A jurisdictional statement was filed challenging New York State Court of Appeals' illegal policy of dismissing as discretionary constitutional "as of right" appeals

I believe this pleading may be of interest to the public, as it raises issues of public concern - it challenges the recently revealed policy of the New York State Court of Appeals to dismiss constitutional appeals "as of right" (and mandatory for the court's review under a New York State statute and New York State Constitution that the court is sworn to uphold) as if such "as of right" constitutional appeals are discretionary - "we get to pick our cases" (statement from the bench of Judge Pigott on February 8, 2016 at the swearing-in testimony of Chief Judge Janet DiFiore).

On April 1, 2016 I have filed with the New York State Court of Appeals, the following:

Notice of Motion - I accompanied my jurisdictional statement to the NYS Court of Appeals with a motion to disqualify several judges, and to disqualify an attorney who lost authority to represent a corporate client since May 2, 2014, the day of the client's dissolution (of which dissolution he did not notify me or the courts);

Jurisdictional Statement - contains arguments regarding:

• 1st Amendment content-based regulation of speech;

• impropriety of recusal-reentry-retaliation schemes of several New York judges and courts;

• a motion to recuse Janet DiFiore;

• discusses New York State of Appeals recently announced policy that dismissing "as of rights" appeal is done because judges believe they "pick their cases", and not for any other contrived pretextual reasons;

• Discusses the split between appellate departments on the issue whether violation of CPLR 2103(a) (service of pleadings by a party in litigation) is a "mere irregularity" (3rd Department) or a jurisdictional defect (1st, 2nd and 4th Departments);

• discusses whether there exists a clear "pleading specificity standard" for defamation, fraud and fraud upon the court;

• discusses the sole remedy for bringing claims potentially barred by affirmative defenses (if they are raised) -  to timely and validly raise that defense in pleadings, or else waive it, CPLR 3211(e), but sanctions (as was done to me) is not a proper remedy for bringing a time-barred claim, and especially when the defense is waived by failure to serve properly under CPLR 2103(a);

• discusses that sanctions are not a proper remedy for allegedly imperfect pleadings - amendment of pleadings is, CPLR 3025;

• discusses due process, ex post facto and bill-of-attainder problems in the case

Exhibit A - Transcript of New York State Court of Appeals Chief Judge DiFiore swearing-in ceremony on February 8, 2016 where Judge Pigott claimed that the court "gets to pick its own cases", thus acknowledging that the court that routinely dismisses constitutional appeals "as of right" because allegedly no "substantial" constitutional question is raised - is doing it simply because the court is "tired", and to reduce its caseload.  

Exhibit 1 - Dismissal of "as of right" constitutional appeal of Frederick J. Neroni in 2011 which allowed to keep without change unconstitutional disbarment of my husband.

Exhibit 2 - Dismissal of my own "as of right" constitutional appeal in 2013 that allowed later suspension of my law license in 2015

Exhibit 3 - Dismissal of my disciplinary "as of right" constitutional appeal in 2016

Exhibit 4 - Dismissal of my husband's and my own "as of right" constitutional appeal pertaining to our property in New York in 2015 which allowed dismissal of the bulk of our federal civil rights lawsuit against the New York Department of Environmental Conservation on "Rooker-Feldman" grounds

Exhibit 5 - Printout from New York State Department of Corporations website indicating that the corporation that I am suing (and which is represented by judge/attorney Jonathan S. Follender has been dissolved since May 2, 2014, stripping Follender of authority to represent the corporation - of which he did not care to notify me or the courts);

Exhibit 6 - Stipulation and letter of resignation of Judge Delmar House showing that a judge has a duty to maintain a high integrity level in his private conduct, not only on the bench - which directly relates to Follender's fraudulent conduct that he was sued for;

Exhibit 7 - Decision by Appellate Division 3rd Department to affirm sanctions against me in Neroni v Follender for the same conduct for which other 3 judicial departments reward plaintiffs with a victory;  the Jurisdictional statement lists conflicts of interest of the 3rd Department court and Follender's efforts to inflame the court by stating to it, repeatedly that I need to be punished for my professional activity as a civil rights attorney;

Exhibit 8 - Order of June 11, 2014 by which 3rd Department recused from my disciplinary case;

Exhibit 9 - printout from my attorney registration page showing that I was admitted in 2009 by that same 3rd Department (which the court forgot and put in that a lawsuit was filed in 2007 against "my clients")

Exhibit 10 - a printout from New  York Justice Courts.org showing Jonathan S. Follender as a judge of the Denning Town Court, Ulster County, which is significant for the 1st Amendment issue that I am raising on my constitutional "as of right" appeal

Exhibit 11 - a printout from the "attorney lookup" page on the website of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York showing that Jonathan S. Follender has a federal law license, and is thus supposed to know federal law pertaining to civil rights litigation, and to know better than to ask a court to punish me for suing the court in its official capacity for a declaratory judgment - it's the law that designated that court as a proper defendant in such a civil rights action, and I just followed that law

Yet another New York judge of a justice court bounced off the bench? When will the Commission for Judicial Conduct go after bigger fish?

There are news that yet another judge of a New York justice court was bounced off the bench - allegedly for grabbing an intern.

Yet, the NYS Commission of Judicial Conduct did not reflect a decision against Judge Alan Simon as of this morning.

I will publish a post once the official decision will become available.

As of now, all I can say is that the Commission chooses to go after judges of the justice courts, carefully avoiding to touch with discipline judges of higher courts.

There is a good reason for it.

In New York, the infamous "rule of frivolous conduct" (that was used to suspend my law license for criticizing a judge in motions to recuse) do not operate in justice courts, so attorneys and litigants who turn in judges of justice courts do not run into a situation I faced - where the judge who you complained about gets assigned (or assigns himself) to all of your cases and starts to meticulously destroy your life by imposing sanctions for "frivolous conduct" left and right, no matter whether he is right or wrong - and the appellate courts no less meticulously affirm those sanctions, also, no matter whether there are facts in the record and laws in your support (like the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, for example) - simply to teach you and all other attorneys, through you, a lesson not to criticize higher-level judges.

Attorney licenses in New York are regulated by judges.

If you criticize a higher-ranking judge, the whole judiciary comes against you, and uses the rule of "frivolous conduct", at their "discretion", against you - and then take your license and livelihood away.

The majority of members, employees and referees of the NYS Commission of Judicial Conduct are licensed attorneys, themselves, or their close friends and/or relatives.

Thus, there is a strong incentive to go only against those judges who cannot hurt you or yours back - like the judiciary hurt me.

A lesson taught well.

The address of FOIL appeals officer in the New York State Department of State was disclosed

Here is the name and address of the officer assigned to review appeals of denials or constructive denials of FOIL requests by the New York State Department of State.

The initial response of the NYS DOS FOIL officer to my request of the name and address of appeals officer was that she did not deny my FOIL request, just asked for payment:

Helen Wilbard, who is not an attorney (I checked on the website of attorney registration with the New York Unified Court System), purported to give me legal advice (something that I would have been prosecuted for, but she never will be, because she works for New York State government).

Ms. Wilbard stated that:

1) my FOIL request "was not denied at all" - and then 
2) restated some (not all) of her prior restrictions:

   a) that I must pay a flat fee per document;
   b) and that I must request only paper copies ("plain" or "certified").

I asked for copies to be sent to me digitally, for free, to my e-mail address.

There should be no policy prohibiting this.

If plain copies of documents are provided, nothing precludes me to scan them, once I receive them, or to disseminate them, since they are public records.

Thus, nothing precludes the New York State Department of State to scan them and send them to me by e-mail in the first place.

After I just repeated my request to Ms. Wilbard, to send the name and address of the appeals officer assigned by the New York State Department of State to review administrative appeals from denials of FOIL requests, it was finally provided to me.

Here it is:

So, the NYS Department of State FOIL appeals officer is Daniel Shapiro, an attorney.

A Freedom of Information request was made with the New York State Department of State for policies restricting Freedom of Information requests

I've just blogged about New York State Department of State's response to my Freedom of Information request that 

1) denied my request, without prejudice;
2) directed me to meet additional conditions before my request may be satisfied.

That was a constructive denial of my FOIL request.

I will file an administrative appeal of that denial - once the NYS Department of State provides me with the name and address of the officer where such an appeal should be sent 

(each agency should designate an officer to hear such appeals as part of its FOIL compliance - for example, in Delaware County, New York, an agency that I frequently FOIL, the officer to review administrative appeals is, upon my information, the Chairman of the Delaware County Board of Supervisors James Eisel).

Meanwhile, though, I have made a new FOIL request asking to disclose to me copies of any written policies by the New York State Department of State directing restrictions on access to records, as revealed to me by NYS DOS "assistant records access officer" Helen Wilbard in her today's e-mail to me.

Here it is:

I have sent this FOIL request by e-mail here:

I will publish NYS Department of State's response to this FOIL.

Stay tuned.

New York State Department of State has unlawful policies restricting Freedom of Information requests

I regularly post blog articles about my FOIL requests with New York State state and local agencies and their responses, with comments.

This blog post is about FOILing the New York State Department of State.

FOILing is like pulling teeth in New York.

While making FOIL requests is presumed by law to be in the public interest, courts, for example, viciously punish FOILing (if judges are the subjects of FOIL) and viciously punish using documents obtained through FOIL requests - because such documents are obtained outside of the court-controlled discovery process.

I have been sanctioned tens of thousands of dollars for FOILing and lost my law license because a judge was too pissed off I FOILed the New York State Court Administration for his financial semi-annual reports - the reports were never provided to me.

Yet, once again, making a FOIL request is presumed to be in public interest, and I will continue doing it, and publishing the results, as my service to the public.

Today's blog is about New York State Department of State stalling my FOIL request and inventing illegal restrictions on satisfying such FOIL requests.

Here is the scan of the front webpage of the New York State Department of State.  It prominently shows that people can file FOIL requests with the Department - on the left.

If you click on the FOIL button on the left, you will see this screen:

If you click on "email address:  FOIL Request", you will see this:

As you see, you are not provided an e-mail address, as the previous screen promised.

I will provide it for you, though.

This is the e-mail address of NYS Department of States "Assistant Records Access officer", where FOIL requests can be made to the Department - the e-mail is obtained from the e-mail response of the Department to my FOIL request:

Here is what the response revealed.

I asked, by e-mail, for all public records on file with the Department regarding a certain corporation.

I asked on March 29, 2016.

The response must be made within 5 business days, as required by FOIL law.

Today I received a response indicating that:

1) there are records on file - 6 (six) documents;
2) copies of those records WILL NOT be released to me, unless:

     a) I must either mail or fax my FOIL request - my e-mail FOIL request was not good enough for the Department, even though the Department answered within 5 business days;  that was the first unlawful policy, the Department cannot mandate FOIL requests not to be filed by FOIL, especially if they have an "Email FOIL" page (as shown above);

   
      b) I must pay a FLAT FEE (not $0.25 per page - see above) for each document they have on file;  so, if the document is a 1-page document the New York State Department of State will charge you 20 times (!) more for it than Freedom of Information Law allows;

      c) the Department does not provide copies of documents in digital format by e-mail, so I will have to agree to receiving those documents by mail - and I am thus forced to give the Department my mailing address.

 Of course, the Department, while unlawfully denying my FOIL request, offered "optional services" for "expedited delivery" of documents - from $25 for a 24-hour satisfaction of my FOIL request to $75 for a "same-day" satisfaction and $150 for a 2-hour satisfaction.

While that is very convenient for some litigation, I admit, I didn't need it.

All I needed was for the New York State Department of State to follow the existing Freedom of Information law and provide me copies of the six documents the Department acknowledged it had on file, TODAY, by e-mail, for no fee (because a fee may not be charged for scanned copies unless major labor investment is involved in scanning, which cannot be said about scanning 6 documents on a high-speed scanner).

Of course, NONE of the above little "policies" is legal.

Freedom of Information Law has a presumption of disclosure.

If the Department of State imposes any restrictions, it must provide a statutory provision it relies upon in denying a FOIL request.

"Assistant Records Access Officer" Helen Wilbard provided none of the statutory grounds for the restrictive policies and for the denial of my FOIL request - but offered to be of "further assistance".

Let's remember that this particular individual has a job, with benefits, and receives a salary paid by New York taxpayers, 

so that she would SATISFY legitimate FOIL requests, not to stall them.

I will, of course, file an administrative appeal of the denial of the FOIL request.

By the way, each agency which people are FOILing must have a chief officer to whom denials of FOIL requests can be administratively appealed, and that name and address must be mentioned in the letters denying FOIL requests.

Naturally, that name or address is neither on NYS DOS FOIL webpage, nor in Helen Wilbard's e-mail to me.

I will verify the name and address with Ms. Wilbard and publish it.

As of now, what we have is at least the e-mail address where anyone can file a FOIL request by e-mail and receive a confirmation that the FOIL request was made - without relying on the mercy of NYS DOS to acknowledge that a FOIL request was received through their website, because they send no such electronic confirmation.

Policies of the NYS DOS, as announced to me by Helen Wilbard, serve two purposes:

1) to sieve out people who make FOIL requests seeking free copies of records (digital copies to be sent by e-mail), or cheap copies of records (paper copies to be sent by mail at $0.25 per page), and instead

2) to concentrate on paid "expedited services", which are needed usually in litigation, thus gathering fees.

While there is nothing wrong for the New York State Department of State to engage in legitimate fee-generating activities, and I do not see anything illegal in their optional expedited fee schedule, NYS DOS should first comply with the deadlines and fee provisions of FOIL before thrusting their expensive expedited fee schedules onto FOIL inquirers.

Once again, here is the FOIL e-mail address to be used to FOIL the New York State Department of State, provided to you in this blog as my public service to you.

Enjoy and use.

Are we about to see a shift to secret lawyering?

The recent "Ashley Madison" scandal left customers of this "service" (which promised privacy of customers' information), well, exposed with secrets that they wouldn't want to parade in public, and even, reportedly, caused suicides.

Yet, latest developments with breach of attorney-client privileges by law firms (disgruntled former employees of such law firms) or through exposure of their computer-based information to international hackers, show that what people do in bed with other people not their spouses may be the least of our concerns.

Well, now it concerns only clients of 50 U.S. elite firms - according to the recently reported threat to security of client information in those unidentified firms.

But, if technically such a breach is possible, it is possible with any other law firm whose computers are exposed to the Internet, and that is, probably, the majority of law firms' computers - where people need to do legal research online.

Just recently, a disgruntled employee of a Panama law firm spilled her former employer's client list to journalists - which led to extrordinary international scandals, at the highest political level.

Also, reportedly an international hacker recently announced that he is hiring other hackers to breach security protections and obtain client lists from the world's 50 leading U.S. law firms.

Since the cybercriminal is posting about his plans on forums, and is thus openly challenging those elite law firms, he may already have a plan and may already know some weakness that the elite law firms' security features are exposed to.

So, in the increasingly globalized and "internetized" world, the large clients of law firms are increasingly exposed to risks that may not be worth it.

What would be the resulting strategy of the government and the law firms?

To make names of the law firms themselves secret to prevent such targeting?

But what then about the state licensing requirement - where the law license of each attorney in the U.S. , as well as his or her place of work - is a matter of public record?

Will underground attorney licensing and underground lawyering by secret mammoth law firms start taking place from now on?

Interesting times we live in...

The police can officially and "legally" lie... And, obviously, will continue to "testilie"...

From the same glorious 9th Circuit that a Nevada federal judge Gloria Navarro cited in denying to a criminal defendant his 6th Amendment constitutional right to counsel of his choice in a criminal proceeding, comes yet another pro-prosecution case.

Ruling that the police can lie to the suspect at a traffic stop, and that does not cause the evidence to be suppressed.

This is not what the police routinely tell schoolchildren when they come to talk about their profession.

You know, kids, I lied yesterday 50 times at traffic stops, and, if I stop you, I will lie to you, too, to get a conviction against you or to drum up the necessary "traffic ticket quota" to get a bonus.

Now, clap your hands, I am honorable!

The problem with "legally" allowing the police to lie is that the police do not know where to stop in lying - and go into "testilying", see, for example, here and here, lying under oath in grand jury proceedings and criminal jury trials, as well as at pre-trial hearings.

Lying through their teeth.

Under oath.

As if that is their God-given right.

That's why I personally consider the 9th Circuit's latest bow to the police to continue "legally" lying - a very bad precedent.