Preface
Background information covers events during the past five years. I started to interview and write profiles about Council House tenants during 1999. Their diversity indicated an interesting project covering personal backgrounds and experience among the approximately 150 tenants. This ranged from life in Adolph Hitler’s concentration camps to construction work under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Individual case studies resulted from research and investigation using government and other documents, resident interviews, and personal observations. What portended a pleasant project interviewing people from age 62 through 102 to listen to their stories became a nightmare when administrators and directors heard about it. They harassed me to try to silence me. [Background Information]
Council House used thugs to start a vicious campaign of character assassination and vilification. They suborned testimony, verbally and physically assaulted me, filed false criminal and civil complaints with both state and federal agencies, and have issued death threats. Then, they locked me out of my apartment and sent me to jail with solitary confinement using perjured testimony. [Metamorphosis]
Directors evicted and jailed me on trumped-up charges for publishing the abstracts republished in this section and for reporting the abuse and incarceration of several other tenants for speaking their mind - all constitutionally protected speech. Several tenants suffered egregious consequences that I will continue to chronicle in the linked essays. [Elder Abuse - Criminal]
I continue to write although still homeless after more than three years. My personal possessions, documents, and academic library, remain in storage. I am restrained from interviewing thousands of people or visiting a large area of Seattle due to unlawful court orders issued by Judge James A. Doerty, Washington Superior Court.
Council House, a federal financially-assisted facility for independent living does not classify as an adult family home, boarding home, or nursing home and must not rent apartments to vulnerable adults. However, administrators have granted leases to people in that category for personal and corporate gain then abused several of them. This resulted in alleged homicide by abuse and the appointment of other vulnerable adults as Kapos (thugs). [Homicide by Abuse] [Five Kapos] [Vulnerable Adults]
During my interviews with tenants, I discovered untold abuse caused by administrators and condoned by directors. My reports result from investigations into mistreatment of elders over a five-year period. Administrators and directors actively support or condone domestic elder abuse - neglect and exploitation of persons over 60. Many victims remain unable or unwilling to seek assistance for themselves in fear of retaliation. [Elder Abuse - Preface]
Washington Supreme Court tried to remedy the travesty of justice by Superior Court and refusal by Court of Appeals to hear the case. It unanimously remanded the case to Court of Appeals. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, Court of Appeals (Mary Kay Becker, Marlin J. Appelwick, and Ann Schindler) affirmed Superior Court decisions now subject to another petition for Supreme Court review. [Supreme Court Petition]
The trial and appellate court decisions provoked worldwide outrage among journalists and raised significant questions about state constitutional law in relation to First Amendment rights to free speech. Arguments challenge the improper use of antiharassment orders for prior restraint..
Arguments filed with Washington Supreme Court (24 Aug 04) show why that court should accept a Petition for Review. Lawyers argued that a Court of Appeals (CoA) affirmation conflicted with established precedent and raised significant constitutional questions about antiharassment orders based on constitutionally-protected publications. State laws specifically exempt constitutionally protected activity as a basis for antiharassment orders. Pleadings also address repeated denial of the right to counsel
Lawyers argue that CoA affirmation conflicted with essential elements of harassment law, violated due process, and that the trial court had no jurisdiction to issue an antiharassment order for the benefit of nonparties to an action. Moreover, that the collateral bar rule does not apply to findings of contempt based upon unconstitutional prior restraint. Contempt findings caused an egregious violation of due process and the right to counsel when the trial court failed to appoint an attorney before jailing the journalist. [Supreme Court Petition]
CoA ignored the fact that trial court effectively evicted appellant then found him in contempt and jailed him for almost four months for violating unconstitutional content-based restrictions on speech published on his web site. It impermissibly relied on constitutionally-protected publications to find harassment.
CoA should have vacated the antiharassment orders, whether it affirmed findings of contempt or not, and contempt orders that related to other than the respondent. It should also have dismissed a petition which failed to establish elements necessary to prove harassment. Trial court only had jurisdiction to issue orders that benefitted the respondent not myriad anonymous people.
Higher courts with a modicum of ethics will know how to sort the sheep from the goats then reverse the previous decisions. Unfortunately, that will not bring back the people who have died or rehabilitate the elderly people whom Council House managers and their thugs have abused. [Elder Abuse - Preface]
The questions remain:
- Should trial courts allow the antiharassment statutes to be misused as a prior restraint to abridge a citizen’s constitutional right to free speech?
- Should trial courts allow the antiharassment statutes to be used in a retaliatory manner to circumvent other laws such as actions for defamation or the landlord/tenant statutes?
- Should trial courts interfere with the right of pro se litigants to representation by counsel?
[Washington Supreme Court - Petition for Review - PDF]
Disconnected Abstracts, published as pamphlets, later appeared on the Internet as four web pages. Council House directors (names deleted to comply with a court order) could find nothing false or defamatory about the content of the articles. Instead of using appropriate law to complain about content they filed harassment complaints which resulted in the unlawful eviction, and incarceration in solitary confinement, of the publisher.
Council House employed Draconian measures to cover up elder abuse by trying to stop the lawful distribution of 150 copies of four newsletters with supporting essays to Council House tenants. Unrelenting harassment by directors and managers, and the political machination of four judges, have incurred thousands of dollars in legal costs and created an international situation that ACLU and IFJ (representing 500,000 journalists) have challenged.
The ultimate irony lies in increased circulation. Council House tried to suppress distribution of about 1000 printed copies of newsletters and essays within a closed society over a sixteen-month period. Now, the same information receives more than 105,000 web hits some months.
Read the abstracts and the linked essays to decide for yourself whether you consider the publication of this constitutionally protected speech deserved the cruel and unusual punishment meted to the writer and other tenants who spoke out about elder abuse. By republishing these abstracts, Contra Cabal continues to raise public awareness about elder abuse, misappropriation of government funds, and judicial misconduct. [Cruel and Unusual Punishment]
Nmesis.
