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, November 10, 2026

Three New Lawsuits: Public Funds, Industrial Safety, and a Judiciary Turning Against Its Own Critics

Over the past several weeks, I have commenced three new lawsuits in New York.  

The first concerns the misuse of public funds through a municipal insurance reciprocal.  

The second challenges a massive lithium-ion battery energy storage project proposed for the New York City watershed. 

The third concerns disability discrimination by the New York State Unified Court System, the denial of constitutional access to justice, and the treatment of investigative journalists who expose judicial misconduct.


The three lawsuits involve municipal law, insurance fraud, constitutional restrictions on public expenditures, environmental and industrial safety, nuisance law, disability discrimination, judicial disqualification, and First Amendment retaliation.


They also concern the relationships among government officials, private corporations, municipal insurers, and the law firms representing them—relationships that have increasingly become the subject of my investigative journalism.


The first week of November was particularly eventful.


On November 2, 2026, I commenced a federal lawsuit concerning the Fraser Battery Energy Storage System.


On November 4, I commenced an action challenging disability discrimination within the New York State court system.


Then, on November 9, Supreme Court Justice Christopher Baker issued a series of sua sponte, ex parte decisions dismissing four of our civil actions and imposing a statewide restriction on our ability to commence future litigation without judicial permission.


But there was a rather important problem with the timing.


**We had already gotten our foot in the courthouse door five days earlier, by commencing an action challenging precisely this kind of denial of access to justice.**


Baker's November 9 decisions have now become additional evidence relevant to that pending litigation.


## I. Neroni v. NYMIR: Public Money, the Constitutional Gift and Loan Clause, and Insurance Fraud


In October 2026, I commenced a civil action in Nassau County Supreme Court concerning the activities of New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal (NYMIR).


NYMIR is a municipal insurance reciprocal through which participating local governments pool resources to insure against specified liabilities, including the costs of legal representation.


Municipal liability insurance serves an important function. Counties, towns, villages, and their officials are frequently sued, and the costs of defending litigation can be substantial.


But the expenditure of municipal insurance funds raises an obvious question: **Who is entitled to receive publicly financed legal representation, what representations are made to obtain that financing, and who is accountable when public resources are used to satisfy private obligations?**


### General Municipal Law § 51: The Taxpayer's Right to Protect the Public Treasury


New York General Municipal Law § 51 provides a distinctive mechanism for challenging illegal municipal expenditures.


Subject to the statutory standing requirements, taxpayers may bring an action to prevent unlawful official conduct, waste or injury to municipal property, and illegal expenditures of public money. The statute also permits appropriate relief for restoring improperly expended funds to the municipal treasury.


The significance of this mechanism is that taxpayers may seek judicial intervention even when the municipal officials responsible for protecting public resources have failed to do so.


The taxpayer acts to protect the municipality's financial interests, and recovered public money belongs to the municipality.


In *Mesivta of Forest Hills Institute v. City of New York*, 58 N.Y.2d 1014 (1983), the New York Court of Appeals addressed the limits of taxpayer actions under § 51.


My NYMIR action presents concrete questions concerning the use of municipal insurance resources, the legal basis for expenditures, the recipients of payments, and the nature of the services financed.


### The New York Constitution Prohibits Gifts of Public Money to Private Parties


Article VIII, § 1 of the New York Constitution—the Gift and Loan Clause—prohibits municipalities from giving or lending public money or property to private individuals and entities, or lending municipal credit in their aid, subject to constitutional exceptions.


This restriction is directly relevant when municipal resources are used to finance legal expenses.


Where public funds are applied to satisfy private obligations without lawful authorization, the constitutional prohibition becomes implicated.


General Municipal Law § 51 supplies a potential taxpayer enforcement mechanism, while Article VIII, § 1 supplies a substantive constitutional limitation on municipal expenditures.


### Penal Law Article 176: Insurance Fraud


New York Penal Law Article 176 addresses insurance fraud.


Section 176.05 defines fraudulent insurance acts through specified conduct involving knowingly false material information, or concealment of material information, in insurance-related documents, with intent to defraud.


The subsequent provisions establish degrees of criminal liability, including distinctions based on the amount of the wrongful insurance benefit.


When insurance financing is obtained through false representations concerning the nature of a claim, the conduct of an insured individual, or the basis for coverage, Article 176 becomes relevant.


My action therefore examines the intersection of taxpayer remedies, constitutional restrictions on municipal expenditures, and the criminal prohibition against insurance fraud.


### The Document That Prompted the Lawsuit


The immediate circumstances are straightforward.


In one of my lawsuits protecting my rights as an investigative journalist, an individual whom I had sued in a private capacity sought an award of attorney's fees against me.


In support of that application, the individual submitted a bill from NYMIR.


The individual had no entitlement, in my view, to municipal insurance coverage for the private litigation at issue.


Yet a municipal insurance bill was presented as evidence supporting the request for attorney's fees.


I am a taxpayer in the relevant municipality. I commenced the NYMIR action in Nassau County, where NYMIR maintains its principal office, and included attorneys involved in the underlying litigation.


The law firm involved is owned by the brother of New York's Chief Administrative Judge—a family connection that warrants particular attention when examining the relationships among municipal insurance, politically connected legal practices, and judicial administration.


The litigation seeks to examine the legal basis for the claimed coverage, the insurance documents, the billing arrangements, and the use of municipal resources.


**Public money does not become private money merely because it passes through an insurance reciprocal or a politically connected law firm.**


Those familiar with my litigation and investigative work know that I respond to such matters through documentary investigation and legal action.


This case is no exception.


## II. Neroni v. EDF Renewables: Nearly 768 MWh of Lithium-Ion Batteries in the New York City Watershed


On November 2, 2026, I commenced an action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York concerning the proposed Fraser Battery Energy Storage System in the Town of Hamden, Delaware County.


The project is being developed by EDF Renewables and associated entities, including Fraser Storage, LLC.


It would place a large industrial lithium-ion battery energy storage facility in a rural portion of the New York City watershed, near property owned by my family.


### Nearly 768 Megawatt-Hours


The project's December 14, 2025 Emergency Response Plan identifies 196 Tesla Megapack 2 XL battery units, each with a stated capacity of 3,916 kilowatt-hours.


The arithmetic is straightforward:


196 × 3,916 kWh = 767,536 kWh, or 767.536 MWh.


Yet public descriptions of the project have referred to considerably smaller figures, initially approximately 540 MWh and subsequently approximately 500 MWh.


The discrepancy requires examination in light of the project's actual configuration, operating parameters, emergency response requirements, and applicable fire-safety regulations.


The proposed site is surrounded by forests, wetlands, peat deposits, challenging terrain, and seasonal roads.


Hamden has no fire department of its own. Emergency response depends on volunteer fire departments serving neighboring communities.


For an industrial installation of this size, response times, water availability, access for emergency vehicles, fire containment, and prevention of environmental contamination are central public-safety concerns.


### Moss Landing: An Industrial Fire That Should Have Served as a Warning


On January 16, 2025, a major fire broke out at the Moss Landing battery energy storage facility in California.


The fire prompted evacuations, releases of combustion products, and extensive emergency response and cleanup operations.


The facility housed utility-scale lithium-ion batteries.


The incident generated litigation concerning personal injuries, environmental contamination, property damage, and the responsibilities of facility operators.


Another battery fire had occurred in the Moss Landing area in September 2022.


Lithium-ion batteries present particular challenges during thermal runaway, when cell failures can produce escalating temperatures, combustible gases, and propagation to adjacent battery components.


The safety of these facilities depends on their actual design, separation distances, detection systems, fire barriers, emergency plans, and local response capabilities.


These are matters of public safety, not merely engineering preferences.


### Nuisance Law and Preventive Judicial Relief


American tort law provides several mechanisms for addressing activities that substantially interfere with property rights or public rights.


Private nuisance concerns substantial interference with the use and enjoyment of particular property.


Public nuisance concerns substantial interference with rights common to the public.


Where the applicable legal requirements are satisfied, these doctrines can support damages and injunctive relief, including measures intended to prevent threatened injury.


My federal complaint invokes both public and private nuisance and seeks a declaration concerning the validity of contractual rights underlying the proposed project.


The litigation concerns the protection of neighboring landowners, environmental safety, and the legal authority to construct the facility.


### Conflicted Lawyers and the Industrial Development Process


Young/Sommer LLC occupies a particularly important position in the Fraser BESS story.


On March 4, 2026, the firm executed a conflict-consent arrangement concerning its simultaneous representation of the industrial project owner and the Town of Hamden.


The town is responsible for local legislation and regulatory oversight affecting the project, including permitting, inspections, and safety requirements.


Young/Sommer openly advertises its representation of industrial developers. Local reporting has also identified the firm as representing Delaware County and certain regional organizations involved in environmental and governmental matters.


The result is a serious question concerning the independence of the public-safety review process.


A developer seeks approval for a potentially hazardous industrial facility, while legal counsel associated with the developer simultaneously represents governmental bodies responsible for regulating that facility.


The concern becomes especially acute when the developer seeks to reduce the locally required separation distance from 1,000 feet to 100 feet.


That is a tenfold reduction.


The town is a relatively poor rural community whose residents may lack the financial resources to retain counsel for complex environmental and land-use litigation.


Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately for the developer—I own property in the area and possess the legal training necessary to pursue the matter.


My property could be affected by a serious industrial fire.


The conflicts of interest surrounding the project's legal representation are therefore directly relevant to the adequacy and independence of public-safety protections.


I continue to investigate these relationships through court records, Freedom of Information Law requests, technical documentation, and journalism.


## III. Neroni v. New York State Office of Court Administration: An Investigative Journalist Confronts the Judiciary She Investigates


The third action, commenced on November 4, 2026, is particularly significant because of my longstanding investigative journalism.


Since 2014, I have published *Attorney Independence and Judicial Accountability in the United States*, a legal blog devoted to judicial misconduct, conflicts of interest, judicial corruption, constitutional violations, and the accountability of judges and attorneys.


I examine the conduct of individual judges, publish judicial records, compare decisions with controlling law, and investigate the professional, political, financial, and family relationships of those exercising judicial power.


**The subject matter of my journalism is central to this litigation.**


Judges whose conduct becomes the subject of my investigations exercise control over the scheduling of my court appearances, the resolution of my ADA accommodation requests, and the imposition of sanctions restricting my access to courts.


The New York judiciary has displayed extraordinary hostility toward journalists investigating judicial misconduct. In my cases, that hostility has manifested itself through specific judicial decisions that disregard constitutional and statutory procedural protections.


### Joseph McBride: Sixteen Motions, One Morning, Three Weeks to Prepare


One of the central figures is Justice Joseph McBride, formerly the District Attorney of Chenango County.


My husband, Frederick Neroni, and I litigated against McBride during his prosecutorial career and prevailed against him in numerous proceedings.


Our professional adversarial history therefore substantially predates his judicial service.


I had also criticized McBride's prosecutorial conduct in my capacity as an investigative journalist and fellow legal professional, long before he became a judge.


When our civil cases subsequently came before him, that history was already in place.


McBride scheduled sixteen motions for a single morning, allowing me three weeks to prepare.


The materials necessary to respond to just one of those motions included approximately 3,000 pages of court records.


Those 3,000 pages had been created and reviewed by the opposing party approximately three years earlier.


My opponents were professional law firms employing multiple attorneys and support personnel.


**Not one of those firms faced the cumulative burden of preparing for sixteen motions in the same morning.**


The opposing law firms had collective resources and years of familiarity with their own materials. I was expected to review thousands of pages, research the applicable law, prepare written submissions, and address sixteen motions within three weeks.


McBride was fully informed of my disabilities and the need for reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act.


Yet he found a remarkable justification for denying accommodations: my journalism.


His reasoning treated my ability to conduct investigations and publish articles as evidence that I should be capable of enduring the extraordinary litigation burdens imposed by his own scheduling decisions.


In other words, my continued intellectual and professional activity despite serious disabilities became an argument for depriving me of federal disability protections.


And the journalism at issue was specifically directed at judicial misconduct.


Thus, activity protected by the First Amendment was used against an investigative journalist seeking equal access to the courts.


### John Solak: Another Disabled Investigative Journalist Before McBride


The litigation involving investigative journalist John Solak presents another revealing example.


Solak is a defendant in *Adam Weitsman v. John Solak et al.*, pending in Broome County Supreme Court.


He has visual impairments associated with Fuchs' dystrophy and dyslexia.


On May 27, 2026, Solak requested ADA accommodations, including accessible document formats, additional time, and assistance with written materials.


On July 8, McBride addressed ADA issues during a court proceeding.


Nevertheless, he imposed a twenty-day deadline for Solak to answer the complaint.


A default determination followed on August 7, with a written decision issued on September 2.


Solak challenged the proceedings, citing the failure to properly resolve his ADA requests and the denial of a meaningful opportunity to be heard.


The circumstances are especially troubling when considered alongside the court's treatment of my own accommodation requests.


Two investigative journalists with disabilities appeared before the same judge.


In my case, journalism was invoked as a reason to deny accommodations.


In Solak's case, proceedings advanced toward default despite the court's knowledge of his visual impairments and accommodation requests.


### Judicial Elections, Campaign Contributions, and Recusal


Another issue arose in the Weitsman litigation.


A co-defendant, Jessica Miller-Cice, moved for McBride's recusal, raising questions concerning financial connections between plaintiff Adam Weitsman and McBride's judicial election campaign.


The motion identified contributions made by Weitsman to a third party who subsequently contributed to McBride's campaign.


McBride denied the recusal motion.


This issue must be understood within New York's judicial election system.


Justices of the New York Supreme Court are elected for fourteen-year terms through a process involving political-party nominations and general elections.


Article VI, § 20 of the New York Constitution requires ten years of admission to the New York bar for service as a Supreme Court justice.


Candidates are not required to pass a separate judicial qualification examination comparable to those used in some other legal systems.


Political-party support and electoral success are central to obtaining the office.


Judicial campaigns also require funding. Although New York's judicial conduct rules prohibit candidates from personally soliciting campaign contributions, fundraising through authorized campaign committees is permitted.


This creates circumstances in which persons financially connected to judicial campaigns may later appear as litigants before the judges whose elections they supported.


In *Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.*, 556 U.S. 868 (2009), the United States Supreme Court held that extraordinary financial support for a judicial election campaign by a person with a substantial interest in pending litigation can create a constitutionally intolerable probability of bias requiring judicial recusal.


The financial relationships raised in the Solak litigation therefore implicate important questions of judicial impartiality.


The combination is striking: a disabled investigative journalist defending a defamation action, campaign-finance relationships involving the plaintiff, a recusal motion, and the judge's refusal to step aside.


### George Lane: Arrested for Being Unable to Climb the Courthouse Stairs


On May 17, 2004, the United States Supreme Court decided *Tennessee v. Lane*, 541 U.S. 509.


George Lane was paraplegic and used a wheelchair.


He was required to appear in a criminal proceeding in Tennessee. The courtroom was located on the second floor of a courthouse without an elevator.


For his first appearance, Lane left his wheelchair downstairs and crawled up the stairs.


When he returned for another hearing, he refused to crawl again and declined an offer to be carried upstairs.


The judge ordered his arrest for failure to appear.


**Lane had arrived at the courthouse. He was arrested and jailed because he could not physically reach the courtroom.**


This occurred after Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.


The State of Tennessee then invoked sovereign immunity in an attempt to defeat Lane's federal civil-rights action.


By a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court held that Title II of the ADA could validly be enforced against states in cases implicating the fundamental right of access to courts.


Four justices dissented.


In the twenty-first century, the nation's highest court had to address whether federal disability-rights protections could be enforced against a state whose judicial system had jailed a wheelchair user after he refused to crawl into a courtroom.


For a country that frequently presents its constitutional democracy as a model of the rule of law, the episode is remarkable.


### The United States Has Not Ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities


The United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on December 13, 2006.


Article 13 requires participating states to ensure effective access to justice for persons with disabilities, including appropriate procedural accommodations.


The United States signed the Convention on July 30, 2009, but has never ratified it.


On December 4, 2012, the United States Senate voted 61–38 in favor of consenting to ratification.


The required two-thirds majority was not achieved.


As of November 2026, the United States remains outside the Convention as a state party.


Domestic protections under the ADA remain enforceable, but the United States has declined to assume the Convention's treaty obligations.


The distinction is especially relevant to the administration of justice, where Article 13 specifically addresses procedural accommodations.


### New York's New Equal Rights Amendment: Disability Becomes an Expressly Protected Constitutional Category


On November 5, 2024, New York voters approved an Equal Rights Amendment to the state constitution.


The amendment took effect on January 1, 2025.


It expanded Article I, § 11 of the New York Constitution to expressly prohibit discrimination in civil rights on additional protected grounds, including disability.


The prohibition applies to governmental actors, including state institutions.


In June 2026, the New York Court of Appeals addressed the amendment in *Matter of Miller v. State of New York*, 2026 NY Slip Op 03907, concerning mandatory judicial retirement.


The Court held that the amendment did not repeal the constitution's specific judicial retirement provisions.


The application of the newly expanded constitutional protection to disability discrimination in the administration of court proceedings presents a different question.


**That is precisely the question we intend to test.**


Our new action examines the interaction among Title II of the ADA, the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment, and New York's newly amended Article I, § 11.


### Christopher Baker: Four Civil Actions Dismissed Within 49 Minutes of Notice of a Federal Environmental Lawsuit


The events of November 9, 2026, deserve particular attention.


That morning, I electronically filed a motion for leave to supplement a complaint against local governmental defendants, seeking to add claims arising from developments connected to my federal Fraser BESS litigation.


Justice Christopher Baker had for months refused our requests for accessible scheduling, including requests to move virtual appearances to later hours because of my husband's severe nighttime pain and related disabilities.


According to the electronic filing notifications, approximately 49 minutes after my supplemental pleading motion was filed, Baker issued a series of decisions in four separate civil actions.


The cases had different parties, different claims, and different procedural histories.


They included litigation concerning the use of our property by local governmental authorities, damage to our property, and other alleged governmental misconduct.


Baker relied on our nonappearance at an October 28 hearing.


But the circumstances of that hearing are central to the constitutional analysis.


Fourteen motions across four separate cases had been scheduled for one morning.


We had repeatedly requested ADA accommodations, including accessible scheduling, remote participation, and effective communication assistance.


The requested accommodations were not provided.


Nevertheless, Baker invoked 22 NYCRR § 202.27(b) to dismiss all four actions for nonappearance.


The October 28 proceeding had been scheduled to address motions, yet Baker used the nonappearance to terminate the underlying civil actions.


He did not conduct an individualized merits analysis of the claims in each case.


Instead, the pending motions were denied as moot following dismissal.


The sequence was extraordinary.


First, fourteen motions in four cases were placed on a single calendar despite outstanding ADA accommodation requests.


Second, nonappearance at that calendar was used to dismiss the actions.


Third, all pending motions were denied as moot because the actions had been dismissed.


Finally, Baker used the same procedural history to impose restrictions on future access to the courts throughout New York State.


**The failure to provide accessible judicial proceedings was followed by sanctions based on the resulting nonappearance—and ultimately by restrictions on our ability to seek judicial protection in future cases.**


### Four Separate Cases, One Collective Punishment


The cases differed in their parties, claims, procedural postures, and service histories.


In *Neroni v. Gransbury*, my husband had not consented to electronic filing and had not been properly served with the relevant court documents or hearing notices.


Yet the consequences of nonappearance were imposed upon him.


Baker's decisions also conflated my conduct with my husband's.


In particular, my husband's litigation rights were affected by references to my separate NYMIR action, to which he was not a party.


This is a serious defect in the individualization of judicial sanctions.


Each litigant's conduct, notice, procedural obligations, and legal position must be evaluated separately.


Instead, Baker treated us collectively and resorted to disparaging personal characterizations while leaving the substantive claims unresolved.


### Statewide Anti-Filing Injunctions Without Notice or an Opportunity to Be Heard


The most serious aspect of the November 9 decisions was the imposition of statewide anti-filing injunctions.


Baker acted sua sponte—on his own initiative.


No properly noticed motion sought the statewide filing restrictions imposed.


We received no advance notice that such sanctions were under consideration.


We were given no opportunity to submit written opposition.


No separate hearing was conducted concerning the proposed injunctions.


The restrictions nevertheless extended throughout New York State.


The Second Circuit has addressed the constitutional requirements for sua sponte filing injunctions.


In *Moates v. Barkley*, 147 F.3d 207 (2d Cir. 1998), the court held that notice and an opportunity to be heard are required before a court imposes a filing injunction on its own initiative.


In *Lau v. Meddaugh*, 229 F.3d 121 (2d Cir. 2000), the court emphasized the need for a meaningful opportunity to prepare opposition.


Baker provided neither advance notice nor an opportunity to contest the proposed sanctions before imposing them.


### Baker Relied on McBride's Order in a Case Where Baker Himself Was a Defendant


There is an additional constitutional problem.


In support of his statewide filing restrictions, Baker relied on prior anti-filing orders issued by Justice Joseph McBride.


Among those orders was a sua sponte restriction entered in litigation in which **Christopher Baker himself was a defendant**.


McBride had imposed that restriction without advance notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard.


Baker then relied on it to impose additional restrictions against the same litigants.


The sequence raises a fundamental question of judicial impartiality.


A judge used an order entered in litigation directly involving his own interests as a defendant to justify further sanctions against his litigation adversaries.


The principle *nemo judex in causa sua*—no person may be a judge in his own cause—is fundamental to due process.


In *Tumey v. Ohio*, 273 U.S. 510 (1927), the Supreme Court addressed the constitutional prohibition against adjudication by a judge with an impermissible personal interest.


In *In re Murchison*, 349 U.S. 133 (1955), the Court emphasized the necessity of an impartial tribunal.


In *Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.*, 556 U.S. 868 (2009), the Court held that an objectively intolerable probability of bias can require judicial disqualification even without proof of actual subjective bias.


In *Williams v. Pennsylvania*, 579 U.S. 1 (2016), the Supreme Court vacated a decision involving a judge who had previously participated personally in a significant prosecutorial decision in the same criminal case.


The constitutional problem in Baker's conduct arises from his exercise of judicial authority against individuals who had sued him, relying on a prior order entered in litigation in which he was a defendant.


The absence of notice and an opportunity to be heard presents a separate due-process defect.


Together, these circumstances support challenges to the constitutionality and validity of the resulting injunctions, including arguments for vacatur and legal nullity.


### And All of This Happened After We Had Already Filed the Disability Discrimination Action


The chronology is particularly revealing.


On November 2, 2026, I commenced the federal Fraser BESS litigation.


On November 4, I commenced an action challenging disability discrimination by the New York State court system.


On November 9, I filed a motion seeking leave to supplement claims against local governmental defendants with developments connected to the Fraser BESS litigation.


Approximately 49 minutes later, according to electronic filing notifications, Baker issued the series of dismissals and statewide filing restrictions.


The November 9 decisions followed the commencement of the disability discrimination action by five days.


They could not retroactively prevent that action from being commenced.


They may now be examined in the context of the pending claims concerning denial of court access, disability discrimination, retaliation for protected activity, and deprivation of due process.


**Baker attempted to close the courthouse door on November 9. We had already entered on November 4 with a lawsuit challenging the very practice of closing that door.**


### A Polite Letter to Justice Baker


On November 10, my husband informed Baker of the pending action challenging disability discrimination within the New York State court system.


He also made a rather restrained suggestion.


Rather than allow the November 9 decisions to become further evidence in the already pending constitutional litigation, perhaps Baker would prefer to vacate his orders and restore the cases to their proper procedural positions.


The request was courteous.


The implications were unmistakable.


As of this writing, there has been no response.


## IV. Three Lawsuits—and a Rather Busy Autumn


The three new actions concern distinct areas of law.


The NYMIR case addresses municipal insurance, taxpayer remedies, public expenditures, and potential insurance fraud.


The EDF Renewables case concerns industrial safety, environmental risks, property rights, and conflicts of interest in the regulatory process.


The action against the New York State court system concerns disability discrimination, access to justice, judicial impartiality, due process, and retaliation against investigative journalists who expose judicial misconduct.


Meanwhile, my investigative work continues: FOIL requests, examination of financial relationships, review of judicial decisions, research into conflicts of interest, public reporting, and preparation of further litigation.


My first university education was in linguistics. I subsequently obtained an economics degree and, after immigrating to the United States, a law degree.


All three fields have proved useful.


Linguistics helps me analyze documents, identify contradictions, and formulate precise arguments.


Economics helps me investigate financial relationships and the movement of public funds.


Law allows me to translate investigative findings into judicial claims.


Journalism makes those findings available to the public.


Social media has become another useful means of distributing the results.


I am 63 years old. After several strokes and serious illnesses, my physical working capacity is substantially limited.


Fortunately, my intellectual activity continues.


Three new lawsuits, several ongoing investigations, extensive legal research, documentary analysis, publications, and correspondence with government agencies have made this a rather productive autumn.


And another lawsuit may already be taking shape.


Local government officials, evidently displeased with my recent litigation and journalistic activity - especially reporting on Fraser BESS project and lawsuit and the traffic ticket revenue controversy - see the "Selling Justice" series of report this month - have brought bulldozers onto our property in the Catskill Mountains and are moving to take the land and pave it for parking.


Yes, bulldozers. Literally.


An interesting response to litigation concerning public accountability, property rights, and constitutional protections.


Not a particularly wise one, in my assessment.





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