A Ten Minute play festival for the ages.

Writers submit your ten minutes or less scripts.

If  deemed worthy, you will be summoned to where the swamp meets, and sometimes invades, the slope.

There you and your appointed crewe will perform your work for enjoyment ant review.

OR NO JUSTICE  FOR ANYONE TOMORROW.

TL/DR:

The Brooklyn Lyceum (LYCEUM), aka Public Bath #7 (designed by Raymond Francis Almirall), and a community fixture for 20 years as a theater and cafe, needs your help.

The way is clear and certain for the LYCEUM, but can be shortened tremendously with a little help from some friends, be they artists, locals, arts organizations or people / organizations (Brooklyn or otherwise) who think the rule of law and due process are good things, thinks the NYS Supreme Court and the Appellate Courts need to follow (and that the Appellate Court should not be in the business of suborning perjury or making up facts).

Quite simply, we had/have four slam dunk due process related appeals, waited forever to be heard, more than 2.5 years, and the Appellate Court actually lied at oral argument, failed to address jurisdictional arguments legally raised at oral argument, made up facts (19 > 26), altered our appeal brief, ignored dealing with an inconvenient fact (45> 30) and retroactively altered perjury away for the Plaintiff in order to avoid the lower court being "dunked on".

With a little help from some friends, we may be able to resurrect the rule of law and due process, if even for a little while.

Pay it forward: Read, review, sign and send affidavit.  Maybe an hour of your life.  Maybe two.

By doing so you get some say in future LYCEUM programming, or, if that is not exciting, we offer a few other options for your time.

More info below, but the process by which we seek your eyes, brainstem and body will be managed by jafomaru.com, which handles bringing attention to systems run awry and voting by gowanagus.com, our programming arm.

>>>> Don't be scared, just :

1. --learn simple rules about Jurisdiction in the next few tabs,
2. --read about what went down (from the LYCEUM perspective),
3. --watch/listen to parts of an oral argument,
4. --look at 5 pages (3 pages of meat) of decision (noting the failure of the court to even acknowledge what went on at oral argument) and
5. --look at the timing of a few docket items 
6. --Sign an affidavit and send it to us.

>>>>Look at what we offer in return and make up your mind about paying it forward in the tab labelled OPTIONS.

>>>>You can see our ever growing list of prior activities/performers in the tabs at the end.

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LOOOOOOONG VERSION:

The Brooklyn Lyceum waited patiently for a decision after oral argument, more than three (3) months.

That was after waiting more than 2.5 years to be calendared (after the appeals were fully briefed by both sides and ready to be argued).

This was after filing four appeals revolving around 4 incredibly simple issues, sure shot wins that should have corrected lower court shortcomings:

• --non-initiating plaintiff appearing without standing seeking a judgement of default and later committing unequivocal, yes unequivocal, perjury to cover up that appearance without standing,
• --lack of standard / court ordered notice of a judgment at least 30 days prior to sale of collateral (the Lyceum itself),
• --failure to serve another order within 30 days as mandated buy the order itself,
• --refusal to allow attorney to appear who had filed motion (by way of Order to Show Cause), and
• --whether, on the record before the court, created and submitted by only the plaintiff, was it more than a year from default (statutory time allotted to respond) to the motion seeking a judgment of that default (if so the case was abandoned).

As we had put non-trivial effort into the appeals and addressed both the strong points of our argument and any perceived weak points with argument, logic and case law specifically on point, we awaited decisions in 4 appeals expecting that the court would address the arguments and the case law presented and synthesize it with the facts of the case and the record on appeal and come to a reasoned decision.

Additionally, after we raised jurisdictional arguments for the first time at oral argument, a basic right for all people, the lead judge said the Second Department had an excellent reputation to uphold and that the court would get to the bottom of the issues.

We were shocked that the panel did not address, or even acknowledge, the jurisdictional arguments.

We were also sorely disappointed with decisions in the four appeals where :

1. -- the Appellate Court made up facts,
2. -- the Appellate Court misrepresented appellants's allegation of extrinsic fraud as one for intrinsic fraud thereby invoking a statute of limitations for intrinsic fraud that does not exist for extrinsic fraud,
3. -- the Appellate Court selectively quoted a case directly on point to ignore the dispositive fact that an order was no longer in effect,
4. --and, in the most interesting appeal, the Appellate Court just reiterated a challenged conclusion of law the lower court  while citing the same case as the lower court without addressing the arguments and decades of cases noted in the Appeal Brief finding exactly the opposite.

This is especially troubling since the case cited by both courts makes absolutely no sense when actually broken into component parts.  

The fourth appeal was procedurally dismissed in a way we found appalling as it puts a ridiculous burden on all litigants, especially pro se (self represented) litigants, when it is clear from the record presented that the lower court refused to hear a motion filed by an attorney without a notice of appearance when the client and filing attorney were present at the hearing, a situation where a notice of appearance is not required or useful, resulting in a clear lack of Opportunity to be Heard, a due process violation negating any subsequent decisions.

We long fought, some 20 years, to make the Brooklyn Lyceum an arts facility and we are not willing, after waiting 2.5 years just to get the appeal heard, to be brushed off like so much dandruff.

To that end, shining a little light on these simple issues, issues that are core to the American justice system, seems like a good idea such that others in the future can see things for what they are sooner.

If you, JAFO, find yourself convinced of these simple issues we will shortly explain, you can help, and maybe we can help you.

Help by becoming J.A.F.O., Just Another F***ing Observer.

It is simple. Read some documents, watch a couple of minutes of court video and evaluate what you have read. Sign and mail/email an affidavit to us.

Help the Brooklyn Lyceum by paying it forward by paying attention now to ensure others due process later.

Richard Pryor once had a bit about justice ...

"If you're {going downtown..}looking for justice, that's just what you'll find -- just us."

JUDGES

The rules that judges are required to follow aren't that hard, and, in New York, you need to be an attorney for 10 years before you can be elected a judge.

The decade of service rule should be one-pronged, ten years of experience and you probably know what due process is and what discretionary is, but probably has become a two-pronged rationale ... learn what to do when you don't have any preconceived opinion and how to do what you want to do when you have a preconceived opinion.

RULES

Those rules are defined by hundreds of years of caselaw (the "common law"), the United States and New York State Constitutions, the statutes that approximate the "common law", and decisions since the statutes that expand the statute to encompass, minimally, the "common law" it "replaced", save for places where the statute explicitly replaced, removed (such as the removal of common law marriage in New York  State), modified or even expanded the "common law" (such as motions to vacate).

But with regards to due process, that thing without which we are nothing, it is excruciatingly simple, NOTICE and OPPORTUNITY TO BE HEARD.

Anywhere Notice and Opportunity to be Heard are missing, the court never obtained the right to rule.

We have run into some stellar judges (Arthur Schack, Remy Smith), but most really beat up on the self represented by ignoring due process, and the beast that rears its head when due process is ignored/denied/violated, JURISDICTION, another spin on the court's right to rule.

ANY FOOL WITH A FUNCTIONAL BRAINSTEM CAN SEE

That something is amiss.

Simple laws, simple facts, simple caselaw and different decisions for the self represented than those represented by counsel show how skewed the system is, unwatched by non-parties.

Thus, JAFO MARU

Seeking to compel the judicial system to do what the rules require, whether it is convenient or not.

is both dangerous and useful ...

TL/DR

James Bryce : 1888 : The American Commonwealth

The conscience and common sense of the nation as a whole keep down the evils which have crept into the working of the Constitution, and may in time extinguish them. Public opinion is a sort of atmosphere, fresh, keen, and full of sunlight, like that of the American cities, and this sunlight kills many of those noxious germs which are hatched where politicians congregate. That which, varying a once famous phrase, we may call the genius of universal publicity, has some disagreeable results, but the wholesome ones are greater and more numerous. Selfishness, injustice, cruelty, tricks, and jobs of all sorts shun the light; to expose them is to defeat them. No serious evils, no rankling sore in the body politic, can remain long concealed, and when disclosed, it is half destroyed.

LONG VERSION

Maru stands for circle or ship in Japanese.

Maru is recurring part of Star Trek, whereby Captain Kirk reprograms a simulator (system) that has been designed to not allow success.

The system is called the Kobayashi Maru : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru

KOBAYASHI MARU : "The test's name is occasionally used among Star Trek fans or those familiar with the series to describe a no-win scenario, a test of one's character or a solution that involves redefining the problem and managing an insurmountable scenario gracefully."

We think a system that covers up judicial violations of due process and false statements by judges counts as "a test of one's character" and "a no-win scenario" or an "insurmountable scenario" to be managed by the public at large.

We are not finished till sunlight kills the "noxious germs".