UN Human Rights Council Poised to Address Prospect of Judicial Impunity in America

ATLANTA - Oct. 12, 2018 - PRLog -- This week, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) confirmed its willingness to entertain the prospect of America having a de facto policy of judicial impunity for persistent U.S. legal system abuse facilitated by unchecked judicial misconduct.  The allegations were presented by Dr. Zena Crenshaw-Logal, co-administrator of Opt IN USA, a grassroots campaign for U.S. foreign policy reform, judicial accountability, and human rights.  Opt IN USA is an initiative of National Judicial Conduct and Disability Law Project, Inc. (NJCDLP), a non-profit U.S. legal system reform advocate largely focused on appropriate judicial accountability in America.

An online description of Opt IN USA states its "most fundamental objective is to persuade appropriate U.S. officials to empower American citizens to enforce America's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as well as its Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT)."  According to the linked campaign information, "(t)hrough its 2016 to 2018 reports, Opt IN USA submits that the inability of (Americans to seek enforcement of these treaties through U.S. courts and/or UN treaty-based bodies) leaves a substantial, widely-diverse community of U.S. residents without meaningful recourse when America's legal system is literally weaponized against them. The offense, which Opt IN USA contends is objectively discernible, . . . manifests as distinct patterns of persecution and psychological torture occasioning stress-related, premature deaths on a generational basis."

Dr. Crenshaw-Logal shared Opt IN USA's referenced reports and sought to confirm related patterns for the UNHRC in regard to her, her late husband Rodney A. Logal, and their colleague Dr. Andrew D. Jackson.  The three (3) co-founded the NJCDLP.  In a 2018 supplement to her original complaint, Dr. Crenshaw-Logal explains:

My  complaint  asks  this  Council  to  help  precipitate  an  expansive investigatory  and  adjudicatory  process  in  America  to  identify  participants  aggrieved  by  persistent  U.S.  legal  system  abuse  facilitated  by  unchecked  judicial  misconduct,  and  award  them  reparations. So  I  am  not  attempting  to  convert  this  proceeding  for  that  purpose  with  regard  to  myself  or  anyone  I  hereby  represent,  including  my  colleague  Dr.  Andrew  D.  Jackson.    In  fact,  it  is  less  alarming  that,  allegedly, my  late  husband was,  and  Dr.  Jackson with  me  are  still persecuted  pursuant  to  an objectively  discernible  pattern  of  U.S.  legal  system  abuse ─ than  a  particular end  that alleged  persecution  clearly  serves:    the de-stabilization  and  likely  preemption of  ground-breaking  U.S.  legal  system  analyses  attributable  to National  Judicial  Conduct  and  Disability  Law  Project,  Inc.(NJCDLP).

Crenshaw-Logal's initial UNHRC complaint is accordingly a class action of sorts for all Americans subjected, as of 1990 or later, to unchecked judicial misconduct attendant to the brand of U.S. legal system abuse that Opt IN USA has documented since 2016.

Per its October 10, 2018 electronic notice to Dr. Crenshaw-Logal, the UNHRC determined her complaint, which it considers a "communication", is neither manifestly ill-founded, nor reflective of a failure to exhaust domestic remedies.  Nonetheless, the UNHRC is requiring Crenshaw-Logal to supplement her supporting facts in accord with designated criteria before the UN charter-based body will deem them admissible.  Retired Police Chief Gordon L. Wiborg, Jr., President of NJCDLP's Board Executive Committee, says, "We welcome this opportunity to further address consistent patterns of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.  After decades of NJCDLP constituents receiving from U.S. public officials primarily silence or subterfuge when their allegations are of entrenched judicial misconduct, we at NJCDLP are delighted to have the door opened at Dr. Crenshaw-Logal's behest by the UNHRC."

Credited with inspiring Opt IN USA by advocating that trauma precipitated by serial violations of federal rights is more aptly deemed psychological torture is NJCDLP board member Shreya Mandal, JD, LCSW. She adds, "I never anticipated sparking such an expansive, important reform effort.  But as a professional, I contend with the dramatic health toll of people left without relief for rather blatant U.S. civil, constitutional, and human rights violations.  The results are ultimately premature death, a phenomenon that continues for generations among people directly impacted by persistent U.S. legal system abuse."  Dr. Mandal's stellar and diverse educational background includes her being certified by Harvard Medical School's Program in Refugee Trauma.

"Misconduct proliferates in areas of the Judicial System — not because remedies aren't in place all the time or appear to lack oversight on the surface. In many cases, it's due to the failure to enforce rules and compliance from within the system — resulting in apparatuses that often exists on paper or buried beneath bureaucracy — but in practice are a failure. This allows an environment with little accountability and ample judicial misconduct."  These views are of Stephen L. Krasner, a NJCDLP board member and author of "A Broken System: Family Court in the United States".

California attorney DeAnn Salcido is a longtime NJCDLP supporter and retired U.S. family court judge. She explains, "As a Superior Court Judge I witnessed a judicial system that placed politics and personal gain over public safety. I observed my colleagues engage in gender bias against women in many types of court cases, especially those cases involving allegations of sexual or physical abuse. I was so disheartened by my colleagues' chronic disregard of the public's interest that I took the drastic step of becoming a whistleblower. I did so, knowing that to do so would end my judicial career. However, my conscience compelled me to expose the chronic misogyny, cronyism and special treatment by judges in favor of the powerful or wealthy."

Board President Wiborg helps lead two (2) other NJCDLP initiatives.  He is President of the National Strategy and Management Board (NSMB) of National Forum On Judicial Accountability.  The NSMB will oversee a panel of grassroots U.S. legal system reform advocates to help determine how best to supplement Dr. Crenshaw-Logal's initial UNHRC complaint and otherwise ensure it is deemed admissible during a 2019 session of the UNHRC's Communication Division.  Anyone interested in joining the panel, please indicate as much via email by no later than October 30, 2018: optinusa at comcast dot net