The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees all Americans a fair and impartial trial. But in recent years, this right has been coopted and nullified by the faceless bureaucrats who choose kangaroo courts rather than a constitutional process. As a result, many small business owners who are charged with violating one of the tens of thousands of regulations are tried, not in court in front of a judge, but in a federal agency proceeding in front of another employee from that very same agency, known as an administrative law judge. To prevail, a defendant is forced to persuade an agency employee to rule against their employer and their best interests, often under bizarre evidentiary standards favoring the agency.
"Essentially, much of the Bill of Rights has been gutted,” explains Columbia University School of Law professor Philip Hamburger. “You don't have the right to be heard by a real judge or a jury and you don't have the full due process of law. Our fundamental procedural freedoms, which once were guarantees, have become mere options."
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