240.6 - Clown Award: Immigration Judge Jack Weil

Clown Award: Immigration Judge Jack Weil

Now for one of our regular features; it's the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity. And this week we again had multiple contenders, narrowed down to two finalists.

First up: So, you think that same-sex couples have the right to get married? Well, yeah, they do, but do they have the right to get matrimonied?

Kentucky State Rep. Joseph Fischer has introduced a bill called the "Matrimonial Freedom Act" that creates the new status of "matrimony" which is legally separate from "marriage" because any two adults can marry, but only if they are of the opposite sex can they have a "matrimony."

The bill then proceeds for 450 pages, meticulously adding language about "matrimony" to any provision in state law that defines the basic parameters of marriage - and then, in any provision that describes a privilege, benefit, or responsibility of marriage, the word "marriage" is replaced by the word "matrimony," effectively stripping same-sex couples of any and all benefits of marriage.

The reason this is so laughable is that it is painfully obvious that this would never fly in the courts, but I imagine Fischer sitting alone in his dark, silent, office late at night going through the entire state legal code line by line, his brow furrowed in concentration, a bottle of scotch on the desk, a single high-intensity lamp lighting his weary work.

Of course I'm sure he did the whole thing by computer search, but that image just seems more fitting to the undertaking, especially since the bill declares that the Supreme Court has established an "absolute Tyranny over these States," and includes the line "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor," which, in case you don't recognize it, is the conclusion of the Declaration of Independence.

But believe it or not, he got outclassed.

So this week the Big Red Nose goes to federal immigration judge Jack Weil.

The ACLU and immigration rights groups have filed a class action suit against the federal government, demanding that the government provide appointed counsel for every indigent child who can't afford a lawyer in immigration court proceedings, contending by failing to insure they had access to counsel the Justice Department had violated both due process and the children’s right to a fair trial under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Justice Department is contesting the suit and this bozo, who has the responsibility of training other immigration judges, is one of the government's chief witnesses.

So what did he do? In a deposition taken in October but just recently released, he declared that providing counsel is unnecessary because "you can do a fair hearing" even with toddlers representing themselves in court, claiming he has "taught immigration law" to 3- and 4-year-olds.

I was going to take down his lame attempt at a defense, his claim this was "not representative of [his] thinking" and was "taken out of context" even though he said much the same thing five different times during the deposition, but then I stopped.

Because I really don't have to go on, do I?

Federal immigration judge Jack Weil: Good gosh, what a clown.

Sources cited in links:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/03/02/3756017/stupid-kentucky-matrimony-bill/
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/0306/Can-toddlers-defend-themselves-in-immigration-court-One-judge-says-so
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/can-a-3-year-old-represent-herself-in-immigration-court-this-judge-thinks-so/2016/03/03/5be59a32-db25-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html