The first piece of silver in exchange for testimony that brought about criminal conviction of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was given to Bruce Beemer. Who is next in line for awards?

I already wrote on this blog that Attorney General, in Pennsylvania, was suspended from the practice of law - using that same scheme that violated federal antitrust laws, and then convicted of felonies (that will lead to her automatic disbarment and final removal from her elected office) on testimony of interested witness Bruce Beemer.

Here is Beemer's reported involvement and interest to lie against Kane (in addition to promotion prospects after removal of his boss):

2014

2015

Eakin participates in suspension of Kane's law license, and then resigns.

 2016

Here is the reported involvement of Kane's powerful enemies Frank Fina and Mark Costanzo, who were taken under the wing of Philadelphia DA Seth Williams (longtime friend of PA Senator Williams) and who is now involved in his own misconduct scandal investigated by the FBI (see here and here):

Here is Seth Williams' employee Frank Fina's interest to take Kane down:

2012

2015

Mark Costanzo's interest in taking Kane down:

So, people who either testified against Kathleen Kane or held and continue to hold powerful positions (and that does not count judges who she outed and forced to resign):

1) were her subordinates wanting her job (Beemer);
2) were involved in exchange of pornographic emails she outed (Fina and Costanzo), while Fina was "one of the most highly respected Pennsylvania prosecutors" and in neglect to prosecute a high-profile case for political reasons she outed (Fina), and who also had a "security interest" in not being fired from a DA's job, likely in exchange for their testimony against Kane (Fina and Costanzo) and who sued Kathleen Kane for outing their misconduct (Fina and Costanzo).

A brilliant group of disinterested witnesses, what can I say.


And, here is a first news report for a the reward for one of those interested witnesses for their testimony against Kane, Bruce Beemer, a clear indication that their testimony was bought - without disclosure to Kane, as is the usual way of Pennsylvania prosecutors.

In June of 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a death penalty decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court because of participation of Judge Donald Castille who was the District Attorney prosecuting that same death penalty case.  Donald Castille was involved in the Porngate scandal, retired and then had the audacity to challenge constitutionality of "age discrimination" in mandatory retirement of judges in Pennsylvania.  He has to be happy that he was allowed to retire while keeping his state pension and his law license, instead of dragged away in shackled, as he should have been.

The case was also reversed because Don Castille's subordinate in the DA's office - surprise! - failed to disclose an offer of leniency to the interested witness and knowingly elicited perjurous testimony from the interested witness on two occasions, it's all described in Williams v Pennsylvania interlinked above.

The conviction conveniently removed Kane from office after she refused to do so even despite her illegal suspension, and after she outed local high-ranking judges and prosecutors in a Porngate scandal, causing two judges to resign, but not before one of them, Michael Eakin, participated in suspending her law license.

But, now that the feds are zeroing in on Philadelphia DA Seth Williams (who harbored the two Porngate scandal perverts Fina and Costanzo - likely in exchange for their testimony against Kane that convicted Kane), who knows what other garbage can surface.

Let's note that all of the participants are members of the presumptively honorable class of judges and prosecutors.

Oh, well.

While we are all grumbling over Trump v Clinton, Silver struck gold with judges

The glorious story of Sheldon Silver, the former powerful (and, I bet, still powerful) head of New York Assembly, convicted for corruption, continues.

Silver so far was - reluctantly - disbarred, and not immediately as of the date of conviction, as required by law.

Silver also kept his pension of $90,750 a year that taxpayers will continue to foot for him - plus medical care for him and his spouse.

Silver, the poor guy, pun intended, was reportedly "struggling" to start paying the fine ordered by the judge out of $7,000,000 that Silver is supposed to return from those monies he was paid for his "services" as a lawmaker over the years.

Silver was sentenced to 12 years in prison - in May of 2016, but has not seen the inside of the prison yet.

Why?

First, he was allowed to stay out of prison during the summer pending his appeal, because judges were expecting (!) a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in a similar case - imagine if a court will do that for any other convicted Joe from the street.

Then, very "coincidentally", just when Silver was convicted, the U.S. Supreme Court - consider the odds - (1) took a case of another corrupt public official (while regularly tossing civil rights cases like garbage unworthy of the high Court's attention), and (2) decided that case in favor of that corrupt official, making it so much more difficult to pursue public corruption in this country.

That's the court that heard 150 cases per year, and in by 2009 it heard half that, 75, while the U.S. resident population in 1980 was reportedly 226,545,805, and was estimated at 308,758,105 in 2010.

So, the population from 1980 to 2010 grew more than 1/3.

Yet, the highest court of the country that takes FINAL appeals from 50 states and 13 federal circuits (63 sources all in all), at the time when the number of court cases increased from 1980 to 2010 even more, percentage wise, than population increased, reduced its "discretionary" intake of cases by 1/2.  Sounds like a policy to me. 

Of course, judges need time for national and international speaking engagements and write books about the Court's glory, participate in a variety of beneficial activities to enhance the honor of the legal profession, and to go on hunting trips with litigants and their lawyers, although the latter is a hazardous endeavor for U.S. Supreme justices of late.

Oh, and don't forget that Justice Stephen Breyer, for example, spends his valuable time attending "movie nights with booze" in the 9th Circuit with the honorable Alex Kozinski , the judge who likes man-donkey porn, opposes "oversized briefs" on constitutional issues (while courts have no restrictions in the length of their opinions and can dedicate as many pages as is needed to prove their point well) and who tries to publicly exert influence upon cases where he is a party.

Yes, the courthouse is open 24/7 supposedly to hear last-minute death penalty appeals, but that's not fun, is it?  

Movie nights with booze in the courthouse and with a U.S. Supreme Court justice attending (to discuss cases?) are more fun - imagine, for Justice Breyer to even find a window in his tight schedule to attend such a booze party, cutting short on national and international speaking tours, wining and dining with the Inn-of-Court lawyers at their expense, writing books, inventing and enforcing "saddle-stitch" rules, dodging the docket of the "griping crackpot" (pro se) cases,



and, of course, doing the most important part of his job, the diligent work for the "chosen 66".

And, while the high court now takes around 70 cases a year out of the entire country, as a matter of its unlimited "discretion", the court also takes in cases from around 70 (66 to be precise) lawyers (9 women and 57 men, no blacks allowed, one Latino and one Hindu squeezed in), of course, with personal connections with the court's judges (former law clerks, colleagues etc.).

A perfect match, isn't it?

Which begs a question - do we even need the U.S. Supreme Court if it continues to be simply a privileged club at taxpayers' expense reviewing - and "setting the law for the country" - only for cases it "wants" to hear from its own friends and acquaintances, a type of judicial misconduct that warranted taking off the bench of a judge in New York in 2013, see Matter of Glen George.  Of course, in this country we imprison people for stealing lipstick from Walmart, but not for funneling millions from taxpayers.  And, by the same token, we take off the bench a judge fixing traffic tickets for friends, but not providing for livelihood of large corporations.


So, to get in front of the U.S. Supreme Court is a truly miraculous chance - like winning a jackpot in a lottery (if the lottery is rigged).

Remember, the U.S. Supreme Court invented rules, in an electronic age, designed at the same time to flood the court with papers (41 copies of petitions and appendixes are required to be filed for each case instead of one electronic filing) in order to keep the "crackpots with a gripe" from inundating the court, and allows cases only or predominantly from the approved few (66) honorables to be heard.


In sum, you can be assured that your case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court will not be heard, no matter how meritorious or important for your and for this country, unless you have enough money to hire one of "the 66" and unless you are rich enough not to care about the intentionally discriminatory, petty, burdening "saddle-stitch" rules invented by the U.S. Supreme Court in our day and age of electronic filing in order to further reduce the number of people willing or able to present their cases to the High Court.

You, of course, know why such rules are needed. 

No, the U.S. Supreme Court certainly does not want "every crackpot with a gripe inundating the court".  So, it made the rules reducing access to court based on educational and financial restrictions.

After all, it cost no less than a $1,000 to just print an average-size petition and appendix to it (41 required copies of petition and appendix), and $1,000 is a very low figure.  I was quoted much, much more by companies specializing on such printing, from 2 to 5 thousand dollars.  For printing.  That does not include the filing fee ($300) and the legal fees if you need a lawyer, and most people need a lawyer, unless they are lawyers themselves capable of handling an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Of course, you can apply to court for a waiver of fees ($300), but you will still have to pay for the print - of 41 copies of petitions and appendixes.

And, you will have to "re-typeset" all documents in the appendix (not just provide copies) so that they look uniform, in a Century font - a font that nobody uses, so the high Court can be sure that "the crackpot gripes" will have to re-"typeset" every single document in the file - taking more time, effort and money than most people can afford.

But, you will only get that waiver of fee if you are indigent.  If you are not indigent, if you work and make ends meet, you will have to pay all the way through.  Or decide not to.  And the court will be glad that one more "crackpot gripe" fell off the wagon and will not be inundating the court with his or her nonsense.

With all that background, what are the odds of U.S. Supreme Court "coincidentally" taking an the appeal of a corrupt public official to see whether public corruption can be redefined in order to make it more difficult to prosecute public corruption (a question of utmost public importance nowadays warranting the high Court's immediate attention) - at the very same time as two very public and very corrupt figures, heads of BOTH chambers of New York State Legislature, Dean Skelos and Sheldon Silver, were convicted for public corruption?

Even if the High Court took that case for review, what are the odds that any federal court would not send a convicted criminal to prison pending review of a similar case in the U.S. Supreme Court?

And what are the odds that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule so that the conviction of Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos would have a chance to be overturned?

And what are the odds that the federal district court that sentenced Silver to 12 years in prison will keep a convicted criminal out of prison pending appeal where there is a possibility (not certainty) that the conviction will be overturned based on a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court?  You know how many precedents of the same U.S. Supreme Court there are that federal courts do not care a rat's ass about?  Let's talk whistleblower's loss of livelihood cases.  Let's talk court corruption cases.  Let's talk unconstitutional family break-up cases. There are zillions of applicable precedents, parties quote them until they are blue in the face - with no result.

Here - Silver is kept out of jail despite a jury conviction and a 12-year sentence because there is a CHANCE that he will win on appeal because of ONE recent precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court?

And what are the odds that any judge will give a criminal convicted by jury, sentenced to 12 years in prison and to a fine/forfeiture of 7 million dollars, "a little extra time" to pay that 7 million spread by tiny increments well beyond the lifetime of the criminal?   

And what are the odds of ALL OF THE ABOVE happening together - without just a little help?  Without "a hand laid on the scales of justice", as our criminal procedure professor used to say?

Imagine.

If Silver stole those $7,000,000 (and he likely stole much more) and put it into an investment account, even at a low rate of 3%, he would have a profit of $210,000 per year in interest only.

Silver is 72.

The judge ordered him to start paying out his 7 million dollar fine and forfeiture sentence at the whopping $5,846 a month.

That's $70,152 a year.

Silver's ongoing pension is $90,750.

And, if he stole $7,000,000, his income on that steal is at least $210,000 a year, by conservative estimates.

Silver will have enough money to pay his lawyers and a couple of judges, wouldn't he?

Corruption pays, doesn't it?

So, stop inundating courts with your petitions for justice, my dear average Americans, the griping crackpots.

And stop concerning yourself with Trump v Clinton, and where to run if Trump is elected or if Clinton is elected.

Start thinking business.  Like Silver did.

Just get elected,  invest your loot well, steal as much as you can, share your steals with whoever will cover your ass, don't get caught until you are old, frail and can beg for mercy because of your pitiful old age - and then beat the odds and live a great long life with your loot laughing at those silly people who must work for a living.

My suspicious Internet research about secret death penalty law clerks

I was peacefully researching on the Internet for one of my upcoming blogs.

In that future blog, I mention the death penalty.

So, I researched about the death penalty.

And was warned that my researching activity was registered as "suspicious".

By a federal court in Alabama.

Here is what appears on Google:

You enter to see the particulars of this wonderful job - and you see this:

Wow.

A secret public job paid by taxpayers, in a public court, with a secret description.  And it is a suspicious activity to even read about it.

I wonder if any Alabama journalists, or citizen journalists close to that courthouse would like to look into that job description and write about it?

A secret death penalty law clerk - isn't it intriguing?

I didn't know such a job even exists, so thank you, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, for enlightening me, albeit through a warning.

One thing I will do about it is I will certainly notify death penalty activists, nationwide and in Alabama, to look into it.  So, my research activity was, indeed, "suspicious", after all.

Wasn't it?

To lawyer - we'll tie your hands, throw you into a deep pond to float or drown, and then you can defend thyself

A lawyer I greatly respect argued to me recently that the American justice system presents a "gold standard" of a judicial system - on paper.

I cannot agree even to the paper part.  

I was initially fascinated with the written law in the United States when I came here as an immigrant back in 1999 and started helping my husband in his law office.

That's before I have become involved in the real criminal defense, defense of parents in child abuse and neglect proceedings, defense of foreclosure and consumer debt cases, and prosecution of civil rights cases - as well as defense in administrative disciplinary proceedings, for clients and for myself.

While law students in the U.S. are mostly taught based on the examples of the U.S. Supreme Court precedents - and not the worst ones of those - the bulk of the American laws is contained in the lower court decisions, which are not very much reviewed or subjected to critical analysis in law schools.

Probably, the aspect of what kind of miniscule portion of cases actually makes it to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the fact that those cases that get rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court may also have had important issues that the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear, is not emphasized in law school courses because showing law students the real side of the American justice system would be a put-off, further draining tuition dollars from law schools.

To me, as a criminal defense, family court and civil rights attorney, the litmus test of the justice system came when I could not get through to judges with elementary legal arguments, squarely based on the text of the U.S. Constitution and the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court - the reaction of the judges was that I was wasting their time, making them read too much, and that it is better that I would resolve the case for my clients with an easy plea/settlement.

In many cases my clients caved in - and I had to follow their wishes.

In some cases, my clients did appeal with my assistance - and in many cases, surprisingly, I won those appeals, fully or at least partially.

Surprisingly even for me, I kept winning in certain cases nearly up to the point of my suspension - and, probably, that was the ultimate reason for my suspension, to simply stop me from suing the government SUCCESSFULLY in civil rights cases.  My law license was suspended on the day when a civil rights case against social services (a case that nearly 50 lawyers refused to take for fear of social services), a case that I litigated for 3.5 years was ordered to proceed to trial.

I was suspended without a required due process pre-deprivation evidentiary hearing for criticizing clear judicial misconduct that everybody else saw, that attorneys and clients whispered about around the corners of the courthouse and outside of the courthouse, but that nobody wanted to confront, out of fear for other attorneys' own livelihood.

I did not want to bow low.

I did not want to swallow abuse by an offensive and vulgar male jerk calling himself a judge who was playing into the hands of criminal prosecution (where his law partner was employed - without disclosure to criminal defendants or defense attorneys), and into the hands of social services in Family Court (the Department that that jerk represented as an attorney for 27 years before he fraudulently came to the bench claiming he won the election of 2002, while no competent proof of that exists).

I did not want to take abuse that the jerk showered upon me every day -

• maybe, because of jealousy to the success of my husband, then a trial lawyer, and the judge's law school classmate;
• maybe, because of personal jealousy to my husband who married an educated woman substantially younger than himself and had a new baby son with her,
• maybe because my entry into the legal profession in a small rural area, and doubling the capacity of our office to handle cases, especially where it concerned time-consuming legal research, upset the apple-cart of the judge's buddies, attorneys who fueled his election campaign and expected results from him for their money.

The judge pursued me relentlessly.

He did not assign me to cases, even though he had to because I was one of the attorneys residing within 3-minute WALKING time from the courthouse.

Instead, he assigned attorneys from outside of the county, burdening County taxpayers with having to pay for travel expenses, often hours and hours of those expenses, at $75/hr.

I still appeared in his court, because I had enough people willing to hire me as a private attorney - because of my diligence and tenacity in researching and pursuing justice for my clients in arguments.

The judge was pissed and took opportunity at every appearance to belittle me before other attorneys.

It did not work - because other attorneys saw my actual work, including my actual work at trials, complicated trials.

I was congratulated more than once by my more experienced colleagues after a certain trial session in child abuse or neglect proceedings where usually many attorneys are present.

I was asked more than once by my more experienced colleagues for cases I cited, about the research I used to cross-examine expert witnesses.

The judge had to, in one case, grudgingly dismiss a child abuse case because I turned around social services' medical expert witness's testimony against social services - and won not only the dismissal of the child abuse case, but also a dismissal of 8 related criminal charges that could see my client convicted for a year in jail running consecutively (year after year).

The pattern continued - the judge hated me and humiliated me in court - I kept working, kept coming back to his court with private clients, which made him hate me even more, and kept earning respect of my colleagues with my work.

Finally, when I asked the New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct to take the jerk off the bench and made several motions to recuse referencing his clear misconduct and bias, the floodgates opened - the jerk slapped me with sanctions for criticism.

And the disciplinary authorities took the jerk's side.

My order of suspension cites, as an aggravated circumstance, that I did not express any remorse about my "actions".

I did not.

There is nothing to express remorse about.

I don't regret one bit of what I did for my clients. 

I regret I could not do more of the same, I regret I did not have more dismissed or otherwise won cases than I had.

I followed the law, did conscientious and painstaking factual and legal research, and made my legal arguments accordingly.

My legal arguments in motions and civil rights lawsuits are matters of public record, and anybody can see quality of my work by simply getting a copy of it.

Impartial experts who reviewed them, noted to me high quality of my research and of my pleadings.

The jerk who sanctioned me since "retired" from the bench before time, hastily, under the circumstances suggesting that he was forced to resign during a disciplinary investigation.

Yet, what I learned during my own disciplinary proceedings and during disciplinary proceedings against my husband is:

• No law, no precedent, no obvious evidence of unconstitutionality of what the sanctioning judge was doing, what the disciplinary authorities were doing, what the disciplinary court was doing, saved my license.
• Attorneys, colleagues, are afraid to help - they can send you flowers secretly, whispering support secretly so that no-one could hear - but otherwise they will start looking the other way (literally) when they see you in the courthouse, then on the street, then cross to the other side of the street not to say "hello" to you.

I was advised, secretly, by several attorneys to just "plead" - both for my husband, and for myself, to avoid suspension or disbarment.

Plead, do not fight, do not challenge what the "inquisition" is doing, stay under the radar, apologize to the judge even if it is him who committed misconduct and not you.

I had no right for direct appeal, other than on constitutional grounds to the New York Court of Appeals - and even that right that court managed to treat as "discretionary", as a matter of their own policy.

I had no right for even proper judicial review - because one cannot call a review by your own licensing body (even if it's called in the event of attorney licensing "a court") a judicial review.

Suspension of a medical license by a medical license-issuing authority is subject to further judicial review where the doctor with a suspended license my sue the administrative board that suspended the doctor's license.

The same refers to all other of the 130 licensed occupations and professions in the State of New York - with one significant exception, lawyers.

Lawyers, people who are supposed to protect the public from governmental overreach, have their own livelihood controlled by the same government whose misconduct they might have to challenge on behalf of clients (and that is especially true in the case of civil rights attorneys whose specialty and obligation to their clients is to vigorously pursue the government for misconduct and violations of their clients' rights).

And, increasingly in this country, lawyers have their livelihood taken away by the government for criticizing or suing the government - for which the government takes offense and retaliates.

This is not China, this is the U.S.

Does a lawyers have an effective remedy against a license suspension in the U.S.?

Not very much.

In most states, the disciplinary suspension happens at the level of the top state court, which pretends to give the attorney a "judicial review" of the suspension, but in reality the suspension is an administrative act of an administrative licensing body, and no state judicial review is provided after that, because there is no higher court to provide it, and no higher court with authority to restrict the top state court - even when it is acting as an administrative body.

Even in the State of New York, which stands apart from other states by having attorney discipline imposed not by the highest court of the state, but by intermediate appellate courts, no judicial review is available of the suspension or revocation (disbarment) of an attorney license, which is administrative in nature - because:

1. the administrative suspension of the law license by appellate courts acting as administrative licensing boards is portrayed as a "court decisions, thus pretending that judicial review is exhausted at what in reality constitutes the administrative revocation proceeding;
2. the attorney is cheated out of the reversed-role judicial review afforded to all other occupational licensees, in a proceeding where the attorney himself becomes a plaintiff/petitioner, and the license-revoking agency (court) becomes a respondent - no state provides such a procedure to an attorney;
3. disciplinary proceedings are handled by super-majorities of licensed attorneys, in violation of federal antitrust laws;
4. Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court from the revocation decisions of state courts (that are also licensing agencies) are "discretionary", which means that review by the U.S. Supreme Court is not guaranteed.

Thus, once an attorney stripped of a license - whether through suspension or disbarment, most likely he or she will not see it again in her lifetime, and is stripped of an opportunity to HELP PEOPLE, to provide legal services which are IN HIGH DEMAND and at the time when there is a huge JUSTICE GAP, and an UNMET NEED for just such services.

Of course, the declared purpose of occupational licensing in general, and attorney licensing in particular, is to "help" the public.

Of course, stripping an attorney of an ability to help the public simply because the attorney WAS ALREADY HELPING the public too well, and because the attorney stepped on the toes of government officials in the process is in effect HURTING the public.

Yet, the attorney appears to have no legal remedy against being stripped of his or her livelihood without any due process of law or neutral judicial review whatsoever - a right afforded to everybody else, from taxi-drivers to brokers to doctors.

What can be said about the "gold standard" of justice in the country where a lawyer, trained in the law for years, and sanctioned for doing what s/he was trained to do, by those who regulate his or her livelihood, but at the same time who refuse to follow the law and must be challenged on behalf of his clients, fails to break through to a single honest judge who would see unconstitutionality and illegality of what is being done to the lawyer.

If a lawyer, trained in the law, does not have a chance in the legal system to protect his own rights, what chances have others, untrained in the law and unsophisticated in the legal system?

Has it become a rhetorical question in this country?

A country with a "gold standard" of justice?

We will see when my petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court is filed, I still have time.

Stay tuned.

Grandkid-loving judges running from the bench and the fate of state Judicial Conduct/Qualification Commissions, starting with the State of Georgia

State Judicial Qualifications/Conduct Commissions are notoriously slow to discipline judges.

A judge must commit something outrageous - or become the focus of national and international media frenzy - to be even considered for discipline.

In Georgia, that has been especially so, and especially when, until lately, the Judicial Qualifications Commission, the allegedly "independent" watchdog of judicial behavior, was headed by Brenda Weaver, who herself is now the focus of an FBI investigation for her outrageous shenanigans.

Weaver only resigned as Chair of the Commission after over a month of media storm describing her targeting of a publisher and an attorney for seeking public records of her misconduct with felony charges (since dropped) with the help of her own former law clerk-turned prosecutor Alyson Sosebee.

And, the Commission did not seek to suspend Weaver (which it has the power to do) immediately as the news appeared of her instigating a felony proceeding, through her former law clerk, for as much as seeking access to public records of her misuse (theft) of public funds out of the court operating account.

Instead, Weaver's deputy resigned instead of suspending her - before Weaver resigned herself.

And Weaver is still not suspended by the Commission pending investigation as of now, even though the "independent" Judicial Qualifications Commission does have such power -

• unlike Judge Olu Stevens who was suspended in the State of Kentucky pending investigation of him fighting racism in the courtroom, 
• unlike Chief Judge Roy Moore who was suspended in the State of Alabama pending investigation and prosecution for disobeying a particular precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court - just one precedent out of many that judges are regularly disobeying without any consequences.

And, mostly, the Georgia Commission does not take judges off the bench, instead, like other State judicial conduct commission staffed with judges and attorneys, the Commission only leniently allows their rogue "brothers and sisters", judges who committed misconduct, even criminal misconduct, to not even be taken off the bench, and lose pensions, but to resign and keep their pensions and law licenses.

As it happened, for example, to the Georgia judge Johnnie Caldwell (and a former prosecutor, who prosecuted death penalty cases, Georgia is a death penalty state).

Judge Caldwell just resigned in 2010 turning in a "handwritten letter" that it is "time to visit his grandkids and maybe practice law". 

I remember another judge - a New York judge Carl F. Becker - providing the exact same reason, spending time with this granddaughter, for his abrupt resignation in July of 2015, after a bitter fight for election in 2012 where Becker defrauded voters into believing in his pre-eminent competency (I would not say re-election, because there is no competent evidence that Becker was elected in 2002, and, when I raised the issue of Becker's legitimacy in a motion to vacate his decisions, Becker had the local Republican Election Board Commissioner file a false certification of the 2002 elections in 2011 when all original documents from that election was gone and there was nothing to certify it from, had me sanctioned for the motion, and had my law license suspended without a hearing based on those sanctions, for questioning Judge Becker's legitimacy).

Yet, after Becker resigned - allegedly to spend more time with his granddaughter - who lived out of state according to Becker's public claims to attorneys and parties in the courtroom - Becker continued for a long while to linger around the courthouse, keeping his judge license plates on his car in violation of state law, using the employees-only parking space behind the courthouse and even wearing the black robe and illegally swearing in his own successor, a new judge, the former Delaware County prosecutor Richard Northrup - illegally because at the time of swearing in Carl Becker was only a private attorney and had no authority to either wear a black robe, or to swear in new public officials.

The report of the Commission for Judicial Conduct for the year ending December 31, 2015, indicates that 18 judges resigned that year pending investigation, and only 2 of those judges were under formal charges. 

No formal charges against Carl F. Becker can be found on the site of the New York State Judicial Conduct Commission, but the speed with which Becker left his coveted seat indicates that it is very likely that Becker is one of the 16 judges who resigned before formal charges were filed - to preserve their law licenses and their pensions. 

Also, the fact that Becker was not immediately picked up and made a partner by any law firms on his "retirement" and continues to this day to be a private licensed attorney without an address (despite a requirement that a licensed attorney must publish either his business address, or a home address as part of his mandatory registration process)

says a lot - that the stench of Carl Becker's reputation prevents his employment in any self-respecting law firm.

While Judge Becker does not appear to act - at least openly - to go against the Commission for Judicial Conduct that likely caused him to have so much free time on his hands, the other grandkid-loving former judge who resigned to "spend time with his grandchildren" and to "maybe" practice law - the Georgia Judge Johnnie Caldwell - is not that forgiving.

Judge Caldwell quickly resigned in 2010 during investigation that he has sexually harassed a female attorney, and that then the public evidence of that harassment somehow mysteriously disappeared - Judge Caldwell quickly recovered from his sudden urge to spend time with his grandchildren, decided to occupy his time by being a State legislator, and, upon election into the State Legislature, wielded a campaign to dismantle the Judicial Qualifications Commission that caused him to spend more time with his grandchildren.

The video included with the report of Johnnie Caldwell seeking to dismantle the Judicial Qualifications Commission watches as a detective story involving:

• a transcript of testimony regarding sexual harassment that led to resignation of Judge Caldwell missing from the court file;
• the mentioning of the transcript created in 2010 being erased from the court file in 2016, right after journalists asked for it;
• then the transcript mysteriously appeared, but was mis-filed in an unrelated case; and
• the stenographer now contacted the journalists personally and indicated that they now can have a copy of the transcript.

With the testimony available that a judge:

• crammed his tongue into a female attorney's mouth - obviously without her consent;
• told her to wear tighter pants in court, and
• told her to take her pants down for him to "see it, if he cannot touch it"

it is a wonder why the victim did not sue Judge Caldwell for sexual harassment, and the court system for not protecting her from Judge Caldwell.

The only explanation to it is the fear in which all attorneys live because judges who may be committing misconduct left and right, also hold attorneys' law licenses - and livelihoods - in their hands, and that's why suing a judge is a "professional suicide" for an attorney, no matter what the judge did to an attorney.

But, Johnnie Caldwell could be criminally charged for a battery - for cramming his tongue into a female attorney's mouth.

Right?

So, where are the charges?

Instead, he was allowed to quietly resign, keep his state pension, keep his law license, be elected into the State Legislature, and then seek to dismantle the "offending" Judicial Qualifications Commission entirely.

By the way, I checked out Johnnie Caldwell's attorney status today - and preserved the evidence, knowing how quickly it disappears once it is pointed out in the media.

Johnnie Caldwell, who has resigned as a judge in 2010 and who has been an elected State Representative for the Georgia State Legislature since January 14, 2013

still lists himself, as of today, as a judge:

Not changing his registration information in 6 years, no doubt, violates attorney disciplinary rules in the State of Georgia - yet, attorney disciplinary authorities do not seem to be in any hurry to investigate and prosecute Johnnie Caldwell:

• not for sexual harassment of a female attorney, involving sexual battery, despite available transcript of testimony of the victim;
• not regarding his possible (and likely) role in removing the transcript from the court file;
• not for continuing to register himself in his attorney registration information as a judge for 6 years after his resignation

In April of 2016 the Chair of the Judicial Qualifications Commission, attorney Lester Tate, resigned quoting pressure on the Commission from the Legislature and interference with investigation into egregious behavior of judges because investigated judges had powerful friends.

And, who took over the leadership of the Judicial Qualifications Commission after Lester Tate resigned in April of 2016 because of political pressure?

Judge Brenda Weaver who, in her turn, resigned in August of 2016 (within 4 months since the resignation of Lester Tate) due to a complaint for misconduct filed against her and a reported FBI investigation of her misconduct, which likely includes the investigation of the unlawful release of money from the court operating account, using her influence as a judge to bring unlawful criminal charges against a publisher and his attorney for seeking public records that could expose her misconduct.

Yet, with all the ire of Rep. (formerly, judge) Johnnie Caldwell, The Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission was actually very forgiving to Judge Caldwell.

Judge Caldwell was not stripped of his pension - as he should have been under the circumstances.

He was not stripped of his law license - as he should have been under the circumstances.

And was not criminally prosecuted -

• not for sexual harassment of a female attorney,
• not for his role in the sudden disappearance of the public evidence of that sexual harassment.

He was not impeached as a Representative due to his criminal behavior in the past.

He was not even sued for sexual harassment.

Yet, Johnnie Caldwell still holds a grudge against the Commission, and, 6 years after he claimed he voluntarily resigned to spend more time with his grandkids, he uses his power - and taxpayers' money - to seek elimination of the Judicial Qualifications Commission.

State judicial disciplinary authorities, including the one in Georgia, are notorious for sending to the waste-bin the majority of complaints against judges, meritorious or not.

Now, the Commission's Chairman resigned quoting political pressure - and the FBI somehow is not investigating it.

The Commission then was chaired by a judge who herself committed monstrous misconduct - and she is still on the bench.

And now the Georgia Legislature is seeking to first, to investigate the Judicial Qualifications Commission, because it allegedly "lost credibility", and, then, eliminate the Judicial Qualifications Commission through an amendment to the State Constitution.

Here are pictures of the authors of the bill to create a "Special Committee" to investigate the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission, to bill that was authored by 6 lawyers, both Republicans and Democrats, male and female, black and white: 

• Wendell Willard, a white male, a Republican, and a practicing attorney whose law license is in the hands of the judiciary, and who, through his private practice, has a personal, financial, interest in providing favors for the judiciary.  Thus, Rep. Willard has an irreconcilable conflict of interest to author or vote a bill clearly benefiting the judiciary;

• Mary Margaret Oliver, a white female, a Democrat, and a former judge and a present practicing attorney, with an irreconcilable personal financial conflict of interest that should prevent her from co-authoring or voting on any legislature that would benefit the judiciary;

• Tom Weldon, a white male and a practicing attorney with an irreconcilable financial conflict of interest that should bar him from bringing or even voting on legislation benefiting the judiciary that holds the key to his law license and livelihood;

• Taylor Bennett, a white male, a Democrat, and a currently practicing attorney with a financial interest in passing legislation benefitting the judiciary who controls his law license and livelihood;

• Pam Stephenson, a black female, a Democrat and a "successful attorney" - with an irreconcilable conflict of interest barring her from authoring legislature that would benefit the judiciary, the regulator of her law license and the source of her income;

• Beth Beskin, a white female, a Republican, and a partner in a law firm - which will benefit greatly from Rep. Beskin co-authoring legislation that would benefit the judiciary

Then, 6 Georgia State Representatives sought to abolish the Judicial Qualifications Commission (after it forced too many judges off the bench lately) and to create, through an amendment to the State Constitution, a new commission, and make the new commission's records secret and not admissible in any court.

The authors of this new proposition are:

1. William Willard - a lawyer, with a personal financial interest in such a constitutional amendment, see above,
2. Mary Oliver - a lawyer and a former judge, see above,
3. Johnnie Caldwell - a lawyer and a resigned judge, see above,
4. Jan Jones - a white female, a Republican and, amazingly, not an attorney, but a business executive;
5. John Meadows - a white male, a Republican, and not an attorney, but a business executive;
6. Jon Burns - a white male, a Republican and not an attorney, but a business owner and executive.

So, half of the group of people seeking elimination of the Judicial Qualification Commission, closing determinations of misconduct from public access and declaring determinations of misconduct inadmissible in any court are licensed attorneys, and two of them are former judges.

By the way, out of all above mentioned state legislators, only the grandkid-loving Johnnie Caldwell (who also loves to sexually harass females who come in front of him in his official capacity) did not publish his biography on his official webpage.

Talking about secrecy.

There should be a prohibition for a State legislator to have any other business or profession, other than the job of the legislator, to eliminate conflicts of interests.

Obviously, the Georgia State legislature, same as New York state legislature, allows its representatives to author and vote for laws where legislators have obvious personal financial interest.

Judicial Qualifications Commission in the State of Georgia and in other states are not perfect, and that is a clear understatement.

They toss most of complaints against judges, even meritorious complaints, and mostly without investigation.

Their members are themselves fraught with conflicts of interest.  When judges and lawyers are investigating and prosecuting (supposedly) judges who regulate lawyers' livelihoods - and the lay non-lawyer public does not have a say in how judges are disciplined - that is already bad.

What Johnnie Caldwell and his teams seek though, is even worse:  to make it impossible for the public to ever know whether any of the judges were ever disciplined.

Judicial Qualifications Commission in Georgia and in other states does need to be reformed - in that Johnnie Caldwell is correct.

But, the way it should be reformed is not a plunge into more secrecy and less involvement or scrutiny by the public, but, on the opposite, more scrutiny by the public, more transparency.

Judicial Qualifications Commissions should constitute ENTIRELY of lay individuals who have no ties with the legal profession or the judiciary.

All complaints against judges should be public.

All results of investigations against judges should be public.

All dismissals of such complaints should be subject to appeals by complainants - that is not so in many states.

Judges should be judged and disciplined based on grand jury - like proceedings, and panels reviewing discipline against judges should not only not have ties to the judiciary or the legal profession, but should be randomly chosen from the cross-section of the community, same as jury duty, to prevent formation of "sweet connections" and "sweet deals" with the disciplined judges, and to eliminate political pressure upon members of the panels.

Laws should be introduced to make it a felony to interfere with the work of the Commission and its disciplinary panels.

Yet, to bring about such a reform, the likes of Johnnie Caldwell should be impeached, disbarred and locked up - in accordance with the already existing laws.

At this time, one only wonders, how the State Legislature of the State of Georgia makes sure that female personnel of the Legislature is protected from sexual harassment by Johnnie Caldwell.

A sexual predator on the loose making constitutional amendments.

Oh, well.