Quo vadis, Carl Becker - 2: nobody wants to employ a retired rogue judge?

I wrote on this blog that I will be monitoring compliance of the retired judge Carl Becker with attorney registration laws.

Becker retired on July 31, 2015, and was required by court rules to re-register for his new office and location by August 30, 2015.

Here is Becker's new registration information as of today:












Of course, the "no public discipline" part is a joke - Carl Becker's misconduct was legendary and was subject of several lawsuits against him, all dismissed because of absolute judicial immunity, even for malicious and corrupt acts on the bench.

Yet, multiple lawsuits filed against Becker over the years state all of Becker's shenanigans that plaintiffs at least know about - and that is the tip of a huge and ugly iceberg.  

It was a little more than a year from the time I first started exposing Becker in March of 2014 to the time of his "early retirement" announced on May 5, 2015 claiming the sudden need to spend time with his 10-year-old granddaughter (all the previous 10 years Becker, apparently, did not feel that need).

Which tells me that exposure and shaming of judicial misconduct works - when nothing else does.

Our "most humble" monster ran from the bench when his monstrosities were regularly aired on the blog.

It is a shame that the monster still draws retirement benefits, after committing egregious misconduct on the bench and unlawfully ruining many lives.

Yet, those who Becker has hurt may find some mode of relief in his new registration information showing that nobody hired him and he does not practice law - at least at this time, which raises questions: 

• With such a beautiful record of lawsuits, nobody wants him as an attorney?

• Too much of a taint on the reputation of the law firm who would hire him?

• He alienated too many people and do not dare to practice law?  

• He hopes he will get some perk assignments for presiding as a judicial hearing officer from his buddies?

I will be monitoring change of Carl Becker and will be reporting it on the blog.

And I will be monitoring Carl Becker's assignments as a judicial officer and will report them to the public on this blog, too.

Stay tuned.

The overwhelming majorities of honorable people - until the next arrest

I come across this phrase time and again, in public speeches, in law review articles and even in law books that pretend to be serious treatises.

"Of course, the overwhelming majority of judges are men and women of honor".

"Of course"?  Even though those same "men and women" allowed themselves to be free, with immunity, from the very constitutional oath of office that allows them to draw their salary and benefits?

And when judicial discipline is virtually non-existent, and what exists is secret and does not allow for any independent review of statistics of the actual number of complaints filed against judges and of validity of those complaints?

It is easy to brand people who complain about judicial conduct in litigation as "disgruntled litigants", and after branding them so, dismiss their complaints as incredible.

Yet, judicial immunity was given BECAUSE judicial discipline was (allegedly) available for improper conduct in court proceedings.

And, judicial discipline for judges' actions in the court proceedings is adamantly NOT available BECAUSE an appeal is available (a very expensive and technically complex endeavor that not many people can afford).

And during the appeal judicial misconduct is always endorsed or dismissed as "discretion" of the judge to do whatever he wants.  The circle came around.

Of course, the majority of men and women who come to the bench and know that they are protected by those rules, are honorable?  

As well as the majority of the prosecutors, similarly covered by absolute immunity and similarly unreachable by discipline, to the point that in New York the Legislature is trying to establish a whole separate disciplinary body to discipline prosecutors, separately - as a confirmation that the existing disciplinary bodies would not touch prosecutors for discipline, no matter what they do.

So, district attoney's offices, those people who 

• routinely put police officers on the stand and knowingly elicit perjury from them, to the point that lawyers invented a term "testilying" characterizing testimony of police witnesses;
• routinely withhold exculpatory evidence, even in death penalty cases;
• routinely prosecute in order to pursue personal and political interests, their own, their families', friend's or political or financial sponsors people - 

The majority of these people who, statistically, make the majority of judges, are honorable?

Where is the statistics of complaints, where are the REASONED decisions of disciplinary bodies as to the merits of those complaints, so that such a claim would have any basis?

The same applies to the "overwhelmingly honorable" legislatures, such as the New York Legislature where first the head of one chamber, and then the other, were charged with federal crimes of corruption, within months from one another, and yet, the new Speaker of the Assembly that replaced the arrested one claims that - again - the overwhelming majority of men and women in the Assembly are honorable people.  

But, rules of per diem travel must be changed because of those who are not that honorable, and right after the arrests of the leaders of both chambers of the New York legislature for federal crimes of fraud and corruption.

Given the fact that lawsuits against these honorable people are routinely dismissed on legislative immunity grounds covering, once again, malicious and corrupt acts, and discipline of legislators - other than efforts of the U.S. Attorney General's office - is unavailable, such claims of honor makes one clutch one's pocketbook closer.

But New York taxpayers will clutch their pocketbooks in vain.

This is what are the "revised" rules (makes me wondering what was before that).

Wait a second.

30 trips a year, when the Assembly is NOT in session, with reimbursement of transportation costs without ANY control, and trips over 30 under control of one person - the Speaker?

What is an "off-session trip"?

A vacation with family and friends?

A dinner party with a buddy pretending to be a meeting with the constituents?

Good job, legislators.

I will take out popcorn and watch who is going to be next on Preet Bharara's list of honorable men and women.

With all these honorable people doing all of those honorable things, what are my co-citizens, Americans, doing at this time - well, apart from fighting for survival, of course? 

They are, actually, doing something.

With great admiration I see that more and more people take a stand - in the social media, on the streets, in letters to the government, in petitions on Change.org, against misconduct on all levels of the government.

Change is actually coming, in some branches of the government quicker, in some - slower, but it is coming.

It is extremely sad to see people who are badly hurt by the government, being blocked from access to courts to get any remedies - by yet another bunch of "honorable men and women".

This has to change.

We the People - the sovereign of this country - should be able to make sure that we are able to discipline or get rid our "public servants" of any branch and any level ("servants" is the key word), if they err.

To make this happen - a suggestion.

If anybody claims that "the majority of men and women", members of the XYZ governmental entity, are allegedly honorable, demand from the claimers, statistics of misconduct amongst the ranks of those honorable men and women and proof that disciplinary processes are set that are transparent and handled by neutral citizen panels, and not by members of the same class as the disciplined "public servant".  

Otherwise reject those claims as a bad joke and continue to demand cleaning the stinking mess that this country's government has become.

A question about a law license

If the U.S. Supreme Court has established in February of 2015 that professional regulation boards run by regulated professionals without state oversight are in violation of antitrust laws - and attorney regulation in New York is exactly run by private attorneys without any oversight - are law licenses a kind of a devil's mark, a cattle brand showing that the attorneys who has a law license is in compliance of the rules of the criminal cartels?

And are then, orders of disbarment and suspension - especially those orders which are issued for criticism of judicial misconduct, and misconduct of any other public official, or of a well-connected attorneys - in fact, badges of honor?

It is an interesting world...

Alex Kozinski's litigation saga: the final choice of a judge for Kozinski's case, Judge # 4, an 80-year old A. Wallace Tashima. Will the judicial players in the Kozinski saga be impeached and removed from office or were members of Congress silenced by the movie nights with booze in the 9th Circuit courthouse?

In 2005, Judge Alex Kozinski, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, has authored an article on appearance of judicial impropriety.

Blogs I published in late August of 2015, with documentary evidence, show just how much propriety Judge Kozinski cares about himself.

This post covers the appointment and "service" of the last of the 4 judges (so far) who were appointed to the Kozinski litigation in the Central District of California.

Judges # 1, 2 and 3 recused for reasons I described in separate blogs, for each judge.

This is how judge A. Wallace Tashima was appointed, a judge who has first been appointed to the federal bench in 1980, to the 9th Circuit in 1996, and "assumed senior status" (cleared the path for appointment of another judge while keeping his full salary and benefits) in 2004.

At the time of appointment Judge A. Wallace Tashima was 80 (eighty) years of age.

A good choice and a proper level of energy to handle a class action.

Kozinski could not pick a judge for his case, out of his own subordinates, any better.

Alex Kozinski, as of January 29, 2014 the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, delegated his authority to appoint judges to district courts to his future successor (one must earn the succession, mustn't one?), his subordinate Judge Sidney Thomas, and Judge Sidney Thomas obediently appointed to Judge Kozinski's own case Judge Kozinski's own subordinate at that time, Judge A. Wallace Tashima.

Piece of cake.

Judge A. Wallace Tashima, who obviously did not want to irk his boss Alex Kozinski, did not squeak against such an appointment, which was contrary to the Code of Judicial Conduct - as was already cogently explained in the letter of recusal of the previous judge, and the letter from the Committee on Judicial Code of Conduct.

Instead, Judge A. Wallace Tashima, after Alex Kozinski dropped hints in a public "Key Note Speech" at a conference held for him by his buddy, Professor Arthur Miller's, law school, during the pendency of Alex Kozinski's own lawsuit - that district judges' discretion should not really be trusted with too much money, that plaintiffs' attorneys in class actions lawsuits should similarly not be trusted with too much money - after all of that, Judge A. Wallace Tashima obediently resumed proceedings after the "court-ordered mediation", and then approved the settlement that was agreeable for Kozinski and his wife, while rejecting objections of another objector as "untimely".

At this time, the decision of judge Tashima is being appealed by the rejected objector to - guess - the court where both Judge Kozinski (party to the litigation) and Judge Tashima (the judge who decided the case in the court below) are judges.

The 9th Circuit, headed by Kozinski's "earned" successor Sidney Thomas, did not recuse from the appeal, as it did not recuse previously from assigning judges to Kozinski's case in the court below, in violation of rules of judicial conduct.

Note that no attempts were made by attorneys or parties on appeal to have the case removed to another Circuit court, point out any appearances of impropriety, or have the Circuit court recused from the case.

Nope.  

Everybody is afraid for their law licenses which can fly out the door if they say a word.  So, they stay mum.

By the way, the "mediation order" mentioned in the docket as Docket entry # 5 does not list names of any judges

 - it is a "per curiam" decision of the entire court, which means that it is also the decision of:

• Alex Kozinski himself - as to his own case; and of
• A. Wallace Tahima - Kozinski's colleague and the judge in the court below dealing with an appeal from his own decision

Kozinski ceded Chief Judgeship as of December 1, 2014 to Judge Sidney Thomas who has earned his position by obediently keeping the case that had to be transferred out of the 9th Circuit, in the 9th Circuit, which Kozinski calls, in a juvenile fashion, "The Hollywood Circuit".

Yet, it is not Hollywood, ladies and gentlemen.  It is a circus, of the worse kind.  It is an insult to the position of trust that Kozinski, Thomas, Tashima and all judges on the 9th Circuit who allows this appeal to proceed in that Circuit are betraying.

Will Alex Kozinski, Sidney Thomas, A. Wallace Tashima and all other judges of the 9th Circuit (a court that deals with death penalty cases and where each and every judge must be squeaky clean) who condone this perversity of justice be impeached by Congress and removed from office for bad behavior?

Or did Alex Kozinski exercise shrewd foresight and invited Congressmen to his movie-nights-with-booze-in-the-courthouse, so that they are partners in crime and will not say a word?