A Reason for Being: by Sylvester L. Harris

A reason For Being: The Sylvester Harris Story

Conspiracy Within - Bad Corps Good Corps, A Reason for Serious Concern!

When Syvester Harris was a police lieutenant and Community Relation Director of the Racine, Wisconsin Police Department (25 miles S.W. of Milwaukee and 100 miles N.E. of Chicago), there was so much blatant misconduct by criminal justice officials such as is highly publicized and at the forefront of the news today. He felt compelled to expose this misconduct in hope that it would be quashed before causing catastrophic results within the community he vowed to serve.

In his quest to rid the community of these grave injustices, he was constantly under scrutiny which made it very difficult for him to perform his duties. He filed charges against some of these officials, including the police union, and the courts ruled that these officials must "cease and desist" in their harassment of Sylvester Harris in the performance of his duties.

As a result of this effective pursuit of police misconduct by Sylvester, a powerful and popular judge in the city, Judge Richard Harvey, Jr. who was also known as "The Policeman's Judge," interceded on behalf of these officials. He falsely indicted Sylvester on one felony and misdemeanor charges. These charges stemmed from an arrest Sylvester had made of an ex-convict while the ex-convict was in the process of committing another crime.

The charges against Sylvester were subsequently thrown out of court by other judges from neighboring cities at the preliminary stage. These judges found judge Harvey and the District Attorney's Office conspired and intimidated the ex-con and other people into fabricating the charges against Sylvester. As a result of the officials' misconduct, Sylvester subsequently sued Judge Harvey and won a landmark case which escalated all the way to the United States Supreme Court. This is the first time that a judge has been successfully sued for violation of someone's civil rights, as judges have a broad cloak of judicial immunity. The case is entitled Harris vs. Harvey 605 Federal 2d 330.