On the rule of law in the United States - the way the public sees it

The press relentlessly, for the second day, is discussing the supposed FBI raid based on the alleged search warrant allegedly signed by an unknown judge who allegedly allowed the search of the President's lawyer's office by the same agency that has been stonewalling the U.S. Congress for over a year as to the details of its investigation or (non-investigation) of the Clinton Foundation after Loretta Lynch met with Hillary Clinton's husband during that investigation.

Oh, well, nothing to worry there.

What makes me wonder - why wasn't still the judge's name published? 

If a judge signed the search warrant, it is the matter of public record, as well as the search warrant itself. 

Yet, despite a furious press campaign to gain public support for the raid, he actual document authorizing the raid, or the name of the person who authorized it, are kept hidden from some public - even though details are somehow leaked to Preet Bharara, who is a private citizen now, same as you and me, and who was fired by Trump (and has a basis for bias against him). 

So, hidden search warrants, hidden names of judges, politically-motivated raids on president's attorney while stonewalling release of documents regarding corrupt non-investigation of president's losing opponent in the election - what can be wrong?

And, by the way, this type of publicity is called prosecutorial misconduct - pre-trial publicity, leaks to the press - but, of course, not if the target is Trump (after Mueller said Trump is not the target - but, prosecutors have a right to lie to the public, right?).

And, of course, Trump has nothing to worry, he just has to "prove his innocence", as many illiterate commentators say, presumption of innocence be damned - for Trump only, of course.

And, let the attorney-client be damned, too. There are thousands of overnight legal experts commenting on press articles about the raid of a lawyer's office who

• tout the "crime-fraud exception" to the attorney-client priviledge,
• claim that if an UNKNOWN judge ALLEGEDLY signed on an ALLEGED document - it must be the law and it must be well-grounded;
• approve of wholesale fishing expedition of the lawyer's files regarding his clients other than Trump in order to find "something criminal" there, and
• proudly announce that they have nothing to hide, they would greet the FBI to their lawyer's office and will happily allow the FBI to search through their files - and so should everybody else.

This is the level of knowledge of the law, the Constitution and of their own rights by "We the People" in this country.

What people who are nearly dancing in the streets over the raid do not get is that this precedent is now applicable to them and their files at their lawyers' offices, too.

To hell with the law - if Trump is involved. 

And bash anybody who stands up to support the law - as a "Trumpanzee", because supporting the law that MAY benefit somebody they hate makes you a hated person and a Trump supporter.

This is not the rule of law, and not the rule of man either, this is the rule of the crowd that somebody with a lot of money (considering the press campaign) is diligently instigating. 

I did not vote for Trump, but I see that Trump - possibly - is the best thing that has happened to this country. 

At least, his election has become a litmus test clearly showing that we do not have in the United States anything close to a rule of law. 

The law is shaped, twisted and turned by the judiciary against Trump to mean what it wants it to mean, while the judiciary has absolutely no right to MAKE law - it belongs to the legislature alone, constitutional separation of powers 101.

Because of Trump, I have learned that we do not need standing to sue in federal court any more - if you are suing Trump.

We do not need any legal grounds for a preliminary injunction - and to spread it nationwide - if we are suing Trump.

We do not need to prosecute criminals, if they are not in the country legally - because that may get them deported. Hence, the number of filings in New York for felonies (a deportable crime) falls while the population (because of sanctuary city status) grows, and while those who are elected by the people to prosecute crimes choose not to do that - if they will hurt those who already broke the law by coming to the country illegally, making a joke of those who painstakingly waited, and followed the law to get admitted and to immigrate legally.

And, we have do no have a discretion in the federal government as to how to spend discretionary federal funds - that discretion can be forced, by judges, to support states who defy federal laws and harbor illegal aliens, which is a federal crime - and people are dancing in the streets and worshiping the judges.

And, we have state attorneys general who are asserting with straight faces, in lawsuits paid for by taxpayers, that the federal government may not even ask whether a person is in the country illegally, to shape boundaries of congressional districts - because asking a person whether he is in the country legally or not will somehow hurt the state's economy.

If anything, Trump's presidency has shown how easily can "the law" put on its head - and how easily people can be brainwashed to support any idea, no matter how crazy, as "the rule of law".

We can trump (pun intended) the President's discretion by replacing statutory law by judicial discretion - and that judge-made whim is called the new law that people dance in the street to support and wear T-shirts with images of judges who "DID IT" - trumped or tripped Trump.

We do not need clearance to know information regarding national security - we can replace it with a "judicial discretion" to ask Trump's lawyers, during a court hearing live-streamed on the Internet to the entire world, what are the national security concerns for the temporary travel ban from certain countries.

We do not need the right for impartial judicial review - because Trump criticized judges for bias, we can bash him, and everybody else along with him, for insisting on that right and who dares to criticize a judge.

And now, we do not need attorney-client privilege, the 4th Amendment or the right to privacy either. 

We have nothing to hide, we will gladly open our doors, our attorneys' confidential files, or bodies and our thoughts to the government - why not? We did not need those rights anyway.

And, the comments - overwhelmingly - approve of the idea that what a judge say IS the law, anything a judge says IS the law.

That is SOME rule of law, ladies and gentleman.

We arrived at a collective monarchy-by-judges, absolute, boundless, lawless, and well-supported by the subjects, no matter what the collective monarch chooses, on a whim, to do with us.

Congratulations.

This is not about Trump. It is about all of us.

And, by the way - what is the name of that judge who allegedly signed the warrant?

I get only "hahas" from commentators who claim that it was signed by a judge - and, therefore, totally legal.

Whoever knows the name, please, drop me a line.

Thanks.

Like a good old wine

This lawsuit (dismissed before it was served) is a rather amusing reading 4 years after it was dismissed.

Here is the text of the lawsuit.

It is about verification of various records pertaining to corruption in the judicial and attorney regulation (also judicial) system in New York courts.

Of course, the lawsuit was blocked.

In this case, I sued David Peebles (judge).

The case was dismissed - before defendant even appeared in it - by NDNY court (Chief Judge) in 2014.

My state law license was suspended in 2015 by state court 

My federal law license was ALLEGEDLY suspended in 2015 - because there is no public docket of the case, yet, I am listed as suspended, and Judge Norman Mordue threw me out of a case and denied me attorney fees in 2016 for 3.5 years of successful litigation against CPS because I am allegedly suspended.  Even though secret court dockets are unconstitutional and hiding court docket is considered grave misconduct and scandalous behavior for courts - but what legality means, after all, for those who call the shots?

Correct.  Nothing.

For Judge Peebles - who presided over the case where he was a Defendant, "authored" a motion to recuse without mentioning that he was a defendant in the case, and then, in 2016, together with his colleague Judge Norman Mordue, changed a statute, 42 U.S.C. 1988, and stripped indigent civil rights plaintiff of any hope of ever obtaining a representation of a civil rights attorney - in order to retaliate against me and to deny me 3.5 years' worth of attorney fees in a successful litigation against CPS on behalf of three clients.

For Monica Duffy - sued in this case for concealing records, filed another record after the lawsuit was filed, and is concealing it until now.

For Judge Mae D'Agostino - was sued for participation in a secret organization, I sought by the lawsuit to verify her participation.

The lawsuit was dismissed.

In 2016, through a FOIL request, I verified her participation in yet another secret-membership organization, New York State-Federal Judicial Council.

To this day, the 2nd Circuit is denying me information as to other judges in that Council, and access to the records of their meetings.  Since Mae D'Agostino (and other judges sued in this lawsuit) were deciding my lawsuits against judges, it was very relevant information that she did not disclose, that she may have been a member of a committee where, together with defendants appearing in front of her in a civil action, she was deciding that same civil action (fixing a court case).

And, in 2018, an attorney from California, Linda Shao, filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, filed a motion to recuse the entire U.S. Supreme Court (with the exception of its newest addition, Judge Neil Gorsuch), and went public and gave a videotaped interview to a journalist about  disqualifying conflicts of interest of SCOTUS judges based on their participation in American Inns of Court and on sponsorship by AIC of their law clerks for annual all-expenses-paid month-long trips to England, while members of AIC appeared with cases in front of SCOTUS.

A good financial incentive for judges (law clerks who routinely write SCOTUS decisions instead of judges) to please attorneys appearing in front of SCOTUS, AIC members.

Disclosure of involvement of judges with American Inns of Court is what this "old wine" lawsuit was about.

And, of course, it was dismissed as "frivolous" - thrown out as a very, very, very dangerous thing.

Think about it - she wanted information that could show the true scope of judicial corruption in the country!

Now, access to such evidence can never be safe for a commoner.

And the commoner was denied access, and then punished.

Etc. etc. etc.

This "old wine lawsuit" makes for a very interesting reading 4 years down the road.

History is created before your own eyes.

It is like reading a manuscript.

It is like a good wine.

I guess, it will make for even more interesting reading some more years down the road.

Judges like writing memoirs and boasting after they retire - or when they give various interviews, or attorneys like to boast at times in various public settings.

Internet search is a wonderful invention to search for such records.

This lawsuit, like that old good wine, is waiting for its reinstatement based on new evidence.

And, this commoner has a lot of patience.

Funny though, how scared judges are that somebody, anybody, will access just LISTS.

Membership lists.

Of an organization that claims it exists to "promote excellency in the legal profession".

The arrogant retired judge Richard Posner demeans pro se litigants and confirms that there is no federal appellate judicial review for pro ses in the U.S. - and that so it should remain

When a pro se appellant files an appeal in federal court - often with a hefty filing fee - the appellant expects a judicial review of the lower court's decision.

Little does the appellant know that no such review is to be given to him, for all his money - and especially when his filing fee is waived and when he is allowed to proceed as a poor pro se person.

The interesting part is that the judge, after 35 years on the federal bench, claimed that "most of pro se cases must fail".

And that - while supposedly advancing his new project, a law firm "protecting" pro se individuals from discrimination.

And that "judges aren't actually to read the pro se materials".

You know what THAT last statement means?

It means that if a pro se (without a lawyer) appellant files an appeal, with (or without) a filing fee in a federal appellate court, he expects a service from the court - that a JUDGE will read his materials and make a decision based on them.

But instead, the judge does not read his materials.

Instead, 1st-year law graduates, "staff attorneys", whose names do not appear on the court decision, who were never nominated by the U.S. President or confirmed by the U.S. Congress to decide judicial cases, are drafting judge's opinions and making "recommendations" as to how to decide each pro se case.

And, federal appellate judges actually do not see the original materials, but see only the chewed-up and filtered version provided to them by the youngsters.

Imagine - judges decide your appeals WITHOUT READING your arguments.

Imagine if, on a visit to a doctor, the nurse takes your pulse, vitals and some health history and then tells you that the doctor will not see you, but will rely upon the nurse's recommendations of how to diagnose you.

That is exactly what happens in federal courts - and Judge Posner, while "fighting" for the rights of pro se parties (while at the same time demeaning them by saying that most of their cases are meritless, and that they have a low IQ, just because they cannot afford an attorney and because they still try to gain a legal remedy for themselves on their own.

As to the "low IQ" of pro se litigants, the 7th Circuit supervising staff attorney quoted Richard Posner's recent book "Reforming 

Here is a fuller quote:

"whenever a judicial panel denies relief other than by issuing an order or opinion after full briefing and oral argument, the order denying relief should include an explanation of the reason or reasons for the denial. The explanation should be supplemented either by the staff attorney’s initial recommendation to the panel or by a supplemental memo by the staff attorney intended to amplify the explanation for the decision. I say staff attorney rather than judge because many (though not all) federal appellate judges don’t have the patience, or even the insight, to communicate effectively with a person (the typical pro se litigant) who lacks a good educational background and a reasonably high IQ."

Posner, Richard. Reforming the Federal Judiciary: My Former Court Needs to Overhaul Its Staff Attorney Program and Begin Televising Its Oral Arguments (Kindle Locations 576-581). Kindle Edition.

This is a judge who "awoke from slumber" after 35 years of discriminating and demeaning the poor litigants, and is not demeans them by selling a book and by promoting his own law firm that is supposed to protect people the judge demeans from discrimination.

First, Posner's "recommendation" is that when judges decide pro se appeals without reading them, through the filter of 1st-year law graduates, staff attorneys, that judges do not even have to provide an explanation of their decision to the appellant, but should simply attach a "recommendation by the staff attorney" why the decision BY THE JUDGE was made the way it was made.  So, the 1st year law graduate know better why a judge decided the case this or that way, after all, the judge's signature on the youngster's draft of the order is just a formality - not the judge, but the youngster read the appeal and decided it by drafting the order.

Second, Posner equates lack of money to hire an attorney - which is the characteristic of most of Americans - with lack of educational background and low IQ.

Imagine the arrogance.

Only a law degree equates to a proper "educational background".

If you do not have 3 years of half-baked courses consisting of reading US Supreme Court cases and listening to a law professor putting your classmates and yourself on the spot with the so-called "Socratic method" of teaching, questions and answers, you cannot be deemed educated - or of an appropriate IQ,

The judge does not obviously care that it is these "low-IQ" people who hired him as a judge and paid his salary for 35 years out of their taxes.

To equate low IQ with a lack of law degree is a special level of arrogance.

Recently, a Penn Law professor was ousted of mandatory 1st year programs for stating that African American law students never graduated in the top quarter of their class - and that was done without publishing statistics that would rebut the professor's statement.

In other words, the public outcry was because of the perceived presumption by a law professor that African Americans are less clever than non-African American law students.

There is no public outcry as to what retired Judge Posner said though - even what he said, and in the context of the circumstances, of his own background, what he said was no less offensive.

Judge Posner has been regulating the absolute attorney monopoly for court representation for 35 years as a judge.

The 7th Circuit has its own "bar" that Judge Posner regulated - as a legislator, investigator, prosecutor and adjudicator all wrapped in one.

That attorney monopoly CREATED the situation where the majority of Americans cannot afford an attorney, and produced, of necessity, the numbers of pro se litigants and pro se appeals.

Moreover, Judge Posner is part of the problem also in that his court repeatedly sustained chilling sanctions against civil rights attorneys for brining novel constitutional arguments, as it is happening across the country, sanctions that intimidated such attorneys from representation of victims of constitutional violations in civil rights cases, forcing people into a "choice" - to represent themselves in court, or to give up on even a possibility of a legal remedy.

Having caused the crisis of access to justice, Judge Posner has the audacity to now say that those people who STILL, against all odds, had the courage and determination to pursue their legal remedies in court without an attorney who they either cannot afford or who is intimidated by the prospect of sanctions for representing such people, simply for raising novel constitutional arguments in court, those people are either lack educational background or are dumb (have low IQ).

You do not have a law degree and a law license, you are "unrich" and cannot afford to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to an attorney = you lack educational background and you have a low IQ, (c) Richard Posner.

And, you are not even entitled to have a judge read your appellate documents.  A fresh law graduate, a privileged kid without any life experience, a staff attorney, will be enough of a "judicial review" for you - and the "fighter for pro se rights" Judge Richard Posner insists that it should remain this way, judges should not read pro se appeals.  After all, they are mostly meritless, and written by poorly educated and low-IQ people.

You may be a Stephen Hawking, but, without a law degree, you are still a dummy for Richard Posner.

For Richard Posner, 

So, if you cannot afford to pay thousands of dollars to an attorney, you are "lower down on the social scale" for Richard Posner - or other federal judges, and because you are a second-rate appellant, Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment or not, you will be provided a second-rate justice, you will not get a judge to read your "pro se materials", you will not get a judge to decide your "pro se materials" and you will not get a judge to even explain those "pro se materials", the youngsters whose names you will never know will do that for the judges, as a courtesy to them - to save them the unsavory task of dealing with you, your "lower social scale", "lower educational background" and "lower IQ".

I do not see outrage in the media about this blatant deprivation of masses of Americans of legal remedy by courts, where judges are both regulators of lawyers and licensed lawyers themselves, of a statutory right to appeal because they cannot afford to hire a member of the judge's own profession.

That is some sort of punishment.

You can afford to pay for the member of my profession - I will read you appeal and decide it myself.

You cannot afford to pay for the member of my profession - I will diagnose you and order your treatment without seeing you, just upon what the nurse tells me to do.

I wonder whether we need such arrogant "public servants" who establish such arrogant and discriminatory "rules".

And, as to Posner himself, with such "friends" as Posner, with his brazen elitist down-his-nose views of any non-lawyers, and especially of the indigent and pro se litigants he claims he is "fighting for" now (to sell more of his books and to remain in the spotlight), pro se litigants in federal courts do not need enemies.

Retired Judge Richard Posner's interview: only 1% of criminal cases in federal courts are tried

In early March of this year, a large interview was published with the retired federal appellate judge Richard Posner.

The interview contains so many interesting (including outrageous) revelations that it is worth dedicating it a whole series of blog articles.

I will start with statistics of trials in criminal cases in federal courts that retired Judge Posner revealed - only after he stepped off the bench, of course.

It is 1%.

99% of people locked up in federal prisons are put there without any trial and without any verification of their guilt or innocence - simply by browbeating people to plead guilty and accept some prison time to avoid the threat of more prison time if they go to trial and lose, which is a given if the quality of legal defense to the indigent is taken into consideration.

So, wrongful convictions are fabricated en masse by threats that were made possible because of maximum sentences in the mandatory sentencing guidelines introduced under the "democratic" President Bill Clinton.  To say that we have just narrowly avoided another 1 or 2 Clinton terms, and people were crying in the streets about it and some cannot stop crying until now.

About the masochistic nation that loves to dance on rakes and loves punishment. A 230-year-old warning of the King-like powers of the U.S. Supreme Court

About the power of the U.S. Supreme Court - a piece from the "Founders' Constitution" published in 1788.

"I do not object to the judges holding their commissions during good behaviour. I suppose it a proper provision provided they were made properly responsible. But I say, this system has followed the English government in this, while it has departed from almost every other principle of their jurisprudence, under the idea, of rendering the judges independent; which, in the British constitution, means no more than that they hold their places during good behaviour, and have fixed salaries, they have made the judges independent, in the fullest sense of the word. There is no power above them, to controul any of their decisions. There is no authority that can remove them, and they cannot be controuled by the laws of the legislature. In short, they are independent of the people, of the legislature, and of every power under heaven. Men placed in this situation will generally soon feel themselves independent of heaven itself."

230 years down the road, as it is described in detail in this book, published in 2016, judges exercise the exact power described in the Brutus in March of 1788 - and refuse to recuse from cases when an Act of Congress requires them to do so, because it is inconvenient for them to follow an Act of Congress, and because nobody can control their disregard of the law. 

Not only the nation dances on rakes, but it loves its own punishment - as shown by the worship of the "notorious RGB" who notoriously defies any restriction of legal ethics on her behavior as a judge, including

• fixing court cases against parties she hates,
• refusing to recuse from cases of parties whose cases in courts below she fixed and who she publicly blasted and expressed hatred about, not to mention
• accepting money from foreign nations and
• selling shirts with the judge's own image while expressing how she misses the previous U.S. President while presiding over the litigation against the current U.S. President - whom she openly and publicly hates, to the point of "choosing" her speaking addresses in such a way that the media would have an opportunity to harass the President's child.

Look at the number of "likes", "loves", comments (mostly worshipping) and shares of this image.

And all that worship of people trampling the U.S. Constitution is done in the name of loving the U.S. Constitution.

That's what Brutus could not foresee 230 years ago - that people will love for their rights to be taken away from them and will worship violators of the U.S. Constitution.

If that is so, we do not need a Constitution.

Published the first book on defense of parents in child abuse and neglect cases in New York Family Courts

I have finally published today the first of the books I have been working on for a long time - the beginning of the series "Defense of parents in child neglect and abuse proceedings in Family Court in New York".
==

Update as of March 25, 2018: Amazon.com listed the book as a "#1 new release in Parent/Juvenile Family Law"

====

Here is the cover of the book, it is available right now in both the Kindle (electronic) format, and in a paper format on Amazon.com.

As far as I know, there are no other books available on the issue of trial advocacy on behalf of parents in child neglect and abuse cases at all, and in such cases in New York Family Courts in particular.

This subject is not taught in law schools and is not tested on bar examinations, so there is no guarantee for the parent, if the parent either hires an attorney or has an attorney assigned to him in court, that the attorney actually knows this area of law - because attorneys usually learn this law by either self-teaching or being mentored by other attorneys.

This first book of the planned series is dedicated to the subject that causes the most number of fatal mistakes made by parents at the very beginning of CPS investigation, before any court case is filed and before any attorney gets into the picture - the mistake of believing the CPS that the case is "civil" in nature, that no criminal investigation is done at the same time as the CPS investigation in every single case.

Believing CPS (and police who often comes with CPS to the parent's home), parents talk to CPS, open their homes for their searches, and sign any number of papers driven by fear that otherwise the parent will lose his child.

The book provides an overview of statutes showing that proceedings in Family Court may be constitutionally characterized as criminal in nature; and, even if courts resist that characterization, provides techniques of proving to the Family Court, in the event the parent is called to testify against himself, which CPS often do, that the parent is entitled to the 5th Amendment protection, not to testify and not to be subject to contempt of court for refusing to testify.

The book has an extensive case study, with an analysis of constitutionality of court decisions, as well as with an analysis of mistakes that have caused the drastic consequences for the parent.

While the electronic format of the book does not allow a lot of latitude in providing lists of authorities, the table of authorities is included in the paper version of the book.

Buyers of the paper version of the book are allowed to get the electronic version of the book at a deep discount.

While the electronic version may be convenient to take with you on our phone or tablet without showing what you are reading, a paper book can be conveniently used by parents, law students and attorneys working in this area of law because of the listing of all legal authorities.

Statutes in this area of law are written in a deliberately confusing, convoluted way, and attorneys with large caseloads often do not have time to do the kind of research that was presented in this book.

The book contains a section explaining how to transform texts of New York statutes into a readable format to make them more understandable.  Examples of such transformations, and what such a transformation does to improve understanding of such statutes is provided.

The book contains constitutional analysis on important issues relevant to the topic of the book, criminal aspects of "civil" child neglect and abuse proceedings in New York Family Courts, including but not limited to:

• analysis of what makes a court proceeding civil or criminal in nature, from a constitutional standpoint;
• analysis of several contempt and contempt-like statute that may be used against parents by Family Courts in order to put parents in jail for "non-compliance" with various court orders, a detailed analysis, based on mandatory precedents, of constitutionality of such statutes, and of constitutionality of Family Court practices in application of such statutes;
• verification what makes a contempt proceeding civil or criminal in nature, what is the difference in mandatory constitutional procedure, and how Family Courts often confuse or misuse criminal-in-nature contempt statutes under the guise of civil proceedings;
• constitutional issues involved in forced "evaluations";
• constitutional issues involved in forced drug-and-alcohol testing;
• constitutional issues involved in court orders giving social services a blanket authority to "supervise" parents and to order them to undergo any "evaluations" and tests at all, and procedures required by the Family Court Act and by the U.S. Constitution to be followed by courts to issue such orders;
• constitutional issues involved in branding parents "sex offenders" where they were never convicted (and often were never even charged) for a sex offense, the New York State policy of such branding that comes with a requirement to separate the so-branded parent from his children;
• constitutional issues of punishing parents for inability to pay for evaluations, or for asserting their true legal status as a non-sex offender;
• constitutional issues of punishing parents for any type of "noncompliance" by separating them from their children, or by threats of such separations;
• constitutional issues involved in forced speech of parents during the "civil" Family Court child abuse or neglect proceedings - in court-ordered evaluations and in forced testimony of parents, when they are called to testify against themselves at trial;
• constitutional issues involved in presence of criminal prosecutors in Family Court proceedings and of their access to record of such proceedings and of the central state child maltreatment register;
• constitutional issues and procedures related to three types of searches in Family Court - of the parent's home, body and mind.

I hope that the book will be helpful, as a textbook and a reference in this sensitive and difficult area of law.