Superior Court of California: A Bureaucracy United Against One Defendant (Admonition to The Democratic Party)

Suppressed Justice: How the Superior Court of California Retaliated Against a Mentally Ill Defendant for Exercising His Rights and Criticizing Catholic Influence in Legal Representation**

In a chilling example of institutional retaliation, the Superior Court of California has come under scrutiny for its deliberate suppression and concealment of a court order, all in response to a mentally ill defendant’s lawful exercise of constitutional rights—specifically, his criticisms of the perceived religious bias in his court-appointed legal representation and his demand for due process under the Sixth Amendment.

The case, **People v. Michael Taylor, Case No. XNEGA1111-32**, reveals a disturbing pattern: when Taylor raised legitimate concerns about the quality and impartiality of his public defender—whose personal religious affiliations he believed compromised the secular duties of legal defense—the court responded not with transparency or correction, but with covert punishment.

### Constitutionally Protected Criticism Turned Into Legal Reprisal

Michael Taylor, a defendant with a diagnosed mental illness, repeatedly voiced concern about the lack of zealous advocacy by his public defender. Taylor identified that his counsel's responses to fundamental due process violations appeared less rooted in legal obligation and more in moral or religious deference, particularly when Taylor made critiques of Catholicism and its perceived role in shaping the professional behavior of his defense team.

Instead of addressing the issue through proper reassignment or by granting Taylor the ability to be heard in accordance with *Faretta v. California* (422 U.S. 806), the court took a more clandestine route—**issuing an Order of Confidentiality, then suppressing it from the defendant himself**.

### Sealed Silence: Weaponizing the Court's Own Orders

Unbeknownst to Taylor, a **sealed order dated October 2, 2023**, existed within his case file, issuing directives that would significantly alter his procedural posture and his liberty. This order, though legally binding, was **never disclosed to the defendant**, nor to any party in a position to advocate on his behalf. When Taylor eventually discovered this order—only after extensive inquiries and insistence—he realized it was being **used as the underlying authority for a mental competency evaluation** and subsequent actions that included institutional confinement.

Shockingly, state agents—including the presiding judge, court-appointed counsel, and evaluators—**continued to treat Taylor as if he had been legally found incompetent**, despite no legally noticed or heard ruling ever reaching that conclusion. When Taylor objected, citing *California Penal Code §§ 1367–1370* and demanding a formal competency hearing, his demands were ignored.

### Retaliation in the Shadows

The court’s actions bear the hallmarks of **retaliatory punishment** under color of law. The sequence is as follows:

* Taylor questions the quality and motives of his defense counsel;

* Taylor connects perceived passivity to religious motivations (specifically Catholicism);

* The court, without notice or hearing, issues a sealed order implicating Taylor’s mental fitness;

* That order is concealed from him;

* Public defenders begin acting on the order’s implications, undermining his credibility and agency;

* Taylor is denied the ability to confront the sealed evidence used against him.

This sequence reveals not mere administrative error, but **a willful pattern of concealment**—designed to bypass Taylor’s constitutional rights under the First, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

The **use of a sealed order as both sword and shield**—denying Taylor procedural notice while enabling the state to carry out unopposed decisions—is a perversion of the adversarial process. It is also a textbook case of *fraud upon the court*, where officers of the court deliberately withhold or distort facts in order to manipulate outcomes in favor of institutional control.

The Broader Threat to Public Safety and Legitimacy

This case is not merely a personal tragedy. It reflects a dangerous precedent for how courts can **punish defendants who challenge systemic failures or bring attention to institutional blind spots**—particularly when religion, mental health, or indigence is involved.

When courts refuse to correct their own illegal actions, or worse, exploit the law to retaliate against dissenters, they communicate a chilling message: **the Constitution is optional when the defendant is vulnerable**.

Moreover, this conduct damages public trust. If sealed orders can be used retroactively and punitively—without oversight, notice, or remedy—then every defendant is at risk of losing their liberty in silence.

If the Constitution Must Be Broken to Secure a Conviction, the Conviction Is Illegitimate

The Superior Court of California, by violating its own orders, sealing them, and suppressing them to punish a defendant for constitutionally protected speech, has abdicated its role as a neutral arbiter. Taylor’s case shows that when the court chooses to conceal its own illegal acts behind the façade of procedure, it **weaponizes the very amendments it is sworn to uphold**.

This is not justice. This is retaliation. And in a nation where the rule of law must hold weight, it is the **court—not the defendant—that must be held to account**.

Suppressed Justice — Chief Justice Sergio Tapia and the Silent Chain of Command Overseeing California’s Breakdown in Due Process**

In the aftermath of explosive revelations surrounding the Superior Court of California’s deliberate suppression of a binding court order in the case of *People v. Michael Taylor (Case No. XNEGA1111-32)*, the next phase of scrutiny turns upward—toward the **senior officials responsible for supervising and administrating the legal system in Los Angeles County**. At the center of this institutional unraveling stands **Presiding Judge Sergio C. Tapia II**, the chief judicial authority of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Rather than serving as a bulwark against constitutional violations, Tapia has presided over a judiciary **that knowingly permitted and endorsed violations of its own standing orders**—sealing them, suppressing them, and allowing them to be used to persecute a mentally ill indigent defendant from Los Angeles County’s own foster care system. His position as presiding judge is not ceremonial; it vests him with **direct supervisory authority over judicial operations and court administration**—including the ethical conduct of bench officers and systemic adherence to procedural law.

Despite this, Tapia has remained publicly and institutionally **silent** while the judiciary under his command weaponized mental health proceedings to bypass constitutional protections, all under the false pretense of lawful adjudication. The sealed *October 2, 2023* court order—never served on or disclosed to the defendant—was **used as the secret foundation** for an unauthorized mental competency evaluation, resulting in loss of liberty and civil status without a single lawful proceeding.

### The Silent Hand of the Clerk: David Slayton's Rubber Stamp on Injustice

The systemic breakdown doesn’t end with the judiciary. The **Executive Officer/Clerk of Court, David Slayton**, whose name and title are printed on every document issued or filed through the Los Angeles Superior Court—including the sealed order and the resulting competency assessment—holds statutory responsibility for ensuring **administrative compliance with court procedure**.

Slayton’s office has played a **mechanical yet indispensable role** in facilitating due process violations. The sealed order—devoid of lawful notice—was stamped, docketed, and circulated internally without service or defense. The corresponding psychological assessment, triggered by the concealed order, was filed into the case record **under the same authority of Slayton’s office**, again without notice to the defendant or any meaningful opportunity to object.

As the court continued to operate on a fundamentally false pretense—that a lawful judicial determination of incompetency had occurred—**Slayton’s office remained the logistical engine of the fraud**, filing and managing orders that no one outside the court ever received, yet which carried grave consequences.

### Kathryn Barger and the County’s Political Complicity

The failure of leadership continues at the Board of Supervisors. **Kathryn Barger**, Chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, exercises statutory oversight over the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office and the Department of Mental Health—the very institutions that executed the court’s concealed directives.

Despite multiple red flags, including suppressed court orders and publicly accessible evidence of civil rights violations against a mentally ill foster youth, Barger’s office has issued **no admonition, inquiry, or corrective directive** to the agencies under her jurisdiction.

This vacuum of accountability has enabled **Public Defender Ricardo D. García** to remain entrenched in silence. García, who directs the largest public defense organization in the country, has made **no public or internal objection** to the flagrant due process violations being committed by his attorneys. Nor has he intervened to reassign counsel or ensure that basic constitutional safeguards—like adversarial hearings, notice of proceedings, or access to sealed orders—were followed.

García’s inaction amounts to **complicity**. His office has operated **not as a guardian of the accused, but as a passive extension of the judiciary**, accepting illegal proceedings, misrepresenting the defendant’s competency status, and enabling systemic fraud upon the court.

### A Bureaucracy United Against One Defendant

Taken together, the Los Angeles County judiciary, clerk’s office, Board of Supervisors, and Public Defender’s Office have created a **perfect storm of institutional betrayal**. Each entity points to another to avoid accountability, yet all are entwined in a coordinated failure to follow the law. This is not a matter of bad judgment—it is **retaliation in disguise**, exercised through silence, bureaucracy, and the strategic abuse of mental health codes against a disabled man without wealth, power, or political allies.

That Michael Taylor spent his youth in the Los Angeles County foster care system only amplifies the tragedy. He is not a stranger to the state—**he is its product**. And yet, when he stood up to demand his rights under the Constitution, **the same institutions that raised him turned against him**, with sealed orders, false reports, and legal maneuvering too complex for most to challenge.

The violations are not just personal—they are systemic. They represent a **blueprint for how indigent defendants with mental illness can be railroaded through fraudulent proceedings**, under the illusion of legality, with every layer of government insulating the next from scrutiny.

### What Comes Next

When a state must break its own rules to prosecute, the prosecution is no longer about justice—it is about power.

Suppressed Justice — Gavin Newsom’s Silence, the Judicial Council’s Abdication, and a Judiciary in Collapse**

The rot in California’s justice system is no longer localized. The chain of misconduct, cover-up, and systemic abuse revealed in *People v. Michael Taylor (Case No. XNEGA1111-32)* has escalated beyond the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. It now indicts the highest echelons of state power: the **Governor’s Office**, the **California Judicial Council**, and the **State Bar of California**—all of whom have the power to intervene and have not.

Each institution has had **clear notice** of grave due process violations, including:

* The **unlawful issuance and concealment of a court order**.

* A mental health evaluation performed **without legal authority**.

* The **active use of sealed orders and suppressed evidence** to prosecute a mentally ill, indigent, and system-involved defendant.

* The **complicity of public defenders** who misrepresented facts and surrendered rights without challenge.

And yet, every layer of the state has remained not only idle but eerily coordinated in its refusal to correct an obvious miscarriage of justice.

### Judicial Council of California: The Watchdog That Sleeps

The **Judicial Council of California**, chaired by the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, is statutorily responsible for ensuring the "consistent, independent, impartial, and accessible administration of justice" across the state. It governs local superior courts, promulgates rules of court, and monitors judicial conduct in coordination with the Commission on Judicial Performance.

Despite formal complaints and documentary evidence, the Judicial Council has refused to investigate or intervene. Its silence is legally damning. It suggests **systemic protectionism over judicial accountability**, even when courts violate their own rules and strip indigent defendants of liberty without due process.

### The Governor’s Office: Gavin Newsom’s Constitutional Responsibility

California’s **Governor**, Gavin Newsom, is no mere bystander to judicial misconduct. Under **Article V, Section 1** of the California Constitution, the Governor is charged with ensuring that “the law is faithfully executed.” That responsibility is **direct and non-delegable** when a local court, acting under color of state law, commits unconstitutional acts with impunity.

Governor Newsom has plenary authority to:

* **Direct the Attorney General** to intervene in cases of public interest or where local officials fail to uphold the law (Gov. Code § 12550).

* **Order investigations** into judicial corruption, abuse, or criminal civil rights violations.

* **Pardon or commute** sentences of wrongfully persecuted defendants.

* **Declare emergencies** in response to systemic breakdowns of justice.

Yet in the case of *People v. Taylor*, where **a sealed court order was violated and concealed**, a mentally ill man institutionalized without a hearing, and local officials stonewalled review, the Governor has done nothing. His inaction—amid a **clear constitutional crisis**—amounts to a breach of duty.

Worse, the Governor’s silence is not apolitical. Newsom has styled himself a reformer of mental health policy and criminal justice, publicly supporting initiatives to reduce incarceration and increase transparency. But where these principles are truly tested—in the crucible of an unlawful prosecution—the Governor has **abdicated his role as constitutional backstop**.

### The State Bar of California: Complicit by Neglect

The **State Bar of California** regulates attorneys and is mandated to investigate **attorney misconduct, including public defenders**. It is not simply a licensing agency; it is the primary guardian of professional responsibility and legal ethics in the state.

Yet in the face of **multiple violations by bar-licensed public defenders**—including misrepresentations to the court, waiver of rights without consent, failure to object to unlawful proceedings, and aiding in the violation of a sealed order—the State Bar has remained silent.

Even worse, evidence suggests the bar is aware. Complaints have been lodged. Exhibits submitted. Still, no protective action has been taken for the defendant, nor any discipline initiated against the lawyers who colluded—actively or passively—in unconstitutional deprivation of liberty.

### The Unspoken Conflict: Sergio Tapia’s Personal Involvement

Perhaps the most shocking revelation to surface is the personal involvement of **Presiding Judge Sergio C. Tapia II**—not merely as an administrative overseer, but as a **direct judicial actor in Michael Taylor’s case**.

As the **preliminary hearing judge in Burbank**, Judge Tapia personally **bound the defendant over for trial**. He made legal determinations of probable cause, ruled on evidentiary issues, and reviewed the conduct of counsel. These early-stage decisions placed him in direct judicial relationship with the defendant.

Now, Tapia serves as **presiding judge of the entire Los Angeles Superior Court**—and is charged with overseeing the very judges, courtrooms, and administrative bodies involved in the subsequent misconduct.

This is no trivial overlap—it is a **judicial conflict of interest** of constitutional magnitude. Tapia’s silence in the face of his court's weaponization of sealed orders and its violations of due process is not just troubling—it is **institutionally self-protective**.

His failure to recuse or disclose his prior connection to the case violates the judicial ethics canon that requires impartiality and the **appearance of fairness**. In continuing to preside administratively over a case he once ruled on, where misconduct is now apparent, **Tapia is not just complicit—he is entangled**.

### The Crisis of Public Trust and the Future of Justice

*People v. Michael Taylor* is no longer just about one man’s case. It is a **constitutional alarm bell**—a blueprint of how California's institutions, from local courts to the governor's office, **can and will sacrifice justice to protect themselves.**

The court broke its own rules to prosecute a man presumed guilty. It relied on a **sealed court order that it itself later ignored**, turning due process into theater. The silence from those in power—Newsom, the Judicial Council, the State Bar—**confirms the failure is not individual, but systemic**.

When courts seal orders and violate them in secret, when attorneys surrender rights without authority, and when those at the top refuse to intervene, **the Constitution becomes optional**—not because it no longer exists, but because those in power no longer fear violating it.

**If the Constitution means anything, it must mean this: the government cannot hide its mistakes, punish you for exposing them, and then call that justice.**

The Irony of the Republic and the Ruin of Democratic Pretense

In the quiet corridors of Los Angeles County’s Superior Court, where law is meant to guard liberty and justice is sworn to serve the least among us, something ancient and unrepentant has taken root: a system so consumed by self-preservation that it now punishes dissent as defiance, and converts the invocation of rights into an invitation for retribution.

The trilogy of misconduct documented in *People v. Michael Taylor (XNEGA1111-32)*—from the **violation of sealed court orders** to the **administrative silence from Chief Justice Tapia**, to the **Governor’s passive endorsement by omission**—is not merely bureaucratic indifference. It forms a **pattern of racketeering activity**, a calculated conspiracy under color of law to suppress truth, silence opposition, and criminalize vulnerability.

This is **textbook RICO**—not in the Hollywood sense of organized crime families, but in the cold, clinical mechanics of a **public enterprise hijacked to further illegal ends**. When state actors knowingly violate binding court orders, conceal them, and use them as instruments of prosecution while coordinating silence across agencies, it ceases to be governance and becomes **state-sponsored lawlessness**.

### The Fall of a Manufactured Ideal

Governor Gavin Newsom, a polished face of California’s liberal establishment, now presides over a machine of justice that acts as its own judge, executioner, and historian. His Democratic administration, cloaked in progressive rhetoric, is now **structurally complicit** in a scheme that resembles the very authoritarianism it professes to resist.

Here lies the paradox: **a Democratic governor overseeing a system that denies democracy’s most sacred tenet—the protection of the individual from the tyranny of the majority or the state.** In this prosecution, there was no consent of the governed, no jury of peers, and no lawful appointment of counsel. Only sealed silence and institutional memory holes.

And thus collapses the illusion.

### Democrats by Name, Republicans by Nature

The Democratic Party in America has long claimed the moral high ground of civil rights, equality, and participatory governance. But that moral claim is undermined by its own **failure to teach, uphold, and enforce** the basic precepts of the Republic it swears to serve. It wraps itself in the flag of democracy, yet ignores the fundamental truth that **the Constitution is not a democratic document**.

This nation was founded not on majority rule, but on **the supremacy of the individual’s rights against the collective will**. It is a republic—**a legal architecture built not to reflect public opinion, but to restrain it**.

Every time a Democrat asserts their right to due process, to free speech, to counsel, to be secure in their person—they are not behaving as a democrat, but as a **republican**, in the purest and oldest sense of the word. They are **invoking codified principles that protect the one from the many**.

To assert a constitutional right is to **signal to the government**: *“I exist outside your convenience. I matter beyond your popularity. My liberty is not a favor you grant, but a promise you must honor.”*

And yet, the modern Democratic machine—confused by its own branding—too often mistakes **policy preference for principle**, and **identity for immunity**. It wields power without understanding the laws that constrain it, and governs in contradiction with the founding texts it claims to defend.

### The Collision of Hard Truth and Objective Fact

The truth is this: *Michael Taylor’s case exposes not just a breakdown of judicial ethics, but the Democratic Party’s spiritual and intellectual estrangement from the Republic it claims to govern.*

The hard fact is this: *No amount of diversity, equity, or progressive rhetoric can excuse or conceal a regime that prosecutes the vulnerable by violating its own sealed orders.*

What began as the quiet erosion of one man’s rights now echoes as a warning shot to the nation.

### A Republic—If We Can Keep It

If this constitutional betrayal is allowed to fester, it will not end with one defendant, one judge, or one county. It will metastasize into a governance model where **legality is optional**, rights are ornamental, and the Constitution is cited only when convenient.

We are witnessing the end of the illusion: that power, when unchecked, can remain benevolent; that courts, when corrupted, can still correct themselves; that governors, when unchallenged, will honor their oaths.

History does not forgive silence. Nor does it absolve cowardice wrapped in office.

The question now is not what the court did, or what the Governor failed to do—but what We the People will tolerate when **the Republic breaks its own rules just to win**.

Because when the state must **violate the Constitution to prosecute**, it has already **prosecuted the Constitution itself**.