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.


Saturday, August 8, 2015

Court attorney Nancy Stroud, her hard work to get into employment by the judiciary, and her pool cleaning problems

In my previous post pertaining to the "In God We Trust" sign in the Schenectady County Family Court I wrote about attorney Nancy Stroud who became a court attorney for Judge Jill Polk of Schenectady County Family Court.

I also posted a picture obtained from Nancy Stroud's Facebook page showing appellate judge Elizabeth Garry attending the celebrations in the Schenectady County Family Court.

I must note, in this separate blog post, as I promised, the hard work that got Nancy Stroud into the good grace with the judiciary to gain employment in the court system.

First of all, Nancy Stroud posted herself as a Facebook friend of a wife of a judge Lisa Gordon, and of the Albany County Family Court judge Susan Kushner.

After I blogged about it, Susan Kushner, according to reports of reliable witnesses, fraudulently denied in court having ever been a Facebook friend of Nancy Stroud and Lisa Gordon, and Nancy Stroud made her friend list private, which brings the question I already asked pertaining to the list of Facebook friends of yet another attorney - Claudette Newman, a judge and a law clerk to a judge, if there is nothing secret or inappropriate in that friend list, why hide it AFTER somebody blogged about it?

What Nancy Stroud did not make private is her expression of joy at her employment with the judicial system that happened after Nancy Stroud put on Facebook her friendship with judge Sue Kushner and wife of a judge/magistrate Lisa Gordon.

Here is that expression:


I am sure that readers can only sympathize attorney Nancy E. Stroud for making such a great sacrifice in order to provide public service to New York litigants - forego hiring a pool service and clean her pool on her own.  The horror!  

In comments to this glamorous picture, Nancy E. Stroud admitted what is not posted on the website of the Schenectady County Family Court, that she is now court attorney for Schenectady County Family Court Judge Jill Polk.


Wife of a judge Lisa Gordon put a "like" on Nancy E. Stroud's appointment.

A friend commented as to how hard Nancy E. Stroud worked to get there:


 Who is "both", is not clear.

But Nancy E. Stroud definitely "worked hard" to get a drastic reduction of her income and get hired as a judge's court attorney - judging by her Facebook friendship with judges and their relatives at the very least, and by the fact that the celebrations in the Schenectady County Family Court were attended by Elizabeth Garry, the first openly gay appellate judge (who prevented the press from commenting on her being gay when she ran for the judicial office), but, once elected and appointed as an appellate judge, is flaunting it.



My question is - does the "hard work" includes motivation of Elizabeth Garry to support Nancy Stroud for this employment involving the alleged drastic cut in income, simply as a political move, of one gay woman to another, which nevertheless gives an appearance to the public as an attempt of insulating Nancy Stroud's judge of possibility of reversals by Garry's appellate court for reasons unrelated to merits of cases?

And, as we know, judges hate and fear reversals, to the point of misrepresenting to the voters the history of their reversals - as the recently "retired" Judge Carl F. Becker of Delaware County Court did during his 2012 election campaign.

Also, glamorously clean pool and all, Nancy Stroud's drastic pay cut is heavily outweighed by the following benefits:

1) locked in salary which will only go up, and for which Nancy Stroud should not really break a sweat, as she had to do in her private practice;

2) full absolute judicial immunity for whatever shenanigans she commits as the law clerk for a judge;

3) a path to her own judgeship, since many judges come from law clerks and flaunt that employment during their judicial campaigns;

4) a good medical and retirement package.

5) and - the salary is not so bad in the court system.  For example, the salary of the law clerk of the same retired Carl Becker (by the way - it is an interesting question where will Lauren Clark be employed on his retirement, will any of the judicial candidates coming to the bench agree to inherit her, with her incompetent writings?) is well over $100,000 - as reported by Seethroughny.net.



Not bad at all - and is definitely enough to hire pool service and not pretend to friends and public on Facebook that Nancy E. Stroud heroically took a pay cut and went to "work for the State" for any reasons other than her own selfish self-advancement.  





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