Yesterday, July 30, 2000, in a speech to the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, Clinton said that the Republicans in Congress were blocking minority applicants from becoming judges in the Fourth Circuit.
The Fourth Circuit consists of the primary slave states during the American Civil War and thus has the highest percentage of black residents, but has never yet in its 200 year history had a black judge. It is the only judicial circuit which has never had a black judge.
Although 22% of the population of the Fourth Circuit is Black, descendants of slaves who labored on plantations in Virginia and North and South Carolina, and even those states have all had black governors, the Fourth Circuit has never allowed a black judge.
For the past eight years, President Clinton has been submitting the names of black lawyers in nomination to become a judge of the Fourth Circuit. All of these nominations have been rejected. The current black nominee is Richmond lawyer Roger L. Gregory, the law partner of Douglas Wilder who, as Governor of Virginia, signed the extradition order for Sam Sloan to be extradited to Virginia in 1992, as part of the scheme to allow Charles Roberts and the other kidnappers to keep the eight-year-old child they had kidnapped.
The court has had four vacancies since Judge Sam Ervin died, but none of these vacancies have been filled. Fourth Circuit Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III has testified and written that appellate courts work better when they are smaller. However, the reason the Fourth Circuit "works" so "efficiently" it that it denies a hearing on almost all appeals.
Wilkinson has declined to comment, but statistics show that the 4th Circuit disposes of cases faster than any other circuit--cases take an average of 7.8 months to get through the appeals process, versus a national average of 11.9 months. Its pending caseload dropped 22 percent between 1996 and 1999, while the national total rose 9 percent.
The reason the case load has dropped is, of course, because potential litigants realize that as long as the same criminal gang remain in control of the Fourth Circuit, outsiders have "no Chinaman's chance" of getting relief from that court.
Critics say that efficiency comes at a price. The 4th Circuit hears oral argument in a smaller percentage of cases--23 percent--than any other circuit court and dismisses 87 percent of appeals in brief, unsigned opinions, statistics show.
While it is understandable that the Fourth Circuit would reduce its case load by sending more black men to their deaths in the electric chair without any kind of hearing at all, I feel that since my daughter is half-white they should at least give her half of a hearing.
It is to be recalled that my 8-year-old daughter was kidnapped in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates in 1990 by religious fanatics affiliated with Jerry Falwell, none of whom had any connection with the mother of my daughter, who is a Muslim in Pakistan.
Although the kidnappers should have been arrested on the spot, they have been protected from criminal prosecution by the judges of the Fourth Circuit, including Judge James E. Turk of the Western District of Virginia, and the kidnappers have been allowed to keep the child they kidnapped.
I filed six appeals to the fourth circuit. All were dismissed without any hearing at all and without even the filing of briefs and oral argument. The parties were not allowed to file briefs and oral argument was not allowed either.
Sloan vs. Roberts, 928 F.2d 399 (4th Cir. 1991)
United States vs. Sloan, 996 F.2d 1213 (4th Cir. 1993)
In re Sloan, 37 F.3d 1495 (4th Cir. 1994)
Sloan vs. Murphy, 15 F.3d 1089 (9th Cir. 1994)
Sloan vs. Gurney, 50 F.3d 7 (4th Cir. 1995)
Sloan vs. Hughes, 56 F.3d 62 (4th Cir. 1995)
More than that, the court of Judge James E. Turk had me arrested three times when no charges had been brought or ever could have been brought against me. I have never been able to find out what the charges were supposed to have been. The purpose of these arrests, which took place in Guam, Honolulu and San Francisco, was to help the lily-white Falwell fanatics kidnap my daughter.
Men sitting on death row whose only real hope lay in the fourth circuit were taken out of their cells and strapped into the electric chair still laboring in the vain hope that the Fourth Circuit would give them a hearing.
In is to be recalled that in the French Revolution where many innocent and a few guilty died on the guillotine, the "Reign of Terror" ended finally when Robespierre, who sent more men and women to their deaths than anybody else, became the last person to lose his head to the guillotine. Robespierre executed 238 men and 31 women, before he himself was executed in 1794.
It is time for Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III to be arrested and receive the punishment for his crimes which he has meted out to so many of his innocent victims.
Sam Sloan