American men, and fathers, under the axe of a danger of fabricated sex abuse charges - at all times

Here is an interesting (and eerie) case from Oregon.

Prosecutors made a motion to recuse a judge from a sex abuse criminal case citing "a laundry list" of her alleged indiscretion, predominantly that she is allegedly "soft on criminals" and gives super-light sentences.

The prosecutors hold a grudge against the judge, because the judge acquitted a man charged with a nonsense sex abuse case against his own daughter:

To be charged for sexual abuse of your own child because:  

• the father allegedly kissed the daughter's neck; and
• the father allegedly "grabbed the child's buttock underneath her shorts"

is a nonsense charge to begin with, because reasonable doubt is spelled all over it.

There are a variety of circumstances when a parent can do both of these things without any criminal intent to commit a sex act on their own child.

A parent can grab the child either accidentally, or to prevent the child from falling, for example.

It is horrible how easily sex abuse cases may be manufactured in this country.

And, it is understandable (not in a good way) why prosecutors sought recusal of a judge "soft on criminals" - or who, apparently, may be requiring prosecutors to prosecute real charges instead of the horrible nonsense that they are making up, to the detriment of the people.

Is it ethical for a prosecutor to solicit a guilty plea from an exonerated prisoner in order to save their ass and prevent the state from being sued?

In Nevada, a man spent 29 years ON DEATH ROW - luckily, the state did not expedite his execution, as two recent cases with likely claims of innocence were.

Charles Robins, of Arizona, was arrested and went to prison, on death row, at the age of 19.

Of course, Charles Robins is black - African Americans predominate the death row population in the United States.

Charles Robins was convicted and sentenced to death for allegedly beating to death a 6-month-old child of his girlfriend.

Now new evidence emerged that the child may have died of childhood scurvy, a disease with symptoms mimicking symptoms of child abuse.

Since there is a question whether a child has died, in a 29-year-old case, where the body has long been buried and evidence destroyed - of a natural death, that is "reasonable doubt" that must prevent a criminal conviction.

But, that is not so in Charles Robins case.

He did not come out a free and exonerated person.

He came out a convicted murderer with time served.

Because prosecutors in the case considered it ethically possible to play on emotions of a person who was on death row for 29 years - obviously wrongfully - by re-charging him after the conviction was overturned, and offering him a plea bargain that he could not turn down: still plead to an unlawful killing and time served.

I wonder what Arizona State Bar has to say about behavior of prosecutors in this case?

Anything?

Is it suddenly ethical in Arizona to solicit a guilty plea to a murder in a case where reasonable doubt is spelled out by the new evidence - using the defendant's desire to get out of prison after nearly 30 years on death row?

The super-Democratic California's double-take on for profit prisons - forced labor for the poor and lavish paid accomodations for the rich prisoners

Oh, California, the land of the free!

The state suing President Trump for its right to defy federal immigration law, including criminal federal immigration law, while keeping discretionary federal funds.

The state disbarring attorneys for catching judges in corrupt schemes - like it was repeatedly done by California State Bar to:

• Dr Richard Fine, PhD, JD who was thrown in jail for nearly 2 years for correctly pointing out - and suing - Los Angeles judges for padding their state salaries with additional money from the Los Angeles County that appeared in front of them as a party, which was a clear bribe;
• Patricia Barry, the trailblazer who won in court for all American women a case protecting them against sexual harassment in employment;
• Henry James Koehler IV who has won for American fathers a right to be considered for joint custody of their children in custody proceedings by default.

The state where the California State Bar itself was stripped by the legislature of their power to collect licensing fees because of its own corruption - only to be overruled by the state Supreme Court that reinstated the money power in the corrupt State Bar.

This state has one more "access-to-justice" soft spot - for-profit prisons.

No, not only THOSE kinds of for-profit prisons where indigent prisoners are exploited as slave labor by well-known corporations, to the delight of American consumers "enjoying" the resulting "competitive" low prices.

California also has a different kind of for-profit prisons - for richer prisoners, providing for them accommodations that other prisoners do not have - for a fee.

If you want a "smaller, quieter jail", "away from prison population" - in other words, if you want to spend your time like a human being, not in an overpopulated, overcrowded and unsafe conditions - you need to pay, up to $155 a night (and those were 2013 prices).

Now the price per night is reportedly $250.

So, we have not only a for-profit prison system in the U.S. and in the "democratic" state of California, but a two-tier for-profit prison system - slavery for the poor and comfort-for-pay for the rich.

Intimidation of lawyers to not represent unpopular clients now affects President's attorney?

There have been interesting reports, from the point of view of independence of legal representation, in the context of legal representation of President Trump.

Many things have been inadvertently exposed in the legal profession and the judiciary with the election of Donald Trump.

For example:

• federal courts can now defy the U.S. Constitution each judge is sworn to uphold by disregarding the text of the U.S. Constitution and the statute and by not only filibustering federal immigration laws, but ordering the President to obey such unlawful filibustering - and the apparent corruption in such cases goes as high as to the U.S. Supreme Court;
• committing a federal felony of harboring illegal aliens has become heralded and encouraged by state attorneys general (also sworn to protect and uphold both federal and state statutory law, as well as the U.S. Constitution and powers received under it) as some kind of heroism;
• U.S. Senators incite the public against the President by asking them what is their opinion of the President while discussing unrelated topics - like legislative debates of a statute in federal legislature, which the president cannot control:

(by the way, the link leads to Gillibrand's re-election/ fundraising campaign site).

It is suddenly "in vogue" for judges to block rules of attorney discipline based on frivolous lawsuits of "in vogue" people - even if such rules are identical to the rules the same judges maintain in their own courts.

And, finally, recently the President's attorney was intimidated with disciplinary complaints in DC and NY because he allegedly gave advice to White House employees who he did not represent.

Of course, many prosecutors and judges do just the same, "advising" litigants and defendants left and right, as to which criminal defendants (that the prosecutors and judges in question do not like) not to choose.

But, nobody ever considers that a problem.

Disciplinary complaints against Marc Kasowitz appear to be clearly political - because now it has been reported that representation of the President whom the legal profession is filibustering in droves because, apparently, he upset the apple cart of seats already distributed by Clinton - at a hefty price to the "donors" - puts the entire law firm of the President's attorney "at crossroads".

Now, why is that?

Why should representation of a particular client subject an attorney to ostracism?  Aren't all people in the U.S. equal under the law?

Aren't all people entitled to legal counsel and defense?

Is not the legal profession "honorable"?

Is not attorney regulation and discipline exist only to protect consumers from attorneys who are dishonest or incompetent - which Marc Kasowitz is obviously neither?

At least, nobody tried to do anything to him until he started to do the unthinkable - represent the President of the United States.

So, now hints are heavily dropped that the law firm will be boycotted, and the "lead rainmaker" Marc Kasowitz will be "out of the picture" because of representation of the President?

Again - why is that?

Federal Judge Margo Brodie strikes at an indigent civil rights litigant - again

I recently wrote a blog about a federal #judgeMargoBrodie, a favorite of Senator Schumer, who dismissed, without disclosure of her conflict of interest (she represented New York City, the defendant in the action, in the past), a civil rights case of an indigent taxi driver because, as the judge arrogantly stated, a "state law procedure" was available for the driver - while 42 U.S.C. 1983, the Civil Rights Act, gives civil rights plaintiffs the right to choose federal court as their forum of choice, and gives a federal judge no authority whatsoever to force upon a civil rights plaintiff the choice of state court to bring his civil rights action.

Yet another case where Judge Brodie screwed an indigent civil rights plaintiff of her day in court was reported in June of 2017.

In the case Hennsler v DEC decided this month, Judge Brodie had outdone herself in incompetence and arrogant abuse of power against he poor.

An indigent woman asked DEC to approve building a residence on her inherited property in order to generate income to feed her two children.

DEC denied the request.

The woman sued for a constitutional violation.

Judge Brodie tossed out the lawsuit because she found that:

1. the woman should have pled more facts (before discovery) indicating how her constitutional rights were violated, while all records related to violations were in possession of DEC, and while Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require notice pleading and not factual pleading - which the judge has no authority to change;
2. DEC has "sovereign immunity secured by the 11th Amendment, while, of course,
1. 11th Amendment has nothing to do with sovereign immunity - as the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized 18 years ago, of which Judge Brodie is seemingly unaware;
2. 11th Amendment, by its text, does not bar lawsuits of citizens of a state against their own state, and the text of the constitutional amendment controls over any incorrect interpretation of that text;
3. New York specifically waived sovereign immunity in 1925 through the Court of Claims Act.
3. The plaintiff had available to her a "process" of contesting the denial of building permit before the DEC - thus amending the Civil Rights Act and imposing forum choice and exhaustion of administrative remedies requirement upon the plaintiff, for which the judge had no Article III constitutional authority.

It appears that abuse of power against the poor is becoming Judge Brodie's penchant.

New York Court system found 3 million dollars for summer retreats - oops, "seminars" - for judges, to teach them how to give people their "day in court"

Ok, so New York state has an ever expanding "justice gap" where majority of New Yorkers cannot afford an attorney.

For that reason, New York invents various alternatives to attorneys (like "court navigators", "Legal Hand" and the like), while refusing to abolish attorney regulation that causes the justice gap in the first place.

And, recently, New York's very Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo vetoed bipartisan bicamerally approved legislation for additional funding of criminal defense.

Yet, at the same time New York State raised salaries to judges - dramatically so, last year, while one of the reasons for raising such salaries was to reimburse the judges for their trouble of having to deal with indigent pro se defendants.

And now, New York State Unified Court system, in a completely shameless "gesture", found 3 million dollars (!!!) to fund "summer seminars" for its judges.

The 3 million dollars were suddenly found after these same seminars were discontinued for 8 years (under Chief Judge Lippman) because of budget constraints.

There are no budget constraints under Chief Judge DiFiore, the one who yelled at reporters of her corruption threatening them that her husband has personal numbers of all U.S. Supreme Court Justices.

So, the shameless "initiative" to yank judges off their "crushing caseloads" in order to lavish themselves in a Hudson Valley hotel for 4 days - to be taught how to manage those same "crushing caseloads" and give people "their day in court".

Of course, neither raising salaries for judges, not taking time out of their super-busy (allegedly) schedule to wine and dine them and teach them how to manage that schedule to work miracles like Jesus Christ and feeding 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread, will not stretch the hours or help a situation where there are more cases than the existing number of judges can ETHICALLY handle, giving all litigants as much opportunity to be heard, as is constitutionally required.

There is no way around expanding court systems and simply having more judges to handle "crushing caseloads".  3 mln of taxpayer dollars spent on "summer seminars" could fund salaries of 15 new judges, significantly relieving the caseload.

Instead, DiFiore's court system chose to pour taxpayer money down the drain and teach judges how to cut their time short to create an illusion that people had "their day in court" - by having a rushed minute in court without proper representation before a frustrated and yelling judge, case finished.

All of that to pursue "excellence".

So, now New York judges will be entitled not only to their nearly $200,000 salaries, but to additional vacation time paid by taxpayers, to be spent at luxury resorts in order to be "educated" - how to be more professional, competent and ethical.

And this feast in time of plague is, of course, done, at taxpayers' expense, to further DiFiore's "Excellence Initiative".

New York taxpayers should have no doubt where their money is going and why people are fleeing the State of New York.

Occupational licensing and the government as a con artist, or the myth of professional regulation as deterrent of self-serving professional misconduct

My common topic on this blog is occupational regulation (including attorney regulation) and conceptual inconsistencies in such regulation by the government.

Regulation of all licensed/regulated professions is declared to be done for purposes of consumer protection.

Yet, various prohibitions on regulation very often do little to protect consumers, if not outright hurt consumers, by restricting competition while providing no quality protection.

One of such prohibitions is the so-called prohibition on "mixed practice".

For example, a lawyer cannot have a joint firm with an accountant - even if it is a tax lawyer, and even if an accountant may know certain aspect of, obviously, accounting, better than a lawyer, and a consumer may benefit from such a joint practice - from its versatility and, likely, lower prices.

Also, in many states statutory laws are introduced (obviously lobbied by the already-entrenched professional elites) to prohibit "mixed services" in the medical profession, too.

One of such a prohibition has recently resulted in a multimillion verdict against a New York attorney whose offense was that he taught chiropractors how to open businesses with doctors employed or on the board of directors, while the sole ownership of the firm belonged to a chiropractor, not a doctor.

Of course, what difference would it make to a consumer other than good?

A consumer coming to a chiropractor who also employs a doctor, wins from versatility of practice and lower prices.

Not so - says the New Jersey legislature (lobbied by doctors, obviously) and now the New Jersey Supreme Court, which has a self-serving interest to uphold such a scheme as a legislator of regulation for attorneys, and of similar "mixed service" prohibitions for attorneys.

The legislative purpose of the prohibition, as the court explains, is that a chiropractor, as the sole owner and employer of a doctor, cannot be allowed to influence medical decisions - that would constitute insurance fraud per se.

The decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court, which came out after long years of litigation on May 4, 2017, may very well be a retaliative knee-jerk reaction of the court against a New York attorney, simply because he was a New York attorney, for the simple reason that New York declared its right to discriminate against New Jersey attorneys (who may live closer to Manhattan than the majority of New York-residing attorneys), and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a lawsuit challenging constitutionality of that discrimination.  On April 17, 2017, by the way, 17 days before the New Jersey Supreme Court retaliated against a New York State attorney.

This exchange of slaps, obviously, did not help consumers.

New York consumers of legal services, where the justice gap is a re-iterating lamentation by the NYS Court system, are only hurt by discriminatory laws against out-of-state attorneys, reducing the number of providers.

Similarly, New Jersey consumers of chiropractor and medical services are only hurt when chiropractors are prohibited to hire willing doctors to work in their offices.

Moreover, the New Jersey Supreme Court missed the obvious 1st Amendment implications where an attorney, on a lawsuit of an insurance company no less, is ordered to pay for the alleged fraudulent content of lectures about business structure aimed to provide better, cheaper and more versatile services by willing licensed providers to willing competent consumers of such services.

When this whole country is in uproar about who was elected as President and what is going to happen with healthcare, this case, brought by an insurance company, somehow fell through the cracks and is overlooked, yet, it has a drastic impact on the end prices and quality and scope of services for consumers - and, as to prices, both paid by insurance and out-of-pocket.

Yet, the whole prosecution, from the standpoint of the declared purpose of occupational regulation by the government in order to protect consumers, makes absolutely no sense, and, more, exposes the sham of occupational licensing as lobbying privileges for privileged professions.

First of all, nowhere in the court decision is there any proof that such schemes hurt consumers and lead to providing substandard services.

The whole statutory scheme of insurance fraud through "mixed services", or "doctor in a box", as it is often called, are based on a presumption - that a chiropractor, a person with a "lesser license" and training than a doctor, will improperly influence a doctor in his employ.

The lawsuit involves THREE licensed occupations:

1. lawyers;
2. chiropractors; and
3. medical doctors.

All of these professions are regulated by the government in order to protect consumers.

All of these professions have their own ethical codes and disciplinary procedures.

All of ethical codes prohibit unethical conduct.

All of ethical codes prohibit to act outside of the licensed professional's competency.

Thus, the PRESUMPTION that a licensed chiropractor will necessarily:

1. act outside of his competence in influencing medical decisions of a doctor, and
2. will actually influence a licensed medical doctor who will violate his own ethical rules in order to cave to a chiropractor who is his employer -

defies the whole need for licensing regulations.

If individual licensed doctors are presumed (by the insurance fraud statute) to readily cave to influence by AN employer (no matter, a chiropractor or not), what difference does it make, what license, if any, that employer has?

Is it better that an individual medical doctor is FINANCIALLY influenced in his MEDICAL decisions by another doctor?  By a whole bunch of medical doctor - a hospital board?

Because, if the law PRESUMES that doctors will be easily sways by those who pay them in their medical decisions, in violation of their licenses, we do not need to license doctors, because such licensing is useless and only raise the cost of medical services, which is already sky-high and unaffordable to many Americans.

But, the law does so presume.

Same as it presumes that a lawyer may not engage in a "mixed practice" with an accountant, for example, for the same reason that it will be then presumed that the lawyer will violate his ethical rules and provide services not in accordance with his INDIVIDUAL licensing obligations, but looking only at the bottom line. 

And so will do the certified accountant - who is also a member of a profession regulated by the government, and is also governed by his own individual ethical rules.

As it often happens, the desire of the government to deliver a quick slap to a "sister state" - or for any other political reason - reveals more than the government wanted to.