Two leaders of the New York State Legislature have been indicted this year, Dean Skelos and Sheldon Silver.
Why the indictment was by the feds, and not by the New York State Attorney General?
The answer is very clear - because the NYS Attorney General REPRESENTS the State officials, even when they are sued for fraud and corruption.
So, if you have a corrupt legislator - NYS Attorney General defends him and will raise issues of various judge-created "immunities", "deferences", "comities" and what not - and will ask the federal court, likely successfully, to punish the victims of fraud who dared to file a civil rights action, with paying attorney's fees to the corrupt governmental official, for the inconvenience of being sued for corruption, and represented for free by the New York State Attorney General.
Yet, the New York State Attorney General ALSO has, as one of his duties, to protect people of the State of New York, voters who elected him, from fraud. The NYS AG makes this pledge before every election.
Yet, when it comes to doing his job, when it comes to investigating and prosecuting corruption in the New York State government, the NYS AG's status as the attorney for the corrupt public officials prevents him from doing the job he was elected for.
I bet the public did not vote to have the NYS AG oppose civil rights lawsuits targeting misconduct of governmental officials, on behalf of those officials whose misconduct is the subject of those civil rights lawsuits.
It is time to change the law and eliminate the position of the NYS AG, or to legislatively prohibit NYS AG to represent public officials sued for misconduct in office - because committing misconduct in office is not part of their public duties, and while 80% of taxpayers cannot afford their own attorney, those same taxpayers should not be forced to pay for the legal defense of fraudsters.
As we have it now, the New York State Attorney General is a sworn public official who violates his oath of office as a matter of discharging his duties.
That means - people of the State of New York cannot take care of corruption in their own state government and must ask the feds to do it for them?
A change in the law is overdue.
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.
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