THE EVOLUTION OF JUDICIAL TYRANNY IN THE UNITED STATES:

"If the judges interpret the laws themselves, and suffer none else to interpret, they may easily make, of the laws, [a shredded] shipman's hose!" - King James I of England, around 1616.

“No class of the community ought to be allowed freer scope in the expression or publication of opinions as to the capacity, impartiality or integrity of judges than members of the bar. They have the best opportunities of observing and forming a correct judgment. They are in constant attendance on the courts. Hundreds of those who are called on to vote never enter a court-house, or if they do, it is only at intervals as jurors, witnesses or parties. To say that an attorney can only act or speak on this subject under liability to be called to account and to be deprived of his profession and livelihood by the very judge or judges whom he may consider it his duty to attack and expose, is a position too monstrous to be entertained for a moment under our present system,” Justice Sharwood in Ex Parte Steinman and Hensel, 95 Pa 220, 238-39 (1880).

“This case illustrates to me the serious consequences to the Bar itself of not affording the full protections of the First Amendment to its applicants for admission. For this record shows that [the rejected attorney candidate] has many of the qualities that are needed in the American Bar. It shows not only that [the rejected attorney candidate] has followed a high moral, ethical and patriotic course in all of the activities of his life, but also that he combines these more common virtues with the uncommon virtue of courage to stand by his principles at any cost.

It is such men as these who have most greatly honored the profession of the law. The legal profession will lose much of its nobility and its glory if it is not constantly replenished with lawyers like these. To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it.” In Re Anastaplo, 18 Ill. 2d 182, 163 N.E.2d 429 (1959), cert. granted, 362 U.S. 968 (1960), affirmed over strong dissent, 366 U.S. 82 (1961), Justice Black, Chief Justice Douglas and Justice Brennan, dissenting.

" I do not believe that the practice of law is a "privilege" which empowers Government to deny lawyers their constitutional rights. The mere fact that a lawyer has important responsibilities in society does not require or even permit the State to deprive him of those protections of freedom set out in the Bill of Rights for the precise purpose of insuring the independence of the individual against the Government and those acting for the Government”. Lathrop v Donohue, 367 US 820 (1961), Justice Black, dissenting.

"The legal profession must take great care not to emulate the many occupational groups that have managed to convert licensure from a sharp weapon of public defense into blunt instrument of self-enrichment". Walter Gellhorn, "The Abuse of Occupational Licensing", University of Chicago Law Review, Volume 44 Issue 1, September of 1976.

“Because the law requires that judges no matter how corrupt, who do not act in the clear absence of jurisdiction while performing a judicial act, are immune from suit, former Judge Ciavarella will escape liability for the vast majority of his conduct in this action. This is, to be sure, against the popular will, but it is the very oath which he is alleged to have so indecently, cavalierly, baselessly and willfully violated for personal gain that requires this Court to find him immune from suit”, District Judge A. Richard Caputo in H.T., et al, v. Ciavarella, Jr, et al, Case No. 3:09-cv-00286-ARC in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Document 336, page 18, November 20, 2009. This is about judges who were sentencing kids to juvenile detention for kickbacks.


Thursday, June 12, 2014

Judge, can you, please, attach an X-ray of your conscience and a transcript of what it told you? After you search it to decide my motion to recuse?





Yet another judge "searched his conscience", found no bias against me or my husband, and sanctioned us for pointing out his misconduct.


The hero this time is Judge Kevin Dowd of Chenango County Supreme Court, assigned, coincidentally, to the Mokay case that I just blogged about before receiving the "gift" of sanctions from the "unbiased" Judge Dowd.


We made a motion to vacate sanctions against us imposed by Judge Becker after we sued Judge Becker two times.


The "unbiased" Judge Dowd denied the motion and sanctioned me and my husband $1,000.00 each for making it.


The setting of the motion is as follows.


1.  On June 27, 2011 my husband and I sued Judge Becker for misconduct.
2.  Judge Becker sanctioned me or my husband us in 4 different cases after we sued him in state court.
3. We sued Judge Becker in federal court for retaliation.
4. Judge Becker imposed sanctions against both of us in two more actions.


All sanctions were imposed close in time to the lawsuits.


The lawsuits against Judge Becker were dismissed on immunity grounds without reaching the merits.
The Appellate Division affirmed sanctions in Mokay without reaching the issue whether the sanctions were the product of retaliation, because what happened in other cases was not part of the record on appeal from the direct case on sanctions.


We made a motion to vacate sanctions to make the pattern of Judge Becker's misconduct part of the record and to make at least one court review them on the merits.


Judge Dowd presides over the case.  Judge Dowd was assigned to the case under the guidance  and monitoring by the previously recused Judge Coccoma.  My husband sued Judge Coccoma's wife.  Judge Coccoma holds in his hands Judge Dowd's post-retirement financial perks.  Judge Dowd is close in age to mandatory retirement.  Judge Dowd recently gave a monetary favor to Judge Coccoma by refusing to sanction Judge Coccoma's wife in a situation where she concealed the death of her client, made a motion without revealing the fact that she has lost her authority as an attorney, obtained an order on that motion and aggressively continued her attempts to bring my husband to a deposition.


Ellen Coccoma revealed the death of her client (and the resulting abatement of the court's jurisdiction, as well as her own authority) only when I threatened to compel her to produce her client at a cross-deposition.  Only then she revealed the fact, but not the date of the death.  Yet, she has claimed to me in March of 2012 that her other clients' standing in the action is based on their father's  "valid power of attorney". At the time of making the claim, Ellen Coccoma knew that the person who has given the "valid power of attorney" was dead since November 6, 2011, and as of the same date his power of attorney was void.


My husband was disbarred for less.


Ellen Coccoma will never be disbarred.


In fact, Ellen Coccoma will never be even sanctioned - because she is married to a judge, and a high-standing one.


Judge Dowd gave Judge Coccoma a financial favor by not sanctioning Judge Coccoma's wife.


Judge Dowd gave Judge Coccoma a further favor by sanctioning the complainants against Judge Coccoma's wife, using court proceedings to cloak himself with immunity for effecting this conspiracy.


Judge Dowd might be surprised to learn that if the conspiracy arose outside of the courtroom, there is a precedent in federal court in Pennsylvania that provided that where a conspiracy to violate constitutional rights in which a judge engaged was outside of court proceedings, the injury inflicted by the judge who is part of the conspiracy in the court proceedings is not immune, H.T. et al., v. Mark A. Ciavarella, Jr., et al, 3:09-cv-00286-ARC, Document 1510, page 22.


Judge Dowd does not find any conflict of interest or grounds for his disqualification from the case, after "searching his conscience", even though Judge Dowd previously recused from a related case, Neroni v. Harlem and his presiding over a related case is equivalent to re-entry a case after recusal, which is prohibited by New York law.


At the time of presiding over the case, Judge Dowd was sued by my husband for misconduct in Neroni v. Coccoma's, recently dismissed by Judge Sharpe, where judge Sharpe cloaked Judge Dowd with immunity even though Judge Dowd failed to properly restore jurisdiction of the court after it abated due to the death of Ellen Coccoma's client.


My client will certainly appeal the decision, especially that now there is a precedent out of Pennsylvania which breached the armor of judicial immunity for out-of-court actions that resulted in in-court injury.


On May 16, 2014 I sued Judge Dowd in his individual capacity in federal court seeking a disclosure from him whether he is or ever was a part of the secret-membership organization The American Inns of Court. 


On June 5, 2014 Judge Dowd  made his decision in the Mokay case sanctioning me and my husband $1,000.00 each for making "frivolous" motions.


My husband alleged in his dismissed lawsuit, based on a transcript in a proceeding, that Judge Dowd might lack mental faculties because Judge Dowd discussed in a custody proceedings, without any relevance to anything, that a law school in a certain town was building a statue in Judge Dowd's honor which was in fact a urinal. 


Of course, Judge Dowd had no hard feelings against my husband and was completely unbiased.  Only - to believe that we need to do a collective lobotomy.


This judge is now presiding over the Mokay case, which was botched up big time already by a parade of judges to the point of becoming a major farce. 


Of course, Judge Dowd "searched his conscience" and did not find any "adverse feelings" against my husband or myself.


The X-ray of Judge Dowd's conscience was not attached to the decision and will not be part of the record on appeal that will, for sure, follow.


Whether Judge Dowd has a conscience, whether he, indeed, searched it, what that conscience advised Judge Dowd, was it a proper and lawful advice, and did Judge Dowd follow it will remain forever unreviewable by the Appellate Division.


Judge Dowd claimed that there is nothing new in what we are asserting on our motion to vacate.


Judge Dowd apparently has a difficulty reading or is simply and arrogantly hoping that the Appellate Division where judges are similarly sued to disclose their involvement with the American Inns of Court, will do anything to punish me and block my access to court anyway.  And maybe he is right.


In fact, my friend told me that an attorney she knows keeps telling her exactly that - that I should stop filing lawsuits against judges, that I should stop blogging about judges, then I might have a chance to survive as an attorney...  Otherwise I will never win in any court.


So much for the faith in the integrity of the judicial system.


Judge Dowd stated that all the issues pertaining to Judge Becker's sanctions were already decided by other courts.


I wonder which other courts Judge Dowd means because I am not aware of any courts who decided on the merits the issue whether Judge Becker's sanctions imposed upon us after we sued him, were a product of unconstitutional retaliation. 


Judge Dowd must be dreaming, same as he dreamt about a law school building urinals in his favor in that other proceeding that my husband mentioned in his federal lawsuit.


One must give Judge Dowd credit for one thing, though.  He knows the system well.  He knows that he, most likely, will remain unpunished for his egregious retaliation, because to punish one judge for retaliation will open a can of worms and set a dangerous precedent.


You know why?  Judicial retaliation is pervasive in New York.


To eradicate it you might behead many out of the judicial corps of New York state.  And the system cannot afford such a loss of reputation.


The system would rather bend the law past the breaking point and sacrifice the messengers of such misconduct.


So - if you want to get from under the pile of judicial retaliation, the "unbiased" judges will oblige and will mount some more of the same, claiming all the way that they "searched their conscience" and remain unbiased.


As the last stroke of his "unbiased" opinion Judge Dowd struck Plaintiff's note of issue because they were not ready for trial (for the second time), and allowed them to re-file the trial note of issue without a filing fee - and without a time limit.  


They will be ready when they will be ready - that is the new rule of Judge Dowd's court.  Of course, when you are trying to get post-retirement perks from a certain judge you want to please and when you are trying to prevent Mr. Neroni from vacating his order of disbarment (which would have happened had Judge Dowd dismissed, as he was supposed to, the proceedings for failure to prosecute, based on newly created law, because proceedings are asserting a non-existing cause of action, and are prosecuted by irreconcilably disqualified attorneys) - anything is handy and possible.


After all, who would do anything to a judge...  Judge Ciavarella had to take millions of dollars in kickbacks for the feds to "notice" his wrongdoing and for the courts to finally catch up with him and disbar him, and he still escaped liability for his shenanigans which were "judicial acts" - unlawful sentencing of juveniles in furthering of conspiracy (see the quote from the decision giving Judge Ciavarella immunity placed as a general runner on top of this blog).


Judge Dowd's misconduct in comparison with what Judge Ciavarella did is child's play - he "only" gives favors to a judge who holds the keys to financial perks after Judge Dowd (soon) retires by retaliating against us.


So, the Mokay farce goes on.  With an "unbiased" judge at the wheel.









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