If you need another reason to despise Brett Kavanaugh and the disgusting process that put him on SCOTUS -- we have one, thanks to Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Brett Kavanaugh

Do you tend to look back at the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) as an exercise in partisan rancor? If so, we invite you to think again. That's because we have identified a constitutional right that is likely to be eroded with Kavanaugh on the nation's high court.

We are talking about the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. It generally has been held to mean that an individual cannot be subject to incarceration in a criminal trial if he has not been afforded assistance of counsel, even if he cannot afford to pay for one. SCOTUS most recently addressed this issue in a case styled Alabama v. Shelton, 535 U.S. 654 (2002)

This issue hits close to home because Missouri Judge Jerry Harmison violated Shelton when he imposed a suspended imposition of sentence (SIS) on my wife, Carol in the bogus "assault" case brought against her related to our unlawful eviction, where deputies broke her arm. Carol did not have counsel in the case, and she did not waive her right to counsel. The SIS means Carol could be subject to incarceration if she violates terms of her probation -- and that is not allowed under Shelton.

Why is that not allowed? Well, we can thank the court's liberal-to-moderate bloc at the time (Stevens, Souter, Breyer, Ginsburg), who, surprisingly, were joined by Sandra Day O'Connor. The court's right-wing bloc (Scalia, Rehnquist, Thomas, Kennedy) dissented, trying their best to plunder a constitutional right. In what should be a surprise to no one, former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor argued for the state, siding with the right wingers.

Here is the primary holding in the Shelton majority opinion, written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

Held: A suspended sentence that may "end up in the actual deprivation of a person's liberty" may not be imposed unless the defendant was accorded "the guiding hand of counsel" in the prosecution for the crime charged. Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 40.

(a) The controlling rule is that "absent a knowing and intelligent waiver, no person may be imprisoned for any offense ... unless he was represented by counsel at his triaL" Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 37.

Ginsburg's opinion was grounded in Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25 (1972), which held:

The right of an indigent defendant in a criminal trial to the assistance of counsel, which is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, is not governed by the classification of the offense or by whether or not a jury trial is required. No accused may be deprived of his liberty as the result of any criminal prosecution, whether felony or misdemeanor, in which he was denied the assistance of counsel. In this case, the Supreme Court of Florida erred in holding that petitioner, an indigent who was tried for an offense punishable by imprisonment up to six months, a $1,000 fine, or both, and given a 90-day jail sentence, had no right to court-appointed counsel, on the ground that the right extends only to trials "for non-petty offenses punishable by more than six months imprisonment."

The right of an indigent defendant to have assistance of counsel in any prosecution where his liberty might be at stake has been solidly grounded in U.S. law for more than 45 years -- but right wingers tried to chip away at it in 2002. Even Brett Kavanaugh's predecessor -- the renowned swing voter Anthony Kennedy -- sided with Scalia and Co. on the issue.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

What will happen if a right-of-counsel case comes before SCOTUS, now that it includes Kavanaugh. Donald Trump's appointee likely will side with the court's right wingers (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch) to override Shelton -- assuming specifics in the new case are the same as those in Shelton; a variety of issues can come under the broad right-of-counsel heading..

Do you like the idea of Brett Kavanaugh, famed for his buddies "Squee" and "Moose",  being involved in such profound decisions? I sure don't. Do you believe a "president," who apparently has acted as a Russian asset, should have two nominees (Kavanaugh and Gorsuch) help take away rights that long have been grounded in the U.S. constitution? I don't.

But that is what we could be facing. And it's because the Brett Kavanaugh hearings were more than a grotesque example of political theater. They were, in essence, an attack on our constitution.

Under a U.S. Supreme Court case called Alabama v. Shelton, Carol's sentence of probation in Missouri "assault" case is invalid and due to be reversed

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The suspended sentence that a Missouri judge placed on my wife, Carol, in a bogus "assault of a law enforcement officer" case is "invalid" and a "nullity," and it must be reversed,  according to U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) precedent.

We already have shown that, by placing a suspended imposition of sentence (SIS) on Carol, Judge Jerry Harmison Jr. ensured there is no final, appealable judgment in the case and no conviction (even though Carol, contrary to fact and law, was found guilty). Now, we learn that the SIS and two-year probation Harmison imposed are unlawful and due to be vacated.

How many ways can one compromised judge screw up a case?

This all goes back to Missouri's denial of Carol's right to counsel, and the relevant law comes from the nation's highest court in a case styled Alabama v. Shelton, 535 U.S. 654 (2002). How rich is the irony that the cheat job heaped on Carol in Missouri would be -- or should be -- decided by a SCOTUS case that originated in Alabama?

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (with dissents from -- surprise, surprise -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, William Rehnquist, and Anthony Kennedy) wrote the opinion in Shelton. Here is it's central holding:

Held: A suspended sentence that may "end up in the actual deprivation of a person's liberty" may not be imposed unless the defendant was accorded "the guiding hand of counsel" in the prosecution for the crime charged. Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 40. Pp. 660-674.

What does this mean for Carol's case?

(1) She was placed on probation, but a violation of its terms could lead to a jail term. That, SCOTUS found in its 2002 Shelton ruling, is not allowed under the Sixth Amendment;

(2) Carol at one point had an attorney -- public defender Patty Poe -- but when Poe bailed out of the case, jail was waived as a possible punishment, by law;

(3) Carol never had another attorney, and she never waived her right to counsel, so Harmison committed a huge blunder by adding probation to the equation -- and probation, by definition, means jail is on the table. And that, Justice Ginsburg found, is a no-no.

(4) Both Poe and Margaret Palmietto (the original judge in Carol's case) apparently have more functioning brain cells than Harmison, who took over after Palmietto recused -- or maybe Poe and Palmietto are slightly less corrupt than Harmison. Either way, Poe told us upon exiting that, with jail off the table, the court could only sentence Carol to a fine, community service, or some type of educational course. Palmietto, in her final days on the case, said multiple times in open court "it's just a fine" -- as if Carol should have no problem being fined for an offense she did not commit, even according to the written and verbal statements of the so-called "victim."

Carol Tovich Shuler

Where does the SCOTUS case have its roots? The answer is Etowah County, Alabama, (county seat is Gadsden), where LeReed Shelton represented himself and twice was found guilty of third-degree assault -- being sentenced to a suspended 30-day jail term and unsupervised probation. Shelton appealed, and the Alabama Supreme Court ultimately reversed his sentence, finding it invalid because he did not have counsel, violating his Sixth Amendment rights.

SCOTUS upheld the Alabama Supreme Court's finding, with these words from Ginsburg:

Defendant-respondent Shelton represented himself in an Alabama Circuit Court criminal trial. The court repeatedly warned Shelton about the problems self-representation entailed, but at no time offered him assistance of counsel at state expense. He was convicted of misdemeanor assault and sentenced to a 30-day jail term, which the trial court immediately suspended, placing Shelton on two years' unsupervised probation. The Alabama Supreme Court reversed Shelton's suspended jail sentence, reasoning that this Court's decisions in Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25, and Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367, require provision of counsel in any petty offense, misdemeanor, or felony prosecution, Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 37, "that actually leads to imprisonment even for a brief period," id., at 33. The State Supreme Court concluded, inter alia, that because a defendant may not be imprisoned absent provision of counsel, Shelton's suspended sentence could never be activated and was therefore invalid. . . .

The Sixth Amendment does not permit activation of a suspended sentence upon an indigent defendant's violation of the terms of his probation where the State did not provide him counsel during the prosecution of the offense for which he is imprisoned. A suspended sentence is a prison term imposed for the offense of conviction. Once the prison term is triggered, the defendant is incarcerated not for the probation violation, but for the underlying offense. The uncounseled conviction at that point "result[s] in imprisonment," Nichols v. United States, 511 U. S. 738, 746; it "end[s] up in the actual deprivation of a person's liberty," Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 40. This is precisely what the Sixth Amendment, as interpreted in Argersinger and Scott, does not allow.

Carol was the victim of an uncounseled (and unlawful) conviction, and SCOTUS makes clear that her sentence must be reversed as invalid. Whether the dictates of the nation's highest court has any impact on Jerry Harmison Jr. -- or anyone else in Missouri's perverse "justice system" -- remains to be seen. But it's clear Carol's sentence is a nullity, meaning it is legally void and is based on . . . well, nothing.