Independence of Representation in Court and Judicial Accountability in the United States: BewaRRRe of the RRRRevolutionary RRRReporter (County Twin Brother Bunny TM) 🐻 Bea🐰RR🐻R🐰ING 🐻🐰 Gag OrdeRRRRs! Timid 🐰 with Brother Bunny 🐉 government bringing something yummy🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕 - or ... something else 🔨🔨🔨🔨🔨🔨. Stern with encroachers on journalistic non-freedom.

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.

Monday, October 12, 2026

BewaRRRe of the RRRRevolutionary RRRReporter (County Twin Brother Bunny TM) 🐻 Bea🐰RR🐻R🐰ING 🐻🐰 Gag OrdeRRRRs! Timid 🐰 with Brother Bunny 🐉 government bringing something yummy🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕 - or ... something else 🔨🔨🔨🔨🔨🔨. Stern with encroachers on journalistic non-freedom.

Once upon a time, in the enchanted kingdom of Delaware County, New York, there lived a very RRRRevolutionary newspaper publisher named Randy Shepard. 🐇

He was a brave little zaichik. A fearless defender of the First Amendment. A ferocious opponent of government censorship. A man prepared to drag the entire county government into federal court to vindicate the sacred freedom of the press.

Fighting in court for resumption of an eon-long contract awarded to him - why? Surely not because his brother Wayne Shepard was Director of that same County's Office of the Aging?

According to Wayne Shepard's deposition - here and here - no, he only owned to being a brother to the newspaper having a tantrum in court at the expense of Delaware County taxpayers for not resuming a CONFLICTED contract.

I hate to tell you what I kept telling you all along - the County has a LOUSY legal representation. Neither Merklen nor Miller (litigation counsel) raised in court the issue that Decker was not entitled to the contract in the first place - because of a conflict of interest... Yay...

RRRREVOLUTION! FREE SPEECH! DOWN WITH GOVERNMENT GAG ORDERS! 🐰✊

Then, one terrible day, something horrifying happened.

An investigative journalist sent his editor a copy of a FOIL request.

A FOIL REQUEST! 🐇😱

Containing questions about public money spent on litigation involving his own newspaper!

The little zaichik nearly fainted. 🐰💦

What if his editor READ it?

What if she LEARNED something?

What if she INVESTIGATED?

Worse yet, what if somebody thought they were COORRRRDINATING?

With "THAT WOMAN"????!!!! 🐰😱

NO, NO, NO and NOOOOO! the cornered bunny thought, his little ears standing straight up. 🐰

Can't happen. Not to us. Not to our RRRRRRevolutionary RRRRRReporter, who has been soaking Delaware County taxpayers in litigation over 30 grands per year — but that's MONEY, ma cher ami... 💰🐇

Information? From THAT WOMAN? For FREE?

MON DIEU! QUELLE HORREUR! 🐰🥕

The RRRRevolutionary publisheRRRR spRRRRang into action.

He seized his keyboaRRRRRd, summoned eveRRRRRy ounce of his RRRRRRevolutionary couRRRRRage - and issued an uRRRRRgent pRRRRRoclamation:

Please, please, PLEASE stop sending information to me, my newspaper, or ANYONE ASSOCIATED with us! 🐰🚫

Because my kind Brother Bunny is WATCHING!!!

BUTBUTBUTBUTBUTBUT???

How can I possibly not associate with "anyone" in your newspaper - if Delaware County is commonly known as The Land of Kissing Cousins (TLKC)?

Anyone associated?

The editor? Certainly!

The reporters? Naturally!

The freelancers? Presumably!

The cleaning lady? Better safe than sorry!

The delivery driver? Suspiciously associated!

The editor's cousin's dentist? DANGEROUS TERRRRRITORY! 🐇🚨

The zaichik had discovered a revolutionary principle of journalism:

THE PUBLIC HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW — PROVIDED NOBODY TELLS THE NEWSPAPER. 🐰📰

And what was the terrifying information he was so desperate to avoid?

A request for government records.

Records about government spending.

On litigation.

His own litigation.

Which his newspaper was covering.

While suing the government for allegedly interfering with its freedom to report.

You see, the RRRRevolutionary RRRReporter believes passionately in the First Amendment.

He simply prefers to exercise it in splendid isolation from people who might have information. 🐇🥕

Meanwhile, his brother Wayne had testified in federal litigation about county instructions routing press inquiries through the County Attorney or Public Information Officer.

What a RRRRRemarkable family RRRRRResemblance! 🐰🐰