JLS
‘Harlan’ Bibles to create new tradition in local courts
By Tom Bonnette
tbonnette@thetowntalk.com
(318) 487-6340
PINEVILLE — Local judges Tuesday signed their “John Hancocks” at a Pineville Kiwanis Club meeting in replicas of the Bible that holds the signature of every U.S. Supreme Court Justice since 1906 to start a new tradition in local courts.
Judges who received “Harlan Bibles” for their courts said they will follow the lead of the U.S. Supreme Court by inviting all judges who serve to 
sign their names in the inside leaflets of the same Bible. The four Bibles, copies of the Harlan Bible held by the U.S. Supreme Court Curator, is similar to the Bible donated to the U.S. Supreme Court by Justice John Marshall Harlan in 1906. That bible has been signed by justices joining the Supreme Court for more than 100 years.
The Bibles were donated by Retired Judges of America and presented by retired Baton Rouge City Judge Darrell White. White said he has presented 20 to 30 similar Bibles on behalf of RJA since the organization began a campaign last year to distribute them.
The campaign, White said, is designed to encourage judges to hold fast to principles inherit in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
Davy Crockett On Congressional “Earmarks”
One day in the U.S. House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Congressman Davy Crockett arose to object.
Citizens “Indignant” at California Judge’s Ruling
A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution. The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming.”At first, there was a sense of, ‘No way,’ ” said homeschool parent Loren Mavromati, a resident of Redondo Beach (Los Angeles County) who is active with a homeschool association. “Then there was a little bit of fear. I think it has moved now into indignation.”
One of the purposes of Retired Judges of America is to call into question the rulings of courts that violate the principles of the American Experiment. This case is a clear example of judicial tyranny over civil liberty. Parental choice in education strikes at the heart of the American pioneering spirit. The argument could be made that educational choices that families make are guaranteed by the birth certificate of our nation, the Declaration of Independence and that home educating one’s students is both a God-given right to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness*.
RJA’s mission is to illuminate how these “organic” foundational laws of our nation still apply and to promulgate them to the next generation.
Dissenting in Moore v. City of East Cleveland, Justice Byron White wrote, “The Judiciary, including this Court, is the most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or even the design of the Constitution.”
We, the Retired Judges of America, condemn this act of judicial activism and call on the California Supreme Court to overturn the Appellate Court’s ruling.
*In 1920 the Supreme Court asserted that parent’s rights to raise and educate their children was a “fundamental” type of “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause. See generally, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 535 (1925). This liberty includes the “right to the care, custody, management and companionship of [his or her] minor children” which is an interest “far more precious than property rights” May v. Anderson, 345 US 528, 533 (1952).
Internet First Amendment Rights Challenged
In a move that legal experts said could present a major test of First Amendment rights in the Internet era, a federal judge in San Francisco
on Friday ordered the disabling of a Web site devoted to disclosing confidential information.
The site, Wikileaks.org, invites people to post leaked materials with the goal of discouraging “unethical behavior” by
corporations and governments. It has posted documents said to show the rules of engagement for American troops in Iraq, a military manual for the operation of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and other evidence of what it has called corporate waste and wrongdoing.
Constitution May Hinder McCain Presidency
This just in from the New York Times… It really is an interesting Constitutional Question! Could McCain be eliminated from the competition because he is not a “natural born” citizen? Words do matter!
The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.
Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.
Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states. Continue reading
Constitutional Shots Fired in Montana!
Montana officials are warning that if the Supreme Court rules in the D.C. gun ban case that the right to keep and bear arms protects only state-run militias like the National Guard, then the federal government will have breached Montana’s statehood contract.Nobody is raising flags for the Republic of Montana, but nobody is kidding, either. So far, 39 elected Montana officials have signed a resolution declaring that a court ruling of the Second Amendment is a right of states and not of individuals would violate Montana’s compact.
“The U.S. would do well to keep its contractual promise to the states that the Second Amendment secures an individual right now as it did upon execution of the statehood contract,” Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson said in a Feb. 15 letter to The Washington Times.
The dispute goes back more than a century. Back in 1889, the settlers of the Montana territory struck a deal with the federal government: They agreed to join the union, and the government agreed that individuals had the right to bear arms.
That has worked fine for the past 118 years, but the Supreme Court is expected next month to hear oral argument in District of Columbia v. Heller, the appeal of a federal court decision striking down the District’s gun-ownership ban on Second Amendment grounds.
Advance on Retired Judges of America
Welcome AdvanceUSA readers!
Retired Judges of America is pleased to be the first featured subject of the AdvanceUSA Spotlight.
RJA @ Restore America
Restore America Conference
Retired Judges of America will attend the Conference and have an opportunity to tell our story at a Friday luncheon. Stop by and say hi!
Here’s an overview of the Restore America Conference Info:
In a time when the values that made America a great nation are under attack You Must Make a Difference! Learn from nationally known speakers at the Restore America Conference, Feb 22-23, 2008 at Rolling Hills Community Church, Tualatin, OR.
- Click here for more information about the conference and to register.
High Court’s Big Secret
This article appeared in the December 2006 issue of Citizen magazine.
High Court’s Big Secret
by Stephen Adams, Focus on the Family
Don’t tell the ACLU, but a recent discovery proves the U.S. Supreme Court is a faith-based organization.
One significant milestone totally unnoticed by the Washington establishment this year was the 100th anniversary of the Harlan Bible. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it. The Harlan Bible is a well-kept secret to virtually all but the 50-plus U.S. Supreme Court justices who have signed their names to its flyleaf since 1906, nearly half of all justices who have ever served.
The little-known Harlan Bible is named after John Marshall Harlan, a prominent Supreme Court justice, devout Christian and Sunday school teacher who started the tradition, bequeathing this English Bible to the generations of justices to come. Some of its mystery has been unwrapped by retired Louisiana City Judge Darrell White….
Judge White was on a law panel with Judge [Roy] Moore in Oklahoma City several years ago when a random question about the oath taken by federal judges sent him on a research project that turned up so many curious historical facts that he’s now working on a book about it. In particular, White wanted to know the origin of the phrase “so help me God” in the judicial oath prescribed by the original Judiciary Act of 1789.