As of yesterday, New York State recognized that its attorney regulation system is politically motivated

Yesterday, New York State Governor Cuomo has signed a bill creating a Commission on Prosecutorial Misconduct.

The wrongfully convicted, criminal defender association, civil rights advocates rejoice.

They have "won".

Won what?

Of course, nobody in New York State legislature (where legislators are predominantly attorneys whose licenses and livelihoods are controlled by a different branch of the government, courts, talking about "checks and balances") dared to go at the core problem that makes prosecutorial misconduct possible - judicial and prosecutorial immunity given by judges to themselves and to the only people who can hold them criminally accountable, prosecutors.

And, nobody looked at the fact that, naturally, judges would not discipline prosecutors - because otherwise prosecutors will start turning judges for corruption and violation of constitutional rights of litigants into criminal grand juries - or call in the FBI, after all, it is a federal criminal offense, and New York courts have a "concurrent" jurisdiction on federal issues.

The created Commission has the exact same flaws that the Commission upon which it is modeled, the New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct:

1. conflicts of interest in appointment of members;
2. secrecy in operation;
3. lack of standing for complainants to appeal dismissed meritorious complaints.

In other words, it is a waste of taxpayer money, and, as I wrote before, a dangerous illusion created - and already spread with fanfare, that the state of New York is some kind of a "trailblazer", not only in number of wrongful convictions, but in "creating a remedy".

An effective legal remedy, ladies and gentlemen, is a remedy that people can take to court and win for themselves, every single victim winning a recourse for themselves in every single case, on an individual basis.

A legal remedy would be the right to sue the damned suckers in federal court - and such a right, believe it or not, was created by the U.S. Congress when it enacted the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1943, only the federal judiciary - that has NO RIGHT under Articles I and III of the Federal Constitution, to change that legislation - did just that, and gutted it as far as lawsuits against themselves and their prosecutors is concerned.  

The judiciary created for prosecutors and for themselves "absolute immunity", a de facto permission to violate that same U.S. Constitution, the oath to uphold which was the condition for them to take office in the first place.

A legal remedy would be if a victim of judicial or prosecutorial misconduct could directly address a grand jury and ask it to conduct an investigation of the matter and bring criminal charges against the perpetrators.

That is not what the Commission is for.

It is a barrier between the people and the government, a secretive, conflict-ridden barrier that gives the victim no "standing" (right) to even challenge ANY decisions of the Commission, no matter how arbitrary they are, including putting complaints against prosecutors directly into the garbage bin.

I hate to be right on this one, folks. 

Yet, come January of 2019, when the Commission on Prosecutorial Misconduct starts operating, you will see I was actually right - when your complaints start being tossed, and when all explanation you will receive will be - none.  Dismissed, and that's all.  And you will have no right to appeal the dismissal.  Because the Commission has "exercised its discretion".

And you will have the solace, the satisfaction, the "remedy" of being able to put your complaint down the garbage chute.   

Of course, for that, you did not have to pay millions of dollars of your hard-earned taxpayer money for yet another secretive  - and useless for you - government entity.

But let's return to the question that is staring every New Yorker in the face now.

Now there are TWO systems of attorney regulation in New York, one for non-prosecutors, and one for prosecutors.

One for prosecutors is headed by the Executive branch of the government, one for non-prosecutors - by judicial branch of the government.

Why the need for two systems of attorney regulation?

Oh, because the judicial branch which creates and appoints attorney disciplinary committees and considers them part of itself 

(so that it combines in itself all three branches of the government - legislative, executive and judicial - it legislates the rules of conduct for attorneys, investigates attorneys, files charges, prosecutes them, and them adjudicates them, too, talking about constitutional "checks and balances" that that same judiciary must uphold, according to every judge's constitutional oath of office)

WOULD NOT, for years, discipline prosecutors - those prosecutors that have caused New York to lead the nation in the number of wrongful convictions.

So, instead of yanking the judiciary from its position of regulator of attorneys and instead introducing a regulator (if it is needed at all) that would be neutral and would act not in a self-serving manner, "the solution" was to create a parallel system of attorney regulation.

And, people are making careers on "winning" the bill - because, being attorneys (the sponsor of the bill) or future attorneys (some of supporters of the bill), they are AFRAID to do the right thing and create the real remedy for the people, which will not require ANY funding from the budget at all.

1.  Abolish prosecutorial and judicial immunity - and allow people to obtain their own legal remedies in cases of prosecutorial misconduct in their own civil lawsuits; 

2. allow direct access of the people to the grand juries to ask for investigation and prosecution of rogue prosecutors (and judges).

Instead, New York State shot itself in the foot and has become the first state in the nation that recognized that the system of attorney regulation is a politically motivated sham.