Punishing people for misconduct, Georgia style - the State of Georgia is tough on a criminal defense attorney for reasons unrelated to quality of his services - while continues to allow #ThiefJudgeBrendaWeaver to run loose without discipline

Misconduct, of course, should be punished.

And, the public should be protected..

And, the state of Georgia vigorously protects the public.

Kind of.

The State of Georgia just disbarred a criminal defense attorney  #KeithBrianHarkleroad because he had the audacity to handle a criminal jury trial for a client while not being "in good standing" for the following supposedly egregious reasons:

1. he was late in paying licensing fees that year, and
2. only obtained 6 CLE credits out of 8 required for the reporting period.

None of the "offenses" were of any moral turpitude.

There is no correlation between the number of CLE hours an attorney obtained and performance in court.

The attorney "substantially complied" with CLE requirements - having completed 6 out of 8 CLE hours.

None of the attorney's "transgressions" involved dishonesty, incompetence, or misconduct of any kind towards a client.

Yet, the decision is - professional death.  Disbarment.  Permanent loss of reputation and livelihood. The public is protected from a competent defense attorney, I guess, the State of Georgia has a lot of them to spare - a penny a dozen.

At the very same time, #JudgeBrendaWeaver who was caught last year in instituting a fabricated criminal proceeding (since dropped, after a public outrage), with the help of her own former law clerk - turned prosecutor against a journalist and his attorney for seeking public records that would reveal racist conduct of one judge (who ran from the bench) and Judge Brenda Weaver's own shenanigans in misusing public funds and trying to cover it up - remains at large, not charged for any crime (because who will charge her, her own former law clerk and co-conspirator?)

Just recently U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara lamented that he knows how the Moreland Commission (on public corruption) felt when disbanded by NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo after it started investigating Andrew Cuomo.

Of course, it was Preet Bharara himself who refused to prosecute Andrew Cuomo for disbanding the Moreland Commission when the Moreland Commission started to investigate Andrew Cuomo.

Here, the State of Georgia - by duping the public to answer trickily posed questions at a referendum - disbanded the Judicial Qualifications Commission when it started to investigate its own Chief of Commission.

Moreover, after

• Judge Brenda Weaver was forced, by public outrage, to recuse from the position of the head of Judicial Qualifications Commission (that investigated her at that same time),
• that Commission was dissolved through a duped public referendum on the initiative of a state senator, who is himself a former judge who ran from bench amid allegations of misconduct; and
• a supposedly newer, more independent, cleaner Judicial Qualifications Commission was put in place,

it was headed by Benjamin Easterlin

who was a member of the previous, now disbanded, Commission from 2002 to 2010.

While Easterlin has reportedly retired as of February 1, 2017 from his previous employment, the law firm of King & Spalding, he still lists himself as working there on his LinkedIn profile as of today:

Meanwhile, King & Spalding employs an attorney Jenni L. Weaver who bears a striking resemblance to Judge Brenda Weaver:

Intellius search claims that Jenni L Weaver has a relative by the name of Brenda Weaver:

Fannin County officials (where the whole saga took place about Judge Weaver fabricating criminal charges and jailing, with the help of judge's former law clerk-turned-prosecutor, a journalist and his attorney) confirmed, according to my sources, that Jenni L Weaver is Judge Brenda Weaver's daughter.

So, good luck expecting that the new, independent, transparent and reformed Judicial Qualifications Commission will now investigate all complaints pending at the time of disbandment of its predecessor - including the complaint against the #ThiefJudgeBrendaWeaver - instead of reciting the Mowgli pledge:

"We be of one blood, ye and I".

Remember how some people were trying to protect Judge Weaver and badmouth victims of her misconduct last year.

Nothing changed.

Judge Weaver is still in saddle, not charged, not by state authorities, not by the FBI, and certainly not disciplined.

The new Commission is now headed by Judge Weaver's former colleague of many years, and a recent employer of Judge Weaver's daughter.

So, the Mowgli pledge "We be of one blood, ye and I" is the beginning and the end of "protecting the public" from misconduct of licensed attorneys (judges included) in the State of Georgia.