"Once you cut off the head of a snake, the rest of the body dies" - a federal lawsuit reveals how a New York criminal defense attorney subjected to wiretapping, searches, and criminal investigation in retaliation for doing his job

Here is a federal lawsuit filed on May 13, 2016 (this past week) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Reads like a crime novel, but, unfortunately, it is not a novel.
It was the gruesome reality for an independent criminal defense attorney out of Westchester County.

Attorney George Galgano filed a federal civil rights lawsuit

 against:

• County of Putnam, New York;
• Putnam District Attorney's Office;
• Town of Carmel, New York;
• Town of Carmel Police Department;
• Adam Levy - former District Attorney of Putnam County (voted out of office in 2015, but still lists himself on attorney registration website as Putnam County DA, in violation of attorney registration rules requiring him to re-register 30 days after leaving employment with new information); Adam Levy is coincidentally, the son of TV "Judge Judy" - and thus considers himself not subject to attorney rules;
• Andres Gil - Assistant District Attorney of Putnam County, still employed there;
• Heather Abissi - Assistant District Attorney of Putnam County, no longer employed in Putnam County DA's office, now employed in a civil rights law firm Sussman & Watkins at Goshen, New York;  Defendant Heather Abissi's new employer has on its front page these attorney advertisements, on behalf of the law firm and on behalf of each attorney employed by the law firm, including Heather Abissi, now sued for gross civil rights violations:

• Lourdes Gonzalez - investigator in Putnam County District Attorney's office;
• Henry Lopez - senior investigator in Putnam County District Attorney's office;
• Michael T. Nagle - Detective Sergeant in Town of Carmel (NY) Police Department.

Here is the registration information of the Plaintiff, criminal defense attorney George Galgano, showing his admission to the bar in 2000, so he has now 16 years of experience.

The lawsuit mentions that prosecutors Gil and Levy were sanctioned by Putnam County judge for destruction or spoliation of evidence in a criminal case that the former Putnam County DA Adam Levy, according to the lawsuit, fabricated against a supporter of Adam Levy's political opponent.

Yet, despite such sanctions, there is "no record of public discipline" in their attorney registration anyway:

compare

with

The complaint lists the following misconduct of defendants:

• fabricating a criminal case against the DA's political opponent Mr. Zaimi;
• spoiling or destroying evidence in the Zaimi criminal case where Mr. Galgano represented Mr. Zaimi as a criminal defense attorney;
• knowingly obtaining false testimony from a witness;
• knowing not releasing to Mr. Galgano "Brady" material, statements of that witness that the sexual crime charged was not committed by Mr. Zaimi and that the witness received money in return for consensual sex;
• obtaining a court order and installing a "pen register" (wiretapping device) to record conversations between the defense witness of that opponent and the defense attorney (Mr. Galgano), based on a false affidavit claiming that Mr. Galgano is about to bribe a witness;
• obtaining a court order and installing a device locating the defense attorney Mr. Galgano's cell phone;
• obtaining a court order for a wiretapping order on Mr. Galgano's phone based on a false affidavit, which resulted in intercepting of private and privileged communications of Mr. Galgano with clients, other attorneys, doctors and family members;

• obtaining an incriminating statement against Mr. Galgano after hours of interrogation of a person completely disabled by ingesting 4 bags of heroin;

• repeatedly trying to obtain false statements against Mr. Galgano, including by a trick when a police detective claimed that somebody else already acknowledged that Mr. Galgano committed a crime, offering an "easy confession";

• destroying exculpatory evidence in the McQuaid case on a cell phone the same way evidence was destroyed in the Ziami case - for which prosecutors were already sanctioned by the court:

• trying to embed false memories into a drugged witness's head and extract a false incriminating statement against Mr. Galgano based on those false embedded memories:

• applying, based on a false affidavit, for a search warrant of Mr. Galgano's car, home and law office:

• synchronized search raids of the defense attorney's home and law office based on unlawfully obtained search warrants:

• obtaining privileged files from Mr. Galgano's law office:

• searching the defense attorney's home and seizing internal security surveillance of rooms where the attorney slept with his wife and of rooms where their young daughters dressed and undressed, intimidating and traumatizing the attorney's children;

• subjecting Mr. Galgano's employees to warrantless arrests, with claims that they will not be released unless they "consent" to submit to warrantless searches of their person;
• attempting to coerce Mr. Galgano's employees to incriminate Mr. Galgano by intimidation:

All unlawful activities against Mr. Galgano were summed up by DA's Investigator himself:  "once you cut off the head of a snake, the rest of the body dies"

• subjecting Mr. Galgano to a warrantless search of his person;

Mr. Galgano alleges in his lawsuit that no incriminating evidence was - or could be - unearthed against Mr. Galgano, but searches worked as planned, hurting him financially and as a professional.

• arresting and prosecuting Mr. Galgano and his employee attorney Eric Sharp on "constructive possession" of drugs charges which were dropped a year later because the prosecuting Westchester DA's office (current New York Chief Judge Janet DiFiore) admitted that there is no probable cause

The question is - why it took DA DiFiore a year to dismiss fabricated charges against two criminal defense attorneys?

Moreover, even though the "Galgano" criminal case was prosecuted in Westchester County and by the Westchester County DA (DiFiore), somehow Adam Levy, prosecutor from Putnam County, controlled the prosecution and claimed that Galgano is his "trophy":

Adam Levy also sought indictment,  based on false evidence, of attorney Galgano in front of Putnam County grand jury (even though his office was located in Westchester County).

It appears from the complaint that Westchester DA DiFiore was notified by Mr. Garland of criminal activities of prosecutors, police officers and Putnam DA office investigator in Westchester County - but never prosecuted them.

Otherwise, she would not have been elevated as the Chief Judge of the State of New York, right?

In August of 2014, Galgano and the second-chair attorney in Zaimi trial Eric Sharp were indicted and publicly humiliated with huge TV coverage arranged by Levy, and Levy immediately moved to disqualify them from the Zaimi trial:

The lawsuit alleges that in order to set up high bail on Mr. Galgano or keep him in jail, Putnam County ADA Gil made a false statement that Mr. Galgano threatened to kill a prosecutor:

Six months after the indictment was brought, the Putnam County Court dismissed the indictment against both Mr. Galgano and Eric Sharp citing insufficient evidence to support charges and prosecutorial error and misconduct.

Apparently, attorney Eric Sharp was subjected to the ordeal of criminal prosecution because he did not want to commit perjury falsely incriminating Mr. Galgano.

The court clearly stated that it was improper for police witnesses to mischaracterize Mr. Galgano's lawful actions as motivated by criminal intent.

Notwithstanding all police and prosecutorial misconduct in the case, the dismissing judge David Zuckerman did two astonishing things:

• allowed the same prosecutors who committed misconduct to re-submit the case against Mr. Galgano to another grand jury, and
• lifted the injunction from continued searches against Mr. Galgano's computers, officers etc.

After the dismissal based on prosecutorial misconduct, Putnam County DA, amazingly, threatened to file disciplinary charges against Mr. Galgano:

But, Levy did one mistake in the case, which cost him.

He mistakenly appointed an honest prosecutor, Chief ADA Ortolano, to handle additional investigation of Mr. Galgano, claiming that Levy trusts Ortolano implicitly to do the right thing.

She did, but not the "right thing" Levy apparently contemplated:

Instead, as the complaint claims, Lisa Ortolano left the DA's office (her current attorney registration indicates that she is still working there).

Mr. Galgano was indicted by Mr. Levy again (I will dedicate a separate blog to circumstances surrounding the 2nd indictment), and the indictment was dismissed.

And, Mr. Galgano is suing prosecutors, investigators and police.

I can foresee claims of prosecutorial absolute immunity and of "qualified immunity" by police officers being made.

Yet, fabricating evidence during investigation does not come within prosecutorial immunity and making false statements to the press certainly does not come within immunity either.

Moreover, recently the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, surprisingly, cut out an exception from prosecutorial immunity in cases where prosecutors fabricate evidence in preparation for presentation to the grand jury, and Mr. Galgano can definitely rely upon that direct precedent fighting any claims of prosecutorial immunity by Adam Levy and other defendants-prosecutors in this case.

I will run a separate blog as to the 2nd indictment against Mr. Galgano and the 2nd dismissal, and I will certainly run an additional blog with analysis of misconduct of Mr. Levy and other public officials involved.

I will also monitor how this case proceeds and will report it on this blog.

Stay tuned.

My letter testimony to the U.S. Congress requesting enactment of new federal laws against judicial retaliation and discrimination against pro se parties in court

Yesterday I posted a blog about the new petition I started on Change.org.  The post is a featured post in the top right corner of this blog.

I request support and signatures from my readers.

Since yesterday, I have added an update to the petition, a supporting letter to the U.S. Congress which I provide here with formatting, for easier reading (Change.org removed formatting when I posted it).

==

TATIANA NERONI

ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

P.O. Box 3937

Pawleys Island, SC 29585

To:      U.S. Congress (Senate and House) Committees for the     

            Judiciary

            Senator Robert Goodlatte;     

            Representative John Conyers

           

            Esteemed Ladies and Gentlemen:

Arbitrary and disproportionate application of court-created "rules of frivolous conduct" against parties and attorneys raising constitutional arguments in court, especially, arguments criticizing the government and the judiciary, unreasonably infringe on litigants' right of access to court under Petitions Clause of the 1st Amendment, and federal legislation is needed to protect that right from further chilling

Courts across the country increasingly sanction attorneys and parties for "frivolous" conduct for making constitutional arguments.

"Frivolous conduct" rules are not statutes, they are introduced and arbitrarily applied by courts.

Lawyers and parties who are sanctioned for "frivolous conduct" are often sanctioned for as much as filing motions to recuse judges, by the challenged judges.

Such conduct is prohibited in many states, and is considered judicial misconduct, but is condoned and accepted in other states.

In the State of Texas, judge Christopher Dupuy was criminally charged and convicted for abuse of office for retaliation against attorney Lori Laird for making a motion to recuse on behalf of a client.

In the State of Louisiana, attorney Christine Mire was suspended from the practice of law for making a motion to recuse, even though there was sworn testimony indicating that a court audio recording regarding the judge's disclosure of her conflict of interest was altered, and the disclosure was added into the audio file.

In the State of New York, attorney Tatiana Neroni was suspended from the practice of law for making a motion to recuse a judge who she sued together with her pro bono client, by the challenged and sued judge.

State laws greatly varied as to whether to allow a peremptory challenge to remove a judge or not, whether to allow the judge challenged with a motion to recuse to decide the motion for timeliness, legal sufficiency or on the merits, or whether to stay or not to stay court proceedings while the motion is pending.

In the states where judges challenged with motions to recuse are allowed to decide those motions, retaliation against attorneys and parties often happens, as it also happens in federal courts.

In 1993, Rule 11 (sanctions) was changed because it disproportionately affected civil rights litigants.

On September 17, 2015, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. Bill 758, the so-called Lawsuit Abuse Litigation Act, which was voted against in the Senate by several senators because it will once again affect civil rights plaintiffs and attorneys and will make impossible such cases as Brown v Board of Education.

Even though Rule 11 clearly requires a motion to be made and a 21-day "safe harbor period" allowing the party accused of "frivolous" conduct to withdraw the allegedly frivolous argument, federal courts obviate this requirement and disproportionately punish civil rights plaintiffs and their attorneys for frivolous conduct, for contents of their constitutional arguments, based on the "inherent power of the court" and 28 U.S.C. 1927.

The essence of arguments regarding "frivolous conduct" is that argument of civil rights plaintiffs and their attorneys, or of parties and attorneys in family court litigation where sanctions for frivolous conduct are most often imposed upon attorneys protecting parents' constitutional rights, is not "reasonable".

"Reasonable" in the court's understanding is "mainstream".

Constitutional arguments in civil rights cases are most often novel and not mainstream.

Applying the "unreasonable" standard to constitutional arguments prevents and chills development of constitutional law and deprives victims of constitutional violations from having legal representation in court, because civil rights attorneys are increasingly fearful of sanctions in raising any novel constitutional argument.

The U.S. Supreme Court often reverses what it considered unreasonable years ago.

Rules of frivolous conduct, if they existed at the time, would most likely prohibited argument against slavery, decriminalizing racial and other forms of discrimination, inter-racial marriages, contraception, abortion, same sex relations and same sex marriage.

At this time, in many states it is impossible to find an attorney who would be willing to file a motion to recuse a judge, even if there is proof of misconduct.

Such fear led to situations where public safety was jeopardized to the point that judges who were selling children in return for kickbacks to juvenile incarceration were allowed to be on the bench for years, because attorneys were afraid to turn them in – until federal authorities had to step in, arrest and criminally prosecute those corrupt judges.

Since the judiciary controls licenses to practice law and thus livelihoods of criminal defense, family court and civil rights attorneys, litigants across the country are deprived of independent court representation and exposed to "defensive lawyering" who routinely refuse to make motions to recuse judges for fear of retaliation.

In fact, making a motion to recuse is universally recognized in the American legal profession as a "professional suicide".

At this time, in view of the above circumstances, litigants' constitutional right to impartial judicial review is not protected in this country, and this petition is a request the U.S. Congress to rectify the situation and introduce statutory protections to ensure that people's right to impartial judicial review is truly protected.

The U.S. Supreme Court has a large body of cases prohibiting content-based regulation without strict scrutiny.

Yet, despite that large body of precedents, courts continue to punish litigants and their attorneys for contents of their arguments, mostly for contents of their arguments critical of the government, which is within core protections of the 1st Amendment, as a matter of discretion, without any scrutiny.

Since such routine, and increasing practices by state and federal court undermine access to court of the poorest and most under-served and under-privileged litigants, intervention by a federal statute protecting the right to impartial judicial review from retaliation of the government and specifically of the judiciary is needed.

One-size-fits-all restrictions on page limits in civil rights lawsuits unreasonably burdens civil rights litigants' access to court in violation of the 1st Amendment Petitions Clause, and federal legislation protecting that right is needed

The petition additionally calls for attention to practices of courts to control their caseloads by imposing undue burdens on presenting constitutional arguments to court, and many of those burdens violate the fundamental right of people to access to court under the Petitions Clause of the 1st Amendment by not being narrowly construed to any compelling governmental purpose.

The U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts routinely issue decisions where complex constitutional questions are decided on tens pages, sometimes reaching well over a hundred pages, small font, single-spaced.

That means that complex and novel constitutional arguments need a lot of space to be properly presented to the public.

Yet, federal courts, including the same U.S. Supreme Court, severely restrict incoming constitutional arguments of litigants by page limits, making litigants to under-develop their important arguments, or drop some important constitutional arguments altogether in order to fit into the prescribed page limit and to have any chance at all for judicial review of federal courts of all levels.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that, at the same time, page limits are "one-size-fits-all" requirement and applies without regard how many plaintiffs with varying claims are in a certain civil rights lawsuit, how many defendants are in that same civil rights lawsuit, and how many claims are in that lawsuit – and when litigants are required to bring varying claims based on the same factual situation against multiple defendants at the same time, or waive (lose) their rights to bring a lawsuit for constitutional violation.

Moreover, in actions for a declaratory judgment inclusion of certain defendants is required by courts in order for the civil rights lawsuit could survive.

Thus, when a civil rights litigant is required to group all of his or her multiple claims against multiple defendants, but at the same time is restricted to a page limit as to constitutional argument in opposition of a practically inevitable pre-answer motion to dismiss to, let's say, 24 pages, and if there are 20 defendants against whom multiple varying claims are asserted based on the same factual situation, the litigant is forced to drop development of certain important arguments and is put into an unequal position with a litigant who sues only one defendant on only one, relatively simple, claim.

This petition asks to eliminate page limits for constitutional arguments as a "one-size-fits-all" unreasonable restriction on access to court in civil rights cases, since caseload control and convenience of judges and clerks is not a compelling interest to justify restriction of issues and the depth of development of those issues that litigants may present to judicial review.

Providing exclusive rights to e-file to counseled litigants unreasonably discriminates against pro se civil rights plaintiffs by burdening or blocking their access to court and causing them to miss deadlines that counseled parties can easily meet by filing electronically, in violation of pro se parties' access to court right guaranteed by Petitions Clause of the 1st Amendment, and federal legislation is needed to eliminate this type of discrimination that courts refuse to eliminate on their own

Yet another barrier to raising constitutional arguments in court by or on behalf of poor litigants is unavailability of e-filing to pro se parties in federal courts and relegation of civil rights lawsuits to a separate review track, where less efforts are dedicated to review of civil rights appeals while the same filing fee is charged for such appeals as those appeals who are reviewed with an opinion.

Federal courts routinely allow or even mandate electronic filing for attorneys and/or represented parties, and routinely prohibit electronic filing, without an explanation, to pro se litigants.

Such practices unreasonably burden and discriminate against pro se litigants as opposed to counseled parties.

A counseled party has the following advantages over a pro se litigant in federal and state courts where e-filing is allowed only to counseled parties.

1) A pro se party is given less time to prepare for the same deadline as a counseled party, and filings by a pro se party require additional costs of travel to court or mailing to court with guaranteed delivery.

A counseled party's pleading is timely electronically filed if it is filed 1 second before midnight on the day of the deadline.

A pro se party must either personally bring his/her pleading to court, during business hours of the court, and make sure the clerks file the pleading in the party's presence, often requiring a confrontation with court personnel that does not want to scan the pleading into Pacer.gov immediately.

The alternative is to mail the pleading, where the only guaranteed delivery is by U.S. express mail, which is expensive, and delivery can still be "mis-routed" or delayed, thus missing the deadline.

Thus, where a counseled party's filing does not require additional mailing or travel costs, filings of pro se parties do require additional efforts.

Thus, availability of e-filing to only counseled parties in federal court is unreasonable infringement upon access to court for pro se parties and should be eliminated by statute.

2) An attorney can e-file from anywhere in the world, while a pro se party not only will incur substantial mailing costs, but time required for mailing substantially cuts into his or her time to prepare the pleadings, as opposed to filings of a counseled party.

Such discrimination actually presents a paradox since more time is given to prepare pleadings to attorneys trained in law than to pro se parties who often lack legal training.

3) A pro se party, as opposed to a counseled party, does not have an instant proof of filing, or the advantage of automatic electronic service.

A pro se party must additionally serve parties by mail or by personal service, which incurs extra costs and is subject to claims that parties were not served.

A counseled party does not have such problems, where service of an E-filing is done by electronic notification, sent by e-mail instantly, which also constitutes proof of service.

4) Some courts, such as the U.S. Supreme Court, prohibit electronic filing of initial petitions completely, which blocks meritorious filings on the basis of wealth of litigants, an impermissible consideration under the 14th and 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court has a "booklet" filing requirement in accordance with its Rule 33.

Rule 33 requires that all filings should be made on paper of:

1. non-standard format;
2. non-standard weight (60 pound);
3. the font is only of "Century" family that is not usually used for pleadings, decisions or transcripts in other courts;
4. non-standard binding as opposed to how pleadings are filed in paper format in other courts (saddle stitch or "perfect binding);
5. printed on paper without gloss;
6. printed on a laser quality printer or better quality;
7. printed double-sided;
8. presented as a typographic booklet;
9. presented in 40 copies;
10. presented with certain color covers for different documents; and where
11. the already made decisions of lower courts, transcripts and pleadings should be re-formatted in accordance to Rule 33 requirements to fonts, margins, spacing etc., requiring hundreds of hours of unnecessary work and thousands of dollars to pay for that work.

None of those requirements are necessary to provide effective judicial review.

In fact, introduction of electronic filing in the U.S. Supreme Court will:

• save paper;
• help the environment;
• eliminate hundreds of hours spent by the U.S. Supreme Court personnel on ensuring compliance with the technicalities of Rule 33;
• allow pleadings to be word-searchable in electronic format and zoomable in and out to adjust to the reading comfort level of the particular judge or law clerk.

The U.S. Supreme Court appears to be in no hurry to eliminate Rule 33 and introduce universal e-filing in that court, thus relieving the extreme burden created by Rule 33, and thus there is an appearance that Rule 33 exists for dual purpose of reducing the caseload of the court and, likely, providing work for "specialized" businesses that thrive on charging thousands of dollars for booklets satisfying the technicalities of Rule 33.

Neither the business purpose nor the caseload control are legitimate grounds to infringe upon parties' access to court, and especially when issues are constitutional violations, violations of human rights, and when the U.S. Supreme Court is the court of last resort and, unlike in other countries, where review by European Court of Human Rights or by the United States Court of Human Rights is available, such relief is not available for American civil rights litigants.

Additional costs required by compliance with Rule 33 are extreme, discriminatory and block access to the U.S. Supreme Court to all but wealthy individuals.

The U.S. Supreme Court filing fee is $300.

Yet, Rule 33 requirement adds several thousand dollars to the filing fee, causing many potential appellants with meritorious constitutional claims important for resolution in this country to not pursue their claims for lack of funds.

While the U.S. Supreme Court does have applications for a poor person standard, a person can easily be ineligible for a poor person standard, but still not afford several thousand dollars in costs of 40 copies of petitions.

U.S. Supreme Court Rule 33 imposes extreme additional financial burden upon litigants and unreasonably infringes upon their 1st Amendment right of access to court.

Yet, failure to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewed by other courts as a "waiver" of certain rights and finalizes decisions of lower courts, imposing the so-called Rooker-Feldman bar in civil rights litigation as to violations of constitutional rights, if such violations occurred in state court litigation.

Thus, people are barred from access to federal courts to obtain a remedy for violations of their constitutional rights by state governments simply because they cannot pay the artificially invented costs for review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rule 33 is a problem only to those who cannot afford the costs imposed by that rule.  It is not a problem for wealthy individuals and businesses.  Thus, Rule 33 conditions access to the U.S. Supreme Court on the basis of wealth.

Over 85% of federal appellate review and nearly 100% of appellate review in civil rights cases is relegated to a less-than-diligent, separate track, thus discriminating against civil rights litigants.

The majority of civil rights cases are dismissed based on court-invented doctrines of immunity, comity, enhanced pleading requirements, abstentions, deferences and other court-created doctrines.

Thus, appellate review of constitutional cases is extremely important.

Yet, all federal appellate courts employ a double-track system where some cases (about 100% of civil rights appeals) are relegated to be decided by "non-precedential summary orders" where, as Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit admitted, "exponentially" less time is spent for review of cases and preparation of court decisions decided through such summary orders.

The court filing fees for review of cases on "diligent track" and "less than diligent track" are the same.

In the summary orders, federal appellate court usually use "rubber-stamp" templates.

 A summary order usually states that "the court assumes parties' familiarity with facts and procedural history of the case" and that the appellate court "affirms on substantially the same reasons as the thoughtful and well-reasoned decision of the district court".

Such template phrases preclude inclusion of the actual issues raised on such appeals into research and arguments of further litigants and legal scholars, and cause the same issues to be litigated again and again, thus increasing and not reducing the burden on the courts.

Moreover, civil rights cases decided by the "less than diligent" review leading to "summary orders" are mostly litigated by or on behalf of poor and underprivileged people who have to pay the same, quite high, filing fees, as the minority of litigants given the privilege of diligent appellate review and full opinions of the court.

Thus, by deciding 85% of appellate cases and nearly 100% of civil rights appeals by summary orders, federal appellate courts make poor and underprivileged people claiming constitutional violations of their rights by the government, to finance courts' appellate review of wealthier litigants, cases in diversity and cases brought by the government.

That is an impermissible discrimination and burden upon right of access to courts by civil rights litigants, yet, this practice continues for decades and will not change unless prohibited by a federal statute.

CONCLUSION

All of the above described problems are egregious violations of right of access to courts in the U.S., they continue to exist because of discriminatory court rules and practices, and will not stop unless a federal legislation prohibiting such practices, with an effective mechanism of enforcement, is introduced.

This petition asks to introduce such legislation.

Thank you for your attention.

                                    s/Tatiana Neroni

                                    Association of Independent Human Rights Defenders

==

Yesterday I received yet another inquiry, one of many I received since my suspension, for representation in federal court in a civil rights lawsuit against Social Services.

The attorney for the parent refused to sue out of fear of social services and fear to lose the attorney's license and livelihood.

It is heart-breaking to say to the person - yes, I am fully capable, knowledgeable, have skills and already brought a federal civil rights case to trial.

But, I am not allowed to help you - even where no other help is available.

Allegedly, for your own protection.

I am dangerous.

Because I am as skilled civil rights attorney who did not give a damn about the status of people I was suing on behalf of clients.

I cannot represent people and I must say "no" to them, otherwise I will be incarcerated - whether I am right or wrong, whether the government doing it to me and to my potential clients, is right or wrong.

But THIS I can do.

I can do petitions for everybody's benefit.

I can use my experience to draft them.

People can sign them.

And, altogether, we can make a change against discrimination in court.

Please, sign the petition.

A petition was made to the U.S. Congress, Judiciary Committee, for legislation ensuring access to court and prohibiting retaliation for making constitutional arguments in court and administrative proceedings. Please, sign it. It is for everybody's benefit.

Here is the petition.

Here is the text of the petition:

Courts in the U.S., including the U.S. Supreme Court, created unreasonable rules restricting or barring access to court.

Those rules (1) condition e-filing on attorney status, (2) restrict page limit in constitutional arguments, (3) impose printing and booklet, typesetting and multiple copy requirements for filings (U.S. Supreme Court) that cost litigants additionally thousands of dollars in costs and make appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court impossible for the majority of litigants in the United States, (4) relegate civil rights appeals to not-so diligent "summary", "non-precedential" review, (5) punish litigants and their attorneys for constitutional arguments, (6) suspend and disbar civil rights attorneys for raising constitutional arguments that judges do not like, and that especially concerns criticism of the judiciary.

This petition requests the U.S. Congress to introduce legislation, Civil Rights Protection Act that would eliminate all such rules unreasonably burdening access to courts.  Since courts adamantly refuse to abide by their constitutional oath of office and punish litigants and their attorneys for constitutional arguments in court, federal legislation is desperately needed to (1) lift judicial immunity for such retaliative actions and to (2) prohibit any and all sanctions by state or federal government officials imposed in response to constitutional arguments raised in court or administrative proceedings.

----

I encourage my readers to sign the petition.

All I am asking is to establish firm laws prohibiting judges from retalilation against litigants and their attorneys for raising constitutional arguments in court, to remove judicial immunity for such retaliation, as a mechanism of enforcement of such laws, and to eliminate all rules that bar or restrict access to court unreasonably, or provide unequal access to court on the basis of attorney or pro se status.

Such a federal legislation will benefit all Americans and is greatly overdue.

Thank you.

==
The sketch on the petition is courtesy of artist Alexander Kolganov, of Moscow, Russia.  Thank you, Alexander!

===
An update as of may 19, 2016:  I added to the petition a letter that will be forwarded to the U.S. Congress Judiciary Committees (in Senate and House) detailing and outlining discrimination and restriction of access to court to pro se parties and civil rights litigants.

Please, sign the petition.

A U.S. Supreme Court justice, while serving the rich, is demanding slavery for lawyers to serve the poor

Yesterday, it was reported by many leading media sources that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor "urged" that licensed attorneys in the United States should be subjected to "mandatory pro bono service".

That is a judge who has been sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

The U.S. Constitution that contains a 13th Amendment that prohibits involuntary servitude.

And that judge urges to impose the involuntary servitude requirement upon lawyers.

Of course, rules of involuntary servitude were already created by courts that do not allow attorneys to leave cases for non-payment unless the non-paying client consents or a court allows the attorney to leave.

So, the best way for a client to stiff a lawyer is to pay a down payment, then, after the down-payment is exhausted, refuse to pay more for ongoing services, refuse to consent to release the lawyer - and the court will mandate the attorney to work for you for free.

That's how it works in New York - I was subjected to that particular involuntary servitude several times.  

I wrote on this blog, three times, here, here and here, about rules and practices existing in the State of New York that authorize slavery in the legal profession, in violation of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Now, why would a judge of the court that repeatedly caters for the rich, predominantly rejects petitions from pro se (poor) litigants and creates unreasonable rules for petitions that require thousands of dollars in additional costs to even get a petition in front of the court, suddenly urge mandatory service of attorneys, for free, in helping the poor?

Sonya Sotomayor reportedly claimed: "“I believe in forced labor when it comes to improving access to justice for the poor".

In other words, a judge of the highest court claims "I believe in violation of the U.S. Constitution when...".

Yet, there is no "ifs" or "whens".

There is Supreme Law of the Land, the U.S. Constitution, which NOBODY - even a justice of the Highest Court - is allowed to violate.

Under any conditions.

The judge also recognized criticism of forced labor from at least the quality point of view - slave labor is ineffective.

To that, the judge said, astonishingly, that "ethics require" good representation in forced pro bono service cases.  What kind of "ethics" do or may require to perform a good service by a slave when slavery is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution?

So, Justice Sotomayor sees forced pro bono service by attorneys as a means to provide access to courts for the poor.

Yet, Justice Sotomayor herself participates in creating the situation where the poor is not properly served.

Justice Sotomayor is part of a licensing agency for attorneys where consumers of legal services have no say in regulation, which is an anti-trust violation.

Justice Sotomayor rejects petitions of pro se litigants, poor litigants and disciplined attorneys, including the mostly targeted defense attorneys, family court attorneys, civil rights attorneys suspended or disbarred for criticism of the judiciary, and thus removed from providing services for the poor.

Justice Sotomayor, by not opposing Rule 33 of her court that I wrote in my previous blog about, perpetuates discrimination against litigants who plainly cannot afford the extra costs of printing, typesetting and formatting required by Rule 33, and that would include not only poor lay litigants, but also civil rights, criminal defense and family court attorneys targeted by unconstitutional discipline and stripped of their livelihoods.

Moreover, when claiming that lawyers must be subjected to mandatory pro bono service rule, Justice Sotomayor did not offer to cut her own salary, or salaries of judges in federal or state courts, as a way to reduce financial burden on taxpayers, including those taxpayers who are unable to hire a lawyer, or pay extra costs to access the U.S. Supreme Court.

Such salaries only grow.

Apparently, Judge Sotomayor statements - though clearly demonstrating the judge's unfitness for the bench since she advocates violation of the U.S. Constitution - is a populist lip service as to "protection of the poor", while Judge Sotomayor creates and perpetuates the problem of the "justice gap" by her own conduct.

While hypocrisy of judges is not anything new to me, hypocrisy of this level, trying to justify continued existence of the legal profession and its monopoly by urging mandatory pro bono (not necessarily competent) service is completely disgusting.

And, since Judge Sotomayor apparently fights to preserve laywer monopoly, it is completely understandable why her court recently rejected certiorari petitions of attorneys who fight against lawyer monopoly.

Apparently, filing certiorari petitions with such courts by advocates of positions that judges personally oppose (and I am opposing attorney regulation and urge to deregulate and release court representatives from dependence upon the government for their livelihood) is not only a waste of money, but a waste of effort and time.

Access to court?

Forget about it.

Even with mandatory pro bono service.