THE EVOLUTION OF JUDICIAL TYRANNY IN THE UNITED STATES:

"If the judges interpret the laws themselves, and suffer none else to interpret, they may easily make, of the laws, [a shredded] shipman's hose!" - King James I of England, around 1616.

“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).

“This case illustrates to me the serious consequences to the Bar itself of not affording the full protections of the First Amendment to its applicants for admission. For this record shows that [the rejected attorney candidate] has many of the qualities that are needed in the American Bar. It shows not only that [the rejected attorney candidate] has followed a high moral, ethical and patriotic course in all of the activities of his life, but also that he combines these more common virtues with the uncommon virtue of courage to stand by his principles at any cost.

It is such men as these who have most greatly honored the profession of the law. The legal profession will lose much of its nobility and its glory if it is not constantly replenished with lawyers like these. To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it.” In Re Anastaplo, 18 Ill. 2d 182, 163 N.E.2d 429 (1959), cert. granted, 362 U.S. 968 (1960), affirmed over strong dissent, 366 U.S. 82 (1961), Justice Black, Chief Justice Douglas and Justice Brennan, dissenting.

" I do not believe that the practice of law is a "privilege" which empowers Government to deny lawyers their constitutional rights. The mere fact that a lawyer has important responsibilities in society does not require or even permit the State to deprive him of those protections of freedom set out in the Bill of Rights for the precise purpose of insuring the independence of the individual against the Government and those acting for the Government”. Lathrop v Donohue, 367 US 820 (1961), Justice Black, dissenting.

"The legal profession must take great care not to emulate the many occupational groups that have managed to convert licensure from a sharp weapon of public defense into blunt instrument of self-enrichment". Walter Gellhorn, "The Abuse of Occupational Licensing", University of Chicago Law Review, Volume 44 Issue 1, September of 1976.

“Because the law requires that judges no matter how corrupt, who do not act in the clear absence of jurisdiction while performing a judicial act, are immune from suit, former Judge Ciavarella will escape liability for the vast majority of his conduct in this action. This is, to be sure, against the popular will, but it is the very oath which he is alleged to have so indecently, cavalierly, baselessly and willfully violated for personal gain that requires this Court to find him immune from suit”, District Judge A. Richard Caputo in H.T., et al, v. Ciavarella, Jr, et al, Case No. 3:09-cv-00286-ARC in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Document 336, page 18, November 20, 2009. This is about judges who were sentencing kids to juvenile detention for kickbacks.

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Defense attorneys, civil rights attorneys, critics and litigators against Delaware County, NY - check your address on County's 911 system. It might not be there. Mine was not included - for 24 years.

Recently, I have made an unexpected - but remarkable - discovery.

Apparently, Delaware County (NY) does not have one of my properties - coincidentally, the property that we used as a summer residence for my husband, myself and our then-young children - on its 911 system, and never had, since 2002!!

My husband and I were practicing criminal defense attorneys, during that time, my husband from 2002 to 2011, myself - from 2009 to 2015.  

We used the property in question as a law office.

We lost a significant amount of mail not reaching there - as our clients told us.

We could not figure out - why.

I found out accidentally, when the Town of Hamden's clerk inadvertently blurted out to me the long-kept secret: that our property address, very simply, was not registered on the County's 911 systsem.

The County simply - I believe, deliberately - omitted to add us there.

Instead, it assigned the same address to the County-entwined non-profit Watershed Agricultural Council, which allowed the County to intercept our legal mail without a problem.

Moreover, the lack of 911 address made the use of property by a family with young children, especially since there was a swimming pool there and, unbeknownst to us (DEC allows such non-disclosure) the area was the habitat of rattle-snakes - made the use of property inherently dangerous.

We do not know how many marketing opportunities, offered to sell the property, we missed either.

I see that the County is in litigation not only with us, with other journalists, too, and depositions in that case I recently published clearly indicate that the County will go into extreme lengths in order to retaliate against a journalist for unfavorable - but truthful - coverage of County's governance.

In our case, I will skip the long litany of the County's retaliation conduct - it is all part of current and future litigation - but the point I would want to focus on: that the County would sink so low as to deny protection of 911 system to a family with young children because the family was a family of two criminal defense attorneys litigating against the County.

My youngest child nearly died once on that property when responders did not come until very, very late - until my husband brought them in, driving from Delhi to Hamden, NY, after I myself was able to resuscitate the child who was suffocating.  

The did not come when my daughter was frantically calling them while I was trying to prevent the child from dying because we were not in the system.  Vindictively so, I believe.

So - dear defense attorneys, litigators and journalists daring to criticize and litigate against Delaware County.  Follow my advice, check out whether your addresses were not "inadvertently" dropped off the 911 system - because if a disaster strikes, you may be left without help by the County, deliberately so.

By the way, a County's prominent official, Sharon Reichert-Morgan, wife of the now Republican Chair of Delaware County Josh Morgan, has long promised me on this blog that she will hide her husband's keys to prevent him from doing his duty of the then-volunteer firefighter if my house was on fire.  Because of a series of articles about a house fire where her husband arrived - deliberately so - without water, letting the house of a whistleblower (and, "coincidentally", my friend), to burn down - with a dog inside it.

Given the general stupidity of Delaware County's social workers (and Sharon Reichert-Morgan was such at the time of the threat), what can be expected of such people, personal experience as a litigator who regularly cross-examined them, is to blurt out the general attitude floating in the air of that County Building at 111 Main Street, Delhi, NY, without much thought about consequences.

So - didn't they hide their keys!!!

In a variety of ways, I must say.

At this time, the County is struggling to acknowledge their 911 system "error" while attempting to assign a new address.

They did not stir with the address until I sued the Watershed Agricultural Council for, quite coincidentally, firing my daughter as soon as I found the address overlap.

At that point the County's permanent litigation counsel Frank Miller volunteered being "privately retained" in a case where County is not a party, and came in breathing fire (I wonder if mixed with alcohol as Mr. Miller used to do attending depositions across from me in the olden times) upon me, trying to have me - and my husband, not a party in that case - punished in every possible imaginable way.

He did that 11 days late, after default of his client, too - something Miller does regularly.  And got sued for asking for sanctions sought against a non-party.  

Meanwhile, the County continues not to own up to its errors, including exposing our family and every possible contractor and visitor on that property to danger for 24 years - simply as a matter of the County's vicious spite against us as criminal defense and civil rights attorneys (formerly) and for my journalism here.

Well, dear defense counsel, civil rights attorneys, journalists and litigators - you were warned.  The County 911 system is - or rather is not - after you.

Check it.  You may be surprised.  You may also save your life and the life of your family members by doing it - now.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)