Dylan's Judgment on Judges: Are Power and Greed and Corruptible Seed All That There is?

Presented by:

David M. Zornow

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher &Flom LLP 4 Times Square

New York, New York 10036 212735-2890

Bob Dylan and The Law Fordham Law School April 4-5, 2011

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE OLD WEIRD AMERICA (FORDHAM DIVISION)

---------------------------------x

THE OLD WEIRD AMERICA,

Plaintiff,

Hon. Bruce A. Green

- against -

THE JUDGES,

Defendants.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --x

INDICTMENT

Summary of Allegations

The Grand Jury alleges as follows:

1. The United States Attorney, through special assistant United States

attorney Bob Dylan, a/k/a Robert Alan Zimmerman, a/k/a Zimmy, * brings this indictment

against judges, who over the generations repeatedly have failed to meet their obligations

to dispense justice. Indeed, it can be said of judges:

... God is in His heaven. And we all want what's his

But power and greed and corruptible seed Seem to be all that there is *

In this Indictment, the grand jury alleges various overt acts of

misuse of power, greed and corruptible seed .

• In the Old Weird America, prosecutors have aliases.

• Blind Willie McTell

Background

2. Judges are empowered by society and by our laws to impose their

judgments on their fellow man, but it should be recognized at the outset that no man

should relish judging another. "Don't wanna judge nobody, don't wanna be judged. ,,'

The righteous know well the dangers of rendering judgments, such as the lover who's

"true, like ice, like fire" and "knows too much to argue or to judge. ,,'

3. In this context, judges have a special responsibility to exercise

their powers benevolently, as though they were being judged themselves. The evidence

shows, however, that judges repeatedly fail to do so. Instead they hold themselves apart

from the rest of us, cloistered together.

I glanced into the chamber where the judges were talking Darkness was everywhere, it smelled like a tomb. *

4. Too often judges manifest bias and prejudice instead of

righteousness and fairness.

The judge, he holds a grudge He's gonna call on you

But he's badly built

And he walks on stilts

Watch out he don't fall on you. *

As a result, too often we must:

Ring them bells for the blind and the deaf Ring them bells for all of us who are left

• Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others)

* Love Minus ZerolNo Limit

, Day of the Locusts

* Most Likely You Go Your Way(and I'll Go Mine)

2

Ring them bells for the chosen few

Who will judge the many when the game is through. *

5. As set forth in the counts below, judges exalt power, greed and

corruptible seed at the expense of justice, and so "judges will haunt you. ,,*

Count One: Abuse of Power

(Violation of Title 18, Dylan Code, § 1)

6. Judges revel in their power. At the beginning of any court

proceeding, a clerk announces the judge with great fanfare:

The Judge is coming in, everybody rise, Lift up your eyes. *

7. Judges likewise have the power to compel. "I was only following

instructions when the judge sent me down the road with your subpoena." Or they can

deny bail:

And the judge says, "Mona can't have no bond" And the walls collide, Mona cries. *

8. But time and again, judges abuse their power. For example, in the

case of Charles Darwin, who challenged prevailing shibboleths, the judge exercised his

power in an arbitrary and capricious manner:

They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway Five Judge says to the High Sheriff

, Ring Them Bells

, No Time to Think

, Nettie Moore

, Angelina

, I Wanna Be Your Lover

3

"I want him dead or alive Either one, I don't care."

9. While judicial abuse of power can often be more subtle than other

forms of official misconduct, it is perhaps more invidious:

Well, the riflemen's stalking the sick and the lame Preacherman seeks the same, who'll get there first is uncertain Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks

Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin

Only a matter of time 'til night comes steppin' in:

Indeed, "false-hearted"judges can do more damage than weapons in the hands of a

"rifleman. "

10. In "Percy's Son", a man "who wouldn't harm a life/That belonged

to someone else," was sentenced to ninety-nine years in Joliet prison for manslaughter in

the highest degree in connection with an automobile accident in which four people died.

The judge failed to reply to a request to be heard by the defendant's friend and then

refused to reconsider the excessive sentence when the friend arrived at his chambers.

Instead "[t]he judge spoke, out of the side of his mouth," capitulating to formalism over

justice, saying

Too late, too late

For his case is sealed

* * *

His sentence is passed And it cannot be repealed

The judge then unceremoniously ejected the supplicant from his chambers:

And at that the judge jerked forward And his face it did freeze

* High Water (For Charley Patton)

* lokerman

4

Sayin', "Could you kindly leave My office now, please."

The judge's eyes "looked funny" and he slammed the door. The judge's "frozen" face and

"funny" eyes reflected a cruel exercise of power detached from the merits of the case in

the imposition of a grossly excessive sentence.

11. Similarly, in "George Jackson" the defendant was subjected to an

even more absurd punishment:

Sent him off to prison

For a seventy-dollar robbery Closed the door behind him And threw away the key

12. Another example of the corrupt exercise of power by ajudge was

"The Death of Emmett Till," a murder case in the Deep South. What kind of voir dire did

the judge conduct in which the jury was comprised of

Men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime

And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind

As a result, two "smiling" brothers walked free down the courthouse stairs despite having

confessed to killing "poor Emmett Till."

13. The judge should be a bulwark protecting against the cries for

vengeance from the mob armed with its pitchforks. But too often, judges look the other

way. In "Drifter's Escape," the drifter, a defendant accused of unspecified crimes, pleads

with the judge as he is carried from the courtroom, "And I still do not know what it was

that I've done wrong." While the judge feigns regret, he capitulates to the mob:

Well, the judge, he cast his robe aside A tear came to his eye

"You fail to understand," he said Why must you even try?" Outside, the crowd was stirring You could hear it from the door

5

Inside, the judge was stepping down While the jury cried for more.

Only divine intervention saved the day, when a bolt of lightning "struck the courthouse

out of shape" and "the drifter did escape." Had the judge not case his robe aside, or in

effect abdicated his responsibilities to rein in the runaway jury, the drifter's fate would

not have been subject to the vagaries of a bolt from the blue.

14. Even when dealing with an arguable criminal, judges demean the

process by administering justice capriciously. In "Joey," the police "got" Crazy Joey

Gallo on conspiracy "they were never sure who with." But when the defendant appeared

in court, he was treated with callous disdain:

"What time is it?" said the judge to Joey when they met

"Five to ten," said Joey. The judge says,"That's exactly what you get."

The sentence imposed became a nasty joke and Joey wass left to do ten years in Attica

reading Nietzsche and Wilhelm Reich, "tryin' to stop a strike" (but ending up in the hole

nonetheless) and befriending black men "cause they seemed to understand what it's like

to be in society with a shackle on your hand" (unlike the sneering judge).

Count Two: Greed

(Violation of Title 18, Dylan Code, § 2)

15. Judges often act to perpetuate a class system that permits the

entrenched to continue to satisfy their lust for greed.

16. In "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," the judge perverted

the mantle of justice to enable the young tobacco scion to continue in his realm of wealth

and political connections:

In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel

To show that all's equal and that the courts are on the level

6

And that the strings in the books ain't pulled and persuaded And that even the nobles get properly handled.

But hypocrisy in the service of classism won the day as the judge "spoke through his

cloak, most deep and distinguished/And handed out strongly for penalty and repentance"

(a wildly lenient sentence).

17. Similarly, in "Hurricane," the judge inappropriately put his thumb

on the scale in demeaning the witnesses and empanelling an all-white jury:

All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance

The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums.

In so doing, the judge perpetuated a system in which:

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise

18. Indeed, the system, as implemented by judges, cannot or will not

call greed to account. As in "Foot of Pride," the powerful seem immune to judgment.

They like to take all this money from sin, build big universities to study in Sing "Amazing Grace" all the way to the Swiss the banks.

* * *

They kill babies in cribs and say only the good die young They don't believe in mercy

Judgment on them is something that you'll never see.

By failing to intervene when they can, judges help stamp the foot of pride.

19. Wrapped in the flag, judges play their unseemly role in protecting

truly powerful, rich criminals at the expense of petty ones.

They say that patriotism is the last refuge To which a scoundrel clings

Steal a little and they throw you in jail Steal a lot and they make you king"

* Sweetheart Like You

7

20. There are even instances when the judge has been overtly coopted

by greed. In "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts," the "hangin' judge came in

unnoticed and was being wined and dined" by those who presumably wanted no one to

pay any mind to bank robbers "drillin' in the wall." When the backstage manager could

feel it in the air that something funny was going on, "he went to get the hangin' judge, but

the hangin' judge was drunk." Finally when Big Jim, the owner of the diamond mine, is

killed, the judge became the instrument through which revenge is obtained on behalf of

wealth. Only in that context, was the hangin' judge sober, "he hadn't had a drink."

Perhaps he was stunned into sobriety by that thought that his meal ticket might be gone.

Count Three: Corruptible Seed

(Violation of Title 18, Dylan Code, § 3)

21. Perhaps the most heinous act committed by a judge is the

perversion of the justice system for the judge's sexual gratification.

22. In "Seven Curses," which echoes the story of Sweeney Todd and

Judge Turpin, Old Reilly is accused of stealing a stallion. His daughter, having learned

"that her father was goin' to hang," rode all night to offer gold and silver for her father's

freedom.

When the judge he saw Reilly's daughter His old eyes deepened in his head Sayin', "gold will never free your father The price, my dear, is you instead.

Despite her father's entreaties to his daughter to get on her horse and get away, "in the

night the price was paid." And in the end, "the judge had never spoken" to prevent the

hanging. This tragic tale ends with seven curses being visited "on a judge so cruel."

That one doctor will not save him That two healers will not heal him

8

That three eyes will not see him That four ears will not hear him That five walls will not hide him That six diggers will not bury him

And that seven deaths shall never kill him.

23. The "Man in the Long Black Coat" could also well have been a

judge in his robes who seduced another man's wife despite the fact that "somebody said

from the Bible he'd quote." In truth and in fact, despite their solemn oaths, judges are no

different than the rest of us and "every man's conscience is vile and depraved." Perhaps

when the scorned husband "went down to the river but just missed the boat," he saw

"Judge Simpson walkin' around. Nothing shocks me more than that old clown.'"

Conclusion

24. While judges take their oaths to uphold a system of justice on earth

as mere mortals "power, and greed and corruptible seed seem to be all that there is." The

only refuge for those seeking true justice may be the one that is found in heaven. And so

for the judges charged in this indictment we ask:

Are you ready for the judgment?

Are you ready for that terrible swift sword? Are you ready for Armageddon?

Are you ready for the day of the Lord?'

* Shake Shake Mama

* Are You Ready

9

Perhaps the defendant judges in this case ultimately will be comforted that "there are no

trials inside the gates of Eden." *

Bob Dylan, a/k/a

Robert Zimmerman a/k/a Zimmy Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Old Weird America

F)I-'-"'_ ............ !::'

David M. Zornow Grand Jury Foreperson

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP 4 Times Square

New York, New York 10036 (212) 735-2890

* Gates of Eden

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE OLD WEIRD AMERICA NEW YORK, NEW YORK

April 4, 2011

Honorable Bruce A. Green u.s. District Court for the Old Weird America (Fordham Division)

Re: The Old Weird America v. The Judges

Dear Judge Green:

Pursuant to its obligations under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), the prosecution makes the following disclosures to the defendant Judges of information which may be exculpatory:

1. In "Little Sadie" and "In Search of Little Sadie," "the judge and the jury they took their stand. The judge had the papers in his right hand," but the defendant Lee in that case confessed to murder and the forty-one year sentence may not have been excessive, unlike the sentences in "Joey," "Percy's Song," and "George Jackson."

2. In "Brownsville Girl," the girl went "out on a limb" to testify falsely in support of an alibi defense. "Then when I saw you break down in front of the judge and cry real tears/It was the best acting I saw anybody do." The judge may not have been at fault if the witness committed perjury.

~ql~

- Robert Alan Zimmerman, a/k/a Zimmy Special Assistant Attorney

for the Old Weird America