A district attorney anywhere is supposed to carry out "dual roles" - to vigorously prosecute crimes, and at the same time to make sure he is fair to the accused and to the public and the victim.
Right.
We know how it works generally - prosecutors are drumming up convictions no matter what is the law or the record, and are unflinchingly offering false evidence, feeling fully protected to do that by the judge-created concept of absolute prosecutorial immunity.
But, usually prosecutors at least keep the front of pretending that they are doing their dual duties/roles and are fair and impartial to the accused.
Not so in a case in Georgia, a state with a death penalty, where a "toy electric chair" was on display in the office of Alcovy Judicial Circuit #DistrictAttorneyLaylaZon.
Here is Layla Zon's official biography on her DA's website.
She is prosecuting death penalty cases.
And in her office she keeps on display a "toy" described as follows:
“Death Row Marv” is a battery-powered toy electric chair that produces an electric buzzing sound with Marv’s eyes glowing red under a helmet attached to electrodes. After his “electrocution,” Marv asks, “That the best you can do, you pansies?”
And because of that toy - a motion to vacate a death penalty was recently filed in court where the defense counsel puts it out like it is - that Layla Zon "is 'pathologically enthralled' with the death penalty and has pursued it with a fervor and zeal unmatched by any other district attorney in the state".
AFTER the motion was brought, DA Layla Zon said that she seeks only death penalty in cases that "warrant" it, that the toy was in her office before she became a DA in 2010 and that she has "recently" removed "the toy".
Well.
2010 was 6 years ago.
Layla Zon worked in the DA's office - and obviously saw the "toy" before, too - she joined the DA's office in 2000.
If it was the previous DA's idea to display this "toy", and Layla Zon did not have authority, as a subordinate employee, to remove it, Layla Zon's DUTY was to REPORT it as PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT to disciplinary authorities, to the courts and to the defense counsel in all death penalty cases - which she obviously did not do before 2010.
When Layla Zon became the DA herself - in 2010 - it was her duty to remove the "toy" and give an ethics course to her staff about it - which she did not do either.
And, Layla Zon, when cornered, displayed an astounding casualness about what the "toy" is and represents:
"'It was not something I purchased to decorate my office,' she said. 'It was a left-behind trinket that became part of the woodwork. … I never sat and looked and fixated on it, like it was part of some medieval mindset.'"
So, we need to be grateful that Layla Zon just had an electric chair on display in her office and "never sat and looked and fixated on it".
You know what says that she did fixate on it?
The toy was battery operated.
If anybody saw it operated during the term of Layla Zon - from 2010 to 2016, it is not simply a "trinket left behind", batteries go bad quickly, they need to be replaced.
The toy was obviously a cherished "part of the woodwork".
And, whatever Layla Zon says now that the "toy" is exposed to the media scrutiny and to a motion to vacate a death penalty, the appearance that for the DA death penalty is entertainment requires her removal from that position - together with her subordinates and staff who supported such entertainment.
Predictably, the person condemned to death by a white prosecutor in the Southern State of Georgia, is black.
His name is Rodney Young, and he is poor - otherwise he would have had a private attorney and not the "state capital defender" representing him.
The motion of Rodney Young's public defender also says that Layla Zon turned down Rodney Young's request to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, even though such a rejection of a plea offer resulted in, probably, millions of dollars for state taxpayers for the trial and for the death row appeals that may go on for years.
A conviction on a plea bargain with a life sentence would not have been subject to such appeals.
She was determined - and inspired by the "Death Row Marv" (which is still sold on Amazon, by the way - which would not have happened in any civilized country) - to put Rodney Young on the death row.
Georgia is a death penalty state.
But, the death penalty in the state is administered by a lethal injection.
The lethal injection - and the death penalty itself - are subject to increasing protests and U.S. Supreme Court filings addressing it as a cruel and unusual punishment.
But, whether it is or it isn't a cruel and unusual punishment, the electric chair is not and has not for a while, been used in Georgia for executions.
The motion of Rodney Young said that
" The motion notes that the Georgia Supreme Court in 2001 found that death by electrocution caused excruciating pain with a certainty of “cooked brains and blistered bodies.”
“The idea of any elected state official memorializing such a barbaric (and unconstitutional) practice with an office ornament would be surprising and troubling,” the motion said. “The fact that the elected official at issue here is a constitutional officer entrusted with virtually unfettered discretion in deciding which defendants under her jurisdiction will be singled out for execution, and which will be spared, is cause for real concern.”
Now Layla Zon says she regrets she didn't trash the toy when she came to office.
But - she didn't trash it specifically because that she didn't think it is inappropriate for a prosecutor in a death penalty state to display such a thing in her office.
And that is the problem, whether the "toy" will be now removed or not.
With the "toy" Layla Zon and all members of her staff who supported such entertainment, should be removed, too.
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
That white guy Shakespeare
I've just written a blog about the Afro-Russian poet Alexander Pushkin who, during his short life (he was fatally wounded at a duel at the age of 37 in 1736) managed to produce an enormous amount of rhymed verse, plays and prose - and is until this day considered the founder of the Russian literature and the greatest Russian poet.
Alexander Pushkin was black.
Yesterday was his birthday.
I did not see a lot of celebrations of his heritage as a heritage of a literary genius of African descent.
What I saw instead is an announcement that Yale students call for abolishment of a "core course" in English literature.
Why?
Because only white male straight poets were included into the curriculum. And students rebelled and claimed that the English major must be "decolonized".
So, who "colonized" the English major at Yale university?
Here are the names of the offending poets:
For the fall semester:
Students actually filed a petition to abolish the course which says, among other things:
“A year spent around a seminar table where the literary contributions of women, people of color, and queer folk are absent actively harms all students, regardless of their identity,” the petition reads. “The Major English Poets sequences creates a culture that is especially hostile to students of color. When students are made to feel so alienated that they get up and leave the room, or get up and leave the major, something is wrong.”
I wonder if "students of color" or women or "queer folk" would stand up and leave the room where they are taught, let's say, chemistry, or physics, or any other science that was, until recently dominated by white males.
It apparently does not occur to students of any identity that even in the United States, homosexuality was a crime until just 15 years ago, and it was punishable by death in Europe in the middle ages.
What kind of "literary contributions of the 'queer folk'" - acknowledging their homosexuality in the open - do our modern-time students expect?
Actually, hints at homosexuality exists in the works of the same:
Geoffrey Chaucer;
Edmund Spenser;
William Shakespeare;
John Donne
Should straight students now get offended of the same course and feel that the course creates a "hostile environment"?
Actually, to me, a person who has been born and raised in a Communist country, the USSR, this petition caused a flashback to the years of the so-called "socialist realism" in the literature.
Because the Yale students did not say the poets chosen were bad poets, or that they did not reflect the literary tradition - which is exactly what they came to Yale to study.
They did not like the fact that the identity of the poets and topics of their poetry - allegedly - did not reflect the latest-day concept of diversity, which did not exist at the time the overwhelming majority of these poets (7 of 8) lived and worked.
In the USSR a person could not be considered a bona fide writer worth to be known to the public if he or she did not write in the tradition of "socialist realism".
My memory is still crammed - from childhood, cannot uncram it - with verses I was made to memorize at school that, if I recite today, will raise quite a few eyebrows.
Yet, at that time that was the requirement of the day for poets and writers who wanted to see their name in print to write in that "tradition".
The verses that I was made to memorize at school promoted loyalty to the country and the Communist party beyond your life, rejection of relatives and their religion, glorifying snitching to authorities of your parents if they were idelogically opposed to the party.
Movies in the country swept by pre- and post-WWII hunger and destruction was about the greatness of Stalin and of the same communist party.
The true issues were not allowed to be described.
It appears that now the future rulers of this country - the intellectual elite from Yale - claim they will be offended by simply learning about the literary tradition, because the literary masterpieces they are assigned to read were not created by women, "people of color" and "queer folk".
As to the "queer folk" I already pointed out that the youngsters who were keyboard-happy to write and file the petition, did not give themselves time to research the history of the time when the "assigned" poets lived and whether those poets were actually "closet" homosexuals who were simply afraid to reveal their identity because there was a death penalty for homosexuality that was considered a sin by the church.
The students did not consider that women were predominantly illiterate at that time and property of men - so what kind of creativity, and especially published literary works, could you expect from women of 14th to 18th century?
For example, a 12th-13th century female poet Marie de France was (as scholars say) an abbess and a half-sister of English King Henry II.
Marie De France wrote in French, so her work cannot be attributed to the English literary tradition.
Another known female medieval poet, and also a member of the nobility, is known only by name, Gwerful Fychan - and her literary works reportedly did not survive, and she lived in Wales, which is a different language.
There are many medieval female poets known - but all of them appear to be from either Wales, or France, or Spain, or Italy, or they were Arabic, so their works could not be assigned in an English major class.
What I did not see in the students' petition is suggestions.
The youngsters came to Yale to study English literature and the English literary tradition.
That literary tradition was created gradually, for centuries, and was influenced by history of the period when literary works were created.
While it may be offensive that women, and people of color, and homosexuals were not well represented - or represented at all - in the English literary tradition of several centuries back, if that is part of history, history cannot be re-written just because we want it.
If there were no known outstanding female poets, or openly homosexual poets, or poets who were "people of color" who contributed to the English tradition of 14th to 19th centuries - we cannot re-write the history where a few white males were the privileged class and prevented education of everybody else.
That history cannot be re-written, and hiring a modern female African American poet will not replace knowledge of the English literary tradition of 14th - 19th centuries.
If students want to find such authors - they can just as well do it, and present the faculty with the names and the works they want to be assigned, which they did not do in their petition.
Yet, if students pressure the faculty as to how to restructure assigned courses, the university can always ask such students to go some place else, where they will like the curriculum better.
Because a petition without any suggestions as to who is going to replace the "eight white male poets", the renowned classics of English literature, is simply pressure seeking publicity and disrupting work of the school, and nothing else.
I cannot imagine while people cannot read - and enjoy - good poetry without seeing whether the person who wrote it is a woman, what is the author's sexual preferences and what is the author's skin color.
It is profoundly bizarre to me to assess the worth of a work of art by the identity of who created it. If it is written by a woman - the poem is good, by a white male - bad?
If Yale yields to this pressure, we will then see pressure upon professors in other courses, and in other schools - from chemistry to math - to assign for studying only the work created by "women", "people of color" and "queer folk", without regard of the actual value of that work, and while overlooking the work created by "white male" authors.
If the Yale faculty allows students to control the curriculum, governed by the students' desire to remain illiterate as to the actual classics of the English literary tradition because of identity of their authors, that would be the end of education.
I will then suggest, as a taxpayer, that IRS should withdraw the tax exemption from Yale, and from any other "public charity" schools, if schools eliminate proper educational content from the curriculum because of the color of the author's skin.
I wonder if William Shakespeare could imagine that at any time in the future he and his works will be sought to be banned from the curriculum of one of the best universities in the world because of the color of his skin.
To those students who continue to engage in this educational racism, I suggest: stop using all modern time inventions and conveniences unless you verify that they were not created by white males, but instead are created exclusively by women, people of color and "queer folks".
Be consistent.
Alexander Pushkin was black.
Yesterday was his birthday.
I did not see a lot of celebrations of his heritage as a heritage of a literary genius of African descent.
What I saw instead is an announcement that Yale students call for abolishment of a "core course" in English literature.
Why?
Because only white male straight poets were included into the curriculum. And students rebelled and claimed that the English major must be "decolonized".
So, who "colonized" the English major at Yale university?
Here are the names of the offending poets:
For the fall semester:
- Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400);
- Edmund Spenser (1552-1599);
- William Shakespeare (1564-1616);
- John Donne (1572-1631), and
For the spring semester:
5. John Milton (1607-1664);
6. Alexander Pope (1688-1744);
7. William Wordsworth (1770-1850);
8. TS Eliot (1888-1965)
The course was meant to "provide all students with a generous introduction to the abiding formal and thematic concerns of the English literary tradition.”
One of the students renouncing the "poets sequence", "Margaret Shultz ’16, who majored in English, said she supports the request to abolish the Major English Poets sequence. She added that while there are many great courses in the department that relate to race, gender, ethnicity and sexuality, they are mainly upper-level courses that are not emphasized as the “core curriculum.”
Students actually filed a petition to abolish the course which says, among other things:
“A year spent around a seminar table where the literary contributions of women, people of color, and queer folk are absent actively harms all students, regardless of their identity,” the petition reads. “The Major English Poets sequences creates a culture that is especially hostile to students of color. When students are made to feel so alienated that they get up and leave the room, or get up and leave the major, something is wrong.”
I wonder if "students of color" or women or "queer folk" would stand up and leave the room where they are taught, let's say, chemistry, or physics, or any other science that was, until recently dominated by white males.
It apparently does not occur to students of any identity that even in the United States, homosexuality was a crime until just 15 years ago, and it was punishable by death in Europe in the middle ages.
What kind of "literary contributions of the 'queer folk'" - acknowledging their homosexuality in the open - do our modern-time students expect?
Actually, hints at homosexuality exists in the works of the same:
Geoffrey Chaucer;
Edmund Spenser;
William Shakespeare;
John Donne
Should straight students now get offended of the same course and feel that the course creates a "hostile environment"?
Actually, to me, a person who has been born and raised in a Communist country, the USSR, this petition caused a flashback to the years of the so-called "socialist realism" in the literature.
Because the Yale students did not say the poets chosen were bad poets, or that they did not reflect the literary tradition - which is exactly what they came to Yale to study.
They did not like the fact that the identity of the poets and topics of their poetry - allegedly - did not reflect the latest-day concept of diversity, which did not exist at the time the overwhelming majority of these poets (7 of 8) lived and worked.
In the USSR a person could not be considered a bona fide writer worth to be known to the public if he or she did not write in the tradition of "socialist realism".
My memory is still crammed - from childhood, cannot uncram it - with verses I was made to memorize at school that, if I recite today, will raise quite a few eyebrows.
Yet, at that time that was the requirement of the day for poets and writers who wanted to see their name in print to write in that "tradition".
The verses that I was made to memorize at school promoted loyalty to the country and the Communist party beyond your life, rejection of relatives and their religion, glorifying snitching to authorities of your parents if they were idelogically opposed to the party.
Movies in the country swept by pre- and post-WWII hunger and destruction was about the greatness of Stalin and of the same communist party.
The true issues were not allowed to be described.
It appears that now the future rulers of this country - the intellectual elite from Yale - claim they will be offended by simply learning about the literary tradition, because the literary masterpieces they are assigned to read were not created by women, "people of color" and "queer folk".
As to the "queer folk" I already pointed out that the youngsters who were keyboard-happy to write and file the petition, did not give themselves time to research the history of the time when the "assigned" poets lived and whether those poets were actually "closet" homosexuals who were simply afraid to reveal their identity because there was a death penalty for homosexuality that was considered a sin by the church.
The students did not consider that women were predominantly illiterate at that time and property of men - so what kind of creativity, and especially published literary works, could you expect from women of 14th to 18th century?
For example, a 12th-13th century female poet Marie de France was (as scholars say) an abbess and a half-sister of English King Henry II.
Marie De France wrote in French, so her work cannot be attributed to the English literary tradition.
Another known female medieval poet, and also a member of the nobility, is known only by name, Gwerful Fychan - and her literary works reportedly did not survive, and she lived in Wales, which is a different language.
There are many medieval female poets known - but all of them appear to be from either Wales, or France, or Spain, or Italy, or they were Arabic, so their works could not be assigned in an English major class.
What I did not see in the students' petition is suggestions.
The youngsters came to Yale to study English literature and the English literary tradition.
That literary tradition was created gradually, for centuries, and was influenced by history of the period when literary works were created.
While it may be offensive that women, and people of color, and homosexuals were not well represented - or represented at all - in the English literary tradition of several centuries back, if that is part of history, history cannot be re-written just because we want it.
If there were no known outstanding female poets, or openly homosexual poets, or poets who were "people of color" who contributed to the English tradition of 14th to 19th centuries - we cannot re-write the history where a few white males were the privileged class and prevented education of everybody else.
That history cannot be re-written, and hiring a modern female African American poet will not replace knowledge of the English literary tradition of 14th - 19th centuries.
If students want to find such authors - they can just as well do it, and present the faculty with the names and the works they want to be assigned, which they did not do in their petition.
Yet, if students pressure the faculty as to how to restructure assigned courses, the university can always ask such students to go some place else, where they will like the curriculum better.
Because a petition without any suggestions as to who is going to replace the "eight white male poets", the renowned classics of English literature, is simply pressure seeking publicity and disrupting work of the school, and nothing else.
I cannot imagine while people cannot read - and enjoy - good poetry without seeing whether the person who wrote it is a woman, what is the author's sexual preferences and what is the author's skin color.
It is profoundly bizarre to me to assess the worth of a work of art by the identity of who created it. If it is written by a woman - the poem is good, by a white male - bad?
If Yale yields to this pressure, we will then see pressure upon professors in other courses, and in other schools - from chemistry to math - to assign for studying only the work created by "women", "people of color" and "queer folk", without regard of the actual value of that work, and while overlooking the work created by "white male" authors.
If the Yale faculty allows students to control the curriculum, governed by the students' desire to remain illiterate as to the actual classics of the English literary tradition because of identity of their authors, that would be the end of education.
I will then suggest, as a taxpayer, that IRS should withdraw the tax exemption from Yale, and from any other "public charity" schools, if schools eliminate proper educational content from the curriculum because of the color of the author's skin.
I wonder if William Shakespeare could imagine that at any time in the future he and his works will be sought to be banned from the curriculum of one of the best universities in the world because of the color of his skin.
To those students who continue to engage in this educational racism, I suggest: stop using all modern time inventions and conveniences unless you verify that they were not created by white males, but instead are created exclusively by women, people of color and "queer folks".
Be consistent.
That black guy Pushkin
Yesterday, on June 6, 2016, it was a 217th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest - or THE greatest Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.
This is his portray as a young man. And yes - the greatest Russian poet Alexander Pushkin is of African descent.
Alexander Pushkin's great-grandfather was black. His name was Abram Gannibal, an Afro-Russian noble, military engineer and general under the famous Russian czar Peter the Great.
Abram Gannibal was brought as a child slave from what is now Cameroon and gifted to the Russian czar Peter the Great - who came to love the child, raised him as a son and godson, gave him a title of nobility, and got him married into a family of Russian nobility to give him a future in a patriarchal country.
I did not see much of public celebration of his heritage in the U.S., or of his contribution to the world literature.
It may be attributed to the fact that Pushkin wrote in rhymed verse - in Russian, of course - and, as any translator knows, to translate verse, the translator him/herself needs to be a gifted poet, writing also in rhymed verse.
It has been noted by observers, most recently, yesterday, by BBC (the article is in Russian, I will strive to find the English version), that poor translations of Pushkin resulted in misunderstanding of his works by readers in other languages, that, while the West "expects" from Russian literature to be philosophizing and discussing existential issues, Pushkin's verse is intimate and delicate - and, I must add, that is true even though Pushkin touched upon in his verse and prose deep philosophical issues, and described historical events.
Pushkin, I must say, was also a rebel against religious dogma and zealotry. His "Gabrieliad", written when he was 22 (he was fatally injured at a duel at 37) is openly mocking the concept of immaculate conception. Even though Pushkin denied authorship of "Gabrieliad" during his lifetime, scholars analyzing his works - as well as any reader who knows Pushkin's style - will find it difficult to believe that anybody else wrote that poem.
In Russia, every child remembers as bedtime reading - for 2 centuries so far - Pushkin's fairy tales.
Pushkin's romantic verses are famous, as well as his "Little tragedies" cycle and his historical prose:
"The Captain's daughter" - a novel about the uprising of Emelyan Pougachiov against the just-enthroned empress Catherine The Great and
"Peter The Great's Negro" ("Арап Петра Великого") - before accusing me, please, note that the book was written in the 18th century, and that I cannot change its title.
His two poems in verses were turned into operas - "Eugene Onegin", music by Piotr Chaikovsky, and "Ruslan and Ludmila", music by Mikhail Glinka.
Pushkin is part of the world literature, the founder of the Russian literature, and surely a Goliath of the African heritage literature, and it is a shame his anniversary was not noted, nor his literary heritage celebrated in this country on his birthday yesterday.
This is his portray as a young man. And yes - the greatest Russian poet Alexander Pushkin is of African descent.
Alexander Pushkin's great-grandfather was black. His name was Abram Gannibal, an Afro-Russian noble, military engineer and general under the famous Russian czar Peter the Great.
Abram Gannibal was brought as a child slave from what is now Cameroon and gifted to the Russian czar Peter the Great - who came to love the child, raised him as a son and godson, gave him a title of nobility, and got him married into a family of Russian nobility to give him a future in a patriarchal country.
I did not see much of public celebration of his heritage in the U.S., or of his contribution to the world literature.
It may be attributed to the fact that Pushkin wrote in rhymed verse - in Russian, of course - and, as any translator knows, to translate verse, the translator him/herself needs to be a gifted poet, writing also in rhymed verse.
It has been noted by observers, most recently, yesterday, by BBC (the article is in Russian, I will strive to find the English version), that poor translations of Pushkin resulted in misunderstanding of his works by readers in other languages, that, while the West "expects" from Russian literature to be philosophizing and discussing existential issues, Pushkin's verse is intimate and delicate - and, I must add, that is true even though Pushkin touched upon in his verse and prose deep philosophical issues, and described historical events.
Pushkin, I must say, was also a rebel against religious dogma and zealotry. His "Gabrieliad", written when he was 22 (he was fatally injured at a duel at 37) is openly mocking the concept of immaculate conception. Even though Pushkin denied authorship of "Gabrieliad" during his lifetime, scholars analyzing his works - as well as any reader who knows Pushkin's style - will find it difficult to believe that anybody else wrote that poem.
In Russia, every child remembers as bedtime reading - for 2 centuries so far - Pushkin's fairy tales.
Pushkin's romantic verses are famous, as well as his "Little tragedies" cycle and his historical prose:
"The Captain's daughter" - a novel about the uprising of Emelyan Pougachiov against the just-enthroned empress Catherine The Great and
"Peter The Great's Negro" ("Арап Петра Великого") - before accusing me, please, note that the book was written in the 18th century, and that I cannot change its title.
His two poems in verses were turned into operas - "Eugene Onegin", music by Piotr Chaikovsky, and "Ruslan and Ludmila", music by Mikhail Glinka.
Pushkin is part of the world literature, the founder of the Russian literature, and surely a Goliath of the African heritage literature, and it is a shame his anniversary was not noted, nor his literary heritage celebrated in this country on his birthday yesterday.
A judge-advocate for the rapist is condemned in the media and by the state Legislature - just one judge-advocate, and only because of the social media outrage
I wrote about a couple of judge-advocates today - one from Kentucky, who advocated his religious beliefs on marriage in his courtroom while promoting his novel and acting out his invented procedures from the novel.
Another is about a military veteran judge who was giving leniency to violent felons who were military veterans and advocating for them even after he gave them "house arrest" and probation instead of 20 years in prison in accordance with charges.
By the way, I did not discern any public outrage from that sentence - where a trained-to-kill man is being unleashed upon the community, and 50 more such people are hatching in the Veterans Treatment court.
Yet, public outrage with judicial decisions which look pretty much like advocacy for the defendants still happen.
For example, a petition has been launched to take from the bench the judge who sentenced a rapist convicted by a jury to 6 months in jail plus probation - for a felony, where, as of yesterday, 152,000 signatures have been collected.
The public outrage is complete with an Assemblywoman's public request to the judge to resign, and threatening to "exhaust other measures for holding him accountable" if he does not resign.
On the one hand, a judge must not be swayed by public opinion, and pressure from outside sources should not sway judicial decisions.
On the other hand, the public is obviously capable of seeing things through and seeing that Judge Aaron Persky, a former athlete, had a soft spot for another former athlete, convicted felon Brock Turner - and thus thought it too tough to hold him fully accountable for rape he was convicted of by the jury.
Yet, I am sure that if the prosecution would have asked the judge to recuse because of his background as an athlete, the judge would have laughed the prosecution out of the courtroom by telling them that his background as an white male athlete is "too attenuated" to recuse him from this case.
And, nevertheless, his background mattered - and he did act as an advocate for his "brother" athlete-the-rapist.
So, next time a judge tells you that his background is not important and is "too attenuated" for the appearance of impropriety charge - remember this case.
And remember Judge Holder's case.
And remember Judge Philpot's case.
Because the judge's background matters - and judges often engage in advocacy for the parties they deem attenuated to.
Here it is the rapist who was an athlete.
In another blog here I described a judge who gave leniency (in an ex parte hearing, without the presence or notification to the prosecution) to a sex offender probationer who sang in the church choir at the church the judge attended.
Judges know they are immune from prosecution.
And they do engage in advocacy on behalf of parties they favor.
And the only reason, unfortunately, for calls for resignation of Judge Persky is because of the storm in social media.
If people are silent, judges advocates will proceed fixing cases for those they favor.
Another is about a military veteran judge who was giving leniency to violent felons who were military veterans and advocating for them even after he gave them "house arrest" and probation instead of 20 years in prison in accordance with charges.
By the way, I did not discern any public outrage from that sentence - where a trained-to-kill man is being unleashed upon the community, and 50 more such people are hatching in the Veterans Treatment court.
Yet, public outrage with judicial decisions which look pretty much like advocacy for the defendants still happen.
For example, a petition has been launched to take from the bench the judge who sentenced a rapist convicted by a jury to 6 months in jail plus probation - for a felony, where, as of yesterday, 152,000 signatures have been collected.
The public outrage is complete with an Assemblywoman's public request to the judge to resign, and threatening to "exhaust other measures for holding him accountable" if he does not resign.
On the one hand, a judge must not be swayed by public opinion, and pressure from outside sources should not sway judicial decisions.
On the other hand, the public is obviously capable of seeing things through and seeing that Judge Aaron Persky, a former athlete, had a soft spot for another former athlete, convicted felon Brock Turner - and thus thought it too tough to hold him fully accountable for rape he was convicted of by the jury.
Yet, I am sure that if the prosecution would have asked the judge to recuse because of his background as an athlete, the judge would have laughed the prosecution out of the courtroom by telling them that his background as an white male athlete is "too attenuated" to recuse him from this case.
And, nevertheless, his background mattered - and he did act as an advocate for his "brother" athlete-the-rapist.
So, next time a judge tells you that his background is not important and is "too attenuated" for the appearance of impropriety charge - remember this case.
And remember Judge Holder's case.
And remember Judge Philpot's case.
Because the judge's background matters - and judges often engage in advocacy for the parties they deem attenuated to.
Here it is the rapist who was an athlete.
In another blog here I described a judge who gave leniency (in an ex parte hearing, without the presence or notification to the prosecution) to a sex offender probationer who sang in the church choir at the church the judge attended.
Judges know they are immune from prosecution.
And they do engage in advocacy on behalf of parties they favor.
And the only reason, unfortunately, for calls for resignation of Judge Persky is because of the storm in social media.
If people are silent, judges advocates will proceed fixing cases for those they favor.
Judges as advocates for causes in their own courtrooms: A military veteran judge disciplined for advocating on behalf of his brother, an army veteran, a violent felon "Green Beret" who committed a hate crime against a presumed Muslim
In a bizarre turn of events, a Florida judge Gregory P. Holder agreed to a reprimand for his role in acting as an advocate for an army veteran, Green Beret Clay S. Allred.
Here is what Clay S. Allred did:
"An Army National Guard reservist at the time, Allred was staying in a hotel in Ybor City while waiting to move into an apartment that was being painted. His Jeep was loaded with the few things he owned — three rifles registered to him, some body armor he used during training, clothing, dishes, ironing board, computers, guitar and cables.
He spent a good part of Aug. 21 drinking. On the way back to his apartment, he finally had a break with reality at a gas station on Fowler Avenue and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, at a corner of the USF campus.
For Allred, the memories of what happened next are hazy. Much of what he knows comes from a video taken of the incident.
He says he wanted to use the bathroom but was told it was only for customers. He tried to buy an energy drink, but the clerk wouldn’t break his $100 bill.
Then he urinated on the counter and yelled “I hate you people” to the clerk, Quadratullah Hassan, who is Muslim.
Hassan chased Allred out to his car.
As Allred pulled away, he fired three shots from his Glock 26 pistol into the air."
Ok, so we have:
1) driving while intoxicated;
2) urinating on the counter in a public place - that's public lewdness, a sex crime in many states;
3) aiming a Glock 26 pistol at a clerk, and
4) firing a pistol into the air - three times - in a public place, and at a gas station, which could have caused fatalities.
Clay S. Allred was already given tremendous leniency, a house arrest and probation, a leniency that can only be explained by the military veteran-judge's partiality to a military veteran who, instead of being prosecuted for felonies, was given a slap on the wrist.
Allred was charged with "discharging a firearm from a vehicle, a second-degree felony with a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, as well as aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison, and criminal mischief, a first-degree misdemeanor" - but, interestingly enough, he was not charged with public lewdness (urinating in a public place), a sex crime.
After all that, Allred was given a house arrest and probation, and his "brother", an army veteran judge Holder engaged in advocacy on his behalf even after he was convicted.
Judge Holder wrote to the Allred's university that expelled him after he committed a crime, asking to restore him as an online student.
In many online programs, students must take some exams in person and thus appear on campus.
It is thus understandable that the university refused to enroll the convicted violent felon, protecting other students and people on campus from violent outbursts of this trained-to-kill army veteran who hates Muslims to the point that he already shot (in the air for now) when seeing a person of Middle-Eastern descent and who engaged in public lewdness - for which he was never even charged.
The judge himself is a retired colonel.
With all that in-built bias, the judge presides (and was left to continue to preside) over a Veterans Treatment Court - while obviously acting as an advocate and not as an impartial judge, and letting dangerous, trained-to-kill, felons to have a slap on the wrist and remain free to commit more crimes.
After Allred's case was closed - with house arrest and probation for several violent felonies - Judge "Holder continued to lobby for Allred. In November, he wrote a letter to USF's president asking that Allred to be readmitted to the university as an online student. He pleaded before the school's board of trustees, enlisted the support of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald in Washington, D.C., and sought help from U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla."
What is amazing is that the Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald considered it appropriate to help a judge advocate on behalf of a violent felon to enroll that violent felon into the university - which is another shooting waiting to happen, just wait until Allred drinks again to the point of urinating on the counter in a public place.
When the university, protecting its students, employees and visitors from another potential campus shooter, refused to enroll Allred, the judge "called the university's response "an absolute abdication of their responsibility to their students, especially their student veterans."
In fact, what the university did in refusing to enroll Allred was a complete opposite - a responsibility to the students, employees and visitors. But, for the judge the only thing that mattered was that Allred was his "brother", a military veteran - and for the judge, the benefit for the "brother" was more important than the danger to the lives of thousands of people on campus and in the community.
For that - the judge "agreed" to a reprimand only.
When a judge starts to engage in advocacy for a person with the same background as the judge himself - the judge should be taken off the bench immediately, not "agree" to a reprimand.
At this time, since the judge received only a slap on the writs and was allowed to stay on the bench, he will simply disguise his advocacy into what will be deemed as "judicial discretion". But he remains an advocate for the veterans, even for those who present a danger to the public, like Clay S. Allred, a former Green Beret who Judge Holder allowed to escape violent hate-crime charges.
Since Judge Holder was given only a slap on the wrist, expect more of the same - and worse - from him.
Since Clay S. Allred was given only a slap on the wrist, expect more of the same - and worse - from him, too.
Remember, Clay S. Allred is a trained Green Beret who hates Muslims, and who discerns whether a person is or is not a Muslim by how he or she looks.
Clay S. Allred "completed mental health counseling.
He logged more than the required number of community service hours.
And he has stayed away from alcohol."
It is acknowledged in the article that "in another courtroom, those accomplishments wouldn’t have meant as much.
But on this Friday, Allred, a former Green Beret staff sergeant, was appearing in Hillsborough County’s Veterans Treatment Court, where the steps he’s taken mean the difference between prison time on felony charges and house arrest."
This is not a non-violent crime.
This is a person trained to kill pointing a loaded gun at another person because he hates that person for no other reason than his presumed religious affiliation.
Clay S. Allred faced 20 years in prison for his crimes.
He escaped with no jail time at all, thanks to Judge Holder.
I wonder if the victim of Clay S. Allred's crime was consulted about propriety of such leniency.
"The Veterans Treatment Court was launched in October 2013 by county Circuit Judge Richard Weis, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves, who saw a steady stream of misdemeanor charges filed against veterans suffering from service-related mental illness, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder."
The Veterans Treatment Court was established for veterans charged with misdemeanors - but, when Clay Allred was charged with hate crimes, felonies, the Veterans Treatment Court was conveniently expanded to encompass army veterans charged with felonies, too - just to accommodate Clay Allred.
Just like that - a military veteran judge creates a separate court for his "brothers", military veterans, so that it is not the jury who would be considering "service-related mental illness, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder" as AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSES to violent crimes of army veterans, but military veteran judges who would advocate for defendants as their "brothers".
And just like that - the program expands to make an ineligible army veteran, charged with violent felonies and facing 20 years in prison, eligible for a slap on the wrist - a "house arrest".
This judge-advocacy court exists for 3 years by now - with nobody opposing this singling out for special treatment of criminal defendants who are the most dangerous since they are trained to kill and unbalanced enough to use their skills to mass-murder, as it happened, for example, at the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina.
Leniency to dangerous criminals, whoever they are, because they are the judge's "brothers" is called corruption of the court system.
And both "judge advocates" - the one that instituted the Veterans Treatment Court, and the one who advocated for leniency to a person who pointed a loaded gun at an unknown person simply because he hated Muslims and thought his victim was a Muslim - should be removed from the bench and the Veterans Treatment Court dissolved.
The most dangerous criminal defendants should not be sentenced to "house arrest" instead of 20 years in prison, simply because they are army veterans.
If they are a danger to society, they must be held accountable in accordance with the law as everyone else.
And the same refers to judge-advocates.
And, please, note that there are 50 of other army veterans who were charged with misdemeanors and felonies who are currently in judge Holder's Veteran Treatment court.
With Holder's approach to "treatment" of violent felons who are his "brothers", we can only expect that Holder will keep unleashing dangerous trained-to-kill felons upon the society.
Because they are his brothers, and he can do nothing less for them, everybody else's right to life be damned.
Here is what Clay S. Allred did:
"An Army National Guard reservist at the time, Allred was staying in a hotel in Ybor City while waiting to move into an apartment that was being painted. His Jeep was loaded with the few things he owned — three rifles registered to him, some body armor he used during training, clothing, dishes, ironing board, computers, guitar and cables.
He spent a good part of Aug. 21 drinking. On the way back to his apartment, he finally had a break with reality at a gas station on Fowler Avenue and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, at a corner of the USF campus.
For Allred, the memories of what happened next are hazy. Much of what he knows comes from a video taken of the incident.
He says he wanted to use the bathroom but was told it was only for customers. He tried to buy an energy drink, but the clerk wouldn’t break his $100 bill.
Then he urinated on the counter and yelled “I hate you people” to the clerk, Quadratullah Hassan, who is Muslim.
Hassan chased Allred out to his car.
As Allred pulled away, he fired three shots from his Glock 26 pistol into the air."
Ok, so we have:
1) driving while intoxicated;
2) urinating on the counter in a public place - that's public lewdness, a sex crime in many states;
3) aiming a Glock 26 pistol at a clerk, and
4) firing a pistol into the air - three times - in a public place, and at a gas station, which could have caused fatalities.
Clay S. Allred was already given tremendous leniency, a house arrest and probation, a leniency that can only be explained by the military veteran-judge's partiality to a military veteran who, instead of being prosecuted for felonies, was given a slap on the wrist.
Allred was charged with "discharging a firearm from a vehicle, a second-degree felony with a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, as well as aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison, and criminal mischief, a first-degree misdemeanor" - but, interestingly enough, he was not charged with public lewdness (urinating in a public place), a sex crime.
After all that, Allred was given a house arrest and probation, and his "brother", an army veteran judge Holder engaged in advocacy on his behalf even after he was convicted.
Judge Holder wrote to the Allred's university that expelled him after he committed a crime, asking to restore him as an online student.
In many online programs, students must take some exams in person and thus appear on campus.
It is thus understandable that the university refused to enroll the convicted violent felon, protecting other students and people on campus from violent outbursts of this trained-to-kill army veteran who hates Muslims to the point that he already shot (in the air for now) when seeing a person of Middle-Eastern descent and who engaged in public lewdness - for which he was never even charged.
The judge himself is a retired colonel.
With all that in-built bias, the judge presides (and was left to continue to preside) over a Veterans Treatment Court - while obviously acting as an advocate and not as an impartial judge, and letting dangerous, trained-to-kill, felons to have a slap on the wrist and remain free to commit more crimes.
After Allred's case was closed - with house arrest and probation for several violent felonies - Judge "Holder continued to lobby for Allred. In November, he wrote a letter to USF's president asking that Allred to be readmitted to the university as an online student. He pleaded before the school's board of trustees, enlisted the support of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald in Washington, D.C., and sought help from U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla."
What is amazing is that the Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald considered it appropriate to help a judge advocate on behalf of a violent felon to enroll that violent felon into the university - which is another shooting waiting to happen, just wait until Allred drinks again to the point of urinating on the counter in a public place.
When the university, protecting its students, employees and visitors from another potential campus shooter, refused to enroll Allred, the judge "called the university's response "an absolute abdication of their responsibility to their students, especially their student veterans."
In fact, what the university did in refusing to enroll Allred was a complete opposite - a responsibility to the students, employees and visitors. But, for the judge the only thing that mattered was that Allred was his "brother", a military veteran - and for the judge, the benefit for the "brother" was more important than the danger to the lives of thousands of people on campus and in the community.
For that - the judge "agreed" to a reprimand only.
When a judge starts to engage in advocacy for a person with the same background as the judge himself - the judge should be taken off the bench immediately, not "agree" to a reprimand.
At this time, since the judge received only a slap on the writs and was allowed to stay on the bench, he will simply disguise his advocacy into what will be deemed as "judicial discretion". But he remains an advocate for the veterans, even for those who present a danger to the public, like Clay S. Allred, a former Green Beret who Judge Holder allowed to escape violent hate-crime charges.
Since Judge Holder was given only a slap on the wrist, expect more of the same - and worse - from him.
Since Clay S. Allred was given only a slap on the wrist, expect more of the same - and worse - from him, too.
Remember, Clay S. Allred is a trained Green Beret who hates Muslims, and who discerns whether a person is or is not a Muslim by how he or she looks.
Clay S. Allred "completed mental health counseling.
He logged more than the required number of community service hours.
And he has stayed away from alcohol."
It is acknowledged in the article that "in another courtroom, those accomplishments wouldn’t have meant as much.
But on this Friday, Allred, a former Green Beret staff sergeant, was appearing in Hillsborough County’s Veterans Treatment Court, where the steps he’s taken mean the difference between prison time on felony charges and house arrest."
This is not a non-violent crime.
This is a person trained to kill pointing a loaded gun at another person because he hates that person for no other reason than his presumed religious affiliation.
Clay S. Allred faced 20 years in prison for his crimes.
He escaped with no jail time at all, thanks to Judge Holder.
I wonder if the victim of Clay S. Allred's crime was consulted about propriety of such leniency.
"The Veterans Treatment Court was launched in October 2013 by county Circuit Judge Richard Weis, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves, who saw a steady stream of misdemeanor charges filed against veterans suffering from service-related mental illness, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder."
The Veterans Treatment Court was established for veterans charged with misdemeanors - but, when Clay Allred was charged with hate crimes, felonies, the Veterans Treatment Court was conveniently expanded to encompass army veterans charged with felonies, too - just to accommodate Clay Allred.
Just like that - a military veteran judge creates a separate court for his "brothers", military veterans, so that it is not the jury who would be considering "service-related mental illness, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder" as AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSES to violent crimes of army veterans, but military veteran judges who would advocate for defendants as their "brothers".
And just like that - the program expands to make an ineligible army veteran, charged with violent felonies and facing 20 years in prison, eligible for a slap on the wrist - a "house arrest".
This judge-advocacy court exists for 3 years by now - with nobody opposing this singling out for special treatment of criminal defendants who are the most dangerous since they are trained to kill and unbalanced enough to use their skills to mass-murder, as it happened, for example, at the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina.
Leniency to dangerous criminals, whoever they are, because they are the judge's "brothers" is called corruption of the court system.
And both "judge advocates" - the one that instituted the Veterans Treatment Court, and the one who advocated for leniency to a person who pointed a loaded gun at an unknown person simply because he hated Muslims and thought his victim was a Muslim - should be removed from the bench and the Veterans Treatment Court dissolved.
The most dangerous criminal defendants should not be sentenced to "house arrest" instead of 20 years in prison, simply because they are army veterans.
If they are a danger to society, they must be held accountable in accordance with the law as everyone else.
And the same refers to judge-advocates.
And, please, note that there are 50 of other army veterans who were charged with misdemeanors and felonies who are currently in judge Holder's Veteran Treatment court.
With Holder's approach to "treatment" of violent felons who are his "brothers", we can only expect that Holder will keep unleashing dangerous trained-to-kill felons upon the society.
Because they are his brothers, and he can do nothing less for them, everybody else's right to life be damned.
Judges as advocates for causes in their own courtrooms: a novelist Kentucky #JudgeTomPhilpot promotes marriage as "Biblical analogy for God's love" while acting out his novel in the courtroom
Here is a judge, a Kentucky judge Tim Philpot who could not abstain from using court proceedings in front of him to impose upon people his personal and religious views - and do it for his own financial profit, in addition to his judicial salary.
Judge Tom Philpot wanted to put his experiences as a judge into a book.
He first reportedly wanted to share his knowledge of what is going on in divorce courts by writing a "serious scholarly about marriage" - but then found it to be "just too complicated".
When a judge finds writing a "serious scholarly book" on the subject he is supposed to be an expert in "too complicated" - an issue of his competency already arises.
But, what the judge did is simply beyond bizarre - he wrote a novel in lieu of a "serious scholarly book", invented procedures in that novel, took his invented procedures from the novel into his courtroom, and is acting out those procedures upon litigants.
Judge Philpot's "pro marriage" novel promoting marriage as a "Biblical analogy of God's love" is trading for $20 at the website http://www.judgezbook.com/.
Since Judge Philpot admits that he is "pro marriage" and that he wrote the novel in lieu of a "serious scholarly" book on divorce, because writing a "serious scholarly book" was "just too complicated", it is safe to assume that judge Philpot put his own personal views into the book.
And that is already a problem for litigants who must now think whether to come with their divorces in front of a "pro marriage" judge, and whether to come with their custody cases of children born out of wedlock in front of a pro marriage judge.
Judge Philpot also wrote in his book about the alleged bad consequences of marriages broken up - such as children born out of wedlock. It is, of course, an insult to any parents who consciously made their decision not to marry and to stay together without marriage, having children together. This judge considers their relationship, and children born of such a relationship a "bad consequence" of the broken institution of marriage - and publicly expresses that view in a book.
And that is a big issue for parents of children born out of wedlock appearing in front of Judge Philpot in custody, or child neglect proceedings where such parents never planned to marry in the first place - because there is a clear possibility that Judge Philpot may rule adversely in their cases simply because they were not married when they gave birth to a child.
Moreover, in his book Judge Philpot promoted his religious views - he "writes about marriage as the Biblical analogy for God’s love", so when he is promoting marriage in his courtroom, he is promoting also his religious views on that issue.
Unfortunately, Judge Philpot did not stop at writing a novel in lieu of a "serious scholarly book" because writing "serious scholarly" books is "just too complicated" and putting in his novel his personal views about the vices of having children born out of wedlock and the virtues of marriage "as the Biblical analogy for God's love".
Judge Philpot started to also act out his novel's plot in his courtroom, because the judge "decided if I was going to write about a crazy judge, I had to act a little crazy myself".
Well, at least, Judge Philpot recognizes that he was acting "crazy [him]self".
The issue that concerned the judge the most was - was marriages that people wanted to dissolve "irretrievably broken" enough to actually dissolve those marriages.
In other words, can couples be forced to stay married if one of the spouses wants out?
Judge "Philpot said he has recently been conducting short, informal Irretrievably Broken Hearings in divorce cases assigned to him that involve children. When a couple’s testimony makes him think there is a chance for reconciliation, he asks them to attend a “discernment counseling” session to better think through their decisions.
Philpot said it is too soon to say if the process has stopped any divorces. Because he is acting within the 60-day waiting period allowed by Kentucky law, there is nothing couples who object or their attorneys can do but grumble privately."
Now, one thing is to share custody of the children.
Quite another is to be coerced or forced to stay in an intimate relationship with a person you don't want to stay in that relationship with - for a variety of personal reasons.
It is apparent that the judge does not make a distinction between these two issues.
"Philpot said it is too soon to say if the process has stopped any divorces. Because he is acting within the 60-day waiting period allowed by Kentucky law, there is nothing couples who object or their attorneys can do but grumble privately" - so, the judge uses the guise of the 60-day "waiting period" to force his religious views upon parties in divorce proceedings, so "there is nothing couples who object or their attorneys can do but grumble privately".
A great approach by a judge, isn't it?
Philpot actually conducted an off-the-record "Irretrievably Broken hearing", acting out his novel, in front of a newspaper reporter trying to coerce a couple seeking an uncontested divorce to reconcile.
And, after that off-the-record "acting out the judge's novel" hearing, the judge ordered the couple to attend a "discernment counseling session".
Again, these people wanted out of their marriage, they wanted an uncontested divorce, and that's why they came before the judge.
Wanting a divorce is not good grounds to order people into counseling of any kind. They obviously could do that before they came to court.
It is also obvious that they were going to amicably share custody of their children, but that does not mean that anybody, including a judge, has the power or right to invade their privacy and force them to stay together in an intimate relationship if they do not want to.
I also resent the fact that Judge Philpot openly advertises his proselityzing in the courtroom by inviting a reporter, telling him about his novel, about marriage as the "Biblical analogy of God's love" and by even demonstrating his obviously illegal off-the-record "Irretrievably Broken hearing" spawned not by the law, but by the judge's novel.
Consider that litigants and attorneys will probably be afraid to even raise the issue of judicial misconduct in this case, and of judges imposing his own personal views, including his religious views, on the divorcing couples.
Yet, what Judge Philpot is doing - is judicial misconduct. Whatever Judge Philpot's intentions are, he is imposing his personal views, including his religious views, upon people in lieu of the law of the State of Kentucky, and makes it harder, longer and more expensive for people to divorce - court-ordered counseling does not come free.
It is also disgusting that the judge uses his taxpayer-paid job to spawn books, and then uses courtroom proceedings and live people as guinea pigs to advertise that book and boost his sales.
I wonder if the judge also gets kickbacks from the "discernment counselors" where he sends the divorcing couples.
Judge Philpot already lack integrity enough to use his position not only to impose his personal, and religious, views upon litigants in his courtroom, but to use his courtroom proceedings as a source of additional profit, so I would not put it beyond such a judge to get a little more profit by sharing in the proceeds of discernment counselors.
I will follow the story whether Judge Philpot will be disciplined for his shenanigans in the courtroom.
When a judge starts to use the courtroom as a playroom and as a religious pulpit, acting out procedures he invented in novels, because writing a scholarly treatise in the subject he is supposed to be an expert in is "just too complicated" for him - he should be taken off that bench immediately.
Judge Philpot is right.
It is not just a judge acting as an advocate.
It is not just a judge acting as a proselytizer of his religious beliefs in the courtroom.
It is not just a judge deriving additional financial benefit from court proceedings and using litigants as captive actors to advertise his book.
It is simply crazy.
It is like reality-TV for this judge to get noticed and advertised for his book - there is no justice in this courtroom where a judge simply acts out scenes out of his book for his own financial benefit and seeks to create new scenarios he can write about.
It is like a sneak-preview for reporters - see, this off-record "Irretrievably Broken hearing" will be part of my next book.
Crazy.
Monday, June 6, 2016
In Delaware County, NY, child neglect proceedings appear to have been illegitimate - for years
When a child neglect or abuse proceeding in New York concludes with an adjudication (court decision) of child neglect or abuse, the proceeding moves to a "dispositional stage".
At the dispositional stage, the court must order "services" in accordance with the social services plan.
Social Services Law 34-a(2)(b) requires that a "summary of understanding" between the social services and the local District Attorney's Office must be made part of that plan.
I asked, on a FOIL request, for the summary of understanding between the Delaware County DSS and the Delaware County District Attorney's Office.
Here is the response I've got:
If the plan did not comply with statutory requirements, it was not valid.
If it was not valid, no services could be provided, ordered by the court - or funded - without first satisfying statutory requirements.
New York State Comptroller actually audited the County in 2014-2015, and specifically audited its Department of Social Services.
They did not see this?
Or somebody's hand was greased enough not to see it?
The fact remains - without full compliance with applicable statutes, the "multi-year services plan" in Delaware County is illegal, and without a legal services plan, all child neglect and abuse adjudications are also illegal.
The law is the law - right?
At the dispositional stage, the court must order "services" in accordance with the social services plan.
Social Services Law 34-a(2)(b) requires that a "summary of understanding" between the social services and the local District Attorney's Office must be made part of that plan.
I asked, on a FOIL request, for the summary of understanding between the Delaware County DSS and the Delaware County District Attorney's Office.
Here is the response I've got:
If the plan did not comply with statutory requirements, it was not valid.
If it was not valid, no services could be provided, ordered by the court - or funded - without first satisfying statutory requirements.
New York State Comptroller actually audited the County in 2014-2015, and specifically audited its Department of Social Services.
They did not see this?
Or somebody's hand was greased enough not to see it?
The fact remains - without full compliance with applicable statutes, the "multi-year services plan" in Delaware County is illegal, and without a legal services plan, all child neglect and abuse adjudications are also illegal.
The law is the law - right?
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