Center for Public Integrity Seeking Emails Between Florida Judges

see http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/10/07/15887/sunshine-state-uses-fees-prevent-sun-shining-judicial-records

This is why I think that the bell ringers of each state should collaborate and not just compete. Tom Ice is one of those bell ringer lawyers who is constantly looking for new ways, out of the box, that will produce the truth about the due process allegedly afforded borrowers in the court. All of us who have been to court know the same thing: that the due process is an illusion on the rocket dockets with senior retired Judges whose payroll is funded by the banks.

Going into any courtroom anywhere in the state and you hear the same phrases used by the sitting Judge. It is as though they were all getting scripts from the same source. In fact any experienced lawyer would tell you that where the wording is the same amongst a number of different people on the same subject, that alone is evidence of a common source, whether disclosed or not.

So Tom Ice is working with the Center for Public Integrity to get the emails between the Judges — and any other public information  guaranteed under the Sunshine Law. Except that they are encountering considerable resistance that only adds to the suspicion that foreclosure cases are decided long before any evidence is heard. Government agencies who have the information are keeping the emails and other records where the sun doesn’t shine.

I would suggest that Tom Ice be given any help that he needs or asks for and that the chief bell ringers of the state (you know who you are) contact Tom and offer support, which I am doing right here on this post. My feeling is that there is an action lurking here that could be brought in Federal Court against the state of Florida for systematically depriving homeowners of due process and treating them differently than other debtors. I think the action could be broadened to state that the banks are favored from the first instant not because of experience but because the Judges are under pressure to clear the cases off the calendar and because they have been told the way to do that is to enter rulings and judgments against borrowers.

Judges could just as easily have been told to require that the foreclosing party have everything lined up before they set foot in court. Plenty of local rules have done that with certain types of cases. Had they done so, experience shows, the foreclosure “backlog” would have vanished because the foreclosing parties cannot prove ownership, balance or default — unless they treated as though they were holders in due course without ever having alleged that and without ever having to prove that they purchased for value in good faith and without knowledge of borrower’s defenses. If those elements are not ALL there, then the foreclosing party probably has unclean hands by definition — which accounts for why they filed cases and then sat on them while the statute of limitations appeared to run out on TILA claims and deceptive loan practices. The judicial system, instead of dismissing for lack of prosecution allowed these cases to fester until at least some of the borrower’s claims could be considered arguably barred by the statute of limitations.

And it is all because the banks “own the place.” It is bank money fueling the judicial system and it is bank owned politicians who are either not enforcing the laws or making up new laws that are clearly prejudicial to the interests of borrowers. If they really owned the debt, note and mortgage they wouldn’t need to wait. If they really don’t own the debt, note and mortgage then they shouldn’t be allowed to force a family out of their home on the supposition that someone somewhere is owed the money and must have suffered a default because the borrower stopped paying and that someone must have an interest in the note and mortgage that can be enforced. Since we don’t have any evidence we will just presume all that to be true.

This is clearly a case of the old West where they decide whose guilty, and then have a mock trial before they hang him — something they do simply because it takes time to build the scaffold for the hanging. Everybody feels good about “justice,” even though justice was never served. Here is my challenge: make the banks prove ownership,balance and default not with hearsay documents that ABOUT the underlying transactions but with actual evidence that the underlying transactions truly exist. If they had it, they would have produced it.

When you ask for it they say we are not entitled to it. Why not? Remember that presumptions at trial are irrelevant in discovery, where the borrower is absolutely entitled to ask questions about the underlying transactions and demand that the transaction documents be produced so the borrower can rebut the presumptions that would be used at trial. Failure to allow discovery on these issues closes off any hope for most borrowers to get the information from the only source that has it. It is circular reasoning to think that the presumption at trial is a bar to interrogatories or a Request to Produce before trial.

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