To gag a criminal defendant, so that she would not talk about organized crime in the government. The case of civil rights attorney-whistleblower Connie Reguli, Tennessee

I have so far published two articles about the case from Tennessee where an attorney, Connie Reguli, and her client, a mother of minor children whom attorney Reguli has returned to the mother - twice - from the clutches of social services, are charged with felonies (a convenient vehicle of automatic disbarment against civil rights attorneys) based on fabricated charges that they have violated an ex parte order of Judge Michael Collins that was made 1 hour 13 minutes before the lawsuit was filed, and thus, constitutes, under the Tennessee law, a nothing, a useless piece of paper.

The articles can be read here and here.

I am far from being the only one who have published articles about Connie Reguli.

The interesting thing is though that usually in criminal cases defendants remain silent, and there is a rampant smearing and jury-pool-tainting campaign by prosecution that judges (usually, themselves former prosecutors) do not even try to restrict or forbid, due process of law be damned.

But, in this case, Connie Reguli had a large community of parents and activists doing what the government refuses to do - fighting corruption and fabrication of cases by social services in order to separate American families, traumatize children, rip them away from their parents and sell them, for federal grant money, into adoption by strangers.

What the state of Tennessee does is - it matched nearly year for year Connie Reguli's victories in court against social services and especially her addresses against judicial misconduct and misconduct of social services in the state Legislature with disciplinary complaints and disciplinary decisions.

It coyly pretends that it preserves Connie Reguli's privacy by not indicating what the complaints or most decisions are about, while listing each filing publicly - and thus attempting to ruin her reputation.

So, attorney Reguli does this?

Exposes judicial misconduct?

The state attorney monopoly, run by the State Supreme Court does to her - first, this



while - mind - Tennessee Constitution prohibits all monopolies,

 and attorney monopolies - run for attorneys by attorneys without - are also illegal under federal antitrust law, civil and criminal -

but who cares about the state Constitution if judges want a monopoly to control attorneys?

What a judge wants, a judge gets - as is shown in the case where Judge Michael Collins signed a meaningless piece of paper, outside of any court proceedings, the Sheriff took 2 children from a mother following that useless piece of paper, the hereditary judge Hollars refuses to vacate it claiming - falsely - that she had no authority to forbid enforcement of that useless piece of paper:

and instead

• takes a trip with the social services-friendly guardian ad litem Sarah Cripps to a political event (prohibited for sitting judges, but who cares where free drinks and food and free political promotion for the soon-to-come re-elections are offered by an attorney of record in a case who can drum more money from a case if it goes for a longer time, and will drum even more money if she roots for social services and gets assigned more to such cases by social services-friendly judges like Michael Collins, and
• when caught, threatens the mother that she will lose parental rights if she does not fire the pesky attorney-whistleblower, and
• later, when the mother does not fire the attorney and the attorney wins children back for the mother, directs fabrication of criminal proceedings against the attorney who dared to embarrass the judge with a motion to recuse (at least, information leaked by the DA to the press cites(omitting Judge Hollars' name or that the statement was made during a hearing on a motion to recuse - which the judge has granted).

When "just" disciplinary proceedings did not stop attorney Reguli, the state has fabricated a criminal case against her (as a utilitarian tool of automatic disbarment) and her client ( to intimidate parents into not hiring her - following direct order of the hereditary judge Amy Hollars where

1/ hereditary titles are also prohibited by the Tennessee Constitution, and
2/  the Governor is supposed to "faithfully execute the laws", including this prohibition on hereditary titles -

but who cares about the state Constitution that both the Governor, the judge-father and the judge-daughter (as an attorney) are sworn to uphold when dynastic career prospects of a family member of a government elite is concerned?

The Governor Phil Bredesen just went ahead and created such a hereditary judicial seat for attorney Amy Hollars, daughter of Judge John Turnbull, and allowed her father to resign from his judicial position with a condition that his position will be "given" to his daughter.

Pesky laws and especially pesky Constitutions should not interfere with friendships between great people, don't you think?

But, well, ruining Connie Reguli's reputation did not appear to be such an easy task for the, let's call a spade a spade, organized crime in the Tennessee government trying to destroy a powerful and knowledgeable attorney-whistleblower.

So, the organized crime in the state government attempted to destroy her livelihood and reputation in another way - with a felony conviction and automatic disbarment which would follow a felony conviction.

And even then, Connie Reguli did an unconventional thing - instead of exercising her 5th Amendment right to remain silent, when faced with a smear campaign in the media organized by the DA's office which conveniently leaked to the press

Judge Hollars' "advice" (threat) to Wendy Hancock, Connie Regulie's client that if she does not fire Connie, she will lose her kids (at that time being kidnapped by social services with the help of Judges Cook, Collins and Hollars), the threat made during a hearing on attorney Reguli's motion to recuse Judge Hollars because of her misconduct, ex parte communication and apparently receiving tangible ( inviation to an event with free food, alcohol and live music) and intangible (political promotion for purposes of re-election) benefits from the guardian ad litem in the case, attorney Sarah Cripps,

 she went all out and called out witnesses of prosecution in public live Facebook streams, mocking them and listing their egregious misconduct that she promised to sue them for - especially that the case against the mother fabricated by social services of DeKalb County, a corrupt guardian ad litem Sarah Cripps, and several corrupt judges, Michael Collins and Amy Hollars among them, against her - was dismissed, so nothing precludes that lawsuit procedurally.

Since the defendants did not behave conventionally, timidly shutting up and allowing the prosecution to taint the jury pool for her long before trial, the prosecution and those who pull the strings behind this fabricated criminal case, started to pull other levers of power.

The prosecution filed for a gag order - in a criminal case! - against Connie Reguli and her client, the mother - to have the court prohibit them to talk about the case.  The prosecution, of course, will preserve their right to talk about the case and taint the jury pool the way they want it.

Of course, the Williamson County DA is also a public servant sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Tennessee.  He knows that prior restraints on speech are presumed unconstitutional under the 1st Amendment, and especially where, like here, he has brought a criminal proceeding against a person who has been suing his county and the DeKalb county for years in federal court, and where he has already tainted the jury pool by his own leaks about the case to the press - that Connie Reguli has a due process right to counter-balance.

The DA also knows that the Tennessee Constitution

1.  declares courts as being open to the public;

2. declares the indictments to be brought only for "peace and dignity of the state" - not to help corrupt public officials retaliate against an attorney who keeps winning against them and keeps publicly exposing their misconduct in public hearings in the state Legislature;

and

prohibits the government of the state of Tennessee, including the judge the DA asked to impose a gag order, to violate rights guaranteed by the Tennessee State Constitution:

That's what the DA has sworn his loyalty to - the Tennessee Constitution in its entirety, and that's the reason he received his commission as the DA in the first place.

The Tennessee Constitution also very clearly tells the government who is the master in the state - by law, and it is not the government.  It is the people, who give the government only a LIMITED power to act on the people's behalf - and only for the people's benefit, not for their detriment.

What the DA does, acting as a member of organized crime group to frame a whistleblower-civil rights attorney and her client - he KNOWS that it is illegal.  He KNOWS that it is unconstitutional.  And, because of litigation by Connie Reguli against the Williamson County the DA is serving, on behalf of a client for putting a juvenile in solitary confinement where he was sexually assaulted (twice) by a jail employee, an extremely embarrassing occurrence, especially for "defenders of chidlren's rights" - he also knows he is absolutely disqualified from bringing criminal proceedings against attorney Reguli.

He should not be able to escape prosecution for his crimes simply because he knows a gal or two in the high places.

I will continue to cover this story.

Stay tuned.

The basis of indictment against Attorney Connie Reguli of Tennessee - or, rather, lack thereof. Part II

The case against Attorney Reguli, see my first blog in this series here, is in the nature of contempt of court proceedings, since it is based in its entirety on the mother and attorney supposedly disobeying a court order.

After her own investigation, according to the mother's application for certiorari to the higher court seeking to have the ex parte order vacated, attorney Reguli has found out that the ex parte order of removal was signed not only in the wrong county by the wrong judge (three jurisdictional defects - wrong county, no order of recusal from a proper judge, no order of appointment of the signing judge), 

but also at a very wrong time. 

The alleged court order in question is the order of Smith County Judge Michael Collins in a DeKalb County Juvenile Court action - before the action was even started, so Judge Michael Collins (never sanctioned for his egregious misconduct in this case) is some kind of a magician predicting that the case will be started and, just as well, signing an order of removal of two children from their mother before the case was started - why not?

Those are all important jurisdictional considerations, but the main one was - the judge cannot even consider any applications (motions) for orders, ex parte or otherwise, in an action that was not yet officially started, not filed with the court.

What I am posting here are excerpts from the mother's application for a writ of certiorari to vacate Judge Collins' illegal ex parte order of removal of her children.

This application was filed on August 28, 2018.  The ex parte order was signed on August 13, 2018.

A hearing on an ex parte order of removal of children - because it is an extraordinary measure - must be given the next day.

By the time the mother filed the application for a writ of certiorari, 15 days after signing of the order, she still did not have a hearing.

The timeline is like this:

August 8 and 9, 2018 (Wednesday and Thursday) - the police talks to the children and the mother and does not remove the children;

August 10, 2018 (Friday) - a police officer tells the mother's attorney that he sees no emergency

August 13, 2018 (Monday) - at some point during the day social services, without filing the petition with the court clerk,  approach Judge Cook of Juvenile Court, DeCalb County (who represented the father of the children in some previous child support and domestic violence proceedings).  

It is early time for Judge Cook to even consider a recusal, procedurally - because the petition was not yet filed, and the lawsuit is, thus, not yet commenced.

So, Judge Cook does not enter an order of recusal.

But, social services do not want to follow the law, to first file a petition, create a court record, and only then seek an application for an ex parte order - which is the lawful way to do it.

Instead, they engage in a shameless judge-shopping.

They go to another county, where they find Judge Michael Collins, a Recovery (drug) court judge, and a judge who, according to his Facebook page, is a devout churchgoer, advocate for the children and who has a disabled child of his own (one of Wendy Hancock's children is disabled).  

They allege, all through hearsay, drug use and dealing by the mother and physical abuse of a child by the mother (which was all dismissed later after a full trial), pull at the judge's heartstrings - and voila - he signs an application in a nonexistent court case, so that social services can happily go back and now file the already signed court order, together with a petition, in the Juvenile Court of DeCalb County.

The order tells them to serve the mother, to give her notice of the next day's 10:00 am hearing.

They do not do that.

The next day Judge Collins holds a hearing ex parte, without any evidence on file that the mother was served with the order, "takes testimony" of one of the children under oath, and then fails to audio-record it or create any records in the file that such a hearing was held.

That's Judge Collins' second misconduct in the case.

Then, Judge Collins blocks the mother's attorney from accessing the records in the file until and unless she files a written notice of appearance - which legally constitutes a waiver of service, at the direct request, which the judge admitted, of DCS attorney Catherine Pack, practically acting as an agent of DCS in the proceeding.   The third instance of judicial misconduct.

And then, Judge Collins recuses from the case on August 20, 2018 - without ever giving the mother a hearing on his illegal ex parte order of removal.

The mother then prepares with her attorney Connie Reguli an application to undo the ex parte order through the so-called "Rule 10" application for a writ of certiorari.

The higher court denies it by saying that you cannot file such an appeal before the final judgment in the case and dumps it back to the trial court.

Eventually, there is a full trial of the case, and the case is dismissed, thus making the already void ex parte order of judge Collins a nullity once more over.

Now, AFTER the case was dismissed, after attorney Reguli has won Wendy Hancock's children back for her - for the second time - the District Attorney of Williamson County indicts both the attorney and the mother for violating that same many-times-dead ex parte order of Judge Collins - which was 

1. made in CLEAR absence of all jurisdiction when it was signed (before the lawsuit was started), 
2. without an order of recusal of the court's proper judge (another jurisdictional defect), 
3. without an order of appointment of Judge Collins by the Supreme Court of the State of Tennessee (another jurisdictional defect) and 
4. which was made moot and a nullity because the whole case was dismissed in the mother's favor.

Nothing like using the full power of the state to beat the dead horse some more - and to harass the mother and her attorney who, despite all odds, despite all illegalities in the case (and there is a much longer list than  was described above and in the previous blog article of this series) - keep winning against the almighty government.

Harassment of an attorney by the government with a criminal prosecution for successful and diligent professional services looks pretty much like what they do in 3rd-country dictatorships, so, there.

I would also want to point out what I DO NOT see - which should be reasonably expected under the circumstances of this case, based on history of such cases in other countries, including 3rd-world dictatorships.

I do not see attorney solidarity.

I do not see attorneys standing up for one of their own, who is repeatedly persecuted by the government for successfully and diligently doing her job for her client, winning cases against the government and for suing that same government.

Apparently, bar associations in the State of Tennessee and individual colleagues of Attorney Reguli prefer to sit out the storm in the bushes, waiting to see who will win in this battle of taxpayer-backed Goliath against David.

In other countries, for your information, dear "colleagues", attorneys would have already hit the streets with demonstrations of protests, forcing authorities to drop the bogus fabricated charges against attorney Reguli and her client, but I understand, you are afraid for your own hide (scratch that) law license and will never stand up for one of your own, especially knowing that attorney Reguli is in cross-hairs of the government because she has pissed off several powerful judges in the area, regulators of law licenses of all attorneys in the state.

Nope.  No solidarity.  You will be watching how the government is trying to eliminate one of their own with the help of fabricated charges, hoping that the same cup will miss you.

That's a Russian roulette, folks, and a shameful one.

Yet another attorney is in the cross-hairs of corrupt CPS, judiciary, police and prosecution - the case of attorney Conney Reguli, of Tennessee, Part I. The mortal sin

It has been noted by many researchers that the U.S. attorney regulation and justice system is structured as a religious order.

Judges are gods or, at the very least, "ministers of justice", attorneys are their missionaries, expected to do PR for judges before the voters, in exchange for the judge's good attitude, favorable decisions - well, in exchange for business and livelihood.

Consequently, criticism by an attorney of a judge, in this religious framework, is the equivalent of heresy, and a sanction for heresy - well, in the modern liberal times it is not burning the culprit at the stake, but it is an ex-communication of sorts, stripping the attorney of his or her profession.

The scenario to do it has been polished to perfection by the judiciary - usually it starts with small sanctions, then the amount of sanctions rise, if the attorney does not "take heed" and start behaving as the judiciary is expecting him/her to behave, more serious sanctions follow - and then the judiciary simply takes the attorney's right to work as an attorney.

Of course, attorney regulation is portrayed to the public as introduced to protect the public from bad attorneys, but usually bad attorneys remain in the profession because they have good relations with the right judges, and good attorneys who have usually bad relations with dishonest judges, are removed from the public's reach as providers of legal assistance.

The public does not realize that it is being robbed of the rare gems, attorneys who engage practically in self-sacrifice, daring to criticize judges, in full knowledge that such criticism may lead them to loss of profession, reputation and to starvation.

Of course, attorneys are not usually stripped of their license bluntly for catching a judge in misconduct, the wording is usually much more elaborate and opaque, and represents a PR-action for the public.  Usually, some reasons are found to discredit the target attorney in the eyes of the public, to make sure that the public does not support that attorney, and to discredit the attorney's account to the public as to what is going on in the judiciary.

As to media coverage - the media that has no compunction in discussing the size of the President's genitals or his marital relations with his wife - comes to a standstill in so much as mentioning a judge's name, if a judge is involved in a certain "juicy" case of disciplinary or, even more juicy, criminal sanctions pending against an attorney.

A judge has to commit an act of violence on camera in order to have the media to mention the judge's name, and even then, looking at the video, the media will say - an "alleged" act of violence.

And even then - here is what a mainstream media source will say:

See, no actual footage of this pre-eminent, polished, beautiful lady trying to - literally, physically - strangle a court employee, a man, for not preparing her court docket documents on time.

And, it took the State of Florida a month to suspend a violent judge.  For a month court employees and the public were exposed to the risk of being assaulted and possibly murdered by her.  

You realize that if the court employee, on the other hand, that if the court employee, the victim, tried to strangle the judge on camera, he would have been immediately arrested, handcuffed, put in jail and immediately indicted.

So, with that in mind, let's consider what happened two days ago in yet another Southern State, the State of Tennessee, where a female attorney, Connie Reguli, and her client Wendy Hancock were criminally charged, the attorney - for "custodial interference" and "accessory after the fact", for her professional activities in representing a client, an EXTREMELY rare case.

Of course, mainstream media jumped upon the juicy news - and in its coverage provided, among other things, the following account:

this

and this

So, instead of saying, as responsible media should in reporting on a just-initiated criminal case, that both defendants are presumed innocent under the federal and state constitutional law, the media conveniently pre-smeared attorney Reguli and her client, Wendy Hancock - and paid more attention to pre-smearing the attorney rather than the mother, her client.

The media MUST know that criminal defendants must have a right to a fair trial - and, therefore, the media should be careful in its reporting not to create a bias that interferes with such a right and not to taint the jury pool in the are.

Yet, the taint has been already created.  Information about Connie Reguli's arrest warrant, surrender and indictment went like a wildfire through many media sources and the social media.

At the same time, note that the mainstream media coverage, while practically putting a bull's eye on attorney Reguli by the insinuations of "history ... over complaints of misconduct" and especially over the judge's derogation of her in front of her client - it carefully avoids to mention two things:

1. the name of the judge who said it; and

2. the circumstances under which the judge has said what she has allegedly said about the attorney in front of the client.

Let me eliminate that little mystery.

The judge in question is judge Amy V. Hollars, 

a Democrat, daughter of longtime judge John Turnbull, 

and a treasurer of the Tennessee Bar Foundation, holding the purse string to the enormous amounts of interest accruing of mandatory trust accounts of attorneys registered in the state - a VERY powerful person in the State of Tennessee even before she has ascended to her judicial throne.

Imagine the connections, the power of her father, to have the State Governor to openly engage in nepotism by "selecting" out of applicants to Judge Turnbull's judicial position - his own daughter.  Moreover, Judge Turnbull did not even retire - he RESIGNED, voluntarily surrendered his judicial position as a judge - to promote his daughter's career, which the then Governor of the State of Tennessee Phil Bredesen wholly approved, allowed and endorsed by his appointment of Amy Hollars to take her father's throne, quite like heirs of monarchy are inheriting their parents' thrones.

Imagine now the combined power of these two judges - if they want attorney Reguli's head on a silver platter - which they appear to want all right, judging by the coverage.

Hence, the newspaper and the DA's office appear to be doing the judge's bidding in (1) hinting that the attorney and her client are being criminally prosecuted because a judge is displeased with them, with the attorney especially, but (2) spare the judge embarrassment of mentioning her - and preventing further digging of the public as to what may be possible retaliatory motives of the judge against Attorney Reguli in this situation.

The circumstances as to when Judge Hollars supposedly told attorney Reguli's client's this:


are also very … well, peculiar.

Judge Hollars said that during a hearing on attorney Reguli's motion to recuse Judge Hollars after attorney Reguli has caught Judge Hollars in misconduct:

1) in engaging in a political activity - prohibited to sitting Tennessee judges by the state Constitution; and

2) fraternizing, and possibly engaging in an ex parte (without presence of other attorneys, a type of bad judicial misconduct) communication, with the guardian ad litem (attorney for the children) in the very case where attorney Reguli represented Wendy Hancock and was fighting for her parental rights to her children and against the children's removal from the mother's custody by social services.

I have reviewed the motion to recuse, with names of the children redacted out.

The political activity mentioned was the speech of Judge Hollars at Democrats' "Reorganization Convention" where attorney Sarah Cripps, guardian ad litem in the case - appointed into the case by Judge Hollars - personally introduced Judge Hollars at that Democratic party as a speaker.

Now, an attorney has to have a lot of nerve and a very close social connection to a judge to be able to personally approach a judge with a suggestion that she will introduce a judge at a political rally.  A regular attorney without a personal relationship with that particular judge (friendship or otherwise) simply cannot pick up a phone and call a judge presiding over a case where the attorney is appearing, with a suggestion to come with that attorney to a party of any kind, much less a political party, and to be introduced there by that attorney.

In the U.S., any person who goes to court as a party is entitled to a fair and impartial judicial review, for a judge who is neutral, is not biased against that party and is not favoring any other party in that same case.

The right to a fair and impartial judicial review is guaranteed to every party in American courts by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Moreover, litigants have a right not only to an actually fair and impartial judge, but also to an APPEARANCE that the judge is fair and impartial.

Let's look what we have here.

Judge Hollars was in some kind of a close social relationship with attorney Sarah Cripps whom she appointed as guardian ad litem in a case (with compensation by from Tennessee taxpayers), in exchange for which Sarah Cripps invited Judge Hollars to be a speaker at a "Reorganization Convention" of a Democratic party with live music and free food and drinks 


Believe me, judges, no matter how well paid, are suckers for free food and booze, I observed it personally when I was studying in Albany Law School in New York.  Judges of trial and appellate courts, state and federal, were invited regularly by the law school administration to lavish catered parties with food and alcohol in the law school's foyer, that was called "networking".  Whole judicial panels - New York State Court of Appeals, Appellate Division 3rd Deparment, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York - appeared without fail for these freebies.

So, the judge had an exchange of favors with a guardian ad litem in the case (a bribe "in kind", in plain English) - and should have recused the moment she agreed to that exchange, but she, of course, didn't.  Judges never see appearances of improprieties.

So - attorney Reguli pointed those appearances out to Judge Hollars, actually not even in so many words as I am doing above.

Attorney Reguli, in her motion to recuse, just pointed out that there is an appearance of impropriety that the judge is participating in political activities prohibited by the State Constitution, and is doing it at the bidding and with assistance with the guardian ad litem in the case.

That was actually enough for Judge Hollars to grant the motion to recuse - but not before she has dumped a bucket of her bile upon attorney Reguli, the culprit who has made that motion to recuse, and upon her client.

Now, you need to understand, my dear readers, that in the U.S. making a motion to recuse may be already enough to for the judiciary to get so pissed off that the attorney's law license will be yanked.  It happened like that, let's say, to attorney Christina Mires from Lousiana - even though she has proven the judge's conflict of interest and criminal conduct (inserting, with the help of a specially hired digital editing firm, a piece into an audio file of a court hearing) with sworn testimony of the technician who was doing the insertion.

But, note once again what Judge Hollars told attorney Reguli's client at the motion-to-recuse hearing:




Judge Hollars was so upset that somebody dared to tell her, judge and daughter of a judge, treated as blue blood who is always above the law her entire life, that she committed misconduct - that she has crossed all possible ethical boundaries and, despite granting the motion to recuse and stepping off the case (an acknowledgement that she cannot remain impartial in the case), she berated an attorney to a client, publicly, in court, in front of judicial personnel and on record - and saying that attorney Reguli is allegedly "simply launching ANOTHER attack upon the judiciary and they /sic/ system".

"Another attack upon the judiciary", huh?

Here is what she means.

In 2010, attorney Reguli testified to the Tennessee State Senate about egregious misconduct of a judge, after which three more judges complained against attorney Reguli to the Board of Professional Discipline:

After that, in 2015, she was disciplined by the Board of Professional Discipline - which is PART of the same judiciary that she was publicly criticizing and exposing in the Tennessee State Senate.

Attorney Reguli did not take the hint and continued to expose judicial misconduct in family courts in the State of Tennessee - those same courts that "separate families", take children away from their biological parents and adopt them out to strangers in exchange for federal incentive money, I've written about the federal statute that provides an incentive for doing it 5 years ago, here, nothing has changed since then, the statute is still on the books, other than that I myself was stripped of my law license, "coincidentally", right when the federal civil rights case where I established a precedent against warrantless searches by CPS for parents in 32 New York State counties was scheduled for a jury trial in federal court.

In 2016, attorney Reguli sued Judge Sharon Guffee and her court clerk for denying her access to records that she was entitled to by state law.

In 2017, a complaint was filed against attorney Reguli by Judge Sharon Guffe because HER CLIENT went to the General Assembly to speak about judicial misconduct and to try to promote legislation that would put regular people on the boards dealing with judicial misconduct and judicial discipline:

You can look up on YouTube how many public appearances Connie Reguli has made from 2010 to 2019, always speaking about the ongoing crisis in the CPS system fabricating cases against parents, ripping children out of families, and about complicity and outright misconduct of the state judiciary helping CPS in those "efforts".

 And, note the most relevant date to Judge Hollars' outburst regarding "another attack on the judiciary" and to the criminal charges filed against Connie Regule - her testimony to the Tennessee legislature on February 26, 2019, two months before the hearing on the motion to recuse against Judge Amy Hollars in Wendy Hancock's case.   

Consider, WHAT EXACTLY Judge Hollars tells the mother - that, since her attorney "attacks the judiciary AND 'the system'" - meaning, social services - the mother should better get rid of her, OR ELSE, or her children will be taken - this threat is very thinly veiled, that continued representation of Wendy Hancock by Connie Reguli may affect "the interests of your children about reunification":


The judge is practically admitting that social services is a member, and a favored member, of the judge's own advocacy team - and, remember, the judge is saying this WHILE LEAVING the case, as a farewell kick.

Well, Connie Reguli disclosed that that was not all - apparently, the judge was so fumed up that she could not contain herself from 

1. going back to her chambers,
2. taking off her robe after that hearing,
3. coming back into the courtroom in her regular clothes (which she usually does not do, exiting from her chambers by another exit), 
4. sneaking behind Connie Reguli, and
5. hissing nasty words about Connie Reguli behind her back.

The judge acted like a fishwife - but, remember, she did not kill anybody, YET, and so, her name or misconduct is not even mentioned by mainstream media in connection with her case.

Consider, on top of everything, that the object of proceeding pending in front of Judge Hollars before she recused was misconduct of yet another couple of judges - 

1. the judge whose SECRETARY directed social services to file for an illegal ex parte order of removal of Wendy Hancock's children in another county, knowing full well that it was illegal; and
2. the judge in that other county who signed an illegal ex parte order after it landed on his desk at the end of the working day not only without territorial jurisdiction, but also not passing through the court clerk's office, the regular procedure.

No, of course, the local media cannot possibly do what honest journalists do - and actually report facts, with all the gory details, no matter how high are the people who are involved in misconduct.

And, consider, that Connie Reguli is a rare gem of an attorney.

She started practicing law late in life, entering the legal profession as a mature adult, not a star-crossed girl who would take any disrespect, any garbage from a man or woman sitting up high on the judicial bench.

She enters an emotional realm of CPS cases that where not many attorneys dare to venture - and not only because they are targeted, as I was, as Connie Reguli is now, by disciplinary and criminal authorities (in my case, CPS and judges "friendly" to CPS tried to fabricate a child neglect case and take my child, then to concoct criminal charges several times against me, and finally succeeded suspending my law license for making a motion to recuse a corrupt judge Carl F. Becker - who has since run from the bench in 2015, before my suspension, amid a triple investigation of the New York State Comproller, the New York State Judicial Commission and the FBI).

Many attorneys simply do not want the emotional turmoil of dealing with parents whose children are ripped out of their arms, sometimes literally, by social services and the police, often on fabricated charges.

It is very challenging emotionally to live on top of a power keg every minute, being not only an attorney, but also a grief counselor all the time - and being constantly up against people who have much more power than you do.

Connie Reguli has the guts and determination to do that for people - FOR YEARS.

Consider also that, in the United States, as an unwritten government policy, defense of parents against CPS is not taught in law schools.

There are no such courses, no such textbooks, this subject is not tested on bar exams - and, as a result, the public is deceived into believing that any attorney with a law license who they hire or who is assigned to them by court has been properly trained and tested in this subject and knows what he or she is doing, while the law license has no guarantee whatsoever that the attorney knows anything at all on the subject of defense of parents against CPS.

Laws in this area, on the opposite, are multi-layer, complex, technical, convoluted and require not just a knowledgeable attorney, but a super-knowledgeable, and super-assertive (aggressive) attorney, to break through the usual barricades of misconduct and corruption and money interests present in such cases and win for their clients their own constitutional right to have their children with them, not sold out to strangers by CPS as an adoption mill.

It is, thus, government policy to - not teach, and intimidate, and eliminate those attorneys who teach themselves and excel in representing parents in such cases.

This is not "crisis at the border" where everybody who is anybody flocks in mock outrage to "represent children, separated from their families".

Here, parents separated from their children get no good representation.  Assigned attorneys are usually those who feed off such cases and will not be assigned again if they do anything good for the parents and against CPS.

And, when the state is trying to convict and then disbar Connie Reguli, and discredit her in the eyes of the public - make not mistake, it is not Connie Reguli who is the main target here.

It is you, the public, you, parents and your children, from whom the government is trying to shamelessly and unlawfully steal a knowledgeable and courageous attorney who has been, for years, EFFECTIVELY fighting CPS and corrupt system of judges, prosecutors and police that have teamed up with CPS to get millions of dollars in federal grant money.

Fighting for you and on your behalf.

Not to mention that she has at least two lawsuits pending against the County that is prosecuting her now, an irreconcilable conflict of interest.

For further account of conflicts of interest and details of Attorney Reguli's lawsuits against the local (and now aggravated) judges, police and CPS, and about misconduct of public officials in this case - stay tuned for the next article in this series.

In view of New York's atrocious decision in the case People v Giuca - a proposal of discovery reform in criminal proceedings: why is it necessary to introduce attorney depositions, with witnesses subpoenaed by attorney subpoenas, in criminal proceedings

I have published a law review article today on Academia.edu, comparing criminal procedure in Russia and in the U.S., the state of New York, listing instances of legislative and judicial pro-prosecution bias in such proceedings.

The article also contains 

• a table comparing discovery rights in civil and criminal proceedings in the U.S. (State of New York),
• a description of how an attorney deposition works in quasi-criminal proceedings, 
• description of government policies backing up the widest possible discovery proceeding, and 
• a legislative initiative, a proposal to fairly apply that existing government policy in criminal cases and to transplant tools of discovery available to prosecution in criminal cases and to attorneys for both sides in civil cases, for defendants in criminal proceedings.

The article was inspired by the decision of the New York State Court of Appeals in People v Giuca, of June 11, 2019, where the NYS COA, its Chief Judge, former career prosecutor Janet DiFiore, stepped completely outside of her jurisdiction that does not allow her court to decide issues of fact - and reversed a reversal of a criminal conviction, reinstating it - while the reversal of the lower appellate court was based on atrocious misconduct of prosecution in the case.

A good description of what has happened in that case is contained here.

Not to mention that there are two "golden kids" involved (I will run, time permitting, a separate article on conflicts of interest in this case) as murder suspects, and not only they are not investigated or prosecuted by the Brooklyn DA's office, but 

1. one of them is employed by that same DA's office as an Assistant District Attorney (after her father paid a big chunk of money into the election campaign of the DA), 
2. the other got out scot-free after his mother, a vice-president of the local Republican Election Committee, provided a certain privilege to the DA in his election campaign, 
3. that same DA office hired as an Assistant District Attorney the son of the presiding trial judge who refused to vacate the conviction despite obvious evidence of prosecutorial and juror misconduct,
4. one of the judges involved in prosecutorial misconduct related to the case, but outside of the case, became an appellate judge who reviewed appeals from the case;
5. one of the prosecutors involved in prosecutorial misconduct herself became a judge; and
6. the main prosecutor who was involved in prosecutorial misconduct in the case is running a TV show now and made her TV career and ratings on her own misconduct in the case.

Were attorney depositions available from the very beginning of this criminal case (and of many others) to John Giuca's criminal defense attorney, they way such depositions work in quasi-criminal cases, as my law review article shows,  the prosecution would never have been able to dupe the defense and get a wrongful conviction of John Giuca.

There is no reason why such an instrument, already available in civil proceeding, should not be available to the criminal defense in criminal proceedings.

The Iron Man will not be jailed. On the desperate efforts of the attorney monopoly to claim it is still in control

On June 28, 2019 a remarkable thing happened in the God-blessed state of California.  Or, one more remarkable thing happens - California, especially of late, is home to a lot of "remarkable" things.

But, this one is truly unique.

The California State Bar, faced with the reality of existence and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in provision of legal services, and with the resulting reality that legal services may be provided by AI-based platforms through the Internet, from beyond the U.S. borders, and from beyond the reach of enforcement of the so-called "unauthorized practice of law", drummed up a "task force" on the use of AI.  

And, this task force fell flat on its face in making some interesting, and public admissions.

Here is the agenda and recommendations of the "AI Task Force" of the California State Bar:

Note the very first point that the AI Task Force is making:

"Recommendation: The Task Force does not recommend defining the practice of law."

Huh?

Unauthorized practice of law in California is a crime.  

All government regulations - as the U.S. Supreme Court has said LONG time ago, must be CLEARLY defined by STATUTE (not by court "rules").

You know why?  

The U.S. Supreme Court provided several reasons for it.

1.  If a law is not clear, it does not give clear notice, prior to conduct, to an average citizen how to lead a law-abiding life, what the citizen may or may not do.  Ex post facto laws are prohibited in this country by the federal Constitution.  A person may not be charged and punished if the government publishes an explanation, on a case by case basis, of why it was wrong to engage in a certain conduct, only after that conduct occurred.  

In this case, when "the practice of law", the CORE element of the crime of unauthorized practice of law, is not clearly defined, NOBODY can be charged with that crime, because nobody, including the regulators of the practice of law, know what the heck it is.

Thus, the California State Bar has acknowledged to the public that nearly for 100 years it engaged in an unconstitutional regulation of the practice of law, violating rights of the public to freely choose their consultants, document drafters and court representatives, and the rights of those providers to freely earn their living in their professions.

2. If a law is not clear, it does not give a clear directive to the executive and judicial branch as to how to enforce and apply it, allowing them to put into that law what they think it is - which is exactly what is happening with how the regulation of the "practice of law" is occurring - across the country.  

3.  And, third, since people normally prefer to stay out of prison, and when they know that the executive and judicial branch is applying a certain vague law in an ex post facto manner, on a case by case basis, so there is no way to predict whether doing a certain thing will or will not land you in prison, people try to censure themselves and restrict their lawful and even constitutionally protected activities, in order not to upset authorities and not to cross invisible lines drawn by authorities at a whim and backwards, in every case.

Acknowledging it is like shooting yourself in the foot - voila, dear public, we have been robbing you and putting you in jail for nothing for 100 years, rejoice.  

That this revelation is also made by a professional monopolistic organization that embedded itself into the government (California State Bar is a "branch" of the top state court) and blocks people's choice of any other court representative, or document drafter, or law consultant, than members of that organization - because they are the best, the most competent - is, in fact, proof that the claims of super-competence by this organization, as a basis of its monopoly, is false advertising.

Moreover, the idiots not only acknowledge that what they have been doing for 100 years is unconstitutional - but that they ARE prosecuting people criminally based on something they cannot define, and that they will now magnanimously give exception from prosecution - to an iron man, the AI, while it is not possible to jail software anyway.

Big of them, isn't it?

Also, consider that the idiots actually publicly acknowledged that they deem themselves LEGISLATORS as to what does or does not constitute a crime in the state of California.  All other crimes are defined by legislature, and only crimes against attorney monopoly are defined by the monopoly itself - constitutional rules of separation of powers and clarity of statutory laws be damned.

By the way, to institute a monopoly of any kind in the United States is also a crime - a federal crime.

But, attorney monopoly exists for 100 years, while its regulators are never prosecuted for this federal crime because - TADA! - FEDERAL prosecutors and judges, through their STATE law licenses, are all under control of that same monopoly.  Moreover, the majority of state and federal legislators are, too.  That is the "separation of powers" to you, the monopoly way.

But, but, but, but.

History is a sardonic bitch.  It allows travesties to continue, often for a long time, but then it nixes them - often in a very laughable way.

That laughable way history is nixing attorney monopoly is the whole reason why the AI Task Force was even created by the California State Bar.

Guess what - with the current level of technology the Iron Man does not need the magnanimous permission of the California State Bar to do what California State Bar cannot define, and to do it under the strict control of the California State Bar.  

The Iron Man can advise the California State Bar a variety of activities to entertain themselves with and do what the California State Bar fears it will do:

Putting such venture capital-funded AI startups outside of jurisdictions having attorney monopolies of their own, or agreeing with the U.S. to enforce or extradite those who are accused of violating the U.S. attorney monopoly - on a private island, for example - will topple attorney monopoly in the U.S. once and for always, without any need for legislative reform that is not possible, given that the majority of legislators are lawyers, and are thus, under control of that monopoly.

An island in the ocean and an AI startup fed by venture capital.

Very doable.

California State Bar standing in the way of a hurricane and pretending it allows the force of nature to hit just a little bit, here and there, but not everywhere - is a joke.