The Robing Room

Hon. R. Barclay Surrick	See Rating Details
District Judge	See Comments
E.D.Pa.
Average Rating:6.4 - 27 rating(s)	Please send me alerts on this judge E-mail Address:

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*Temperament:	(1=Awful,10=Excellent)
*Scholarship:	(1=Awful,10=Excellent)
*Industriousness:	(1=Not at all industrious,10=Highly industrious)
*Ability to Handle Complex Litigation:	(1=Awful,10=Excellent)
*Punctuality:	(1=Chronic`y Late,10=Always on Time)
*Evenhandedness in Civil Litigation:	(1=Demonstrates Bias,10=Entirely Evenhanded)
*Evenhandedness in Criminal Litigation:	(1=Demonstrates Bias,10=Entirely Evenhanded)
Flexibility In Scheduling	(1=Completely Inflexible,10=Very Flexible)
General Inclination Regarding Bail	(1=Pro-Defense,10=Pro-Government)
General Inclination in Criminal Cases, Pre-Trial:	(1=Pro-Defense,10=Pro-Government)
Involvement in Civil Settlement Discussions:	(1=Least Involved,10=Most Involved)
General Inclination in Criminal Cases, Trial:	(1=Pro-Defense,10=Pro-Government)
General Inclination in Criminal Cases, Sentencing:	(1=Most Lenient,10=Most Harsh)
Typical Discount Off Guidelines for Cooperators:	(1=10%,10=100%)
Items marked with (*) are averaged into the displayed overall rating

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What others have said about Hon. R. Barclay Surrick

Comments

Criminal Defense Lawyer

Comment #: 35227
Rating:4.8

Comments:
His presentation is to be very fair. However, look behind the scenes. He plays with a double edged sword. He will tell you that he did not do something extremely innocently. Follow the paper trail, the dirty deed comes directly from him. He isn't smart enough not to leave a trace of a peper trail. He and the court directly above him are in cahoots, hospitals (because of power. Trust me, w hen they don't want you on the planet they get rid of you and all you can do is watch yourself die and love those around you as much as you can....

Other

Comment #: 33361
Rating:Not Rated
Comments:
Judge Barclay Surrick is a very good Judge. He is Fair and he listens to you, he understands what is going on in the world today!!! We need more Judges like him. HE CHANGED MY LIFE!!!!!!

Litigant

Comment #: 33013
Rating:7.0

Comments:
Took FOREVER (a year and a half) to issue a ruling on a MTD but his ruling was excellent (25 page opinion) when he did. Very well reasoned, fair, experienced. Just takes forever to get anything done.

Civil Litigation - Private

Comment #: 11735
Rating:4.0

Comments:
It once took me over 2 1/2 years to get him to issue an opinion in a non-jury case, and only after I aksed for assistance from both the Clerk of Court and the President Judge did an Opinion eventually get sent out. A disgrace

Civil Litigation - Private

Comment #: 8030
Rating:7.5

Comments:
Well regarded -- except, apparently, by the crazies on the extreme right.

Litigant

Comment #: 7585
Rating:Not Rated
Comments:
Judge Surrick is typical of the attitude of the Federal judiciary towards "We the People:" by the courts, for the courts, and of the courts - Americans need not apply. It is obvious that the Federal courts are not designed to protect the average American. They are corporate in nature and are only designed to protect government and big corporations. The Federal courts are a total waste of time in this country, as are the state courts. "We the People" need to take back the grand juries (which were usurped from us in 1946 by the prosecutors' associations). Grand juries could be empanelled by "We the People" when it was found that judges and other officials were violating the law. The grand jury kept a stringent check on the courts, the executive and even the legislative branches of government. Grand juries were the last bastion against corrupt, incompetent, dishonest and tyrannical Federal and state judges and other public officials. Plus, the grand jury was designed to control the budgets of the counties and the states. Once grand juries were usurped by the prosecutor/district attorney associations, those two responsibilities were removed from the people. We now have seen the destruction it has caused this country, in its social fabric and financial stability. It's time to take back the grand juries, or start our own parallel to the corporate grand juries run by the corporate government. For those that aren't savvy, the United States is defined as a Federal corporation (28 U.S.C. Section 3002 (15)), and the states, municipalities and other instrumentalities are subdivisons thereunder. So, any Federal judge that can be rated, is to be rated as compromised by the government and big business and has significant unconstitutional conflicts of interests wherein they cannot sit on most cases because they have financial interests in most of those cases they are involved with.

Civil Litigation - Private

Comment #: 7526
Rating:9.0

Comments:
Having read J. Surrick's lengthy opinion in Berg v Obama, I find it well reasoned and consistent with the law.

Standing is well recognized as a constitutional minimum requirement for bringing suit. To have standing, a plaintiff must satisfy a three part test:
(1) There must be an injury in fact -- a deprivation of a legally protected interest that is concrete and particularized and is actual or imminent, and not conjectural or hypothetical.
(2) There must be a direct causal connection between the injury and the defendant's conduct that can be traced to the actions of the defendant and not to some other third party.
(3) A favorable decision must be likely to redress the complained-of injury.

It has long been established that an individual citizen does NOT have standing to bring an action that claims harm to all citizens from some alleged violation of the Constitution, since the harm is not particularized. If the plaintiff is suffering an alleged injury that is no different than the public at large, then the plaintiff does not have standing. While this concept is long-standing, recent decisions arising out of the political arena are instructive:

In Jones v. Bush the court (in 2000) held that individual voters did not have standing to seek injunctive relief alleging a violation of the Twelfth Amendment (since both Bush and Chaney were alleged to be citizens of Texas, and thus members of the Electoral College from Texas could not vote for both of them as it would violate the 12th Amendment). The plaintiffs claimed that their status as voters and citizens was sufficient to confer standing. The court dismissed the action, finding that the plaintiffs' alleged harm was not particularized and that they, therefore, did not have standing.

In Becker v. FEC, the court (in 2000) dismissed a suit by supporters of Ralph Nader, because they did not have standing to challenge the FEC's debate regulations that prevented Nader from participating in the presidential debates, since the party sustaining the alleged harm was Nader, not the voters who did not suffer a particularized harm.

In Hollander v McCain, the plaintiffs brought suit alleging that John McCain was ineligible to be president because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone and was, thus, not a natural born citizen as that term is used in the Natural Born Citizen clause of the Constitution. The court (in 2008) dismissed the claim for lack of standing because the harm the plaintiff alleged was too generalized, and was not a particularized harm sustained by the plaintiff.

Going back a little farther in time, the court in U.S. v. Richardson held (in 1974) that a taxpayer did not have standing to obtain information about the expenditures of the C.I.A. under the Constitution's Accounts Clause, in Article I, Section 9.

In Ex parte Levitt, the court (in 1976) held that a citizen did not have standing to challenge the appointment of Hugo Black to the Supreme Court under the Constitution's Ineligibility Clause, in Article I, Section 6.

This principle is well-established. To have standing to bring a lawsuit, the plaintiff must have sustained an individualized harm that is different than a harm sustained by all citizens or by a large group of citizens.

Other

Comment #: 7199
Rating:1.0

Comments:
The only document showing Obama's birth certificate is on a website. If it is valid, why did he not simply show it to the court instead of filing for a Joint Motion for Protective Order to Stay Discovery Pending a Decision on the Motion to Dismiss. If he had proof, he should have provided it to the court, and this would have been over back in August.

Other

Comment #: 7197
Rating:1.0

Comments:
Someone has stated that Obama has provided his birth certificate. No, what he has provided is a copy of the birth registration. There is a difference. What he should be providing is the long form, which shows the full name of the mother, the race, the origin, the full name of the father, the race, the origin. It should state the place of birth, including the name of the hospital.

I worked for a major life insurance company, and often requested such documents.

Hopefully, the U. S. Supreme Court will take this and give it a thorough examination, and then make a ruling.

As it is right now, this election will go down in history as not only the most expensive, but also as the one with the most fraud. It will make the 2000 election look like child's play.

Other

Comment #: 7189
Rating:4.0

Comments:
I think this should be looked into. I'm just a ordinary citizen but I am asked to prove who I am all the time. Here we have a man running for President of the United States who apparently does not have to prove that he is a U.S. citizen. This whole issue has produced very negative PR for Obama. If he has a legitimate birth certificate, why won't he just produce it and put this whole issue to bed?

Criminal Defense Lawyer

Comment #: 7186
Rating:Not Rated
Comments:
In the case of Berg v. Obama, the judge ruled on the standing case law. One would expect him to raise the issue of the common sense of the law. As in Roe v. Wade, there comes a time when a judge needs to consider the good of the people. As in this case, the judge should have admonished the DNC and Senator Obama for not providing good faith discovery of the information. Why drag on this lawsuit? What is behind the litigation here? Why not come forward with the basics? Rather, the judge admonished Mr. Berg for speaking on behalf of the people.

Other

Comment #: 7136
Rating:1.0

Comments:
This situation is extremely outrageous. We deserve to know the truth about Senator Obama's birth and we need to know immediately who has the standing to question his eligibility before this issue becomes a constitutional crisis after the election. I am extremely disappointed with this dismissal.

Other

Comment #: 7124
Rating:2.0

Comments:
With the election so close, this judge should have demanded that Senator Obama present his vaulted birth certificate as Senator McCain did. There are too many questions about where he was born. If he's discovered not to be a natural born citizen after the elections, there will be a constitutional crisis. America was embarrassed enough after the 2000 elections.

Other

Comment #: 7121
Rating:Not Rated
Comments:
I must say I am saddened that this judge denied the American people the right to see verification that Senator Obama is indeed eligible to become Commander in Chief. The people of this country cannot even get a driver's license without an original birth certificate. We require no less than that from a potential President. I am not a firm believer that Senator Obama is not eligible, but the denial of these records for the people is despicable at best, criminal at worst. The citizens of this country have rights that supercede any one man's opinion. If the Senator has already provided these documents, then it is long overdue that those be made public. Dragging this out is suspicious. If this is not an issue, why did the Senator's campaign deem it important enough to post a digital copy of his certificate online, but failed to provide an original to the court? These are legitimate questions, and the best way to shut everyone up is provide what we have the right to see.

Other

Comment #: 7110
Rating:10.0

Comments:
Sorry if I make the average rating here credible, but I suddenly felt like "the silent majority" here. Feels great, actually!

Other

Comment #: 7105
Rating:Not Rated
Comments:
Now ask yourself if you were Obama and you had such a lawsuit filed against you, how would you respond?
A Provide the court with the three documents in question and go back to shaking hands, making promises and smiling for the cameras.
B. Provide images of one of the documents to a friendly website to post, but not to the court.
C. Ignore the request, then make a motion to dismiss the case, in lieu of providing the proof.
D. In the meantime, quietly, post a notice at your website, FighttheSmears.com that you had dual citizenship with Kenya.
E. Hire the top gun attorney from the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to fight the case.
F. File a Joint Motion for Protective Order to Stay Discovery Pending a Decision on the Motion to Dismiss (which was) filed on 09/24/08, thereby putting the matter off until–hopefully–after the election.
Time’s up. What do you do?
Most readers sensibly chose A.

Other

Comment #: 7104
Rating:10.0

Comments:
Oh, my. I see the right wing religious crazies have come out in force. There's no telling what will come out from under the rocks, is there?

Civil Litigation - Private

Comment #: 7079
Rating:Not Rated
Comments:
Sorry to see that this system is being abused by the acolytes of Berg who are insane with hate after the dismissal of the frivolous lawsuit against Obama.

Other

Comment #: 7078
Rating:1.0

Comments:
When "the people" are judged to "not have standing" on a constitutional matter, it appears that a government "of the people, for the people and by the people" is "just words".

In this case, the burden of proof falls squarely on the defendant. The defendant is seeking a position that has constitutional requirements and absolute proof of those requirements has not been presented.

Other

Comment #: 7073
Rating:10.0

Comments:
There are a batch of trolls upset because this judge didn't buy into a badly written lawsuit cut and pasted from lunatic websites.

The judge did the right thing in dismissing a case with no validity that was wasting the court's valuable time. And the trolls, rather than gnashing their teeth and wailing because a bad lawsuit was dismissed, should be glad that we are a nation of laws for everyone, and that the rule of law is still "innocent until proven guilty", not "guilty until proven innocent."

Other

Comment #: 7071
Rating:5.0

Comments:
The judge probably knew the case would be taken to the Supreme Court and maybe that is what the judge was hoping for. It is not a state case, it is a case for the country. I am glad it has gone to the highest court in the land. They must hear this case. If the Supreme Court throws it out, then we know we are in deep trouble.

Other

Comment #: 7059
Rating:Not Rated
Comments:
Please start living up to the your Constitutional duties and let the evidence be heard. On what legal grounds was this case dismissed? Has the evidence been heard? I pray the Supreme Court will take a serious look at your ruling and allow the case to proceed.

Other

Comment #: 7051
Rating:Not Rated
Comments:
I don't have a legal background but think you could have done a much better job in your answer about why you have decided that Mr. Berg's lawsuit has no standing when the Constitution clearly lays out a government by the people and for the people. Yet according to your ruling "the people" have no standing and would not be injured by the total disregard of provisions laid out in the Constitution by our founding fathers. Haven't you, by your ruling, pretty much declared the tenets of the Constitution of the United States invalid?

There are now tens of thousands if not millions of Americans who cannot believe the total disregard for the truth by our judicial system. Something that could have been handled by presenting a few documents is going to turn into a national crisis. Unbelievable.

Other

Comment #: 7047
Rating:Not Rated
Comments:
Just shows that the American judicial branch is a joke, to go along with the legislative branch, which is also a joke, and the executive branch, which is also a joke.

Surrick, shame on you. Hopefully, an appeal can be made to the Supreme Court.

Criminal Defense Lawyer

Comment #: 7036
Rating:Not Rated
Comments:
It is sad that our country is deteriorating to the point where ordinary citizens have no standing. Gone are the days of government by the people for the people. It's all about power now, instead of what is best for America. Take our money, ask for our votes and then do what is in your best interests instead of ours. I had to provide original copies of my children's birth certificates to register them for school. How hard is it? I certainly hope that the Supreme Court is more concerned with the well-being of the USA!

Civil Litigation - Private

Comment #: 2422
Rating:4.2

Comments:
Moderately defense oriented in civil cases. Exceptionally slow in disposing of civil cases. Pleasant to the lawyers.

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