In the case Neroni v Zayas (my husband's case) my husband described several situations where high-ranking attorneys, including those with familial ties to high-ranking judges or retired judges, wee not prosecuted by disciplinary committees for misconduct which was unquestionable based on documentary evidence and well publicized.
The lawsuit (Amended Complaint is published on Facebook) clearly names the situations and the attorneys who escaped attorney discipline because of their pedigrees.
My husband raised the issue that attorney disciplinary system, as it exists today, exists to whitewash and protect high-ranking and politically connected attorneys from misconduct while eliminating competition from independent solo attorneys and quashing political dissent by destroying such attorneys' credibility, reputation and livelihood through disbarment.
That claim was dismissed "for lack of standing".
Noting that lay legal consumers did raise issues of selective enforcement of attorney discipline, or, rather, its non-enforcement against criminal prosecutors (despite thousands of ascertained wrongful convictions where prosecutorial misconduct was a factor), and noting how members of the Commission immediately engaged in attempts to dissuade witnesses that such selective enforcement is taking place, I will show the mechanism of how federal courts avoid review of such claims, thus further encouraging and perpetuating selective enforcement of attorney discipline.
Neroni v Zayas, Case No. 3:13-cv-127-LEK-DEP in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, Dkt. 46, p. 9 (decided on March 31, 2014):
"Plaintiff's eleventh cause of action challenges
'the Committee's selective non-enforcement of
attorney discipline in regards to attorneys having
high-rank familial and political connections,
de facto creating a class of legal nobility in New York'.
He seeks 'a declaration that the whole scheme of
enforcement of attorney disciplinary rules is
unconstitutional".
First, the court states that any challenges to the order of disbarment are barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.
Mr. Neroni did not challenge in that claim an order of disbarment, but the policy of selective enforcement, or non-enforcement of attorney discipline creating a title of nobility in violation of federal U.S. Constitution.
Second, the court states (incorrectly, without fully or attentively reading the 87-age complaint, which is clear from the decision) that
"All that remains is therefore a generalized grievance
against the regulation of attorneys in New York, which is
insufficient to confer Article III standing.
Furthermore, Plaintiff supports this cause of action
by identifying attorneys who have not been disciplined
for misconduct alleged by Plaintiff (Am. Compl. paragraphs
299-332). However, 'a private citizen lacks a judicially
cognizable interest in prosecution or nonprosecution of
another'. Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 619
(1973). Plaintiff therefore does not have standing to bring
a claim challenging the selective non-enforcement of
attorney disciplinary rules".
Brilliant.
Yet, note that Mr. Neroni did not assert (nor did the court state he did) a private right to bring disciplinary proceedings against "identified attorneys".
The only claim he was making was for a declaratory judgment declaring the system of attorney disciplinary proceedings unconstitutional as TAINTED, BY POLICY, by selective enforcement and non-enforcement - the EXACT SAME issues that the State of New York is "reviewing" in public hearings before the Statewide Commission, while at the same time fighting the appeal of THAT SAME ISSUE by Mr. Neroni.
And note, too, that while a "private citizen lacks a judicially cognizable interest in prosecution or nonprosecution of another", a panel consisting of super-majority of such private individuals, legal consumers, would have such authority in attorney disciplinary proceedings.
Four intermediate Appellate Court in the State of New York have rule-making authority (usurped, in my opinion), define the structure of attorney disciplinary committees with super-majorities of attorneys on such committees, so that legal consumers would have no say on the committees whatsoever.
Those Appellate Courts could and should have changed that structure to super-majority of legal consumers at any time, especially since the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court made in North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission on February 25, 2015 confirmed exactly what Mr. Neroni also claimed in his lawsuit and that the federal court dismissed as a "generalized grievance":
that supermajority of competitors on the disciplinary committees, created by the adjudicating court for the benefit of secretly selected private attorneys who "serve" on such committees violate disciplined attorney's due process of law (Amended Complaint, paragraphs 271, 277-78, 298, 301, 303-04, 330 - the court cited these paragraphs in its decision to dismiss).
What is even more interesting to mention is that some of the "identified attorneys" in the complaint dismissed by the Senior federal judge Lawrence Kahn were communicating (directly or through their law partners) with Judge Kahn behind closed doors through the organization called The American Inns of Court.
And, the American Inns of Court is now information that Judge Kahn and his pair in the litigation, Magistrate David Peebles, are both "officers" of American Inns of Court, are both meeting with attorneys or law partners of attorneys identified in Mr. Neroni's lawsuit and likely are receiving monetary and non-monetary benefits (free monthly wining and dining) from such attorneys and their law firms.
The interesting part about hiding is the sequence of how that information was in the open, then was hidden, then was once again in the open, then was once again hidden - and then the cached copy of what was hidden was instantly destroyed (but not before I was able to save it).
The hiding occurred when I filed a lawsuit of my own targeting the hiding, reappeared when the lawsuit was dismissed, by the challenged court itself, before it was served, and then was hidden when I, once again, mentioned Judge Kahn and his shenannigans in my blog.
Well, at least you can see that bought judges are afraid of publicity.
Yet, shenanigans of Judge Kahn out of court make any and all legal arguments made by Judge Kahn in court about standing, governmental interests and justiciability simply laughable. All the judge Kahn cared about here is to continue to receive material benefits from the "identified attorneys" belonging to legal elite.
In Neroni v Zayas, Judge Kahn, apparently, says - you have no justiciably cognizable interest in any violation of your civil rights, no matter how hard you try. Because I am here, guarding the door.
Actually, the Chief Judge of the court, Gary L. Sharpe, considered Judge Kahn's "motivated" dismissal of most of the claims insufficienty.
While the remaining claims were still pending before Judge Kahn, Judge Sharpe imposed upon Mr. Neroni an anti-filing injunction claiming that his claims in Neroni v Zayas, all of them, including the still pending, and those dismissed claims which are raised over and over again by lay consumers of legal services in front of the Statewide Commission for Attorney Discipline, are frivolous.
For bringing those "frivolous" claims, Gary Sharpe prohibited Mr. Neroni from filing lawsuits asking Judge Sharpe's court to provide a remedy for NEW constitutional violations against Mr. Neroni without reciting to Gary Sharpe all lawsuits Mr. Neroni ever brought (and in his 37 years as an attorney he brought a lot of them, an uncountable number in fact), recite all sanctions imposed upon him by biased judges and provide proof that he paid those sanctions - which has absolutely nothing to do with his right to sue for NEW federal constitutional violations.
That was done by Gary Sharpe in retaliation for Mr. Neroni's and my own criticism of Gary Sharpe for not recusing in a string of cases where New York State Attorney General represented parties in front of Judge Sharpe while employing Judge Sharpe's son - and did it for years, consistently ruling for the clients of Judge Sharpe's son's employer.
Apparently, now Mr. Neroni needs to keep away from the State of New York, because refusal of the federal court to consider his new constitutional claim is an invitation to the state government to violate his constituttional rights.
What Gary Sharpe did is put a bull's eye on my husband branding him as an outlaw not eligible for protection of federal laws and the U.S. Constitution. While Gary Sharpe took office on an oath to uphold equal protection of laws, the rule of law, and that same U.S. Constitution - as to every person located on the U.S. soil.
Just the illustration as to how federal lawsuits challenging various constitutional problems are made to disappear, and in this case - selective enforcement of laws and creating legal elite which is above the law, which is EXACTLY what is being discussed by lay witnesses before the Statewide Commission on Attorney Dicipline.
Because judges who decide such cases, are themselves members of such legal elite, benefit by it, and will not do anything to undo their own cozy existence.
Rule of law?
No, bought judges.
THE EVOLUTION OF JUDICIAL TYRANNY IN THE UNITED STATES:
"If the judges interpret the laws themselves, and suffer none else to interpret, they may easily make, of the laws, [a shredded] shipman's hose!" - King James I of England, around 1616.
“No class of the community ought to be allowed freer scope in the expression or publication of opinions as to the capacity, impartiality or integrity of judges than members of the bar. They have the best opportunities of observing and forming a correct judgment. They are in constant attendance on the courts. Hundreds of those who are called on to vote never enter a court-house, or if they do, it is only at intervals as jurors, witnesses or parties. To say that an attorney can only act or speak on this subject under liability to be called to account and to be deprived of his profession and livelihood by the very judge or judges whom he may consider it his duty to attack and expose, is a position too monstrous to be entertained for a moment under our present system,” Justice Sharwood in Ex Parte Steinman and Hensel, 95 Pa 220, 238-39 (1880).
“This case illustrates to me the serious consequences to the Bar itself of not affording the full protections of the First Amendment to its applicants for admission. For this record shows that [the rejected attorney candidate] has many of the qualities that are needed in the American Bar. It shows not only that [the rejected attorney candidate] has followed a high moral, ethical and patriotic course in all of the activities of his life, but also that he combines these more common virtues with the uncommon virtue of courage to stand by his principles at any cost.
It is such men as these who have most greatly honored the profession of the law. The legal profession will lose much of its nobility and its glory if it is not constantly replenished with lawyers like these. To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it.” In Re Anastaplo, 18 Ill. 2d 182, 163 N.E.2d 429 (1959), cert. granted, 362 U.S. 968 (1960), affirmed over strong dissent, 366 U.S. 82 (1961), Justice Black, Chief Justice Douglas and Justice Brennan, dissenting.
" I do not believe that the practice of law is a "privilege" which empowers Government to deny lawyers their constitutional rights. The mere fact that a lawyer has important responsibilities in society does not require or even permit the State to deprive him of those protections of freedom set out in the Bill of Rights for the precise purpose of insuring the independence of the individual against the Government and those acting for the Government”. Lathrop v Donohue, 367 US 820 (1961), Justice Black, dissenting.
"The legal profession must take great care not to emulate the many occupational groups that have managed to convert licensure from a sharp weapon of public defense into blunt instrument of self-enrichment". Walter Gellhorn, "The Abuse of Occupational Licensing", University of Chicago Law Review, Volume 44 Issue 1, September of 1976.
“Because the law requires that judges no matter how corrupt, who do not act in the clear absence of jurisdiction while performing a judicial act, are immune from suit, former Judge Ciavarella will escape liability for the vast majority of his conduct in this action. This is, to be sure, against the popular will, but it is the very oath which he is alleged to have so indecently, cavalierly, baselessly and willfully violated for personal gain that requires this Court to find him immune from suit”, District Judge A. Richard Caputo in H.T., et al, v. Ciavarella, Jr, et al, Case No. 3:09-cv-00286-ARC in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Document 336, page 18, November 20, 2009. This is about judges who were sentencing kids to juvenile detention for kickbacks.
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Update: New York State changed its rules as of December 29, 2015 concerning the particular statement quoted in this blog, allowing to appeal dismissals of disciplinary complaints against attorneys, but did not alert the federal court that dismissed my husband's federal lawsuit (and imposed an anti-filing injunction based on it) in Neroni v Zayas where the authors of the change were sued specifically because the lack of availability of appellate process was part of the constitutionality challenge of the whole attorney regulation scheme. A Rule 60 motion (motion to vacate) and a motion to punish the the Chief Judge of the State of New York, the Chief Judge of the Appellate Division 3rd Department, the Chairperson of the Disciplinary Committee of the 3rd Department and the New York State Attorney General is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. As soon as the motion under Rule 60 was filed (before the motion for frivolous conduct could be filed) I was suspended by both New York State and, automatically, by the federal court, and blocked from filing the motion for sanctions. My husband has filed the motion for sanctions later, pro se, with a request to allow him, as a consumer of legal services who is the beneficiary of attorney regulation, to continue to use my legal services despite the suspension, we are waiting for the answer to that motion.
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