.
8. Who was the developer? Who was its lawyer? Research, interviews, investigative reporting both desired and required.
9. Law Enforcement Assistance Administration report from circa 1978 found high correlation between high growth rate and corruption in planning and zoning.
10.In the 1990s, our County allowed an asphalt plant to be built on SR 207 near schools, homes, senior citizen housing. When I interviewed County zoning official for the Collective Press, she was arrogantly insouciant about the public health effects of asphalt on cancer mortality and suicide rates.
11. One County building inspector pled guilty to federal extortion charges in 2015 -- WILL RANDY ROGERS admitted shaking down businesses if they did not pay him money, threatening to file bogus code enforcement complaints.
12. Is the former inspector cooperating with an FBI investigation?Whatever happened to his case?
13. St. Augustine Record needs to go to the scene of development crimes and start investigating what the County Building Department does all day, every day.
St. Johns County Building Department
Address: 4040 Lewis Speedway, St. Augustine, FL 32084
Opens 7:30AM Mon
Phone: (904) 827-6800

Chief Judge Evicts Disgraced Circuit Judge Scott DuPont From Putnam and Volusia County Courthouses

I remember when SCOTT DuPONT euchred Tea Party support when he first ran for judge, speaking at a League of Women Voters program where St. Augustine Record Editor Peter Ellis and LWV leader Patricia Gill presided, at our St. Johns County Administration Building (Taj Mahal).

No one bothered to follow up on SCOTT DuPONT's illegal campaign promises to violate our state and federal constitution.

Until 2014, when it finally ran a fair forum for the St. Augustine Mayor's race, LWV fora resembled joint press conferences or kabuki dances.   Democracy is not a spectator sport, but LWV made it one, trashing citizen questions.  Editor Ellis asked questions about education (his wife was a teacher); he asked such questions even in County Commission races, although Florida County Commissioners have no suzerainty over education policy).

Fortunately, our Florida Supreme Court is probably about to order his removal from office, for making some of those same promises during his re-election campaign.  The Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC) recommendation is here.  Reading between the lines, DuPONT stole the 2016 election with unfair campaign attacks on lawyer Malcolm Anthony.

JQC found that Judge SCOTT DuPONT ignored warnings from Judge Howard O. McGillin, then his friend, about checking out information that he planned to circulate about Mr. Anthony and his family.

Such Russian troll-style campaign tactics must not be countenanced.  The next time someone runs for office promising to violate the Constitution, journalists need to warn us, journalists need to cross-examine them, and LWV needs to warn us.

Ask questions, demand answers, expect democracy.

Three cheers for the Chief Judge of our Seventh Judicial Circuit has ordered he vacate his office by February 26, 2018 (tomorrow).

Hopefully, local news media will photograph his vacating "his" office, which he disgraced his judicial office.

Tyrant, be gone.

Here's the GateHouse Florida article on the CJ's order, following the latest GateHouse coverage, a FlaglerLive story on the last JQC hearing.:


Chief Judge to embattled Flagler judge: clear out your offices



By Frank Fernandez
GateHouse Florida
Posted at 6:30 AM
Updated at 6:30 AM
St. Augustine Record

Circuit Judge Scott DuPont has been temporarily removed from the bench and ordered to clear out his offices by the chief judge of the 7th Circuit while the Florida Supreme Court considers whether to permanently strip DuPont of his judgeship.

DuPont, who until now presided over civil cases at the Kim C. Hammond Justice Center in Bunnell and at the Putnam County Courthouse in Palatka, has been temporarily assigned “to unspecified duties to be determined,” according to a letter dated Friday from 7th Circuit Chief Judge Raul Zambrano.

“After much thought and consideration to the present status of the proceedings now pending against you, I feel compelled to make a number of changes which, in my opinion, will minimize any impact on the administration of justice in the Seventh Judicial Circuit and help maintain public trust and confidence in the judiciary,” Zambrano wrote.

In the letter, Zambrano tells DuPont to clear any of his personal belongings from his offices by Monday so that substitute judges who will take over his cases can use the facilities. DuPont was also ordered to surrender his keys and remote control access to the parking facilities to his judicial assistant by Monday.

DuPont could not be reached for comment.

The Judicial Qualifications Commission on Feb. 16 recommended to the Florida Supreme Court that DuPont be removed from the bench after it found he violated several judicial canons, including showing a “reckless disregard for the truth” when he published false and misleading information about his campaign opponent in 2016 and his opponent’s family.

“Judge DuPont’s conduct ’was not simply the product of an isolated instance of indiscretion, a momentary lapse of judgment; or the exposure of human frailty from which we all suffer from time to time. The conduct here was repeated, intentional, direct action with a designed purpose which cast aspersions and doubt onto the heart of the judicial system and the elected judicial office sought by (DuPont),” the commission’s recommendation said.

DuPont also violated canons when he ordered a bailiff to search a man for money and when he held a first appearance in Putnam County without any attorneys in order to accommodate his campaign schedule.

DuPont also improperly stated at a judicial forum that he would not find any law unconstitutional.


The Florida Supreme Court is very likely to follow the commission’s recommendation based on recent history. DuPont would be the first judge removed from the 7th Circuit bench since Circuit Judge Gayle Graziano in 1997.

The Supreme Court has given DuPont until March 12 to respond to the commission’s recommendation that he be removed. The commission will then have until April 2 to respond to DuPont, who will then have until April 12 to respond to the commission.

DuPont was first elected to the bench in 2010 and defeated challenger Malcolm Anthony in 2016,

Court Communications Officer Ludmilla Lelis wrote on Friday that she had no other information, including what DuPont’s duties would be.

But Zambrano wrote in the letter to DuPont they would not be done at a courthouse.

“These duties will be performed away from any courthouse of the Seventh Judicial Circuit,” Zambrano wrote. “However, this does not preclude you in any way from entering any courthouse, as a private citizen, for personal purposes or business not related to the administration of justice. This assignment does not alter your status as a Circuit Judge.“

Flag

• Edward Adelbert Slavin
 
• Rank 0

Three cheers for Seventh Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Raul Zambrano, who ordered DuPONT to vacate his office tomorrow, pendente lite. Sadly, few people followed up on SCOTT DuPONT's blatantly illegal campaign promises to violate our state and federal constitutions when he twice ran for office. Read the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC) recommendation of removal: https://efactssc-public.flcourts.org/casedocuments/2016/2103/2016-2103_miscdoc_343708_findings202620recommendation.pdf 
Did DuPONT steal the 2016 election with unfair campaign attacks on Malcolm Anthony and his family? JQC found that DuPONT ignored repeated warnings from Judge Howard O. McGillin, his then-friend, about checking out information that he planned to circulate re: Mr. Anthony and his family  
Unethical campaign tactics must be exposed. The next time someone runs for office promising to violate the Constitution, journalists must vigorously cross-examine them, and LWV must warn us. No more sacred cows.  
Ask questions, demand answers, expect democracy. We don't know enough about judges when we vote. 
Hopefully, someone in local news media will photograph DuPONT vacating "his" office.  
The year after I finished my last class at Georgetown U, as Appalachian Observer Editor, I took a photo of the packed-up boxes in the office of Anderson County, Tenn. County School School Superintendent Paul Eugene Bostic, Sr. on June 30, 1982, after We, the People enacted a referendum that resulted in his retirement after thirteen years. It was worth Bostic chasing me down the Courthouse hallway to take that photo. We ran it on our front page. 
To DuPONT: Tyrant, be gone! Don't let the Courthouse door hit you in the butt. We don't need your kind around here. Corruption must be extirpated. Now.« less

https://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/scott-dupont-1.jpg
(Flagler Live)

From Flagler Live:

Charges or Sanctions Against Judge Scott DuPont Up to Commission as Hearing Ends

FLAGLERLIVE | DECEMBER 13, 2017 

Judge Scott DuPont, center, at a tea party elections forum in 2016 in Palm Coast. He faces a series of charges relating to his conduct on the campaign trail and in the courtroom in a case to be decided sometime in the next two months. (© FlaglerLive)

The final hearing in the case of alleged judicial misconduct regarding Circuit Judge Scott DuPont ended after two days in Jacksonville Tuesday.

The fate of DuPont, who sits in Flagler and Putnam counties, now rests with the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission, which will decide whether to file charges or sanctions against DuPont and what level of guilt or punishment to recommend to the Florida Supreme Court. That order is due in 30 to 60 days. Should the qualifications commission recommend sanctions or charges, it’ll be up to the Supreme Court a few months later to decide whether or how to discipline DuPont, who will also get to make his case before the justices.

The Judicial Qualifications Commission is the investigative arm of the state’s judicial system. It is prosecuting the case against DuPont, who is represented by attorney Liles Gavin of Jacksonville.  The two-day hearing featured a long list of witnesses for both sides, some of the witnesses called by both, including seven judges called by the qualifications commission and 12 called on DuPont’s behalf, almost all as character witnesses. Each side also called on its share of lawyers as witnesses, creating the unusual dynamic where the individuals who usually appear before judges or who sit as judges were instead in the witness box.

The hearing took place in Courtroom 603 at the Duval County Courthouse, with the six-member panel hearing the case, and chaired by Eugene Pettis, an attorney. The panel is made up of two judges (Steven DeLuca, a county judge in Broward, and Robert Morris, a judge on the Second District Court of Appeal in Lakeland), two attorneys (Pettis and Michele cummings) and two lay members (Harry Duncanson and Nancy Mahon).

The qualifications commission launched the case against DuPont a year ago with five findings that he may have acted recklessly and unethically during his 2016 re-election campaign, when he faced Malcolm Anthony. The commission alleged that DuPont had spread false, unsubstantiated and scandalous information about his opponent and failed to himself verify the information before it was posted electronically. The commission also alleged that he made statements inappropriate for a judge about the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of statutes.

Click On: Qualifications Commission Recommends Judge DuPont Removed The JQC's Full Decision The JQC DuPont Docket Charges or Sanctions Against Judge Scott DuPont Up to Commission as Hearing Ends Misconduct Charges Mount Against Flagler Judge Scott DuPont, Now Pointing To Courtroom Violations In Reversal Over Accusations of Unethical Conduct, Flagler Judge Scott DuPont Now Says: “I Was Wrong” Flagler Circuit Judge Scott DuPont Faces Charges of “Recklessly” Spreading Baseless Claims About Opponent DuPont and Holmes: Dogma vs. Nuance in 7th Judicial Circuit Race

The allegations were n not necessarily a surprise to people familiar with DuPont’s style and philosophy. He was an aggressive lawyer and is an aggressive judge, doctrinaire down to the strict way he manages his docket and the duration of hearings before him. But he also has a loyal following, and drew on that following to support him in his final hearing. Those he called on included Tom Bexley, the Flagler County Clerk of Court, and Tim Smith, the clerk of court in Putnam, Judge Dennis Craig (though Craig was identified as a mere attorney in the formal filing to the qualifications commission). DuPont also called on Jeffrey Hardy, a former Putnam County sheriff, among several law enforcement officers, Terence Perkins, the former chief judge of the Seventh Judicial Circuit (which includes Putnam, Flagler, Volusia and St. Johns), and Hugh Grimes, president of Bethune-Cookman University.

The accusations against DuPont were serious but not catastrophic in that they did not reach into the courtroom, and could have been ascribed to the missteps of a candidate playing a political role in a race for an office that is decidedly non-political, even though judicial candidates are formally trained in how to ethically conduct their campaign. DuPont had initially sought to downplay the allegations against him pertaining to the election season, but eventually owned up to them. “I have had time to reflect on my actions, and think about my behavior, and in doing so I fully understand I was wrong. I should have conducted my own independent research and analysis of what was on my web site to guarantee that it was accurate in all respects. In this regard I fell short,” he wrote in response to the charges against him.

But in mid-August, the qualifications commission filed an amended set of charges. Those were significantly more serious. Several addressed DuPont’s courtroom conduct directly. And one of the charges including a reference to two judges having cautioned him against publishing some of the allegedly scandalous material referred to in the original set of charges. The judges were not named in the complaint, but were later revealed to be Judge Matthew Foxman, who sat as Flagler County’s felony judge for a year, and Judge Howard McGillin, who sits on family court in St. Augustine.

DuPont in one of his pre-hearing motions tried to have the testimonies of Foxman and McGillin quashed. He failed. He succeeded in removing one charge—a vague charge that he had in his 2010 campaign “engaged in a personal attack against your opponent and published misleading campaign material.” His opponent at the time was Don Holmes.

DuPont also sought to have two additional charges addressing his conduct as a judge dismissed: in one case the charge alleges that in a domestic violence case, he’d ordered one of the parties—the party notresponsible for the violence—to undergo a psychological evaluation and even though the party was indigent, found her in contempt and humiliated her in court, ordering her jailed. The Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed his decision. In a family law case, when a party declared indigence, DuPont ordered a bailiff to search the party for any money or anything of value, then and there, and to seize it. DuPont claimed the cases were immaterial, not relevant and too far removed from “to bear upon the current charges” and his fitness to serve. But the qualifications commission disagreed. The charges are still part of the case to be decided.

The attorney prosecuting the case for the commission is Henry Coxe III of Jacksonville, with Michael Schneider of the Judicial Qualifications Commission. Meanwhile, DuPont continues to preside in family court in Putnam and Flagler.

11 Responses for
“Charges or Sanctions Against Judge Scott DuPont Up to Commission as Hearing Ends”
Anonymous says:
December 13, 2017 at 7:18 pm
Well, looking at Dupont’s list of witnesses I would say there is belief that he should be charged and removed from the bench. No one on that lists strikes me as being anything more than, well we won’t go there. Dupont did wrong, and should not receive leniency since he is a Judge! He should be held to higher standards. I am surprised that Gail Wadworth did make the list…..birds of a feather flock together. She was the Clerk of Court who was audited by the Auditor General several years back and then a follow up audit was never conducted after 10 findings were revealed. I am also surprised to not see Jason Lewis from the State Attorney Office on his list since they hold hands and dine together. Like I said, birds of a feather flock together. There is no excuse for his lack of professionalism and those that defended him should be ashamed. His character is reflected in his actions, there is no need for a witness, he is his own witness.

a tiny manatee says:
December 14, 2017 at 7:33 am
He should be held to higher standards, but then so should prosecutors and police. Which doesn’t happen within the legal system. So don’t get your hopes up, like protects like.

Marty Barrett says:
December 14, 2017 at 7:40 am
He has been an avatar of ignorance and arrogance since day one on the bench and should be removed.

Anonymous says:
December 14, 2017 at 8:27 am
Mr. Clean came clean.

Anonymous says:
December 14, 2017 at 12:18 pm
We can not have confidence in our legal system with people like this on the bench–he must go. There are no exceptions or excuses for Judge’s.

Jailbirds says:
December 15, 2017 at 3:23 am
On December 1st 2017 my wife and I were scheduled for a 4pm hearing presided over by hopefully soon to be ex Judge Scott DuPont. It was a minor case where we were required to produce documentation regarding our assets the entire case involved a judgement of less than $5,000. When we arrived at the courthouse at 3:55 we were told that there were no more cases that day. We rechecked our paperwork to verify the time and date. We proceeded to go to the 3rd floor in an attempt to locate Judge Dupont’s courtroom. We were told to go to room 302. The door was locked. Finally at about 3:05 we found the correct room(301). We hurried into the courtroom. As I attempted to explain what had happened, the judge ordered my wife and I handcuffed and charged us with contempt of court. My wife, who has never even had a parking ticket in her life was so shocked and distraught that she fainted and needed to be evaluated by emt’s. I must also commend the deputies in the courtroom. They seemed as shocked as everyone else as to what was happening and they treated my wife with the utmost courtesy and respect. We attempted to explain that we had all of the documentation that was requested but he ordered us taken to jail anyway. Upon first appearance the following morning, the presiding judge was visibly upset when she heard the details and had us released immediately. It was clearly one of the scariest and most humiliating events in our lives. When you google our names the first thing that comes up is still our mug shots. Judge DuPont clearly does not posses the temperament or the patience to be a fair and impartial judge. When we saw all of the other similar cases in this publication it just reinforced our opinion. My question now is why is he hearing cases in the middle of this investigation. Any one who is unlucky enough to face him in court should demand another judge. You can have your lawyer file a motion for the judge to recuse himself from your case. If you don’t have a lawyer you can do it yourself. The clerk of courts will help with the paperwork. If enough people do this maybe the judicial review board will get the hint and get him off the bench. He should be removed immediately until a decision is made in regard to his future. Nothing short of removing him from the bench permanently would be an adequate punishment

Anonymous says:
December 15, 2017 at 3:06 pm
I am so sorry to hear of your experience. I can’t imagine going through what you and your wife had to endure. This is evidence of an arrogant Judge. It is evident this man has a thinking problem or he wouldn’t be faced with the challenges he faces. I agree, he needs to be removed from the bench and there are no second chances for judges when they made the flaws he has. He has impaired judgement and I can’t believe Judge Craig went and testified on his behalf. That tells me Judge Craig accepts and condones the behaviors of Dupont. I also agree with you that he should have been suspended while this investigation was completed. Florida is known as one of the most corrupt states in the nation and there is a reason why.


Anonymous says:
December 15, 2017 at 5:27 pm
Stuff like this only happens in Flagler County (In the 7th Judicial Circuit). It is no surprise with all the movement around with Judges and Stens whining of how over worked she is when the same cases drag on for months and years. Do your jobs, get the cases closed and move on and you won’t need to run in circles. Some of these judges are just too big for their pants. They too will have judgment day one day.


Christopher Wickersham, Jr. says:
December 16, 2017 at 9:31 pm
Jailbirds, who posted at 3:23 on December 15th: What you went through is egregious and should never have happened to you.
My clients and co-counsel in the Golf Group of Palm Coast v. City of Palm Coast lawsuits that were covered previously on this site, were the complainants that led to the additional JQC charges against DuPont. He did the same thing to us. There was an accident on I-95 and we were running a few minutes late, so we called and emailed in advance letting him know. He responded back that he would wait. Instead he proceeded anyway in our absence, held the hearing ex parte, and ruled substantively against us. We had to expend significant time and hassle disqualifying him and having the successor judge vacate his improper orders.
I am appalled at what happened to you, because he’s in the middle of a JQC disciplinary proceeding for this exact type of behavior and he’s obviously still doing it to other people. Clearly there has been no lesson learned.
Give me a call at (904) 389-6202, or email me at chris@chriswickersham.com, I will gladly assist you at no charge with the paperwork and reaching out to the JQC’s counsel to get some redress for what happened to you, so that hopefully it will not happen to anyone else.


Roger Niehaus says:
January 25, 2018 at 8:27 pm
OMG Stories just keep coming about this Insane ASS he just won’t quit. Hope they not only remove him from the Bench take his license to practice but put him in Prison as thats where he belongs with all the peoples lives this ASS has ruined. He can’t be human. He continues his same old same old nobody going to touch me attitude and belligerent refusal to follow any law state or federal or its procedures as proven in my case he is an out of control ignorant excuse of a ,sorry no word describes what a low life he is hope he gets his sooner not later. One Sick Piece of work. God will handle him I have no doubt there. Hope our State does the same.

Anonomous says:
February 13, 2018 at 4:46 pm
I have a couple of cases in front of Judge DuPont. In one case he held an attorney fee sanction hearing where the expert on behalf of the other side was a lawyer that helped him adopt. I objected but was, “overruled” and the hearing went forward much to my detriment.