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.


Saturday, December 17, 2016

Judge Gary Rosa of Delaware County Family Court, New York, introduces a brand new rule of constitutional analysis - U.S. Supreme Court precedents are now applicable, or inapplicable based on "matters" and "fact patterns", not the unifying legal issues

Imagine somebody suing Judge Gary Rosa, of Delaware County Family Court (New York).

And says in the lawsuit - hypothetically, this:



  1. "Judge Gary Rosa solicited and obtained, in his two election campaigns, in 2012 and in 2015, votes of a party in a certain court proceeding, based on Judge Rosa's statements that, if the party gives him her vote and if Judge Rosa is elected as a result, Judge Rosa will clean up the judicial stables in Delaware County Family Court, will not commit misconduct that his predecessor, Judge Carl F. Becker, was in-famous for - and that Judge Rosa specifically condemns sanctions imposed upon the party and her attorney by Judge Becker, for pointing out Judge Becker's misconduct and conflicts of interest;
  2. Once Judge Rosa obtained the party's vote in two elections, he then turned around and asserted validity of Judge Becker's misconduct in the very cases, when the party's attorney made a motion to vacate those same 2011 sanctions based on later-decided (2015 and 2016) U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the very case which Judge Rosa discussed with the party, ex parte, out of court, making an election campaign pledge that those sanctions are judicial misconduct and that Judge Rosa will come to the bench to prevent such behavior and to prevent people from suffering like the party and her attorney suffered from Judge Becker's sanctions;
  3. Judge Rosa was not supposed to be assigned to that case because of his ex parte communications with the party and because of his pledges in his election campaign based specifically on discussion of that case and sanctions imposed by Judge Becker in that case that Judge Rosa characterized as judicial misconduct and the reason whey he was running for judicial office - to clean the bench;
  4. Judge Rosa failed to disclose his self-assignment to the case (which he did because the attorney, since then, criticized Judge Rosa for misconduct and appearance of corruption) - and made it so that the attorney who moved to vacate her sanctions on submitted basis learnt about the change of judge only when Judge Rosa already made his decision - denying her motion despite a clearly applicable U.S. Supreme Court precedent, and while refusing to conduct analysis of legal issues required by the U.S. Supreme Court;
  5. Judge Rosa's failed to disclose he even talked with the party ex parte about the case, and proceeded without disclosure, which is a gross ethical violation and fraud upon me as a person whose constitutional rights were hurt through fraud upon voters by Judge Rosa;
  6. I want Judge Rosa to be held accountable for his fraud and violations of my constitutional rights."

And imagine that, once a lawsuit is filed and served, Judge Rosa, engages an attorney - at yours, the taxpayer's, expense.

Judge Rosa's attorney in such a lawsuit will be the New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman who claims he is protector of civil rights while he is, on the opposite, fights to keep civil rights complaints dismissed and the filers, victims of constitutional violations, sanctioned and persecuted.

And,  the self-proclaimed fighter for civil rights Eric Schneiderman, on Judge Rosa's behalf, will immediately file a motion to dismiss on behalf of Judge Rosa - claiming absolute judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts on the bench, based on the U.S. Supreme Court precedent from 1978 Stump v Sparkman.

And that you, as a plaintiff in that civil action, oppose that motion and say in that opposition the following:

The U.S. Supreme Court precedent Stump v Sparkman that Defendant Rosa cites in his defense is entirely inapplicable because that decision was made by the U.S. Supreme Court


There, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the judge was immune from liability where he 
  • conspired with the mother of a minor child, 
  • without proper court proceedings, 
  • without jurisdiction, 
  • without notifying the mother's minor daughter, and 
  • without appointing an attorney for that minor daughter;
  • agreed with the mother that her minor teenage daughter was "promiscuous" and that the "cure" for the child's supposed "promiscuity" lies in persuading the child to undergo a false surgery that the child did not medically need, after persuading the surgeon to agree to such a surgery, too - supposedly for appendicitis, while it will be in reality to sterilize her.

And that was done, in conspiracy with doctors, also involved in deceiving the child.  And, when the child grew up and married and tried for children and could not get them - and the mother still did not tell her why that is so - and got her medical records and learned of the real reasons for "appendicitis" surgery, the woman sued the participants, including Judge Sparkman.

And, your Honor, says the plaintiff suing Judge Gary Rosa (hypothetically): unlike Stump v Sparkman, the present lawsuit against Judge Rosa does not involve a minor being unlawfully sterilized outside of a court proceeding, in conspiracy with the mother, without notice to the child or an attorney assigned to the child.

It involves a decision 


And Judge Rosa, through his attorney Eric Shchneiderman, files a reply to that opposition and pleads to the court that your arguments are frivolous, and that you lack the very basic understanding as to how precedential law works, and how U.S. Supreme Court precedents apply.

And, Judge Rosa argues to the federal court that it is not "fact patterns" or "matters" that are uniting cases and makes them precedents applicable to a certain case, but unifying legal issues.

And the legal issue in his case supporting applicability of immunity defense from Stump v Sparkman is not the issue of unlawful sterilization of a minor by a judge in conspiracy with the mother in order to prevent fruits of the child's supposed "promiscuity", but whether Judge Sparkman's act in issuing a court order (an unlawful court order) was a "judicial act" at all.  If it is - the analysis stops there, and absolute judicial immunity applies.

But you say to the judge - but, your Honor, I have just cited to you what Judge Gary Rosa himself said about how U.S. Supreme Court precedents apply or do not apply, in the very case I am suing him for.

He said that later-decided U.S. Supreme Court precedents on point, with a unifying issue of content-based regulation of speech and accuser-adjudicator prohibition, are inapplicable because they are decided


- one dealt with contents of a commercial sign, and another - with a prosecutor in a criminal case assigning himself as an appellate judge to a civil habeas corpus petition of the same defendant, now a prisoner condemned to death.

And that those "matters" and "fact patterns" are not the same as in my case, your Honor, because my case is not of a commercial sign and is not - thank God - of a death penalty.

And, because of it, Judge Rosa said that U.S. Supreme Court precedents prohibiting content-based regulation of speech and prohibition on accuser-adjudicator decisions of court cases, do not apply.

Since it did not matter to Judge Rosa that the unifying issue in my case was, 

  • in the first precedent,  content-based regulation of speech without strict scrutiny (whether regulation of content of speech was of a commercial sign or of a pleading), and,
  • in the second, precedent, that a judge acted in the same proceeding as an accuser (brought proceedings for sanctions, acted there as an investigator, prosecutor and unsworn witness on his own behalf, alleged harm to himself personally from my pleadings), and as an adjudicator, imposing sanctions upon me - 
please, your Honor, apply to Judge Rosa's immunity defense his own principle of applicability of U.S. Supreme Court precedents - and deny it to him, after all, that is his own principle, it will not be an undue burden to have your own law applied to you.

And, absolute judicial immunity, your Honor, covers "malicious and corrupt" acts, not stupid and incompetent acts.

As Judge Rosa said in his own (hypothetical) pleadings, referencing "matters" and "fact patterns" instead of the unifying legal issue in Stump v Sparkman and claiming that Judge Rosa is not entitled to immunity because the lawsuit does not involve unlawful sterilization of a minor, demonstrates my fundamental misunderstanding of how precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court apply.

So, since Judge Rosa just said that he lacks a fundamental understanding of how U.S. Supreme Court precedents apply, and that only "facts" and "matters" matter - and, apparently, not unifying legal issues, so, please, please, your Honor, apply Judge Rosa's legal principle to Judge Rosa.

Nope, the judge will tell me.  That will create too dangerous of a precedent for all of us judges.  Unlawful sterilizations of minors are freak things nowadays, and never happen.  If I apply precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court the way you suggest, I will never be able to give any judges absolute judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts on the bench, and they will not be happy.

But, your Honor - I will say, that is exactly the same thing that will happen to any litigant appearing in Judge Rosa's courtroom and invoking constitutional precedent!  Judge Rosa will apply the principle that content-based regulation of speech in a commercial sign proceedings can only be applied in commercial sign proceedings, and we are in Family Court where contents commercial signs are never litigated.

It is the same, your Honor, as Judge Rosa - and other judges sued for misconduct on the bench - not receiving immunity because the case did not deal with unlawful sterilization of a minor.

It is equal protection of law, Your Honor.

It is fair, Your Honor.

Nope, the judge will say.

Nice try, but no.

What Judge Rosa argued may have been stupid and incompetent - but it was a "judicial act", thus he is immune.

This is how U.S. Supreme Court precedent applies.

"Matters" and "fact patterns" don't matter.

Unifying legal issues do.

As to what Judge Rosa did in the court proceedings - stupid and incompetent as it is, that is subject to an appeal and a new motion to vacate.

So, I say, taxpayers must fund Judge Rosa's stupidity and incompetence, more court time for more motions, and more time for more appeals - where the precedents were on point and could have been decided in 2 seconds by a competent and unbiased judge?

That is, of course, a hypothetical lawsuit, and a rhethorical question - but a very real case and "fact pattern". 

Judge Rosa's newly invented principle of applicability of U.S. Supreme Court precedent is to be applied, there is nothing that unifies these 1st Amendment content-based regulation of expression and speech cases:



1)     Flag burning, Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989);
2)     Cross burning, R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992), Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003),
3)     a Nazi march through a city of Holocaust survivors, National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977);
4)     a protest with nasty slogans in front of a fallen soldier’s funeral, Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011);
5)     false claims of valor in battle, United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. ___ (2012);
6)     regulation of content of commercial signs – Reed v Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. ___ (2015),

and the U.S. Supreme Court sits in vain in their marble palace, because their precedents are useless and can be applicable only in the narrowest of circumstances - a funeral case to a funeral case, a flag burning case to a flag burning case, a fallen soldier funeral case to a fallen soldier funeral case - ONLY.

With one exception to this precedential rule - absolute judicial immunity will still cover stupidity and incompetence of judges, and not only malicious and corrupt acts, even in cases where unlawful sterilization of minors to prevent their "promiscuity" is not involved.

Because judges will never hurt their own.

Like Judge Rosa did.

He first duped very real voters into voting for him based on his claims that Judge Becker's sanctions in a particular case are inappropriate, constitute judicial misconduct, and that the reason why Judge Rosa is running for judicial office is to change that.

Then, Judge Rosa, without disclosure to other parties that that discussion of the case and solicitation of votes took place, assigned himself to the case and ruled that Judge Becker's sanctions that he condemned in order to fraudulently obtain votes, are perfectly OK, and even invented a new rule of how precedents apply or do not apply.

But, no hope for me suing Judge Rosa - even though the case did not involve unlawful sterilization of a minor, like in Stump v Sparkman.

Because Eric Schneiderman and the federal judge will hold a different view on precedential application - not the one created on the spot by Judge Rosa to protect the very Judge Becker whom he ardently criticized to the voters claiming that he, Judge Rosa is going to be different.

Federal judges will view Stump v Sparkman from the point of its legal issue, viewed in the broadest and most liberal way possible, in a way that will continue to protect judges from lawsuits for malicious and corrupt, and for stupid and incompetent, conduct on the bench, giving their victims no recourse and no true legal remedy (because an appeal to a similarly-minded judge who has a policy of "constitutional avoidance" is a waste of time, money and effort).

Remember - the lawsuit described was hypothetical, but Judge Gary's misconduct - real.








California State Bar does not do its job in investigating and disciplining rogue prosecutors - so the feds have to

I wrote yesterday about a petition for a writ of certiorari by a disciplined California attorney Charles Kinney pending in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, featuring constitutional inconsistencies in attorney discipline in California, selective enforcement of attorney discipline, corruption in the California State Bar and its "supervisor", the judiciary.

In the same blog article yesterday, also wrote or referenced by links to my prior blogs, systemic problems in California regulation of attorneys.

What I did not mention yesterday is selective non-enforcement of attorney discipline in California not only as to attorneys from rich firms connected to the judiciary who fund judicial elections and benefits and serenade (literally) judges, but also as to criminal prosecutors.

In New York, the non-discipline of prosecutors has so far led to a legislative bill - fairly toothless - that proposes creation of a special Commission for Prosecutorial Misconduct, fashioned after the New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct.  I say "fairly toothless" because the NYS Commission for Judicial Conduct never investigates anything and shreds most of complaints against judges without any investigation.  

I have been filing complaints against judges for 7 years (some reflected in the 11th Cause of Action in Neroni v Zayas, pp. 50 to 69, some reflected in Bracci v Becker, another basis for an anti-filing injunction in federal court against my husband), based on documentary evidence of misconduct, and in all those years, the New York State Commission of Judicial Conducts has NEVER contacted me to investigate the claims - it just tosses it claiming that complaints do not warrant discipline, even if that is blatantly untrue, and contradicts applicable precedents.

New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct is also populated by people with conflicts of interest to discipline judges - judges themselves, or licensed attorneys practicing before judges whose discipline they are handling, and who can derive a benefit from non-prosecution, and whose own livelihood is in the hands of the judiciary, making their reluctance to investigate complaints a point of personal professional survival.

By the way, New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct only recently proposed a change of internal policy and prohibited members of law firms of Commission's members and staff to appear in front of the Commission representing clients - before that, the Commission did that, but refuses to disclose to the public how many cases were tainted this way.

If that is the way that the Commission for Prosecutorial Misconduct is to be fashioned in New York, it is a waste of taxpayer money and yet another "smoke and mirror" scheme, designed to create an illusion of discipline for taxpayers.

In New York, the bill for creation of even a toothless Commission for Prosecutorial Misconduct is vigorously lobbied against by the state prosecutor organizations who claim that the current status of discipline of prosecutors is just fine as it is now.

Of course, the whole idea that such a bill became necessary is proof to the contrary, and statistics show that prosecutors - even those involved in reversals of cases on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct, or in vacatur of wrongful convictions years after sentencing based on prosecutorial misconduct - were never disciplined, and instead advanced in their careers, showing that the system of attorney discipline designed, allegedly, to protect the public from wrongful prosecutions, does not work.

Attorney Kinney pointed selective enforcement of attorney discipline in California in his writ of certiorari pending in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

I raised the same issues, that rules of attorney discipline are not enforceable to vast numbers of attorneys working for the government in the State of New York.

In my case, a federal judge, Lawrence E. Kahn, himself an attorney licensed in New York and thus dependent on favorable attitude of New York State judiciary for his own livelihood, has dismissed that lawsuit for "failure to state a claim", the 2nd Circuit (also with presiding judges licensed to practice in New York by New York judiciary) affirmed without a full opinion, and yet another judge, Gary Sharpe, also an attorney licensed by the New York State Judiciary, imposed an anti-filing injunction upon my husband for even daring to file such a lawsuit.

Here are some of my claims on behalf of my husband, made in January (initial complaint) and February of 2013 in Neroni v Zayas, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, 11th Cause of Action,  pages 50 to 69, on the issue of selective non-enforcement of attorney discipline in New York against attorneys working for the government, including criminal prosecutors, making the whole idea of attorney regulation as a pretense of protecting the public senseless and unconstitutional:

In the 11th Cause of Action, I pointed out that:

1) attorney discipline against governmental attorneys and relatives of judges and of high-standing governmental officials (like Governor Andrew Cuomo) is non-existent, and
2) that as a result, thousands of the most influential attorneys, and attorneys having the most power and the most ability to harm the public are put outside of the reach of attorney discipline, thus making attorney regulation in New York non-sensical and unlawful.

 In Neroni v Zayas I pointed out, as one of examples of attorney discipline, at attorney Bruce McKeegan who was involved in defrauding local schools of taxpayer money by claiming he is an employee of the school and enrolling into the school's benefits - he was allowed to unenroll and suffered no discipline (likely because he was a law school roommate of Governor Andrew Cuomo).  I also mentioned Bruce McKeegan in my opposition to discipline, indicating that my disciplinary proceedings are politically motivated.  

Now Bruce McKeegan is part of New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division 3rd Department "Independent Judicial Election Qualifications Committee", and Cuomo's other controversial friend, Westchester District Attorney #JanetDiFiore, who also had a trail of allegations of criminal conduct and prosecutorial misconduct supported by documents and witness accounts, was elevated to the position of New York State Chief Judge and retaliated against me for raising issues of improriety against her, her friend and benefactor #AndrewCuomo, and Cuomo's other friend whose misconduct I mentioned in the pleadings, #BruceMcKeegan of Delhi, NY.

I also wrote about another law school roommate of a high-standing public official, the Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick who attempted to extort money out of Judge Bryan Hedges, and had an agreement to split the proceeds of extortion with the alleged victim of Judge Hedges from 40+ years back.

"Coincidentally", Judge Hedges was the one upon whose disclosure to a victim of William Fitzpatrick's law school roommate's (Chief Administrative Judge of the 5th Judicial District James Tormey's) corruption, Judge Tormey's court employee not only sued him for retaliative discrimination in the workplace, but was able to obtain a $600,000 settlement - albeit not from Tormey's pocket, but from New York State taxpayers'.

Fitzpatrick was not only not prosecuted for extortion, not only not disciplined as an attorney, but was rewarded by having Judge Hedges taken off the bench (but not disbarred), and then proceeding to be a member of State Commission for Public Ethics and even the president of the National District Attorney's Association.

With such a figure as William Fitzpatrick leading our country's criminal prosecutors, it is not a surprise that prosecutors have become a jeopardy to proper enforcement of law rather than its tool.

For example, in the same blessed state of California that is involved in corrupt and selective enforcement of attorney discipline against solo and small firm civil rights, family court and criminal defense attorneys, a scandal has been raging for over 1.5 years about massive prosecutorial misconduct of prosecutors in Orange County illegally using jailhouse snitches to elicit incriminating statements from represented criminal defendants detained in the local County Jail, in violation of their 6th Amendment right to counsel.

Upon publicly available information, the California State Bar, too busy collecting attorney fees and disciplining sole and small-firm attorneys working for the poor and exposing judicial corruption in California and whitewashing big-fish attorneys, did not yet publicly discipline the Orange County prosecutors for repeated and systematic constitutional violations of criminal defendants' rights - and, likely, never will.

Of course, prosecutors in Orange County - as everywhere else in the country - are the breeding pool of the judiciary, and, naturally, many judges in California are direct off-springs of the Orange County District Attorney's office.

Since it is the judiciary that "regulates" attorney licenses in California, and all "regulators" of attorney licenses are themselves attorney license holders, regulators would be afraid to touch with investigation or discipline anybody from a judge's "alma mater" - prosecutors from the Orange County District Attorney's Office.

And, who will prosecute the prosecutors?  Themselves?  A "special prosecutor"?  Who will appoint a special prosecutor to prosecute criminal prosecutors for misconduct?  A judge, likely a former prosecutor him- or herself?

Especially after Pennsylvania criminally prosecuted its own elected official, Attorney General Kathleen Kane for doing her job and investigating the "ol' boys' club" of judges and prosecutors misusing their offices and disbarred her, with starking conflicts of interest involved in the disciplinary process (a judge "outed" by Kathleen Kane, before resigning from office during the pendency of a disciplinary proceeding, retaliated against Kathleen Kane by suspending her law license) - no state-employed attorney would dare to "do the right thing". 

Especially where defense attorneys in California are not only the target of unfair disciplinary proceedings, but are literally beaten up for winning against prosecution in criminal cases, and baten up in the courthouse, under cameras, by employees of the District Attorney's office - and nothing is done about that.

So, since the California State Bar cannot - or, rather, would not - do its job and discipline criminal prosecutors involved in egregious, deliberate and systematic violation of constitutional rights of criminal defendants, the feds had to step in.

The U.S. Justice Department announced on December 15, 2016 in a public press release, that it is now investigating misconduct of California prosecutors.

I wonder how far the investigation will go though against the "honorable" prosecutors of the Orange County - or if the high-standing friends of Orange County prosecutors will force the U.S. Department of Justice to sweep the investigation under the rug, as the feds were forced to sweep under the rug criminal and disciplinary investigations against Hillary Clinton for exposing government secrets to the immediate world, and her attorneys for shredding evidence of her misconduct despite a court order of disclosure.

After all, this country is founded upon "history and tradition".

Including a strong tradition of corruption of prosecutors and judges.

I will continue to follow the story of federal investigation of the Orange County police and prosecutors.

Stay tuned.








Junk science in the courtroom and retaliation against experts who denounce it: the case of Dr. Squire, the denouncer of the Shaken Baby Syndrome, continued

Science in the courtroom has always been the issue of controversy.

Many famous and useful books were published denouncing the use of "junk" science in the courtroom, with resulting violations of people's constitutional rights - from life to liberty to custody of children to property.

Some of these books that I can truly recommend are

  • Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology, 2nd Edition - the book explains principles of scientific validity, methodology of analysis of validity of various psychological tests used by court experts, psychologists and psychiatrists - the book is extremely useful in cross-examination of experts in family court, they usually have no clue as to methods of proving scientific validity of tests they use in their evaluations and do not read scientific literature at all (disclosure: I used the 1st edition of this book in my work);

  •  Jeopardy in the Courtroom: A Scientific Analysis of Children's Testimony - an insight from forensic psychologists into suggestibility of children, with examples of how memories in children can be created, or how children, following suggestive, leading questions from adults, can seek to predict what the adults want from them and provide testimony adults seek, with examples of people's lives ruined by such testimony;



Even though the book comes with a hefty price-tag, it is cheaper to buy it and familiarize yourself with the types and ways junk science used in the courtroom, in order to be able to fight that junk science than to suffer a conviction or civil adjudication with loss of rights as a result of not being prepared to confront junk science in the courtroom.  I've read this book, successfully used it in my work opposing experts testifying for prosecution and social services and highly recommend it.



The book exposes the lack of neutrality and scientific basis in testimony of psychiatrists in court proceedings.  It is also very useful in cross-examination of such "experts":



I would also highly recommend, as a reference - and to run that reference against the "Science and Pseudoscience in Psychology" methodology these two books that I consider "antiheroes" and anti-scientific:

Handbook of Clinical Intervention in Sexual Child Abuse 



- a book of collection of "syndromes" and "factors" and "signs" of sexual abuse of a child that can "diagnose" and put into jail any parent of any child - and is actually very widely used by courtroom experts, it is considered the Bible of courtroom experts in psychology testifying for prosecution in child sexual abuse proceedings.  While I am mindful that child sexual abuse does occur and is a heinous crime, I am also well aware, as a matter of experience as an attorney representing parents accused of such conduct, that such accusations can be easily made up - and Dr. Sgroi's "Handbook of Clinical Intervention" makes it possible to make a sex offender out of any parent with her "behavioral indicators" of sexual abuse located at pages 40-41 of the book, running from "overly compliant child" (the child listens to her parents "too much") to "acting out", arriving early at school, arriving late to school, good behavior at school, bad behavior at school, good grades, bad grades, inability to concentrate, not wanting to participate in certain school activities, inability to make friends, "pseudomature" behavior - whatever that is.

The other "anti-hero" book is DSM-V:


DSM-V "diagnoses" mental illnesses as a never-lose lottery - if "3 out of 5" or "4 out of 9" "indicators" fit - then you are sick.

Such "diagnostics" thus provide thousands, often millions or even a billion (as it is for bipolar disorder) symptom combinations - and it is very clear that those combination of symptoms were never subjected to rigorous scientific validity testing.

When people voluntarily come to a "doctor", a clinical psychologist and willingly believe the junk science diagnosing based on DSM-V, it is their own business. 

When such junk-science diagnosis is used to ruin people's lives through court proceedings, that is an entirely different matter.

How good and "scientific" "diagnoses" in DSM-V are is demonstrated by one example: pedophilia.

Pedophilia was initially included into DSM-V as a mental illness.  I have that book copy that lists it as a mental illness.

I bet it is no longer available and is a bibliographical rarity.

After pedophilia was listed in DMS-V as a mental illness, protests arose against such a diagnosis.

Imagine protests in the street against any other supposedly medical diagnosis - I protest against doctors diagnosing diabetes as a medical illness!

No, that is unimaginable.

Similarly, it should not be imaginable to protest against any mental illness - if diagnoses of it is based on scientific data.  And certainly, what constitutes a scientifically diagnosed illness should not be subject to amendments based on protests.

Well, pedophilia was taken out of DSM-V after protests - because, if that is an illness, how would you criminally prosecute a pedophile?

A medical diagnosis is not scientific when it is made - or not made - out of expedience to suit the needs of criminal prosecution or "public policy" needing to hold anybody accountable in any way, civil or criminal.

And that is applicable not only to the diagnosis of pedophilia - I just provided it as the strongest example that mental illnesses, diagnosed as a "never lose lottery" for treating psychologists and psychiatrists (4 out of 9, 3 out of 7 vague and over-broad "indicators" subjectively interpreted by the treating doctor to get you enrolled in expensive "therapy" sessions or put you on no less expensive drugs that a pharmaceutical company wines and dines the doctor to prescribe for you - and bingo! you are diagnosed and labeled for life).

Court testimony of experts is a big business, and, even though testifying expert are supposed to be neutral for purposes of giving testimony, and so claim under oath, they are usually hired and paid for their testimony by a party - and, even if they are court-appointed, they have a financial interest to testify the way the court wants them to testify (that is often very predictable, in child neglect and abuse proceedings, for example, courts are very pro-social services, and often judges in such courts are former social services prosecutors).

Often, experts testifying in criminal or family court, testify predominantly for prosecution - as the client with unlimited funds.

Naturally, such experts are interested to be hired and re-hired for such paid testimony - and testify the way prosecution wants them to testify, promoting claims that have no scientific validity, or the so-called "junk science"'.

"Junk science" "expert" testimony is a big problem in courts throughout the country.

On the one hand, prosecution often ask the court to give the jury a "TV show instruction" - and specifically weed out jurors who watch forensic science TV shows and expect a higher level of proof from prosecution's experts.  I was a witness how it was done in several criminal trials in Delaware County, New York, at the request of the then-District Attorney (and now the County Judge presiding over felony trials) Richard Northrup.

On the other hand, prosecution use their advantage in having unlimited funds, as opposed to the usually indigent defendants in criminal proceedings or civil child neglect and abuse proceedings - where state laws, out of expediency and fiscal considerations, restrict indigent defendants' funds and ability to apply for such funds to hire experts in opposition to prosecution's experts.

All of these tricks allow the prosecution to drum up convictions.

Yet, as the above books, and especially the "Science and Pseudoscience in Psychology" explains, a "syndrome", a term very often used by "junk science" experts in courtroom testimony, is not the same as a "differential diagnosis" excluding other causes of the injury, such as causes unrelated to fault of the defendant in the court proceedings.

And, not all experts are "whores" of the court or the party who hired them for money.

Some experts are honest and do testify based on scientific validity - or, in their expert opinion, lack of scientific validity of a certain syndrome.

One of such honest experts is Dr. Squire from Great Britain who recently lost her medical license because she did not accept as scientific the so-called Shaken Baby Syndrome, a junk science term that already resulted in many convictions and child abuse adjudications.

Fortunately for Dr. Squire, her license was revoked not for long, it was restored due to solidarity of Dr. Squire's colleagues who expressed indignation against such a retaliation for scientific opinion and in support of her.

Yet, recently Dr. Squire spoke at a gathering where she disclosed that she was actually reported by to licensing authorities by police officials who went to a Shaken Baby Syndrome convention and claimed there that the "syndrome" helped them maintain a high rate of convictions.

So, Dr. Squire's license revocation was to prevent the conviction rate for a certain police agency from dropping and had nothing to do with the actual science validity or invalidity of the Shaken Baby Syndrome, or guilt or innocence of those accused of harming children.

Actually, the junk science, also termed "voodoo science", was condemned in September of this year by the U.S. Department of Justice Report where the famous 9th Circuit judge Alex Kozinski participated in preparation of the report.


We live in interesting times.  I already wrote about Dr. Squire's case on my blog back in October and indicated that Dr. Squire's case demonstrates how a democracy can be turned into a theocracy - where a scientist is being persecuted by the government for "wrong beliefs".

Yet, being prosecuted for "wrong beliefs" because the police wants to maintain a certain level of wrongful convictions is a new low.

In the Middle Ages, it was the church that prevented the science from enlightening the masses - it was deemed heresy, and scientists were burnt at the stake for contradicting the church doctrine.

It was beneficial for the state to keep masses ignorant and illiterate - it is easier to rule over them this way.

Quite a different approach is needed when the majority of population of civilized countries have at least some formal education.

Blunt force in blocking people from information or prohibiting access to certain information of public concern (and validity of claims upon which people are criminally convicted is a matter of grave public concern) - is not an effective way of dealing with the public.

During the times of church domination, church law, overwhelming ignorance of the population, when burning people at the stake was a kind of a feast for the eye for the townsfolk at the town square, people were expected to hold and express blind faith in what can be subjected to experimentation and research and proven wrong.

And, of course, fighting heresies was positioned in Middle Ages by law enforcement as an important way to enforce church law.

Nowadays, the church's role in eradicating heresies is shifted and gladly undertaken by state secular licensing authorities - who are acting, supposedly, in order to protect the public.

Dr. Squire's license was taken because, as a scientist, she disagreed with and denounced with a theory that is not, in her view, supported by evidence.

And, the taking of Dr Squire's license was sought by police to keep their conviction rates high, bonuses paid, prison guards and prosecution receiving salary and bonuses, everybody happy - but the convicted innocents and children separated from families for no fault of parents.

Protecting the public from the truth, or at least from doubts in the truthfulness of what is considered "settled truths" - or a dogma - in any field of knowledge or human activity - is not the lawful person or justification of occupational licensing.

Not to mention that such persecution of a scientist based on the contents of her opinion violates internationally accepted freedom of speech principles.

Or, are we really turning into theocracies where we are supposed to believe certain dogmas and where any doubter, and especially a doubter whose voice has more weight because of the doubter's training and intellect - like in Dr Squire's case - are viciously beaten down by authorities?

Because if we do, we must prepare for a possibility of being thrown in jail on some or other "voodoo science" claim of a prosecution-paid "whore of the court".  Yes, I said the word.









Friday, December 16, 2016

A certiorari petition to the U.S. Supreme Court from California attorney Charles Kinney echoes dissent of California Supreme Court Judge Kennard in 2000, my pleadings in federal court in 2013 and U.S. Supreme Court cases decided in 2015 and 2016. What will the U.S. Supreme Court say?

I was alerted by a reader of a case pending in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Docket No. 16-606, challenging attorney regulation on antitrust grounds:

There is no link on the site of the U.S. Supreme Court to the petition for the writ of certiorari, as the Petitioner is Pro Se - but the author of the petition kindly provided a copy of his petition to me for publication.

Questions for review Nos. 2 and 3 of the petition directly challenge legitimacy of attorney regulation from the point of view of federal antitrust laws (civil and criminal), which now include:


Petitioner, attorney Charles Kinney, an attorney with 35 years of experience, challenges that


Attorney Kinney also raised in his petition the issues of:

1) accuser-adjudicator (interested prosecutor) conflict in attorney disciplinary proceedings in California, where both the prosecutors and the hearing officers are appointees of the market participant State Bar of California, a professional corporation of California licensed attorneys, competitors of those sought to be disciplined;

recently the U.S. Supreme Court, in Williams v Pennsylvania, decided in June of 2016, declared proceedings decided by accusers-ajudicators as a violation of due process rendering such decisions void;

2) political motivation in deciding attorney disciplinary cases, and deciding cases in a way that hurts the public


that includes

  • backroom selection of judges;

  • corruption of judges by litigants paying part of judicial salaries and providing benefits to the judiciary, and

  • improper use of attorney disciplinary proceedings, in violation of attorneys due process of law, and without any lawful basis for discipline, as a sword used to eliminate whistleblowers of judicial misconduct, rather than, as it is supposed to be, a shield of consumers against dishonest or incompetent attorneys;

  • improper use of vexatious litigant orders and blocking whistleblowers from access to court; and

  • operation as organized crime requiring its members to commit criminal acts in order to "belong":






Attorney Kinney calls
  • consolidation of the judiciary and California State Bar as an organized crime entity,
  • corruption within the California judiciary,
  • the use of vexatious litigant and attorney disciplinary process to eliminate whistleblowers of such corruption, and
  • rewards by the judiciary/California State Bar of "like-minded" attorneys supporting and condoning the functioning of California judiciary and California State Bar as an organized crime entity

as cancer, and indicates in his petition that cancer is sometimes difficult to discern when it just starts, but only when it grows (and, I will add, often when it becomes terminal for the system where it has grown and metastasized):



Attorney Kinney describes his specific situation and points out that discipline imposed upon him for the benefit of judges and California State Bar bureaucrats actually hurt the public and constituted a group boycott of whistleblower attorneys:

Attorney Kinney describes California disciplinary rules that allow attorney disciplinary cases to be investigated, prosecuted and adjudicated by active market participants, without statutory approval or active state supervision, in violation of the Sherman Act and North Carolina Dental:


Attorney Kinney asserts a very basic, foundational jurisdictional principle of the rule of law that a court of law does not have authority to issue orders inconsistent with state and federal statutes and state and federal Constitutions:


and argues that attorney discipline imposed in violation of statutes, rules of procedure in the disciplinary case, based on void and unconstitutional court orders and with violations of the attorney's due process of law are void as being jurisdictionally defective and invalid:



Attorney Kinney legitimately raises the issue that when competitors, without a statutory approval by the California Legislature and without active state supervision by a neutral state entity, block an experienced attorney from doing his job, that is a matter of public concern:



The petition raises issues of violation of 1st (free speech) and 14th (due process) Amendments, and stresses that denial to an attorney of a right to appeal the order of discipline, and especially when such denial is done by an active market participant, requires strict scrutiny and warrants review by the U.S. Supreme Court:


The petition raises an interesting question of law where the decision of administrative hearing officer becomes "final" when the California supervising court simply remains silent - so there is no judicial review in attorney disciplinary process in California:






I wrote in my previous blog about


I also wrote that California State Supreme Court has long ago made attorney regulation and discipline senseless by claiming that representation by a criminal defendant by a suspended attorney - in violation of regulations and criminal laws against unauthorized practice of law - does not deprive the criminal defendant of effective representation of COUNSEL, for purposes of constitutional right to counsel under the 6th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Gideon v Wainright.

When the same State of California claims that constitutional right to "counsel" under the 6th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution may be satisfied by an unlicensed attorney, the whole idea of licensing for protection of consumers becomes a mockery - and a trick designed to protect the legal elites from competition.


I am not the only one who is raising the issue of corruption in California judiciary and State Bar.

Recently, a two 1.5 hours documentary videos were produced and posted in public access on YouTube, Scandal in the State Bar, Part I and Part II - providing a unique insight into the details of such corruption.

Part II  - describes selective enforcement of attorney discipline against solo and and small-firm attorneys, while also describing, as a comparison, lack of discipline against three attorneys connected to the State Judicial Council and to a non-profit that provides benefits for judges and where the State Bar's "special prosecutor" sat on the same Board as the attorney he was supposedly "investigating" - which resulted in no mandatory reciprocal discipline at all, even though these three attorneys were all disciplined (also very lightly considering their misconduct) in federal court for a disbarring offense - a $489 million dollar fraud upon the court (forgery of an foreign court decision).

The difference in draconian discipline against solo attorneys and lack of discipline against the three connected attorneys (I will run a separate blog about that story) is personal connections to the judiciary, political donations, and the fact that the law firm of Thomas Girardi, one of the connected attorneys subject at that very time to a state reciprocal disciplinary investigation of his fraud upon the federal court for which he was already disciplined (and usually reciprocal discipline is automatic, without an investigation) reportedly serenaded - literally - the Chief Judge of California State Supreme Court by paying for performance of the entire philharmonic orchestra and opera singer in front of the invited judge.


I am currently researching some episodes and claims made in that video and may follow up with blogs regarding more judicial corruption in the California judiciary and State Bar and more cases of retaliation against attorney whistleblowers, or civil rights attorneys who are usually the targets of retaliative discipline.


I also repeatedly write on this blog about judicial misconduct and retaliation against attorney whistleblowers who dare to expose such misconduct, which is happening across the United States.

The so-called "mainstream" media and the timid "professional" law review authors, blawgers and law professors prefer not to cover this topic of - as Attorney Charles Kinney correctly says - cancer rotting the American judiciary and legal profession from within, or cover it with unwarranted curtsies towards the judiciary, with claims, unsupported by evidence, that "the majority of judges are honest hard working people, but there are some rare bad apples".

The "honorable" legal profession, seized by fear, prefers, in their majority, to keep their licenses and remain silent - even if a client or two (or three, or more) will, as a result of their silence lose their cases through review by biased and corrupt judges.

California is not unique in silencing whistleblowers.

New York silenced many - from
  • attorney John Aretakis (suspended in 2008, without a right of automatic reinstatement, and remains suspended) for exposing sexual abuse by Catholic priests, to
  • Doris and George Sassowers,  disbarred (George in 1987) and suspended (Doris in 1991) when Doris Sassower started to challenge corruption in New York judicial nomination and election process, to
  • Frederick Neroni (disbarred in 2011) and Tatiana Neroni (suspended in 2015) - for exposing and challenging judicial misconduct in motions to recuse and in assigned criminal appeals.

Therefore, I've made it a point, since this blog has started in 2014, to name the culprits of judicial misconduct, the attorney whistleblowers who are unfairly made to suffer for doing their professional duty - reporting judicial misconduct in order to secure impartial access to court for their clients (and for themselves, if they proceed in certain cases pro se), and to follow the tendency, which has grow not only into cancer, but into an epidemic of retaliation against attorneys trying to do their jobs and challenge judicial misconduct.

I wrote previously that my own petition for the writ of certiorari was filed, docketed, Docket No. 16-664, is also currently pending in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, and is also raising issues of improper attorney discipline used as a sword against whistleblowers, and as an unconstitutional content-based regulation of speech, having an effect of widening the already wide "justice gap" in the United States, to the public's detriment.

It remains to be seen whether the U.S. Supreme Court will finally take for review a case of attorney-whistleblower discipline, or let the cancer metastasize further without treatment.

We will learn about that soon.

Attorney Kinney's petition is distributed for the U.S. Supreme Court's conference for January 5, 2017.

My petition awaits answer or waiver of answer by my opponent, and its fate, whether the review on the merits will or will not be given, will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Wrongful application of discipline against attorneys for doing their jobs and exposing judicial misconduct hurts not only attorneys.

In Pennsylvania, for example, attorneys' silence as to judicial misconduct, out of fear of retaliation, already resulted in many years of illegal incarceration of children - and a suicide of at least one child.

Yet, the Pennsylvania judiciary continues to retaliate against civil rights attorneys - such as civil rights solo attorneys Andy Ostrowski and Don Bailey - and went so far as criminally convicted the State of Pennsylvania elected Attorney General when she exposed judicial misconduct and corruption, while continuing to hide from the public the names of those involved in judicial and prosecutorial misconduct that Kathleen Kane's investigation uncovered.

The anticompetitive and retaliative use of attorney discipline against civil rights, Family Court, criminal defense and other solo and small-firm attorneys working for the poor widens the already wide justice gap and hurts - badly - the most vulnerable members of the public who could benefit by such attorney's services.

After all, those who pay for philharmonic orchestras and opera singers to serenade Chief Judges of State Courts do not usually represent the poor in Family Court, criminal, foreclosure, landlord-tenant or consumer debt cases.

In 2000, Judge Joyce L. Kennard (who now retired) issued a seminal dissent in a California Supreme Court decision In Re Rose that has stated much of what the U.S. Supreme Court has stated in its majority opinion in North Carolina Dental in 2015.

I would like to provide Judge Kennard's dissenting opinion here in full, with comments:



In his currently pending petition for the writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court Attorney Charles Kinney raises exactly that same issue - denial to California disciplined attorney of any judicial review whatsoever:



In 2000, Judge Kennard raised in her dissent the issue that procedures denying disciplined attorneys in California the right to judicial review are unconstitutional under the California State Constitution.



Attorney Kinney contends in his currently pending petition before the U.S. Supreme Court that attorney regulation in California is void as unconstitutional also under the U.S. Constitution:



Moreover, in 2000, Judge Kennard raised the issue of equal protection of attorneys, as holders of occupational licenses - as opposed to holders of other occupational licenses (the issue which I, without knowing of Judge Kennard's opinion, raised on my own on behalf of my husband in federal case Neroni v Zayas, dismissed "for failure to state a claim", dismissal affirmed on appeal in a summary non-precedential order, and dismissal resulted in imposition of an anti-filing injunction upon my husband in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York):


Compare with the twelfth cause of action in Neroni v Zayas (starts at p. 69 of the Amended Complaint):









Here is what the U.S. District Judge Lawrence E. Kahn said about the 12th Cause of Action in Neroni v Zayas - the one that coincided with the dissenting opinion of 2002 by Judge Kennard, of the Supreme Court of the State of California in In Re Rose:

for cheerful starters, Judge Kahn immediately pointed out that the entire complaint of my husband is related to his disbarment




- thus from the very start painting my husband as being below the law - even though many causes of action, as the 12th Cause of Action was, was challenging discrimination of attorney regulation with regulation of other regulated professions in New York.


In no less cheerful "Background", in the very first phrase, Judge Kahn claimed that the Amended Complaint in Neroni v Zayas, as a whole, is "lengthy, convoluted, digressive and redundant" (of course, every civil rights case is subject to a dismissal - as Judge Kahn did) for "failure to state a claim" which federal courts interpret as failure to allege ENOUGH facts - under such circumstances, federal courts invite redundancy as a precaution, but here is the excerpt from Judge Kahn's order of dismissal:



Such a start of a court order usually spells out for the litigant that the litigant should not expect impartiality from such a judge - and especially in a case where pleadings must be LIBERALLY construed IN FAVOR of a non-moving party, in other words, by blasting the civil rights complaint that I drafted for my husband as:


  • lengthy,
  • convoluted,

  • digressive, and

  • redundant
As you can see from dictionary definitions of "convoluted", "digressive" and "redundant", these three attributes, combined with "lengthy", produce a very interesting impression of Judge Kahn's judicial review of the civil rights lawsuit for purposes of a motion to dismiss:

  • I made the complaint unnecessarily long (lengthy);
  • I veered from the main topic of the complaint (the topic which is for the Plaintiff to decide and not the judge, but Judge Kahn, by using the word "digressive" implies he understands what is the "main" topic of the complaint from which I allegedly "digress"), yet, then Judge Kahn claims that the complaint is both:
  • "convoluted" (too complex - for his understanding, apparently), and
  • "redundant" at the same time.
What I read in these four epithets is - judicial frustration: "why do I have to read these 87 pages from a disbarred attorney who does not have any rights anyway, no matter what he says"?

If that is "liberal construction" of my pleadings in my client's favor, required by law, then, I am Santa Claus.  Well, you be the judge how convoluted, digressive or redundant the civil rights lawsuit actually was, here it is once again.

And, here is what Judge Kahn, lilberally construing the 12th Cause of action in my client's favor, said about it - and the 2nd Circuit affirmed:


The only thing that Judge Kahn  understood from reading the 12th cause of action is:


  • that it seeks a declaration that attorney disciplinary system in New York is unconstitutional
  • through a "rambling assemblage of words".
Here is, once again, the "rambling assemblage of words", the 12th Cause of Action in Neroni v Zayas:





It contains just 9 paragraphs, and I wonder what exactly Judge Kahn found as "rambling assemblage" and did not understand.

Actually, the 12th Cause of Action in Neroni v Zayas is nearly identical to the dissenting opinion of Judge Kennard in In Re Rose regarding discrimination against attorneys by the State of California as opposed to regulation of other licensed professions:




Apparently, what constituted a "startling anomaly" for Judge Kennard, of the California State Supreme Court, was business as usual for federal U.S. District Court judge Judge Lawrence E. Kahn who considered a clearly worded challenge to this "startling anomaly" a "rambling assemblage of words" - and dismissed it.

Of course, possibly, Judge Kahn's problem was not that Neroni v Zayas was a "rambling assemblage of words", but that it spelled out too clearly - as the petition of California Attorney Charles Kinney to the U.S. Supreme Court does - the woeful problems of how attorneys are regulated in New York:

the conflicts of interest and interest to quash competition through attorney disciplinary proceedings:






At the time I wrote these words, Dr Hany Ghaleb, likely on behalf of Carol Malz, got even with me and brought a disciplinary proceeding against me that eventually resulted in my suspension.

Here is what I said in Neroni v Zayas in February of 2013, in the 10th Cause of Action (as one of the examples) - directly coincides what the U.S. Supreme Court said in North Carolina Dental in February of 2015, 2 years later (even though the dismissal of Neroni v Zayas is still resulting, at this time, in an anti-filing injunction against my husband as if the claims now recognized by a U.S. Supreme Court precedent are somehow "frivolous"):













And here is what the U.S. Supreme Court stated regarding regulating a profession by super-majorities of competitors of those sought to be regulated, disciplined and deprived of their right to practice their profession and earn a living:


 And, "active supervision", as the Federal Trade Commission explained in October of 2015, is not supervision by holders of the same occupational licenses (like "supervision" of attorney disciplinary committees by judges, themselves licensed attorneys):



What Judge Kahn obviously also did not like - which was also spelt out much too clear was:


  • that attorneys in New York are not provided with
    • rights to discovery and jury trial

  • elevated standard of proof, as in forfeiture proceedings:

  • denial of right to appeal (rules of attorney discipline were amended in 2015 to allow some discovery, but not as much as allowed in other civil cases, and still no right of appeal);

  • disparity in standards of proof between revocation and reinstatement of attorney license:


  • improper use of collateral estoppel (denial of a due process hearing before revocation of the license) in attorney disciplinary proceedings - which was done to John Aretakis, the attorney who outed sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, and was immediately suspended in 2008 without a hearing, then to my husband in 2011 and, after I filed Neroni v Zayas and challenged such a use of collateral estoppel, on behalf of my husband, as a due process violation, it was done to me in 2015:

In connection with our claims in Neroni v Zayas of constitutional infirmities of attorney disciplinary proceedings in New York, such as: 

  1. the lack of right to discovery,
  2. lack of right to a proper evidentiary hearing (jury trial), especially when a collateral estoppel is applied to a proceeding which is deemed criminal in nature,
  3. no right to subpoena and confront witnesses,
  4. no right to appeal,
  5. low evidentiary standard of proof, not matching the criminal or quasi-criminal nature of the proceedings;
  6. a disparity of standard of proof between revocation (preponderance of the evidence) and reinstatement (clear and convincing evidence) of attorney licenses,
  7. secret formation and
  8. anti-competitive composition of attorney disciplinary boards and
  9. lack of mechanisms of recusals for conflict of interest -
  10. I rose in Neroni v Zayas the issue of separation of powers, which was at the root of all those above mentioned constitutional infirmities:

that all those procedural constitutional infirmities are created by the disciplinary court that, at the same time,

  • appoints investigators and prosecutors,
  • legislates procedural and substantive rules of disciplinary proceedings,
  • is considering disciplinary prosecutors as its own "arm", thus merging with the prosecutor and presenting an "accuser-adjudicator" problem (prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Williams v Pennsylvania in 2016); and
  • adjudicates attorney disciplinary proceedings.

My "problem", as Neroni v Zayas clearly reveals, is not that Neroni v Zayas was a "rambling assemblage of words", as Judge Kahn said, but that the challenge was too clear, too comprehensive, and too true - and required overhaul of the entire attorney disciplinary system in New York (which was a concern expressed on behalf of defendants in that case in their pleadings).

By the way, here is how Judge Kahn "resolved" the 10th Cause of Action in Neroni v Zayas, challenging composition of attorney disciplinary committees on:

  1. antitrust grounds - where the U.S. Supreme Court later agreed with my position in 2015 in North Carolina Dental; and on
  2. accuser-adjudicator/interested prosecutor grounds - where the U.S. Supreme Court later agreed with my position in 2016 in Williams v Pennsylvania:

you will simply not find a decision on the 10th cause of action (composition of the attorney grievance committee of a super-majority of market participants) - a convenient way out by Judge Kahn.

My "problem" in Neroni v Zayas was that I was asking "too much":


My other big problem was that I was right, and as Judge Andrew Napoletano said in his book, it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong 




- or to be right ahead of the government whose operatives have no ideas of their own, but prefer to steal yours - and then demonize and harass you so that the stealing of ideas would not be so obvious.


For example, in the 9th cause of action in Neroni v Zayas, I claimed, on behalf of my husband as client, equal protection violation because of disparity of rules of attorney discipline between four intermediate appellate courts in New York.


This cause of action was drafted and asserted by me on behalf of my husband in January (initial complaint) and then February (amended complaint) of 2013.

In March of 2014, Judge Kahn dismissed this cause of action for failure to state a claim while ignoring to even mention it in the order of dismissal.

After obtaining dismissal of that cause of action, in March of 2015, the then-Chief Judge Lippman (co-Defendant in Neroni v Zayas) announced formation of "New York State Commission on Attorney Discipline", populated it with a super-majority of market players, and with some co-defendants from Neroni v Zayas, and the Commission, together with Lippman, shamelessly promoted contents of challenges plagiarized from Neroni v Zayas (that Lippman and codefendants claimed are frivolous, and obtained a dismissal from the federal court) as Lippman's and the Commission's own move towards "uniformity and fairness", which the legal community lauded as the Commission's "boldest recommendations".

Moreover, after the new rules of attorney discipline were already in place, Lippman fought tooth and nail against my husband's appeal of the dismissal, and against my husband's motion to vacate dismissal of Neroni v Zayas based specifically on the Commission's "Report and Recommendations" and on introduction of new rules of attorney discipline, 22 NYCRR 1240, promoting many of proposals that I drafted on my husband's behalf in Neroni v Zayas, and which were dismissed by Judge Kahn, at Judge Lippman's request, as frivolous.

So, I was right - but I was not the "right" (connected) person to be right, and I was right "ahead of time".

Being not the "right" person to be "right" and being right ahead of time is punishable in New York.

And, it is not punishable, and is even laudable in New York to:


  • claim to a court of law that my ideas in Neroni v Zayas are "frivolous", incomprehensible rambling, 
  • have them dismiss as "rampant assemblage of words",
  • then turn that "rampant assemblage" into a pioneering move toward "uniformity and fairness",
  • announce the plagiarized ideas, without attribution to Neroni v Zayas or its drafter, as "move towards uniformity and fairness" in attorney regulation, which was paraded as "boldest recommendations" of the Commission,
  • implement those "incomprehensible rambling" ideas, at least some of them, into new court rules of attorney discipline, 22 NYCRR 1240,
  • and then fight an appeal of dismissal of the source of 22 NYCRR 1240, and fight the motion to vacate the true source of 22 NYCRR 1240, while the motion was made on obvious grounds - if it is a new pioneering positive ideas implemented into the new rules of attorney discipline by the very defendants in Neroni v Zayas - how come Neroni v Zayas should remain dismissed as frivolous and be the basis of an anti-filing injunction, blocking its author from filing new civil rights lawsuits without court approval?
By the way, the fight against my ideas in Neroni v Zayas continued

  • not only despite acceptance by defendants of many of those ideas in 22 NYCRR 1240, but also
  • despite recognition of the U.S. Supreme Court of my 10th Cause of Action in Neroni v Zayas (anti-competitive composition of attorney disciplinary committees) in North Carolina Dental in 2015 and
  • despite recognition by the U.S. Supreme Court of my challenge in Neroni v Zayas of interested prosecutor/separation of power/ attorney-adjudicator infirmity through Williams v Pennsylvania in 2016.
In fact, defendants continue to fight my husband's now pro se motion to vacate dismissal of Neroni v Zayas in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York - which is frivolous and in complete defiance of existing law and common sense, but defendants in Neroni v Zayas have a lot of power, and, as I have learnt about the legal profession during the years that I worked in it, and during the years that I researched it, in the legal profession, claims of the rule of law, justice and fairness are smoke and mirrors, and the real rule is by connections, fear and greed.

I am looking forward to see whether the U.S. Supreme Court will accept for review attorney Kinney's and my own petition for a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court for not much really - for fairness and consistency in application of its own precedents, and for enforcement of the U.S. Constitution to the profession that is supposed to secure for all Americans a vital constitutional right, the right to impartial judicial review.

Whatever the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, I will announce it - and will continue to monitor conceptual development, or rather, falling apart, of attorney regulation in the United States.

Yet, there is a silver lining in all of this mess.

If they stole my ideas and implemented at least some of them, even in a castrated form, as New York did with my ideas from Neroni v Zayas in 22 NYCRR 1240, they are afraid.

Afraid that another, further lawsuit, from somebody else, on the same subject, will be more successful than ours was.

And it will be.

The wheels of justice go forward - even if slowly and not so steadily.