On saddle-stitch, perfect binding and access to court - the U.S. Supreme Court serving the rich, as demonstrated by its rules for petitions of certiorari

If you don't think that book-binding techniques, such as "saddle-stitch" and "perfect binding", have anything to do with indentured servitude, think again.

Here are the rules of the U.S. Supreme Court for the requirements as to petitions for the writs of certiorari - remember, those petitions are preliminary petitions asking (actually, begging) the Highest Court to take the case for their review.

The High Court has an absolute discretion not to take the case - of course, no court in the United States can have an absolute discretion, but, since there is no higher court to review the Highest Court's rejection of a certiorari petition for abuse of discretion, the Highest Court does have that absolute discretion.

Also, let's keep in prospective that access to court is a fundamental federal constitutional right guaranteed by the 1st Amendment, which cannot be unreasonably restricted.

Now, do the Highest Courts' certiorari rules violate the 1st Amendment access to court requirement?

In my opinion, they most certainly do.

I am not the first person writing about the crazy process required by the U.S. Supreme Court for exercising people's constitutional right to petition the government, that same court.

There were legal scholars who did that before me.

The prior criticism pointed out the unnecessary, unreasonable - and huge - burden imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court rules of formatting.

I encourage my readers to read the U.S. Supreme Court rule in full and try to imagine following it - and as to why such rules would be even introduced.

The rules require that:

• certain paper needs to be used:
• white, but not glossy, 
• of 60 pound weight - that is thicker than the normal printing paper (why - nobody knows)
• printed with a laser-printer quality or higher;
• certain margins,
• certain binding -  
• saddle-stitch binding or
• perfect binding
• printing should be on both sides of the pages.

The rules do not mention it, but, after doing some research, I also learned that there are two more aspects of the margins, the so-called "creep" and "bleed" that will have to be taken into account on top of the required margins, because of the binding requirement.

Saddle-stitch binding requires special equipment - a long-armed stapler, and for the petition to be able to be stitched through, which is not realistic for a 40-page document required to be printed on 60-pound (thick) paper.

Such staplers can be less expensive (but that one will not pierce a 40-page document) or very expensive.

This is what perfect book binding is - and a machine that is doing it.  Quickly.

2) Moreover, the Highest Court's rules require that all records in the Appendix (that is, the court decisions, any transcripts, any pleadings you include for the U.S. Supreme Court review) - must be also reformatted and "typeset" into the same format as required for the petition.

The rules warn you that failure to adhere to the above will result in rejection of the petition.

What does your ability to present 40 copies of perfectly bound, reformatted petition on 60-pound non-glossy paper, with a reformatted typeset records in the Appendix, has to do with your right of access to court to argue constitutional violations, nobody knows.

Translation into plain English.

You have a court order you are appealing, it is set in certain fonts, with certain margins.

Like my order of discipline, for example: here and here.

I cannot simply include a copy of those decisions into the Appendix.  I have to re-format those decisions to have a "Century" font, with the margins, "creep" and "bleed" requirements.

There are also decisions from the 3rd Department in another font.

And decisions from Delaware County courts (Family and Supreme), also in a non-Century font, and not satisfying the U.S. Supreme Court margin-creep-bleed requirements.

And there are transcripts.

And there are pleadings.

All of them in non-Century fonts.

I now have to re-format ALL of those documents into a "Century font", with creep and bleed requirements.

Since I only have some of those documents in paper copies or scanned copies (but not in Word-processing files), I will have to re-type or copy-paste (sometimes it is not possible with scanned documents) large amounts of documents, spending hundreds of hours of my time on something that has absolutely no relevance to the merits of the case.

Of course, I can hire somebody else to do that job for me.

And, there are a lot of businesses that offer such services.

I called a couple.

One such business offered me a quote of $1280 for a 60-page petition plus Appendix bundle, and that does not come close to including transcripts and pleadings which are voluminous and which may be required for the court's review.

The other business pressured me to reveal the nature of my case, I asked if the quote is connected with the nature of my case, the person said no, but quoted to me around $2,800 for the same job as the first business quoted $1280.

That is in addition to the $300 filing fee.

While I am stripped of my ability to earn a livelihood, I also own property and cars - together with my husband - and am thus not eligible for a poor person status forgiving the fees (but not the printing requirement).

Why such particular rules that are difficult to even read, much less follow - in our day and age of the Internet, where all federal courts are practicing electronic filing (for attorneys at least), so electronic filing is technically available, widely used, eliminates the waste of paper and saves efforts and money?

Just scan it and file it, right?

Why not?

Try complying with all of the above rules of the U.S. Supreme Court at the same time without professional help of a printer/typesetter specializing in doing just that (a printing company likely connected to the court).

If you do not comply - the court will reject your filing.

Here is why - just read some comments to the prior criticism of the Supreme Court rules:

Well, at least that is an honest self-description - an "anonymous coward" it is.

"Otherwise you'd have every crackpot with a gripe inundating the court".

Now, "every crackpot with a gripe" must previously jump through the hoops of the entire appellate process in state or federal court, because the Highest Court is the appellate court of last resort.

And, it is an admission that the rules are created deliberately as a way to discourage people from filing an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. 

In other words, the 9 elderly judges control their docket this way.  The judges' desire to give themselves and their personnel less work has nothing to do with people's constitutional access to court.

Here is another "caseload control" argument: the rules are created so that "trolls like [XYZ] cannot exploit the system with fake legal documentation".  But, a requirement to reformat REAL legal documentation does not control filing of FAKE legal documentation, and treating, before review, all litigants as potential "trolls" or pests demonstrates an attitude of judges of the Highest Court incompatible with fitness for such an office - or for any public office.

Let's go further with the comments.

That's a hint that the Highest Court is giving business this way for those selling paper for laser printers along with binding kits.

While the rules certainly boost such businesses, boosting such businesses is not the court's job, in fact, if the court is doing that, and such businesses have connections with the court, then the court is involved in corruption and high treason, impeachable offenses.

Let's go further with the comments.

$1,800 to $1,900 to print a brief - which, by court rules, cannot exceed 40 pages, if everything is supplied in "ready to go" format.  Beautiful.  Nearly $2,000 to print 40 pages that are ready to be filed, if scanning-and-e-filing or filing in an "as-is" paper format is allowed (like other federal courts do).

And, they gave a discount of $500, that is 27% (one third) off the cost.  

Whyever would they give such a huge discount?  

Because the cost of such "typesetting" and printing is $300 max (I checked with printing companies not specialized on preparing certioraries for the U.S. Supreme Court, simply by giving them specifications).  

Look at the explanation  (offered by an anonymous commentator)  as to why rules are necessary:

First of all, of course, anybody criticizing the government is an idiot - no doubt about that.  So, a little brown-nosing always helps.

Then, the pitch is that the requirement for "just-so" margins helps the court review cases quicker and make decisions quicker.

Laudable purpose, no doubt about that.

Yet, why other courts do not require the same, for the same purposes?

And where is the evidentiary proof that re-formatting a transcript, a court decision, a pleading from Times New Roman, or a Calibri, or any other printed font, into a "Century" font promotes speed of making court decisions to such a point that it justifies burdening a fundamental constitutional right of access to court with thousands of dollars of fees, pounds of wasted paper and hundreds of hours of wasted effort by the litigant?

Where in majority of the Highest Court decisions, the litigant will receive two words from the court, for all of the litigant's efforts - "Certiorari denied".  No explanation.

Moreover, the argument that such requirements defies pure logic.

Imagine how much time is supposed to be and is actually spent on seeing whether the color of the cover is right, whether the pound weight of the paper is right, whether the gloss is there or not, whether the margins are correct, whether the binding is correct - things that have NOTHING to do with the contents and merits of the petition, but that preclude possibly good, brilliant ideas that could save this country, protect people's rights and boost social progress of this country and its democracy - from every being reviewed and seeing the light of day!

Apparently, not all commentators shared the brown-nosing frenzy of "Wally".

Where "Wally" gladly found rationality in crazy court rules just because the Highest Court issued them, and the Highest Court cannot possibly be crazy, some people called a spade a spade.

This comment just calls "crazy" as "crazy".

This one diagnoses "crazy" further - as an "extreme case of OCD".  OCD is obsessive-compulsive disorder, a mental illness according to the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for mental illnesses.

Looks like an "extreme case of OCD" to me, too.

On the other hand, if all judges of the Highest Court have OCD and that interferes with their duties to the point of unreasonably burdening people's constitutional rights - removal of all of them is in order.

There was an interesting comment - while calling the discussion of how a paper format may lead to easier decision-making crazy, which it certainly is, the commentator shrugged off the importance of the discussion and claimed that it is simply some "epic trolling".

Well, I see the Supreme Court rules as "epic trolling" - of the American public, because those admittedly crazy rules serve as a barrier for majority of people from even thinking of filing a petition for a writ of certiorari to the court.

The statistics of rejection of such petitions coupled with the imposed cost of crazy reformatting, printing and "just-so" "saddle-stitch" or "perfect" binding puts off the majority who cannot afford such an exercise, even with high stakes, but with extremely low chances of success (unless, of course, you paid for a hunting trip with a Highest Court judge).

Some people are simply asking, and this comment is from the commentator who pointed out initially that the rules are a caseload control measure - asked how one format will help read and decide a case better over another format?

By the way, this particular argument is funny-but-not-so-funny in the era of "zoom in"/"zoom out"  ("pinch and enlarge") features of computers and tablets.

WHY ask to submit everything on paper when the court can satisfy the readability requirement by e-filing BETTER - where an e-filed document is (1) word-searchable, (2) better than laser printing quality and (3) with the text enlargeable to the point of comfort of each particular reader.

And that is without any re-formatting.

There is a comment saying precisely that, 3 years ago:

A lawyer for the consumer group "Public Citizen", Paul Alan Levy,  pitched into the discussion, acknowledged that the rules led to reducing the caseload of the U.S. Supreme Court, acknowledged that the rules make it difficult to comply to even professional printing company that is not "specialized" on Supreme Court briefings.

The comment of "public advocacy" attorney Paul Alan Levy was business advertising, without saying so.   Without disclosing that he works for "Public Citizen", made a comment that "Public Citizen" will charge you less for printing your "cert" brief:

And, attorney Levy finally justifies the imposed cost as being a "drop in the bucket" as compared with attorney fees.

But, attorney fees are not an issue when people are representing themselves, and the "drop in the bucket" argument does not make unconstitutional rules imposing unreasonable huge financial burden on access to court constitutional.

As to my allegation that the Highest Court may have a conflict of interest and connection with brief-printing companies, everything is possible, considering how the Highest Court is handling its own conflict of interest - from Justice Scalia's to Justice Breyer's.

For example, how could it happen that justice Stephen Breyer's son had a contract for broadcasting court proceedings in his father's court?

How could it happen that Justice Breyer published a book, "The Court and the World", likely based on travel experiences of his law clerk or clerks whose "all expenses paid" trips to England were financed by powerful secret attorney-funded organizations?   

By the way, I've been trolled on this blog after I criticized Justice Breyer for publishing and advertising that book, and I was trolled on this blog, over 2.5 years of its existence, only twice.

The second time was when I reported a house fire of a governmental critic when the local government refused to extinguish the fire, refused to investigate it and instead tried to blame the victims - and they still do.

The first time was when I criticized the "very busy" Justice Breyer's conduct in writing books when having no time to review petitions for certiorari, and accepting the bar's money (as all other justices of the court do) for all-expenses-paid trips of his law clerks, who obviously share their experiences with judges, who write and sell books, in addition to their salaries.

I was then trolled by an anonymous male attorney (judge?) who refused to reveal his name, refused to come out in a streamed video-conference with me on the issues that he claimed I got wrong about Justice Breyer, and instead told me to stop my non-sense arguments and go do something else.

After the first trolling did not help stop my criticism of Justice Breyer, by the way, I was quickly suspended from the practice of law (within less than 2 months since I published my criticizing blogs), so I do not really know whether it is worth it to go to the U.S. Supreme Court with a petition for a writ of certiorari.

Who am I asking for relief?

Amazingly, among the usual bickering in comments about U.S. Supreme Court rules that reduced comments down the road to a regular brawl, an access to court argument was made by one of the commentators:

And a technological argument was made, too:

When I was in law school, upper classmen from the Law Review team taught a citation workshop.

I still remember an all-A student boasting that he pinpointed and corrected a comma formatted in italics where it should have been straight.

He was actually proud of it.

I also recall a federal court sending back an appellate paper filing because a comma was not present where the court wanted it on the front page, and the court demanded to re-file not just that page, but all 6 copies of the entire brief.

That's a triumph of form over substance, common sense and constitutional rights of access to court.

That this triumph of caseload-control-through-money that a litigant can or cannot afford to pay for the crazy and unnecessary rules burdening access to court, is supported, condoned and in fact demanded by the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court of the country dealing with federal constitutional rights of Americans, should be a point of action of the U.S. Congress.

Of course, rich individuals and businesses will have no problem paying several thousand dollars for complying with those rules.

The problem will be visited only upon those who cannot afford the cost.

That is the purpose of the rules, and that is a big problem.

We, the citizens of the United States, should demand the U.S. Congress to remove from all courts the control of their caseload through rules burdening access to court for ordinary people by imposing extra burdens and costs upon litigants and by thus reserving their service to predominantly the rich.

California bar strikes against its top-ranking whistle-blower while continuing to be a dirty cartel

A couple of days ago I wrote about the decision of top state courts in Texas, Michigan and California that representation in a criminal case by a suspended attorney is not proof of ineffective assistance of counsel, thus affirming the conviction obtained where the defense attorneys were suspended in the middle of the case and continued representing clients despite the suspension, in violation of the state order of suspension and the state criminal statutes against unauthorized practice of law.

State courts in Michigan, Texas and California unanimously ruled - and that was back in 1996 - that attorney discipline does not necessarily related to an attorney's fitness to practice law, or moral character.

Which raises a question (once again) why we need attorney regulation at all, especially that such decisions come from the courts regulating the legal profession.

I would like to point out three more extremely interesting things about attorney regulation in California - which are, I am sure, characterize attorney regulation in all other states.  I know for a fact New York is quite like California, even though it does not have an organized bar, but attorney discipline is used in New York as retaliation against whistle-blowers of misconduct in the government and among well-connected attorneys instead of to discipline attorneys who do real harm to the public.

First.  California's law school graduates' most recent bar passage rate, as released on Friday the 13th this May, 2016, is 35.7% - approximately 1 in every 3 bar exam takers failed it.

Second.  On Thursday May 12, 2016, an audit was released of California State Bar finances criticizing the State Bar for:

1. lack of transparency;
2. inflated salaries for executives and
3. failure to dedicate money for compensation of victims of attorney misconduct (of course, if no discipline is imposed on well-connected attorneys and attorneys working for the government, victims of their misconduct are not even counted as victims).

You can see the audit itself here, and its scathing description by other bloggers here and here.

And third.  A whistle-blower lawsuit filed by the California State Bar's former executive director clearly claims that California State bar uses attorney discipline as retaliation against whistle-blowers and not for protection of the public, as that discipline is supposed to be used.

That's is coming from the horse's mouth.  The former Executive Director of the California State Bar would know what he is talking about - he must have been doing it himself, but filed a lawsuit when the same technique was used against him.

By the way, a similar lawsuit was filed in New York, in federal court, several years ago, where attorney Christine Anderson who worked for the New York State Appellate Division 1st Department's attorney grievance Committee alleged that she was fired because she tried to fight the white-washing of connected attorneys and targeting with discipline attorneys-whistle-blowers.

The lawsuit in federal court in New York was dismissed, with the issues raised by it remaining unresolved.

After a high-ranking former California State Bar insider joined the allegations in Joseph Dunn's lawsuit by stating in interviews in the press that California State Bar is a "completely dysfunctional organization", that it "[i]t seems to survive somehow, but ... it gets worse with each iteration", 

a California state court quickly referred the whistle-blower lawsuit of the State Bar's former executive Joseph Dunn to arbitration, and 

the arbitrator dismissed the lawsuit, together with the claim that the California State Bar insiders fabricated and falsified evidence in order to bad-mouth performance of Joseph Dunn as executive of the bar, and to fire him.

In March of this year, two months ago, the California State Bar issued an "Internal Report" blasting Joseph Dunn for "deception" and "influence peddling".

The report was actually called an "Independent Investigation", see it here.

The report alleged that it was Joseph Dunn who engaged in cronyism, and it was Joseph Dunn (the whistle-blower) who needs to be blamed for the lack of transparency in the organization.

Let's remember that Joseph Dunn was fired in 2014, and that for 2 years the California State Bar was without Joseph Dunn's allegedly contaminating influence.

However, while the state audit report of the California State Bar issued on May 12, 2016, two years after Joseph Dunn was fired, mentioned that the California State Bar eliminated disclosures from its annual reports as to how much money was slated for reimbursement of victims of attorney misconduct since 2012 - when Joseph Dunn was still the Executive Director of California State Bar - it also mentioned that the described situation persisted until the 2015 report, when Joseph Dunn was already fired.

Moreover, the state audit criticized the California State Bar for lack of transparency, inflated salaries of California State Bar executives and lack of provision for compensation of victims of attorney misconduct persists at present time, once again, 2 years after Joseph Dunn was fired.

So, it was not - or at least, not entirely - Joseph Dunn's fault, was it?

The audit report also pointed out what can reasonably be perceived as California State Bar putting false information into their financial reports and engaging in deceptive tactics in its evaluation of reasonableness of its executive compensation, by not including as a basis of comparison, salaries of executives of governmental officers and employees in comparable positions - while California State Bar, while being "a public corporation within the judicial branch", according to the report, carries out a governmental function of attorney regulation and licensing.

By the way, Joseph Dunn's firing, lawsuit and procedural history regarding the lawsuit are described in the audit report:

So, the lawsuit was dismissed by the arbitrator only in April 2016, right before the audit report was issued.

How coincidental.

By the way, the March 2016 "investigative report" on Joseph Dunn now belatedly claimed that Joseph Dunn allegedly lied that he won't use bar funds for his trips to Mongolia, to help the Mongolian government establish attorney regulation - but that the bar funds were, in fact used for those trips.

Without particular evidence of which funds were used and given that the "independent" investigative report was prepared during the pendence of Joseph Dunn's lawsuit, I wouldn't believe one word of that report without being given hard evidence supporting its findings.

But, the point is - the California State Bar not only fired Joseph Dunn (a former State Senator), but also has started an investigation of Joseph Dunn during the pendence of his whistle-blower lawsuit, and pretty much makes allegations of his unfitness to practice law.

That is the former State Senator.

In Pennsylvania, a former State Auditor and Congressman, Don Bailey, was disbarred for criticizing judicial misconduct, specifically, for calling judges corrupt.

Remember, that happened in the Kids-for-Cash state, where corrupt judges did sit on the bench for years doing egregious harm to the public and to children, while attorneys were afraid to blow a whistle because of prior discipline imposed for such whistle-blowing.

Moreover, Pennsylvania judges suspended its own attorney and the attorney for the disciplinary system, the elected State Attorney General, for criticizing corruption in the judiciary and among state prosecutors, the breeding pool of the judiciary.

If people with such power and such connections cannot withstand the machine of retaliation when raising issues of misconduct in the government - what chances do ordinary lawyers have?

And, how is the public protected by attorney discipline if attorney disciplinary agency eliminates criticism of misconduct even within its own ranks, at the very top?

So - at this time:

• defense attorneys and civil rights attorneys get routinely suspended, including by California Supreme Court;
• then, California Supreme Court, with a straight face, claims that such suspension might not be related to fitness to practice law and sustains criminal convictions where defense counsel continued to represent clients during the suspension; and 
• attorney regulation and discipline is farmed out to super-majorities of market players and their labor organizations who (1) pay their executives inflated salaries;  (2) cook their books to prevent disclosure of financial problems and inconstistency of their operation with the declared purpose of protecting the public; (3) cleanse their ranks of those who criticize that attitude and (4) proceed with investigations against whistle-blowers.

I will not be surprised at all if former California Senator Joseph Dunn will be disbarred or suspended now that the "investigative report" against him is in and his whistle-blower lawsuit is dismissed.

But, this whole story does not give hope to an ordinary attorney or an ordinary consumer of legal services.

Other than that the only way to eliminate corruption in attorney regulation and ensure protection of consumers of legal services is to deregulate the legal profession and take power from courts to hold strings upon livelihoods of those court representatives who do their jobs honestly.

 For dishonest attorneys, as well as for anybody else dishonest - there will remain common law lawsuits for fraud and malpractice.

When police forces are for sale, literally, in Delaware County, New York

I wrote on this blog about the tendency of the upstate New York police force (and prosecutors) to get privatized.

First, Delaware County hired prosecutor Sean Becker while claiming that he will not cost the County taxpayers about anything - because he will be financed out of conviction fines.

Great.

So, Sean Becker will make sure he will drum up convictions, and will have to fabricate charges if there is no basis for such charges - or else he'll starve.

That's what he already did with charges against Alecia Bracci, daughter of the local critic of governmental misconduct Barbara O'Sullivan, bringing the pregnant Alecia all the way to trial before Judge Gumo on fabricated a arrest warrant rubber-stamped by Gumo's court clerk Cathy Fletcher (the warrants were issued at the same time, against Alecia and Barbara, and in Barbara's case it was established by court order that the warrant was fabricated), without disclosing his own conflict of interest that he was part of the law firm where attorney for Alecia Bracci's child worked.

Fortunately, Alecia Bracci was acquitted by jury.

Then, Delaware County Under-Sheriff Craig Dumond offered his private barn to house Delaware County equine police officers - horses for the County's desperately needed horseback police, for "crowd control", where the County's population is dying and leaving in packs, resulting in closure of schools, maternity wards and community pool projects.

Then, Delaware County Deputy Sheriff Demeo brought it canine police officer Neron, renamed Ozzie, claiming that the $7,000 untrained imported pup's upkeep will be financed through "private donations", and Delaware County stalled my FOIL request for the identity of donors who financially support local police.

After the resounding success of police corruption through the Demeo dog, a son-of-a-judge Rich Pagillo got one of his own, went right out to Texas and got a dog for himself, also claiming to the Town of Colchester that the Pagillo dog will be completely supported by "private donations".

Not to fall behind all of these efforts to privatize local law enforcement, the new Delaware County Commissioner of Social Services, as part of her campaign to clamp down on hungry poor people using too much of federal food-stamp money, and after eliminating the services of the private company established by the prior Commissioner William Moon to suck money out of Delaware County budget, proudly claimed that she has a CONTRACT with Delhi Village police for its food stamp fraud investigations.

By the way, the article in Walton Reporter dated April 19, 2016 and claiming that:

was removed from the newspaper's website after I filed a FOIL request with the County about the cases described in the article - response to FOIL is still pending.  I have a copy of the article on file.

So, since Delhi Village Police now has a direct $25-and-hour contract with the Delaware County DSS "for police and security coverage", on top of police officers' salaries that the Village of Delhi pays them, the police for the Village of Delhi will certainly not be investigating Delaware County DSS or any of its officials for any crimes that those officials or employees may have committed.  

After all, one does not bite the hand that feeds one.

Beautiful Catskills.

Beautiful arrangements.

An interesting exchange with the Village of Deposit, NY, on my FOIL request

Yesterday, I filed a FOIL request with the Village of Deposit, NY.

It was like this:

This is a response I received today from a "Cheryl Decker", who pretends to be the Treasurer of the Village of Deposit, NY:

Of course, I do not have to answer any of the questions Cheryl Decker asked me as a condition of complying with a FOIL request.

So, I sent her this response to response:

Obviously, the Village of Deposit has no clue as to how to respond to FOIL requests, but, whether they know how to or not, they have to respond, and they have to comply with the law.

I will report on this blog as to how the Village of Deposit, NY, further responds to my FOIL request.

Stay tuned.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, Judge David Peebles, pretends I did not make a motion to vacate, recuse and disqualify in the Argro v Osborne case where I was secretly suspended from the practice of law on the verge of trial and then stripped of 3.5 years worth of legal fees because I dared to sue social services

On Friday the 13th, May 13, 2016, the U.S. District of New York received, by mail, my motion to vacate its earlier decision to rob me of the fruits of my labor, attorney fees for 3.5 years of litigation in a civil rights case that I brought to trial, where the court decided that it is time to change counsel - so, I was suspended in state court, suspended secretly in federal court (you will not see my order of suspension on Pacer) and stripped of the entire legal fees claiming that I wanted it this way.

Of course, I never wanted to forgo 3.5 years worth of attorney fees, especially when I, a mother of a minor child, was stripped of my livelihood by the corrupt state and federal court systems, acting in collusion and, possibly, through the secret organization State-Federal Judicial Council, where both court systems stall me for the list of members of that organization - which may result in a federal lawsuit.

A lawsuit like the one recently brought against the CIA by famous and effective former civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman (the one who turned in Judge Manuel T. Real and triggered impeachment proceedings against him in 2006, and was criminally prosecuted, convicted and disbarred for his effort while Judge Real remains on the bench, with every 3rd of his cases reversed and his misconduct and possibly senility continuing to be legendary).

I will blog about Stephen Yagman's stance against Judge Real, persecution of Stephen Yagman by the government and the case filed by Stephen Yagman against the CIA to verify who were the "we" in the memo of President Obama acknowledging that "we" participated in torture of people - Stephen Yagman struck a nerve with his lawsuit since, while his case is on appeal, the allegedly only existing record of the "torture report" was "inadvertently", "accidentally" destroyed by the CIA.

As to the pirouette by the court system to first suspend me on the day the civil rights lawsuit I brought against the Chenango County Department of Social Services was ordered to proceed to trial (which boasted that "they are the law" and that nobody will ever sue them), and then strip me of my legal fees for suing Chenango County DSS and bringing the case to trial, I wrote about the whole mess here and here.

I also wrote a lot on this blog about misconduct and apparent corruption of Judge David E. Peebles, you can find those blogs by putting the search word "Peebles" in the search window on the right of the blog article.

So, I filed a motion to vacate the decision, and with that motion, I filed a motion to recuse the court that had a raging bias against me from reviewing that motion, as well as to disqualify the new counsel for my former clients and for the Defendants Chenango County Department of Social Services and individual social workers, for misconduct.

Misconduct alleged against the Plaintiffs' new counsel attorney Woodruff Carroll was that attorney Carroll, according to one of the Plaintiffs' statement to me, first asked the Plaintiffs for the original of the retainer agreement to be sent to him by my former clients, they did, and then attorney Woodruff Carroll, having that retainer agreement on file - unless he destroyed it - turned around and claimed to the court, under oath, that there is no evidence of any such retainer agreement.

That is fraud upon the court.

I also notified the court of the Plaintiffs' statement to me that they do not want to settle, that they want to proceed to trial (which I would have done for them), but that Woodruff Carroll practically holds them hostage, uses the fact that other attorneys are afraid to sue social services even at the stage when the case is successfully brought to trial, and thus Carroll was able to sell his clients out to the defendants and accept a $30,000 settlement in a multi-million dollar lawsuit.

Misconduct of the Defendants' counsel attorney Erin Donnelly (Levine, Gouldin, Thomspon, LLC of Binghamton, NY) that I alleged was that attorney Donnelly repeatedly deceived the court and the parties by claiming that she was restricted by insurance policy to the $30,000 or around that sum in award of damages.

While I am currently waiting for response of Chenango County to my FOIL request for the County's insurance policy, a similar insurance policy from Delaware County that I recently received on a FOIL request (and provided to the court as part of my motion), as well as applicable precedent in New York, shows that intentional acts in violation of civil rights, and especially punitive damages that I asked for, are not recoverable in New York from insurance.

In other words, insurance could not control one penny of the settlement payout, and Ms. Donnelly likely lied to the court, too.

Moreover, since I was stripped of 3.5 years worth of my legal fees because of my alleged suspension in that particular federal court (Northern District of New York), and Judge Norman Mordue referred to my suspension without a citation to a court order, and while the order of suspension, as well as the disciplinary proceedings that produced that alleged suspension were secret and "sealed" - and thus non-existent, because there cannot be public discipline without a public order of discipline - I asked the court to show me my order of suspension or change their decision relying on a "little bird's whisper" that I was suspended.

Once again - if there is no public order of revocation of an attorney's license, there is no such revocation.

I attached to my motion, as an illustration that disciplinary proceedings against attorneys are public, a recent order of disbarment and a docket report of disciplinary proceedings from another federal court.

I also raised a question in the motion that the mode of service upon me of various pleadings used in the "motion" to strip me of my legal fee was inapplicable to me after I was "suspended", so the court could not have it both ways - either I am suspended, and then I cannot either file or be served electronically through the court's ECF system, or I am not suspended, and I could not be removed from the case or stripped of my legal fee.

As part of my request to recuse the court I also pointed out that the court's judge Mae D'Agostino (who ruled against me in one of the civil rights lawsuits I filed in 2011, against now-former Delaware County Judge Carl Becker), is heading a secret state-federal organization of judges, and is stalling my Freedom of Information Act requests to see who is part of that secret organization.

I stated that I have a right to know whether other attorneys in the Argro v Osborne case, and in other cases that I litigated in that court, were part of that organization, especially that I sued several judges - and apparently state judges, potential defendants in civil rights cases, are participants in the State-Federal Judicial Council, a secret organization that the NYS Office of Court Administration did not give me any documents about other than a single order of appointment of a judge by former NYS Chief Judge Lippman made on Lippman's last day in office on December 31, 2015 and listing Mae D'Agostino as a Chairperson of the organization.

As you understand, the motion had explosive contents for the court.

And usually, in my experience, that particular court, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, bends over backwards to control the damage to its reputation and to reputation of well-connected attorneys with whom the court is joined at the hip, if any sensitive information about that court's misconduct is alleged - whether the way they control the damage is lawful or not.

The motion was sent by express mail:

 and arrived to the court on May 13, 2016 at 10:36 am, a "J Bleskoski" signed for it.

The motion was served upon parties with tracking, and was also received by them in the morning of May 13, 2016.

Yet, upon my review of the docket yesterday, on May 16, 2016, the court did not file it, as of the night of May 16, 2016, into Pacer, as required by law (2 days was not enough to scan and file it), and on May 16, 2016, magistrate David Peebles held a telephone conference and claimed in the minutes of the conference that "counsel" tells him of my intention to apply for attorney fees against Defendants under 42 U.S.C. 1988(b) (as civil rights counsel of prevailing defendant is allowed by law) after the case closes, which is also what the timing the procedure requires.

Here is the docket entries from May 6, 2016 to May 16, 2016 - there is no mentioning of the motion received by the court on May 13, 2016 and the motion is not filed by the clerk into Pacer, as the clerk is required to do.

There is no mentioning whatsoever of my currently pending motion to vacate the decision stripping me of fees, to recuse the court and disqualify counsel for parties for misconduct as to opposition to that motion, and therefore I decided to publish it and to publish the mailing receipts for it, and the USPS indication that the motion was, in fact, received by all parties on May 13, 2016.

It actually took me the whole of 2 minutes to scan it.  The court did not find 2 minutes on May 13, 2016 or on May 16, 2016 to scan and file my motion, as the court is required to do.

Here is the motion, in its entirety.

I wonder what the court is planning to do with this obvious hot potato of a motion.

As of yesterday, the court denied ever receiving it.

I wonder if the court will engage in some trick and seal it or reject it without reaching the merits, or pretend it never received it.

In view of my past (vast) experience with this court, I can expect any misconduct from the Northern District of New York.

After all, in view of Judicial Disability Act and judicial immunity, as well as reluctance of U.S. Congress to hold judges accountable even for the most egregious misconduct - like it was in the case of Judge Manuel T. Real, there is no way of holding federal judges accountable in this country.

Well, the Judicial Disability Act may be amended.  

I, as a taxpayer and citizen, am going to ask the U.S. Congress to do just that.

And, I am going to start a Change.org petition about that - and will notify my readers on this blog as soon as it is started.

I will also report as to how the court will decide my motion.

I believe, the motion is of great importance both to civil rights attorneys who walk the tight-rope every day and risk being suspended and stripped of their legal fees the same day I was - simply because courts that are supposed to help civil rights plaintiffs and their attorneys, usually are bent on hurting them for suing the government federal judges are joined at the hip with.

The motion is also of great importance to civil rights plaintiffs, as it shows how civil rights plaintiffs are cheated out of their effective civil rights counsel and are forced to accept miniscule settlements in multi-million dollar lawsuits against the powerful social services who attorneys are afraid to sue.

Stay tuned.

An interesting child neglect case won by law students in New York - with strings attached

I've just posted in my "Protection of Parents from Child Protectors" blog about an interesting case where a child neglect petition was dismissed before trial in  Kings County Family Court.

The article can be read here.

American courts rule that protection through attorney regulation is not needed for the illiterate, unemployed and criminal defendants, even in death penalty cases - then, who does attorney regulation protect?

In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in Johnson v Avery, that even a lay individual, never licensed as an attorney, may provide legal services to the "illiterate or poorly educated inmates" (indigence was not even mentioned in the holding, only lack of literacy), if the State does not provide "a reasonable alternative" to assist such "illiterate and poorly educated" consumers of legal services in protection of their constitutional right to liberty:

 "In the absence of some provision by the State of Tennessee for a reasonable alternative to assist illiterate or poorly educated inmates in preparing petitions for post-conviction relief, the State may not validly enforce a regulation which absolutely bars inmates from furnishing such assistance to other prisoners."

This is a precedent of the top court of the United States, existing in this country since 1969, for 47 years, which already undermined lawyer monopoly and criminal unauthorized practice of law statutes, making attorney licensing, attorney disciplinary proceedings and UPL laws constitutionally invalid.

Yet, as a side note, the same U.S. Supreme Court stubbornly refuses to review disciplinary cases of attorneys, even when they are punished for criticism of judiciary.

Adding to the conceptual mess regarding validity of attorney regulation are the recent cases covering the states of:

1. California;
2. Connecticut;
3. Minnesota;
4. Michigan;
5. Nevada;
6. New York;
7. Pennsylvania;
8. Texas, and
9. Vermont - (and that is in addition to the mess created by Johnson v Avery that covers all states in regards to unauthorized practice of law and exemption of jailhouse attorneys from the reach of UPL on constitutional grounds where serving under-served populations)

The top courts of three states, Texas, California and Michigan, have contrary precedents on file, on the same issue of the 6th Amendment - that even a representation by an attorney SUSPENDED from the practice of law does not deprive a criminal defendant from effective representation of counsel.

The State of Pennsylvania, while using attorney discipline to remove an elected public official, the State Attorney General, who is also the official attorney for the disciplinary board and for the courts, undermined validity of attorney regulation and further contributed to the conceptual mess in justifying validity of attorney regulation by recently ruling that in a quasi-judicial administrative proceeding, representation by a suspended attorney was 

1) not a practice of law under the Pennsylvania State law, and 
2) the consumer of services of such an attorney was entitled to such a representation, but
3) the suspended attorney in question could still be disciplined for violation of his order of suspension - which makes no sense, because, if the attorney was suspended from the practice of law, and if what he was doing was not the practice of law, what did he violate then?

In three very recent decisions of several federal courts covering the states of Nevada, Minnesota, Connecticut, New York and Vermont,  courts disqualified and blocked licensed criminal defense attorneys from representing clients in criminal cases, including, in Nevada and Minnesota, clients chosen by their clients for representation in a criminal defense case, on the basis of some discipline against those attorneys that did not lead to suspension or disbarment: 

1.  United States v Ahmed, Crim. Case No. 15-49 decided by the U.S. District Court for the District ofMinnesota (within the 8th Circuit) on March 21, 2016;
2.  United States v Bundy, Criminal Case No. 2:16-cr-046-GMN-PAL decidedby the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada (within the 9th Circuit) on March 31, 2016;
3. In Re Castillo, Case No. 14-90008-am decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit (covering the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont) on April 4, 2016.

Once again, three federal courts, in three different federal Circuits, in the 8th Circuit, the 9th Circuit and the 2nd Circuit, within a 2 week's period of time, this year, from March 21, 2016 to April 4, 2016, ruled that alleged misconduct of an attorney that did not lead to suspension or revocation of the attorney's law license, may nevertheless allow the court, on its own motion, to block a criminal defendant from choosing that attorney despite the requirement of the 6th Amendment right to counsel.

In both sets of cases - 3 cases in federal courts vs 3 cases in state courts - decisions were made in favor of prosecution, against criminal defendants, against consumers of legal services of attorneys and in violation of criminal defendants 6th Amendment right to counsel.

So, as of now, in Minnesota, Nevada, Connecticut, New York and Vermont, an attorney's license does not guarantee that an attorney will be allowed to appear in court in a criminal case, even if chosen by a criminal defendant as part of the defendant's fundamental constitutional right to counsel under the 6th Amendment - if a court finds in the defense counsel's past something the court does not like.

On the other hand, in California, Texas and Michigan, representation of a criminal defendant by a suspended attorney, whether through "administrative" or a "disciplinary" suspension, will not be contrary to the criminal defendant's 6th Amendment right to counsel.

It is apparent that the declaration that attorney licensing somehow serves to protect consumers of legal services is a sham used by courts as they please - to remove from cases criminal defense attorneys who are "too feisty", and disregarded by the courts when a criminal conviction is at stake.

Not only this is a significant split on the issue of a fundamental constitutional right to counsel, but such a split, by courts which are at the same time regulating agencies of the legal profession, confirms that attorney regulation and licensing declared to be for the benefit and protection of the consumers is nothing more than a sham in order to suit the government, which can be disregarded if it interferes with the governmental purpose to: 

1. prevent appearance of certain attorneys as criminal defense attorneys, or, 
2. even when the government suspends such criminal defense attorneys and removes them from professional activities,
3. make convictions obtained during representation by suspended attorneys stick.

I put the rulings of these various courts into a table to verify the logic as to correlation of attorney discipline, competency and moral fitness of court representative to ability to provide legal services.

Here is what I got:

Issue	U.S. Supreme Court	What constitutes the practice of law	State criminal law on unauthorized practice of law (UPL)	Correlation between attorney license, discipline and attorney competence and effective assistance of counsel	Requirement for competence and/or moral fitness of provider of legal services Yes/No
Preparation of petitions by lay individuals	Allowed, lay "jailhouse lawyer" not subject to prison discipline	Not clearly defined in statute	It is a criminal offense to practice law without  a license, whether the individual never had a license or whether the license was suspended or revoked. Actions of the "jaihouse lawyer" constitute the state crime of UPL in Tennessee	No correlation, unlicensed individual is allowed to provide legal services	No
Representation before administrative board by a suspended attorney	Allowed for the consumer to use a suspended attorney, but is a disciplinary violation for a suspended attorney to provide such representation, exposing the suspended attorney to contempt of court charges and further disciplinary proceedings for violation of prohibition on practice of law	Not clearly defined in statute, But in Pennsylvania, it is clearly defined by statute what DOES NOT constitute the practice of law, and that is  representation before a quasi-judicial administrative board where decisions have the power of collateral estoppel as if they were made in a court proceeding	Not the practice of law, Actions of suspended attorney do not constitute unauthorized practice of law, but do constitute a violation of a court order of suspension prohibiting the practice of law	No correlation, an unlicensed individual is allowed to represent clients before a quasi-judicial board, and that is not even deemed "practice of law" under the state law, even though it is essentially the same process as in court proceedings	No
Validity of criminal convictions involving representation in criminal court by a suspended attorney	Court representation by suspended attorney does not invalidate a criminal conviction in Texas, Michigan and California	Not clearly defined	Court representation by a suspended attorney constitutes UPL in Texas, Michigan and California, as well as contempt of the court order of suspension	No correlation, the courts claimed that attorney discipline to the point of suspension does not necessarily mean that a suspended attorney will provide ineffective assistance of counsel	Formally – yes, but, since the validity of criminal convictions is upheld, even for death penalty cases in Texas – de facto, No
Injunctions/disqualifications on representation in criminal court by a licensed attorney	Nevada, Minnesota and 2nd Circuit federal courts find that court representation by a fully licensed attorney of a criminal defendant's choice may be denied sua sponte by the court if the court finds misconduct or discipline not leading to suspension in criminal defense attorney's history	Not clearly defined	No UPL issues are involved in representation by a licensed attorney	Correlation found between prior attorney discipline not leading to suspension and forced disqualification of a licensed attorney from a criminal case despite being chosen by the client as a matter of 6th Amendment right to counsel	Formally – yes, De facto – a license is a presumption of fitness, Licensed attorneys were still disqualified, so the courts required fitness of criminal defense attorneys, but not of prosecutors, above and beyond licensing requirements, including in cases where alleged misconduct was committed by both the defense attorney and the prosecutor, but only the defense attorney was disqualified

The table shows that, first of all, what constitutes the practice of law in all states, is not clearly defined, so all state unauthorized practice of law statutes do not give prior notice of prohibited conduct, and are unconstitutional as such, under the U.S. Supreme Court precedent Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 2298, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972) ("because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly.")

If what constitutes the practice of law, is not clearly defined by statute, so that people can regulate their conduct accordingly, the state may not prohibit "unauthorized practice of law" which is not clearly defined.

The next thing is - there is no correlation between UPL and court decisions allowing provision of legal services in violation of UPL statutes (which presumably were created to protect the public from exactly the conduct that courts either directly allow or validate the results of):

In Johnson v Avery in 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court validated what constituted a crime under the state law.

In California, Michigan and Texas in 1996, the top courts validated the result of what constituted a crime under the state law.

There is also no correlation between education, competence and moral character and ability to provide legal services.

In the same Johnson v Avery, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed provision of legal services to illiterate individuals by a lay individual without regard whether the lay individual was educated, competent or of good moral character.

In Powell v Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, an unemployed individual was allowed representation by a suspended attorney, where no discussion was held whatsoever whether representatives in front of such Board should have any minimum levels of competences, education or moral fitness.

In criminal proceedings in California, Michigan and Texas, including in death penalty cases in Texas, suspension of attorneys who represent criminal defendants did not invalidate criminal convictions, and the Michigan court (cited by the California court) specifically claimed that there is no correlation between even a disciplinary suspension and competency and moral character and fitness.

Reading these decisions is like reading "Alice in Wonderland" - it is a "beyond the mirror" logic.

Those people who are the least capable of protecting themselves, by being illiterate, those people who are the least capable of obtaining a quality court representation through inability to pay - the unemployed, the indigent criminal defendants - are, on the one hand, those who are claimed to be protected by the U.S. Constitution (the 6th Amendment right to counsel), by attorney regulation (consumer protection), but in fact are not protected by the ad hoc court decisions, and that includes:

1) The U.S. Supreme Court in Johnson v Avery, regulator of the legal profession in its own court and across the country through appeals, did not seek to protect illiterate clients (following attorney regulation logic) where it allowed representation of such illiterate individuals by jailhouse lawyers are not checked out and vetted by the government as to their education, competence and moral character;

2) Pennsylvania courts, regulators of the legal profession, do not protect consumers of legal services by:

• suspending civil rights attorneys and making their services unavailable to public at large;
• suspending an elected public official, Attorney General Kathleen Kane, because she was protecting the public from corruption among regulators of the legal profession, the state judiciary, and among state prosecutors, the breeding pool for the judiciary;
• nevertheless, allowing the allegedly unfit individuals (suspended attorneys) and never-checked individuals (lay individuals) to represent the unemployed in the quasi-judicial proceedings having collateral estoppel effect in court;

3) California, Michigan and Texas courts, regulators of the legal profession, do not protect the public from unfit attorneys by:

• suspending criminal defense attorneys from the practice of law, then
• being negligent in allowing such suspended attorney to continue to practice in criminal cases, including death penalty cases, and then
• validating the results of their work by claiming that there is no correlation between effective assistance of COUNSEL and status of a suspended attorney, even if suspension was disciplinary

and

4) federal courts in Nevada, Minnesota and the 2nd Circuit covering Connecticut, New York and Vermont do not protect the public by 

• disqualifying good and well known, licensed criminal defense attorneys, and by 
• not only acknowledging correlation between attorney discipline and predictions of effective representation of counsel for the future (without any evidentiary basis for such predictions), but 
• requiring a higher degree of competence and moral fitness than what licensing requires from renowned criminal defense attorneys (without imposing the same requirements upon prosecutors who those same courts never discipline no matter what they do), and by
• blocking renowned criminal defense attorneys from representing criminal defendants, even if they are attorneys of choice for such clients, thus undermining the adversary nature of criminal proceedings and working as advocates for the prosecution.

The rule that can be discerned from this whole conceptual mess is that there are no rules.

The rules of attorney licensing, attorney discipline, the criminal statutes for unauthorized practice of law, cannot withstand even minimal conceptual scrutiny and exist for decades exclusively because of lobbying efforts of the legal elite that permeated all three branches of local, state and federal governments.

The illiterate can be represented by whoever.

The unemployed can be represented by whoever.

Criminal defendants can be represented by whoever - yeah, yeah, we heard about the U.S. Constitution and the 6th Amendment, we even swore to uphold it to get our permanent paycheck - but, there is a point where those pesky libertines with their constitutional arguments should just shut up and let us rule.

Because we said so.

Of course, the raw exercise of judicial power without solid conceptual basis is judicial misconduct.

That's not me saying it, that's what Alex Kozinski said in his famous dissent opposing dismissal of disciplinary proceedings against Judge Manuel Real, in reliance on legal authorities and opinions of scholars.

Yet, UPL prosecutions and lawyer monopoly in court representation continue, even though it is not supported by any evidence.

Education of lawyers is not superior to self-read knowledge, knowledge of all laws in one state is not taught or checked when a statewide license is given, and especially if it is given through "reciprocity", "comity" agreements with other states.

Legal education is not superior, because 

(1) law school accreditation for purposes of state licensing is handled by a non-profit corporation American Bar Association that has foreign membership and financing and which is, in essence, a labor organization;  such an organization has its own, and not consumer's interests in mind;  

(2) law school professors are bought up by monopolists in bar-prep courses to actually bar superior legal instruction materials.

Attorney discipline is conducted not as a tool of protection for consumers of legal services, but as a tool of vengeance against good attorneys for critics of what is wrong in the judiciary and the legal profession.

Attorney discipline and regulation is also conducted in violation of federal antitrust laws and federal labor-regulation laws.

And, while 80% of the public cannot afford an attorney, the U.S. Supreme Court already ruled in Johnson v Avery - where the individual is illiterate, anybody can represent him (and dupe him, accordingly).

So, where there is no logic and no protection in attorney regulation and discipline (and no consumers are allowed to participate in such regulation and discipline for their own protection), it is not the rule of law.

It is the rule of whim, for self-serving interests of the ruling elite.

Attorney regulation is a formal framework created so that the legal elite can pretend, by having formal disciplinary proceedings pretending at "self-regulation" (which in itself is an antitrust violation, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 in North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v FTC), that protection of consumers' interest exists, without allowing consumers to make decisions regarding that regulation.

So that those pesky consumers would not interfere with the legal elite's making laws for themselves and enforcing the laws in their own favor.

Because they said so.