Payoff time for judge Gary Rosa - will James Hartmann pen Rosa's decisions in People v Carolyn Massey?

The Walton Reporter reported recently that the Delaware County social worker Carolyn Massey who recently resigned because of her "ethical violations", was indicted - not for an attempted grand larceny, but for a puny misdemeanor.

I frequently report about the ethical violations of not only Carolyn Massey, who is obviously used as a scapegoat and to show that something is being done to control rampant misconduct in Delaware County "government", but of other public officials in Delaware County.

Here, apparently the special prosecutor and the judge presiding over the Massey criminal case joined in the fray of misconduct.

The special prosecutor on the case is Joe Ermeti, the defense attorney for my friend Barbara O'Sullivan who refused to make motions to recuse a judge and to disqualify the prosecutor John Hubbard despite obvious misconduct of both, because he reportedly claimed that John Hubbard (law partner of recently retired judge Carl Becker who never disclosed of the connection and the resulting conflict of interest during child abuse and criminal proceedings over 13 years) is an "honorable man".

Joe Ermeti reportedly claimed that he continues to investigate "related" issues around Carolyn Massey's conduct.

To investigate the "related issue", Ermeti needed to open up the whole hornet's nest - and, possibly, look whether Carl Becker was involved in Moon's misdeeds.  

The question also is why Moon was not indicted for anything,  even though it was Moon who filed the probate petition of the will that Massey is criminally charged for obtaining, Moon was obviously involved in the case and quickly retired and disappeared to Sullivan County during the pendency of the investigation.   

It is clear that Massey, who worked for Delaware County for 17 years (some of them under Carl Becker as attorney for Delaware County DSS), would not be acting alone, without "guidance" from her superiors in such a case.

Ermeti was too timid to indict Moon?  Was too timid to look at other misconduct of Moon?  Too timid to look whether Becker had a role or payoffs from Moon's "deals"?

Ermeti was most definitely very timid as a defense attorney to make motions to recuse a judge and disqualify a prosecutor - making it clear to my friend Barbara O'Sullivan that he wants to be able to continue to work in the local courts, and will be banned if he goes after the local public officials.

So, that's why he chose to go after the low-level employee Carolyn Massey and not the "old boys' club"?

It is also clear that Ermeti most definitely could not combine his duty as a special prosecutor investigating Delaware County and representing Barbara O'Sullivan where the footprints of Delaware County official's misconduct (possibly, of those same officials who Ermeti was supposed to investigate as a special prosecutor) were all over her case.

I understand that the money offered by Barbara's family to defend Barbara in the case was too much to resist for Ermeti, but, Ermeti who was appointed a special prosecutor earlier than he took that money and representation of Barbara, had to know that representation of Barbara presents a conflict for him.

Yet, he accepted the case, did not hire investigators, did not make motions to disqualify or recuse - first, because hiring investigators would cut into his share, and second, because then his conflict of interest between his duty as a special prosecutor and Barbara's defense attorney would have been even more readily visible.

But also - look at who is presiding over Carolyn Massey's criminal case.

It is none else than the newly-elected Judge Gary Rosa who promised voters in his election campaign to be fair and impartial.

Fairness and impartiality presupposes not presiding over cases where the judge has a distinct conflict of interest.

Yet, it is an established fact, from records of Delaware County Surrogate's Court, that the Delhi lawyer James Hartmann represented the victims of Carolyn Massey in the Surrogate's Court and exposed the whole criminal scheme.

And James Hartmann is none else than the husband of Judge Gary Rosa's law clerk Nancy Deming.

So, when Judge Rosa is presiding over the People v Massey case, it is as if the victims' attorney James Hartmann is presiding over that case.

That is called "personal interest in the outcome of the case", a strict disqualification under Judiciary Law Section 14, making all rulings of Judge Gary Rosa void, but don't count on New York courts honoring Judiciary Law 14, they usually don't, and claim that recusal and disqualification is within the "sound discretion" of the presiding judge, no matter what the conflict of interest is. 

Happened all the time with Gary Rosa's predecessor Carl Becker - and worked like a charm.

So, don't hold your breath waiting that Gary Rosa will suddenly see the light and recuse from the case.  I am sure he knows what he is doing - and who he is doing it for.  He is working off the support the Hartmann/Deming family gave Rosa for his election.  Remember, Deming was on the judicial qualification committee in the Appellate Division 3rd Department - and ended up Gary Rosa's law clerk, likely as a result of her support in that committee.  

Of course, Deming was disqualified from providing support to Rosa in both the judicial qualification committee and in his political election campaign - but when did anything like ethics deter a promise of good steady well-paying job with benefits, especially to a lawyer practicing in a county that quickly loses population, and so her practice is not doing that great, neither is her husband's (otherwise Hartmann wouldn't have undertaken representation in the Mokay case claiming to the court he represents a person who recently came forward saying that he never was a plaintiff in that case and that his signature on the retainer agreement was forged.  Hartmann had to know that.)

Deming got a payoff job in return for support from Rosa before his election was even confirmed.  The payoff continues in Rosa presiding over proceedings where Hartmann - and Deming as Hartmann's wife - has a financial interest as attorneys for the victims.

When Deming pens Rosa's decisions in People v Massey case, it is as if Hartmann pens those decisions.

Which is disgusting and stinks of corruption.

And, of course, the timid special prosecutor Joe Ermeti would not make a motion to recuse Judge Gary Rosa - same as he did not make a motion to recuse Judge John Lambert in Barbara O'Sullivan's case despite an obvious bias, because, as he told Barbara, he still wants to work in the judge's court.

So, to hell with the prosecutorial duty to be fair to the criminal defendant.  A judge whose law clerk is married to the victims' attorney will secure a conviction for Ermeti - and 5 minutes of "tough on crime" fame for his possible run for public office in the future.

I guess, courts, and especially criminal courts, in Delaware County continue function as they always did - on political connections, favors, conflicts of interest and unrestricted corruption.   

Promises to voters that Judge Gary Rosa made to get elected were needed only to get to the cozy judicial position, and then all promises will be forgotten, and Gary Rosa is going to be as dirty and rotten as Carl Becker before him - only for Rosa's own favorites.

The Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia quickly "retired" yesterday after being outed as a child rapist

I wrote on this blog a lot about sexual shenanigans of federal judges, and about the power they wield to quash exposure.

I wrote about the case of a federal judge within the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, judge Walter Smith, who was only censured, but not taken off the bench, despite available transcripts of the former court employee indicating that Judge Smith:

* spotted her when she joined probation department of his court;
* monitored her movements around the courthouse through the court security surveillance system, monitor was in his chambers;
* then, at one point, when she became a court clerk (but not a clerk usually working with the judge), he met her in the hallway, drunk, and ordered to come to his chambers;
* in his chambers, the judge tried to press him on the clerk, the clerk refused and escaped;
* the judge then continued to stalk the clerk, sent her flowers, came to her office, sent away her supervisor and again tried to force himself upon the clerk

When the clerk complained, the judge's law clerk called the clerk and tried to persuade her to end her allegations because the judge is taking it very hard.

This is a sanitized account of what the judge did and what discipline was imposed on him.  

I actually read the transcripts, made available through this blog.  They are really bad.  Judge Smith, according to witness accounts, is a stalker and a sexual predator, and my personal opinion is that the public, and vulnerable court employees, should be protected from him. 

Yet another federal judge, Samuel Kent in Texas, was not so long ago indicted for sex crimes, after a long campaign of intimidation of two women he was sexually assaulting for years.

Even after a federal indictment, Judge Kent was allowed to escape with a very light sentence, and was not held criminally accountable with interference with grand jury proceedings and witness intimidation.

We are now having yet another scandal with a rapist on the bench unfolding - now about the recent-former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Richard Warren Roberts who, according to the quickly updated Wikipedia article, "retired from the bench for unspecified health issues" on March 16, 2016. 

The health issues of former Judge Richard W. Roberts might be "unspecified".

What is very clearly specified though is that the former judge Richard W. Roberts has been recently accused, based on his own recorded admission in a telephone conversation, of rape of a 16-year-old witness in a criminal investigation where he participated as a prosecutor 35 years ago.

The courageous woman recorded the admission in a telephone conversation and pressed charges.

It is interesting that the former Judge Richard W. Warren "retired" yesterday, the very same day as the article was published about the accusations stating that the Justice Department has "conclusive proof" of the sex crime.

This sexual predator who did not think much about raping a 16-year old who was a witness in the proceeding he handled as a prosecutor in 1981, had his glorious career, receiving hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars - and benefits - while "serving" first as a prosecutor, then a federal district court judge, then the Chief Judge of the U.S. District court for the District of Columbia.

I wonder whether he will be allowed to keep his pension and whether he will be ordered to disgorge his salary and benefits so far paid, because had he been outed and convicted those years ago, he wouldn't have kept his law license, and wouldn't have made the career he made.

I will continue to monitor Richard W. Roberts' case and see whether he will lose his law license and whether his retirement benefits will be revoked.

By the way, in his retirement letter, judge Richard Roberts did not mention that a lawsuit has been filed against him based on "coerced sex", he only mentioned his alleged disability.

One cannot expect complete candor from a judge, can one?

The practice of 3R's: Recusal -> Re-entry -> Retaliation in New York court proceedings

I wrote on this blog about a peculiar trick played by judges in New York sometimes - they first recuse from one case of a litigant, and then continue on other cases, or get assigned to other cases, as if they are impartial for those other cases.

There are several laws governing recusals in New York:

1. Canons of Judicial Conduct, which is a set of court rules, 22 NYCRR 100;
2. Judiciary Law Section 14;
3. State constitutional right to due process, impartial judicial review and access to court
4. Federal constitutional rights to due process, impartial judicial review and access to court and the law interpreting such rights, such as the 2009 U.S. Supreme Court case Caperton v A.T. Massey Coal Co., Inc. indicating that under certain circumstances due process may require recusal.

All of these above laws have mandatory language:  a judge "shall", and a judge "shall not".

Since the mandate for a review by an impartial judge is a constitutional mandate, and in view of all the mandatory language of statutory law and court rules devised to enforce that double (state and federal) constitutional mandate, there should be strict rules ensuring adherence of judges to the law of disqualification.

Yet, New York State Appellate Divisions, and the New York State Court of Appeals instead gutted all of the above 4-tiered law, with its mandatory language, and put one self-serving judge-invented (for their own benefit) rule instead:

"the challenged judge is the sole arbiter of his or her own recusal and disqualification".

Huh?

None of the trial-level or appellate-level decisions explained where did this rule come out of.

None of the decisions explained why the whole 4-tiered body of mandatory law was replaced by courts by a "rule of discretion", but that's how it is in New York at this time - "a judge is the arbiter of his/her own recusal and disqualification".

It must be added that discretion is the function of jurisdiction, and Judiciary Law 14 strips an interested judge of jurisdiction and makes an interested judge's decisions null and void.

Here is a law review article dating back to 1988 (28 years ago) indicating a division that, in New York, disqualification of a judge for personal interest or connection with a party is statutory, while a disqualification for personal bias is "at best discretionary".

First, New York appellate court already eliminated that distinction.  There is no such thing any more as a "statutory disqualification", whenever you raise Judiciary Law 14, the challenge is denied without an explanation, and the court claims the issue of recusal was "within the sound discretion" of the challenged judge.

Here is about the "sound discretion".  First, judges have to examine "their own conscience" - which, as I wrote before, first has to exist, then, has to be a tangible entity to be made part of the record and be verifiable for purposes of appeal.

Then, the judge who is "examining his own conscience" must be impartial and not consider the act of making a motion to recuse as "disrupting the court" or "harassing the court".

Making motion to recuse is the equivalent of disrupting the court for Chenango County Supreme Court Judge Dowd, as he stated in his recent Appellee's brief to a federal appellate court.

Making a motion to recuse for the recently retired Delaware County judge Carl F. Becker (as well as for all other judges who were so far reviewing my disciplinary case, and relying upon sanctions for making motions to recuse as a basis to pile up more sanctions), is an equivalent of "harassing the court" - forget the 1st Amendment and due process.

But, to be able to review even one's own conscience, one should be all right upstairs, so to say, don't you think?

With Judge Dowd, that requirement is clearly a problem - Judge Dowd is a judge who was rambling during a child custody proceeding about some law school building a urinal in the judge's honor.  On record.  

And, when my husband raised the issue of Dowd's incompetency in a federal lawsuit, he was sanctioned by the federal court, the lawsuit against Dowd was dismissed on the basis of immunity for malicious and corrupt acts on the bench, and Dowd was allowed to continue his demented "service" on the bench, including "service" on my husband's case.

To scrap existing law of disqualification and instead to invent a judge-created rule giving "discretion" to a raving lunatic on the bench, allowing him, and raving lunatics like him, to examine "their own conscience" in deciding whether they will or will not be impartial to the challengers of their own misconduct is not a rational act in itself.  And certainly not a valid law. 

But, the rule indicating that judges are "arbiters of their own recusal and disqualification" is what is used in New York courts - and no other laws need to bother humbly asking to be noted.

I am actually writing a book (it takes time) about the "Becker-Dowd-Tormey-Coccoma-Sharpe syndrome" documenting the demented ravings of judges challenged in motions to recuse, some who "retired" and others who remain on the bench, and not only judges in New York state.  Takes time to put such a book together, with all that the judicial system is throwing at my husband and myself, but I am doing it, and I will publish it. 

I also wrote a blog article, 2 years ago, about the necessity of a rule in New York allowing peremptory removal of judges (especially judges who are fact-finders) from cases, so that no reasons need to be given.  Such a rule alone would have eliminated many sanctions against attorneys imposed for doing their duties to their clients, making motions to recuse, sanctions that continue to be imposed after my suspension.   

I just want to list timelines of recusals and re-entries of several judges and courts:

1. Carl F. Becker, now retired, of Delaware County Family Court, County Court, Surrogate's Court and Supreme Court (as Acting Supreme Court justice);
2. Kevin Dowd, as Supreme Court justice;
3. James Tormey, as Supreme Court justice;
4. Appellate Division 3rd Judicial Department in its entirety
5. Michael V. Coccoma, as Supreme Court Justice, Chief Administrative Judge of the 6th Judicial District and Chief Administrative Judge of upstate New York

The timeline of recusals and re-entries of Carl F. Becker

1.  October 2009 - Becker recused from the child neglect case against my husband and myself brought by his buddy Commissioner Moon (also quickly retired while under investigation), the case was brought right after I brought a motion to recuse against Becker in a case of a client, because Becker was a fact-finder judge on a case where his client of 27 years, that same Commissioner Moon, was the Petitioner and his other clients were testifying witnesses.  We deposed Moon who blurted out (under oath) that "nothing would have happened had you (me) opened "that door".  What Moon meant is that he wouldn't have brought child neglect proceedings against me had I allowed police and social services to search my home law office.  I did not "open that door", protecting confidential information of our clients.  Therefore, my husband and I were charged with child neglect.  Not only that was illegal, but - what kind of information was Moon (and Becker, who was clearly behind that attempt to search our home law office) after?  The child neglect case was dismissed in 2010 and dismissal affirmed on appeal.

Becker did not recuse at that point from cases where both my husband and I were representing clients as attorneys, even though he complained to other lawyers that we "double-team" (I was second-chairing my husband's criminal trials, helping my husband with review of Rosario materials, drafting proposed jury instructions and arguing oral motions).

Yet, since Becker demonstrated, by his recusal in October of 2009, his lack of impartiality towards us, he should not have been on any of our cases where we were parties - as a matter of due process and our right to impartial judicial review, as parties.  Right?

Let's go further.

2.  Around February of 2010, Judge Becker directed a party in a Family Court matter to turn me into the disciplinary authorities.  The party did that, the committee investigated and found no misconduct on my behalf.  I rule of judicial conduct requires disqualification of a judge who complained about an attorney to the disciplinary authorities, for 2 years.

2 years from February 2010 is February 2012.

ALL of Becker's sanctions against me (including the three that were the basis for the disciplinary proceedings used to suspend my law license) were within that 2-year window.  All of them were unlawful and imposed by a judge who, by mandatory rules of Judicial Conduct, should have recused from ALL of my cases - not only as a party, for that he should have recused based on his October 2009 recusal - but even all of my cases as an attorney.

Since no misconduct was found, after full investigation, Judge Becker directed a party to file a false complaint against me, and thus should never have been on my cases.

3.  In December of 2010 I filed a complaint with the NYS Commission for Judicial Conduct about Becker's and his misconduct, also involving, among other people, the misconduct of the now-Delaware County judge, and then-Delaware County District attorney Richard Northrup, and the then-Vice-Chair of New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct and a private attorney Stephen Coffey, of O'Connel & Aronowitz, a law firm from Albany.

I asked to take Becker off the bench, based on 9 cases of documented misconduct. 

Becker was, instead, elevated to the position of an Acting Judge of Delaware County Supreme Court, assigned himself to all of my cases in early 2011.

I, naturally, having in mind Becker's recusal in 2009 and Becker's direction to a party to file a disciplinary complaint against me in 2010, as well as Becker's misconduct in several additional cases that I knew of, made motions to recuse.

Having found that Becker failed to file the required certificate of election in 2002, I also challenged his legality as a judge in a motion.

Becker reviewed the motion of his own legality, caused Delaware County Commissioner of the Board of Election William Campbell to file a false certification of the 2002 election in 2011, while all original documents from that election, according to the Board's answer to my 2010 FOIL request, were gone in 2004, sanctioned me for making the motion to recuse and challenging his legality and sent the sanctions to the disciplinary authorities.

Then, Becker sanctioned me - and my husband - in practically all cases to which he assigned himself.

In August of 2012 Becker recused allegedly from all of my cases as an attorney and party and cases where my husband was a party (who was by that time disbarred 4 years before the final judgment in the Mokay saga, see also here, here and here , the brainchild of the notorious retired judge Robert Harlem and his son Richard Harlem who Becker was protecting).

Becker communicated his alleged complete recusal from all cases to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York where Judge Becker was sued also for his actions as a judge of Delaware County Surrogate Court.

Despite a pledge to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York in Neroni v Becker that Becker recused from all cases involving me as an attorney or party, and my husband as a party, that pledge was a lie, and here is why.

1)  Becker did not recuse untl April of 2015, from The Estate of Andrew Mokay, Delaware County Surrogate's Court File No. 2007-021, transferred to Delaware County Supreme Court by order of Judge Mulvey in April of 2015 without an index number, the case that Mr. Neroni was describing in Neroni v. Becker in the Surrogate Court until April of 2015.  April of 2015 was, "coincidentally", one month before Becker announced his "intent" to "retire" from the bench - right at about the time the NYS Comptroller was investigating Delaware County for its no-bid contracts, and around the time when Becker's other buddies, County Attorney Richard Spinney and Commissioner of Social Services William Moon, also quickly retired.

2) Becker sua sponte re-entered a Family Court case of a case in September of 2012, the case was where he imposed in 2011 sanctions upon me and my pro bono client for challenging his legality, as well as misconduct - in order to moot an appeal, and sent his order produced by this re-entry to the Appellate Division.  The appeal was "successfully" mooted by Becker.

3) Becker issued an order in a child neglect/abuse case of my client in October 2012, which he had no authority to do because of his recusal, and which differed drastically (it was a lot more punitive) from what he pronounced on record after the trial in June of 2012, before his recusal.  Becker dismissed child abuse charges against my client in June of 2011, but imposed punishment in October of 2012, 2 months after his announced recusal of August of 2012, as if child abuse was found.

4) In 2014, Becker's name appeared on bail receipt of my close friend and then-client Barbara O'Sullivan whom he relentlessly pursued with the help with his buddies Richard Northrup (former Delaware County DA, now Delaware County judge, illegally sworn in as a judge by Becker, a private attorney at the time of swearing-in) and John Hubbard, Becker's law partner who did not disclose his role as his law partner, as he was supposed to, during the 13 years while the DA's office where Hubbard was employed was appearing in front of Becker.

Even after the dismissal of the shameful fabricated criminal case against Barbara O'Sullivan, she still continues to be pursued, and recently her dog was killed under suspicious circumstances.

 The timeline of Kevin Dowd's re-entries after recusals

1) In September of 2012, Kevin Dowd recused from the case Neroni v Harlem, Delaware County Index No. 2011-547, after he was assigned to the case after recusal of Carl F. Becker.

Yet, Dowd got assigned - and refused to recuse despite several motions to recuse - from the case Mokay v Mokay which was a case related to Neroni v Harlem.

2) In or around April of 2013 Kevin Dowd recused from a case Demeree Realty v Sines, Chenango County Index No. 2010-256 where an attorney tried to sue me (lawsuit was dismissed and discontinued on stipulation when I moved for sanctions) for giving proper advice to my client as to whether to pay a fee to an unlicensed real estate broker who committed fraud upon my client.

 Despite these two prior recusals, Dowd continued to "preside" over my husband's case Mokay v Mokay, and, after the final judgment in Mokay v Mokay when the court lost jurisdiction over the case, Dowd sanctioned me in an obviously void order for not appearing at a trial because of a medically documented injury and leave.

In March of 2016, in an appeal from the dismissal of a lawsuit (where I was the civil rights attorney for the plaintiff), Dowd equated the making of a motion to recuse with disruption of the court that entitled him to order to bodily throw a person out of the courthouse.

Dowd also threatened me in April of 2015, through his law clerk (see my blog about her Facebook friends and jobs that her Facebook friends get in front of Judge Dowd), that he will bodily bring me into the court proceedings, trauma or no trauma, causing me to plaster on my door the medical leave from my doctor in case of a police raid on my home law office and to sit for the whole day of April 7, 2015 in anticipation of being bodily dragged in my pajamas to the courthouse.  Naturally, I did not take medication I was prescribed that day for my injury, so that I would be fully alert during the "bodily dragging" process.

Given Dowd's history of (1) threats of bodily dragging injured people to court, (2) orders to bodily throw people out of the courthouse for making motions to recuse him, in the belief that such motions is an equivalent of violent disruption of court proceedings, my husband and I were lucky I was "only" illegally sanctioned for being sick and my husband was "only" punished by Dowd with a $300,000 judgment imposed after Dowd's review of boxes of exhibits that Dowd blocked me from ever seeing, and that disappeared during the pendency of my husband's appeal.

After all, Dowd, the raving lunatic who talks about urinals built by law schools in his honor, on record, during child custody proceedings, could have ordered some real bodily harm done to us during court proceedings - and would have escaped with "absolute judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts".

 The timeline of recusals and re-entries of Judge James Tormey

In 2013, when Judge Kevin Dowd (see above) recused from my case in Demeree Reatly v Sines in Chenango County Supreme Court, where I was brought in as a defendant (Judiciary Law 487 charges were dismissed by Dowd, "negligence" in giving advice charges that Dowd refused to dismiss were discontinued when I moved in front of Judge Mulvey to dismiss for failure to comply with discovery, failure to state a claim and for sanctions), the case was assigned to Judge James Tormey, Chief Administrative Judge for the 5th Judicial District, see my blog about lawsuit against this notorious woman-hater who was involved in the crimes of soliciting political espionage from court employees to derail judicial elections, but did not lose his judicial robe or his law license, here.

Judge Tormey recused from the case, and the case was reassigned to Judge Mulvey, Chief Administrative Judge of the 6th Judicial District (apparently, only Chief Administrative judges could at that point deal with the likes of me).

Yet, in the same year of 2013, right after recusal from one case where I was a party, Judge James Tormey was assigned to another case where I was a party, Neroni v Follender, where Judge Tormey not only dismissed my meritorious lawsuit against a private attorney (who is "coincidentally" also a judge in a justice court in Ulster County) who ran his mouth with false accusations against me to Judge Becker, obtaining sanctions for diametrically opposite claims, because for Becker the only important point as to whether impose a sanction was whether my name was on it.

My motion to recuse was denied.

My motion to vacate, renew and reargue the dismissal - and a repeat motion to recuse, especially because Tormey sanctioned me for SUING TORMEY in federal court - was denied, with a sanction of $2,000, attorneys fees in favor of fraud-fabricator Follender of $8,000, an anti-filing injunction in favor of the fraud-fabricator Follender, and a threat that, should I ever again sue the fraud-fabricator Follender or his corporate clients M&C Brothers, Inc. on whose behalf he was fabricating fraud, I will be CRIMINALLY prosecuted on a motion from a PRIVATE ATTORNEY Follender in Tormey's court - without a grand jury indictment, which is a requirement for criminal prosecutions in Supreme Court.

The appellate Division affirmed all of the above,  see my blogs about it here, here and here, where yet another recused-and-re-entered court, the NYS Appellate Division 3rd Department, "advised me" that Tormey's decision not to recuse was a matter of his "discretion".

 Moreover, the interesting part is that the 3rd Department relied in their decision on suspension of my law license (a case from which the 3rd Department recused, but withheld a portion of the record from the transferee court), where Judge Tormey's decision was included into the motion that was granted by the 4th Department before the 3rd Department had a chance to review it on appeal.

Nothing like a little bit of a pre-judgement, but who cares if that's Tatiana Neroni, right.  

And nobody cares that Tormey's two direct subordinates were members of the disciplinary committee of the 4th Department that pursued my suspension (see here and here), right?

Not to mention that when I discussed misconduct of THAT committee, that had Tormey's subordinates as its members, that committee brought now-dismissed criminal charges (now dismissed) against me and tried to have me locked up in the County Jail within the reach of Tormey and his local friends.  That's why I stay away in South Carolina to begin with.

The timeline of recusals and re-entries of Judge Michael V. Coccoma

In July of 2007,  Judge Michael V. Coccoma recused from the Mokay v Mokay case where my husband, then-attorney Frederick J. Neroni was a defendant.  I was not an attorney at that time.

See the Mokay saga and the Blanding saga above, with links.

In 2009, Judge Michael V. Coccoma became a Chief Administrative Judge of the 6th Judicial District, overseeing Delaware County, and then Chief Administrative Judge of upstate New York.

Since 2009, recused Judge Michael Coccoma or his direct subordinate Robert Mulvey were assigning judges to cases of Mr. Neroni, including the case from which Judge Coccoma recused in July of 2007, Mokay v Mokay.

Judge Coccoma or his subordinate Judge Mulvey assigned to the case the recused Judge Becker, the recused Judge Dowd, assigned to my cases the recused Judge Becker, the recused Judge Dowd and the recused Judge Tormey (see above).

Moreover, in or around September of 2013, Judge Coccoma got himself assigned to a case where I was an attorney for a client in Otsego County Supreme Court.  When I pointed out to Judge Coccoma that I filed a motion to sanction his wife attorney Ellen Coccoma for fraud, fraud upon the court and frivolous conduct (a charge for which my husband is still within 6 years statute of limitations to sue Ellen Coccoma for fraud upon the court), Judge Coccoma then recused from that case.

Yet, Judge Coccoma immediately assigned the previously recused Judge Tormey to my lawsuit Neroni v Follender, obviously with an instruction to "deal with me", and Tormey did - as described above.

The timeline of non-recusals, recusals and re-entries of New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division 3rd Judicial Department

In November of 2009, I made a complaint for judicial misconduct of NYS Appellate Division 3rd Department in the case Gjonaj v Sines, where the court relied upon off-the-record testimony of an attorney for a real estate broker to go against the existing law and throw an elderly woman out of her home, who was defrauded by a real estate broker into selling the contract for 1/2 of what the house was worth.

I did not know at that time about several interesting points about the New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct.

I did not know that the Commission did not have a rule prohibiting members and former members of the Commission - and their law firms - from practicing in front of the Commission, so the Commission was simply a sinecures for members, former members and their law firms.

I did not know that attorneys from law firms of members and former members are assigned, year after year, as referees in cases brought in front of the Commission.

By the way, when I turned in Becker for his shenanigans with Steven Coffey, Vice-Chair of the Commission, in 2010, Coffey did not recuse either, and did not disclose that his partner from law firm O'Connel and Aronowitz is one of the most frequently assigned referees of the Commission for Judicial Conduct.  Naturally, my 2010 complaint against Becker was dismissed, in 2011 Becker was elevated to the bench of the Delaware County Supreme Court, sanctioned me in 2011, and sanctions used in 2013-2015 proceedings to finally suspend my law license in 2015.

I did not know that one of the attorneys who previously was fired from a case into which I was hired, and who, after resolution of the case, threatened to prosecute my husband, myself and my client for a felony grand larceny for taking back the bail belonging to my client (and that has been confirmed by TWO appellate decisions, after SIX years of additional litigation - see Shields v Carbone), Steven Coffey, was a long-time member and Vice-Chair of the Commission.

By the way, I finally obtained the bail money for my client and returned it to him, through litigation, only I lost my law license because of the sanction imposed upon me by Becker for a motion to recuse him from that case - where 

(1) Becker's buddy Delaware County Attorney Richard Spinney acknowledged on record an ex parte communication with Becker about the bail money;  

(2) where Becker did not follow the law, as the Appellate Division acknowledged, twice, and did not order release of bail as the law required;  where 

(3) Becker and prosecutor Northrup did not disclose on record that Assistant District Attorney John Hubbard is Becker's former law partner, as it was required by court rules of judicial ethics, it was disclosed only in January of 2016, after my law license was suspended based on Becker's sanctions in that case, after Becker "safely" retired, after Northrup was "safely", though illegally, sworn-in by private attorney Becker into judgeship, and after Hubbard was safely ensconced as Acting Delaware County District attorney.

The conflict was NEVER disclosed to me, but was disclosed to a newspaper, "The Walton Reporter".

And, finally, I did not know that a judge of the Appellate Division 3rd, now Chief Judge, Karen Peters, was also a member of the Commission for Judicial Conduct, and thus HAD TO recuse from a case where I requested discipline against her own court, including her own boss, the then-Chief Judge of that court, the now-deceased Anthony Cardona.

Karen Peters did not disclose her conflict of interest, did not recuse from the case, my complaint about her own court was dismissed by the Commission - and voila - Karen Peters was rewarded with a chief judgeship after Cardona passed away, and her court had my husband disbarred and unlawful sanctions of recused judges repeatedly affirmed, while ignoring a whole chunks of appellate record (motions and transcripts of ex parte communications).

In other words, in Gjonaj v Sines, out-of-the-record ATTORNEY TESTIMONY tipped the balance of the court's decision, while in my cases and cases of my husband, applicable law in our favor and large chunks of the record were ignored.

Now, on June 11, 2014, the 3rd Department added (without notice) my already-disbarred-by-that-court husband to my own disciplinary proceeding and recused from the case, transferring it to the 4th Department.

That RECUSAL from a case involving both of us in its caption, should have resulted in recusal of that court from all cases.

Yet, the already recused court stubbornly remained on our other cases, required to file motions to recuse itself, which we did - multiple motions, each with a $45.00 filing fee - and denied all of them without an explanation or reasoning.

After recusal, the 3rd Department ruled against me or myself and my husband or my husband in FIVE cases so far:

1) Kilmer v Moseman in 2015 - denied my request for sanctions against Michael Coccoma's (see above) wife Ellen Coccoma who was caught in misconduct, and against former judge Eugene Peckham and his law firm Levene Gouldin and Thomspon who were also caught in misconduct.

I did not know at that time that Levene, Gouldin and Thompson is one of the law firm whose attorney has been repeatedly hired as a referee for the NYS Commission for Judicial Conduct.

2) Mokay v Mokay - intermediate appeals in 2014 and 2015;

3) Neroni v Grannis - October of 2014;

4) Neroni v Harlem - motions on intermediate appeals in 2014 and 2015;

5) Neroni v Follender - 2016


                              *     *      *

After all this merry descriptions of recusals and re-entries of FOUR judges and the entire Appellate Court into our cases in order to punish us for exposing judicial misconduct through lawful means (FOIL requests, complaints to Commission of Judicial Conduct, motions to recuse, lawsuits in state and federal courts), let me re-state the applicable law.

Not the law invented by courts in their own favor on the spot, but the written law that exists on the issue of judicial recusal and disqualification.

1. Canons of Judicial Conduct, which is a set of court rules, 22 NYCRR 100;
2. Ethical rules requiring that a judge must recuse from an attorney's case for 2 years if a judge complained or caused a disciplinary complaint against an attorney, and it got dismissed;
3. Judiciary Law Section 14;
4. State constitutional right to due process, impartial judicial review and access to court
5. Federal constitutional rights to due process, impartial judicial review and access to court and the law interpreting such rights, such as the 2009 U.S. Supreme Court case Caperton v A.T. Massey Coal Co., Inc. indicating that under certain circumstances due process may require recusal.

 Consider also the following cases.

1) McCuin v Txas Power & Light Co., 714 F.2d 1255, 1261 (5th Circuit, 1983):

"To permit a disqualified chief judge to select the judge who will handle the case in which the chief judge is disabled would violate the congressional command that the disqualified judge be removed from all participation in the case".

2) Parent v New York, 786 F. Supp. 2d 516 (NDNY, 2011) - assignment of cases is deemed a judicial function.

So, when Judge Coccoma, or his subordinates, assigned judges to my own cases and cases of my husband, Judge Coccoma re-entered the case after his TWO recusals - in July 2007 and in September 2013.

3) McFadden v Sassower, 27 Misc. 3d 45, 900 N.Y.S. 2d 585 (N.Y. Supp. App. Term, 2010) saying that once the court recused itself, it cannot rule on the case, and such rulings are VOID and citing to the case Friends of Keuka Lake v DeMay, 206 A.D. 2d 850, 615 N.Y.S. 2d 203 (4th Dept. 1994).

So - with all of this MANDATORY law of disqualification and recusal on the books, why New York state judges are still allowed to practice the trick of 3Rs - Recusal -> Re-entry -> Retaliation?

Because from top to bottom the regulation of judges, attorneys and courts is done by the same people who will never let "their own" down.

And that has nothing to do with any laws.

When a criminal defense attorney runs for public office, how do we assess the record of her success?

I posted a blog yesterday about a smear campaign against #JudgeJaneKelly, nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, who was a federal public defender before she came to the bench of a federal appellate judge in the 8th Circuit.

I also covered in that blog the filibustering of President Obama's nomination in 2014 of a civil rights attorney who was blocked from taking a position of chief of Civil Rights Division in the U.S. Department of Justice because he was too good of a civil rights and criminal defense attorney.

One thing needs to be pointed out that is overlooked when a criminal defense attorney is running for or being nominated for a public office - an equally rare occasion.  Unlike a prosecutor who can boast convictions (even wrongful convictions, even convictions on coerced pleas and while using false and fabricated evidence) as the prosecutor's "record" of "fighting crime" when running for or being nominated for the bench.

As my professors and mentors always taught me, a criminal defense attorneys does not "win" the case - the prosecution loses, because the burden to put the case together, and the burden of proof are entirely upon the prosecution.

Criminal cases rarely come to trial.

Most of them are resolved through either plea bargains, dismissals, or resolutions reducing a crime to a non-crime.

I would like to talk about the latter.

When a criminal charge is dismissed before trial, that is a big win for the defense, but in that case, the criminal case disappears, the record is sealed, and the criminal defense attorney does not have a right to brag about the case.

I clearly remember how surprised (at first) I was when I saw that clients for whom my husband, a criminal defense attorney at the time, won dismissals of cases, sometimes would not recognize my husband in the street, walk right by him.

And then some of them called him, apologized and explained that they did not want other people to know that they know my husband, a leading criminal defense attorney in the area.

So, criminal defense attorneys have no bragging rights about dismissed cases, even though such dismissals before trial saved the client money and especially the stress and heartache of the trial, the stress of possible conviction at trial and the uncertainty and expense of the appeal.

When a criminal charge is reduced to a non-criminal charge, the case is similarly sealed, and thus, again, an attorney loses bragging rights for the attorney's "win", as opposed to a prosecutor.

In New York, such a situation will arise if, for example, a charge for a misdemeanor or a felony (a crime) is reduced to a violation (not a crime), or if an eligible young defendant is given a youthful offender (YO) status.

Often criminal defense attorneys also represent people in child abuse/neglect cases and in domestic violence/"family offense" cases in Family Court.

Wins in such cases are also sealed, as all Family Court records, and there are, similarly, no bragging rights when such an attorney would consider running or being nominated for a high public office.

I just want the public to be aware that when a criminal defense/family court defense attorney is running for office, most of his or her wins and accomplishments may not be revealed to the public simply because they are sealed.

Thus, the balance is between sealed accomplishments of criminal defense attorneys and known record of convictions of prosecutors, likely created by drumming up coerced pleas.

The public needs to be aware of this imbalance, especially where the majority of judges in this country came from prosecutors, and where judicial misconduct may be the natural continuation of a prosecutor's mentality - just charge and intimidate, and you will be immune for anything false and criminal you are doing during the trial.

Unlike a prosecutor, a criminal defense attorney is not given as many resources, must fight against tremendous odds for his or her client, including the unfair publicity that the police and prosecution often create before the case is heard by the court, and must be a quick and effective thinker.

For a prosecutor, given that most judges are former prosecutors, too, a victory is often presumed, and a loss is usually the result of either the prosecutor's or the police's extremely sloppy work, or the result of an outstanding work of the criminal defense attorneys where even a judge cannot help but rule against the prosecutor despite the judge's usual bias against the defense.

I think, we need more of criminal defense attorneys in public office, not less, and I think, we need to be extremely alert to smear campaigns against criminal defense attorneys who run for public office - like the one going on now against the U.S. Supreme Court nominee #JudgeJaneKelly.

Are we behind Putin in preserving evidence of court proceedings?

In Russia, a bill was just introduced which would require to videotape all court and even arbitration proceedings.

In New York, videotaping court proceedings is a crime of misdemeanor punishable with up to a year in jail, Civil Rights Law 52.

I wrote a lot on this blog about the importance of preserving evidence of court proceedings through videotaping, and not to give a "monopoly for the truth" to court reporters who, in fear of their job security will not report, for example, judicial misconduct. 

In fact, as the recent disciplinary case against an attorney in Louisiana shows, a court reporter would go to an extraordinary length to try to block access to an audio file requested by the attorney to verify veracity of the transcript, to the point of filing a lawsuit - while the audio file was cooked during the pendency of the lawsuit to insert a "disclosure" of the judge that was previously missing from the audio - and the transcript.

The judge was ordered recused from the case.

The attorney whistleblower, who exposed likely criminal activity of #JudgePhyllisKeaty, lost her law license for a "year and a day" for "disrupting court proceedings" with allegedly "unwarranted motions to recuse".

Had there been independent video recordings - from multiple sources, both official and unofficial, by members of the public or by litigants themselves - no such thing would have happened.  Judge Keaty would have been YouTube'd from the bench immediately. 

A video recording can make a difference when a judge tries to misrepresent the record - as a Russian judge tried to do, I described it here.  The Russian judge did not know he was secretly recorded.

The Russian judge was been suspended from the bench, and the attorney who he ordered bodily carried out of the courtroom, and then complained about that attorney for "wilfully abandoning the case", is now a hero.

In Louisiana, on the opposite, the judge whose "disclosure" was criminally inserted into a court audiofile, #JudgePhyllisKeaty, was promoted to an appellate court, and the whistleblower attorney #ChristineMire who exposed Judge Keaty's misconduct, lost her license.

What a difference several videotapes of proceedings in front of Judge Keaty (and other such judges) could have made.

And - are we going to be behind Russia, Russia, a country that is being blamed for all kinds of human rights violations under its current president - on the issue of transparency of court proceedings?

Are judicial lobbies opposing videotaping because, with a possibility of being YouTubed at any time, judges would not be able to act as rude and vulgar petty tyrants, as they do now?

I bet, the bench would not be that popular then - where there will be an occupational hazard of a possibility of daily exposure of judges' tantrums, tantrums of people with expensive and privileged education and a life of privilege before coming to the bench.

But, as of now, it isn't Russia, so do not hope for transparency of court proceedings...




 

No, we cannot have a U.S. Supreme Court judge with a background of a courageous federal public defender. It will break with tradition.

I've frequently pointed out on my blog that judges in the U.S., in both state and federal courts, predominantly come from prosecutorial background.

I also wrote on this blog that, with the rising issue of wrongful convictions caused by prosecutorial misconduct, most likely many such convictions will not be overturned because too many of prosecutors responsible for those wrongful convictions have since made it to the bench, and it will be too embarrassing to reveal such a dirty page or chapter of judges' careers.

Prosecutors like to talk about themselves as being "on the right side", the side of justice, while pointing a finger at criminal defense attorneys as "sleazy", "scum", ready to do "anything" for money etc.

First of all, such claims are done with a wink and a nod - "yeah, we know about presumption of innocence, don't tell us, we know that a criminal defense attorney is representing a person ACCUSED of a crime, and presumed innocence - but STILL".

Still - what?

A person ensuring constitutional right to counsel to a criminal defendant, and doing it properly is somehow bad?

Consider also the cost of prosecutorial mistakes, not to mention misconduct, as opposed to "wrongful acquittals", if there are such, as a result of a criminal defense attorney's work.

If a person who committed a crime was acquitted, or charges against him or her got dismissed, that means that the prosecution did not obtain enough admissible evidence and did not work hard enough to do their job.  In a criminal proceeding, the role of the defense is just that - the defense.  The burden of proof (burden of production of evidence and the burden of persuasion of the fact-finder) is entirely upon the prosecution.  If the prosecution has failed their job, don't blame the defense attorney for doing his.

Once again, if a person who committed a crime is acquitted or the charges have to be dismissed, that is the prosecutorial mistake and not to be blamed on the defense attorney.

If, on the other hand, the prosecution convicted an innocent, especially in a case where there is an ascertainable victim of a heinous crime (a murder, a rape), conviction of an innocent, a grave error and injustice in and of itself, is aggravated by two more grave problems:  the true perpetrator of the crime remains at large, and the surviving victims of the crime, as well as the public, are falsely assured of their safety and put their guard down.

That's what happened in a heinous crime of child rape in Arizona where a wrongfully convicted person spent time in prison, while the true perpetrator remained at large and committed more crimes. 

Such mistakes can be the result of sloppy work of the police and the prosecution, or such mistakes can be the results of deliberate misconduct of police and/or prosecution to drum up their conviction rate and get elected to the judicial office on the claims of "fighting crime".

So, when prosecutors claim they are "on the right side", I beg to differ.  When 95% of criminal cases are resolved through guilty pleas, most of them forced by threats of maximum punishment against the overcharged, mostly poor, criminal defendant, there is no assurance whatsoever that what happened in Arizona is not repeated many times, and that the true perpetrators of crimes do not roam our streets in droves while the innocent scapegoats are doing their time in prisons while those who put them there ascend to the judicial office based on their statistics of convictions, wrongful or not.

You can call me partial to criminal defense attorneys, but, having been one, and knowing how prosecution of crimes work in American courts from the inside, I will be always suspicious of integrity of any prosecutor and of any judge who came to the bench from prosecutorial office.

Yet, the majority of suspended and disbarred attorneys are civil rights and criminal defense attorneys - suspended and disbarred by disciplinary committees and judges who predominantly do NOT have a criminal defense background and a lot of whom have, instead, a prosecutorial background.

In other words, it is very likely that attorney disciplinary process is used by the legal establishment (prosecutors aspiring to be judges, judges who were prosecutors) to disbar defense attorneys to eliminate opposition and to enhance their statistics of convictions as career builder.

My position is that when civil rights and criminal defense attorneys are targeted for suspension and disbarment of their law licenses, not only the attorneys, but the public loses out, especially at the time when there are less and less skillful and zealous civil rights and criminal defense attorneys prepared to work at reduced rates or pro bono.

But, when being a criminal defense attorney, and a good one, is considered somehow as a disqualification for a high public office, this is the outside of enough.

Yet, that is exactly what is happening in the U.S. now.

In 2014, the Republican Senate blocked a President Obama's nominee Debo P. Adegbile to be chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Mr. Adegbile's point of disqualification?

Mr. Adegbile, when he worked for the Legal Aid division of NAACP, he "contributed to the filing of a 2009 court brief that argued that [a person convicted of killing a police officer] faced a discriminatory jury — an appeal found to have merit by a judge". 

So, Mr. Adegbile's disqualification was not only that he a civil rights attorney and criminal defense attorney, but also that he was a good one - his post-conviction brief raising issues of racial discrimination on the jury was actually found to have merit, and that was the point of ire and filibustering Mr. Adegbile for nomination to a position to which he was apparently pre-eminently eligible.

A good civil rights attorney prevented from nomination to a civil rights attorney position because he is a good civil rights attorney?

That particular filibustering required a lot of logic, didn't it?

But portraying participation in criminal defense as a disqualification from public office continues now, and now against a U.S. Supreme Court nominee who is a federal appellate judge and who was confirmed for her current position as a federal appellate judge by the U.S. Senate, the same senators who are smearing her now, without any objections.

The name of the judge is Judge Jane Kelly.

Now, a conservative "Judicial Crisis Network" is trying to filibuster nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court of Jane Kelly, Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.

Her point of disqualification?

Attorney Jane Kelly, as a criminal defense attorney, represented "a child molester".

The interesting part is that the same Judge Kelly was unanimously confirmed by the same Republicans for the seat of a federal appellate judge in 2013, bypassing the usual lower district court judicial position.

Judge Kelly's prior work FOR NINETEEN YEARS, from 1994 to 2013, as a federal public defender, which included the work as a defense attorney in the case now targeted by the "slugfest" ads, was not a problem.

Only now, as part of the deliberate "slugfest" campaign, Judge Kelly is being smears - simply because President Obama nominated her to the highest court in the country.

One can understand why there is such an opposition to nomination of Judge Kelly.  She is apparently a person of uncommon courage and principles.

While working in the federal public defender's office and being reportedly a supervising attorney in its Cedar Rapids, Iowa, office, in 2004, Judge Kelly was viciously attacked while jogging.  Her attacker was never found.

Judging by the fact that assistant public defender Jane Kelly was not killed, but was severely beaten and left "going in and out of consciousness and unable to call for help", the purpose of the attack was likely intimidation.   It is very likely, under the circumstances, that an attack on a federal public defender was caused by her work as a federal public defender.  And, the attacker, once again, was not found.

Violence upon criminal defense attorneys is a real thing.  

Just several days ago a criminal defense attorney who was successful in not only defeating the Orange County (California) District Attorney's office, but causing a major media scandal by exposing the improper use by the DA's office of jail snitches - suffered a vicious attack by one of District Attorney's investigators, of all people.

I remember a time when my husband, a trial criminal defense attorney at the time, was requested by the police to wait until the irate supporters of the alleged victims go away, after his successful presentation in a criminal defense preliminary hearing that caused a dismissal of the case.  I remember walking to the car in the parking lot that day, together with my husband, under the protection of the armed police. 

I remember threats mouthed at him in and around the courthouse, and on the phone.

Judge Kelly, after being viciously attacked in 2004 by an attacker who was not found, continued to work as a federal public defender for 9 years.  One thing you cannot deny this woman is her courage in doing her duty.

She is a judge with "unusual" background for a judge - a federal public defender.  She knows, from her NINETEEN years of experience, in detail, what problems an indigent criminal defendant faces in the American "criminal justice system".

Here is what Judge Kelly reportedly said in her confirmation hearing for the seat of a federal appellate judge:

"As a criminal defense attorney, I am often representing someone who, shall I say, is not the most popular person in the room. ... So I, as much as anyone, know how important it is to be fair and impartial and make decisions based on things other than bias, favor, or prejudice."

 Oh, no, we cannot have a U.S. Supreme Court justice like this, Judge Kelly could be fair and not prejudiced in taking and reviewing the cases of criminal defendants, and possibly, be a swing vote to end the disgraceful death penalty.  No, we cannot have that.

The director of the "Infinity Project", an organization that promotes women for positions as federal judges on the 8th Circuit, stated in an interview at the time of her appointment as a federal appellate judge, that it has been difficult to get in women with Jane Kelly's background.

The ad campaign smear, by the way, completely distorts what Jane Kelly did as an attorney in representing her client.

The ad said that Jane Kelly was arguing that her client was not a threat to society - and immediately paired that up with sexual molestation and murder of a 5-year-old child by the same client.

What the ad missed is that at the time Jane Kelly represented her client on charges of possession of child pornography, he was not convicted of molestation and murder yet, those were crimes for which he was charged and convicted in another court, state court, later on.

Moreover, Casey Frederiksen as convicted of sexual molestation and murder of a child in 2015, two years after Jane Kelly was no longer a federal public defender, but was already a federal appellate judge.

Therefore, it was physically impossible for federal public defender Jane Kelly to foresee the future conviction of her client when she may have claimed to the sentencing court, sentencing her client for possession of child pornography only (a heinous crime, but not a violent crime with an ascertainable victim).  

At the federal sentencing of Casey Frederiksen in 2006, attorney Jane Kelly was justified as a zealous advocate on behalf of her client in claiming at sentencing that her client, without knowing more, was not a threat to society just because he possessed child pornography.

It appears that the smear ads put upon public defender Jane Kelly a duty to be a clairvoyant, and to predict a 2015 conviction of her client in her 2006 sentencing arguments.

By the way, the lies in the smear campaign stretched as far as claiming that Jane Kelly, when trying to negotiate in 2006 a plea deal for possession of child pornography for her client Casey Frederiksen, knew that he was PREVIOUSLY convicted for sexual molestation of another girl. 

Yet, the link about Attorney Kelly's knowledge as of 2006 about the "other girl" conviction leads to a story not to a conviction, but of a disappearance of a girl, for which Frederiksen was convicted only in 2015.

The techniques of the smear campaign are obvious - toss in enough lies, so that people become easily inflamed and will not check out the dates, and equate a criminal defense attorney with her client.  If she is defending him and arguing for leniency for him, she is as bad as him.

And, of course, a criminal defense attorney should "know" what kind of other crimes her client may have committed, even if not charged.

How should she know about that, is anybody's guess.

What the smear campaign also does is, as legal commentators note, it shoos young attorneys away from criminal defense, portraying it as a career destroyer.  

Which, at a time when skilled criminal defense attorneys are very much needed, and especially in the field of indigent criminal defense, where Judge Kelly worked for 19 years, is a disservice to the public.

All to preclude a President Obama nominee?

Imagine the shock - a fair judge who knows from experience as a criminal defense attorney the problems of indigent criminal defense, to take the place of, quite likely, the most corrupt judge in the history of the U.S. #AntoninScalia, that's the judge with hundreds of hunting trips - and God only knows what other sweet deals - with litigants and interest groups who turned up dead during Valentine's Day weekend in a luxury suite of a hunting lodge some place in Texas where he came without his spouse and mother of his 9 children, in a suite paid for by a litigant who got benefits from Scalia's court.

No, we cannot have a fair, impartial and incorruptible judge on the highest court of this country.

We must tolerate intimidation of any candidate who would dare to be nominated by President Obama in his last year.

We must tolerate the "slugfest" campaign against this courageous woman, a white woman who, after being viciously beaten, continued for 9 years her service as a public defender in a system where minorities are predominantly targeted for criminal prosecution.  

We cannot have a judge on the bench who knows through her work for indigent, mostly minority, defendants, what racial discrimination in the American "justice" system is like.

A judge that cannot be bought?  Or even intimidated physically?

Can we withstand such a wonder in this country? 

Will intimidation of the U.S. Supreme Court nominees by attorney-Senators Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn be pursued as attorney disciplinary violations?

Oh, the politics of the legal profession.

Oh, the politics of the "honorable" members of the Legislature.

Just after #AntoninScalia dropped dead under unclear circumstances at unclear time and unclear location, the very first thing that the mourning Republican Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell said after learning about the death was that Republicans will block President Obama's nomination of a U.S. Supreme Court justice, because they are waiting for a nomination from the new president.

Which was not very smart, because Senator McConnel, sworn to protect and uphold the U.S. Constitution, must know that the duly elected President serves and has a right to nominate candidates to the U.S. Supreme Court vacancies until the very last day of his presidency.

It was also not very smart because of potential dynamics in the U.S. Senate itself in the coming elections.

Then, as an added tactic, John Cornyn, reportedly the second highest-ranking Republican U.S. Senator claimed that "high-stakes slugfest could damage their reputations in a fruitless pursuit of the top court".  

In other words, Republican Senators practically openly threatened judicial nominees with damaging their careers if they are to be nominated.

Well.

On the one hand, there is freedom of speech, and candidates for appointment to a governmental office are fair game for criticism.

On the other hand, many of Republican Senators practicing the "slugfest" are licensed attorneys, and there is a disciplinary "gag" rule prohibiting them from making false statements and statements in reckless disregard about truth or falsity about judges and nominees/candidates for election to judicial office.

And, blocking judicial candidates not because they are bad, but because of who nominated them, is a form of interference with administration of justice, don't you think?

And interference with administration of justice is yet another attorney disciplinary violation.

Senator McConnell is an attorney.

Senator Cornyn is also an attorney.

Will these senators be disciplined for their activities that constitute grave disciplinary violations for attorneys?  

Where those same activities in criticizing judges and judicial nominees are pursued by attorney disciplinary authorities relentlessly and result in suspensions and disbarments of solo and small-firm attorneys who lack political connections?

By the way, the same Senator McConnell accused Democrats in 2013 of exactly what he and his supporters are practicing now - intimidation tactics.

And, in answer to those accusations of Senator McConnell, Senator Reid provided the following rebuttal pointing out to stalling tactics of Republicans as to President Obama's nominees long before President Obama's last year of service:

"Executive and judicial nominees ready for Senate confirmation have been pending an average of 200 days, first-term judicial nominees unanimously reported out of committee have waited nine times longer to be confirmed than those under President George W. Bush, first-term district court nominees have waited five times longer than those previously, and first-term circuit court nominees have waited more than seven times longer."

As a voter, I am disgusted.

We do not elect people to the U.S. Senate to be clowns and bullies.

We elect them, as our public servants, to do their jobs for us, to legislate.

If their job is to approve or disapprove of a judicial candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court, and for the President of the United States to nominate such a candidate, the job of the U.S. Senators is at least to discharge their duties in good faith, without "slugfest" or "pinata" threats.

The threat was announced on March 7, 2016.

Early after the announcement of Scalia's death, the Republican Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval refused to be considered as a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, three days after announcement of Scalia's death - obviously following its party's directive.

One day after the "slugfest/pinata threats surfaced", on March 8, 2016, the International Women's Day, the U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch recently declined a consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of time.

Playing the coward to the threats of some Republican bullies (I am sure, not all of the Republican party and Republican Senators support these middle-school bullying tactics) was not exactly a good example of empowering women in the government that Loretta Lynch has sent by her refusal to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Two days after the "slugfest/pinata" threats surfaced Judge Adalberto Jordan, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, also declined to be considered for the highest position in a judicial career, the position of a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

So the threats of "slugfest" by Senator Cornyn worked.

But, if those threats worked - that means that there might likely be some "skeletons in the closets" of two attorneys who both are in charge of upholding the law, one at the top of the federal Executive branch, and the other close to the top of the federal judicial branch of the government?

Our "honorable" U.S. Attorney General and no less "honorable" federal appellate judge are afraid that some of their dirty little secrets may be dragged out to light and ruin their "unblemished" career?

So much for the "unblemished" career then.

And, two notes at the end.

A note to voters as to upcoming elections - no, not of the President, but of the U.S. Senators.  Both Senator McConnell and Senator Conryn are supposed to adhere to the rule of law, and discharge their duties in good faith, not engage in middle-class-level bullying that makes the Republican party look beyond stupid.

And a note about attorney discipline for criticizing judges and judicial nominees - if you are a Senator, a "slugfest" against a judicial nominee is all right.

If you are a Jane Doe, a solo attorney without connections, true criticism of a judge may result in losing your law license.

So, if you want to criticize a judge or judicial candidate, even if you plan to do it falsely, even if you plan to do openly harass and intimidate a good candidate with a "slugfest" - run for U.S. Senate.