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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LAW JOURNAL. From Miles Ehrenkranz. September 1, 2004. UPDATED September 2, 2004, 5:45 P.M. E.D.T.: DC Superior Court stands accused of serious criminal acts, including tampering and falsification of official court transcripts, as well as obstruction of justice, based on research conducted by the Center for Judicial Accountability on behalf of its Chairperson, White Plains’ Elena Ruth Sassower currently serving a six-month sentence in the D.C. Jail for disruption of congress. Her appeal for release alleges a tampering of the transcript relating to her sentencing procedure.
Mr. Ehrenkranz reports Thursday afternoon that the Center has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for a tape of the court proceedings in which her sentencing was handed down. He also reports that he expects Ms. Sassower’s appeals may be heard in 30 days, meaning she will spend at least 90 days in the D.C. jail, because her papers were marked “expedite,” and not “urgent.” The difference, Mr. Ehrenkranza reports he was told by the court is that cases are considered in 3 days when papers are marked “urgent,” and rulings within 30 days for papers marked with any other nomenclature.
In light of the American Civil Liberties Union taking up the case of jailed protestors in New York City today on the grounds it inhibits free speech, it should be noted that the ACLU has made effort to support Ms. Sassower’s plight or freedom of speech:, she was jailed for asking a polite question in a congressional hearing.
Contrary to commentary to this site describing Ms. Sassower’s actions as disruptive, Ms. Sassower was jailed for daring to ask a question in a congressional hearing, according to her spokesperson:
On
Mr. Chairman, there’s citizen opposition to Judge Wesley based on his documented corruption as a
The question was respectfully asked after Ms. Sassower had waited patiently through two hours of speeches in favor of Mr. Bush’s judicial nominees and after the Chairman had gaveled down an adjournment without inquiring as to whether anyone else present wished to be heard. Within seconds, Ms. Sassower was forcibly removed from the Senate Chamber, handcuffed behind her back, arrested and incarcerated before being brought before a Magistrate and charged with “Disruption of Congress,” to which she pleaded “Not Guilty,” a plea maintained by her throughout.
The case went to trial before DC Superior Court Judge Brian F. Holeman, himself one of Mr. Bush’s recent nominees, at age 46, with no prior judicial or criminal trial experience. Totally disregarding the presentence reports and recommendations of the
Judge Holeman offered Ms. Sassower a long list of conditions to her release on probation, which were unconstitutional, illegal and immoral, conditions which the Judge knew she could not, and should not have had to accept, to save herself from jail. After being repeatedly pressed by the judge for a “Yes or NO” answer to his question as to whether she would accept the conditions, Ms. Sassower said “NO.”
At that, with no forewarning, findings or opportunity to be heard, the judge DOUBLED her jail sentence to the never before mentioned MAXIMUM of SIX MONTHS and directed her Incarceration to commence “forthwith.” He further denied her a stay pending appeal, customary in nonviolent, non-felony criminal cases. This, despite the
According to Miles Ehrenkranz, spokesman for the Center, “the conviction and sentence of Ms. Sassower are being appealed to the DC Court of Appeals as vindictive, discriminatory, and totally unprecedented in a First Amendment free speech case, on a record, rife with reversible factual and legal errors. Most glaringI was the judge’s refusal to recuse himself for bias and self-interest, which was demonstrated from the judge’s failure to throw the concocted case out at the beginning to the end of the sentencing proceeding.”
Audiotape Withheld by Court
For appeal purposes, the Center made a motion to obtain the audiotape of the sentencing, which was denied without explanation, by the Chief Judge of the DC Superior Court. Thereafter, the Center received, without explanation, an “Amended Transcript,” provided under the Court’s auspices, relating to the June 28 sentencing proceeding, which was the subject of an earlier Transcript already in the possession of the Center.
Just a few mistakes in the transcripts
The two transcripts showed profound differences. The “Amended Transcript” contained two additional pages omitted from the end of the original and material alteration of the final words on the last page of the original Transcript. Such was to make it appear that the two added pages were part of the original sentencing by changing the words “The proceedings were concluded” to reflect that the Court had gone into “a brief recess.”
The content of those two missing pages revealed what the original Transcript was intended to cover up: that the judge, at some unknown time after the press and public had departed from the Courtroom on seeing Ms. Sassower shackled and hauled off to be incarcerated, all without notice or opportunity to be heard, had wrongfully had Ms. Sassower returned from the jail to his courtroom at some unknown time, because as he stated on the record, he had “failed” to inform her of her appellate rights.
Denied routine stay
When Ms. Sassower at that point renewed her pre-sentence request for a stay pending appeal, Judge Holeman denied, admitting, however, that such denial was based on an impermissible reason, which was his general bias against granting any convicted criminal defendants stays pending their appeals and he was “not going to start now.” Upon the Judge’s direction that Ms. Sassower be once again removed by the
“Starkly revealed by the two transcripts are not only material factual discrepancies, omissions, and alterations, but biased, discriminatory, and otherwise unconstitutional judicial conduct committed by the DC Superior Court, which would not have been known, but for my request for the audiotape, since neither the prosecuting US attorneys nor the Judge let the fact of the secret post-sentence proceeding be known,” concluded Doris L. Sassower, Cofounder and Director of the Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc.
