On February 25, 2016, California criminal defense attorney James Crawford obtained a retrial for his client in a criminal case where the judge ruled the unfair use by the Orange County police and prosecution of a jailhouse informant has robbed the defendant of a fair trial.
The use of jailhouse snitches by the Orange County police and DA's office has hit the press long prior to that, and became a media scandal.
On March 9, 2016 attorney James Crawford who won the retrial of Henry Rodriguez, was reportedly beaten up, severely, IN THE COURTHOUSE by the Orange County District Attorney investigator Dillon Alley, right under the security cameras.
That happened just before the jury selection in another criminal case where Mr. Crawford came to advise a witness.
Even though the brawl was clearly in front of court security officers, no arrests for the brawl was made - and the initial report on the brawl clearly raises an issue of selective non-enforcement of laws against the DA's investigator, because had the defense attorney been the initiator of the brawl, he would have been arrested for sure.
On March 17, 2016 it was reported that the prosecution is claiming that their investigator was acting in "self-defense" and that the defense attorney - just before he was about to start picking the jury - punched the investigator in the face first.
Of course.
If that happened though, the defense attorney would surely have been arrested. The court security officers though did not want to arrest their "brother", the DA investigator.
Not to mention that the Orange County Sheriff's Department, the same Department that is in charge of the jail where informants were illegally used, are also in charge of courthouse security. Talking about conflicts of interest.
And, prosecutor's and defense counsel's stories "significantly differ".
Now, all of this was happening IN THE COURTHOUSE.
Are we living in the 19th century?
Do they not have security cameras in the courthouse to verify what exactly happened. Why do they have to rely on verbal accounts that "significantly differ"?
Or, did security officers from the Orange County Sheriff's Department make sure that the tapes are overwritten, not available, equipment broken, is not working - etc., that's the usual excuses of New York Court Administration not to provide security video tapes from courthouses when such videotapes can reveal misconduct of public officials in New York.
I recently wrote an article about being criminal defense attorney as a disqualification from public office and as a danger to the attorney's life.
Being a criminal defense attorney, especially a good one, is somehow considered a disreputable profession in the United States - even President Obama caved in and did not nominate a female federal judge, former federal public defender, when #JudgeJaneKelly was viciously - and falsely - attacked verbally in a smear campaign for doing her job.
#JudgeJaneKelly was also viciously attacked physically in the middle of her 19-year career as a public defender, and left bleeding and unconscious in the park.
Only that was in the park, with nobody around to see the attacker (and, obviously, the government did not try to knock themselves out to find the attacker, the attacker is still not found).
Here, whether Investigator Alley attacked Attorney Crawford or whether, as the prosecution now claims, the Investigator acted in self-defense, should be clearly visible on security tapes.
Using witnesses to verify what happened under court security cameras (operated by individuals with a distinct conflict of interest in the matter), as it is reportedly planned now in the forthcoming hearing, as I understand, verifying whether the DA's office should be disqualified from the case, is completely inadequate.
Once again - where are the court security videos?
#CriminalDefenseAttorneyLivesMatter
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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