A FOIL request was filed with the New York State Office of Court Administration regarding the "Legal Hand" program

I posted a blog yesterday about the "Legal Hand" program that is part of a partnership between the "Center for Court Innovation" and the New York State Court Administration and that is reportedly financed through a 1 million dollar donation from an "anonymous donor".

Additionally, I found a report today indicating that the "anonymous" donor is an anonymous "private" benefactor.

When a representative of a program identifies an allegedly "anonymous" donor as a "private" benefactor, that means that the identity of the "benefactor" is known by the program organizer, it is simply not released to the public.

Yet, since the program is run by a partnership with a public entity, New York State Unified Court System, the partnership does not have a right to withhold from the public the identity of this private do-gooder, as well as information about who works in the partnership, what are their salaries, contracts of the partnership, founding documents of the partnership, financial documents of the partnership.

And, of course, documents pertaining to financing of the partnership, are also public records subject to Freedom of Information Law.

With that in mind, today I filed a Freedom of Information request with the New York State Court Administration, as follows:

 

I am looking forward to see who was the "private benefactor" who financed a partnership formed by the New York State Unified Court system, and will publish responses by the NYS Court Administration as to this FOIL inquiry.

Stay tuned.

FOIL disclosures received from the New York State Comptroller's Office regarding Delaware County no-bid contracts

I received a massive disclosure from the New York State Comptroller's Office regarding the audit conducted by that office this year, report released in May 2015.

I was forced to file a FOIL request with the NYS Comptroller's office because Delaware County kept stalling my FOILs filed directly with it by claiming that I did not reasonably described the records that I needed while I described the contracts I need to see as those that the Delaware County provided for audit by the NYS Comptroller's office, which is an exhaustive description of what I wanted to see.  

Now that I received disclosures from NYS Comptroller's office, I see why I was stalled by Delaware County.

The disclosures contain reports of interviews with various Delaware County officials, those who remain in office at this time (such as County Attorney Porter Kirkwood) and who resigned (such as former Commissioner of Social Services William Moon).

Interview reports disclose a lot of information that was not disclosed to the public in the final audit report of the Comptroller's office pertaining to names of County officials involved in unreported conflict-of-interest situations, improprieties with contracts and conjured-up explanations for no-bidding of millions of dollars worth in contracts.

I am reviewing the disclosures and will start publishing them, with comments, as soon as I fully review and digest them, and do the needed additional research on some information I discovered in the disclosed documents.

Stay tuned.

Unauthorized practice of law and "public-private partnerships" with Unified New York Court System, all with approval of New York Chief Judge Lippman and Chief Administrative Judge Marks

An anonymous donor paid 1 million dollars to finance the crime of unauthorized practice of law in New York City.

New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman and New York Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Mark are condoning and encouraging the crime of unauthorized practice of law and hope it will spread.

Good gracious.

Why the practices described in the article about "Legal Hand" operations is likely criminal?

Well, because, according to Judiciary Law 90(2)(b), the following behavior is unauthorized practice of law:

And, because I was put through hell when my husband was disbarred and the State of New York asked me whether he works in my law office in ANY capacity, even as a secretary.

Well, in offices of "Legal Hand", there is only one attorney on-site and 40 "volunteers" who "screen out" cases and make sure that they do not go to court.

First of all, that is NOT a public service, and screening out cases so that they DO NOT reach the court, may not be in the interests of the indigent clients who come to such organizations.

Second, New York law does not allow non-lawyers to give legal advice, even when the Chief Administrative Judge and the Chief Judge of the State of New York sit there beaming and approve and encourage behavior that is pronounced as criminal by statutory law.

Third, every client who comes to this "Legal Hand" is committing a crime of criminal solicitation and aiding and abetting of unauthorized practice of law, if UPL laws are to be applied equally to all New Yorkers.

Of course, by introducing such operations and claiming that it is a step forward in helping New Yorkers obtain "affordable" legal advice - albeit through what is now criminal behavior in New York - New York acknowledges that regulation of the legal profession is what prevents New Yorkers from obtaining free or affordable legal advice in the first place.

After all, the 40 "volunteers" per office of the "Legal Hand" are not attorneys.  They are "like" nurse practitioners who "prepare" clients to see a doctor.  Only a similar graded scheme as exists in New York for practicing medicine does not exist in New York for practicing law.

The strictures of the criminal law and attorney are easily avoided though - when you have available an "anonymous donor" who is willing to finance an operation that is otherwise criminal in New York, and approval of top state court officials.

And, as to anonymity of the donor, I am making a Freedom of Information request to end that anonymity.  Why?

Because "Legal Hand" is a program of a "public-private" partnership of the so-called Center of Court Innovation with - guess! - The Unified New York State Court System!

Here it is, zoomed in:

A public/private partnership between a non-profit and New York Court System?

And what kind of business organization is this so-called "Center for Court Innovation" if it is not listed in the database of corporations of the New York State Department of State?  I checked, right now.  I also checked on Guidestar.org listing all non-profits in America.  It's not there either.  

What is a partnership between the court system with an unknown private entity that does not appear to be registered as a non-profit, and thus, does not appear to be abiding by any laws governing non-profits in the state of New York and in the United States?

There may not be anonymous "donors" of partnerships with the state government, so this "anonymous donor" thingy definitely is subject to Freedom of Information Law of the State of New York.

Nor is it clear who and on what grounds authorized such a "partnership" between an unknown private entity and New York Unified Court System.

Moreover, when this Center runs its declared "court-based" programs, in partnership with the actual court system, judges who preside over cases in the program are - who are they?  Business partners?

So, Judge Lippman and Judge Marks, beaming in the picture introducing a "program" of this "public-private" partnership financed by a 1 million dollar donation of an "anonymous donor" are at the top of this business partnership?

Nice!

Under such circumstances, judges are not neutral adjudicators, and validity of their adjudications is questionable.  

I will try to get the particulars of this "public-private" partnership and will report the answer to my FOIL request on this blog.

Stay tuned.

The Brady rule, the Confrontation Clause, police misconduct and testi-lying and New York "blue wall of silence" statute

"Testilying" has become a set term in criminal defense community and describes deliberate lying of police officers under oath.

Happens all the time.

Wherever videotaping is available, such videotapes made it into the public domain and caused major publicity scandals.

New York is not one of those states.

Why not?

1)  New York has a criminal statute, Civil Rights Law 52, prohibiting "televising and broadcasting", as well as videotaping of PUBLIC court proceedings.  Makes no sense, doesn't it?  If it is a public proceeding, then any member of the public can see it, whether those who actually came to the proceedings, or those who did not come, but who can see those proceedings through a live-stream or videotaped testimony.

Such a prohibition prevents parties and their attorneys (those who actually do their duty to their clients instead of playing brown-nosing games with judges and prosecutors to advance their own financial well-being and political careers) from preserving the full record of behavior of witnesses, jurors, judges and prosecutors and interaction between them.

Witness testimony recorded on paper by a stenographer (and it will be a question whether the record was correctly taken, too) can be ignored by the court and the public.  You-tubed testimony reflecting body language of participants in court proceedings interacting with one another or reflecting attitude towards one another that is not reflected in the record, can change outcomes of court cases - and change people's lives, profoundly so.

Video-taping in the courtroom can also definitely change the way judges, prosecutors and politically connected attorneys operate in the courtroom.  If they start obeying the law and rules of civility at least out of fear of you-tube exposure, even that will be a good start as opposed to what is going on today in courtrooms across the U.S., and especially in New York where courtroom testimony is prohibited by a criminal statute.

2)  New York has a "civil rights statute", Civil Rights Law 50-a that allows a district attorney, a county attorney, a town attorney, even a "corporation counsel" access to personnel records of police officers - but does not allow the same access to defense attorneys in preparation for a criminal trial or during criminal trial.

In other words, the District Attorney who puts a police officer on the stand and hears him deny that he has ever committed misconduct or lied under oath to the court, has access to records that show that what the police officer says is perjury.  Yet, since it benefits the DA, and the criminal defense counsel does not have access to this information, the DA will never prosecute his own witnesses that helped the DA obtain wrongful convictions for perjury.

It is interesting to mention that, in New York, there is a presumption of disclosure of public records, see Public Officers Law 87 (also known as Freedom of Information Law, or FOIL) and its interpretations by New York courts.

Exceptions to FOIL are few, well enumerated, strictly construed, and there are "exceptions to exceptions":

There are exceptions-to-exceptions to FOIL, specifically:

1. Statistical and factual tabulations or data - that New York agencies may not refuse to disclose if they have it;
2. instructions to staff that affect the public - including, obviously, the "blue wall of silence" instructions if a police officer commits misconduct, injures or kills a member of the public or lies on the stand;
3. final agency policy or determinations - including determinations regarding employment of police officers who committed misconduct;
4. external audits, including but not limited to audits performed by the comptroller and the federal government.

Civil Rights Law 50-a obviously runs contrary to the exceptions-to-exceptions to FOIL and constitutes an exception-to-exception-to exception to FOIL that contradicts not only FOIL and its presumption of disclosure of public records, but also the requirement that the sovereign (the people) must know, in order to be able to govern properly, whether his servants (police officers) misbehaved.

Moreover, the 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows a criminal defendant to confront witnesses against him, and the right of confrontation does not mean much if the criminal defendant and his or her attorney will have no access to the information that the District Attorney has access to, specifically, to impeachment evidence against police officers.

On top of running contrary to FOIL (Public Officers Law 87) and the 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Civil Rights Law 50-a also runs contrary to criminal defendant's "Brady" rights - a right of a criminal defendant to have disclosed to him/her - with or without request to the DA, any information that diminishes or negates the criminal defendant's guilt, can provide leniency to him, and that includes impeachment evidence of DA's witnesses.

Once again, under the Brady rule (and that is federal constitutional law), the DA absolutely must disclose, with or without a request from a criminal defendant, the Brady material, including impeachment evidence about every and each one of police officers who participated in investigation and/or prosecution of a criminal case.

Civil Rights Law 50-a, on the contrary, prohibits disclosure of the very same records that federal law, the Brady rule, requires to disclose.

Under the so-called rule of pre-emption of federal law, Civil Rights Law 50-a is unconstitutional and should not be enforced.

The DA is a public official sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution, its Supremacy Clause and the rule of pre-emption (voiding) of any state law that is inconsistent with federal law on point, especially with constitutional law.

All New York Judges are public officials sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution, its Supremacy Clause and the rule of pre-emption.

Yet, Civil Rights Law 50-a exists since 1976 and, for 39 years so far is being used by New York prosecutors and judges to drum up wrongful convictions based on blocking criminal defense attorneys from impeachment evidence that they are absolutely entitled to have for purposes of preparation of their defense of a criminal case, as part of mandatory disclosure.

In December of 2014, New York State Committee asked the New York State Legislature to repeal the Civil Rights Law 50-a that is designed to impair cross-examination during criminal trials, in violation of two federal constitutional provisions (Due Process of the 14th Amendment and Confrontation Clause of the 6th Amendment).


New York State Legislature did not repeal that law so far, and it continues to fill New York prison's, at taxpayers' expense, with wrongfully convicted prisoners, while state prosecutors continue to advance their careers and ascend to judicial benches claiming such wrongful convictions as their big achievements in "protecting the public".

As recently as on October 22, 2015, NYS Appellate Division 3rd Department modified a dismissal of the entire Article 78 petition and remanded the part that the 3rd Department declared not covered by Civil Rights Law 50-a, specifically, records about misconduct of a former police officer after that officer resigned.

Yet, a right of a member of the public (the sovereign) to know about misconduct of police officer is one thing, and a criminal defendant whose liberty, reputation, family integrity and future right to earn a living depends on whether he has access to the right information at the right time (in the criminal case) is absolute, is secured by the Brady rule and his constitutional rights for effective cross-examination under the Confrontation Clause.

Moreover, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment must protect criminal defendant's equal rights to information with the District Attorney and must prevent creation of a situation when the DA may knowingly put a lying witness on the stand while using a "Civil Rights Law" to impair civil rights of a criminal defendant to know such information to effectively defend himself.

Rights of prosecution and defense in access to information at the trial should be at the very least equal, given the stakes for the criminal defendant. 

Civil Rights Law 50-a should not be allowed to be used against a criminal defendant to undo the Brady rule, as it has been done in New York for 39 years.

In my time as a criminal defense attorney, I've made several motions challenging constitutionality of this particular law.  They were all rejected by courts, yet, as slow-but-steady progress in constitutional law shows, persistence is the key.

I am sure Civil Rights Law 50-a will soon finds its way to the garbage bin - where it belongs.

Today a federal appellate court has struck the prohibition of disparaging trademarks as content-based regulation of free speech under the 1st Amendment - will it afford the same protection to attorney criticism of judicial misconduct?

Today, a federal appellate court has made further progress into its general trend of outlawing content-based regulation of speech by the government on 1st Amendment grounds.

In a case In Re Tam, the D.C. Circuit court has struck today government's prohibition of "disparaging" trademarks.

Once again, that is commercial speech, and even commercial speech gets protection from federal courts under the 1st Amendment when it gets discriminated against and prohibited by the government based on its content.

That is the second case this year alone striking content-based government regulation of speech, see also Reed v Town of Gilbert decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 18, 2015.

I can only hope that the U.S. Supreme Court takes a similar view to protect me and people like me, whose law licenses were suspended or revoked because we did our duty by our clients and because we were making motions to recuse on their behalf or were criticizing judicial misconduct outside of court proceedings.

After all, speech on the subject of misconduct of public officials should be even more protected than mere commercial speech.

We will wait and see whether it is so.

The poor "forcibly" retired judge Lack, member of judicial pay-raise commission, advocate of elderly judges

Retired judge, and now simply a private attorney James Lack, according to seethroughny.org, retired as of 1/31/2011, and draws a "pauper's" pension of $99,078 per year, with benefits.

In 2015 James Lack was appointed to a panel deciding judicial pay raises - instead of elected legislators - which is unlawful per se.

As part of his "service" to that panel, James Lack engaged in the following lamentations about - guess what - age discrimination against poor New York State judges (by the way, until that "discrimination" concerned state judges, state judges happily applied judicially invented "tiers" of review where age discrimination is on the bottom, with a "rational basis" test).

Here is one of his lamentations at the December 7, 2015 "public hearing" before the Commission, you can read the full transcript of this hearing here, and transcripts of the other two hearings, of December 2, 2015 and December 14, 2015, respectively, here and here. 

Imagine the misery of "having" to retire from an "underpaid" position with a full pension of $99,000 a year or more, not counting benefits, and ability to work as a "judicial hearing office" and/or private attorney, coveted by any law firm with a do-nothing-just-be-there job paying $250 or more per hour!

And imagine the misery of having 20% of New York judiciary "having" to retire over the next 4 years because they reached the age of 70 or 75 years of age.

I understand, there is absolutely no young blood among the 400,000 licensed attorneys in New York, so that the same slow-paced seniors should handle the "fast-paced" New York courts in 20% of cases, that is every 5th case!

And, pouring in the young blood into the judiciary is now called - by one of the "forced retirees", of course - a 19th Century constitutional provision.

I agree that certain provisions pertaining to judiciary - like the concept of absolute judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts on the bench, or the concept of "service" for life, or for 10-year or 14-year terms, are very "19th century", and that judgeships should become a rotational duty of every citizen, paid on a cheap per diem basis without any benefits.

That would be 21st century to me as a taxpayer and litigant, and that will at least start to detract from the perceived omnipotence and impunity of judges, as well as will undermine the well-entrenched culture of judicial corruption, which the Commission is part of.

I also got a kicker out of how two private attorneys, Cozier and Lack, called each other "Judge Cozier and Judge Lack".  I guess, this omnipotence and impunity is so attractive that one cannot peel the "judgeship" off long after "forcible" retirement.

Or is it dementia?

Preet Bharara's fight with corruption and contrary exploits of his boss

For many New Yorkers, Preet Bharara is a hero.

After all, he brought and successfully prosecuted criminal charges against the two heads of New York State Senate - the Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the Majority Leader Dean Skelos.

Yet, apparently, the same conflict of interest applies to Mr. Bharara's office as it does to NYS Attorney General's office - which is the ultimate reason as to why NYS Attorney General, as the legal advisor of the same Silver and Skelos did not prosecute his own clients for corruption.

I reviewed the opposition by the U.S. Attorney General, on behalf of Glenn Suddaby, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, just out of interest - what kind of opposition can their be to completely unconstitutional and quite likely corrupt conduct of the previous judge Sharpe who imposed an anti-filing injunction upon my husband for contents of his correct constitutional civil rights arguments.

I learnt a lot.

The U.S. Attorney General and his "of counsel" attorneys acted as if they are not sworn government officials required to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the law, but mercenary privateers whose aim is only to win the case, at any and all costs.

The U.S. Attorney General's office, among other things, committed the following attorney misconduct in opposition to my husband's appeal of anti-filing injunction based on his civil rights actions:

• misrepresented the record, 
• misrepresented procedural history of cases, 
• implied that interlocutory appeals in the underlying cases are final appeals (makes a difference for a jurisdictional review),
•  tried to minimize or deny obvious misconduct of their client,
•  omitted to mention new mandatory authorities which were contrary to their position;
• claimed that meritorious constitutional arguments are not "worthy of response" and "meritless";
• argued that notice of grounds for anti-filing injunction provided backwards (a year after imposition of anti-filing injunction), including through secret policies of the court, is a proper notice and opportunity to be heard.

But, to crown it all, the U.S. Attorney General's office relied upon a case where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit claimed that an anti-filing injunction against a civil rights litigant is proper to prevent the litigant from gaining publicity of issues he is raising and because some reporters called the litigant "nuts", "weirdo" and a "menace to society" (based on hearsay statements of unknown reporters).

Very "professional" behavior, I must note, for a court to call a litigant names based on contents of his civil rights actions.

Thus, the U.S. Attorney General advanced a view, obviously shared with federal courts, that any civil rights plaintiffs is a potential "nut", based on the issues he is raising and based on the way he is presenting those constitutional issues to the court.

That is the ultimate unconstitutional content-based regulation, curtailing of protected speech and access to court based on the impact of its message upon society if it hits the press.

Bravo, the U.S. Attorney General.   

Making tiny steps in showy fighting of corruption through Mr. Bharara's office, while maintaining "business as usual" and protecting corrupt federal judges and their decisions that, in turn, protect corrupt New York State officials. 

I will later post my husband's Pro Se Reply Brief in opposition to U.S. Attorney General's frivolous arguments on behalf of Chief Judge Suddaby.

In his Reply Brief, Mr. Neroni described in detail discriminatory policies against civil rights defendants in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York and the U.S Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit (including its policies of negligent review of civil rights appeals by near-octogenarian, restricted-authority judges).

It will be an interesting reading, I promise.

Stay tuned.