The punishment of death for going to trial - #kellyonmymind

The day before yesterday, the State of Georgia executed Kelly Gissendaner for allegedly masterminding the murder of her husband by her boyfriend.

The boyfriend who has actually murdered Kelly Gissendaner, gave testimony against Kelly Gissendaner at trial and received a life sentence.

Kelly Gissendaner was also offered a plea, but turned it down and went to trial.

When she lost at trial, she's got a death sentence.

So, a woman was given a death sentence because she had scruples and refused to testify against the person she loved - and was punished for that with death.

The person the woman loved did not have scruples and testified against her - and his life was spared.

During her 18 years on death row, Kelly Gissendaner reportedly did a lot of good things, counseling other prisoners and changing their lives to the better.

I participated in the social media campaign in an attempt to save Kelly Gissendaner's life.

Many people made statements in support of saving Kelly Gissendaner from execution.

Two statements on social media that I read stand out in my mind:

1. a statement of a woman who described how Kelly Gissendaner was in the same prison with the woman's mother and how Kelly Gissendaner's counseling of the woman made her turn her life around on her release from prison, which changed not only her own life to the better, but the life of her entire family.  The woman thank Kelly Gissendaner for changing their lives.

2. a statement of an individual who, as I understood, was an employee of the Georgia Department of Corrections who said that that person and other people in the Department are praying for Kelly Gissendaner being saved from execution.

She wasn't.

The Board of Parole rejected parole.

The Governor of the State of Geogia refused to impose a stay or give clemency.

Her attorneys lost in the appellate federal court, in the highest court of the state and THREE applications to the U.S. Supreme Court on her last day of life were rejected.

Moreover, her children who were advocating to save her life because they already lost their father and did not want to lose the remaining parent, were given by the state the cruel "choice": 

1. either to fight for their mother and present their arguments to the Board of Parole, or
2. have their last meeting with their mother before her execution

There were HOURS between the time when the Board of Parole meeting ended and when Kelly Gissendaner was executed.

During those hours the children were still not allowed to see their mother, and Kelly Gissendaner was not allowed to see her children for the last time, too.

Let's sum it up.

Kelly Gissendaner  was executed NOT because she masterminded the murder of her husband, because the murderer of her husband was actually given life in prison for testifying against her, so there was no reason not to give her the same.

Kelly Gissendaner was executed:

1. for refusing to testify against the person she loved;

2. for going to trial and thus spending government resources 

None of the above actions are offenses punishable by death.

Punishing those acts by death IS cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment.

And - Kelly Gissendaner was denied even the basic human rights of saying goodbye to her children - which was a completely unnecessary cruelty, both to Kelly Gissendaner and to her children.

From this sick experience, I suggest a proposal.

Even if death penalty is not abolished - which it should be, given how arbitrarily it is imposed - once an offer of life is made by the prosecution and turned down by the criminal defendant, the death penalty MUST BE OFF THE TABLE during the trial, because otherwise it sure looks that a criminal defendant is being punished with death for his or her exercise of his constitutional right for a jury trial.

You will then see how quickly the death penalty will stop being used at all, because I have the impression that Kelly Gissendaner was also executed to give leverage to prosecutors in pending and future death penalty cases, to hold the possibility of a death penalty over defendants' heads in order to torture wrongful convictions out of them through pleas.

#kellyonmymind

 

New York's other conjoined twin - Texas. Can putting a high voltage shock through a pro se mentally ill criminal defendant fighting against a death penalty case finally drive this country to abolish the death penalty?

New York and Texas are leading this nation in wrongful convictions.

The difference is though that New York is not enforcing its death penalty now, and Texas is.

On Monday, Texas resumed the criminal trial of a death penalty case against a mentally ill criminal defendant James Calvert.

There was a pause in the trial.

Because James Calvert was ordered to be SHOCKED by high-voltage shock for - guess what - failure to stand up while speaking to a judge, judge Jack Skeen.

The judge reportedly (see the same link) denied the self-represented criminal defendant the right to represent himself, as he wanted while all the defendant wanted was, reportedly:

• that court reporting of his trial should be done accurately - he "objected to the use of a new court reporter and claimed some court reports are under investigation";
• asked for the police records to be allowed into evidence;
• claimed a police log was "untruthful" and "biased".
•  

And don't we know from the depiction of wrongful convictions of people exonerated from the death row that such things DO happen, and this man is PRESUMED INNOCENT, is MENTALLY ILL and is FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE.

All of the above claims of the criminal defendant were legitimate.

Yet, this is what the judge did:

1) reportedly, he ordered to shock the defendant for failure to stand up when talking to the court;
2) denied the criminal defendant the right to defend himself;
3) bickered with the criminal defendant, openly stating to him, in public proceedings: "the only thing that you cannot handle is the truth".

The shock, this statement, and punishing the criminal defendant with stripping him of his right to self-defense BECAUSE he wanted evidence in and BECAUSE he claimed wrongoing on behalf of a court reporter and the police, is evidence of JUDICIAL BIAS.

And judicial bias in a death penalty case EQUALS DEATH for the criminal defendant.

Yet,  a reporter from NBC considered it possible for himself as a human being to state the following in his "journalistic" coverage of the case:  

"the defendant has already experienced a very small taste of how an electric chair might feel: He was given a shock in court for refusing to comply with a judge's orders", the orders being to stand up while talking to a judge.

TASERED for not standing up in court.

A mentally ill person.

A pro se litigant.

A presumed-innocent criminal defendant.

Fighting a death penalty case.

TASERED by the court for not standing up to speak to the judge.

And a journalist is snickering that he has "already experienced a very small taste of how an electric chair might feel".

There were so many people present in the courtroom when it happened.

WHAT KIND OF HUMAN BEINGS have we become to allow this?

And shouldn't THIS CASE put an end to the death penalty in this country - for good.

Because the way it is handled, I would presume that the judge giving the James Calvert the "small taste of how an electric chair might feel" was the real purpose of the judge.  At least it appears this way.  

My opinion is that Judge Skeen should be taken off the bench, disbarred and criminally prosecuted for this episode, for assault and battery.

We will see if Judge Skeen will suffer any consequences of his outrageous conduct.

After all, judges in this country consider themselves not nobility, not royalty, but deity.

No cameras in the courtroom, but there are cameras in the interview rooms? New York State courts are taking hypocrisy to the whole new level

New York and federal court systems REPEATEDLY fought my husband and myself, dismissing our constitutional challenges to New York State Civil Rights Law 52 prohibiting videotaping court proceedings, even for the sake of preserving true and complete appellate record for review - including, obviously, issues of prosecutorial, jury, attorney, witness and judicial misconduct, which is NOT fully reflected by transcript that is first committed to coded script by stenographers and then decoded - often incorrectly.

There is no way of describing in the transcript a facial expression, and that is EXACTLY WHY intermediate Appellate Courts in New York duck their duty of reviewing facts of the case de novo (even though they have such authority) and "defer" to the trial determinations of the court whose decision is appealed.

There is nothing easier to correct that than to require videotaping of court proceedings, and to allow private parties to videotape their own proceedings, especially the proceedings which are PUBLIC.

It makes no sense to not allow videotaping of PUBLIC proceedings for PRIVACY reasons.

Yet, the New York State Court system has obtained dismissals of our federal court challenges to Civil Rights Law 52, in one case with sanctions and attorney fees of the court system (the violator of constitutional rights) against us, a civil rights plaintiff and his attorney - in the amount of $6,995 each.

It is not a pun - a civil rights plaintiff and a civil rights attorney were each sanctioned and made to pay $6,995 for filing a civil rights lawsuit challenging constitutionality of state Civil Rights Law that prohibits litigants and members of the public to document, as a matter of their civil rights, access to court and evidence in court proceedings.   

The name of the case is Neroni v Becker, the deciding federal judge was Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York Gary L. Sharpe whose son "coincidentally" worked in the office of the New York State Attorney General at the time NYS AG was litigating the case against us in front of Gary L. Sharpe.

The same person who obtained such a dismissal, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, immediately announced in one of his previous "State of Judiciary Addresses" the plans for "Cameras in the courtroom", and that idea, after being prominently pronounced off the high pulpit, quietly died.

I wrote on this blog about consistent attempts of the court system to destroy and deny access to video footage of security cameras in courthouses, especially when what I seek is clearly evidence of judicial misconduct.

So far I was denied such video footage because:

• I needed to come to the courthouse after closing of the court day (17:00) and sit there for 8 hours (until 1 am) reviewing the tapes, because the NYS Court Administration refused to comply with FOIL and provide me a copy of the video footage;  of course, nobody opened the courthouse for me after hours;
• after I made one FOIL request, the Court Administration suddenly discovered that the security video cameras/recorders were broken - which was a lie, because I was in that same courthouse every day on the dates of video footage and saw court attendants observe the split-screens with security footage, as usual;  the Court Administation denied me copies of records showing payment for repairs of video recorders;
•  After I made another FOIL request, the Court Administration claimed that the footage was "inadvertently" written over, even though I requested the footage immediately after the events, and in answer to my previous FOIL request the Court Administration told me that the courts keep the footage for 30 days.

 OK.

So, we have two rules:

1) the public and litigants are not allowed to videotape court proceedings, under the threat of criminal prosecution, Civil Rights (!) Law 52;

2) the public and litigants are not allowed to see security footage, even though it is allowed by FOIL and FOIL requests are presumed to be made in public interest.

BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT

The Court Administration has built a brand spanking new courthouse in Staten Island where secuity cameras are now spying on confidential discussions between litigants and their attorneys in conference rooms!

That is allowed, that is proper, that is lawful, that is not a civil rights violation. 

Of course, it is claimed not to be spying on confidential communications, but being done "for security reasons" only.

Of course, a criminal defense attorney would tell such well-wishers of the attorney's security to get the ****, you know...  

Courtroom security is important, but everybody is checked by metal detectors at the entrance to the courthouse.

Of course, attorneys come to the courthouse through secure passes, bypassing metal detectors.  So, then, it is the attorneys that are the danger to security, because they are the ONLY people who can have anything on them that would warrant cameras.

But, then, all EMPLOYEES of the courthouse, including JUDGES, come through the back door, bypassing metal detectors.  And some retired judges who are hanging in, are doing that, too.

So, aren't we discriminating against defense attorneys here?  Aren't we?

Of course, one civil rights group does not consider it proper and reportedly plans to file a civil rights lawsuit.

That civil rights group is a legal aid society.  All other attorneys are happy that their confidential communications with clients and witnesses are recorded.  No surprises here - you want to practice, shut up and brown-nose the system - or go work for the Legal Aid society where you will not earn that much...

Yet, knowing how civil rights courts treat civil rights cases brought by civil rights plaintiffs and civil rights attorneys against other courts, I will hold my breath as to the outcome, but I will follow it and report any developments of such a possible lawsuit on this blog.

Stay tuned.

On pontificating law school professorate and slow buffalos

I have written on this blog several times about a law professor testifying to the New York State Commission for Attorney Discipline in a way that omitted to mention material applicable laws and the necessity to revamp attorney regulation system to follow those laws. 

Where revamping will require deregulation of the legal profession - and loss of professorate jobs.

Here is a funny piece where a blogger lost his cool over law school professorate similarly playing dumb as to issues that affect their own well-being, being gainfully employed in a position that does not require too much work and too much stress, as the practice of law does.

Enjoy!

New York and California - identical twins in unbrindled abuse of power by attorney disciplinary authorities

And one more piece out of California, claiming that California is our rival in power abuse by attorney disciplinary authorities!

Yay! We are not alone!  

Are we relieved to know that?

New York and California joined at the hip - prosecutorial misconduct

Here is a piece from 2010 showing that New York is not alone in non-enforcement of prosecutorial misconduct.  California is doing the same.

Are we relieved?

New York and California, merged at the hip by attorney corruption

I have been blogging this past week about the corrupted ways the New York State Statewide Commission ducked the tasks it was charged with - to clean up the mess of attorney regulation in New York.

Apparently, New York is not alone either in attorney/judiciary corruption, or in efforts to cover it up.

Here is a piece out of California.  

As I keep saying, deregulation is the key, and the process has begun, with the U.S. Supreme Court case North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v FTC which brands "self-regulated" professions engaged in "self-regulation" without state oversight under the guise of state licensing, as antitrust cartels.

I may not see it in my lifetime, but I am positive occupational licenses, including attorney licenses, will be cancelled as hurting the economy, quashing competition and, in attorneys' case, preventing independent representation in court and true access to courts.