By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services | 5 comments
Cochise County rancher Roger Barnett cannot escape paying punitive damages to border crossers he kidnapped despite a 2011 state law passed specifically to help him, a federal judge has ruled.
Frank Zapata acknowledged that Arizona voters approved a measure in 2006 which constitutionally spells out that anyone not in this country legally is ineligible to collect punitive damages after winning a lawsuit.
That, however, came too late for Barnett who was sued following a 2004 incident when 16 illegal immigrants said the rancher illegally imprisoned them while they were crossing his property. One woman also said she was kicked.
So last year, the Legislature voted to make that ballot measure retroactive to the start of 2004.
Armed with that law, Barnett went back to federal court to void the $60,000 in punitive damages that four of the plaintiffs were awarded two years ago.
Zapata rejected the arguments.
The judge, almost in passing, said in a footnote that he accepted the arguments of attorneys for the plaintiffs that the 2011 law is unconstitutional. But Zapata said he could reject Barnett�s arguments on more basic grounds: If lawmakers were trying to help Barnett, they did not do it right.
The judge pointed out that the constitutional language says those not in this country legally cannot be awarded punitive damages.
But Zapata said that the question of punitive damages � a special award meant to punish a defendant for outrageous conduct or make an example of that person � does not arise until the case is finished and a defendant is found liable.
More to the point, Zapata pointed out that when a different judge awarded punitive damages in February 2009, three of them were lawfully present in the country. And a fourth, the judge said, had returned to Mexico after she was allowed to be present to testify at the trial.
�Therefore, when punitive damages were awarded, none of the plaintiffs were present in Arizona in violation of federal immigration law.�
During the 2011 legislative hearing, Rep. Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, said helping Barnett was exactly what he had in mind.
He said the 2006 constitutional amendment, referred to the ballot by the Legislature, was a direct reaction to the fact lawmakers knew Barnett was being sued.
�We weren�t smart enough at that point to understand that there was going to be a time lapse,� Weiers said at the time, making Barnett unable to take advantage of that change.
Zapata, however, said all that is legally irrelevant. He said that judges are bound to follow the words lawmakers put on paper � and into the statute books.
�If we find no ambiguity in the statute�s language, we must give effect to that language and we may not employ other rules of construction to interpret the provision,� the judge wrote.
Weiers argued at the time that the restriction against punitive damages makes sense.
�How incredibly silly that you�ve got people breaking the law, trespassing, doing this and that on personal property, and then you�re handed punitive damage awards,� he said.
Barnett�s separate efforts to have the entire verdict overturned have proven no more successful. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his arguments that the trial judge should have told jurors they could consider his claim of self-defense.
So all an illegal has to do any time they are cited is return to Mexico and they aren't illegal anymore and can't be held liable for what they did as an illegal?
The illegals are about third down the line in level of guilt from my perspective. #1 is the judge, #2 is the plantiff attorneys. Land owner doesn't make the list.
So all an illegal has to do any time they are cited is return to Mexico and they aren't illegal anymore and can't be held liable for what they did as an illegal?
Yes, that is correct. If anyone thinks this is wrong then they should blame the lawmakers, not the judge who followed the law to the letter.
Just logical thinking. No matter what your political views are, I suggest reading the post with some thought. If you disagree with the judge, come back with arguments against his reasoning.
You might start by disproving this:
Quote
But Zapata said that the question of punitive damages � a special award meant to punish a defendant for outrageous conduct or make an example of that person � does not arise until the case is finished and a defendant is found liable.
If that can't be done, then you would need to disprove this:
Quote
�Therefore, when punitive damages were awarded, none of the plaintiffs were present in Arizona in violation of federal immigration law.�
Even the Republican lawmaker seems to acknowledge their OWN mistake:
Quote
�We weren�t smart enough at that point to understand that there was going to be a time lapse,� Weiers said at the time, making Barnett unable to take advantage of that change.
It just amazes me that the public is stupid enough to put these people into power.This is the only country in the world that gives Illegals more rights than it citizens .
Zapata - isn't that a Spanish name? Obviously he isn't American.
I doubt he could be a judge if he wasn't American. What is American name anyways? Sitting Bull? Something like Smith is an European name but I am sure you knew that already.
Just logical thinking. No matter what your political views are, I suggest reading the post with some thought. If you disagree with the judge, come back with arguments against his reasoning.
My peers have done a fine job of that, no reason to rehash.
The name Zapata and his location indicates to me that there is a strong possibility that the man has some loyalty to mexico and it's citizens over the US and it's citizens. His actions confirm that suspicion.
When I took over the ranch down on the border in the early 1990s, the Hidalgo County Sheriff, whom I had known for several years, warned me not to detain illegal border crossers who were not otherwise breaking the law. He specifically said that the U.S. Attorney would charge me with kidnapping and/or illegal restraint.
Of course, back in those days, we didn't worry much at all about people heading north looking for work. It was the smugglers that were the real headache, leaving gates open, cutting fences and making new roads.
We just thought it was bad, back then--little did we know.
I feel for the rancher but the law is what the law is. Mr. Weiser seems to agree with that since he acknowledged that they made a mistake in how the law was written.
Unless the rancher abused the detainees my sympathies are on his side. The other side should be happy he didn't shoot them as trespassers.
Bill Clinton did back in 1996. I googled "Frank Zapata federal judge" and learned he was born in Safford in 1944. During his career he worked for/assisted the Southern Ariz Legal Aid Society tending legal services for the poor. (goggle Southern Ariz Legal Aid Society)
He just recently dismissed a case with prejudice filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (an extreme environmentalist/animal rights group) and others against Rosemont Copper and US Forest Service. Sounds good because it was just another frivolous lawsuit filed by CBD in an attempt to slow the process. With prejudice means CBD cannot refile another frivolous suit.
BUT he did ORDER that $6000 be paid to CBD from federal coffers to pay for CBD's legal expenses! That is just wrong......i'm sure this comes from his personal life and experiences while working at SALA (helping the small fight the big).....but his decision allows the CBD to continue to file frivolous lawsuits with no dent in their legal fund.
His decision against the AZ rancher follows a similar path......make the big landowner pay the small poor.
My peers have done a fine job of that, no reason to rehash.
Nobody in this thread has provided any reasoning why the judges decision was wrong (based on law, not opinion).
While Zapata certainly is hispanic name, his bias needs to be proven by proving that his interpretations of the law was incorrect. Opinions on the other hand, they are like arseholes.
just further proof that we are no longer a nation of law
well we are, but the law is used as a tool to further the liberal agenda and that's about all it is good for now.
think of this in it's most distilled form
the US gov't is derelict in it's duty to secure the border
you own private property along or near the border
in order to protect your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness you detain folks illegally trespassing upon your property (doesn't matter to me what their immigration status is, it could be direct descendants of the Mayflower for all I care, but if they're trespassing and abusing your property rights they're illegal in their actions)
end result the folks you detained are set free
you pay 60K, plus probably an equal or greater amount to attorneys
that's what goes for justice in our country
illegal immigration while a problem, is just a symptom of the real problem
those folks in DC, they truly have become the enemy to the US Constitution and the rule of law
I'd like to know how he "illegally detained" them? I guess if someone is walking across your ranch you don't have any right to ask them what they are doing? Are they stealing things from out in the field? Are they getting ready to attack you in your house? What are you supposed to say to them "have a nice day and I hope you don't fall on my ranch and sue me"? This is the biggest bunch of Bull$hit I heard in a long time!
A LAWYER WITH A BRIEFCASE CAN STEAL MORE THAN A THOUSAND MEN WITH GUNS.
This is very interesting! I never thought about it this way.
The Lawyers' Party, By Bruce Walker
The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers Party.
Barack Obama is a lawyer. Michelle Obama is a lawyer.
Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. Bill Clinton is a lawyer.
John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards was a lawyer.
Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate).
Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school.
Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress:
Harry Reid is a lawyer. Nancy Pelosi is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different.
President Bush is a businessman.
Vice President Cheney is a businessman.
The leaders of the Republican Revolution:
Newt Gingrich was a history professor.
Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist.
House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer.
The former Senate Majority Leader Bill First is a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976.
The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers.
The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, likeFrist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich. The Lawyers Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America .. And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers Party, grow.
Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail?....Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation. This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become adverse parties of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big.
When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.
The United States has 5% of the world�s population and 66% of the world�s lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association go to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high!
My peers have done a fine job of that, no reason to rehash.
Nobody in this thread has provided any reasoning why the judges decision was wrong (based on law, not opinion).
While Zapata certainly is hispanic name, his bias needs to be proven by proving that his interpretations of the law was incorrect. Opinions on the other hand, they are like arseholes.
Just more proof surnames are thicker than law. It's routine in South Texas. The rest of the US-not so much. You'll like it when their kids run over your kids and you have a Hispanic judge.
Roger Barnett is NOT a 'poor Man",....and has a few things going on besides his ranch. I'm very proud to consider a personal friend, and commend him for level headed and patient tenacity in the face of unrelenting ATTACKS.
One good day at the Barnett Corporation would pay these snivelling and corrupt "Lawyers" and their little Mexican syncophents off,.....most American folks have completely missed the point (I haven't)
it's not about the "MONEY" it's the PRINCIPAL of this [bleep]' thing.
Cold water, sandwiches handed out whilst waiting for the BP to come get the latest batch,.....?
Haven't seen THAT in the press recently,.....being God's own Honest Truth notwithstanding.
Sami is a real good example of just exactly what we're up against,....
How are supposed to respect the judicial system Steve when too often these are the types of results we see from said system?
I'm telling you sir, I want to respect the law and the rule of law but I find it exceedingly difficult to do so when it so often seems to line up with injustice rather than justice.
course I've given up on the gov't already.
just add this to the laundry list of Waco, Fast and Furious and too many other cases where rights are trampled to suit the agenda of the powers that be, whether Rep or Dem.
the mere fact that we just sit around and talk about them and turn out to vote while they bankrupt the nation, leave our borders unsecured, waste the treasure of our country and our servicemen's lives in Afghanistan while increasing their own pay and benefits is all you need to know about how corrupt the folks in DC are imo.
haven't followed the case and have no idea whether the decision is justifiable or not.....the attempt to ex post facto exonerate the guy probably wouldn't fly anywhere....don't know the facts of what he did...or what the two sides claim happened.
I also don't know what the law is on depriving individuals of the right to sue in a state's courts.....you can keep a corporation from using a state's courts if they don't qualify to do business there, but I don't know about an individual.
60K in punitives for a multiple kidnapping is ridiculously low....it sounds like a classic split verdict....rule in favor of the plaintiffs but don't give them much money.
personally, I find it absurd that the government has put its citizens in the position of facing the choice of being overrun by the invaders or risking civil liability if they do the government's job for them.
decisions like this just enourage SSS type solutions in confrontations.
personally, I find it absurd that the government has put its citizens in the position of facing the choice of being overrun by the invaders or risking civil liability if they do the government's job for them.
Well said--you speak for all of us down here on the border! Come see us sometime, we would be honored to have you at Quemado Lake in July!
personally, I find it absurd that the government has put its citizens in the position of facing the choice of being overrun by the invaders or risking civil liability if they do the government's job for them.
Well said--you speak for all of us down here on the border! Come see us sometime, we would be honored to have you at Quemado Lake in July!
I'll damned sure second that.
"Kidnapping",.....sure, something we've all embraced.
That old SOB Rob Krentz was the worst, in that regard
well, unfortunately not....and that is very old law going back to the spring gun and railroad turntable cases in the 1800s. just because someone is trespassing doesn't give the landowner the right to injure them with impunity. there is a reasonableness standard.....I can't booby trap my toolshed with a spring gun, because that's an unreasonable response.
that's why the facts....very specific detailed facts....which are usually hotly disputed, play such an important role in decision for juries and judges, and why it's hard to know what findings are behind some of these rulings.
but the border residents are being ratfucked by the government, and marginalized as racist by the MSM when they point it out, and I'm heartily sick of it. Romney can play this issue for a lot of votes if he does it carefully....border security is very popular, outside the Aztlan/reconquista fever swamps.
I would be happy to visit the border rats....thought I was headed down there when my son was looking at AU, but he got shortstopped in Austin and we never made it.
And then there was this little faux paux, where Roger stepped on his dick.... Roger has a problem out there for sure, but his zeal will come back to bite him some time, Ron and his Dad showed extreme restraiant, he's lucky Ron didn't drop him at the first shout of "you [bleep]' meskins" Will Gun-Toting Vigilante Get the Justice He Deserves? Arizona rancher Roger Barnett became an anti-immigration icon by claiming to have detained 12,000 border-crossers. Then he terrorized a family of U.S. citizens. April 30, 2007 | LIKE THIS ARTICLE ? Join our mailing list: Sign up to stay up to date on the latest Civil Liberties headlines via email. Cochise County, Ariz. -- Crouching low, Ronald Morales and his 11-year-old daughter moved quietly and quickly, hoping to escape detection. Stealth was vital as they crept around the boulders and scrub brush that clutter the Sonora desert just north of the Mexican border.
It was Oct. 30, 2004. Morales, a 37-year-old Department of Defense employee, was deer hunting with his father, Arturo, and three little girls: his daughter, Vanese, who was then 11, her little sister Angelique, 9, and Emma English, a friend who was also 11. All were Mexican-Americans -- U.S. citizens since birth.
The way Ron Morales tells the story, around 4 p.m. he and his eldest daughter left the rest of the party at his truck to stalk a buck they had spotted.
Vanese had the deer in her crosshairs when the sound of a distant ruckus in the direction of the truck alarmed her father. Morales took the rifle, slung it over his shoulder, and they hurried back.
They arrived to find another truck parked near their own. Next to it, Morales says, an angry white man with a pistol strapped to his side paced back and forth, shouting obscenities. "You're [bleep] trespassing! You guys need to get the [bleep] out of here!"
"I have a hunter's permit, I have a map," Morales protested as he walked to his vehicle, set down his rifle, grabbed a Bureau of Land Management map, and tried to reason with the man.
Morales, a Navy veteran, says he addressed him as "sir" and asked his name. The man reached in the cab of his truck, yanked out an AR-15 assault rifle, and gave Morales his answer.
"My [bleep] name is Roger Barnett! If you don't get off my property, I'm gonna shoot you and shoot you and shoot you!"
Then, Morales says, Barnett chambered a round and pointed his weapon at Morales' chest.
The clash
Two years later, Ron Morales and Roger Barnett met again, two men sitting stoically at opposite ends of Judge James Conlogue's stark courtroom in Cochise County, which ends at the Mexican border in southeastern Arizona. Outside, November winds whipped the streets with impunity.
It was to be a momentous confrontation, probably the most dramatic yet seen between anti-immigration hard-liners and those who oppose them. Closely watched by reporters and other observers from near and far, the clash would unfold at ground zero of the increasingly virulent battle over illegal immigration.
More people trudge across this ruggedly beautiful part of Sonoran Desert, which stretches from Mexico north into Arizona, than any other section of the 2,000-mile-long border. It is here that Roger Barnett brought national attention to the immigration situation with his loud and public complaints about illegal migrants who trespass on his sprawling ranch. It is also here that Barnett, a man who boasts of having personally apprehended 12,000 border-crossers, effectively sired the entire citizen's border patrol movement -- a movement once characterized as "vigilante" by President Bush, a Texan intimately familiar with the borderlands.
A rancher since 1996, Barnett's a swaggering, silver-haired, ruddy-faced product of the desert sun whose militant reputation -- like the vigilante movement he inspired -- stretches far beyond Cochise County.
"Humans, the greatest prey on earth," Roger Barnett told a reporter from London's Independent in May of 2000, six months after he was photographed for Time magazine brandishing an M-16 -- and a full 16 months before Chris Simcox would leave his California kindergarten classroom to form the Arizona militia that would eventually become the Minutemen, now the best-known citizen group to carry weapons to the border in an effort to halt illegal immigration.
"A vigilante goes out, rounds up people, holds a trial and executes them. I haven't done that yet," Barnett told USA Today that same year. "But bloodshed could happen."
BLM land(our land), leased to Barnett ranch...and why would it matter? If that was your elderly father, your daughter and her friend, and the rancher pulled up, started screaming obscenities,shaking and stuttering and blabbering and aiming an AR15 at you, threatening to shoot you and your whole gawd damned family, while cursing your heritage, does it really matter if it was private property?
And what can/will Romneys handlers do about $4.2 billion of IRS refunds to illegal aliens?
I guess that means they overpaid their US taxes by that much.....but it does sort of beg the question, doesn't it? if they know where to send the refund checks they know where to send ICE to pick them up, don't they?
BLM land(our land), leased to Barnett ranch...and why would it matter? If that was your elderly father, your daughter and her friend, and the rancher pulled up, started screaming obscenities,shaking and stuttering and blabbering and aiming an AR15 at you, threatening to shoot you and your whole gawd damned family, while cursing your heritage, does it really matter if it was private property?
Being private property makes a BIG difference - however - common courtesy seems to have been badly lacking! It could, and should, have been handled differently, IF this is actually what happened! ( No one actually knows, except the participants ) Mark
