Does the Key to the DC Madam Records Reside with Obama’s Supreme Court Nominee?

FORMER ATTORNEY REQUESTS EXPLANATION FROM COURT WHOSE CHIEF JUDGE IS MERRICK GARLAND

by Sharon Rondeau

(May 15, 2016) — On Friday, former “DC Madam” attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley published a blog post in which he reported that “The Judicial Caesars at the Circuit Court of Appeal have answered my Petition to order the District Court Clerk to file my pleading seeking persmission to release some of the records of the D.C. Madam.  In toto, they said: ‘ORDERED that the petition be denied.'”

In its curt statement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit cited the U.S. Supreme Court case of Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. v. Mayacamas Corp., 485 U.S. 271, 289 (1988), contending that “Petitioner has not shown a ‘clear and indisputable’ right to mandamus relief.”

Since mid-January, Sibley has petitioned the courts in Washington, DC and the U.S. Supreme Court to lift a stay imposed on May 10, 2007 pertaining to Sibley’s stated intention to release the remaining phone numbers and names contained in the DC Madam’s records, which Sibley has stated are relevant to the 2016 presidential election.

DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey operated her escort business, Pamela Martin & Associates, from 1993 to 2006.  She previously served an 18-month prison term for “pimping, pandering, and extortion.”

The chief judge for the court issuing the perfunctory denial is Judge Merrick Garland, who has been nominated by Barack Hussein Obama to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Garland has been a prosecutor and private attorney as well as a judge, working for Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick during the Clinton administration.

Gorelick was criticized for her conception of a “wall” between the CIA and FBI which has been attributed by some to have hampered counter-terrorism efforts, possibly leading to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S.  Wikipedia reports that in regard to Garland’s having been selected as Gorelick’s assistant, his “responsibilities included the supervision of high-profile domestic-terrorism cases, including the Oklahoma City bombing, Ted Kaczynski (also known as the ‘Unabomber’), and the Atlanta Olympics bombings.^[4][25]“

DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey was convicted on April 15, 2008 of money laundering and racketeering in her operation of Pamela Martin & Associates, a Washington, DC-based escort service, and her assets seized by the U.S. Department of Justice.  Sibley served as her civil attorney, later writing a book about the case entitled, “Why Just Her:  The Judicial Lynching of the DC Madam.”

The Amazon.com introduction to the book states that the client list consists of “the most powerful men in the world” and that justice was therefore denied Palfrey.

Sibley also represented Blanche Palfrey, Deborah Jeane’s mother, as her bank accounts were also the object of seizure by the government.

Just as Deborah Jeane’s criminal trial was beginning, Sibley’s law license was ordered suspended for three years by the Florida Supreme Court, which Sibley said was effected “without being allowed discovery, a hearing or an impartial tribunal.”

On May 1, 2008, Deborah Jeane was found deceased in a shed on her mother’s yard. Her death was reported as a suicide, although when and where the suicide notes were found have been reported differently.

In a timeline of events in the case, Sibley indicated that on December 14, 2007, 815 records consisting of “account holders names, addresses, social security numbers, and home and business telephone numbers” were received from Verizon Wireless responsive to a subpoena.  “Each name represented a former escort or client who had a cell phone number that had called Pamela Martin & Associates when that cell phone number was owned by that person,” Sibley wrote.

Th 815 records are part of a larger 5,902 records (p. 6) received.  In a partial release of the records made in July 2007, the name of Louisiana U.S. Representative and later U.S. Senator David Vitter was released.  Vitter publicly “apologized” and said his wife had forgiven him.

The main crafter of the “shock and awe” strategy to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq in 2003, Harlan Ullman, was also reported to have been a “regular” patron of Pamela Martin & Associates.

At the time, Fox News reported that Vitter had patronized a similar establishment in his hometown run by Jeanette Maier.  “Maier was among 17 defendants who pleaded guilty in the investigation. With all the guilty pleas, there never was a trial, and that kept under wraps a list of customers that reportedly included prominent lawyers, doctors and business professionals,” Fox wrote.

On April 1 of this year, Sibley filed a petition to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts for a lift of the restraining order which was denied three days later.  After appealing alternatively to Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who scheduled the petition for conference on April 29, Sibley was met with another denial on May 2.

On April 11, Sibley released a list of businesses having patronized Pamela Martin & Associates which included the Army Capabilities Integration Center, the Archdiocese of Washington, the FBI, the General Services Administration (GSA), U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, the National Drug Intelligence Center, the U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. U.S. Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Department of State.  Many more private companies are also identified.

In a brief to the DC Circuit’s U.S. Court of Appeals dated May 9, 2016, Sibley responded to the court’s response by submitting a “Motion for Articulation of the Ratio Decendi [sic] for Denying Petition.”

The legal term “ratio decidendi” is defined by USLegal.com as:

a Latin phrase meaning “the reason for the decision.” Ratio decidendi refers to the legal, moral, political and social principles on which a court’s decision rests. It is the rationale for reaching the decision of a case. It is binding on lower courts through the principle of Stare decisis. Ratio decidendi is a helpful tool for a lawyer.

Ratio is a ruling on a point of law and the decision on a point of law depends on facts of a case. Culling out ratio from a judgment is difficult. A thorough reading of an entire judgment is required to identify a ratio. Ration decidendi can be determined or identified in the following ways:

• By distinguishing material facts from unimportant facts.
• By discovering the precedents applied to identify the court’s approach.
• By restricting analysis to the majority opinions.
• By reading out subsequent decisions and considering it at several levels.

In explanation, Sibley wrote, “I have responded by filing a pleading demanding that they explain how I can be ordered not to release records and yet not have the ability to file a request to be released from that order.”

On page 6, Sibley said that he “is seeking relief from the restraining order prohibiting his release of those records and given the implication on the careers and private lives such release has for members of this Court, it is incumbent upon this Court to clearly demonstrate the denial of Sibley’s Petition is not based upon its own predilections for silencing Sibley but rather the faithful application of relevant law to fact.”

The list of patrons released on April 11 is also attached to Sibley’s latest petition.