This is What Happens When States Become People

May 8th, 2015

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Susanne.Posel-Headline.News.Official- washington.supreme.court.state.jury.trial.citizens.united.hobby.lobby.religious.freedom_occupycorporatism Susanne Posel ,Chief Editor Occupy Corporatism | The US Independent
May 7, 2015

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson issued a press release in favor of a decision by the Washington Supreme Court (WSC) that gives states the right to a jury trial – a constitutional right previously only afforded to human citizens of the US.

Ferguson said: “This is a great victory for the state and for the jury trial system,” said Ferguson. “When the state is sued, my office works vigorously to protect taxpayer dollars. This ruling helps ensure that we are able to do that. I am pleased that all nine justices of the Supreme Court agreed with our argument that the legislature intended to extend this right to the state. This decision will have a positive impact well beyond the case decided today.”

In the case Maziar v. Department of Corrections , Scott Maziar, a corrections employee, “was injured on a ferry ride to the McNeil Island Corrections Center” and sued the Department of Corrections.

While Maziar at first requested a jury trial, this was subsequently rescinded and taken up by the state of Washington as a matter of fairness.

In effect, Washington State argued that the state has a right to request a jury trial; however there is not current statute reflecting this assumption.

In appellate court, Ferguson’s office was successful in obtaining this once exclusively human right for the non-human state.

The appellate court ruled: “This case requires us to determine whether the State has a jury trial right in tort actions. We hold that it does. Several statutes read together demonstrate that the legislature meant to treat the State as if it were a private party with regard to matters of civil procedure and confer on any party (including the State) the right to have a jury determine most matters of fact. Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals and remand for a jury trial.”

This ruling is curious because the Washington State constitution Article I reads that the State “does not have a constitutional jury trial right because the constitution ‘is a source of individual protection’ that grants individuals, not the State, a jury trial.”

Based on a technicality, the appellate court said the “legislature could not have intended to grant the State a statutory jury trial right when it passed two territorial statutes dealing with jury trials because when those statutes were enacted, ‘there was no State of Washington’.”

Further muddying the rights of jury trial is that reasoning of the appellate court that because “government were immune from civil suits at the time the statues were enacted” the right of jury trial for the State is now “granted” for discretionary purposes in this civil matter.

There has been a movement in recent years to humanize non-sentient entities such as governments and corporations; giving them rights once reserved only for the flesh and blood citizens of the US.

In 2010, thanks to the US Supreme Court (USSC) Citizens United has given corporations the privilege to have corporate personhood and enjoy had the luxury of free speech; primarily through monetary donations to political causes.

The devastating effects of this ruling was chronicled in the 2015 report by GetMoneyOut presented at the New York University (NYU) Brennan Center for Justice (BCJ) symposium.

The BCJ said that Citizen’s United was an example of “giving the wealthy more power to influence elections than at any time since Watergate and opening the floodgates for dark money.”

Key points made in the report include:

Spending is out of control. Senate candidates had to raise an average of $3,300 every day of their six-year terms. House candidates had to raise $1,800 every day of their two-year cycle.
“Undisclosed” millionaires can swing elections. In fact, 60% of super PAC money spent on all federal elections since 2010 – $600,000 of $1 billion – came from just 195 individuals and their spouses.
Independent candidates are funded by corporations. 45% of all super PAC funds spent in the 2014 election cycle came from groups dedicated to a single candidate or party, and over one-third of total outside spending came from just eight party-aligned groups.
Judges can be purchased as well. 87% of state justices must stand for election in their career, making them beholden not only to the law, but to their donors.
Special interest groups and the American public want very different things. Wall Street and financial institutions spent more than twice as much in the 2014 congressional election than they did 10 years ago in a combined congressional and presidential election.
Big donations mean more power for rich whites.
Outside spending keeps qualified — but unconnected — candidates out of office.

And most recently the USSC decision on Hobby Lobby “corporations have freedom of religion as well, and whether on the basis of those rights, corporations can deprive services to others.”

Justice Anthony Alito asserted that corporate personhood exists to protect “the free-exercise right of corporations … [and] protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies.”

This opens the door for corporations to hide behind their religious affiliations by demanding constitutional protections while simultaneously discriminating against the religious adherence of their employees.

Since for-profit corporations (and by association non-profit corporations) are considered a “person” able to exercise their religious rights, it would become a shield of protection for any corporation to claim their religious affiliations and beliefs are being discriminated against any time it is advantageous to their corporate culture and monetary agenda.