This lawsuit (dismissed before it was served) is a rather amusing reading 4 years after it was dismissed.
Here is the text of the lawsuit.
It is about verification of various records pertaining to corruption in the judicial and attorney regulation (also judicial) system in New York courts.
Of course, the lawsuit was blocked.
In this case, I sued David Peebles (judge).
The case was dismissed - before defendant even appeared in it - by NDNY court (Chief Judge) in 2014.
My state law license was suspended in 2015 by state court
My federal law license was ALLEGEDLY suspended in 2015 - because there is no public docket of the case, yet, I am listed as suspended, and Judge Norman Mordue threw me out of a case and denied me attorney fees in 2016 for 3.5 years of successful litigation against CPS because I am allegedly suspended. Even though secret court dockets are unconstitutional and hiding court docket is considered grave misconduct and scandalous behavior for courts - but what legality means, after all, for those who call the shots?
Correct. Nothing.
For Judge Peebles - who presided over the case where he was a Defendant, "authored" a motion to recuse without mentioning that he was a defendant in the case, and then, in 2016, together with his colleague Judge Norman Mordue, changed a statute, 42 U.S.C. 1988, and stripped indigent civil rights plaintiff of any hope of ever obtaining a representation of a civil rights attorney - in order to retaliate against me and to deny me 3.5 years' worth of attorney fees in a successful litigation against CPS on behalf of three clients.
For Monica Duffy - sued in this case for concealing records, filed another record after the lawsuit was filed, and is concealing it until now.
For Judge Mae D'Agostino - was sued for participation in a secret organization, I sought by the lawsuit to verify her participation.
The lawsuit was dismissed.
In 2016, through a FOIL request, I verified her participation in yet another secret-membership organization, New York State-Federal Judicial Council.
To this day, the 2nd Circuit is denying me information as to other judges in that Council, and access to the records of their meetings. Since Mae D'Agostino (and other judges sued in this lawsuit) were deciding my lawsuits against judges, it was very relevant information that she did not disclose, that she may have been a member of a committee where, together with defendants appearing in front of her in a civil action, she was deciding that same civil action (fixing a court case).
And, in 2018, an attorney from California, Linda Shao, filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, filed a motion to recuse the entire U.S. Supreme Court (with the exception of its newest addition, Judge Neil Gorsuch), and went public and gave a videotaped interview to a journalist about disqualifying conflicts of interest of SCOTUS judges based on their participation in American Inns of Court and on sponsorship by AIC of their law clerks for annual all-expenses-paid month-long trips to England, while members of AIC appeared with cases in front of SCOTUS.
A good financial incentive for judges (law clerks who routinely write SCOTUS decisions instead of judges) to please attorneys appearing in front of SCOTUS, AIC members.
Disclosure of involvement of judges with American Inns of Court is what this "old wine" lawsuit was about.
And, of course, it was dismissed as "frivolous" - thrown out as a very, very, very dangerous thing.
Think about it - she wanted information that could show the true scope of judicial corruption in the country!
Now, access to such evidence can never be safe for a commoner.
And the commoner was denied access, and then punished.
Etc. etc. etc.
This "old wine lawsuit" makes for a very interesting reading 4 years down the road.
History is created before your own eyes.
It is like reading a manuscript.
It is like a good wine.
I guess, it will make for even more interesting reading some more years down the road.
Judges like writing memoirs and boasting after they retire - or when they give various interviews, or attorneys like to boast at times in various public settings.
Internet search is a wonderful invention to search for such records.
This lawsuit, like that old good wine, is waiting for its reinstatement based on new evidence.
And, this commoner has a lot of patience.
Funny though, how scared judges are that somebody, anybody, will access just LISTS.
Membership lists.
Of an organization that claims it exists to "promote excellency in the legal profession".
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Monday, March 26, 2018
The arrogant retired judge Richard Posner demeans pro se litigants and confirms that there is no federal appellate judicial review for pro ses in the U.S. - and that so it should remain
When a pro se appellant files an appeal in federal court - often with a hefty filing fee - the appellant expects a judicial review of the lower court's decision.
Little does the appellant know that no such review is to be given to him, for all his money - and especially when his filing fee is waived and when he is allowed to proceed as a poor pro se person.
The interesting part is that the judge, after 35 years on the federal bench, claimed that "most of pro se cases must fail".
And that - while supposedly advancing his new project, a law firm "protecting" pro se individuals from discrimination.
And that "judges aren't actually to read the pro se materials".
You know what THAT last statement means?
It means that if a pro se (without a lawyer) appellant files an appeal, with (or without) a filing fee in a federal appellate court, he expects a service from the court - that a JUDGE will read his materials and make a decision based on them.
But instead, the judge does not read his materials.
Instead, 1st-year law graduates, "staff attorneys", whose names do not appear on the court decision, who were never nominated by the U.S. President or confirmed by the U.S. Congress to decide judicial cases, are drafting judge's opinions and making "recommendations" as to how to decide each pro se case.
And, federal appellate judges actually do not see the original materials, but see only the chewed-up and filtered version provided to them by the youngsters.
Imagine - judges decide your appeals WITHOUT READING your arguments.
Imagine if, on a visit to a doctor, the nurse takes your pulse, vitals and some health history and then tells you that the doctor will not see you, but will rely upon the nurse's recommendations of how to diagnose you.
That is exactly what happens in federal courts - and Judge Posner, while "fighting" for the rights of pro se parties (while at the same time demeaning them by saying that most of their cases are meritless, and that they have a low IQ, just because they cannot afford an attorney and because they still try to gain a legal remedy for themselves on their own.
As to the "low IQ" of pro se litigants, the 7th Circuit supervising staff attorney quoted Richard Posner's recent book "Reforming
Here is a fuller quote:
"whenever a judicial panel denies relief other than by issuing an order or opinion after full briefing and oral argument, the order denying relief should include an explanation of the reason or reasons for the denial. The explanation should be supplemented either by the staff attorney’s initial recommendation to the panel or by a supplemental memo by the staff attorney intended to amplify the explanation for the decision. I say staff attorney rather than judge because many (though not all) federal appellate judges don’t have the patience, or even the insight, to communicate effectively with a person (the typical pro se litigant) who lacks a good educational background and a reasonably high IQ."
Posner, Richard. Reforming the Federal Judiciary: My Former Court Needs to Overhaul Its Staff Attorney Program and Begin Televising Its Oral Arguments (Kindle Locations 576-581). Kindle Edition.
This is a judge who "awoke from slumber" after 35 years of discriminating and demeaning the poor litigants, and is not demeans them by selling a book and by promoting his own law firm that is supposed to protect people the judge demeans from discrimination.
First, Posner's "recommendation" is that when judges decide pro se appeals without reading them, through the filter of 1st-year law graduates, staff attorneys, that judges do not even have to provide an explanation of their decision to the appellant, but should simply attach a "recommendation by the staff attorney" why the decision BY THE JUDGE was made the way it was made. So, the 1st year law graduate know better why a judge decided the case this or that way, after all, the judge's signature on the youngster's draft of the order is just a formality - not the judge, but the youngster read the appeal and decided it by drafting the order.
Second, Posner equates lack of money to hire an attorney - which is the characteristic of most of Americans - with lack of educational background and low IQ.
Imagine the arrogance.
Only a law degree equates to a proper "educational background".
If you do not have 3 years of half-baked courses consisting of reading US Supreme Court cases and listening to a law professor putting your classmates and yourself on the spot with the so-called "Socratic method" of teaching, questions and answers, you cannot be deemed educated - or of an appropriate IQ,
The judge does not obviously care that it is these "low-IQ" people who hired him as a judge and paid his salary for 35 years out of their taxes.
To equate low IQ with a lack of law degree is a special level of arrogance.
Recently, a Penn Law professor was ousted of mandatory 1st year programs for stating that African American law students never graduated in the top quarter of their class - and that was done without publishing statistics that would rebut the professor's statement.
In other words, the public outcry was because of the perceived presumption by a law professor that African Americans are less clever than non-African American law students.
There is no public outcry as to what retired Judge Posner said though - even what he said, and in the context of the circumstances, of his own background, what he said was no less offensive.
Judge Posner has been regulating the absolute attorney monopoly for court representation for 35 years as a judge.
The 7th Circuit has its own "bar" that Judge Posner regulated - as a legislator, investigator, prosecutor and adjudicator all wrapped in one.
That attorney monopoly CREATED the situation where the majority of Americans cannot afford an attorney, and produced, of necessity, the numbers of pro se litigants and pro se appeals.
Moreover, Judge Posner is part of the problem also in that his court repeatedly sustained chilling sanctions against civil rights attorneys for brining novel constitutional arguments, as it is happening across the country, sanctions that intimidated such attorneys from representation of victims of constitutional violations in civil rights cases, forcing people into a "choice" - to represent themselves in court, or to give up on even a possibility of a legal remedy.
Having caused the crisis of access to justice, Judge Posner has the audacity to now say that those people who STILL, against all odds, had the courage and determination to pursue their legal remedies in court without an attorney who they either cannot afford or who is intimidated by the prospect of sanctions for representing such people, simply for raising novel constitutional arguments in court, those people are either lack educational background or are dumb (have low IQ).
You do not have a law degree and a law license, you are "unrich" and cannot afford to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to an attorney = you lack educational background and you have a low IQ, (c) Richard Posner.
And, you are not even entitled to have a judge read your appellate documents. A fresh law graduate, a privileged kid without any life experience, a staff attorney, will be enough of a "judicial review" for you - and the "fighter for pro se rights" Judge Richard Posner insists that it should remain this way, judges should not read pro se appeals. After all, they are mostly meritless, and written by poorly educated and low-IQ people.
You may be a Stephen Hawking, but, without a law degree, you are still a dummy for Richard Posner.
For Richard Posner,
So, if you cannot afford to pay thousands of dollars to an attorney, you are "lower down on the social scale" for Richard Posner - or other federal judges, and because you are a second-rate appellant, Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment or not, you will be provided a second-rate justice, you will not get a judge to read your "pro se materials", you will not get a judge to decide your "pro se materials" and you will not get a judge to even explain those "pro se materials", the youngsters whose names you will never know will do that for the judges, as a courtesy to them - to save them the unsavory task of dealing with you, your "lower social scale", "lower educational background" and "lower IQ".
I do not see outrage in the media about this blatant deprivation of masses of Americans of legal remedy by courts, where judges are both regulators of lawyers and licensed lawyers themselves, of a statutory right to appeal because they cannot afford to hire a member of the judge's own profession.
That is some sort of punishment.
You can afford to pay for the member of my profession - I will read you appeal and decide it myself.
You cannot afford to pay for the member of my profession - I will diagnose you and order your treatment without seeing you, just upon what the nurse tells me to do.
I wonder whether we need such arrogant "public servants" who establish such arrogant and discriminatory "rules".
And, as to Posner himself, with such "friends" as Posner, with his brazen elitist down-his-nose views of any non-lawyers, and especially of the indigent and pro se litigants he claims he is "fighting for" now (to sell more of his books and to remain in the spotlight), pro se litigants in federal courts do not need enemies.
Little does the appellant know that no such review is to be given to him, for all his money - and especially when his filing fee is waived and when he is allowed to proceed as a poor pro se person.
The interesting part is that the judge, after 35 years on the federal bench, claimed that "most of pro se cases must fail".
And that - while supposedly advancing his new project, a law firm "protecting" pro se individuals from discrimination.
You know what THAT last statement means?
It means that if a pro se (without a lawyer) appellant files an appeal, with (or without) a filing fee in a federal appellate court, he expects a service from the court - that a JUDGE will read his materials and make a decision based on them.
But instead, the judge does not read his materials.
Instead, 1st-year law graduates, "staff attorneys", whose names do not appear on the court decision, who were never nominated by the U.S. President or confirmed by the U.S. Congress to decide judicial cases, are drafting judge's opinions and making "recommendations" as to how to decide each pro se case.
And, federal appellate judges actually do not see the original materials, but see only the chewed-up and filtered version provided to them by the youngsters.
Imagine - judges decide your appeals WITHOUT READING your arguments.
Imagine if, on a visit to a doctor, the nurse takes your pulse, vitals and some health history and then tells you that the doctor will not see you, but will rely upon the nurse's recommendations of how to diagnose you.
That is exactly what happens in federal courts - and Judge Posner, while "fighting" for the rights of pro se parties (while at the same time demeaning them by saying that most of their cases are meritless, and that they have a low IQ, just because they cannot afford an attorney and because they still try to gain a legal remedy for themselves on their own.
As to the "low IQ" of pro se litigants, the 7th Circuit supervising staff attorney quoted Richard Posner's recent book "Reforming
Here is a fuller quote:
"whenever a judicial panel denies relief other than by issuing an order or opinion after full briefing and oral argument, the order denying relief should include an explanation of the reason or reasons for the denial. The explanation should be supplemented either by the staff attorney’s initial recommendation to the panel or by a supplemental memo by the staff attorney intended to amplify the explanation for the decision. I say staff attorney rather than judge because many (though not all) federal appellate judges don’t have the patience, or even the insight, to communicate effectively with a person (the typical pro se litigant) who lacks a good educational background and a reasonably high IQ."
Posner, Richard. Reforming the Federal Judiciary: My Former Court Needs to Overhaul Its Staff Attorney Program and Begin Televising Its Oral Arguments (Kindle Locations 576-581). Kindle Edition.
This is a judge who "awoke from slumber" after 35 years of discriminating and demeaning the poor litigants, and is not demeans them by selling a book and by promoting his own law firm that is supposed to protect people the judge demeans from discrimination.
First, Posner's "recommendation" is that when judges decide pro se appeals without reading them, through the filter of 1st-year law graduates, staff attorneys, that judges do not even have to provide an explanation of their decision to the appellant, but should simply attach a "recommendation by the staff attorney" why the decision BY THE JUDGE was made the way it was made. So, the 1st year law graduate know better why a judge decided the case this or that way, after all, the judge's signature on the youngster's draft of the order is just a formality - not the judge, but the youngster read the appeal and decided it by drafting the order.
Second, Posner equates lack of money to hire an attorney - which is the characteristic of most of Americans - with lack of educational background and low IQ.
Imagine the arrogance.
Only a law degree equates to a proper "educational background".
If you do not have 3 years of half-baked courses consisting of reading US Supreme Court cases and listening to a law professor putting your classmates and yourself on the spot with the so-called "Socratic method" of teaching, questions and answers, you cannot be deemed educated - or of an appropriate IQ,
The judge does not obviously care that it is these "low-IQ" people who hired him as a judge and paid his salary for 35 years out of their taxes.
To equate low IQ with a lack of law degree is a special level of arrogance.
Recently, a Penn Law professor was ousted of mandatory 1st year programs for stating that African American law students never graduated in the top quarter of their class - and that was done without publishing statistics that would rebut the professor's statement.
In other words, the public outcry was because of the perceived presumption by a law professor that African Americans are less clever than non-African American law students.
There is no public outcry as to what retired Judge Posner said though - even what he said, and in the context of the circumstances, of his own background, what he said was no less offensive.
Judge Posner has been regulating the absolute attorney monopoly for court representation for 35 years as a judge.
The 7th Circuit has its own "bar" that Judge Posner regulated - as a legislator, investigator, prosecutor and adjudicator all wrapped in one.
That attorney monopoly CREATED the situation where the majority of Americans cannot afford an attorney, and produced, of necessity, the numbers of pro se litigants and pro se appeals.
Moreover, Judge Posner is part of the problem also in that his court repeatedly sustained chilling sanctions against civil rights attorneys for brining novel constitutional arguments, as it is happening across the country, sanctions that intimidated such attorneys from representation of victims of constitutional violations in civil rights cases, forcing people into a "choice" - to represent themselves in court, or to give up on even a possibility of a legal remedy.
Having caused the crisis of access to justice, Judge Posner has the audacity to now say that those people who STILL, against all odds, had the courage and determination to pursue their legal remedies in court without an attorney who they either cannot afford or who is intimidated by the prospect of sanctions for representing such people, simply for raising novel constitutional arguments in court, those people are either lack educational background or are dumb (have low IQ).
You do not have a law degree and a law license, you are "unrich" and cannot afford to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to an attorney = you lack educational background and you have a low IQ, (c) Richard Posner.
And, you are not even entitled to have a judge read your appellate documents. A fresh law graduate, a privileged kid without any life experience, a staff attorney, will be enough of a "judicial review" for you - and the "fighter for pro se rights" Judge Richard Posner insists that it should remain this way, judges should not read pro se appeals. After all, they are mostly meritless, and written by poorly educated and low-IQ people.
You may be a Stephen Hawking, but, without a law degree, you are still a dummy for Richard Posner.
For Richard Posner,
So, if you cannot afford to pay thousands of dollars to an attorney, you are "lower down on the social scale" for Richard Posner - or other federal judges, and because you are a second-rate appellant, Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment or not, you will be provided a second-rate justice, you will not get a judge to read your "pro se materials", you will not get a judge to decide your "pro se materials" and you will not get a judge to even explain those "pro se materials", the youngsters whose names you will never know will do that for the judges, as a courtesy to them - to save them the unsavory task of dealing with you, your "lower social scale", "lower educational background" and "lower IQ".
I do not see outrage in the media about this blatant deprivation of masses of Americans of legal remedy by courts, where judges are both regulators of lawyers and licensed lawyers themselves, of a statutory right to appeal because they cannot afford to hire a member of the judge's own profession.
That is some sort of punishment.
You can afford to pay for the member of my profession - I will read you appeal and decide it myself.
You cannot afford to pay for the member of my profession - I will diagnose you and order your treatment without seeing you, just upon what the nurse tells me to do.
I wonder whether we need such arrogant "public servants" who establish such arrogant and discriminatory "rules".
And, as to Posner himself, with such "friends" as Posner, with his brazen elitist down-his-nose views of any non-lawyers, and especially of the indigent and pro se litigants he claims he is "fighting for" now (to sell more of his books and to remain in the spotlight), pro se litigants in federal courts do not need enemies.
Retired Judge Richard Posner's interview: only 1% of criminal cases in federal courts are tried
In early March of this year, a large interview was published with the retired federal appellate judge Richard Posner.
The interview contains so many interesting (including outrageous) revelations that it is worth dedicating it a whole series of blog articles.
I will start with statistics of trials in criminal cases in federal courts that retired Judge Posner revealed - only after he stepped off the bench, of course.
It is 1%.
The interview contains so many interesting (including outrageous) revelations that it is worth dedicating it a whole series of blog articles.
I will start with statistics of trials in criminal cases in federal courts that retired Judge Posner revealed - only after he stepped off the bench, of course.
It is 1%.
99% of people locked up in federal prisons are put there without any trial and without any verification of their guilt or innocence - simply by browbeating people to plead guilty and accept some prison time to avoid the threat of more prison time if they go to trial and lose, which is a given if the quality of legal defense to the indigent is taken into consideration.
So, wrongful convictions are fabricated en masse by threats that were made possible because of maximum sentences in the mandatory sentencing guidelines introduced under the "democratic" President Bill Clinton. To say that we have just narrowly avoided another 1 or 2 Clinton terms, and people were crying in the streets about it and some cannot stop crying until now.
About the masochistic nation that loves to dance on rakes and loves punishment. A 230-year-old warning of the King-like powers of the U.S. Supreme Court
About the power of the U.S. Supreme Court - a piece from the "Founders' Constitution" published in 1788.
"I do not object to the judges holding their commissions during good behaviour. I suppose it a proper provision provided they were made properly responsible. But I say, this system has followed the English government in this, while it has departed from almost every other principle of their jurisprudence, under the idea, of rendering the judges independent; which, in the British constitution, means no more than that they hold their places during good behaviour, and have fixed salaries, they have made the judges independent, in the fullest sense of the word. There is no power above them, to controul any of their decisions. There is no authority that can remove them, and they cannot be controuled by the laws of the legislature. In short, they are independent of the people, of the legislature, and of every power under heaven. Men placed in this situation will generally soon feel themselves independent of heaven itself."
"I do not object to the judges holding their commissions during good behaviour. I suppose it a proper provision provided they were made properly responsible. But I say, this system has followed the English government in this, while it has departed from almost every other principle of their jurisprudence, under the idea, of rendering the judges independent; which, in the British constitution, means no more than that they hold their places during good behaviour, and have fixed salaries, they have made the judges independent, in the fullest sense of the word. There is no power above them, to controul any of their decisions. There is no authority that can remove them, and they cannot be controuled by the laws of the legislature. In short, they are independent of the people, of the legislature, and of every power under heaven. Men placed in this situation will generally soon feel themselves independent of heaven itself."
230 years down the road, as it is described in detail in this book, published in 2016, judges exercise the exact power described in the Brutus in March of 1788 - and refuse to recuse from cases when an Act of Congress requires them to do so, because it is inconvenient for them to follow an Act of Congress, and because nobody can control their disregard of the law.
Not only the nation dances on rakes, but it loves its own punishment - as shown by the worship of the "notorious RGB" who notoriously defies any restriction of legal ethics on her behavior as a judge, including
Look at the number of "likes", "loves", comments (mostly worshipping) and shares of this image.
And all that worship of people trampling the U.S. Constitution is done in the name of loving the U.S. Constitution.
That's what Brutus could not foresee 230 years ago - that people will love for their rights to be taken away from them and will worship violators of the U.S. Constitution.
If that is so, we do not need a Constitution.
Not only the nation dances on rakes, but it loves its own punishment - as shown by the worship of the "notorious RGB" who notoriously defies any restriction of legal ethics on her behavior as a judge, including
- fixing court cases against parties she hates,
- refusing to recuse from cases of parties whose cases in courts below she fixed and who she publicly blasted and expressed hatred about, not to mention
- accepting money from foreign nations and
- selling shirts with the judge's own image while expressing how she misses the previous U.S. President while presiding over the litigation against the current U.S. President - whom she openly and publicly hates, to the point of "choosing" her speaking addresses in such a way that the media would have an opportunity to harass the President's child.
Look at the number of "likes", "loves", comments (mostly worshipping) and shares of this image.
And all that worship of people trampling the U.S. Constitution is done in the name of loving the U.S. Constitution.
That's what Brutus could not foresee 230 years ago - that people will love for their rights to be taken away from them and will worship violators of the U.S. Constitution.
If that is so, we do not need a Constitution.
Sunday, March 18, 2018
Published the first book on defense of parents in child abuse and neglect cases in New York Family Courts
I have finally published today the first of the books I have been working on for a long time - the beginning of the series "Defense of parents in child neglect and abuse proceedings in Family Court in New York".
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Update as of March 25, 2018: Amazon.com listed the book as a "#1 new release in Parent/Juvenile Family Law"
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Update as of March 25, 2018: Amazon.com listed the book as a "#1 new release in Parent/Juvenile Family Law"
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Here is the cover of the book, it is available right now in both the Kindle (electronic) format, and in a paper format on Amazon.com.
Here is the cover of the book, it is available right now in both the Kindle (electronic) format, and in a paper format on Amazon.com.
As far as I know, there are no other books available on the issue of trial advocacy on behalf of parents in child neglect and abuse cases at all, and in such cases in New York Family Courts in particular.
This subject is not taught in law schools and is not tested on bar examinations, so there is no guarantee for the parent, if the parent either hires an attorney or has an attorney assigned to him in court, that the attorney actually knows this area of law - because attorneys usually learn this law by either self-teaching or being mentored by other attorneys.
This first book of the planned series is dedicated to the subject that causes the most number of fatal mistakes made by parents at the very beginning of CPS investigation, before any court case is filed and before any attorney gets into the picture - the mistake of believing the CPS that the case is "civil" in nature, that no criminal investigation is done at the same time as the CPS investigation in every single case.
Believing CPS (and police who often comes with CPS to the parent's home), parents talk to CPS, open their homes for their searches, and sign any number of papers driven by fear that otherwise the parent will lose his child.
The book provides an overview of statutes showing that proceedings in Family Court may be constitutionally characterized as criminal in nature; and, even if courts resist that characterization, provides techniques of proving to the Family Court, in the event the parent is called to testify against himself, which CPS often do, that the parent is entitled to the 5th Amendment protection, not to testify and not to be subject to contempt of court for refusing to testify.
The book has an extensive case study, with an analysis of constitutionality of court decisions, as well as with an analysis of mistakes that have caused the drastic consequences for the parent.
While the electronic format of the book does not allow a lot of latitude in providing lists of authorities, the table of authorities is included in the paper version of the book.
Buyers of the paper version of the book are allowed to get the electronic version of the book at a deep discount.
Buyers of the paper version of the book are allowed to get the electronic version of the book at a deep discount.
While the electronic version may be convenient to take with you on our phone or tablet without showing what you are reading, a paper book can be conveniently used by parents, law students and attorneys working in this area of law because of the listing of all legal authorities.
Statutes in this area of law are written in a deliberately confusing, convoluted way, and attorneys with large caseloads often do not have time to do the kind of research that was presented in this book.
The book contains a section explaining how to transform texts of New York statutes into a readable format to make them more understandable. Examples of such transformations, and what such a transformation does to improve understanding of such statutes is provided.
The book contains constitutional analysis on important issues relevant to the topic of the book, criminal aspects of "civil" child neglect and abuse proceedings in New York Family Courts, including but not limited to:
- analysis of what makes a court proceeding civil or criminal in nature, from a constitutional standpoint;
- analysis of several contempt and contempt-like statute that may be used against parents by Family Courts in order to put parents in jail for "non-compliance" with various court orders, a detailed analysis, based on mandatory precedents, of constitutionality of such statutes, and of constitutionality of Family Court practices in application of such statutes;
- verification what makes a contempt proceeding civil or criminal in nature, what is the difference in mandatory constitutional procedure, and how Family Courts often confuse or misuse criminal-in-nature contempt statutes under the guise of civil proceedings;
- constitutional issues involved in forced "evaluations";
- constitutional issues involved in forced drug-and-alcohol testing;
- constitutional issues involved in court orders giving social services a blanket authority to "supervise" parents and to order them to undergo any "evaluations" and tests at all, and procedures required by the Family Court Act and by the U.S. Constitution to be followed by courts to issue such orders;
- constitutional issues involved in branding parents "sex offenders" where they were never convicted (and often were never even charged) for a sex offense, the New York State policy of such branding that comes with a requirement to separate the so-branded parent from his children;
- constitutional issues of punishing parents for inability to pay for evaluations, or for asserting their true legal status as a non-sex offender;
- constitutional issues of punishing parents for any type of "noncompliance" by separating them from their children, or by threats of such separations;
- constitutional issues involved in forced speech of parents during the "civil" Family Court child abuse or neglect proceedings - in court-ordered evaluations and in forced testimony of parents, when they are called to testify against themselves at trial;
- constitutional issues involved in presence of criminal prosecutors in Family Court proceedings and of their access to record of such proceedings and of the central state child maltreatment register;
- constitutional issues and procedures related to three types of searches in Family Court - of the parent's home, body and mind.
I hope that the book will be helpful, as a textbook and a reference in this sensitive and difficult area of law.
Thursday, March 15, 2018
A judge is allowed to torture a defendant in open court with electric shock without consequences for the judge - and is taught by the appellate court how to punish the defendant for suing the judge and making a motion to recuse again, and in a way that the appellate court will accept
I have written a lot on this blog about retaliation by the judiciary against anybody who dares to even try to ensure in any court proceeding a litigant's federal constitutional right to an impartial judicial review.
Parties and their attorneys are sanctioned, attorneys are suspended or disbarred, in May of 2016 in the State of Nevada, a public defender was handcuffed, and in October of 2016 in federal court in the State of Oregon, an attorney who was making a legal argument on behalf of his client was
But, all of that was outdone by a Texas judge - still on the bench - George Gallagher.
After he was sued by a criminal defendant in federal court:
"Morris contends the trial court abused its discretion in denying his counsel's motion to withdraw based on a conflict of interest, as Morris had filed a lawsuit against his counsel in federal court"; "[w]hen Morris continued to speak and mentioned his motion to recuse and federal lawsuit against the trial judge, the trial judge asked his bailiff to intervene by activating the stun belt attached to Morris' leg" (by the way, the lawsuit was hidden from public view, and is not accessible on Pacer, I checked),
Judge Gallagher obviously devised a very interesting point of retaliation against the presumed-innocent criminal defendant.
First, he refused to allow the defendant's attorney, a public defender, to withdraw - because the defendant was suing his own attorney, too.
That created an interesting situation: the defendant was "represented by counsel", and for that reason, only his counsel (who the defendant was suing, and who was, thus, angry at the defendant and unwilling to do his job for the defendant) could make any motions, including motions to recuse.
And, of course, the public defender was not making any such motions. The court cannot even accept for filing written motions from represented parties filing pro se.
Which, as the judge correctly predicted, provoked the defendant to make such a motion, for lack of other opportunity, right during the trial, in open court.
And boy was Judge George Gallagher prepared for that occasion.
Criminal defendant - kept in pretrial detention - was not allowed to take a shower properly, which caused his DEFENDER, his own attorney, to make a speech in front of the jury IN HIS DEFENSE pointing out that his client smells badly. That's some defender...
Yet, while not being allowed to follow minimum sanitary norms - which could be done intentionally, to incite the jury against the "smelly" defendant, and the defendant's own attorney (sued by the defendant and who the judge refused to allow to withdraw) made sure the jury would notice - the local Sheriff had enough time to follow George Gallagher ILLEGAL order (not following the preliminary required procedure) and to outfit the defendant for trial with a 50 000 Volt electric shocker-belt.
And, during the trial, when the defendant tried to preserve his right to impartial judicial review - and to preserve the issue of judicial bias on appeal - the judge gave repeated orders to the court attendant to torture the defendant with electric shocks. 50 000 volts each time.
And the court attendant did so - in front of multiple witnesses who, including the defendant's own attorney, did NOTHING to stop the torture.
After the torture, the judge was not arrested.
Instead, he was allowed to continue with the trial - in the defendant's absence.
And, if you think the defendant was given medical assistance after torture - you will be mistaken.
He was taken to a "holding cell".
And, if you think the judge stopped the trial to allow the defendant to regain his health and ability to "assist" his attorney (whom he was suing) in his defense, you are mistaken, too.
Judge Gallagher proceeded with the trial right away, in the defendant's absence.
Of course, by the time of sentencing, the judge magnanimously sent a court attendant to ask whether the defendant wanted to appear in court.
And, when the defendant told the court attendant that he is fearing further torture, the court attendant gave the defendant a fatherly advice - just do not "run your mouth against the judge" (read: "do not make any more motions to recuse, or any other legal arguments that your attorney who you are suing is not willing to make on your behalf"), and everything will be hunky-dory.
Well, the defendant, for some inexplicable reason, still continued to fear the torture and did not come for the sentencing.
And, the judge considered that "failure to come to the courtroom" to be "voluntary", and continued with the sentencing stage.
Where the defendant's attorney (who the defendant sued and who the judge refused to allow to withdraw) said the following to the jury in his closing speech:
"You may not like Terry Morris. I don't like him. Kind of rude. Smells bad, you know."
Our three ladies of the Texas Appellate Court, of course, outdid the New York State's 3rd Department appellate court - after all, Cristian Hummel did not use electric shocks on attorneys or parties for making motions to recuse (at least, not just yet).
Let's go over the instruction to Judge Gallagher as to what to do on remand from the Texas Appellate Court once again:
"We agree with the State that the trial court was within its power to order Morris removed from the courtroom for his conduct; disrespect of the court, talking out of turn, and disrupting proceedings are recognized as valid reasons to exclude a defendant from proceedings (and had that been the only thing the trial court did in the lead up to Morris' removal, this case would be an easy affirmance)".
A new rule, therefore, emerges in Texas:
a criminal defendant can be denied effective assistance of counsel by being forced to accept an attorney who the defendant is SUING - and will have absolutely no recourse, because if such defendant dares to make motions to recuse in open court,
"the trial court [will be] within its powers to order [such defendant] removed from the courtroom for his conduct; disrespect of the court, talking out of turn, and disrupting proceedings".
Do not disrupt proceedings with your silly constitutional arguments - that's the new rule.
And, by the way, the court pointed out a very interesting thing, indicating why the appellate court did not overrule Judge Gallagher's refusal to grant the defendant's request to remove the defense attorney who he was suing:
"The State asserts that any error the trial court made in shocking Morris three times for his disobedience and disrespect of the trial court was waived by Morris' failure to object, both at the time he was fitted for the stun belt and each time the trial court electrocuted him."
Consider the morality of a prosecutor - who, as the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in Berger v United States in 1935,
First, the judiciary holds in their hands the law license and livelihood of each state prosecutor.
Parties and their attorneys are sanctioned, attorneys are suspended or disbarred, in May of 2016 in the State of Nevada, a public defender was handcuffed, and in October of 2016 in federal court in the State of Oregon, an attorney who was making a legal argument on behalf of his client was
- physically tackled by 9 U.S. marshals;
- tasered;
- handcuffed;
- arrested;
- taken into custody; and
- charged with contempt of court.
But, all of that was outdone by a Texas judge - still on the bench - George Gallagher.
After he was sued by a criminal defendant in federal court:
"Morris contends the trial court abused its discretion in denying his counsel's motion to withdraw based on a conflict of interest, as Morris had filed a lawsuit against his counsel in federal court"; "[w]hen Morris continued to speak and mentioned his motion to recuse and federal lawsuit against the trial judge, the trial judge asked his bailiff to intervene by activating the stun belt attached to Morris' leg" (by the way, the lawsuit was hidden from public view, and is not accessible on Pacer, I checked),
Judge Gallagher obviously devised a very interesting point of retaliation against the presumed-innocent criminal defendant.
First, he refused to allow the defendant's attorney, a public defender, to withdraw - because the defendant was suing his own attorney, too.
That created an interesting situation: the defendant was "represented by counsel", and for that reason, only his counsel (who the defendant was suing, and who was, thus, angry at the defendant and unwilling to do his job for the defendant) could make any motions, including motions to recuse.
And, of course, the public defender was not making any such motions. The court cannot even accept for filing written motions from represented parties filing pro se.
Which, as the judge correctly predicted, provoked the defendant to make such a motion, for lack of other opportunity, right during the trial, in open court.
And boy was Judge George Gallagher prepared for that occasion.
Criminal defendant - kept in pretrial detention - was not allowed to take a shower properly, which caused his DEFENDER, his own attorney, to make a speech in front of the jury IN HIS DEFENSE pointing out that his client smells badly. That's some defender...
Yet, while not being allowed to follow minimum sanitary norms - which could be done intentionally, to incite the jury against the "smelly" defendant, and the defendant's own attorney (sued by the defendant and who the judge refused to allow to withdraw) made sure the jury would notice - the local Sheriff had enough time to follow George Gallagher ILLEGAL order (not following the preliminary required procedure) and to outfit the defendant for trial with a 50 000 Volt electric shocker-belt.
And, during the trial, when the defendant tried to preserve his right to impartial judicial review - and to preserve the issue of judicial bias on appeal - the judge gave repeated orders to the court attendant to torture the defendant with electric shocks. 50 000 volts each time.
And the court attendant did so - in front of multiple witnesses who, including the defendant's own attorney, did NOTHING to stop the torture.
After the torture, the judge was not arrested.
Instead, he was allowed to continue with the trial - in the defendant's absence.
And, if you think the defendant was given medical assistance after torture - you will be mistaken.
He was taken to a "holding cell".
And, if you think the judge stopped the trial to allow the defendant to regain his health and ability to "assist" his attorney (whom he was suing) in his defense, you are mistaken, too.
Judge Gallagher proceeded with the trial right away, in the defendant's absence.
Of course, by the time of sentencing, the judge magnanimously sent a court attendant to ask whether the defendant wanted to appear in court.
And, when the defendant told the court attendant that he is fearing further torture, the court attendant gave the defendant a fatherly advice - just do not "run your mouth against the judge" (read: "do not make any more motions to recuse, or any other legal arguments that your attorney who you are suing is not willing to make on your behalf"), and everything will be hunky-dory.
Well, the defendant, for some inexplicable reason, still continued to fear the torture and did not come for the sentencing.
And, the judge considered that "failure to come to the courtroom" to be "voluntary", and continued with the sentencing stage.
Where the defendant's attorney (who the defendant sued and who the judge refused to allow to withdraw) said the following to the jury in his closing speech:
"You may not like Terry Morris. I don't like him. Kind of rude. Smells bad, you know."
That's SOME defender!
He did not have a voice to make a motion to recuse on behalf of his client.
He did not have a voice to refuse to proceed to trial while he was sued by his own client.
He did not have a voice to protest his client being tortured in open court for making legal arguments.
He did not have a voice to protest his client not being given medical assistance after torture.
He did not make a motion to recuse the judge BECAUSE he tortured his clients.
He did not make a motion to recuse the judge and did not protest for the order that the trial should proceed in the defendant's presence, while the defendant was JUST tortured and needed long, long time to recover before he could reasonably be ready to stand trial.
But, he somehow found his voice, in his client's absence, behind his back, to say that:
- the attorney did not like his own client (likely, for suing the attorney);
- that the client was rude, and
- that the client smelled bad.
That was a "defense", in a case that has sent the man to prison for 60 years.
But, the glory of this case is not even the well-groomed torturer #JudgeGeorgeGallagher
who still holds his law license and is still on the bench.
These three good-looking and obviously smart women did not put ONE SINGLE WORD into the case - while reversing it because of "egregious" conduct of the judge that the judge was BIASED and should not hear the case again, on remand.
In fact, they not only sent the case back to the torturer judge (and to the attorney who hates his client and was already instrumental to intentionally obtain a 60-year sentence for him), but they practically TAUGHT Judge George Gallagher how to punish the defendant who dared to sue the judge in federal court - so that the punishment would stick and not be reversed on appeal:
"We agree with the State that the trial court was within its power to order Morris removed from the courtroom for his conduct; disrespect of the court, talking out of turn, and disrupting proceedings are recognized as valid reasons to exclude a defendant from proceedings (and had that been the only thing the trial court did in the lead up to Morris' removal, this case would be an easy affirmance)".
That's what the New York 3rd Department court did in 2006.
It remanded a case where a judge punished an attorney for making a motion to recuse incorrectly (instead of simply dismissing the self-serving sanctions of the judge), to the same judge, with an instruction for the then-Rensellaer County Judge Cristian Hummel (who was also not arrested for the federal crime, 18 U.S.C. 242, violation of constitutional rights, 1st Amendment retaliation, and who instead was promoted to become a federal magistrate in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York) how to punish an attorney better on remand.
And boy, did Judge Cristian Hummel do that - see the transcript of a hearing of that galore of punishment where Judge Cristian Hummel acted as a "victim", unsworn witness, accuser, prosecutor and adjudicator - he even marked his own exhibits instead of the court clerk.
Let's go over the instruction to Judge Gallagher as to what to do on remand from the Texas Appellate Court once again:
"We agree with the State that the trial court was within its power to order Morris removed from the courtroom for his conduct; disrespect of the court, talking out of turn, and disrupting proceedings are recognized as valid reasons to exclude a defendant from proceedings (and had that been the only thing the trial court did in the lead up to Morris' removal, this case would be an easy affirmance)".
A new rule, therefore, emerges in Texas:
a criminal defendant can be denied effective assistance of counsel by being forced to accept an attorney who the defendant is SUING - and will have absolutely no recourse, because if such defendant dares to make motions to recuse in open court,
"the trial court [will be] within its powers to order [such defendant] removed from the courtroom for his conduct; disrespect of the court, talking out of turn, and disrupting proceedings".
Do not disrupt proceedings with your silly constitutional arguments - that's the new rule.
And, by the way, the court pointed out a very interesting thing, indicating why the appellate court did not overrule Judge Gallagher's refusal to grant the defendant's request to remove the defense attorney who he was suing:
"The State asserts that any error the trial court made in shocking Morris three times for his disobedience and disrespect of the trial court was waived by Morris' failure to object, both at the time he was fitted for the stun belt and each time the trial court electrocuted him."
Consider the morality of a prosecutor - who, as the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in Berger v United States in 1935,
"is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the two-fold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor -- indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one".
With that dual obligation in mind, let's reread what prosecution in that case said - and the prosecutor was ALSO not disqualified from this case for bias by the Texas appellate court:
"The State asserts that any error the trial court made in shocking Morris three times for his disobedience and disrespect of the trial court was waived by Morris' failure to object, both at the time he was fitted for the stun belt and each time the trial court electrocuted him."
The logic is:
the defendant waived his "objections to being tortured" with 50 000 shocks, and thus objections to judicial bias - because his COUNSEL (who defendant was suing and who the judge refused to remove from the case and who gladly remained on the case to be able to retaliate against his own client for suing him and to tell the jury that his own attorney did not like the defendant, that the defendant was "rude" and "smells bad") did not make objections on his behalf.
So, the case is going back:
- to the same judge;
- the same prosecutor; and
- the same criminal defense attorney
with instructions how to DO THE SAME THING to the defendant - deprive him of a fair trial, including by throwing him out of court and conducting a criminal trial in his absence, BECAUSE HE TRIES TO DO A JOB ON HIS OWN BEHALF THAT HIS CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY INTENTIONALLY DOES NOT WANT TO DO - only without torture.
That's some rule of law.
Impeachment, disbarment and criminal charges against George Gallagher are clearly in order, as well as impeachment and criminal charges under 18 U.S.C. 242 (violation of civil rights) against:
Texas appellate judges:
- #AnnCrawfordMcClure;
- #YvonneTRodriguez;
- #GinaMPalafox -
and against all prosecutors who handled this case.
Proceeding to trial after the defendant was tortured, in his absence, and, especially, making arguments on appeal that the defendants "waived objections to torture" because his attorney (sued by defendant) stood there and did not say a word, relishing in the torture of his client - is an all-time low that should garner these prosecutors a disbarment.
And, my question to the Texas judicial disciplinary authorities, Texas state criminal prosecutors, and federal criminal prosecutors:
what else do you need to charge Judge Gallagher with multiple assault charges in addition to these statements from the court case:
"[w]hen Morris continued to speak and mentioned his motion to recuse and federal lawsuit against the trial judge, the trial judge asked his bailiff to intervene by activating the stun belt attached to Morris' leg";
"THE DEFENDANT: Sir, that's beside the point. There's serious allegations that I have in the United States District Court against this man. No one wants to be represented by someone they have a lawsuit against. No one wants a judge to preside over their case who the lawsuit is against. No one wants to be tortured because they're an MHMR defendant prevented from saying anything in the Court in front of the jury pertaining to any such cases such as the grand jury –
THE COURT: Mr. Morris, are you going to answer my question?
THE DEFENDANT: I've asked you, I've filed a motion asking --
THE COURT: Would you hit him again.
(Deputy complies)
THE DEFENDANT: -- to recuse yourself from the Bench off my case.
After electrocuting Morris a third time, the trial court again asked Morris whether he would be obedient. When Morris did not answer with a “yes” or “no,” the trial court had Morris physically removed from the courtroom".
Oh, I completely forgot - criminal prosecutors, those with a constitutional "dual role" to be fair to the defendant - will never charge Judge Gallagher.
First, the judiciary holds in their hands the law license and livelihood of each state prosecutor.
And, second, a prosecutor will never shoot himself in the foot by filing criminal charges against the judge who tortured the defendant and gave a victory, no matter how unfair - to that same prosecutor.
The "obedience" part:
After electrocuting Morris a third time, the trial court again asked Morris whether he would be obedient. When Morris did not answer with a “yes” or “no,” the trial court had Morris physically removed from the courtroom"
was sustained on appeal - where the appellate court said that, but for the torture, the judge was absolutely correct for removing a criminal defendant for insisting on his right to a fair trial, an attorney without a conflict of interest and a judge without a conflict of interest:
"We agree with the State that the trial court was within its power to order Morris removed from the courtroom for his conduct; disrespect of the court, talking out of turn, and disrupting proceedings are recognized as valid reasons to exclude a defendant from proceedings (and had that been the only thing the trial court did in the lead up to Morris' removal, this case would be an easy affirmance)".
And, the appellate court allowed Judge Gallagher a second chance to "teach a lesson" to the "disobedient" criminal defendant - now the "right way", so that the retaliation will now stick on appeal.