Opinion

OP-ED: California Cover Up?

Published

12 years ago

March 6, 2014

By Winslow Rouse

Between 1999 and 2007, public records suggest the judges of the State of California disobeyed the legislature by issuing a whole generation of mandatory restraining orders on void and unenforceable Judicial Council forms. The result was the false arrests and jailing of possible over 12,000 young men between the ages of 25 and 34, who were taken from their communities without notice or probable cause.

According to public documents, despite the requirements of amended Family Code Section 63899 (f) and the new Penal Code Section 12021 (g)(3), on January 1, 2000 the judicial Council republished the unrevised January 1, 1999 editions of three of the most widely used restraining order forms, the DV-110 (Order to Show Cause and Temporary Restraining Order), the DV-130 (Restraining Order After Hearing), and the MC-220 (Protective Order in Criminal Proceeding).

These forms each contained a Notice Regarding Firearms printed in bold type which prohibited respondents from purchasing or receiving a firearm while subject to a restraining order, but failed to prohibit owning or possessing a firearm. They were also ambiguous, telling respondents that while the courts have the authority to order the surrender of firearms, it is only if a restraining order is issued at the noticed hearing that respondents may then be required to give up their firearms.

It was not until July 1, 2000, that the Judicial Council revised the Notice Regarding Firearms in these forms to warn respondents they were prohibited from owning, possessing, purchasing, or receiving a firearm while they were subject to a restraining order. The revision informed respondents that at the hearing on the matter the court will order them to give up any firearms they may already own or possess.

California’s judges were allegedly told on four separate occasions that these orders were void. The courts simply disregarded the requirements of the newly enacted Senate Bill 218 (1999) and the legally binding decisions of their own governing agency, the Judicial Council of California, which unmistakably informed the judges that every restraining order form published after a legislative deadline of January 1, 2000, was void and unenforceable.

Because void orders do not, never did, and never can legally exist, no statute of limitations bars lawsuits to set void orders aside. So now, possibly thousands of people who were harmed by these void forms can sue for the damage they have suffered, which could total billions of dollars.

Judges are required to know the law, so every judge who issued, upheld or enforced one of these void restraining orders knew or should have known that the judicial Council forms on which the restraining orders were issued were themselves void and unenforceable.

Because void orders convey no jurisdiction, the courts had no authority over these void orders except to set them aside, which they have yet to do.

Since the courts had no jurisdiction over these void orders, the judges involved in this cover-up have no defense for their misconduct. For the last twelve years the judiciary has been scrambling to cover up these void orders, even though that has required the false arrest, conviction, and imprisonment of thousands of innocent people.

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

4 days ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.