Is the Constitution still the Supreme Law of the Land in this country? Apparently not - if judges look for "compelling precedent" to allow executions of the innocent to proceed...

Cannot recover after reading the blog of an active federal judge where he answers a question he posed to himself - whether, hypothetically, he would authorize an execution of a person he knows IS INNOCENT to proceed.


Judge Kopf of a federal court in Nebraska, provides three reasons as to why the answer to that question will be "yes", that he will in fact authorize, as a judge, an execution of a person that he, as a judge, knew was innocent of the crime he was charged with, convicted for and condemned to death for.


I will quote Judge Kopf's own words, with my highlighting:


"

Hypothetically, if I were confronted with a case where the petitioner was factually innocent of murder and I knew that he was factually innocent of murder and there was no federal legal remedy available to stop the execution, I would probably allow the execution to proceed if I was satisfied that there was precedent that compelled such a result. For example, should the Supreme Court hold that factual innocence is not cognizable as a “stand alone” federal claim, I would follow that precedent.

Hypothetically, if I were confronted with a case where the petitioner was factually innocent of murder and I knew that he was factually innocent of murder and there was no federal legal remedy available to stop the execution, I would probably allow the execution to proceed if I was satisfied that the petitioner could also resort to a fair and speedy pardon process prior to the execution.

Hypothetically, if I were confronted with a case where the petitioner was factually innocent of murder and I knew that he was factually innocent of murder and there was no federal legal remedy available to stop the execution, I would probably allow the execution to proceed if I was satisfied that the petitioner had “sat on his rights” thus contributing to the absence of a legal remedy to address his factual innocence."

Thus, the three reasons why a federal judge would allow an execution of an innocent person to proceed are:


(1) if there is such a precedent (in another case another judge allowed the same injustice to be done);


(2) a pardon procedure is available (a discretionary relief from the executive branch) - in other words, if the Governor, on a whim, without considering the issue of guilt or innocence, may just decide to forgive the condemned to death prisoner, whether he committed any crimes or not - you understand how unlikely that is;


(3) the innocent person is himself to blame that he did not raise his innocence earlier - but he did, by pleading not guilty from the very beginning of the criminal proceedings!


So, an outspoken and honest judge who can be thanked at least for his honesty, for expressing what he feels about such "hypothetical" situation as having to condemn to death an innocent person knowing about his innocence - provides three reasons why such a gross injustice as using the law to take the life of an INNOCENT human being may be justified:


(1) if some other judge before this judge already did the same thing and provided a "precedent" for the present judge to rely upon - this argument perpetuates injustice, and violates an ancient principle that abuse of the law, even if it is a long abuse of the law, does not make the abuse the actual law;


(2) if somebody else may still (unlikely though it is) come to the rescue of the condemned INNOCENT person - then it is still good and lawful to condemn him to die;


(3) this is a classic - blame the innocent victim that he or she did not yell loud and persuasive enough that he or she is innocent.  What happened with the right of defendant to remain silent, plea of not guilty.  Moreover, what does timing have to do with anything when we are talking about the case where THE JUDGE KNOWS THE PERSON IS INNOCENT!!!


What Judge Kopf described about his feelings is all that is wrong with our judiciary system:


(1) perpetuate the injustice based on prior injustice;
(2) pass the buck to somebody else who may do your job for you;
(3) blame the victim.


To devise "legal" reasons justifying sending to death the person who the judge KNOWS IS INNOCENT is simply sick - but the problem is that this reasoning, from my personal experience and research, reflects the reasoning of the entire judicial system of the United States and its "sovereign states" where courts which habitually choose "finality" over fairness, even when they know they commit gross injustice.
And they do that after having been sworn in office to protect the U.S. constitution which, among other things, prohibits cruel and unusual punishment - and tell me, is there a more cruel punishment than to punish with a death penalty an innocent person who committed no crime?
The 8th Amendment that Judge Kopf is sworn to protect, never ONCE entered his reasoning.






When we have judges who look for precedent allowing them to violate the very Constitution they are sworn to protect, who in their right mind can call this judicial system "access to justice" and "the rule of law"?

A judge will not disbar a judge

I have been analyzing reports of judicial misconduct and reactions to them from various states of this country.


As you, probably, know if you read my blog regularly, I am also researching the issue of judicial retaliation against attorneys who criticize judges.


A peculiar pattern appears from all reports of judicial misconduct.


A judge apparently can do nearly anything - and still escape with his or her law license, and all that an attorney has to do to lose his law license is to criticize a judge.


I decided to put some of my findings into a table illustrating to what lengths judges can go and still keep their licenses.


With no effective judicial discipline, ever expanding judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts and nearly no criminal prosecutions of judges no matter what they do on the bench - judgeships are, probably, the safest careers of all.


Such careers are safety nets for incompetent and immoral people who can do ANYTHING in their office - and still escape with their law license.


Apparently, the public does not have to be protected from a lawyer the same way that people are to be protected from a rogue judge.


It is beyond me why attorney disciplinary authority do nothing to remove law licenses from former judges taken off the bench for misconduct or mental instability - it is very easy to do, by using the same "collateral estoppel" that is regularly used against attorneys who get disbarred without an opportunity for a hearing because some state court has decided a related issue by a low evidentiary standard.


Here, disciplinary standards are the same in the judicial disciplinary proceedings and the attorney disciplinary proceedings.


So why not discipline these judges as attorneys, too?


The only answer that comes to explain this situation is judges of the attorney licensing courts are afraid to create such precedents as to not to destroy their own safe harbors, should they themselves be removed from the bench for misconduct, incompetence or mental instability.


And that is one good reason to take attorney licensing out of the hands of the judiciary.

No.	Name of Judge	State	What did the judge do	Disciplined as a judge?	Suspended or disbarred?	Where works now
1.	James C. Tormey	New York	Asking a court employee to spy against a democratic judicial candidate, a judge of Family Court;  demoting and harassing the employee when she refused	No	No	Chief Administrative Judge, 5th Judicial District
2.	Bryan Hedges	New York, Onondaga County Family Court	Allegedly molestation of a 5-year old deaf-mute niece The alternative version is that Judge Hedges actually warned Attorney Morin that Judge Tormey is planning a retaliation against her, and that’s why he was destroyed by Judge Tormey’s friend William Fitzpatrick who failed to get a payoff from Judge Hedges	Yes, taken off the bench	No
3.	Diane L. Schilling	New York, East Greenbush Town Court (also until the scandal, special counsel to Judge Coccoma, Chief Admin. Judge of upstate New York)	Fixing a traffic ticket for another judge's wife	Yes, taken off the bench	No	Partner in MGuire and Cardona where a son of a late chief appellate judge Anthony Cardona and a niece of the present federal NDNY judge Mae D’Agostino are partners.  The law firm mentions in the website that Diane Schilling has “served” as a judge in East Greenbush court, not that she was taken off the bench
4.	Robert Restaino	New York, Niagara Falls City Court	Jailed the whole courtroom full of people because one cell phone rang	Yes, taken off the bench	No
5.	Gerald P. Garson	Former judge of NYS Supreme Court	Convicted for bribery	Taken off the bench	Disbarred
6.	Gilbert A. Abramson	Family Court, Saratoga County	Sexual jokes and suggestive behavior with female litigants	Taken off the bench	Registration status delinquent, but not suspended or disbarred
7.	Gerard E. Maney	Family Court Judge Albany County	Caught driving drunk, asked for a "professional courtesy" from the police	Censured, remained on the bench Joseph W. Belluck, a Manhattan lawyer, wrote that it was “mind-boggling” that the judge would be left on the bench after making “a calculated effort” to ensure that the law “would not be applied to him personally.”	No	Acting Supreme Court Justice, Supervising Judge, Albany County Family Court
8.	Cory Woodward	California, Superior Court Kern County	Having Sex in chambers	Reprimand, remained on the bench	No
9.	Scott Steiner	California, Superior Court, Orange County	Having sex in chambers	Reprimand, remained on the bench	No
10.	Wade McCree	Detroit, Michigan	Having sex in chambers with a witness in a criminal case, discussing sentencing of her husband who did not pay child support with that witness	Taken off the bench	No
11.	Kimberly Brown	Indiana	47 counts of misconduct: Delayed release of defendants from jail, failed to train court employees, created hostile environment for staff, did not cooperate with investigation	Taken off the bench	No
12.	Cynthia Brim	Illinois, was a judge since 1994, had mental breakdowns since 1994, with at least 5 hospitalizations	shoved a court deputy, found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity	Taken off the bench for mental instability	No
13.	Robert Spitzer	California	Gross neglect of cases, delays, disorganized files	Taken off the bench	Suspended, but not disbarred
14.	Giselle Polack	Florida, Broward County Drug Court	DUI	Suspended From the bench	No

Exchange of gifts between American Inns of Court, attorneys and judges behind closed doors really smacks of corruption and should be investigated

I have written in this blog about the so-called American Inns of Court and the benefits this attorney-funded secret-membership organization gives to participating judges.

I have also just made a post about the swift actions of an Inn of Court in Albany and a federal judge Lawrence Kahn to remove Judge Kahn's name as the President of the Inn as soon as a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking discovery of Judge Kahn's perks from that organization was filed, and about the multiple suspicious connections that one of the powerful law firms whose members confirmed participation in Judge Kahn's inn of court have with Judge Kahn's court.

Here is a diagram I put together showing the possibilities of corruption through the secret communications and secret monetary and non-monetary arrangements between judges and attorneys through social networking organizations such as the American Inns of Court.

I say "possibilities of corruption" because the actual documents on true membership and true perks, both monetary and non-monetary, that judges receive from attorneys in such organizations are secret, and I can draw reasonable inferences only from the information I have found about judicial participation in the Inns of Court on the websites of the few Inns that made that information available.

As I already wrote in this blog, that in an action that clearly seemed like protecting their recent employees, and, possibly, protecting their personal interests, Judge Kahn together with Judge Suddaby, a judge whose former law clerk joined the law firm that was sued in Neroni v. Peebles that Judge Suddaby dismissed sua sponte, did not allow me a possibility to explore the issue of possible judicial corruption of judges who decided and are deciding my fate, through discovery.

Yet, please, look at the diagram above and look at the scans that I made from the list of certified CLE (continued legal education) providers below (a lucrative appointment allowing certified providers to charge hundreds of dollars for live CLE sessions while New York requires "new attorneys" to attend live CLE sessions for the first 2 years after admission):

These are, ladies and gentlemen, SECRET MEMBERSHIP ORGANIZATIONS PROVIDING MONTHLY RECEPTIONS FOR JUDGES BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.  

Yet, these same organizations are in receipt of lucrative endorsement from the judiciary allowing more money to come their way - to be used for more catering for judges behind closed doors?

In encourage you, my readers, members of the public, whose rights are daily affected by judicial decisions, to check out on the Internet the websites of each and every "Inn of Court" which was endorsed as a certified CLE provider (see photos above).  

You will see, as I did, that all of those organizations conceal their membership, their schedule of meetings, whether judicial members are accepted and pay for their participation and what kind of perks were offered to judges and members of their families for free - such as, possibly, free international travel for judges and their spouses, as I described earlier in my blog when I first described the American Inns of Court.

So, each time you are in court, whether state or federal, against a large and powerful law firm, if the judge ruled for that law firm, you never know whether the judge ruled this way based on the law and the judge's so-called "discretion", or whether that "discretion" was motivated by a secret lavish dinner with alcohol, by a free international trip with the judge's spouse at the expense of the organization sponsored by the law firm.

When justice is bought this way, you can never be assured of "judicial independence" or "judicial integrity" of ANY judge who rules in your case, because, once again - membership in such organizations, as well as perks of particular organizations for its members, and member fees or lack thereof for judicial members are a SECRET that I could not reveal even through a federal lawsuit.

I wish that the U.S. Attorney's office already investigating corruption in New York State government, will finally turn their eye on these cosy arrangements, because such a blatant, how to put it politely,  this exchange of gifts between the judiciary and organization of politically powerful and wealthy attorneys who are providing monetary and non-monetary benefits to judges behind closed doors should simply stop. 

Even though children of judges may work in that office, like the son of Chief Judge Gary L. Sharpe of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York does...

If it isn't improper - why hide it? Judge Lawrence E. Kahn of the NDNY federal court removes his name from an American Inn of Court website when sued to disclose his perks

I've written in this blog about the "mutually beneficial interaction" of attorneys and judges through the secret-membership social networking organization "The American Inns of Court" and dangers of bribery of the judiciary and fixing cases without opponents' knowledge through such mediums.

I have also filed a lawsuit to verify membership and perks of judges who were or are about to decide my fate through a federal lawsuit Neroni v. Peebles, which was dismissed with a lightning speed by the court which was named as a Defendant, which was even more illegal that its judges were sued in their individual capacities for misconduct they appeared to be involved in against me outside of any court proceedings.

The interesting thing is that I provided in Neroni v. Peebles, as an exhibit, Judge Lawrence E. Kahn's membership in the Albany "Innovation" Inn of Court.

The quality of the snippet is poor, but the quality of the exhibit submitted to the court is good and allows to see Judge Kahn's name as the President of this Inn of Court, the document is available on Pacer.gov.  I put this scan here to show the path on top of it, that evidence of Judge Kahn's participation in this particular inn of court was submitted to the NDNY in Neroni v. Peebles on May 28, 2014.

Here is a better scan where Judge Kahn's name as the President of the Inn is clearly visible:

After the lawsuit was filed, information that Judge Kahn was president of that particular Inn of Court, was removed from its website.

"Key contacts" remained, Judge Kahn's name was removed.

There are peculiar coincidences about the removal of Judge Kahn's information and about known members of that particular Inn of Court (information about memberships is not available on the website of the Inn, only by self-reporting of the members).

Multiple attorneys from a large and powerful law firm Hiscock & Barclay of Albany, NY self-reported membership in the same Inn of Court where Judge Kahn was (and, possibly, still is a member - only in secret), see, for example, a partner in that law firm John Cook who is also, "coincidentally", a former law clerk of NDNY and a current member of the "Local Rules Committee".

In other words, Hiscock & Barclays decides what local rules need to be introduced in the courts where Hiscock & Barclays appears as attorneys of record.

And, Hiscock & Barclays likely pays or paid for monthly dinners of Judge Kahn, because judicial members are participating in Inns of Court for free (I only can derive this information from Inns where it is available - and it was available from a Federal Inn of Court).  Well, at least another judge, Judge Glenn Suddaby, whose former law clerk has also recently been accepted as an attorney into Hiscock & Barclays, and who worked as a prosecutor together with William Fitzpatrick, law school roommate of a famous New York rogue judge who wanted my disbarment because I reasonably questioned his integrity, did not allow my lawsuit against NDNY to proceed.  

That was the same William Fitzpatrick who wanted to share in the blackmail money from Judge Hedges (the judge who, according to affidavits submitted to NDNY in the Morin v. Tormey, lawsuit "outed" Judge Tormey's role in her harassment to the victim) and turned the judge in for a disciplinary proceedings when that effort failed.  

Without the joint efforts of: 

(1) Judges Tormey, 
(2) Suddaby (who dismissed sua sponte Neroni v. Peebles), 
(3) Kahn (who dismissed portions of my husband's case pertaining to John Casey's corruption and remanded my own disciplinary case back to the 3rd Department, disregarding evidence of selective enforcement of law and corruption by John Casey) and, of course, 
(4) efforts of the disgruntled judge Carl F. Becker, who acted obviously in concert with John Casey and his law firm, but was allegedly covered by absolute judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts, disciplinary proceedings against my husband (which resulted in his disbarment) and proceedings against me would not have been possible.

Talking about company, coincidences, transparency, accountability and judicial integrity.

By a "sheer coincidence", Hiscock & Barclays' partner John Casey was involved in prosecutorial corruption in investigation and prosecution of myself and my husband when he was a member of the Committee for Professional Standards, Appellate Division, 3rd Judicial Department, and that was discussed in two federal lawsuits over which Judge Kahn was presiding in Neroni v. Zayas (what remained of it is still pending), and in that lawsuit Judge Kahn ruled in such a way that precluded further discovery of prosecutorial misconduct of John Casey in order to accept as paying clients AGAINST myself and Mr. Neroni two people who John Casey was supposed to prosecute in the Committee for Professional Standards.

Even more "coincidentally", those clients for whose benefit John Casey traded his oath of office, but created a financial benefit for his law firm Hiscock & Barclay, were a retired judge Robert Harlem and his son attorney Richard Harlem, of Oneonta, NY who escaped disbarment, apparently, only because of the efforts of John Casey - read what these two attorneys did in the Blanding saga.

Even more "coincidentally", John Casey similarly rescued (and accepted as law partner) attorney M. Cornelia Cahill, the wife of Judge Richard Sise, the Chief Judge of the New York Court of Claims, when she was turned in to be investigated and prosecuted by John Casey's Committee for fraudulently receiving benefits from school districts as if she were the school district's employee.  She disgorged those benefits, but was never disciplined - thanks to John Casey who instead embraced her as a partner and allowed her to be promoted as the manager of the Albany office of Hiscock & Barclay.

"Coincidences" did not stop here.  

Hiscock & Barclay also employ multiple recent law clerks who worked for various judges in the Northern District of New York, including a former law clerk of the Chief Judge.

It would be bad politics for the judge to punish these people and expose corrupt practices of their law firm or partner, especially since the law firm likely very literally feeds the judge lavish monthly dinners (at least) through the American Inn of Court where Judge Kahn was President at the time when he was deciding Neroni v. Zayas.


Even before he came to the federal bench, Judge Kahn was known for making self-serving political decisions on the bench.

For example, Judge Kahn first tossed a state lawsuit challenging legality of cross-endorsements of judicial candidates by multiple political parties which was challenged as depriving voters of choice in judicial elections - and three years later got elected exactly because of the same cross-endorsement deal that he ruled (for his own sake, obviously) was valid.

A well respected attorney Doris Sassower who for decades was a pillar of legal community, suddenly became an outcast once she filed that lawsuit and was quickly suspended without a hearing once she announced that she is going to appeal the decision of the intermediate appellate court legalizing the cross-endorsement deal to the New York State Court of Appeals.

The timing of suspension was, I understand, also " coincidence" - her announcement to pursue the appeal of the cross-endorsement deal to the Court of Appeals was published on May 19, 1991, and she was suspended in June of that year.

At Judge Kahn's confirmation hearings a recess was called in and police was asked "to restore order" when a speaker from the audience requested to be given an opportunity to speak against confirmation of Judge Kahn, as reported, based on documentary evidence, by the Center of Judicial Accountability founded by Doris and Elena Sassowers.

I guess, to expect justice from Judge Kahn under the circumstances is beyond naive.  Judge Kahn appears to be a politically and, possibly, financially motivated block to fair resolution of cases in federal court rather than an impartial tool of that resolution.

And it will remain this way until citizens demand from their representatives in the federal legislature to provide better mechanisms of judicial selection and accountability.

Judge Revoir's revenge against the indigent mother who complained against him to the Judicial Conduct Commission

On September 1, 2014 an indigent mother, a family court litigant, filed a complaint agAinst judge Frank B. Revoir with the  NYS Judicial Conduct Commission.

On September 5, 2014 Judge Revoir issued a bench warrant for complainant's arrest for failure to comply with the judge's order dated September 4, 2014 that was served upon the mother to her Albany P.O. box by mail, so by law she was not required to comply with the order until 5 days after it was served by mail (Civil Practice Law and Rules), and that would be September 9, 2014.

 

 

Yet, Judge Revoir issued a bench warrant for her arrest on September 5, 2014, without any legal basis for it, and when she was ready to transfer her child to the father who came unannounced to pick the child up from visitation, she had the Delaware County police, with a TASER gun and handcuffs, on her porch, assaulting the child's middle-aged disabled grandmother with a TASER gun and with the police vehicle in an effort to destroy video recording of the unlawful arrest and arresting the indigent mother in front of her child, with a red spot of the TASER gun trained on the indigent mother's back.

 

Was all of this Orwellian SWAT-team production somehow in the best interests of the child?

 

One thing I know - the child might not forget this trauma for the rest of her life, simply because Judge Revoir needed to play out his revenge on her mother in the cruelest way possible.

Moreover, Judge Revoir did not reduce his screaming on the record of August 29, 2014 to a written order and thus prevented the mother's appeal of his decision.

 

Moreover, there was no petition before the court from the father so that Judge Revoir would be able to rule on such a petition and issue the September 4, 2014 order that was the basis of the September 5, 2014 bench warrant agaisnt the mother.

 

Moreover, Judge Revoir himself said on August 29, 2014 that all future petitions must be filed in another state, and thus there is no reason for him to accept new petitions in New York state on behalf of the father, nor were there any petitions submitted to result in the September 4, 2014 decision that was used to issue the September 5, 2014 bench warrant.

 

Moreover, Judge Revoir has failed to search the registries of sex offenders and protective orders which is a jurisdictional requirement for all orders in New York involving custody or visitation, thus making Judge Revoir's orders in this case void.

Additionally, the police came to the mother's house to "help" the father retrieve the child from the mother, while there was no indication the mother was not surrendering the child, on the contrary, the mother texted the father that she is packing the child's belongings and the child will be soon ready to be picked up.

 

And here, one more curious detail transpires.

Family Court in New York does not have criminal jurisdiction, only jurisdiction for civil contempt of court, to coerce a person into obeying a court order, not to punish her - that is criminal jurisdiction that Family Court does not have.

As I stated above, since the mother was served with Judge Revoir's invalid order of September 4, 2014 by mail, she could, first,  never be held in contempt of an invalid order, or at the very least, she could not be held in contempt until at least 5 days passed after she was served.

Yet, Judge Revoir could not wait with his revenge and harassment that long.

That is obviously why on September 5, 2014 he has ordered the mother arrested for violating the order Judge Revoir knew the mother could not possibly have recieved yet, not to mention that the order was jurisdictionally invalid on many grounds I mentioned above.

But, this is the judge for whom legal grounds and legal arguments are the equivalents of "lying", did not consider lack of authority or legal grounds as a bar for his abuse of power where he could use it to harass the person who dared to complain about his misconduct to the Judicial Conduct Commission.

 

And I must point out once again that, before being elected, Judge Revoir claimed he has a perfect judicial temperament for the job.

 

Right.

Family court has the most emotional proceedings of all courts, and judges who rule in such courts without a jury, should be of the highest competence, integrity and the most balanced temperament.

Judge Revoir sorely failed that on all points test by committing grievous misconduct against an indigent mother with a low social status, and, when she filed a formal complaint about the judge, retaliated with more misconduct, with worse misconduct and with the illegal use of police power.

 

The use of police power was illegal because, once the child was returned to the father (coercion to obey the order), the bench warrant from a Family Court judge who did not have criminal jurisdiction, lost its grounds even if it had such grounds (it didn't, as I described above).

 

Thus, dragging the mother in handcuffs and under a TASER gun and dragging her to the court after the child was delivered to the mother was clearly illegal - and Judge Revoir knew what he was doing when he was issuing such an illegal bench warrant.

 

It is obvious that this judge, as many other local judges I know, would be guided only by his own whims. 

 

The temperament that Judge Revoir demonstrated in this case is the temperament of a petty tyrant, not of a balanced, reasoned and competent judicial officer.

I truly believe this judge should be removed from the bench and stripped of his law license for his gross abuse of his power in this case, to the detriment of an indigent parent and of an innocent child.