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, January 2, 2016

Delaware County Board Chairman Eisel is satisfied with 30-year no-bid automatically renewed contracts to his friends

I continue to publish records provided by NYS Comptroller regarding audit of no-bid contracts in Delaware County (NY).

Here is the interview with the Board of Supervisors James Eisel.


Eisel stated that contracts in Delaware County bypass public bidding and are "renewed based on the fact that historically, the vendor has been providing that service in a satisfactory fashion to the County".

Just how satisfactory is the "fashion", can be demonstrated by the number of supervisors on the board of directors of the largest "vendor" of Delaware County, the non-profit Delaware Opportunities, Inc., and by the statement of Marjorie Miller that at least two contracts she knows of were awarded without bidding to Eisel's personal friends - the coroner (at an inflated price) and an unnamed friend who leased the Treadwell school building.

Eisel was "not aware of fraud or abuse".

At the same time, Eisel blocked my FOIL request for this very same information that I am publishing now, so I had to obtain it from another source, the New York State Comptroller's office.

Of course, the person who is involved, neck-deep, in the fraud and abuse, will not see it if it is screaming in his face. 

Since, according to the same records, Delaware County employees (including its Assistant County Attorney Carl Becker) did not provide conflict-of-interest disclosures nor filed financial statements for public review, for all the years when no-bid contracts were awarded and automatically renewed, the claim of Eisel and other supervisors that there is no "fraud or abuse" involved, are unverifiable until and unless such statements are collected and an investigation going back 30 years is conducted.






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