Because licenses and livelihoods of attorneys are controlled by the American judiciary, and the judiciary demand from attorneys, as a condition of being able to earn a living in their profession, to either praise judges and judicial candidate and misrepresent them to voters as "qualified" for the judicial office, or shut up. The third option, criticizing judges and judicial candidates and telling voters the truth about fitness of judges is, as the judiciary repeatedly proves in disciplinary cases, amounts for attorneys to a professional suicide.
Lying to the voters about fitness of judges when attorneys publicly endorse a judicial candidate either by words or by money, paying into election campaigns of judges and judicial candidates to help them getting elected is, on the opposite, a behavior accepted by judges from lawyers, and even the highest court in the country strikes only the most outrageous cases of judges ruling in favor of the biggest contributors to their election campaigns. But, there is no statistics as to whether judges favor smaller contributors - and the lack of such statistics is in itself a problem. A problem of fear of researchers to even conduct such a nation-wide research.
In 1880, the Pennsylvania top state court made a decision identifying attorneys as the best witnesses of judicial misconduct and unfitness to inform the public, members of the popular sovereign, taxpayers and voters as to fitness or unfitness of judges.
“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).
In 2018, 138 years later, a panel of 5 judges declared that those same best witnesses of judicial fitness are forbidden to tell the public about their thoughts (conveniently and self-servingly called by judges "speculations") about cases attorneys witness when judges make decisions based on what attorneys perceive, as legal experts, as political corruption.
"As to charges 4-6, respondent accused the court of blatant political bias and corruption and disparaged his adversaries. As the Referee found, "[n]either the Code nor the Rules obligates,' much less permits, a lawyer to chastise a judge for what the lawyer speculates is corrupt political behavior on that judge's part in presiding over a matter or to effectively threaten the judge that he would be investigated by the Office of Judicial Conduct and the Department of Justice unless he reversed his opinion. Yet Respondent did so repeatedly. . . .".
There was no defamation lawsuit against the attorney by his "adversaries" or by the judge, no discovery, no jury trial as to the accusations, and thus no right for the disciplinary "court" to claim that such accusations were without merit.
Moreover, the statute of limitations for a defamation lawsuit is 1 year, which, since 2008, is long gone, the judge and the unnamed "adversaries" of attorney Gino Giorgini were time-barred to file any defamation charges against him, and he has an absolute defense to a defamation lawsuit - the 1st Amendment right of his client to criticize the government and litigation immunity as to anything said during litigation.
And, litigation immunity is, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, and important common law policy promoting the truth-finding function of the court.
" It is precisely the function of a judicial proceeding to determine where the truth lies. The ability of courts, under carefully developed procedures, to separate truth from falsity, and the importance of accurately resolving factual disputes in criminal (and civil) cases are such that those involved in judicial proceedings should be "given every encouragement to make a full disclosure of all pertinent information within their knowledge."
Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that regulation of attorney speech based on its content is subject to the so-called "strict scrutiny" under the 1st Amendment, which the court in Gino Giorgini's case did not even attempt to do.
And, the same U.S. Supreme Court
But, the U.S. Supreme Court did not take, for decades, a case of an attorney disciplined for exercising his client's 1st Amendment right to criticize the judiciary and his 14th Amendment right to impartial judicial review - which emboldens state courts into becoming petty tyrants considering their power divine, criticism of their corruption as treason, and behaving as petty tyrants towards witnesses of their misconduct whose destiny judges control - attorneys.
There are no exceptions in the 1st Amendment protecting the judicial branch of the government from criticism of any member of the public, including an attorney or his client in litigation on whose behalf the attorney speaks to the court.
So - what has changed since 1880?
Why courts valued attorney speech criticizing themselves for the benefit of informing the public in 1880 and forbid and punish that same behavior with starvation/forbidding to work in the chosen profession in 2018?
Well, here is what has changed.
Rich attorneys teamed up with the judiciary to institute the so-called "attorney monopoly" for "the practice of law", without defining what the "practice of law" is - which is unconstitutional, but has been regulated, through civil and criminal proceedings, for 100 years nevertheless.
The noble principles of solo and small-firm attorneys who do not brown-nose the judiciary were used by the rich attorneys as a banner to
- create attorney guilds (bar associations),
- incorporate them into the judiciary, attorneys' "own" branch of the government,
- invent "rules of attorney ethics", the main rule being "praise your benefactor, the judiciary, and never criticize it, or else you will be forbidden to practice the profession and your family will starve",
- dictate to the public that they choose their judges only from attorneys;
- dictate to the public that they only choose their legal advisers, drafters of contracts and title documents and representatives in court only from the guild, approved by the guild's "own branch" of the government.
And, for that, the "guild" prepared by forbidding criticism by members of the guild of other members of the guild who are running for judicial elections, who are trying to get "elected" to rule the guild through regulation of "the practice of law" (remember, and undefined concept).
In other words, the attorney guild and its member and ruler, the judiciary, deliberately and systematically conspire to block voters from the most pertinent information about unfitness of judges and judicial candidates running for election/re-election or being considered for appointment - by intimidating attorneys, the best expert witnesses on the subject.
I will show in the next blog that how that prohibition on criticism violates federal criminal laws.
But, voters still have their own options.
First, to seek your own information about judicial candidates and never to trust licensed attorneys praising a judge - since such praise may be forced, coerced or aimed at getting a favor from that judge and promoting the attorney's business.
Second, to seek out the legislative representative and to demand to end the rule of the guild by
- removing the requirement that judges be licensed attorneys;
- removing the requirement that judges regulate attorneys;
- removing the requirement that attorneys be licensed or regulated by the government - while opposing the government in court (in criminal, administrative and some "civil" proceedings, like proceedings in Family Courts against parents brought by CPS, and in civil rights lawsuits brought by private parties against the government);
- removing the requirement of ever regulating attorneys before the subject of regulation, "the practice of law" is clearly defined by statute -
and thus unclogging the block that the judiciary put, through punishments like the one imposed upon attorney Gino Giorgini, during a judicial election campaign, upon criticism of the judiciary - and on using such "disciplinary" cases to intimidate the profession into brown-nosing its self-imposed "regulator" regulating what it cannot even define, but "regulating" nevertheless.
You will see how many things in this country will change to the better once these simple changes are introduced.
And yes, you, the voters, can do it.
If your legislative representatives refuse to comply with such demands, such changes can be introduced through state Constitutions, based on statewide referendums.
Voters can prove to judges and the attorney guilds that voters are not cattle whose voice is duped and manipulated in order to perpetuate the guild's power over the people.
Can't they?
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