- charged with crimes;
- suspended from the practice of law;
- sought to be removed from office through the suspension;
- sought to be removed from office through a Senate hearing;
- convicted of a crime while her defense was straight-jacketed by a judge, and will now be disbarred, as a convicted felon;
- was finally forced to resign from office, and now may face incarceration - all for investigating misconduct of judges, up to the highest-ranking judges in the State of Pennsylvania, and of prosecutors.
At the same time, there were multiple resignations as a direct result of her investigation, and multiple people were openly committing crimes Kane was charged with.
called upon judges and other public officials involved in the Porngate scandal revealed by Kane's investigation, to resign.
Actually, one of the targets of Kane's Porngate investigation, Judge Seamus McCaffery, already did resign by that time, in 2014.
Porngate emails were reportedly discovered by Kane's office unexpectedly, during the investigation as to how the Sandusky sex abuse case was handled.
The 2nd Judge, Pennsylvania Supreme Court #JudgeMichaelEakin
did resign, in March of 2016, after being exposed by Kane's office for sending racist, misogynistic and homophobic emails, but not before he participated in suspending Kathleen Kane's law license in September of 2015, which was then used as a basis of further harassment of Kathleen Kane to remove her from office, and in February of 2016 Kathleen Kane was denied her motion to vacate the suspension because of participation of Judge Eakin in it - because she allegedly "waited too long" to raise the issue of bias.
Of course, in June of 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Williams v Pennsylvania, that Pennsylvania Chief Judge Castille's
failure to recuse of a judge who was also an accuser in the case (and in this case Judge Eakin was the target of Kathleen Kane's prosecution, which also should be an absolute disqualification for reasons of personal interest) tainted the entire judicial panel and made the resulting decision void, thus voiding as a matter of law Kathleen Kane's suspension of law license by making it unconstitutional - not that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stirred to reinstate her law license.
Moreover, there was an interestingly-timed revelation by a Philadelphia DA Seth Williams
that he "omitted" to reveal $160,000 in gifts in his mandatory disclosures - where the revelation came the next day after Kathleen Kane was conveniently convicted of felonies and threatened with prison not to "retaliate" against witnesses - obviously, by releasing compromising information against public officials.
DA Seth Williams is reportedly a decades-long friend of Senator Anthony Williams, so Senator Williams' call upon Judge Eakin to resign - which Senator Williams strategically made only in November of 2015, AFTER Judge Eakin participated in suspension of Kathleen Kane's law license - was simply a smoke screen to protect his friend Seth Williams.
Kathleen Kane's criminal proceedings - from how they were brought, in August of 2015, to how they were prosecuted - were tainted by egregious judicial and prosecutorial misconduct.
The pretrial #judgeCatherineRebar
was badgering Kane's defense attorney Shargel long before the trial, to the point that the attorney had to state to the court that he actually has a right to speak on behalf of his client.
Judge Rebar issued an unprecedented order as to the preliminary hearing of August 24, 2015 , right after the charges were brought against Kathleen Kane, not only prohibiting electronic communication from the courtroom (many courts do that), but prohibiting ANYONE from standing up and leaving the courtroom unless allowed by the judge - for a bathroom break, because they were bored and did not want to attend any more, or for any other reason. It was practically a temporary arrest order by judge Catherine Rebar against all members of the public and the press who had the misfortune of having come to that "open" public hearing.
It is absolutely unprecedented to put such restrictions upon the public's comings and goings during an open criminal proceedings and preliminary hearings.
And, it is apparent that Judge Rebar's ruling on not using electronic devices and not leaving the courtroom without court permission for members of the public and the press was targeted at prevention of communication as to what was happening in those proceedings before they closed - which amounted to an illegal temporary gag order and made that public hearing not really public, because if it was truly public, the larger public that was not present in the courtroom, could not be prevented from hearing what was going on in the courtroom, nor did the judge have authority to regulate when members of the public and the press could leave an open court proceeding.
In September of 2015, another judge, #JudgeWilliamJFurberJr., was assigned to handle all pre-trial motions and hearings.
Judge Furber is a former prosecutor.
Yet, in December of 2015, Judge Furber "chose" #JudgeWendyDemchick-Alloy
to preside over Kathleen Kane's trial, instead of himself, because allegedly Judge William J. Furber's "increasing responsibilities as president judge and other duties would prevent him "from devoting sufficient time to the proper handling of this case".
Right.
"Other duties" will prevent a judge from presiding over the most notorious case, prosecution of a state Attorney General, coincidentally, at the time when that AG exposed state judges and prosecutors to be a disgusting bunch of racists, misogynists and homophobes.
The judiciary wanted a female judge to do the dirty job - so that the disgusting male bunch of racists, misogynists and homophobes who were pulling her strings would look good.
On July 29, 2016, just two weeks before the trial, judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy, who also presided over Kathleen Kane trial, true to her goal of railroading Kathleen Kane, law or no law, issued a decision prohibiting Kathleen Kane's defense from using materials from the Porngate investigation to show that criminal charges were brought by people connected to the Porngate scandal in retaliation for Kathleen Kane's doing her job as the Attorney General and trying to root out corruption and misconduct among high-ranking public officials.
Judge Demchick-Alloy reportedly worked for the prosecuting office until 2010 - and continued to act as a prosecutor and not a neutral judge, in the criminal proceedings.
By blocking Kathleen Kane from exposing involvement of the former Office of Attorney General prosecutors Frank Fina
and E. Marc Costanzo
in the exchange of pornographic e-mails, Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy violated Kathleen Kane's 6th Amendment right of confrontation of witnesses and blocked effective impeachment of witnesses, which was egregious judicial misconduct, a display of bias towards prosecution before trial, and an act of a judge-advocate on behalf of prosecution.
Then, during the trial, the criminal prosecutor, DA Kevin R. Steele,
reportedly vouched and practically preached to the jury about credibility of prosecution's witnesses, according to reports, that constituted prosecutorial misconduct, and a denial to Kathleen Kane of an impartial prosecutor that tainted the proceedings and the verdict.
The next problem, after the jury returned a "guilty" verdict, the judge quickly disappeared somewhere to get advice and instructions as to how to act next from someone - and that is obvious from the report of what occurred in the courtroom that day.
The criminal prosecutor did not ask for bail enhancement - the judge did that after disappearing to chambers. The judge, thus, acted as a prosecution's unsworn witness and advocate in (1) trying to enhance bail without the prosecution asking for it, (2) testifying about Kathleen Kane's alleged travels abroad in 2014, and in (3) putting a direct threat of a sentencing of incarceration if Kathleen Kane "retaliates against witnesses" - which can be deemed as a threat not to release compromising materials from the Porngate investigation.
Such behavior of a judge points at the whole purpose of criminal proceedings against Kathleen Kane: to discredit her, prevent further leaks of compromising materials against the old boys' club, remove her from office and thus prevent further investigations of misconduct in Pennsylvania judiciary, and to make an example her in a severe punishment for going after judicial misconduct.
It was obvious that setting bail with a threat against Kane not to "retaliate against witnesses, directly or indirectly" (also what the prosecution did not ask for, at least in open court), meant Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy further pushed her own agenda or her common agenda with the prosecution and with other targets of the Porngate investigation - to prevent release of Porngate materials that were not previously released - and that appeared to be the whole reason for the criminal prosecution, as well as the removal of the stubborn State Attorney General doing her job from office.
Since Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy reportedly stormed into the courtroom with her new bail restriction ideas with the prosecution after being absent between the announcement of the jury verdict, together with the prosecutor, while Kane remained in the courtroom with the defense while the judge and the prosecution were away, apparently, important issues regarding Kane were discussed without her presence - and that's a possible ex parte communication and a disqualification of the judge.
Criminal defendants have a right to be present at the time of all important discussions pertaining to their constitutional rights, and discussions of bail issues directly relate to Kathleen Kane's constitutional right to liberty.
The next thing is selective non-enforcement of criminal laws against the high-ranking witnesses against Kathleen Kane:
- The #formerChiefJudgeDonald Castille,
who recently was disgraced - but not criminally charged - for acting as a judge in the same death penalty case where he acted as a prosecutor and where his office committed egregious prosecutorial misconduct (hiding evidence from the defense, eliciting perjury from witnesses on multiple occasions in a death penalty trial), for which Judge Castille, or prosecutors from his office, were not held accountable. Judge Don Castille talked to a reporter about contents of the grand jury proceedings that Kathleen Kane allegedly leaked, see also here. Yet, former Pennsylvania Chief Judge Castille, a witness against Kathleen Kane who did the exact same thing Kathleen Kane was charged with, was not charged with leaking secret grand jury material to the press - and Kathleen Kane was consciously prohibited by the presiding judge to raise the question of selective enforcement of criminal laws and politically motivated retaliation against her, which improperly restricted her defense and deprived her of effective assistance of counsel.
- Prosecutor #BruceBeemer, the prosecution's witness, was not charged for exact same conduct Kathleen Kane was convicted of. Evidence against Kathleen Kane is that she told the grand jury that she did not sign an oath of secrecy while she did - and she claimed it was an honest mistake.
If those three people were offered immunity from criminal prosecution, that was apparently not revealed to the defense or to the jury, as well as implications upon their credibility from such offers of immunity from prosecution.
The case against Kane was apparently based upon immunized testimony of people who could be charged with identical or similar crimes - and Kane can raise that issue on appeal as a due process violation.
And, the very next day after the conviction, as I already wrote above, the Philadelphia DA Williams found it was the right time to reveal $160,000 in gifts he previously did not report - and was not charged with any misconduct. It is apparent that Kathleen Kane may have been conveniently taken out of office to prevent prosecution of #DASethWilliams, decades-long friend of #PennsylvaniaStateSenatorAnthonyWilliams, too.
It is interesting to mention that there was a podium created in front of the courthouse during the trial, beforehand, and I doubt that it was done to report a "not guilty" verdict.
Apparently, those who built the podium before the "guilty" verdict was returned, knew ahead of time what the verdict will be.
And, please, note, that the only non-white people who may be behind the onslaught against Kathleen Kane were the Philadelphia DA Seth Williams who hired Porngate prosecutors and hid his undisclosed gifts until Kathleen Kane was safely convicted, and his longtime friend Senator Anthony Williams.
Otherwise, the prosecutor, the judges presiding over Kathleen Kane's case and the witnesses against her were all white, and it was a white judge who blocked introduction of racist emails mocking African Americans that Kathleen Kane exposed causing white judges to resign (McCaffery or Eakin) or retire (Castille).
What can I say.
The case stinks. And that's not only my opinion. Pennsylvania judges fly off the bench through "retirement" or "resignation", are blasted by the U.S. Supreme Court for committing egregious misconduct, misconduct fraught with racism, in a death penalty case, but it is Kathleen Kane who stands convicted for a felony - while denied her right to impeach witnesses against her by evidence of their possible corruption by THIS court system.
Let's see what happens next with sentencing and appeals. And let's not forget that what is happening to Kathleen Kane is happening in the "Kids for Cash" state where attorneys were already afraid, even before Kathleen Kane's conviction, to expose judicial misconduct - which already resulted in a public safety crisis, massive unlawful incarceration of children in exchange of kickbacks and one child's suicide.
And intimidation of attorneys for exposing judicial misconduct - and consequences for public safety - will get only worse with Kathleen Kane's conviction.
I will continue to cover this story.
Stay tuned.
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