On target practice against female attorneys: bash public defenders and civil rights attorneys, spare female judges who commit crimes, but "tread very lightly" and "hold back a little bit" in changing illegal rules instituted by men

I just put in a blog describing how female attorneys raising constitutional arguments for the poor are being handcuffed, arrested, embarrassed, humiliated, disrespected and strip-searched in front of male security guards and detainees.

There is a difference in treatment though if a woman commits a crime - but where the criminal is also a judge.

Enters Judge Janet Madonia Calano, an "outstanding woman", a judge and a licensed attorney who committed the crime of fraud and altering public records in 2011 and 2012.

On May 9, 2016, Judge Janet Madonia Calano, a part-time judge of a local court in Westchester County received the discipline of admonishment for delegating judicial decisions to a prosecutor, a local Deputy Town Attorney.

Here are the charges:

Judge Calano is a licensed attorney and remains a licensed attorney "with no record of public discipline", notwithstanding her fraud noted by the NYS Commission for Judicial Conduct (altering court record during investigation against her, adding her "approvals" to dispositions where she allowed the prosecutor to decide those cases).

Altering court records is a crime.  Doing that in order to create a false impression is also a fraud, which is also a crime

An admonishment?

No records of public discipline?

For committing two crimes?

Just because it is a judge and an attorney, and nobody wants to "mar her reputation" - even if she committed a crime?

And, since the local prosecutor expects the judge to rule in the prosecutor's favor, good luck waiting that Judge Calano will be investigated and prosecuted.

You know who did not investigate or prosecute Judge Calano for committing two crimes of altering court records and doing that with intent to defraud the NYS Commission for Judicial Conduct?

Westchester County DA Janet DiFiore, an attorney who was elevated to Chief Judge of New York Courts.

The crime of alteration of public records and fraud was committed in 2012.

Commission of fraud in New York by a licensed attorney is an offense that leads to disbarment.

DA Janet DiFiore did not prosecute Judge Calano for fraud and alteration of public records in 2012, and let that 2-year statute of limitations for such a prosecution lapse.

The NYS Commission for Judicial Conduct was aware of misconduct of Janet DiFiore as a prosecutor, but still endorsed her for the seat of Chief Judge, and recently tossed two meritorious complaints against her without an explanation.

Yet, Judge DiFiore likely committed crimes before her elevation to the position of Chief Judge (and nobody wants to investigate or prosecute that) and did not stop in her corrupt efforts after her elevation.

If Chief Judge of New York State can be allowed to commit crime without any accountability, all other judges can follow suit.

Thanks to DA Janet DiFiore's non-prosecution, thanks to slap on the wrist by NYS Commission for Judicial Conduct, thanks to inaction of attorney disciplinary committees, Attorney-Judge Calano can now continue altering court records and lying in court documents, as a judge, or as an attorney.

Judge Calano clearly stated to the Commission, by the way, that she, "as a woman", had other priorities in the first year of her judgeship than to make sure she follows the law:

Judge Calano, a licensed attorney, preferred not to learn what the applicable law is, and to "tread very lightly", "hold back a little bit" with respect of "making changes in the court" (in other words, in following lawful procedure rather than delegating judicial duties to prosecutors), and had "other priorities" than to follow the law, "including improving court security and learning about handling criminal matters".

I wonder whether Judge Calano told voters during her election campaign that making sure she acts lawfully in court proceedings was not on her list of priorities.

And that, being an "outstanding woman", and "senatorial woman of distinction" (according to Judge Calano's resume I will describe below), she would prefer to "tread very lightly" and "hold back a little bit", not to ire male prosecutors and the fellow male judge - while deciding cases pending in front of her personally.

After all, see what happens to women who do not "tread very lightly" and make pesky constitutional arguments to courts - they are suspended without a hearing, handcuffed, detained, strip-searched, you name it.

No, it's definitely better to "tread very lightly" and "hold back a little bit".

Judge Calano knows what she is talking about.

She is a survivor in the profession still dominated by old white males.

Most likely, Janet Calano's connections in such a lenient disciplinary sentence and in lack of criminal prosecution played a role.

Here is a resume of Judge Janet Calano.

The resume very clearly indicates that, in addition to what Janet Calano did wrong - and what she was admonished for - she also had undisclosed conflicts of interest in presiding over cases prosecuted by a Town of Eastchester Deputy attorney, as a prosecutor, while having ties to the executive and legislative part of the government of the Town of Eastchester, in addition to be the Town judge.

Judge Calano prides herself on having "redrafted" the Zoning Code of the Town of Eastchester and for being an Executive Board Recording Secretary for the "Eastchester School Foundation".

Two many hats for a judge, don't you think?

Calano is also a very "outstanding woman", according to her own resume:

You can't take a "Senatorial Woman of Distinction" and an "Outstanding Woman in the Community" off the bench, disbar her and prosecute her for criminal conduct.

You simply can't.

There are civil rights attorneys and public defenders to be bashed out there, just don't touch connected "outstanding women" committing crimes on the bench.

Protection of the public be doomed.

Bashing attorneys for the poor as a norm in American Courts? #MaleChauvinistPig Galore: handcuffing public defenders, episodes 1 through 3 - and still no disciplinary proceedings for Nevada Judge Conrad Hafen

I wrote two days ago about the outrageous incident where a judge in Nevada, white elderly male (ugly - it's the truth) Christian judge handcuffed a young female beautiful immigrant darker-skin attorney, a public defender, for allegedly "talking over him" when he was "making a ruling",  because she was following her duty and trying to put in additional argument and make the record for appeal against incarceration of her poor client BEFORE the judge made his ruling.

As of today, I did not find any information that any disciplinary proceedings were started against Judge Conrad Hafen.

Yet, there was a report indicating that Judge Hafen never criticized her before he had her handcuffed (while lying that he had problems with her in the previous 6 months), and that Judge Hafen was, in fact, "very complimentary" about attorney Zohra Bakhtary in his conversations with other attorneys.

Reports Judge Hafen's secret compliments to Ms. Bakhtary only confirm my suspicion that having her handcuffed had nothing to do with what she did in court, and had everything to do with her youth, beauty and sex appeal to the aging (and ugly) judge.

Yet, there appeared an article where the author agreed with me that what occurred appeared to be an intentional discrimination against women - and against public defenders - and that the court system thus demonstrated its contempt for the poor through its contempt for those who represent the poor.

The article cites to two other episodes - in D.C. in 2007 and in California in 2015 where the same was done to - "coincidentally" - female public defenders for constitutional arguments in court on behalf of the poor.

Here are the parties in D.C. and California cases.

D.C.:

The judge - John B. Bayly, Jr. 


Judge Bayly is white.

Judge Bayly is Catholic - judging by the Catholic wedding ceremony of her daughter in 2009.


By the way, Judge Bayly was sued, by a dark-skinned man, Henok Araya, for religious discrimination - and the lawsuit dismissed only o contrived judicially created grounds - because in a child custody proceedings he awarded custody to the parent of his own religion, Catholic, specifically allowed questioning about the opposing parent's religion and made his determination of custody, apparently, because he personally preferred children to be raised in his own faith.

Judge John B. Bayly, Jr. is reportedly a member of the American Inn of Court, a secret organization, funded by legal elite, providing free perks to judges.

In 2015 Judge Bayly requested a reappointment as a Senior Superior Court Judge of D.C. Court.

Apparently, Judge Bayly was reppointed - to a misdemeanor court, where he "serves" until present time.

In regards to the case of handcuffing, unlawful detention and strip-search of female public defender Liyah K. Brown, Judge Bayly was only "reprimanded" for that - just reprimanded, for "intemperate conduct".

Judge Bayly's reasons for the order were exactly the same as Judge Hafen's:

So, a public defender was "oppositional and defiant" in arguing about this:

Here is the full order of reprimand of judge John H. Bayly, Jr.  It mentions an "intrusive patdown search", but does not mention that Ms. Brown was actually strip-searched, as her lawsuit against the guard says.  And, even though the guard was less liable than the judge who ordered Ms. Brown's ordeal, the judge escaped with a slap on the wrist and continues to be a judge.


Don't be a bad boy, judge, the order of reprimand for "intemperate conduct" said, don't have those naughty female public defenders handcuffed, detained and strip-searched in the presence of a male deputy marshall.  I wonder whether the creep watched the court security video of the strip-search, too, he certainly had access to it as a judge.  There is no indication that the Judicial Conduct Commission checked into judge's being a potential sexual predator in the courtroom.  Judges who are sexual predators are routinely protected from discipline and are allowed to continue to "serve".

The public defender who "talked over" judge Bayly in making a constitutional argument for her poor and homeless client was Liyah K. Brown, an '04 law school graduate, just 3 years out of law school at the time, reportedly a Soros Criminal Justice Fellow, a young, bright and dedicated public defender.

Her dedication to her homeless client, apparently, earned her a handcuffing, a detention and a strip-search.

I will give credit to her colleagues, attorneys who reportedly started to wear red armbands to the courthouse, in solidarity with Ms. Brown.


Ms. Brown filed a lawsuit against the security guard for strip search and unlawful detention, but the guard died mid-litigation - and, of course, the main culprit, the judge, was unreachable by lawsuit because the judiciary gave itself a gift of absolute judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts on the bench.

It is obvious that the main reason for handcuffing, detaining and strip-searching Ms. Brown, a young woman, in front of men was to humiliate and embarrass her - and, possibly, for the judge to have an opportunity to see her naked body on the court security cameras.

California:

In California, no judge was involved (at least no involvement by a judge was disclosed), but a female public defender Jami Tillotson was arrested by male police officers when she objected to interrogation of her client in protection of her client's 5th Amendment rights.

All of the three attorneys share the same traits:

• they were female;
• they were public defenders;
• they protected constitutional rights of the poor.

Even President Obama has recently succumbed to bashing of public defenders and did not nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court a judge who was a public defender, based on false accusations against her in the press which were easily verifiable as false.

And, in view of what happened to female public defenders Liyah K. Brown, Jami Tillotson, Zohra Bahtary, the recent claim of "Justice" Sonya Sotomayor for the need to mandate pro bono representation of the poor appears as even more of a hypocrisy.  

"Justice" Sonya Sotomayor maintains self-given judicial immunity for herself and for other judges for malicious and corrupt acts on the bench, and at the same time wants to mandate representation of the poor by all lawyers, while knowing the degree of contempt, disrespect and attorney-bashing of criminal defense and civil rights attorneys who already represent the poor, and while regularly tossing appeals of such attorneys when they are punished for criticizing such judges and punished for raising constitutional arguments on behalf of the poor in court.

Such behavior by Judge Sotomayor is an act of ultimate hypocrisy.  

What is happening to public defenders, especially female public defenders who are trying to do their jobs for the poor properly - even while being underfunded and overworked - is sending a message that lawyers representing the poor can and likely will be subjected to any kind of embarrassment and humiliation by the courts for doing their jobs properly - and that judges will be "immune" from punishment and protected by the system.

That is not exactly encouraging for attorneys to provide quality representation for the poor.

It is encouraging such attorneys to do the opposite - sell their clients out.  After all, they cannot sue them for malpractice, being the poor.  In New York the poor cannot sue their criminal defense attorney (mainly assigned) unless they overturn the conviction, even if the conviction is obtained through poor representation.  Quite an incentive to sell out poor clients...

At this background, "Justice" Sonya Sotomayor claims that she believes that slave lawyers will still be providing good representation to the poor "out of professional pride", seems like an even bigger hypocrisy.

Try exercising you professional pride and providing proper representation for the poor, for payment or especially for free, knowing that, if you are a female, and especially if you are a young and pretty female, you may be spotted by some old white pig judge, ordered handcuffed, put into a cell, your breasts will be bared in front of men there, and the judge and his whole entourage will be watching your naked body over security cameras.

And, very likely, your law license may be stripped if you persist in your "frivolous" constitutional arguments on behalf of the poor, you will be blackballed from any decent employment for life, as it happens to many attorneys suspended or disbarred for criticizing the judiciary - and any other licensing in the increasingly licensed labor market of this country will be denied to you, too.

And, if your license is stripped,  "Justice" Sotomayor will make it prohibitively expensive and burdensome for you to appeal to her court, even if you are pursued by a creepy judge like judges Hafen and Bayly, and will toss your petition without an explanation, preferring instead to review cases that will get her sensational reviews and gratitude from wealthy parties. 

Knowing all that, I wonder, how much of "professional pride" will motivate you then to properly represent the poor.

What is deemed a grave injustice in Russia is business as usual - for decades - in the U.S. criminal "injustice" system

In 2014, a Russian blogger Andrey Luchnikov wrote an article about the then-pending Legislative Bill to promote the use of plea bargains in criminal proceedings.

Since the article, very critical of that legislation, warns as grave injustice of what is already happening in the United States, for decades, I decided to translate the article for my readers, in full.

For those of my readers who know Russian, here is a link to the original:

Here is the translation.

===
Andrey Luchnikov

PROOF IS NO LONGER NEEDED TO INCARCERATE A CITIZEN OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

January 5, 2014

The government has prepared a legislative bill which experts call "a nail in the coffin" of criminal justice and the entire justice system of this country.

Not many observers, including domestic and foreign political or social science researchers would call the Russian Federation a state that is friendly to its citizens.

There is recurrent criticism in the press toward the Russian courts, the repressive legislation and the "dirty" way cases are decided: the percentage of acquittals by Russian courts is one of the lowest in the world, while the number of convicted inmates in Russia is comparable with the Stalin-time USSR while the current Russian population is nowhere near the USSR's population levels.

Anyway, as an unnamed optimist justly stated, the situation cannot be so bad that it cannot be made even worse.  While the Russian media was informing our citizens about the details of successful preparation for the Olympic Games in Sochi, and about the fight with the propaganda of pedophilia, as well as with the Vietnamese, the Algerians and the Syrians, who suddenly became the main illegals in our country - a legislative bill importance and seriousness of which is difficult to underestimate has been born in the peace and quiet of governmental offices. 

Proof is no longer needed

As it goes with all serious documents, the new law has a deliberately vague name:  "On introduction of changes into the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation" - a characterization that says nothing not only to an average lay individual, but also to professional attorneys.  At least, until a person starts to read the text of the new bill.

In the bill, the government proposes to expand through statutory law the use of the "special court procedure", covering with that expansion the majority of the Criminal Code articles of the Russian Federation.  It is being done, as the legislative sponsors of the bill explain, to "cut the costs from the federal budget spent on review of cases on the merits and on court appearances of participants in criminal cases", as well as to "significantly reduce the time spent by courts on review of criminal cases".

In other words, as observers believe, Russian authorities want to save on investigation, the same way as before that they saved on education, science, medical care and some other areas of life.

The special procedure for review of cases is a simplified procedure where a criminal defendant is convicted in one court appearance.  The court does not review the proof collected by the investigation and does not invite witnesses.  The accused, in his turn, agrees with the investigation, acknowledges the accusation in the way it is presented by the investigator and approved of by the prosecutor.  The accused is offered, in lieu of "candy", a more lenient sentence than during a regular court proceedings - not more than 2/3 of the maximum term allowed by the charged criminal statute.

To encourage this practice, the government suggests to cover an expanded list of criminal statutes with the special procedures and to extend such special procedures to cases with maximum terms of incarceration up to 15 years in prison.

At this time, the "ceiling" of such simplified procedure is 10 years. 

Farewell, the Sherlock Holmes-es!

Attorney Sergey Afanasiev believes that "if this law is enacted, 80% of all criminal cases will be reviewed through the "special procedure".  Such a law is a gift to investigation and prosecution: they do no have to bother themselves with tactics, methodologies and problems.  Just get an agreement with the accused - and that's all.  Criminology has ended, cases do not have to be investigated any more."

Attorney Yuri Novolodsky agrees with his colleague.  "If the scope of cases where courts do not have to review the proof is expanded, then, as the authors of the explanatory note for the bill correctly write, there will be a lot of savings of federal monies.  The special procedure allows a court not to review the proof at all", explained the lawyer.

Attorney Novolodsky also notes that the court must take a strict critical position toward every proof produced by the investigation and prosecution.  In this respect, passing the new law, as the criminal defender believes, will become a funeral service to justice.

The special procedure for review of cases was first introduced in the Russian Federation in 2009.  Since then, investigative authorities worked out a special tactic for investigation of "unprovable" cases.  As Attorney Sergey Afanasiev explains, "they caught four people, the investigation does nothing and is waiting who will confess first.  The person who gave testimony because of agreement with the investigators, gets review of his case by special procedure, where the case is severed out into a separate criminal case".  Under such procedure, co-defendants or accomplices are not present at the special proceedings and do not have an opportunity to oppose or rebutt the person's testimony.

After the first court proceedings are over, the investigation returns to the "silent" co-defendants, and the conviction of their co-defendant is used as evidence against them.  Naturally, such defendants have no chance of acquittal under the circumstances.

The observers note that one of the most sensational recent cases - "the case of Kirovles" - was built according to this scheme.  The conviction to the candidate for the Moscow Mayor's position Alexey Navalniy and to businessman Piotr Ofitserov was made on the basis of testimony of ex-director of "Kirovles" Vyacheslav Opalev who was previously convicted through a "special procedure".

Justice through torture is not at all the thing of the past

Some observers give an even grimmer prognosis.  According to them, incentives to get a self-surrender, confession and a plea bargain with the prosecution will lead the Russian court system to a horrible metamorphosis.

As Russian journalist Michael Belyaev writes, "It turns out that the best investigator will be a deranged sadist in whose capable hands anybody will take upon himself all sins of this world.  And the best judge will be the one who will develop a skill of typing up within two minutes' time on his computer the text of a conviction and to sputter it out, not concerning himself in the process about the issues of guilt or innocence.  This is not the end of criminology, as experts say, it is the end of justice.  From the staged Theater of the Absurd, Russian courts will turn into a factory conveyor that rubber-stamps convictions and broken lives every hour". 

Attorneys note that while the new law about special procedures was introduced only in 2009, or relatively recently, already now in provincial areas the majority of criminal cases are reviewed following the "special procedure".  It is not difficult to surmise what will be the result of a law that would allow to resolve practically all cases like that, including murders, criminal enterprises and terrorism.

===

One of the commentators to the article said, in part, this (I will skip the insults in this comment and will translate only what is relevant for the American criminal justice system):

Translation: 

"BECAUSE these changes are taken one-to-one from procedures of American courts and are introduced in Russia as part of American colonial procedures, same as practically all the "reforms".

In the U.S. such a procedure is called "plea bargaining".  The accused is pressured with threats of maximum prison terms for 3 to 4 criminal charges (in the U.S. criminal justice practice such maximum terms are arithmetically added up, and the practice of overcharging is absolutely brazen).  When the accused "admits" his guilt of what the prosecution wants him to admit, he is given a "discount" (as compared with the blackmail), and the judge approves "the bargain" through his decision."

==
Apart from the quite paranoid accusation that anything wrong introduced in Russia which is similar to what we have here in the U.S. must be the "colonial conspiracy" of Americans to enslave Russia, and with the correction that not all maximum terms are "arithmetically added up" - there are consecutive and concurrent prison terms, consecutive when crimes charged were committed on a separate occasion or involve a separate set of elements of the crime, concurrent when several charges are based on the same factual occurrence with overlapping elements - both the article and the comment describes what we already have in the U.S.

No proof is needed for a coerced plea bargain.  The same tactic is used to break up one of the co-defendants, creating a "plea bargain race" - who will rat on the co-defendant first, gets the best break - and courts accepting convictions through plea bargains do not review proof and do not know whether the person who is pleading guilty actually did what he says he did.

Threats to coerce plea bargain are common - most common are threats to ask a maximum incarceration.  For example, a 2-year sentence is offered where the maximum is 15 years in prison, and for some people such a risk is simply too high to take, so the innocent plead guilty without ever having committed any crimes.

According to official statistics in the U.S., 95% of criminal cases in this country are resolved by plea bargaining, so courts never reviewed proof, and we the taxpayers who fund this system, do not know whether the overwhelming majority of those who populate state and federal prisons are actually guilty of the charges.

Add the hugely profitable for-profit prisons, see here and here, to those 95% of people who are in those prisons, but whose guilt was never established through proof in court, and you have the answer why such a system exists - for decades.

Slave labor source.

Will Foster v Chatman help restore justice for the Kentucky #JudgeOluStevens?

I wrote on this blog repeatedly about the unjust suspension of an African-American #JudgeOluStevens from Kentucky who was trying to assert the law and fight racism in criminal proceedings, see my blogs here, here and here.

My blogs were posted in April of this year, 2016.

On May 23, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a death sentence from Georgia to an African American man made by an all-white jury, specifically because the prosecution behaved in the exact same manner as the prosecution behaved in Kentucky - struck every African American potential juror from the jury panel.

Judge Olu Stevens rectified that behavior by the only way possible, in fact, by the same way as the U.S. Supreme Court did - at the last level of litigation, by ordering the case with such flawed jury selection to a new trial and then, after the case concluded, going public about prosecutorial misconduct in the case.

Judge Olu Stevens should be commended, not disciplined, for not only doing justice for the criminal defendant, but also for saving Kentucky taxpayers thousands, if not millions of dollars in litigation cost and preventing the need of going to the U.S. Supreme Court after the conviction of African American defendants by all-white juries hand-picked by a white prosecutor.

By the way, the only black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court dissented.  Yet, being black does not gives you a right to uphold racist injustice against your own people.  Fortunately, the rest of the court disagreed with "justice" Thomas.

As the New York Times reports it, there was no doubt that striking the black jurors - and seeking the death penalty against an African American man - were racially motivated decisions:

"In notes that did not surface until decades later, prosecutors marked the names of black prospective jurors with a B and highlighted those names in green. They circled the word “black” where potential jurors had noted their race on questionnaires.

They ranked those prospective jurors in case “it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors,” as the prosecution’s investigator put it in a draft affidavit at the time. In the end, prosecutors struck all four black potential jurors.

After Mr. Foster was convicted, Stephen Lanier, the lead prosecutor, urged the all-white jury to impose a death sentence to “deter other people out there in the projects.” The jury did so."

Now that the majority decision in Foster v Chatman is in, I wonder whether Kentucky disciplinary authorities will obey the precedent and restore Judge Olu Stevens to the bench, with apologies - because Judge Stevens' only "fault" was that he tried to uphold the law.

All that Kentucky disciplinary authorities have to do now - a very difficult decision in a racist criminal justice system, I bet - is to uphold the law, and the new precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court, too.  And to do justice to Judge Olu Stevens.

#MaleChauvinistPigsGalore continues: another male jerk - oops, judge - punishes a female attorney defending her clients in court, by handcuffing her. To teach her "courtroom etiquette" - or submission, according to the Bible?

Meet the Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Conrad Hafen:

A white male judge who ordered handcuffed a female attorney with a Muslim name Zohra Bakhtary - simply because she was trying to make a record to prevent unjust incarceration of her indigent client.

From the official court biography of Judge Hafen, one learns - of course - that he is "a man of faith", that was really necessary to include into a judge's profile:

Judge Hafen also is a former prosecutor:
 

Not only that, Judge Hafen is "famous", or, I would say, infamous for helping to severely undermine criminal defendants' rights against self-incrimination in custodial interrogations, in violation of 4th and 5th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

Judge Hafen helped eliminate such protections through his argument as a a prosecutor before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Hibel v Sixth Judicial District, 542 U.S. 177 (2004).

Judge Hafen is very proud of his "accomplishment" in Hibel, he even placed that "accomplishment" into his official court biography:
 

As a religious man, a Christian, a "man of faith", Judge Hibel, of course, must know this text:
 
"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.  I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."  1 Timothy 2:12-13.

And, in front of Judge Hafen was a public defender, a beautiful young woman with a Muslim name, Zohra Bakhtary.

Zohra Bakhtary, according to online sources, is an immigrant from Afghanistan:

The white Christian male elderly - and ugly - judge ordered a young female immigrant attorney (no doubt, speaking with an accent since she immigrated into the U.S. only at the age of 14) with a Muslim name, during her argument raising due process liberty interests of her client (arguing against jail time for an indigent client on violation of probation charges) "to be quiet". 

Because Judge Hafen wanted to "teach her a lesson".

Because Judge Hafen had "problems" with her for the last 6 months, according to his own admission.

Attorney Bakhtary allegedly interrupted Judge Hafen.

Of course, Judge Hafen turned off videocameras, so that it would be his and his stenographer's word against the attorney's word, as to his and the attorney's demeanor and whether the attorney interrupted the judge or was simply trying to put in a constitutional argument for her poor clients edgewise, while run over by the - old Christina ugly male chauvinist judge Hafen.

After all, who knows what kind of feelings a beautiful woman like Attorney Bakhtary stirred in Judge Hafen that could not be satisfied other than through petty vengeance. 

And the judge did "teach a lesson".

He ordered criminal defense attorney for the indigent, Attorney Zohra Bakhtary who came to this country as to the "land of the tree, the country of the brave", the land of the "rule of law", from Afghanistan torn by war - to be handcuffed for making constitutional argument on behalf of her poor client.

So that she would learn her place and "be quiet" when a man tells her to do so.  

Attorney Bakhtary's boss, a male attorney Phil Kohn, who "promised changes" when first elected in 2004, held a "closed doors" meeting with Judge Hafen.

Yet, when he was elected, attorney Phil Kohn also reportedly said:  "I've wanted this job for a long time, so I am very happy".  

So, in order to continue to be happy, Phil Kohn threw attorney Zohra Bakhtary under the bus.

Attorney Kohn did not file a misconduct complaint against the male chauvinist pig judge Hafen.

Attorney Kohn did not file a motion to recuse Judge Hafen from all proceedings where Zohra Bakhtary represents clients, for the elementary purpose of preventing the very same retaliation that was already visited by Judge Hafen not only upon Attorney Bakhtary, but also upon her indigent client.

Instead, the white male attorney Phil Kohn

 
 had a "closed-doors" meeting with Judge Hafen, and "emerged from the meeting with a positive outlook".

Saying this:

"'I don’t think there’s going to be a hangover from this', Kohn said. 'She’s tenacious. It’s probably why today happened. But I don’t believe for one second that this will deter her from doing her job zealously. I know that she will continue to fight for her clients. As far as I’m concerned, it’s behind us.”

How about a little help to a woman abused by judicial misconduct so that she would not be "deterred" from "doing her job zealously" and for continuing to "be tenacious" and "fighting for her clients".

What will happen next if she fights for her clients?  She will be put in jail?

And her boss will hold another "old boys" "white male to white male" closed-door meeting, emerging out of it with a "positive outlook"?

And saying - oh well, things happen, the woman is tenacious, she will endure more abuse, she and her clients. 

No need to turn the pig judge in for misconduct.

No need to protect clients by motions to recuse the pig judge.

Oh, and yes, the cherry that tops the cake, so to say - Kohn said reportedly that "he was concerned that cameras installed in the courtroom to capture audio and video had not been turned on, though that’s not a requirement under state law."

Kohn said:  

 “I would love to watch what happened,” Kohn said, “not just what words were spoken, but how they were spoken.”

So, he recognizes that the demeanor of parties and their body language may make a difference.

And that's exactly why the #MaleChauvinistPigJudgeConradHafen turned off he video and audio cameras.

I do not share attorney Kohn's optimism that Ms. Bakhtary is so "tenacious" that she will continue to take abuse from Judge Hafen without any help from authorities to control Judge Hafen's obvious misconduct, and will continue to jeopardize her law license and livelihood, asking for more contempt citations - without any protection from her boss or from other authorities.

Recently, a Canadian study found that female lawyers leave criminal defense in "alarming numbers", citing as one of the reasons, gender-based courtroom discrimination and abuse.

The situation is no different in the U.S.

I have no doubt in my mind that abuse of Judge Hafen against Ms. Zohra Bakhtary was gender based - as well as ethnicity-based, immigrant-status-based, accent-based and Muslim name-based.

I have no doubt in my mind that Judge Conrad Hafen would never have handcuffed a fellow Christian fundamentalist white male attorney - he would allow such an attorney to speak as much as he wants.

So - will MaleChauvinistPigJudgeConradHafen be disciplined for his misconduct, or is this "episode" is "behind" everybody involved - as Ms. Bakhtary's cowardly boss Phil Kohn said?

Until the next time the Pig Judge strikes?

 I would also like to point out that attorney Zohra Bakhtary does not exactly lack political connections in high places - having been a Clerk to the U.S. Senate Majority Leader Democratic Senator Harry Reid.

Apparently, even such connections cannot protect from a female attorney from abuse in the courtroom by male chauvinist pig judges like judge Conrad Hafen.

So - should a female attorney tolerate abuse and risk jail each time she enters a courtroom because some white Christian fundamentalist chauvinist pig judge wants to subdue her, as his religion (or baser considerations) teaches him to do?

I hope that judge Conrad Hafen is taken off the bench for this "episode".

Then, the episode will be truly "behind us", the public and female attorneys in the courtroom will be protected from judicial misconduct, and integrity of judicial office, undermined by the PigJudge, will be restored in the public's eye.

I will continue to follow this story.

Stay tuned.

The case-fixing judge Robert Mulvey rules on Mokay appeal (after assigning judges in the court below to the Mokay case): unless Mr. Neroni produces part of the record stolen by the trial judge and the Plaintiffs attorney, the thief wins

In 2011, Judge Robert C Mulvey, then the Chief Administrative Judge of the 6th Judicial District was sued by myself, my husband and another party in a case Bracci v Becker, NDNY Case No. 1:11-cv-1473.

The complaint was asserting that Judge Mulvey was assigning the now-retired Judge Becker to certain cases to fix such cases and have them decided a certain way, against me, my clients and my family members, like my husband Frederick J. Neroni.

The case assignments involved in the lawsuit were Mulvey's assignments of Becker to:

1. Mokay v Mokay, Delaware County Index No. 2007-695, where my husband was sued by, purportedly, six plaintiffs, for fraud upon the court - which resulted in my husband's disbarment without a hearing before the end of that litigationl
2. other cases involving my husband and myself as parties, or me as an attorney.

Mulvey asserted to the federal court that assignments of cases is a judicial function, and obtained a dismissal of the federal lawsuit against him on grounds of absolute judicial immunity, where the federal court specifically said on this issue the following:

===
"1. Defendant Mulvey

Plaintiffs "request nominal, actual, special and punitive damages" against Defendant Mulvey. See Dkt. No. 5 at ¶ 322. Further, Plaintiffs request injunctive, declaratory and prospective injunctive relief against Defendant Mulvey for assigning Defendant Becker to cases where Plaintiffs are parties and where Plaintiff Tatiana Neroni is an attorney. See id. Citing no authority, Plaintiffs argue that these actions are administrative and therefore outside the scope of judicial immunity. See Dkt. No. 15-3 at 14.

Courts have held that the assignment of cases are judicial functions and are therefore protected acts under judicial immunity. See Martinez v. Winner, 771 F.2d 424, 434 (10th Cir. 1985) ("Although it is an `administrative' act, in the sense that it does not concern the decision who shall win a case, the assignment of cases is still a judicial function in the sense that it directly concerns the case-deciding process. . . ."), vacated on other grounds sub nom. Tyus v. Martinez, 475 U.S. 1138, 106 S.Ct. 1787 (1986); Parent v. New York, 786 F.Supp.2d 516, 532 (N.D.N.Y. 2011) ("The assignment of cases and issuance of consolidated orders are judicial functions. . ."); see also Zahl v. Kosovsky, No. 08 Civ. 8308, 2011 WL 779784, *9 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 3, 2011) (holding that the alleged manipulation of the case assignment system is protected by judicial immunity)."

In other words, Mulvey argued to a federal court - and won a dismissal of a lawsuit against him based on that argument - that Judge Mulvey acted in Mokay v Mokay, in a judicial function, at the trial court level.

Bracci v Becker was dismissed on January 9, 2013.

After the dismissal, in April of 2013, information leaked to the press that Judge Mulvey demoted a judge for refusing to decide cases the way Judge Mulvey (an administrative assigning judge) wanted them to be decided, I wrote about that situation in my blog here.

After the dismissal, in April of 2016, I received from New York State Court Administration a document indicating that the judge who decided Bracci v Becker may have been, together with Mulvey, members of a secret organization comprised of federal presiding judges and state judges, defendants appearing in front of such federal judges.  



Judge Mae D'Agostino who decided (and, likely, fixed for Mulvey and Becker) the decision in Bracci v Becker, is currently stalling disclosure of lists of members of that organization that I requested through a Freedom of Information Act request more than a month ago.

Yet, whether Bracci v Becker was fixed or not fixed, in that case Judge Mae D'Agostino established as a matter of law, on request of Judge Mulvey, that Judge Mulvey acted in a judicial function in cases he was assigning to Judge Becker, at the trial level, and one of those cases was Mokay v Mokay.

For example, a federal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 47, forbids judges from deciding cases on appeal where judges were deciding the same cases in the courts below:

And, since Judge Mulvey already won a dismissal of a federal lawsuit against himself by claiming that assigning cases in the court below was a judicial function, and especially with the evidence that Judge Mulvey actually expects from assigned judges to decide cases a certain way, as the demotion of the "stubborn" Judge Biaggio DiStefano demonstrates, Judge Mulvey cannot now turn around and claim that assigning cases in the court below was simply an administrative function for purposes of disqualification from the appeal in the same case.

It is a basic due process issue not to have the same judge who decided the case in the court below to also decide the case on appeal.

Yet, that's exactly what Mulvey did.

Here is what I received in the mail directed to me - even though my law license was suspended, and Mr. Neroni prosecuted his appeal pro se:


Mulvey, as part of the panel of 4 appellate judges, conditionally dismissed the pro se appeal perfected by my husband on March 13, 2016, unless my husband "makes corrections to the record" (the specific corrections are not specified in the order).

In making this order, Mulvey, and the rest of the judges, apparently disregarded the fact that Mulvey exercised a judicial function in the case below, and thus was permanently, as a matter of due process of law, disqualified from hearing appeals in that same case.

In making that order, the entire panel wasted taxpayer money to allow Judge Mulvey to promote personal interests of Richard Harlem, who is, quite "coincidentally",

(1) the son of Mulvey's former predecessor in his prior position of the Chief Administrative Judge of 6th Judicial District of New York, Judge Robert Harlem (now deceased); and

(2) a landlord of many years of Judge Mulvey's former high-ranking client NYS Senator James Seward, see biography of Mulvey showing that he was a "Legislative Counsel" of Senator James Seward

For some reason, "Justice" Mulvey does not mention in his official biography that, while he was a "Legislative Counsel" to Senator Seward, he was also a private attorney - how is that combined in New York, where a public employee is also a private attorney, nobody knows, but "Justice" Mulvey sees that there is a problem in that employment and did not advertise that over the same period of time as he was the "Legislative Counsel" to NYS Senator James Seward, he was also a partner in a private law firm Albanese and Mulvey.

Being a private attorney at Albanese and Mulvey, Mulvey obviously may have had financial interests of his other paying clients at stake that he could promote as "Legislative Counsel" for NYS Senator Seward - begging a question of corruption, or at the very least appearance of impropriety right there.

As to the Mokay case, it is quite a coincidence, of course, that Judge Mulvey aggressively strived to assign two judges to the Mokay case in the court below, 

Carl Becker and Kevin Dowd, who, first, hated my husband and me with a passion and, second, were known to be obedient and to bow to authority, especially that both Becker and Dowd were close to retirement, and Becker, at the time of assignment, was facing re-election in 2012 and needed support of Senator Seward, friend and former client of Mulvey and tenant of Richard Harlem, attorney for purported plaintiffs,

and then was quickly assigned by Governor Cuomo, who already was aware of case-fixing through four appellate judges he either appointed (Judges DiFiore, Stein, Fahey) or failed to prosecute for case-fixing when he was New York State Attorney General (Judge Lippman).


By the way, Becker did obtain support of Senator Seward in his elections and did have communications with Senator Seward, friend of Mulvey and tenant of attorney Richard Harlem, while he handled the Mokay v Mokay proceeding, see picture taken of Becker and Seward on in May of 2012, during his election campaign and while Becker was still presiding on the Mokay v Mokay case:

At Becker's quick retirement that suggested that Becker was offered a "choice" - to leave "on his own" or be booted for misconduct - it was Richard Harlem's tenant Senator Seward who "sponsored" a bill to honor Judge Becker, "a man of faith", in the NYS Senate - same as Senator Seward previously sponsored a bill to honor Richard Harlem's father retired Judge Robert Harlem, while both Becker and Harlem were caught in egregious misconduct many times and should have been jailed instead of honored.

Becker and Seward, both Republicans, supported one another in their re-election campaigns, so a lot of interests were involved to decide in favor of Senator Seward's tenant Richard Harlem, which had nothing to do with the law.

I wrote about Judge Dowd's egregious misconduct in the Mokay case - 

• failing to disqualify himself despite a witness subpoena served upon the judge, his law clerk and his secretary;
• holding an ex parte trial while I was on documented medical leave, 
• blocking the public from observing the trial and misleading the public that the trial was adjourned while it was ongoing, 
• admitting trial exhibits at the trial in bulk, by boxes, without reading them, 
• after the trial, blocking Mr. Neroni and me as his then-attorney, from ever seeing the trial exhibit, even during the pendency of appeal,
• giving away the trial exhibits to Richard Harlem, and thus filibustering the appeal.

A reversal of such a case should be a given.

Multiple fundamental constitutional issues were raised on the appeal.

The original affidavit of purported plaintiff David Mokay was provided to the appellate court indicating that David Mokay NEVER SUED my husband.

That affidavit was not rebutted by Richard Harlem other than through an affidavit of his other client who was accusing David Mokay of perjury.

Once again, Richard Harlem, an attorney, defended against sworn accusation of his purported client David Mokay that David Mokay never hired Richard Harlem, by a sworn accusation of Daniel Mokay that Richard Harlem's purported client David Mokay is committing perjury.

The court did not hold an evidentiary hearing on the issue.

The court did not even mention the issue whether Richard Harlem represents David Mokay - David Mokay states under oath that Richard Harlem doesn't, and that, as well as Richard Harlem's accusing of his own purported client David Mokay of perjury through affidavit of his client Daniel Mokay, is a complete and absolute disqualification of Richard Harlem that should have resulted in:

1) dismissal of the case;

2) award of attorney fees to Mr. Neroni throughout the litigation;

3) referral of Richard Harlem to disciplinary and criminal authorities for egregious fraud and fraud upon the court.

Richard Harlem asked to strike the record because he stole trial exhibits from the record with the help of trial judge Kevin Dowd.

Mr. Neroni, naturally, asked for sanctions against Richard Harlem and argued that he:

(1) cannot provide what is not in the record;

(2) cannot provide what Judge Dowd prohibited court clerks to show to Mr. Neroni or his appellate attorney;

(3) cannot be punished for misconduct of opposing counsel and trial judge.

Those arguments fell upon deaf ears of the court that conveniently included into the appellate panel deciding the motion Judge Mulvey, with all of his personal connections to the case, including acting in a judicial function in the court below.

Once again, the decision was served upon me - while the court knows very well I am suspended from the practice of law since November 13, 2015, and while the appeal was perfected in March of 2016 by Mr. Neroni acting pro se.

Just compare case numbers on the envelope sent to me and on the order regarding Mr. Neroni's appeal: the case number is identical, 521426.

Mr. Neroni's appeal was "conditionally dismissed" - without an explanation, reasoning, discussion or analysis of issues raised or decided by the court.

Of course, in view of complete disqualification of Judge Mulvey, the decision is void for lack of quorum - quorum of 4 judges is required by the New York State Constitution in deciding appellate cases. 

N.Y. Const., Article VI, Section 4(b) provides:

b. The appellate divisions of the supreme court are continued, and shall consist of seven justices of the supreme court in each of the first and second departments, and five justices in each of the other departments. In each appellate division, four justices shall constitute a quorum, and the concurrence of three shall be necessary to a decision. No more than five justices shall sit in any case.

Since Mulvey exercised judicial functions in the Mokay case in the court below and was absolutely disqualified from presiding over the same case on appeal, there was no constitutional quorum of 4 justices, and the decision is void.

I will, of course, hold my breath waiting until the Appellate Division, the court regulating conduct of attorneys, would follow the law instead of the unwritten requirement of catering of connected attorneys, law or no law.

That particular court blatantly disregarded the law so far and instead exercised raw power - the power of "because I said so, counsel", the behavior the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judge Alex Kozinski characterized as egregious judicial misconduct in his scathing dissent regarding disciplinary proceedings of Judge Manuel Real.

The restoration of properly perfected appeal in the court record was conditioned by the court "unless defendant Frederick J. Neroni files and serves a corrected record on appeal and brief on or before July 12, 2016".

So, after filing proper Record on Appeal and brief already, Mr. Neroni is given an impossible task to recover stolen parts of the record, stolen by the trial judge and the Plaintiffs' attorney, and to include it into the appeal - otherwise the thief wins.

So, unless Mr. Neroni, the victim of that theft, "corrects" the record by recovering what was stolen by plaintiffs' attorney, son of a judge Richard Harlem, the victim's appeal of an ex parte $300,000 judgment against him, including  judgment on behalf of a person who provided a sworn affidavit that he never sued Mr. Neroni and never hired Richard Harlem to represent him in that lawsuit, is dismissed.

So, as of May 13, 2016, the Appellate Division 3rd Department invented new rules of attorney discipline and rules of law - allowing attorneys (if they are properly connected) to bring and prosecute cases on behalf of parties who never sued, and

rewarding attorneys and trial judges who conspire to steal portions of the record on appeal during the pendency of appeal with dismissal of such appeals - because stolen trial exhibits are not part of it.

Thus, in the Appellate Division 3rd Department, constitutional rights of access to courts guaranteed by  the Petitions Clause of the federal 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that every judge of that court is sworn to uphold, is conditioned on being able to satisfy impossible tasks required by the court, such as production of trial exhibits conveniently stolen by parties and trial judges with the purpose of filibustering the appeal.

This is some case-fixing, ladies and gentlemen, and it is very obviously criminal.

It is apparent that access to courts cannot be conditioned on fulfilling impossible tasks and on rewarding fraudsters to enjoy the fruits of their fraud if they are well connected to judiciary.

It is also apparent that covering up for fraud constitutes a crime of accessory to fraud, and accessory to theft and falsification of court records after the fact - which is what Judge Mulvey is doing in this case.

It is also apparent that, short of a federal criminal indictment, judges and connected attorneys in this case will not stop fixing it.

Judge Mulvey is already trying hard to save Richard Harlem from criminal prosecution - after all, the decision to dismiss the appeal despite the obvious and ongoing fraud of Richard Harlem was made by Judge Mulvey just 5 days after I wrote in this blog that what Richard Harlem did (prosecuted a case on behalf of a party who never sued) constitutes a federal crime of fraud, and that the feds just recently obtained a criminal conviction against New York defendants when such defendants fraudulently added parties to litigation.

And I know that Judge Mulvey, or those who report to him, reads this blog.

This blog was reported to Judge Mulvey by attorney Paul Tomkins, then of Binghamton, NY, back in 2014, and since them Judge Mulvey upped his retaliation against me to new levels.

Whichever actions Mr. Neroni is going to undertake in this case, I will continue to cover the story on this blog.

As to the amount of fairness and rule of law demonstrated in this entire case - I must quote the same Alex Kozinski who, in yet another recent dissent claimed that a defendant would “have had a fairer shake in a tribunal run by marsupials”. 

In other words, a kangaroo court is a fairer court - Judge Kozinski's words, not mine. 

Only, I wouldn't insult the marsupials.

They are rather cute.