- crowsden
GRIFFIN 1869
TODAY'S CONTEMPLATION - January 3, 2024 upon review of the "Griffin" case, (a historical 14th Amendment challenge from 1869).
👉🏽First some word definitions:
📜"Ex Post Facto" law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law.
📜"De Facto" is a legal term meaning "in fact" or "in reality", which is used to qualify many legal concepts, even when the formal legal requirements have not been met. De facto law refers to a legal practice or formality that is not specifically enumerated by law.
📜"De Jure" is the Latin expression for “by law” or “by right” and is used to describe a practice that exists by right or according to law. In contemporary use, the phrase almost always means “as a matter of law.”
📜"Quo Warranto" is Latin for "by what warrant” (or authority). A writ of quo warranto is a common law remedy which is used to challenge a person's right to hold a public or corporate office.
Case No. 5,815.
11FED.CAS.—2
The "GRIFFIN CASE".
[Chase, 364; 2 Am. Law T. Rep. U. S. Cts. 93; 8 Am. Law Reg. (N. S.) 358; 25 Tex. Supp. 623; 2 Bait. Law Trans. 433; 3 Am. Law Rev. 784.]1
Circuit Court, D. Virginia.
May Term, 1869.
RECOGNITION OF STATE GOVERNMENT—FOURTEENTH AMENDMENTS—VIRGINIA—GOVERNMENT OF, AFTER END OF CIVIL WAR—EX POST FACTO LAWS.
✳️ In the opinion by the court, the justices mused.......
"If a judge is appointed by a legislature, some of whose members are disqualified from holding their seats, then his appointment, according to this argument, is void, and his acts are void. The legislature itself may all be eligible, but some members may have been elected by illegal votes. Therefore the acts of the legislature, being vitiated by the original taint of illegality, all the consequences flow from it.
If a constitution be adopted by illegal votes, then all officers under it become mere intruders and pretenders to official functions.
The existence of this very fourteenth article itself may be attacked in precisely the mode the judicial functions of Judge Sheffey are sought to be invalidated. One of the state legislatures at least, adopted it by the votes of members who were afterwards declared ineligible, and their seats vacated; and under this theory of law, the inquiry might be pursued, until it was found that it had never received the assent of a sufficient number of legal legislatures composed of legal members duly sworn in by legal officers, and elected by legal voters.
The statement of such a proposition is its own sufficient refutation. If it be true, no legal act, no legal existence anywhere is secure. All may be attacked by showing that somewhere, at some time, some person disqualified by law from holding office contributed by some official act to it. That established, the whole falls."
NEWTON ASKS:
♦️SO IF I UNDERSTAND THIS, the case's inquiry and subsequent opinion affirms: .... in instances where Election Fraud is proven and even one office is obtained by that fraud, then after which "the acts of the whole" legislature are void⁉️
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ANOTHER POINT - from the same Supreme Court opinion, this powerful conclusion:
(Actions by) "DE FACTO OFFICERS OF A CORPORATION BIND THE CORPORATION." Ang. & A. Corp. 280; Bank of U. S. v. Dandridge, 12 Wheat [25 U. S.]64. 😲
FURTHER - (This covers nearly every other similar scenario by citing):
"Whether sheriffs be de facto or de jure can not be questioned collaterally. Morse v. Calley, 5 N. H. 223. Acts of sheriffs de facto valid as respects third persons. Doty v. Gorham, 5 Pick. 487; Fowler v. Bebee, 9 Mass. 231; Com. v. Fowler, 10 Mass. 290; Buckman v. Ruggles, 15 Mass. 180. In action of ejectment the title of a constable who sold the land not to be questioned. Being de facto sufficient Burke v. Elliott, 4 Ired. 355. In same action, title of register who registered the deed, not to be questioned. Gilliam v. Riddick, Id. 368. In action of trespass for seizing a hog by town commissioner. Acts of those holding de facto good. Commissioners of Trenton v. McDaniel, 7 Jones (N. C.) 107. In action against defendant for trespass, his acting as officer proves him officer de facto. Id. 375. Judicial act of an alderman de facto holding and exercising the office not under mere color of right but possessing a commission on its face, constitutional and legal, can only be examined in a proceeding to which he is party, and in which he can be heard. Cornish v. Young, 1 Ashm. 153. Party relying on the record of a deed need not show that he who recorded it was an officer de jure—de facto is sufficient Brush v. Cook, Brayt 89. The acts of an officer de facto who comes into office by color of title are valid, as it concerns the public or third persons. Mclnstry v. Tanner, 9 Johns. 135. Where one acts under a colorable title to office, title can only be examined before the supreme court, and that directly. Minim v. Soiners, 1 Rawle, Pen. & W. 297. The acts of an officer de facto, whether judicial or ministerial, are valid, so far as the rights of the public or third persons having an interest in such acts are concerned; and neither the title of such an officer nor the validity of his acts as such can be indirectly called in question in a proceeding to which he is nota party. Plymouth v. Painter, 17 Conn. 586; Hoagland v. Culvert, 1 Spencer [20 N. J. Law] 387; Where the law under which a judge was appointed was held to be unconstitutional, and, therefore, his appointment void. Acts done by such judge held valid and binding. Taylor v. Skrine, 2 Tread. Const. 696. When a judge was ousted on quo warranto and a party sentenced to penitentiary by him while illegally in office was discharged on habeas corpus after the judgment of ouster on quo warranto, the supreme court of Wisconsin reversed the decision of the lower court discharging the prisoner, and remanded him to the penitentiary, on the ground that the acts of the judge de facto were good as to all the world, although he was afterwards regularly pronounced not to be legally in office. State v. Bloom, 17 Wis. 521.
These authorities fully establish my proposition, that the acts of a de facto judge are as valid and binding as if done by a judge de jure, except where such acts are for his own benefit."
NEWTON ASKS:
♦️THEN, why not those termed "alternate electors", inasmuch as they were selected/appointed under the premise that their actions were legitimate, even though arguably "de facto"?
AND, since Pence as President of the Senate had NOT yet decided to reject the results on January 6th and send the controversial results BACK to those states in contention TO BE "CURED" as it was his constitutional duty to do so, the "alternate electors" slate was still legally permissable and viable - de facto, as it may have been‼️
