Why I want my picture on New York roadside billboards

No, I do not seek fame.

But, when I saw an announcement in the press yesterday, with this picture in it, 

I knew my photo, along with the enlarged copy of my order of suspension imposed for exposing a corrupt judge, needs to appear next to it - as a warning:

People, this is a taxpayer-funded trap.

This hapless idiot has reported corruption - and see what happened to her.  Report corruption - and i

t will happen to you, too.

The billboard has only an Albany-area telephone number, and not a toll number.

That means that it will cost money to call in out of the area, and that such phone calls will be traceable.

It will work as a fine calculator for the government as to whose corrupt acts are already discovered - and need to cover up their asses and quash the whistle-blowers, and who is not yet discovered, so that they keep going.

But, possibly, people did not even need my warning, they already know.

Here are some interesting comments to this announcement on Facebook.

How did they say in the olden times: "voice of the people - voice of God"?
 

Susan Sarandon on why she will not vote for Hillary Clinton simply because she is a woman: "that's very patronizing to women to think we all just follow our genitalia to candidates"

Having lived for 35 years under the so-called socialism in the Soviet Union/Russia, I, of course, will never vote for Bernie Sanders - not for a person with no sound economic plan other than how to raise taxes to 90% and "invest into the infrastructure" which is usually financed by municipal bonds backed by "full faith and credit" of property taxes - so jobs created by such an "investment" can cause massive tax foreclosures and people losing their homes.

As Margaret Thatcher once said:

Yet, recently, a Sanders supporter, actress Susan Sarandon reportedly made a statement at one of the "Bernie" rallies that reflects on the so-called "gender-specific" voting in elections.

Susan Sarandon said that "it would be patronizing to vote for front-runner Hillary Clinton just because she is a woman", and that it is "very patronizing to women to think we all just follow our genitalia to candidates."

Is that right?

But - didn't a female judge in the State of New York, most recently, made her gender her biggest election campaign "marketing" point?  That's Judges Lisa Fisher of the Greene County Supreme Court, see here and here.

Wasn't the fraudulent election of Judge Christina Ryba of the Albany County Supreme Court, celebrated as "historic" because she is an African-American WOMAN, see here and here?

And, didn't New York State Senate congratulate the "confirmed" Chief Judge of New York State Court of Appeals Janet DiFiore - who was confirmed after a licensed attorney, Senator Bonacic, who was disqualified from voting on her confirmation due to his financial interest in pleasing her as a future regulator of the legal profession (see John Oliver's show on conflicts of interest in state legislatures):

blocked any opponents of her "confirmation" from testifying and refused to conduct any meaningful investigation of her potentially criminal conduct well covered for years by the press - didn't New York Senate congratulate he as the "second WOMAN" appointed to that position?

As I said before on this blog, we should not be picking our candidates for governmental positions by their genitalia as qualifications.

And, yes, I agree with Susan Sarandon 100% on the point that it is demeaning to think that women will "follow their genitalia" in their voting decisions, even though it is not unheard of for women to vote for a handsome man or for men voters to vote for a pretty woman - let's call it "the Sarah Palin syndrome".

But - patronizing or not, the only thing those "honorable" public officials crave is the ultimate prize, to get elected, for a long term, for a huge salary with benefits and with the benefit of doing practically nothing and having zero accountability and unlimited power over people's lives.

Isn't it self-demeaning to promote yourself to a position of public trust only because of your gender?

Right, Judge Lisa Fisher?

Right, Judge Christina Ryba?

Right, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore?

Should we celebrate "historical developments" where these women were elected (Fisher, Ryba) or appointed (DiFiore), or should we mourn that we will be ruled by incompetent control freaks (Fisher), unethical (Ryba) and/or criminally corrupt public officials (DiFiore)?

Jonathan Lippman's 50-hour slaves are waiting to add to the wrongful convictions crisis

Here is a scathing piece "Not walking a mile with mocassins" from "The Irreverent Lawyer" on the so-called legacy of the corrupt just-retired Chief Judge of the State of New York who - remember- values pro bono services so much that he:

1) joined the world's highest-paying law firm that parades its pro bono hours, but omits to mention in parading those pro bono hours that a lot of those pro bono hours are dedicated to paying clients, like a federal judge in front of whom the firm, no doubt, practices, who, before his ascension to the federal bench, wrote infamous "TORTURE MEMOS";

and

2)  conditioned attorney licensing in New York on provision 50 hours of forced pro bono services (slavery that is prohibited by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution) from the already debt-imprisoned law graduates who are not yet licensed to practice law and who will be committing unauthorized practice of law if they DO comply with the requirement, but will not be allowed to practice law if they do not first engage in the crime of unauthorized practice of law.

Walk in Lippman's stinky moccasins, as The Irreverent Lawyer cogently puts it.  Read the piece.

Here is the implications for the law graduates and the solo and small-firm attorneys of that little rule from a law professor.   

I disagree with Professor Campos (as some other commentators do, see Professor Campos' article and comments underneath it) as to the importance of legal services for low-income people whose rights are violated repeatedly in:

•  foreclosure proceedings without a lawyer;
• in divorce proceedings without a lawyer;
• in eviction proceedings without a lawyer;
• in criminal proceedings without a lawyer at crucial stages of litigation like an arraignment and interrogation

The types of lawyers in the list below who usually (personal experience, having done in my time as a lawyer numerous post-mortems of screwed cases to see whether an appeal would be successful) are lawyers who represent the overwhelming majority of criminal defendants in New York and who do not satisfy (my personal opinion) the constitutional requirement of a right to counsel - no matter what biased appellate courts say to promote its policy of "finality" of criminal convictions no matter how unfairly those were attained.

Type I.  A POTTED PLANT

A "potted plant", even if that lawyer is retained at a high price by the defendant's family:

• makes no motions to recuse a biased judge despite a record requiring it to prevent retaliation of that judge and secure future assignments to cases at $ 75 an hour - when a motion to recuse for bias is not made at the trial level, the issue of judicial bias is waived and will be rejected on appeal;
• makes no motions to disqualify the prosecution and/or to dismiss the case based on prosecutorial misconduct, despite the record requiring such a motion - thus, also potentially waiving the issue of prosecutorial misconduct in how the case was brought and prosecuted, precluding raising of such issues on appeal;
• makes no pre-trial motions to compel production of the necessary discovery information and "gives the benefit of the doubt" to the prosecution (a defense attorney giving "the benefit of the doubt" to the prosecution is something else), even knowing prior history of misconduct of that same prosecutor and his/her office;
• makes no motions for judicial subpoenas of necessary records before trial, which will then preclude the lawyer from the opportunity to effectively impeach prosecution's witnesses at trial, and especially when the records show misconduct of the police, he prosecution, or - God forbid - some judges; a judge can easily cut the lawyer off at cross-examination of such issues if those records are not preliminarily obtained and used for impeachment;
• subpoenas no witnesses when such witnesses exist and may help his client;
• makes no motions to dismiss before trial when the record raises existence of issues upon which the case may be dismissed without going to trial (remember, a trial, even the one that sends a client to prison gets a better paycheck to an attorney than a motion that will get the case quickly dismissed before trial), advising their clients that it is "all right" and that the issues that need to be raised in pre-trial motions can just as well be raised in the trial - while raising such issues at the trial will possibly require the TESTIMONY of the defendant, a very dangerous endeavor, as compared just to an affidavit from the defendant in support of a motion to dismiss or for a probable cause hearing that may not be considered at a subsequent trial and is not subject to destroying cross-examination that can send the defendant to years and years in prison.

It is true, the non-potted-plant attorneys are the ones that are good for you, while the "potted plant" ones survive longer in the "honorable" profession and continue to do their shtick (see above) and screw more clients.  

An example of a "non-potted plant" attorney is here. 

The threat of sanctions for frivolous conduct for not acting as a potted plant is not applicable to criminal proceedings in New York, and the fear of sanctions is not an excuse for a criminal defense attorney.

II.  AN OVERWORKED PUBLIC DEFENDER

A public defender, even an honest one, who is so overloaded that he or she has, reportedly, 7 minutes (!) per felony representation, only has time to "meet 'em and plead 'em".

That is not a constitutional effective assistance of counsel, as any reasonable person would see.

But, a criminal defendant will repeatedly be told that as long as his public defendant has a heartbeat, a license and appears for him in court, prepared or unprepared, the constitutional requirement of legal representation to him is satisfied. 

See below the description of law professor Paul Campos' reference to condescension of the idea to through inadequate representation at the "wretched refuse of our teeming shores", the poor, under the pretense of "bridging the justice gap" in New York.

III.  AN ASSIGNED ATTORNEY WITH FINANCIAL PROBLEMS

Criminal defendants are repeatedly advised by courts that, even though he or she is constitutionally entitled to counsel, he is not entitled to assigned counsel of the defendant's choice.

An assigned attorney who has big financial problems, will do ANYTHING to perpetuate the stream of their assignments, no matter what harm to the clients, to the point of selling his clients to the prosecution.


IV.  A CLUELESS PRO BONO NON-SPECIALIST


New York law is the most complex and developed law in the country.  Just look at the number of books containing New York statutes and case law in a law library.

 Criminal law proceedings, as an example, are based on statutory and constitutional law, and a lot of case law.  That amount of knowledge is not acquired overnight.

Not all law school students take the grueling state CrimPro courses.  The two CrimPro courses (Criminal Procedure: 4th, 5th, 6th Amendments and Criminal Procedure: Adjudication) and one Advanced Criminal Law course I took in Albany Law School were taught by a practitioner and author of Practice Commentaries on Penal Law and Criminal Procedure on Westlaw - Professor Peter Preiser, the former (much respected by prisoners! for fairness - as I learned from prisoners' intake letters during my internship in Prisoners' Legal Services) New York Commissioner of the Department of Corrections who was assigned to the DOCs system after the Attica riot to clean up New York corrections system.

Professor Peter Preiser was notoriously tough, extremely knowledgeable and very sarcrastic.  

Students feared him, feared his scathing remarks and feared his fast-paced exams giving you short minutes to answer split-hair multiple-choice questions.  

Professor Peter Preiser's rationale for this type of exams was - if you do not know it, no time will help you answer the question, and you will not have that time in the courtroom for a split-second objection and argument.  

Professor Preiser was right.  But you wouldn't get a perfect score from his exams, and Professor Preiser got many negative student reviews that I personally saw because of his toughness.  You went to his courses not for a perfect GPA, but for real-courtroom knowledge.

CrimPro courses such as Professor Preiser's are not required law school courses and, being so tough and being often taught by tough practitioners, can result in not-so-perfect exam grades and thus ruin a law student's GPA and chances of better employment in an ever eroding job market for law school graduates.

Thus, when a "contracts" attorney or a Lippman-forced 50-hour pro bono slave undertakes legal representation in a criminal court, that may mean that the criminal defendant would be better off with no lawyer at all, or with a neighbor who knows how the criminal justice system works, rather than the "pro bono" non-specialist lawyer.

Remember, results of doctors' lack of knowledge are in the cemetery.

Results of pro bono lawyers' lack of knowledge are in prison.

I encourage my readers to read the entire piece in "The Irreverent Lawyer".  It is good.

Once again, I encourage my readers to read the entire piece by Professor Campos that the "Irreverent Lawyer" blog is referring to.  It is brilliant and raises straight-on, a lot of questions that the usual brown-nosing crowd of the retired Judge Lippman's so-called "legacy" are afraid to raise.

And, Professor Paul Campos pointed the thing that got me reeling back in law school when I was enraged at my VERY respected (by me, included) CONTRACTS professor announced to our class that he did "pro bono service" in CRIMINAL court.

Having worked by that time for many years in a criminal defense attorneys' office, having sat through numerous client conferences when my trial lawyer husband made for a potential client a post-mortem of what should have been done by his public defender or a clueless "pro bono" attorney who was clueless about criminal law, I thought it was a great disservice to the criminal defendants to have a contracts professor represent a criminal defendant (pro bono) in a case where he (admittedly) pled his client.

It is easy to plea, it is not easy to vacate a plea and the criminal record that most often such a plea creates.  It takes knowledge of the law both to plea well (like from a felony to a violation) and not to make a nerve-wrecking decision not to plea, but to aggressively attack the prosecution's position BEFORE trial, through appropriate motions and various discovery techniques.

It requires a specialist, an honest, feisty, non-potted-plant specialist, to do that.

Not a green law graduate.

Professor Campos on the required 50 hours of law practice by law graduates as a condition of receiving a law license (this is just one of the real-life points that Professor Campos is making that Lippman did not care to think through):

"Another piece of information that Chief Judge Lippman seems to be overlooking is that people who graduate from law school don't know how to practice law (this is why they can't purport to legally render legal services unless they're being supervised by an individual attorney or a legal organization).  Medical schools train future surgeons by having them work on corpses, but apparently we're supposed to "train" nascent lawyers by handing them the legal problems of living, breathing people, the idea here being the dubious proposition that law students and new graduates will do more good than harm to the wretched refuse of our teeming shores if we entrust these proto-lawyers with the legal affairs of people currently slated to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven."

Professor Campos correctly (my personal opinion) gets the feeling of superiority and condescension from Lippman's "bridging the justice gap" of poor people with green "proto-lawyers" - against their opponents, seasoned attorneys, where results of such "bridging the justice gap" is bridging it with newly wrecked lives of the "wretched refuse of our teeming shores" not entitled, in Lippman's understanding, to better representation.

Do not blame only judicial and prosecutorial corruption for the staggering numbers of wrongful convictions in this country.

The above types of defense attorneys generously contribute to filling our prisons with victims of wrongful convictions.

And the 50-hour Lippman slaves will only add to those grim numbers.



 

 

Delaware County Acting District Attorney John Hubbard and the importance of not being a child of incest

I remember Acting District Attorney John Hubbard mocking me for raising the issue of constitutionality of charging two consenting adults with the FELONY crime of incest (that was an uncle and a niece, about the same age, whose love union produced a child), New York Penal Law 255.25.

  § 255.25 Incest in the third degree.
    A  person  is  guilty  of  incest  in  the third degree when he or she
  marries or engages in sexual intercourse, oral sexual  conduct  or  anal
  sexual  conduct  with a person whom he or she knows to be related to him
  or her, whether through marriage or not,  as  an  ancestor,  descendant,
  brother  or  sister  of either the whole or the half blood, uncle, aunt,
  nephew or niece.
    Incest in the third degree is a class E felony.

 

Hubbard claimed that babies born of incest have to be born unhealthy.

I asked - "did you check if the baby is actually unhealthy?" (The baby was healthy).

Hubbard answered - "no, I don't have to check that, the crime is on the books, all I have to prove is that they are uncle and niece and that they had a biological child together".

I asked - "how about couples who marry and conceive a baby in full knowledge that the baby will inherit a dreadful genetic disorder, will suffer throughout his short life and die a horrible death, is the couple's decision to have sex and conceive a baby under these circumstances prosecutable?"

"No", John Hubbard said, "we have a right to marry".

We do.  We also have a right to privacy and for the government not to sit in the pants of consenting adults.

Yet, questions remained, and I asked - what if they conceived NOT "through sexual intercourse" (a "baby out of a tube", "in vitro"?).  
Will it be a crime, too? And, if that would not be a crime, then why conceiving through sexual intercourse would be?  And, when a woman gets sperm for in vitro conception of a baby from a sperm bank, where donors' identity is shielded by privacy laws other than their health, there is a probability that she may be getting the sperm of a close blood relative, same as what is prohibited by Penal Law 255.25.

Isn't the law anachronistic, shouldn't it be taken off the books or at least not prosecuted?

Shouldn't the charges (that should never have been brought in the first place) be withdrawn?

Hubbard just laughed and refused to withdraw the charge of incest against the mother of a healthy baby.

To have a crime of incest, an E felony on the books of NY state, by which two adults who engaged in consensual sex and produced a healthy baby, two parents of a healthy baby, are sent to state prison for up to 4 years each, because of the crime of conceiving that healthy child - is not only grossly unfair, especially to the baby who is deprived of his parents for no other reason than that they are his parents, but is INSANE in any civilized society.

And prosecuting parents for conceiving a healthy child and not prosecuting parents for knowingly conceiving a child with genetic disorders is definite equal protection problem - don't you think?

You can think all you want as a moral point about PROPRIETY of sex between close relatives.  But, as a point of CRIMINAL LAW, as long as those two engaged in sex are two consenting competent adults, the criminal law should be out of their pants.

You know what ELSE is "on the books" in New York State.

And that is the crime of adultery.

That's the same crime that Virginia just refused to take off the books, a crime that legal scholars call an anachronistic attempt "to criminalize what the majority deems immoral choices by consenting adults". 

So, adultery is a crime in Virginia.

Believe it or not, it is a crime in New York, too.

I represented people in divorce actions.  Before the divorce is complete and registered, the couple is still legally married.

Usually, at the time of divorce, both parties had other partners - thus committing the crime of adultery, New York Penal Law 255.17, a Class B misdemeanor.

 § 255.17 Adultery.
    A  person  is guilty of adultery when he engages in sexual intercourse
  with another person at a time when he has a living spouse, or the  other
  person has a living spouse.
    Adultery is a class B misdemeanor.

You know how many crimes of adultery did John Hubbard prosecute in his prosecutorial career?  I can bet anything - NONE.

So "the crime is on the books" argument is no argument at all.

Of course, as to that particular case, the threat of being sent away for up to 4 years in prison and being separated from her baby coerced my client to plea to a misdemeanor, and the charge of constitutionality was never pursued by her any further, as far as I know.

John Hubbard obviously thought that it is a good idea to dedicate the limited resources of his office to prosecute a mother for giving birth to a healthy child.

For him, it was a prank, it was plain visible in his eyes, he was laughing the entire time I was trying to talk to him.

That is the very same John Hubbard whose office allowed Delaware County to run rampant for years and years with a corrupt scheme of no-bid multimillion contracts, some undoubtedly with relatives and friends of high-ranking figures in the local government - without any attempt of prosecuting those crimes.

Enterprise corruption is also a crime on the books in New York, a whole Article of the Penal Law, Article 460, is dedicated to it.

Delaware County is teeming and breathing with enterprise corruption, but when John Hubbard is asked to prosecute it, he asks you a question - "WHY do you need ALL THAT?"

That is the very same John Hubbard who failed to disclose that he was a partner in the law practice of a judge before him the DA's office employing him appeared, and thus tainted multiple, possibly, thousands of criminal convictions and child abuse adjudications, and that is a crime of fraud and official misconduct that is on the books in New York.

When I reported to John Hubbard personally (without knowledge that Judge Becker was previously his law partner), that Judge Becker's oath of office filed in 2011 was based on falsified certification, and asked to prosecute the case against those who:

(1) provided a certification of 2002 election in 2011 when they no longer had authentic original documents to do such a certification since 2004;

(2) directed such a certification - that was, undoubtedly, Becker himself, and 

(3) filed such a false certification (a false public document) in the clerk's office -

the merry prankster John Hubbard, now the Acting Delaware County District Attorney, asked me "WHY do you need ALL THAT?"

Here is the reason why:

Hubbard could have his pick in investigating and prosecuting public corruption in his own county - in addition to Article 460 of the Penal Law dealing with organized crime, there is a whole Title L incorporating FIVE more Articles of Penal Law, Hubbard needed only to take his pick of the crimes against public officials available "on the books" in New York Penal Code - you name it, we have it in Delaware County.

Yet, Hubbard posed a philosophical question to me, a reporter of a specific crime by specific people, Carl Becker (then a judge and Hubbard's former law partner) and the individual from the Delaware County Board of Election, Republican Commissioner William Campbell who signed the false certification of Becker's 2002 election in 2011, while original documents from which he could make such a certification were destroyed in 2004, 7 years prior to the certification.

Filing a certification out of thin air was fraud and filing a false public document, as well as official misconduct of two high-standing public officials.

Yet, Hubbard asks me a question - why would I be "doing all that?"  

Really, WHY would anybody ask a prosecutor to prosecute a crime?

Of course, it is easier to use your practically unlimited power, in your taxpayer-paid position, to threaten an uneducated and poor young mother of a - once again - HEALTHY child - to plea to a crime of misdemeanor, where her only "crime" was consensual sex with a closely related blood relative of an age close to hers, where both her and the baby's father were competent adults over the age of consent.

And to laugh about it.

On the other hand, it requires integrity and courage to stand up to a corrupt public official.

It is easier to NOT do that - that is better for your career, especially a prosecutorial career.  

Hubbard is still young, he can still grow out of his short pants as a prosecutor and into the black robe of a judge, like Northrup did with Becker's help. 

And, William Campbell is still going to handle John Hubbard's election for the seat of Delaware County District Attorney this year (he is only an "Acting Delaware County District Attorney" at this time).

It pays off not to prosecute people when you need them, right?

Northrup did not prosecute Becker - and now see?  Above?  

John Hubbard similarly refused to prosecute Becker and Campbell for filing a false public document, Becker's certificate of election, in 2011, so he is a good boy.  He will make a wonderful career in the "honorable" legal profession.  He is already called "The Honorable John Hubbard", isn't he?  Even though the only "honor" he has is in the title.

By the way, the false certificate of Becker's 2002 election is still, I presume, on file in the Delaware County Clerk's office.

And, naturally (for the State of New York and Delaware County), I was suspended from the practice of law for asserting the obvious - that Becker did not have on file a valid certificate of his 2002 alleged election victory when I made a motion to recuse him and vacate all of his decisions in March of 2011.

Had Hubbard prosecuted Becker and his cronies, Becker would have been off the bench, disbarred, possibly incarcerated (where he belongs, after all crimes he committed on the bench).





Hubbard is wonderfully selective as to the Penal Code. 

While pursuing young mothers of healthy children, Hubbard and Northrup refused to prosecute TWO burglaries committed in two consecutive years in two neighboring houses - one belonging to us at 203 Main Street and one where our neighbor lived with his family at 205 Main Street.

Burglary is a violent crime which is very much on the books in New York, yet, the burglaries were not prosecuted by John Hubbard.

The suspect was the same, and John Hubbard (who has a history of forewarning criminal suspects favored by Judge Becker, so that they could escape or not show up to be arrested in New York) let him disappear to, first, another town, and then another state, and the evidence collected on the crime scenes is most likely lost or destroyed.


And, Hubbard is now continuing to prosecute Barbara O'Sullivan whose crime is that she was the VICTIM of an attempt to kill HER by Delaware County Deputy Sheriff Derek Bowie who happens to be a nephew of John Hubbard's long-time investigator Jeff Bowie.

For that reason, it is Barbara O'Sullivan, the victim of Hubbard's employee's nephew Derek Bowie, who is prosecuted by John Hubbard for a fabricated charge, and not Derek Bowie who is prosecuted for a vehicular assault and attempted murder against Barbara O'Sullivan. 

Attempted murder and assault are crimes that are very much on the books in New York, but Hubbard seems to be blissfully unaware - like a baby - of existence of such crimes "on the books" whenever a public official commits them.  

So, to the Acting Delaware County District Attorney John Hubbard,  being a mother of a healthy baby is a crime.

And, to the same Acting Delaware County District Attorney John Hubbard, vehicular assault and murder attempt by a nephew of John Hubbard's long-time employee is not a crime.

And, a burglary and attempted arson in the residence of an attorney who criticized misconduct of Carl Becker, John Hubbard, his boss and his office - is not a crime.

And, falsifying public documents to justify legitimacy of Hubbard's own law partner Carl Becker on the bench - is also not a crime, especially when one of the perpetrators involved is the Republican Commissioner of the Board of Election whose favors Hubbard craves in his own future election bid for a District Attorney or a judge.

Welcome to Delaware County, New York.

I am sure that John Hubbard and those fraudsters in public office whom Hubbard helped and continues to help escape accountability and justice, are not children of incest.

That adds absolutely nothing to their lack of integrity and running rough-shod over any possibility of the rule of law in Delaware County.

After all, WHAT rule of law, WHY would you even want it?  That's what Hubbard asked me when I reported the crimes of Carl Becker and William Campbell to him, remember? 

Two men wearing one robe - how interesting. A complaint was filed against Delaware County Judge Richard Northrup for conduct unfit for a judge, including enabling impersonation of a judge by a lay individual and accepting an oath of office from an unauthorized political and financial supporter

I filed a complaint yesterday with the New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct asking it to take off the bench Delaware County Judge Richard Northrup for conduct unfit for a judge, specifically, 

1) for failing to disclose Mr. Northrup's next-in-command John Hubbard's prior law practice with a judge before whom Northrup appeared for over 19 years (Carl Becker); and 

2) to prosecute, as a District Attorney of Delaware County, Delaware County Attorney Porter Kirkwood who engaged for years, according to documents provided to me after the election by NYS Comptroller's office in unauthorized practice of law (not to mention in perpetuating the illegal no-bid contract scheme of Delaware County).

The reason why Judge Northrup did not prosecute Porter Kirkwood appeared to be not the usual "prosecutorial discretion", but a prosecutorial discretion for personal gain - Porter Kirkwood shared his expensive advertisement and supporters with Northrup.  

After all, both Northrup and Kirkwood were supported by the quickly-retired (and notoriously corrupt) judge Carl Becker, and ran a joint judicial election campaign, and advertisements in election campaign cost money - so it appears that Northrup sold his prosecutorial discretion for the ability to ride on Kirkwood's campaign donors' joint ads, like this:

By the way, Becker has a history of relentlessly pursuing and retaliating against people who challenged his corruption, including people who sued him, which counts sending to jail and taking away children of innumerable challengers, and taking two attorney licenses - mine for making motions to recuse him in view of his egregious misconduct and conflicts of interest and David Roosa's who challenged Becker's misconduct and doling out attorney assignments only to those attorneys who agreed to sell out there clients and not make motions on their behalf, thus agreeing to the  collusion between then-Judge Becker and his client of 27 years the Delaware County Department of Social Services.

Attorney Roosa was reinstated, interestingly, ONE DAY BEFORE Becker retired - on July 30, 2015.   

But, Becker was given a new victim instead of Roosa - me, I was suspended on November 13, 2015 for making motions to recuse Becker for misconduct.

Isn't it interesting that I started to practice law in 2009, one year before Mr. Roosa (and became, unknowingly, instead of Mr. Roosa, the bane of Becker's existence), and was suspended after Mr. Roosa was given back his license - unlawfully taken away from him on complaint of Becker.

I can confirm that in my years of work in Delaware County Family Court in front of Becker in child abuse, neglect and family case as an attorney, since 2009, my husband and I were the only attorneys who made any motions, and those motions were met with severe displeasure, and sanctions if they were seeking to recuse him, by Becker. 

David Roosa's suspension in 2008 apparently has sent a chill through the legal community not to make motions of any kind, especially to recuse - or else.

By the way, at around the same time as Becker, and at around the same time as the audit by NYS Comptroller of Delaware County, Becker's buddies in Delaware County, Delaware County Attorney Richard Spinney and Delaware County Commissioner of Social Services Bill Moon also retired.

In fact, that Richard Northrup will run for a judge was announced in the announcement that Becker was retiring, so Northrup and Becker cannot appear at the same time in black robes as judges.  

They should be wearing one robe for two - as Northrup occupies the same bench as Becker left.

Then, after having retired "to see more of his pregnant daughter" (who, according to Becker himself, lived out of state), Becker was constantly seen in the courthouse, parking in the parking lot reserved for judicial personnel, with "judge plates" still on his car - a voilation of the law.

Becker got the gall to even appear at the swearing-in ceremony of Richard Northrup in a black robe, and, according to the photo, appears to be administering Richard Northrup's oath of office - and sending the public a false message that he was still a sitting judge:

Of course, as a retired judge and a private attorney at the time he was apparently administering the oath to Northrup, Becker did not have ANY power to administer oaths to new judges, and thus Richard Northrup's oath of office is not valid - and, under the NYS Constitution, he is not a valid judge and his actions are not valid too.

There is, of course, a Public Officers Law 15, hastily introduced by the NYS Legislature after a large number of New York judges were caught around 2005 by an investigative reporter not having their oaths of office on file (Becker's was not on file either).

POL 15 claims that , even if the oath of office is not good, the judge's actions are still valid - but Public Officers Law 15 in itself is still invalid, as the Legislature has no power to unilaterally amend the New York State Constitution which provides:

ARTICLE XIII

Public Officers

[Oath of office; no other test for public office]

Section 1.  Members of the legislature, and all officers, executive and judicial, except such inferior officers as shall be by law exempted, shall, before they enter on the duties of their respective offices, take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the State of New York, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of ......, according to the best of my ability;" and no other oath, declaration or test shall be required as a qualification for any office of public trust, except that any committee of a political party may, by rule, provide for equal representation of the sexes on any such committee, and a state convention of a political party, at which candidates for public office are nominated, may, by rule, provide for equal representation of the sexes on any committee of such party. (Amended by Constitutional Convention of 1938 and approved by vote of the people November 8, 1938.)

So, the little POL 15 contradicts the state Constitution in recognizing validity of acts by a judge who did not bind himself by a valid constitutional oath of office.

And the "taking" of the oath of office should be, of course, administered by a person who has authority to take such oaths.

Carl Becker, having voluntarily relinquished his position of a judge, as of July of 2015 (the position in which Northrup actually succeeded him), as of his retirement date of July 31, 2015 is just a lay individual and a licensed attorney which did not allow him to administer oaths to new judges.

And, Northrup knew better than to agree to have Becker, wearing a black robe of a present judge, administer oath of office to Northrup. That sent the public a false message that Becker was still a public official and is still in power - maybe, Becker craves to have that message sent, but it was completely wrong for Northrup to humor the political and financial supporter of his joint election campaign with Porter Kirkwood in such a way.

I wonder whether Becker will be sanctioned as an attorney for impersonating a judge and administering an invalid oath of office to another judge.  

I will file a complaint against Becker on this respect and we will see what happens.

As a comparison, the oath of office of another fraudster judge, Christina Ryba in Albany 

(see my blogs about her elections here, here, here, here and here, and I will publish my complaint against her and her two supporting judges requesting to take them off the bench in a separate blog), 

was administered by a presently-in-office Albany City Court judge Rachel Kretser, even though the retired U.S. Magistrate judge Randolph Treece "led the ceremony", whatever that means:

 

See private attorney disguised as a sitting judge Carl Becker in the same position as sitting judge Kretser, administering the oath of office to Richard Northrup?

At the very least, Ryba did not jeopardize her position by parading a retired judge as a judge-still-in-office, as Northrup did.  

That's some die-hard loyalty by Northrup to Becker, defying law and reason!

Considering that Northrup, for 19 years, appeared in front of Judge Becker, such a loyalty acquires quite a sinister meaning, tainting all convictions Northrup obtained in front of Becker - and especially in view of his successor in the DA's office, now Acting District Attorney and the former Chief Assistant District Attorney John Hubbard's admission that he shared a LAW PRACTICE with Carl Becker (an admission that was NEVER shared in court proceedings where Northrup appeared in front of Becker in criminal felony proceedings or in Family Court child abuse proceedings - as a statutory necessary party).

Here are my two complaints against Northrup to the Commission for Judicial Conduct:

Here is the today's additional complaint:

I will report the reaction of the Commission to these complaints.

Stay tuned.