When will Louisiana prosecutor Leon Cannizzaro be prosecuted, criminally and as an attorney disciplinary matter, for issuing fake subpoenas?

When a prosecutor conducts a criminal investigation, a prosecutor is not covered by absolute prosecutorial immunity (that invention of courts to absolve 2 out of 3 lawyers participating in the criminal process, from liability - the judge and the prosecutor, but not the defense attorney).

But, apparently, prosecutors forget that.

For example, a Louisiana prosecutor, Leon Cannizarro, this nice, smiling and handsome young man,

wanted some information from certain alleged witnesses so much that he has sent them fake "subpoenas", compelling them to come and talk to the prosecutor.

Of course, there is no such thing as a "prosecutor's subpoena", a subpoena can only be issued by the grand jury, or later, after the indictment, by the prosecutor, so that the witness would testify in court, but not to give information to the prosecutor BEFORE the grand jury and BEFORE that trial.

And, of course, if a witness refuses to testify and invokes his or her right against self-incrimination, he must be given immunity if he is compelled to testify.

And the prosecutor, of course, did not want to give any immunity.  Only to pretend that he may give such immunity while knowing that when a person just comes to talk to investigators, not in front of a grand jury or a court in a criminal trial, such immunity is unavailable.

But, prosecutors can lie, can't they?

Police investigators are allowed to lie by courts.

Apparently, prosecutors acting in investigating capacity believed they can do that, too.

But, the lying gets a little bit too far when fake court documents are used to get people to talk.

What I am wondering about though is - where is the Lousiana Supreme Court and its attorney disciplinary committee in all of this?

Why aren't they prosecuting DA Leon Cannizzaro for fraud upon the court since he already admitted that his office had such a "practice", obviously, sending not just one fake subpoena, but many?

That's not enough for discipline?

Louisiana only has resources and motivation to prosecute attorneys who criticize judges for confirmed misconduct?

And, why isn't DA Cannizzaro prosecuted criminally for issuing fake court documents that he had no authority to issue?

Law professors shy away from getting serious about academic value of their own work. It will cost too much for them to be honest.

I wrote on this blog recently about how law professors turned submission process of law reviews as a race to the top in search of a better employment, at the expense of law students, and how law reviews have no academic value because they are reviewed and accepted for publications not by "peers" of professors, but by law students who do not even have a completed law degree.

Law professors continued discussion of that sticky subject on their own blog.  It is interesting that the most critical comments came from anonymous participants, and that law professors branded those valid comments as "snarky".

Yet, the commentator under the picturesque nick "YesterdayIKilledAMammoth" only said this:

"Anything short of peer-review will not make law reviews more legitimate to outside disciplines."

Which was absolutely true.  Who cares about the value of law reviews if they are sorted out and accepted by students, often from their own law professors or their friends, in exchange for grades and careers?

And, the "Mammoth" also said this:

"While, I applaud at least one proposal to get us going, the proposal begins with funding and participation problems--which are death knells for any meaningful reform.

Law professors need to decide two questions. First, do they want to be part of the larger academic world? And second, do they want to influence the practical world? If the answer to either of these is 'yes', then systemic change is needed.

If the answer is no, then we'll continue to watch the growing obsolescence of legal research."

Legal research is not get "obsolete", it gets computerized, so the law professor may soon go the way of the mammoth - possibly, that's why they don't want to change anything about how they operate, no matter how wrong.

Trying to get the piece of the pie before it disappeared...

Are grand juries indepedent or are they subordinate to courts? A case in Alabama

Supposedly, grand juries are independent bodies of the government, the so-called "fourth power" that operate independently from courts.

Of course, that is not exactly true.

The legal advisor of the grand jury always is the prosecutor, who represents a party in litigation and is interested in the result of the grand jury proceeding - which is a legal nonsense.

And, the grand jury cannot convene on a complaint from a citizen, only on a presentation of a prosecutor - that same "advisor" of the grand jury.

But, in Alabama the push against independence of this "fourth power" was made even further.

A judge of an Alabama Court has threatened to stop the grand jury investigation - into corruption of the government, of course.

So, apparently, the grand jury is reduced to a tail of the government that is being wagged the way the government wants - by prosecutors, and by judges.

Until independence of grand juries is restored, we cannot expect much justice or much cleanup of government corruption.

The "awesome" judicial power to lop of floors off buildings - and threaten and decimate critics

In the course of my research for a book, I came across a 1996 law review article by the then-judge of the New York State Court of Appeals (and now law professor) Joe Bellacosa.

I already wrote about the "process" of submitting law reviews for publications to the captive audience of law students who have no choice by to publish any garbage from high-enough individual.

The law review from Judge Bellacosa was exactly that type of garbage.

In no other profession (I would hope) a supposedly academic article is published simply to air complaints in the form of rantings of a high-ranking public officials about criticism of himself, his organization and his branch of the government.

Yet, that's what Judge Bellacosa allowed himself to do.

Neither the quality of "scholarship", nor the topic of the conference (prosecutor training for death penalty cases) even remotely suggested any connection with Judge Bellacosa complaints.

Moreover, Judge Bellacosa committed a crime of aiding and abetting unauthorized practice of law by having an unlicensed individual, his own "law clerk" who at that time did not have a law license, do "research" for him to put in footnotes into his complaint, mostly without any specifics, to a captive audience.

It is even more disgusting that the complaints were "bestowed" upon prosecutors in a luxury lake resort on a business day.  While complaining that at that time the New York State Court of Appeals had 5,000 cases per year, and that it was doing its job admirably, Judge Bellacosa considered it possible for himself to deviate from his duties and huge case load to not only complain to prosecutors about critics of the judiciary, but also to sic those prosecutors on those critics - by expressing a "hope" (at the beginning of the article) and giving a not-so-thinly veiled directive (at its end) to pursue attorneys-critics of the judiciary for disciplinary violations.

Judge Bellacosa was complaining about the "quality of criticism".  Like any judge would love criticism of himself and "his" court, given the criticism's high quality - in the eyes of the judge.

Judge Bellacosa was also raving about his own decision (made together with his friend Chief Judge Wachtler who by the time of the article was released from federal prison) where Wachtler and Bellacosa ordered competitor of Wachtler's family members in NYC construction business to cut off 12 stories of a completed residential skyscraper, see Parkview Associates v. City of New York ,71 N.Y.2d 274 (1988).

Let's not forget that Sol Wachtler, Bellacosa's buddy, came to power and dragged Bellacosa into the same power, through the money of his wife's uncle, Alvin Wolosoff, a construction magnate from NYC, and thus a competitor of the developer whose building Bellacosa and Wachtler ordered destroyed.  Obviously, Bellacosa not only did not feel any shame about that case, where he had the power to refuse to order demolition of the already constructed residential building because the mistake in the building permit was the City's and not the developers.  No, Bellacosa obviously was proud of that case, "in awe" of his own power, and considering himself some sort of a king whose "independence" from the law must be safeguarded as a "crown jewel", safeguarded from any criticism, and at whose direction anything can happen, law or no law, justice or no justice.

Bellacosa was obviously relishing in his own power when telling the prosecutors at that luxury resort:

1) I do not care what the topic of this conference is, I would rave about what I want;
2) I want to rave about criticism of me, my buddy Wachtler and "my" court;
3) I can do anything, even cut off stories off completed residential buildings to hurt competitors of another judge's family members; and
4) I demonstrate my power in front of you, the cattle, the captive audience, whose licenses I regulate, so that you know that when I demand pursuing my critics - you listen.

When I see posts on social media where people from other countries are "in awe" of how the 1st Amendment is honored and cherished, re-read this piece of "scholarship".

Consider the sickeningly self-praising lofty language of this courtier-judge.

Consider the name-calling of professors who dared to do what the judge didn't - the actual, real academic scholarship about the court.  Professors Judge Bellacosa demeaned were Professor Bonventre of Albany Law School and professor Luke Bierman pointing out that Judge Bellacosa switched his views as to whether and how the judiciary should be criticized - from claiming that the judiciary must be criticized and its actions scrutinized as if it is operating in a "glasshouse", to threats of disciplinary action against attorneys for criticism of judges and chest-thumping about his own power to lop off 12 stories off residential skyscrapers, despite the fact that that same skyscraper was built according to a valid building permit.

Of course, if Bellacosa's sensitivity as to criticism was so fragile, he should have been removed from the bench the moment the law review article was published.

Of course, he wasn't.

This law review article, I understand, was some kind of a judicial Manifesto of an open hunt on critics of the judiciary.

I encourage my readers to read it and consider the doublespeak, the implications, the language and the threats.

The "civil rights loving" New York government scraps the 4th Amendment and privacy for motorists

New York top-ranking government officials - Governor Cuomo and Attorney General Schneiderman (who fund-raised for Hillary Clinton and obviously was promised a position in her administration) are adamantly anti-Trump-anything.

No matter what the President does, right or wrong, they are against it.

Yet, New York now tries to stealthily impose upon its own residents the very same invasions of privacy that the Trump administration is using to check incoming foreigners: warrantless access to cell phones.

New York Legislature is reviewing a bill that would allow police officers, under the guise of fighting with texting-while-driving, to get access to your cell phone without a search warrant, in obvious violation of the 4th Amendment, and that will impose penalties upon drivers who refuse such access to officers - well, how can you refuse is not clear if the officer can simply overpower you, take your cell phone and scan it.

With the only difference that the U.S. Constitution is inapplicable to aliens outside the borders of the U.S. (including airport immigration areas before entry is allowed), while warrantless searches of New Yorkers well within the borders of the U.S. is  definite violation of the 4th Amendment.

The cause to scrap the 4th Amendment is, of course, lofty - protecting motorists and passengers, and pedestrians from "distracted drivers".

But, the 4th Amendment universally applies to all, even murderers.

Whether you consider it fair or not, a body found in a trunk of a car during an illegal warrantless search is subject to suppression, possibly freeing the murderer.

That's how the U.S. Constitution works.

And it does not work differently for "distracted drivers".

My concern though is not about the fate of distracted drivers, but about all drivers, because police officers habitually lie under oath to fabricate "probable cause" to stop a car and arrest the driver and everybody in the car, as well as to search everybody and everything in sight.

So, it is reasonable to predict that now, when everybody has cell phones, especially when driving, and every phone, smart or "dumb", has texting capabilities, a police officer will be able to stop without a probable cause ANY car at ANY time, claiming that he saw the driver texting or attempting to text.  For an attempt you do not even need proof that a text was entered - the driver was simply attempting to do so, but did not complete his evil goal because the noble officer stopped him.

And, the police now can easily get any information on your cell phones in order to investigate you or charge you with crimes, without any warrants, by just claiming that they saw you look at that phone while driving - which is their word against yours, and guess who will win in court.

The bill is a rampant scrapping of the 4th Amendment for motorists altogether, as well as of their privacy, and as such, is blatantly unconstitutional.

So, do New Yorkers now have to videotape themselves, non-stop, to prove a negative against allegations of police officers, that they DID NOT text while drive?

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman establishes yet another double standard in occupational licensing in New York: unlicensed dentists (with diplomas from Russian medical schools) are a danger to consumers, no matter whether their work was good or bad

Recently, New York State Attorney General has "won" a case, establishing "lawfulness" of discrimination against out-of-state attorneys licensed in New York, which restricted diversity of providers and helped keep prices for legal services for in-state attorneys high for the consumers - which, no doubt, hurt consumers, and further "won" that case on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, after his assistant, under the guise of a law professor of the Albany Law School, had an opportunity to privately talk with a U.S. Supreme Court justice while providing an "award" and a freebie all expenses trip for her in the beginning of April this year - see reports that #SonyaSotomayor "privately" met with faculty of Albany Law School, see also that Eric Schneiderman's Assistant Attorney General Kent Sprotbery is part of that faculty.

Sonya Sotomayor did not recuse from deciding whether to grant or deny certiorari to Eric Schneiderman whose assistant may have privately met with her as member of the faculty of the Albany Law School after she was granted by that school an all-expenses-paid trip and an award.

That discrimination was further deepened by a state #judgeShirleyKornrich who further expanded the definition of what the physical office required of out-of-state attorneys should mean, and struck pleadings as filed by an out-of-state attorney without a REAL physical office.

After "winning" that case, obviously through corruption, New York Attorney General has announced that he is now protecting New Yorkers, and federal taxpayers, from a huge threat - from unlicensed dentists working under the supervision of two licensed dentists.

And, New York AG claims that criminal prosecution of those scoundrels is required because they allegedly defrauded Medicaid by billing for work of unlicensed dentists - who allegedly did various dentist procedures, including drilling and filling of cavities.

Here is the NY AG press release.

Of course, based on the press release, anybody who dons a medical scrub and looks into another person's mouth can be accused of a felony, unlicensed practice of dentistry.

And, what the ardent protector of the public the New York State AG (who habitually defends public officials sued for violations of New Yorkers' constitutional rights, but that's ok, that does not contradict the AG's stance as a human rights and public safety protector) does not disclose to the public is:

• whether those unlicensed dentists, not licensed in the State of New York, but obviously having medical diplomas from Russia and Uzbekistan (where qualifications of dentists are not lower than in this country) actually provided good quality of services, and whether they did any harm to any consumers of their services - and that is the key to the question whether Medicaid was defrauded.

That's the question No. 1.

The question No. 2 is - why the double standard?

New York courts have regularly granted to other professions a right to bill for unlicensed services and upheld validity of contracts with unlicensed professionals.

Here are examples.

In 2014, Judge Kevin Dowd of Chenango County Supreme Court, granted attorney fees for unsupervised drafting by an unlicensed paralegal.  Judge Dowd claimed that the challenge to such a practice as unlawful unauthorized practice of law, invalidating the claim of fees, is "mind-boggling", because, according to the judge who testified at that hearing as an unsworn witness for the plaintiffs asking for attorney fees for services of the unlicensed paralegal, "it was always done this way".  The case is Mokay v Mokay, Delaware County Index No. 695-2007, the decision is dated June 23, 2014.

Even earlier than that, in 2008, the same Judge Kevin Dowd granted a summary judgment enforcing a contract that was void TWICE because:

1. it was drafted by an unlicensed real estate firm; and because
2. it was not drafted by a licensed attorney, thus constituting unauthorized practice of law.

The case was Gjonaj v Sines, it was upheld on appeal by the 3rd Department in 2010.

Moreover, when the unlicensed real estate firm sued the consumer - and her attorney - for not paying the real estate fee while there was no proof that the real estate firm, and its broker, were licensed at the time of drafting and enforcing the contract, and while the real estate firm adamantly refused to provide the original of the license in discovery - while the Department of State no longer had such information because of its retention policy - Judge Dowd refused to dismiss the lawsuit and allowed it to proceed into eternity, literally, until the consumer under the void contract, the elderly homeowner whom Judge Dowd stripped of her home, Beverly Sines, died.

The name of the case is Demeree Realty v Sines.  I wrote about this case regarding Judge Dowd's patterns of recusal-reentry-retaliation against me.  Obviously, for pointing out Judge Dowd's complete lack of competency.

Actually, since the real property in question was worth close to a million dollars while Beverly Sines was forced, through a void contract, to sell it for 1/3 of its price to a real estate broker from New York City, and because the Mokay case was utterly illegal, yet, Judge Dowd, a subpoenaed witness in the Mokay trial, 

• through his law clerk, also a subpoenaed witness at the trial, threatened to arrest me and force me to appear in court despite medical leave based on injury;
• dismissed the jury;
• quashed his own subpoena;
• held a closed-door trial instead of adjournment because of documented medical leave of defendant's counsel,
• accepted evidence by boxes without looking at them, then
• blocked access to that already admitted evidence by the appellant, see also here;
• gave away that evidence before the appeal was complete and thus 
• helped the Appellate Division to dismiss the Mokay appeal without review on the merits because the appellant - naturally - could not provide a complete record on appeal because he was not allowed to see a large portion of the record and because Dowd caused that portion of the record to disappear from the court custody -

and because the judgment in question that Dowd "awarded" was over $300,000, including attorney fees for ex parte communications of Plaintiffs' counsel with Dowd and his law clerk, - I have a funny feeling that Dowd is not simply dirty, but very dirty, and that he received kickbacks from the "winning" parties in both cases.

Yet, whether Judge Dowd is not or is not a dirty judge, the fact remains that there are THREE cases in New York that I know of from personal experience where the fee by:

• an unlicensed paralegal billed by a lawyer who did not supervise the paralegal's drafting of legal pleadings; and

the real estate contract drafted by

• individuals who had no law license and no real estate license

were upheld by THREE state courts:

• Chenango County Supreme Court, Gjonaj v Sines and Demeree Realty, #JudgeKevinDowd;
• NYS Supreme Court, Appellate Division 3rd Judicial Department, Gjonaj v Sines;
• Delaware County Supreme Court, Mokay v Mokay, Judge Kevin Dowd.

So, New York courts allow contracts by unlicensed professionals to be enforced - if that is so, and that is so, there are court decisions as described above, how can New York then criminally charge some unlicensed professionals, but not others, for fraud for billing for their services?

Why licensed dentists billing for services of unlicensed dentists are chargeable with fraud while an attorney (and son of a judge, Richard Harlem) is not chargeable with fraud and aiding and abetting unauthorized practice of law while charging a legal fee for unsupervised drafting/legal services of an unlicensed paralegal?

So, if NY AG wants to be consistent now, does he want to charge Richard Harlem with fraud? 

But, there yet is a THIRD question - stripping unlicensed professionals of their fee for GOOD services (and we do not know whether their services were good or not, the press release does not say anything about that) may be unconscionable unjust enrichment - and some courts did hold that denying a fee to an unlicensed individual who provided a valuable service simply because he is unlicensed, is unjust enrichment, and that regulation of professions do not operate to protect a consumer from his obligation to pay for a good service.

For example, in 1973, a California court granted recovery of fees to an unlicensed contractor by saying:

"It performed in all other respects competently and without injury to any person ... We are not involved in aiding an incompetent or dishonest artisan.  ... The defendant received full value under the terms of the contract. The licensing law should not be used as a shield for the avoidance of a just obligation", see

Vitek, Inc., v. Alvarado Ice Palace, Inc., 34 Cal. App. 3d 586, 110 Cal. Rptr. 86, 92 (1973).

So, here are the questions, again:

1. Did the unlicensed dentists - and the two licensed dentists in whose office they allegedly worked - actually provided good services to the public?  At affordable prices?  Thus protecting public health where their clients would otherwise have gone without any dental care?
2. Does New York have a right to create double standards in occupational licensing, not prosecuting and even endorsing unlicensed paralegals and their employers, licensed attorneys, for engaging in unauthorized practice of law (as demonstrated in the Mokay v Mokay case), and endorsing unauthorized practice of law and unauthorized practice of real estate profession, as demonstrated in Gjonaj v Sines and Demeree Realty v Sines cases - but somehow deciding to prosecute unlicensed dentists working under the umbrella of licensed dentists - the very same thing as the unlicensed paralegal did, practicing law under the umbrella of licensed attorney and son of a judge #RichardHarlem, of Oneonta, NY, who charged LEGAL fees for unsupervised drafting of an unlicensed paralegal?
3. And, is the unlicensed dentists criminal case actually a good case for jury nullification? 

American taxpayers were ordered by a fundraising-for-Obama federal judge to finance illegal aliens residing throughtout the U.S.

Imagine that you are a parent of an adult child.

You have been giving that adult child money, once in a while, to help the child out.

Then, at some point, you drew a line and said - enough.

The adult child then sued you and claimed to the court that, since you've been giving the adult child money all along, you should be made to continue doing it.

Imagine what an independent court would say, based on the law.

If that is an unbiased judge who would follow the law, the judge will say:  it was your parent's discretion to give or not to give you money.  It does not matter that you got used to handouts, it is still your own obligation to support your own needs.  So, lawsuit dismissed - likely, with costs and attorney fees against the adult child for the parent, for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

But, here comes Donald Trump.

Donald Trump's presidency has highlighted a lot of problems in this country, one of them - runaway courts which consider themselves independent from the law and entitled to move as their political sponsors want or in accordance with personal beliefs or whims of judges.

And that's how federal judge William Orrick ruled, here is his preliminary injunction - after, reportedly, raising $200,000 for President Obama.

The combined lawsuit of the City of San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California to block the federal government from stopping the federal funding of the City of San Francisco and Santa Clara County because these entities refuse to abide by federal immigration law highlights a lot of issues and reveals how, in reality, many businesses are financed - because the numerous amicus curiae filed in court, very obviously, do not give a flying duck about the fate of the poor, as they ardently claim, or about the fate of the U.S. Constitution.

Both the City of SF and Santa Clara County are themselves being sued for constitutional violations, and vigorously defend against such lawsuits.

They are, thus, cannot at the same time claim they are somehow advocates for the same people whose civil rights lawsuit they are vigorously opposing.

Moreover, the City of SF and Santa Clara County assert their rights under the 10th Amendment to be free from federal coercion, while at the same time forgetting that under the very same 10th Amendment states not only have a RIGHT to decide about how to provide for safety and health of their residents, but also the OBLIGATION to do that - and to finance that obligation out of their own means.

Yet, in the same way as an adult child suing the parent, the City of San Francisco and Santa Clara County (as well as public schools, police chiefs, cities and counties from other states, technology companies, non-profit corporations) claim that the federal government somehow must fund their endeavors to protect safety and health of their resident and boost economic development of states - which is totally both the right and obligation, including financial obligation, of the states.

And another thing in those strings of arguments completely falls through the cracks.  Who are they suing.

When President Trump is being sued in his official capacity - that means, every single one of American citizens, voters and taxpayers, are sued. 

Those who live in the State of California and those who don't.

Those who support sanctuary cities in California or anywhere else, and those who don't.

All of us just paid our taxes by April 15.

Judge Orrick ordered those taxes to be used for illegal aliens residing in this country, whether we want that or not, when this country's President has undertaken to put an end to that waste of funds.

Of course, a judge out of one district court has no authority to impose injunction across the country, including jurisdictions where he has no authority to act.

So, let's remember who this lawsuit is against.

It is against all of us.


To San-Francisco, Santa Clara and all other entites and businesses claiming they will suffer "irreparable harm" if federal taxpayers are not shaken up for money in their favor:  grow up.

You are not entitled to federal money.  You must generate money to fund your own programs.

Use your brains.

Attract businesses, and not with forced federal funding, but by attractive policies.

Deregulate.

Provide incentives to businesses.

Do something other than aggressively demanding funds that are discretionary and that you are not entitled to.

Judge Orrick should be impeached for:

1. not recusing from a case despite his political fundraising, in violation of his status as a judge, in favor of Obama; and for
2. making handouts to parties simply because he shares their political standpoint, even though his decision has nothing to do with the law;
3. imposing countrywide injunctions in gross excess of his jurisdiction;
4. causing abominable waste of taxpayer funds, against the will of taxpayers and against the existing law.

I am going through the mass of amicus briefs and arguments and will post a full analysis of arguments raised later on.

Stay tuned.