Judges for sale

From WorldNetDaily...

A Wisconsin attorney is challenging a state Supreme Court decision that he should pay a $90,000 penalty because the deciding vote was cast by a justice who accepted money from the attorney's opponents.

The case that sparked attorney James Donohoo's dispute with the high court was brought against a "gay' activist group called Action Wisconsin, which later called itself Fair Wisconsin. That group had described visiting pastor Grant Storms, who appeared at a conference on homofascism, as having advocated the murders of homosexuals.

Donohoo, on Storms' behalf, brought a defamation action, which a trial court judge, Patricia McMahon, dismissed as frivolous. An appeals level panel reversed the decision, concluding that the jury should have been given the dispute to resolve.

The state Supreme Court, however, stepped in and with the vote of Justice Louis B. Butler Jr., who had accepted campaign contributions from those opposing Donohoo, reinstated the order for him to pay about $90,000 in legal fees incurred because of the case.

What did Grant storms say? Here's a quote from one of the court rulings...

There's an uncanny unity in solidarity amongst the homosexuals. . . . They're solidified. They're single minded. Don't underestimate them....

They are a scornful people. They hate us. They have contempt for us. . . . We need to understand that. Don't think you're going to tiptoe out there and say hey, repent. They will want to kill you....

They are a stubborn people and they don't care. They want to trample us. . . . Here it is. It's us or them. There's no in between. There's no having this peaceful co-existence. They have to eliminate us and the Word of God if they want to succeed. It's almost like communism and capitalism. It's going to be one or the other. You can't have both. You can't peacefully co-exist....

Either we're going to succeed or they're going to succeed. Whether it's going to be a homosexual, anti-God nation, or it's going to be a nation that stands for God and says that that thing is sin. It can't be both. Won't be both. Something's going to happen. Either they'll crush us and have laws and silence us and kill the ones that won't be silenced or imprison the ones that won't be silent, or the church or the Lord Jesus Christ will rise up and say this is a Christian nation. This is the way it will remain. Go back in the closet....

There is a Philistine Army out there, it's called the homosexual movement. Whether you can see it or not, understand it or not, they want to eliminate us. This is no time to be under a pomegranate tree. . . . They [the Israelites] were a bunch of Tiny Tims tiptoeing through the tulips. And that is the church today unfortunately. When we're supposed to be out to battle, when we're supposed to be battling the enemy, we're under some stinking pomegranate tree shaking in our boots. That's where the church is. The church is hiding. The Christians are hiding....

You know I'm sick of appealing all this stuff. Why do good people have to go to these stinking wicked judges and beg them to please do the right thing. No forget the appeals. Forget the petition. We've been petitioning for 20 years. Signing petitions for 20 years, making phone calls for 20 years. We've been begging bad legislators and bad judges to try to do the good thing. Enough is enough. My friend. Just start taking it to the streets....

Wheeew! Come on. Let's go. God has delivered them all into our hands. Hallelujah! Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. There's twenty. Whew. Ca-Ching. Yes. Glory. Glory to God. Let's go through the drive-thru at McDonald's and come back and get the rest.

I omitted the editorializing by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, something the Court of Appeals didn't do. Also of interest is how the two courts summarized the case.

From the Appellate decision...

¶2 In October 2003, Grant E. Storms, a pastor of a church in Louisiana, and a well-known activist crusading against the homosexual agenda spoke at a conference held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His speech was about fighting the homosexual movement/agenda. In December 2003, Storms became aware of a press release issued by Action Wisconsin and Christopher Ott, which was posted on the Internet. The press release alleged that during the October 2003 speech, Storms made sounds like gunfire “as if he were shooting gay people,” and “apparently advocated the murder” of gay people. Storms also found a handbill affixed to telephone poles in his home city of New Orleans which contained his picture and was captioned, “Why does Pastor Grant E. Storms of Christian Conservatives for Reform advocate the murder of gays?” and at the bottom referred the readers to Action Wisconsin’s web site.

From the WSC decision...

¶8 Storms is the pastor of a church in Louisiana. He hosts a talk show on a New Orleans radio station, and he has appeared on radio shows hosted by others in Louisiana, on a nationally broadcast radio show, and on Internet radio shows. Storms considers himself a Christian activist, and he has engaged in protest activities "against the homosexual agenda."

¶9 In October 2003, Wisconsin Christians United hosted a conference in Milwaukee titled "International Conference on Homo-Fascism." Storms was invited to speak at the conference. During his speech, Storms described his efforts to curb the "homosexual movement," and admonished his audience to take an active role in such an effort.

¶10 During the speech Storms drew an analogy between the homosexual movement and the Philistine army in the story of Jonathan and his armor bearer. Storms described Jonathan, an Israelite, leaving his army's encampment without permission from Saul, the leader of the Israelites, and confronting the Philistines with his armor bearer.

...from there they quote snippets from the speech, intermixed with "interpretation" and very biased editorializing. This they claim is all undisputed, yet their editorializing twists the context of the snippets into a meaning not derived from the speech itself, which is the heart of the dispute.

In the WSC decision the handbills are not mentioned until paragraph 94, in the Appellate decision they are mentioned in paragraph 2. The handbills would be crucial to establishing Action Wisconsin's animosity and malice toward Storm.

But the fact remains that one of the WSC justices took campaign contributions from one of the litigants, and while not a requirement by law, it has always been understood that in such a case, the justice recuse himself. But then, that would negate the real purpose of the bribe er...campaign contribution, wouldn't it.

Posted by Danny Carlton at July 2, 2008 8:32 AM