The state of the law in the State of Georgia: it is criminally punishable to seek proof of judicial racism in the courtroom



I've just published an article regarding the recent trend of intimidation of investigative reporters who seek open records of government corruptions, with the use of arrests and criminal charges among other means of intimidation.

I mentioned in that blog the arrest of publisher/reporter Mark Thomason and his attorney Russel Stookey and promised to run a more detailed report about the case.

Here it is.

In June of 2016, in the State of Georgia, Chief Judge Brenda Weaver of Appalachian Circuit asked her own former law clerk, and now the local prosecutor Alison Sosebee to prosecute investigative journalist and publisher Mark Thomason and his attorney Russel Stookey for making an open records request seeking evidence of corruption in her own office.

Alison Sosebee obliged the judge, in front of whom Sosebee appears or may appear as a prosecutor and has a stake at pleasing her in order to win cases, and charged Mark Thomason and attorney Russel Stookey, had them arrested and put in jail.

The crime?

Here are the anti-heroes and heroes of this story: 

#JudgeBrendaWeaver, Chief Judge of Appalachian Circuit Superior Courts, State of Georgia

and Judge Weaver's former law clerk, #DistrictAttorneyAlisonSosebee who Judge Weaver asked to criminally prosecute a reporter and the reporter's attorney for investigating whether certain checks in court operating account was cashed illegally, through open records requests and subpoenas on the bank:

the racist judge Roger Bagley whose racist comment that was supposed to be reflected in the court audio file Mark Thomason and Russel Stookey seek through a lawsuit where the supboenas that are the basis of the criminal chargers were issued, I understand, by attorney Stookey:



and the victims of misconduct of the above three individuals, along with those who colluded with them, publisher Mark Thomason and his courageous attorney Russell Stookey:

 

Let's note that Mark Thomason and Russel Stookey, both white, filed a lawsuit and went to jail over their stance to fight racism in the courtroom by this white judge, now former judge Roger Bradley, where Judge Bradley resigned, of course, because "the planets aligned" in favor of his resignation, not because he outed himself in a criminal proceeding as a racist.   

Let's also note that both sets here, the three anti-heroes in this story, two judges and one prosecutor who is one of the judges' former law clerk, are white, too, and that the whole fight is over a record that would prove a racist slur uttered by a quickly-resigned white male judge at a criminal proceeding against an African American criminal defendant.   

By the way, in her election campaign, prosecutor Alison Sosebee pledged the following:

Prosecutor Sosebee, apparently, forgot to mention that she will use her authority to provide protection, at taxpayer's expense, to her former boss, Judge Weaver, protection against investigative journalists.

Mark Thomason sent the public records requests - and subpoenas - to the banks where judicial expense accounts are maintained, and asked for copies of checks "cashed illegally".

Judge Weavier claimed that for subpoenas Mark Thomason had to have judicial approval. 

I am not sure about the laws of the State of Georgia, but in New York, for example, an attorney can issue a non-judicial subpoena seeking bank records.

And, on subpoenas, the name of the judge appears even though an attorney signs it - that is, once again, a routine occurrence, and such power is actually given to attorneys, with some exceptions.

Usually, when a non-judicial subpoena is signed by an attorney, the court (or the supboenaed organization or individual) simply rejects that subpoena - although in some cases, like a divorce case that was reported to me recently, a New York #judgePhillipRumsey wholly endorsed an attorney, Dolores Fogarty, signing judicial subpoenas that had to be signed by a judge, after a motion brought in a certain way (which Fogarty, of course, never brought).

Of course, attorney #DoloresFogarty who has connections to local judges, was never charged with identity fraud at all.

By the way, Judge Rumsey retaliated against me for criticizing his actions in the divorce case, including favoritism to Dolores Fogarty.

Even if Mark Thomason and his attorney Russel Stookey had to have judicial approval for subpoenas and did not seek that approval, that was a mistake at best, and not a crime, and criminally charging for what must be available through an open records request, is a clear violation of the 1st Amendment of Mr. Thomason and of due process of his attorney Russel Stookey.

And yet, the reporter and his attorney were charged criminally, at the request of the investigated person, a judge, with identity fraud and attempted identity fraud, as well as arrested, kept overnight in jail and released only on $10,000 bail, with conditions of bail such as random drug tests.

And, by the way, reportedly, Judge Brenda Weaver presides over the state Judicial Qualifications Commission, so she is supposed to be the cleanliest of the squeaky clean of the Georgia state judiciary.

Georgia is a death penalty state, so all judges in a state where judges are allowed to take people's lives should be of the highest integrity and moral order.

Judge Weaver did not even conceal the fact that she retaliated by requesting to criminally charge the reporter and the reporter's attorney for investigations into her own behavior, reportedly stating regarding her request to prosecute Mr. Thomason and attorney Stookey: 
 
“I don’t react well when my honesty is questioned".  Really?  So, the judge openly admitted to this level of retaliation, and she is still on the bench?

Judge Weaver does not have a dislike to reporters in general.

In fact, she was very nice talking to a reporter Josh Becker who was advertising the judge's superior moral qualities in two video interviews.

In the interview, Brenda Weaver stated that she recently became a president of the Council of the Superior Court Judges of the State of Georgia and that her goals as the President of that organization are:

1. obtain a pay raise for Superior Court Judges in the State of Georgia, including appellate judges - but, of course! that must be an "over-arching goal" in a State with a death penalty, racist justice system, high illiteracy and poverty;
2. develop a "better working relationship with state representatives and senators" - in other words, lobbying in the State Legislature on behalf of judges;
3. proliferation of "accountability courts" in the State of Georgia and encouraging judges to become accountability court judges, making sure every Circuit in the State of Georgia has some type of  "accountability courts";

In her videointerview Judge Weaver stated that she is

"very humbled to be able to serve the citizens of [her] Circuit and State", that

she is "very lucky to get up every day", that she loves what she does.

Judge Weaver stated that being a judge in a felony court, Veterans and Drugs court "makes every day a wonderful experience" for her, because she gets an opportunity to make a change or cause people to make a change in their lives, and that portion of her job (that makes her every day a "wonderful experience") is what makes her to continue her job as a judge - "for another 20 years if possible", she said (after 15 she already worked as a judge by the time of the interview).

Yet, Judge Weaver's "wonderful experience" apparently also includes protecting from disclosure bank expense records of the court, and of the former #JudgeRogerBradley who quickly resigned from office after being exposed for using a racial slur against a criminal defendant in court proceedings and after the judge, or somebody else in authority in the court system, which could be Judge Brenda Weaver herself,  had the stenographer remove that racial slur from the transcript of court proceedings, which is public fraud.

Judge Roger Bradley reportedly repeated the pitch of a prosecutor who, when calling the next case on the docket, called an "N-word Last Name".  Neither Judge Bradley nor the prosecutor were sanctioned, apparently indicating that what they did was appropriate for Judge Brenda Weaver and a standard procedure of dealing with African American defendants in court - the "wonderful experience" that keeps Judge Weaver on the bench for the last 15 years.

The reporter Mark Thomason sought the audio recording from which the stenographer made the transcript. 

Access to that digital filie was denied, and when Mark Thomason sued for access to the audio file, the stenographer sued Mark Thomason for 1.6 million dollars in a defamation counterclaim.

The stenographer then withdrew her counterclaim, ending it as a matter of law, but still sought attorney fees against Mark Thomason, and somehow that frivolous claim was allowed to proceed, even though normally, if you withdraw a claim, it dies, and everything with it dies.

Mark Thomason's lawsuit for the audio file was dismissed for alleged failure to prove that the audio file was altered, without giving him that audio file for discovery.  It is interesting a person can be expected to prove something in the initial pleading in order to be allowed to see what he seeks to see.

That's the problem I recently discussed regarding the Fenton case and other civil rights cases where federal courts change the pleading standard from claim/notice pleading to factual pleading, requiring plaintiffs to prove what they seek to prove through the lawsuit.

Obviously, the state of Georgia made the same shift - specifically to protect its judiciary from claims of misconduct.

After all, it would have been a decidedly awkward situation if prosecutor Alison Sosebe, former law clerk of Judge Weaver, would have to investigate and charge Judge Weaver and other judges and court personnel, with committing public fraud.

And, had the audio file been released in discovery and expert analysis of the audio file, it would have been a simple "yes" or "no" answer - as to whether the audio file was authentic or edited, whether Judge Rodger Bagley did or did not use that racial slur, and whether the tape was edited, and whether the transcript was doctored.

For example, in a similar case, recently in the state of Louisiana an attorney, Christine Mire, actually obtained an audio recording of a court proceeding before judge #JeanetteKnoll, and has proven, through testimony of witnesses, that the recording, specifically the place where the judge allegedly made disclosures about her conflicts of interest, was added -  was "spliced" and contested content added.

When attorney Mire said there was no disclosure of later-discovered conflicts of interest by Judge Knoll at the hearing where attorney Mire was present and was thus a witness, the transcript said there was, and the audio file was edited and contents added on specifically as to that disclosure.

Who was disciplined after and because attorney Mire obtained proof that the court audio file was cooked?

The judge?

The stenographer?

Of course, not.

Attorney Mire was disciplined, on Judge Knoll's complaint.

The judge #JeanetteKnoll was elevated to the appellate court, complained to that appellate court, and that appellate court suspended attorney Mire's law license - for being too good at investigation of judicial misconduct.

As to Mark Thomason's case, if the audio file would be shown to be authentic, unredacted and exactly matching the stenographer's transcript - with no racial slur stated by former Judge Roger Bradley, there was no point to block access to it, was it?

Nor would a judge resign if he knew that the audio file did not contain the racial slur and that he is being accused improperly.

Yet, Mark Thomason's access to that record was blocked twice, once when he sought the audio file through an open records request, and another time when he did that through a lawsuit.

And, "coincidentally", the attorney who had the courage to take the case seeking records of judicial misconduct on behalf of Mr. Thomason, Russel Stookey, ended up charged with a crime, arrested and put in jail.

So, the court system in the State of Georgia, and its Chief Judge Brenda Weaver, shamefully continue to cover up for a racist judge, now by asking her former law clerk, a prosecutor, to intimidate by criminal charges, arrest and jailing those who seek evidence of her own and her subordinates' mismanagement of state money - paying out of public court expense account the $16,000 to the stenographer's attorneys in order to to kill the lawsuit seeking the audio file with the racial slur of Judge Bagley.

Mark Thomason was seeking copies of checks for those attorney fees to the stenographer's attorney, reportedly authorized by Judge Weaver.

A lot of integrity on behalf of Judge Brenda Weaver and prosecutor Alison Sosebe.

Just as promised in their respective public statements to voters.

As I already described earlier in this blog, the judicial system, although unquestionably racist, viciously fights against anybody who tries to fight that racism.

In Kentucky, a #JudgeOluStevens was recently suspended for insisting on constitutionally required process of picking criminal juries and preventing a racist prosecutor from eliminating African Americans from the juries in trials of African American defendants, a requirement of the U.S. Supreme Court's  so-called Batson rule.

On May 23, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a criminal conviction for violation of the Batson rule and of skewed racial composition of the jury.

Yet, in the State of Georgia African-American criminal defendants, and other litigants, do not have to worry about the Batson rule where both the judge and the judge's former law clerk, and now prosecutor, vigorously seek to intimidate and punish two people for seeking proof that a judge is a racist, and that the court system paid for the cover-up of that racism with taxpayers' money.

I wonder whether Judge Weaver and prosecutor Sosebee will be disciplined for their role in the arrest of Mark Thomason and attorney Russel Stookey.

The Society of Professional Journalists of Georgia already called for investigation of Judge Brenda Weaver, and for recusal of Judge Weaver (who is the Chairman of the commission that is supposed to investigate her) from such investigation.

Good luck with that - in my case, I was suspended for seeking recusal of a judge because of collusion with Vice-Chair of the Commission for Judicial Conduct in the investigation of the judge regarding a collusion in a criminal case.

I was also punished for seeking investigation and disbarment of attorneys for two disciplinary committees when they adamantly refuse to investigate themselves (from which they are obviously disqualified) or to have a special investigator and prosecutor appointed.

The same refers to judges sought to be recused for misconduct - they usually refuse and lash out against the challenger, as it happened in my case and in many more cases I am aware of.

If Judge Weaver stooped to using her former law clerk to criminally prosecute investigative reporters who sought public records that may implicate her or her subordinates in mishandling public money, there is not much Judge Weaver will not consider too low to stoop down to.

And, let's not forget that reporter Thomason is also charged with "making a false statement in an open records request" - requesting copies of checks "cashed illegally".

Please, tell me, what is a false statement in a request?

How is it possible to make a false statement in a request?

If a person asks for copies of checks "cashed illegally", the answer can be - if there are no checks cashed illegally, then the request is denied becuase there are no records answering the request, the way it is worded, that's all.

But, there is no legal possibility of charging a person for fraud for making a false statement in an open records request - other than if the prosecutor is the friend and former law clerk of the judge who asks for the prosecution.

I wonder whether the judge and her former law clerk, the prosecutor, will be charged by the State Attorney General for a crime based on their respective roles in this story.  At least, such a request has been made to the Attorney Genera of the State of Georgia.

That is, despite Mark Thomason - and people like him, seeking open records of the government - was addressed in a demeaning manner, by a "former public prosecutor", as a "public gadfly", something stinging, but decidedly with a negative connotation of a pest.

I do not see anybody discussing Judge Weaver were addressing Judge Weaver with any labels.

The only label I am going to give her, and prosecutor Sosebee, is that of a public anti-hero who should be removed from their positions immediately.

For continued coverage of this mess, stay tuned.

State and local governments across the United States fight efforts of transparency with sanctions, including murder, arrests, censorship and blacklisting of investigative reporters and whistleblowers

There were three arrests of journalists in the United States since March of 2016 for seeking open records and a significant increase of censorship and backlash of the government against individuals who seek open records to prove government corruption, or who create their own records (by videotaping or audiotaping) of government corruption.

Such retaliation is nothing new to me.

I was  criminally charged for exposing corruption in this blog - with criminal charges dismissed sua sponte, but those who orchestrated them promoted instead of sanctioned.

I was also sanctioned multiple for making FOIL (New York open records) requests:

1. in 2011, by the now-quickly-retired Judge Carl F. Becker,
2. in January 2012, by the same Carl F. Becker;
3. in May 2015 based on sanctions of the same Carl F. Becker; and
4. in November of 2015 when I was summarily suspended (without a hearing) based on sanctions of the same Carl F. Becker.

Carl Becker got upset (among other things - I also filed complaint about him and sued him) that I was filing FOIL requests about his financial statements - by the way, the NYS Court Administration NEVER complied with ANY of my FOIL requests regarding semi-annual financial statements of any judge, including Carl Becker, but instead sent notifications to judges that I made FOIL requests, for further retaliation.

Carl Becker actually mentioned in two orders - the sua sponte (on the court's own motion) order to show cause why I shouldn't be sanctioned in May of 2011 and in order of sanctions of January 2012, that sanctions are imposed for:

(1) making FOIL requests - Becker said that it was inappropriate for an attorney to make FOIL requests about the judge the attorney is appearing in front of and for - I was sanctioned by Becker $1,500 for that;

(2) using open records obtained through FOIL requests, because such use "invades privacy" - my client (husband) and I were sanctioned together $11,000 for that by Becker.

Of course, one cannot possibly, factually or legally, "invade privacy" of any other individual by obtaining and using PUBLIC records, but in New York courts, if a judge said the sun is raising in the West, that's it, any crazy thing a judge says is approved and supported as "judicial discretion".

Yet, that simple concept did not stop judge Becker, or judge Ferris Lebous, of Binghamton, NY, who reviewed a motion to vacate those sanctions (after he engaged in several ex parte communications with my opponents, for which ex parte communications my opponents charged me a legal fee, and Judge Lebous approved it against me and my husband).

In November of 2015 my law license was suspended for two years - without a hearing, since I wanted an open public hearing and since such a hearing would have exposed too much - based on Becker's sanction for FOIL requests.

My sanction was not the worst, though.

On June 26, 2010, Sunny Shue, of New York City, was bludgeoned to death after he investigated, including through FOIL requests to New York State Court Administration, foreclosure fraud involving a judge and reported the case to the FBI.

After Sunny Shue was murdered, evidence of the murder was reportedly covered up, and nobody was charged.

Sunny Shue predicted his own murder and published a video before the murder.

There is no statute of limitations on murder in the State of New York or under federal law - so, Sunny Shue's murder may be investigated at any time, we only need honest prosecutors to take up the case.

On April 9, 2016 I covered the story about the suspicious death of a whistleblower Adam Rupeka and his girlfriend, who was conveniently charged with a sexual crime against a child while exposing police misconduct, had to run for his life with his girlfriend, and was still apprehended and likely murdered in Mexico.

In April of 2016, there was an arson and murder attempt where the house of my friend Barbara O'Sullivan, her daughter and her unborn grandchild who was born in May and became the immediate target of social services; social services quickly backed out of their desire to snatch the child after the coverage of their misconduct on this blog, the child was released from hospital and the report was "unfounded".  Upon my information, the former Delaware County Commissioner Bill Moon, decades-long friend of Barbara's hater, former Judge Carl F. Becker, was involved in influencing the "investigation" by social services.

Barbara's house was burnt down completely under the circumstances indicating that it was a retaliation for Barbara's activities in seeking open public records and exposing misconduct of the police and local prosecutors joined at the hip with local corrupt judges.

No investigation and no fire or police reports were produced, the investigation is hushed up, the remains of the house was destroyed by much more than the fire, the police never secured the crime scene, the house continues to be stripped of the remaining valuables (copper pipes), shady individuals show up on the property and make vague threatening statements, and the police refuses to protect Barbara.

It is interesting to mention that the Delaware County Sheriff's Department and the Delaware County DA's office was quite a bit more vigorous in investigating and prosecuting the theft of copper pipes after the flood in Sidney - I know because I represented one of the individuals charged with that crime.

When the same crime concerns Barbara, the Delaware County authorities "would not pee on the fire", in the aristocratic language of their social worker Sharon Reichert-Morgan, who volunteered communication with me to criticize me for the coverage of the fire at Barbara's house. 

In fact, a firefighter's wife, a local social workers, claimed on my blog that if MY house burns down, her husband will not even pee on it to extinguish the fire - and other niceties of the same order.  I was also told to sit back in South Carolina and not put my nose into the Delaware County business.

That was an open threat, even more transparent that there already was an arson attempt in my home in Delhi, NY that, similarly with Barbara's actual arson, nobody wants to investigate or prosecute.

Barbara and Alecia both endured criminal prosecutions, both terminated in their favor, see here and here, and both started by Judge Becker's former law partner John Hubbard, who did not disclose the fact that he was Judge Becker's law partner until Judge Becker retired and John Hubbard announced his still continued run for the seat of the Delaware County District Attorney.

#ActingDelawareCountyDistrictAttorneyJohnHubbard did not consider it beneath him to prosecute Barbara and Alecia based on fabricated warrants, as Barbara's case revealed, in collusion with Delhi Town Justice (who still remains on the bench) Richard Gumo.

John Hubbard did not consider it beneath him to stress out by criminal prosecution on fabricated charges Barbara's visibly pregnant daughter Alecia Bracci, simply out of retaliation on behalf of his former law partner Judge Becker.

Hubbard had to see in February of 2016, when he put Alecia Bracci through a jury trial on those fabricated charges, that Alecia is very pregnant (her child was born within less than 3 months, in early May).

That did not stop Hubbard from not only proceeding on false charges, and stress the expectant mother, but also to waste taxpayers' money and jurors' time on false prosecution and jury trial - only to please his former law partner, the quickly-retired Judge Carl F. Becker.  John Hubbard, who is running for the DA's position now, is a prime candidate for the District Attorney's office in Delaware County - honest and fair.

Barbara was the victim of one more attempted murder attempt in 2014, by the Delaware County fake deputy Sheriff Derek Bowie  (he did not satisfy the residency requirement, as revealed in yet another lawsuit, and was thus not a legitimate Deputy Sheriff), who had a history of violence, and whose violence against Barbara could have been also triggered by Barbara's facial likeness to Bowie's former girlfriend who sued him. 

I wrote that Barbara's life was in danger back in September of 2014 when she was put in jail and my access to her, as her attorney, was blocked because it was conditioned on allowing the Sheriff's Department (employer of Derek Bowie) to search my attorney files.

But, Derek Bowie was never prosecuted for his assault upon his girlfriend Kylie Smith, or for the attempted murder of Barbara O'Sullivan.

Instead, Derek Bowie's victim Kylie Smith was prosecuted by the Broome County DA (the assault of Bowie upon Ms. Smith occurred in Broome County).

And, in Delaware County, Derek Bowie's victim Barbara O'Sullivan and her daughter Alecia Bracci were prosecuted by the employer of Derek Bowie's uncle, the Delaware County DA - because Derek Bowie's uncle Jeff Bowie works as a longtime investigator for the Delaware County District Attorney's office where Judge Becker's former law partner John Hubbard has been a Chief Assistant District Attorney for years, and is now the Acting District Attorney.

People who want to find out about governmental misconduct, as shown in this post, are exposed to a powerful backlash where the government uses its authority, given to it by the taxpayer to protect, in order to suppress exposure of its own misconduct.

Yet, there are more and more people like Barbara, who courageously continue to document corruption in the government by seeking open records through FOIL requests.

At this time, in the era of the Internet, when evidence of governmental corruption obtained through FOIL requests can be posted within seconds on the Internet (I do that all the time on my blog) and when the public is increasingly opposed to corruption, the government, and the mainstream media depending on handouts from wealthy advertisers who are connected with the government, continue to clamp down on "sensitive" topics - and on people who try to raise them, or to even seek materials for such publications, through open records requests.

In New York, Mayor Blasio and NYPD continue to fight to keep disciplinary records of police officers closed to the public - even though the law Mayor Blasio and NYPD are relying upon is facially unconstitutional because Civil Rights Law 50a was created with a specific purpose to undermine criminal defendants' efforts to effectively cross-examine police officers in criminal proceedings, impeaching them with evidence of their disciplinary record and misconduct, a violation of Confrontation Clause of the 6th Amendment of the U.S. Constituion.

I challenged constitutionality of that law in multiple criminal cases, in omnibus motions, always with the same result - the challenge was rejected without an explanation or reasoning as being "without merit".

Recently, under public pressure and civil unrest over a number of police abusing or killings of civilians without justification caught on witness's video, there appeared a trend of equipping police officers with body cameras.

Such body cameras, of course, are no substitute for witness videos since compromising videos in possession of the police can conveniently disappear or be redacted.

And, of course, body cameras can be conveniently shut off during an event they are supposed to record.  In fact, turning off body cameras when dealing with a situation where shooting was involved was reportedly an instruction of dispatchers to the police in Tennessee.

And, even if the footage is obtained from such body cameras, the public may be blocked from seeing it, as it happened, for example, in North Carolina where the State Legislature just approved a bill removing police body cam videos from public access, so the public cannot obtain footage of police body cams on open access request.

So, witness videos remain the most reliable information about police misconduct nowadays.

But, that may change in the near future, too, at least for users of iPhones - where Apple is introducing in the near future an app that would allow the police to disable the cameras of telephones.  Of course, then people may - and should - carry an additional device with software that cannot be disabled, a "conceal carry" camera.

Yet,  OUR government, taxpayer-supported government, must conduct its affairs in the open, and there is a presumption of access to government records in state open-access laws and, as of June 30, 2016, in federal law, too.

The government fights those efforts, with increasing vigor and viciousness, in a variety of ways.

In New York, methods employed were:

1. stalling responses to records;
2. inventing ways of making access to records too expensive, like insisting on releasing only paper copies - for payment only - when the request is for e-mailed scanned or printed-to-pdf copies of documents that can be produced for free;
3. sanctioning people who make FOIL requests (as I described above, my law license was suspended based on a sanction imposed by a judge, among other things, for making FOIL requests about financial disclosures of that same judge);
4. murder of those who obtain incriminating records through FOIL and then turn them into prosecuting authorities - see the case of Sunny Shue above.

In other states, quite recently, and in rapid succession, investigative journalists are being arrested for seeking access and coverage at public meetings and for making open records requests.

I will run separate blogs for stories about each arrest, but here is a brief summary:

No	State	Date of arrest	Names, professions of people arrested	Real reason for arrest;  criminal charges	Names, professions of people who sought the arrest
1	Louisiana	March 23, 2016	Reporter Chris Nakamoto	Reporting on the pay raise of the mayor of White Castle, Louisiana Trespass – in a City Hall	Sergeant Green of White Castle (LA) City Police, on behalf of the mayor #JermarrWilliams
2	Georgia	June 24, 2016	Mark Thomason, publisher; Russel Stookey, Mark Thomason’s attorney in a lawsuit seeking audio records of court proceedings, both white males	Identity fraud, attempted identity fraud – attorney filed supboenas for public records not signed by a judge. Seeking the records of court proceedings where a now-retired white judge Roger Bradley (a white male) reportedly used a racist slur against a criminal defendant, and seeking records that the attorney fees for stenographer who brought a $1.6 million counterclaim for defamation were financed out of court expense account of Judge Bradley	Chief Judge of Appalachian Circuit courts #BrendaWeaver; judge Weaver’s former law clerk #DistrictAttorneyAlisonSosebe, white females
3	Missouri	June 29, 2016	Chris Hayes	Disorderly conduct, failure to comply Reporter sought to cover a public meeting regarding uninsured and improperly registered police cars (registered to individuals and businesses, not the police) Reporter was arrested, criminally charged, handcuffed and chained to the holding bench	Town of Kinlock police captain

In addition to direct action by the government, in retaliation for seeking or using open court records such as:

1) law license suspension - that would be me in New York in 2015 and attorney Christine Mire of Louisiana in 2016;

2) arrests of reporters - Chris Nakamoto in Louisiana in March of 2016, Mark Thomeson in June of 2016, Chris Hayes in June of 2016,

there is also "indirect" retaliation:

• the murder of Sunny Shue in 2010 in New York;

• counter-claims for defamation by judge-inspired (and, likely, financed) court stenographers - in Georgia, against Mark Thomeson and in Louisiana, against attorney Chrisine Mire and her client;
• lawsuits for defamation - like the one pursued by a Nashville, Tennessee, #DistrictAttorneyGlennFunk against reporter Chris Phillips for coverage of his election campaign;

There are also instances of censure that I noted recently:

1. a couple of days ago Bill O'Reilly of "O'Reilly factor" noted that he would not invite a person as a guest into his studio if he would know ahead of time that the person is going to say certain bad things about a public official - indicating that Bill O'Reilly (and, possibly, other mainstream TV stations) censure the content of whoever is "invited" as a guest speaker;
2. State University of California, Davis reportedly used $175,000 in public money "to scrub the Internet of negative online postings following the November 2011 pepper-spraying of student protesters";
3. decisions in April of 2016 of government authorities in removing the documentary "Vaxxed" from  screening in New York and Texas film festivals questioning integrity of how safety and efficiency of vaccines are studied, tested and how vaccines are promoted by the pharmaceutical industries - removal of "Vaxxed" from the film festivals met with vigorous public protests
4. Huffington Post's removal of its long-time reporter Lance Simmens for reporting on issues of government corruption raised in "Vaxxed";
5. silence of the mainstream media as to the mass protests and mass arrests of protesters in Washington, D.C. demonstrating against government corruption, when 400 arrests were made, see also here.

All in all,  TWO vigorous trends appear to exist:

1) that the public increasingly need, want, and seek public records of governmental corruption;
2) that the government resists efforts of the public to ensure transparency of the government and fights back, directly and indirectly, through:

• stalling of release of records;
• legislative acts making certain most sought public records unavailable to the public - like laws regarding police misconduct in New York and North Carolina;
• making open records requests prohibitively expensive;
• retaliating against those seeking the records by
• criminal charges,
• loss of occupational licenses,
• multi-million defamation lawsuits,
• spoliation or destruction of evidence,
• blocking documentaries about government corruption from public airing at large events,
• censure in the mainstream media and
• firing investigative journalists who cover governmental corruptoin (Huffington post's Lance Simmens, see above).

I will not be surpised if Apple's interesting app to block videocameras on smartphones was produced at the request of the government - to block people from creating their own record of government misconduct, not believing that the government will do a good or honest job in doing the same.

I do not believe that what I described in this blog is anything new.

Government corruption existed for as long as any types of government existed.

Yet, instant reporting on such government corruption became available only with proliferation of the Internet and social media. 

Such reporting is absolutely necessary to keep our government clean and efficient, and to have at least a hope of a democracy alive.

This blog will certainly continue to report on corruption, and specifically on the corruption in the judiciary and among prosecutors, the most powerful branches of the government in the U.S. who retaliate in the worst ways and thus get most mainstream media sources intimidated.

Bloggers, social media reports and documentaries are now the main outlets for exposure of corruption in the government, especially judicial and prosecutorial corruption, and we must continue to do that if we do not want to sink into the dark ages.

If robots are already used to resolve disputes, why not humans of litigants' choice?

If the Ebay customers resolve their disputes through an online dispute-resolution website, that's ok.

If the same people engage a human to help them resolve the dispute or advise about it, that would be a crime of unauthorized practice of law.

Now, if robots are allowed to practice law, why not humans, ALL humans, without license restrictions? 

Even though it is now recognized that regulation of the legal profession drives prices for legal services out of reach for most customers, and not only in the U.S., to the point that in Holland people are now allowed to be advised in divorces by robots - which improves access to justice.

Isn't it silly, not to mention unfair to those who are in need of advice and assistance with access to courts that robots are allowed to improve access to justice, but unlicensed individuals of people's choice are not?

Ins't it silly not to allow unlicensed humans to do what unlicensed robots are already doing - in the U.S., too?

It is the beginning of the robot v human discrimination, isn't it?

I wonder who will be the first human who will file such a lawsuit, to invalidate unauthorized practice of law (UPL) statutes on grounds that UPL is allowed to robots.

The U.S. Supreme Court reduces the 4th of July to a joke while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit tries to take the dignity of the U.S. Constitution back - a little bit, somewhat

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 provides for a "claim-pleading", not factual pleading.

In fact, factual pleadings were, since long ago, deemed implausible, because such rules require people to plead enough facts to survive the lawsuit before discovery, and often under the circumstances when the proof is within exclusive possession of the defendants.

That is even more true when the parity of power between the plaintiffs and the defendants is squarely with the defendants, when the defendants are the government and the plaintiffs are lay individuals.

Yet, the U.S. Supreme Court chose to actually re-create the factual pleadings, FRCP 8 be damned, in two cases: 

1) Bell Atlantic Corp. v Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and
2) Aschcroft v Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009),

prompting a cartoonist to describe civil rights cases dismissed because they did not satisfy the court-invented factual pleading amendment to the FRCP 8 and FRCP 9 as "twomblied in the iqbals".

After these two cases, the majority of civil rights cases are dismissed, and only a very small fraction of civil rights cases reach beyond discovery and to trial.  The courts, this way, obtained a result, reduction of their overloaded docket - but at the sake of fairness and with the help of violating the law and blocking real victims of constitutional violations from having any remedy for those violations against the government perpetrators.

In Bell Atlantic Corp. v Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), see description of the case also here, the court changed a decades-old rule, which was in compliance with FRCP 8, the claim-pleading standard, that a civil (and a civil rights) case in federal court will not be dismissed unless there may be NO set of facts under which the claim could be valid - a difficult standard for the defendants to meet before discovery, and the intention of FRCP 8 to adjudicate claims on the merits and not on pleadings.

Twombly was an antitrust case alleging anti-competitive behavior of telecommunications companies.

The court in Twombly indicated that certain pled facts, while being admissible circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy, are not enough, per se, to carry the claim of violation of the antitrust, Sherman Act.

In other words, the U.S. Supreme Court usurped the function of the jury, in violation of hte 7th Amendment, and claimed that a civil rights plaintiff must plead enough admissible facts for a jury to find for the Plaintiff, at the outset of the case and before discovery, including discovery of evidence in exclusive possession of the defendants,

When Twombly was decided, legal scholars already said that it rendered a motion to dismiss unconstitutional.

In Aschcroft v Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), see description of the case also here, the U.S. Supreme Court has added insult to injury and allowed judges to consider their own experience and

Aschcroft v Iqbal was a politically charged case where the U.S. Supreme Court held that governmental officials cannot be charged for failure to supervise their subordinates engaging in racial and religious discrimination of suspects detained after September 11, 2001 attacks.

The court in Iqbal dismissed the case for conspiracy among governmental officials, defendants in the action, to engage in a conspiracy to discriminate because the plaintiffs could not provide facts in the pleadings that would allow the court to "draw inferences" of such discrimination. 

Since a federal court would not draw inferences against the government until proof of conspiracy is provided, and proof cannot be provided until discovery, and even then, the evidence may be circumstantial and subject to a jury determination whether, on such facts, conspiracy should be found, after Iqbal, no conspiracy can be proven until plaintiffs, using their limited or, often, non-existent resources, wrangle from the government some kind of a confession of a conspiracy to violate their constitutiona rights - which, as any reasonable person would understand, is an unrealistic possibility.

Moreover, FRCP 9(b) specifically states that it does not require to show meetings of the mind at the pleading stage:

"[m]alice, intent, knowledge, and other conditions of a person's mind may be alleged generally".

Yet, the court in Iqbal, and federal courts throughout the country after Iqbal universally violate this rule in civil rights actions by demanding that the civil rights plaintiffs put into pleadings facts showing "malice, intent, knowledge, and other conditions of the mind" of governmental defendants.

In Iqbal, the U.S. Supreme Court also allowed judges to become unsworn witnesses, and thus, advocates in the proceedings on behalf of defendants by allowing judges, in considering a motion to dismiss a case, to draw and rely upon the judge's own experiences (unknown to the plaintiffs).

It is irrefutable that Iqbal and Twombly was protective of the government and was aiming to undermine, and did effectively undermine, the civil rights litigation based on existing statutes and rules.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Iqbal and Twombly acted like a crook helping crooks - let's call a spade a spade - in telling the injured victims of constitutional violations:  "haha, you cannot prove it - because we hold the evidence you need that you can get only through discovery? - tough, case tossed before discovery because you cannot prove it".

After Iqbal,  some practicing attorneys cautiously stated that while the pleading rules did not change (only technically, FRCP 8 and 9 did not change), "the game" changed:

But, practicing attorneys, in their dual rope-balancing act of pleasing the court while advertising their knowledge to gain more paying clients, sometimes do not pay attention how crass their comments may be.

The author of the above quoted article, Robert L. Rothman, an attorney from Georgia, didn't notice, apparently, when putting his "game changing" comment in the very first, "catch", paragraph, of his article, that equating adjudication of human rights violations with a "game" being played is (1) inappropiate, and (2) revealing - because that is EXACTLY what the government, and the courts turned the promise given to people in the Civil Rights Act, of providing a remedy for constitutional violations: and that is a game, and a rigged game.

Let's note that in both cases, Twombly and Iqbal, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the action based on a new "rule" that it JUST CREATED, which means - when the plaintiffs were pleading their case, those new rules did not exist, and the plaintiffs, or their attorneys, did not have notice of those rules.

And, of course, such a drastic change of rules as occurred in Iqbal and Twombly, severely restricting civil rights plaintiffs' access to court, guaranteed by the 1st Amendment, and barring victims of unconstitutional conduct by government officials to have effective legal remedies for their injuries, is a matter of POLICY, of LEGISLATIVE POLICY, which is NOT within the Article III authority of federal courts to adjudicate, but is within the EXCLUSIVE authority of the U.S. Congress to deal with.

The U.S. Supreme Court cannot change rules by interpretation, it has no such authority under Article III of the U.S. Constitution which describes authority of federal courts.

Yet, the U.S. Supreme Court treated Twombly, its own interpretation of Rule 8, and an ultra vires interpretation, unlawfully changing the Rule, and not the original text of Rule 8, as controlling itself in deciding Iqbal,  a further amendment through interpretation of Rule 8.

Consider the possibilities of this game-rigging strategy.

You have a rule you do not want to comply with.

You know that the highest court of the country acts mostly like a political body, picking and choosing cases for its limited docket only when it wants to either issue some sensationalized case and garner some political capital for further perks, speeches, trips and books from the legal establishment, or to help the government escape liability under existing statutes.

With that in mind, you pitch at that body a catch they cannot miss, so they take the case and decide it your way (for how much in bribes I can only imagine - what?  U.S. Supreme Court judges were never caught in conflicts of interest?  They did not just decide U.S. v McDonnell, practically legitimizing and thus encouraging the bribing of government officials in the United States?).

You have a rule.

You rig the rule once.

The next time you are requested to rig the rule, in reviewing of the rule, you use in rigging the rule not the text of the rule itself, but your previous - rigged - interpretation of that rule, to rig it further.

That's the logic of Rule 8 and 9 turned into civil rights lawsuits "twomblied in the iqbals" en masse.

Legal scholars were not as forgiving to the change of rules as practicing attorneys whose livelihood depends on "may we please the court", no matter what kind of misconduct the court may be committing on the attorneys' watch.  (The best example of that cowardly behavior is the Kids for Cash scandal in Pennsylvania where a judge was selling kids for money into juvenile detention facilities FOR YEARS, while many attorneys knew about it, but kept mum, and that starts from the prosecutor or prosecutors of such cases who KNEW that juveniles' rights were violated and built their careers on it.)

After Iqbal, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania introduced a "Notice Pleading Restoration Act", but, Senator Specter was voted out of office in 2011 (when he was already critically ill with cancer), and the bill was not enacted.  Senator Specter, who tried to make a difference for us all and to restore to Americans their right to a jury trial in civil rights cases, guaranteed by the 7th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, died in 2012.

Senator Specter's memory should be honored this coming July 4, 2016 for what he was trying to do for all of us.

While attorneys matter-of-factly claimed "game change", and Senator Specter introduced a bill to kill the Twombly/Iqbal rigging of the 7th Amendment, legal scholars squarely called Iqbal (which was based on Twombly) unconstitutional.

So, before rigging Rule 8 and Rule 9, the U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts - sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and every provision and Amendment to it - actually rigged the 7th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, claiming that the way to interpret it is

• to pin constitutional rights of present-day U.S. citizens to a jury trial in federal court,
• guaranteed to people in the U.S. by the U.S. Constitution, the 7th Amendment that was ratified in 1791, 15 years AFTER the U.S. was created as a country separate and distinct from the British monarchy with which Americans went to war and laid down their lives to gain their country's independence
• to how the right to a jury trial was understood in that monarchy, England, in 1791.

There was no logic or LEGALITY in that "historic test", but, with the help of that "test", the right of Americans, under their own U.S. Constitution, to the jury trial in civil rights cases was rigged - and is continued to be rigged every day by courts applywing Twombly and Iqbal, which cuts off the 7th Amendment right to a jury trial allowing judges to make factual considerations, drawing on judges' own experience and "common sense" - as judges understand it.

So, while we are about to celebrate the 240th anniversary of this country's Declaration of Independence from Britain, the absolute monarchy AND FROM ITS LAWS, our celebration is rigged and dampened by our own courts, starting with the top one, the U.S. Supreme Court, because those same laws that we as a country claimed independence from in a war where many of Americans laid down their lives to achieve that independence, are jammed right down our throats through various "historic tests" - like the one described above - which restrict our constitutional rights based on the death grip of ancient British common law, the very common law that people fled from to America in the first place.

That's why I perceived the news that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit recently overturned a case where a judge, following the U.S. Supreme Court encouragement and directive in the Iqbal case to draw upon the judge's "experience", actually googled the case and based his determination of dismissal of an excessive-force civil rights lawsuit against the police upon newspaper articles.

I obtained the docket of the case from the lower court, and it is a saga of retaliation of Senior U.S. District Court Judge Milton I. Shadur against pro se injured (and now incarcerated) plaintiff Joseph Felton that I will describe in a separate blog.

For now - Joseph Felton won his appeal, and I hope he will be given a new judge on remand, because, judging from the docket, Judge Milton I. Shadur, date of birth June 25, 1924 who just turned 92 of age, has no energy to handle this case properly and is unable to treat Joseph Felton fairly.

By the way, in 2010 the same 7th Circuit reversed and remanded a too-lenient conviction by Judge Shadur of a politician convicted of corruption, to another judge.  The defendant was Edward Vrydolyak, date of birth December 28, 1937, a white male and a powerful Cook County official in Chicago.

This is Vrydolyak advocate judge Shadur:

I wonder if the two are relatives - looks like it by the facial features,  but what is beyond dispute is that both of them are old white powerful males, and one supports the other, in violation of his duties and the law.

In 2015, the wonderful white man Edward Vrydolyak, who was given an extremely - and inappropriately - lenient treatment by Judge Shadur that led to the reversal of 2010, was at the center of a federal tax-evasion indictment.

And, of course, you do not have to ask what race plaintiff Joseph Felton is.

Here is his picture.

From his decisions and conduct in Felton's lawsuit, Judge Shadur appears to be an elderly white racist thinking that injuries inflicted by the police upon a black man should not be chargeable in civil rights litigation per se - looks like, doesn't it?

Judge Shadur also recused from the lawsuit of Michael Jordan, a black litigant, and a famous black litigant, in June 2014, and retaliated against Michael Jordan's attorney who claimed bias.

That happened 2 months after Judge Shadur dismissed pro se black civil rights plaintiffs Joseph Fenton's lawsuit, 4 days after it was filed and before it was even served:

Note what the judge said in Docket 5, date September 8, 2014:

"It is frankly an affront to the judicial system for Felton to attempt, like alchemists of the Middle Ages, to transmute base metal into gold.  Section 1915A(b)(1) amply justifies the dismissal of both Felton's Complaint and his action as frivolous, and this Court so orders."

No service on defendants.

No discovery.

No jury.

Just Judge Shadur acting as the replacement of judicial process and who mocked the injured plaintiff and tossed his claim of excessive police force that, the plaintiff claimed, caused his injuries.  So, to toss the complaint, Judge Shadur had to also decide the issue of causation, without a medical expert, discovery or jury.

Judge Shadur undoubtedly acted here as an advocate for government defendants and mocked the civil rights plaintiff.

That behavior was noted by the 7th Circuit in another case when in November of 2014, the same year, the 7th Circuit reversed a sex-bias case decided by Judge Shadur, also because of bias, here is the full opinion.

The federal court specifically noted the "unmistakable (and to [the court] incomprehensible) tone of derision that pervades [Judge Shadur's] opinion"

Yet, after all of that, Judge Shadur was still allowed to stay on the bench and continue, same as another 92-year old federal judge who had multiple reversals, Manuel T. Real of a U.S. District of California and who remains on the bench despite an astounding number of reversals indicating, same as with Judge Milton Shadur, senility, and thus disability and incompetence and unfitness for the bench.

As to the  detailed story of how white Judge Shadur tossed black civil rights plaintiff Joseph Felton's excessive force case and what misconduct Judge Shadur engaged in to discriminate against Joseph Felton after the dismissal, interfere with his right to appeal and punish him for appealing the dismissal, stay tuned.

This coming weekend is the 4th of July weekend.

Our rights that the 4th of July celebrates, for the 240th time, are obtained by many Americans who gave their lives for us to have those rights.

Let's not allow our errant government officials to take those rights away.

What the 7th Circuit did in overturning Judge Shadur - again - is one step in the right direction to restore one of our major rights taken away by federal courts through Iqbal and Twombly and similar decisions.

The 7th Circuit reversed Judge Shadur for what Iqbal and Twombly allowed - for drawing upon the judge's own experience, however obtained (here, Judge Shadur obtained his extrajudicial experience by reading newspaper accounts of the chase of plaintiff Fenton).

We need to put pressure on the U.S. Congress to restore our rights under the 7th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for a jury trial in civil rights litigation.

For a separate blog about Judge Shadur's discrimination against black pro se civil rights plaintiff Joseph Felton,  stay tuned.