TL;DR and fraud perpetrated by law professors in law review submissions for purposes of self-promotion - a problem at the core of consumer-duping with the notions of presumed integrity and competence of licensed law school graduates for purposes of establishing attorney monopoly on court representation

As I have been writing in this blog for several years, attorney regulation in the United States is a scam established for one declared purpose (protection of consumers, with the exception of the illiterate, unemployed and criminal defendants), but existing for quite another - establishing and protection of the monopoly of the legal profession for the "practice of law" services which nobody knows what it is because what constitutes practice of law is not clearly defined in any jurisdiction across the United States.

The usual contention of proponents of attorney regulation (which did not exist in the present form until the economic crisis, The Great Depression of the 1930s when attorneys started to aggressively protect their turf from competitors when numbers of paying clients increasingly shrunk) is:

1. consumers need to be protected from incompetent and unscrupulous lawyers;
2. with attorney regulation, consumers at least know that by hiring a licensed attorney, they get a provider who meets the minimum requirements of competency and integrity, plus is under disciplinary rules.

First, being under disciplinary rules (under some punitive law) does not prevent that law to be broken and does not make people who are affected by the law any more honest.

Had it been to the contrary, we would not have had murders, thefts or other crimes prohibited by the Criminal Code. 

We somehow have enough rationality not to presume honesty in regular people because of existence of a Criminal Code, so, by the same logic, there is no basis to presume honesty in providers of any services simply because there exists a disciplinary code.

Second, as I wrote before, law schools do not provide the necessary training to practice law in the areas of the greatest need:

• civil rights litigation;
• evictions;
• family court litigation in:
• custody;
• child neglect and abuse proceedings for defense of parents
• divorce litigation;
• foreclosure litigation;
• consumer debt litigation;
• prisoner conditions litigation.

Third, law licenses given by states to attorneys are general law licenses allowing attorneys to practice in all areas of law, even those for which they never took courses in law school and never were tested on the bar exam.

For example, defense in child neglect/abuse proceeding (a very complex area of litigation involving constitutional parental rights and rampant fabrication of cases by social services in order to get government funds for operation) was never, as far as my research could reveal, on the bar exam, so when a consumer hires (or is assigned) a licensed attorney in child neglect or abuse proceedings, the consumer may be assured that the attorney WAS NOT taught this subject in law school and WAS NOT tested on this subject in the bar exam.

The only "seminars" law schools hold on this subject, as far as I know, are taught by prosecutors and social workers, from the point of view of prosecution, and those seminars are not mandatory law school education.

Nor are there mandatory law school courses on defense in eviction proceedings, consumer (credit card) debt, foreclosures, civil rights litigation or any other issues affecting the poor, in areas where the "justice gap" in the U.S. is the worst.

Fourth,

• reciprocity agreements between the majority of states in the U.S. allow attorneys to get admitted, after 5 years of practice in one states, without a bar examination testing the law of the other state, while
• licensing information does not reflect whether a particular attorney was admitted with or without a bar exam, and
• attorney admission information is private and not disclosable to consumers on Freedom of Information Requests (I tried in New York, and will run a separate blog as to our exchange with the New York State Court Administration).

So, when hiring a licensed attorney, a consumer cannot be assured, simply because an attorney has a license, whether he or she has taken a bar examination at all, and whether the attorney took courses in law school in the laws of the particular state at all.

Fifth, in view of

• unemployment;
• rapidly shrinking middle class,
• shrinking market of paying clients of legal services,
• shrinking employment market for attorneys,

the number of high-quality students applying to law schools is also shrinking, causing some law school deans to blame the supposed "toughness" of the law exam (not the student material law schools accept in order to get government tuition loan money from them), see here and here.

In view of those shrinking numbers of good incoming law students, it would be unreasonable for consumer to expect good product being miraculously made by law schools out of bad raw material.

But, there is one more problem, a core problem that was not so far in the limelight, and was not so much considered and addressed by the public:

Sixth, the quality of the law faculty.

Law professors are presumed to be law experts.

They are allowed to file amicus briefs with courts, testify before Legislatures in order to lobby for or against certain laws and/or candidates, their collective "letters" for or against certain initiatives, or for or against certain ethical violations of public servants, are widely regarded by the public as statements by presumed oracles of truth - they are professors of law, after all.

A just-published article by a law review articles writing practicing attorney from the State of Wisconsin, Michael Cicchini, brings light as to that previously unexposed area of attorney regulation.

After all, even with good initial material in law schools, no good product (law graduates) can be produced without a good faculty, and the worse the incoming raw material (law students), the better should be the law faculty in order to be able to bring law students up to fit the requirements of the law in order to protect consumers rights and justify attorney monopoly for "the practice of law", including court representation.  In other words, right now, with the declining quality of incoming law students, law professors must be miracle workers to turn that bunch around in order for them to pass law exams which previous generations of law students passed without much ado - and without law school deans blaming the testing system for their own enrollment errors.

So, how are the law faculty, who are now supposed to be miracle workers expected to make, let's say, something out of nothing, or, without such extremes, good product out of bad, or worse-than-before quality raw material?

Wisconsin attorney Michael Cicchini describes, in excruciating detail, the process of law review publication - which is used by law professors for self-promotion, and by law schools for informing their hiring and promotion decisions for law school faculty.

So, here is how it works.

First, there is an impression that nobody in the process of hiring/promotion of law professors, or publication of law reviews, reads anything - because there is too much to read and too much work to do.

The attitude of "TL;DR" (too long, do not read) is familiar to me from how courts operate - for a disfavored party (and courts are increasingly political nowadays, which is now openly acknowledged, and results in fiery debates in appointment hearings of even U.S. Supreme Court justices, so there is nearly always a favored and a disfavored party) you either did not provide enough information to rule in your favor, or you provided too much information, so that the amount of your information causes the judge a headache to even think of reading it, so the judge:

• states in an ex parte meeting with other parties that she has such a headache, refuses to recuse and recognize that she said that and lies about her statement in writing, then recuses when a motion to vacate her decision is made, and then reenters the case by assigning biased judges to fix the case for her, who also do not read anything because there is just too much evidence to read (judge Mary Rita Connerton of Binghamton, New York); or
• claims it is inappropriate for a litigant to even submit too much information - on a motion to recuse no less - to make the judge to "sieve through" all of that evidence against him (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York alleged magistrate - alleged because no order of reappointment was made after his term expired - David E. Peebles, the case is Neroni v Grannis in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, Case No. 3:2011-cv-1485); or
• accepts evidence in a trial by boxes in seconds without looking at it in the absence of a party, and, after losing jurisdiction over the case which was subject to an appeal, then prohibits access to those boxes by the appellate attorney and appealing party and, while that prohibition is in place, allows that same evidence to be taken out of the court record during the pendency of the appeal, so that the party who introduced the boxes can derail the appeal by claiming that the appealing party did not introduce the evidence that the claimant himself has stolen from the record - that is Chenango County Supreme Court judge Kevin Dowd and the now-appellate judge Robert Mulvey, New York State.

So, apparently the legal education, the institution that must produce licensed attorneys, those legal service providers with presumed competence and integrity, the very presumed competence and integrity which justifies attorney monopoly and criminal laws against "unauthorized practice of law" even if there are not enough licensed attorneys who would be willing to provide legal services affordable to the majority of the American public, adheres to the same principle of TL;DR.

Law professors are hired and promoted on TL;DR basis: nobody reads their publications, but everybody looks at their resumes whether they HAD publications in law reviews of "higher-ranked" schools.  If they had, they are hired automatically.

It should be noted that law professors are also the only professors whose publications are:

1. accepted for publication not by peer-reviewed magazines ("peers" being scholars of the same level), but by yet uneducated subordinates, LAW STUDENTS (all law reviews are run by law student editors and staff), those same students who:
1. pay tuition (and law professors' salary out of that tuition); and
2. who are dependent on law professors in grading and recommendations decisions (especially where, for law review editors, such recommendations may be for clerkships with judges that may spearhead their careers, income and influence for the years to come), so their own future career depends on favors of law professors;
2. who are not required to have a PhD degree to teach in a grad-school level university (law school).

So, the level of scholarship in law professors may be lacking based on:

(1) educational level of professors; and

(2) educational level of the uneducated subordinates whose decision it is to accept or reject a law review article for publication.

According to Michael Cicchini's article, law professors usually need to submit publications to higher-ranked law schools (to student editors of law reviews of higher-ranked law schools) in order to be TL;DR'd into better, more lucrative, more paying, more politically influential, positions (to be hired or promoted by better law schools).

Law review student editors of higher-ranking law schools also have too much work on their hands - daunting law school courses, as well as supposedly reading thousands of submissions from wannabe professors who want their law review articles to be published for self-promotion purposes.

So, higher-ranking law review editors also cut corners and TL;DR those submissions, they accept for publication only those submissions for which lower-ranked law schools already made offers - likely, without reading.

So, obtaining offers from lower-ranked law schools becomes a priority for law professors in order to receive "expedited review" and have their publications TL;DR-accepted for publication by a higher-ranked law schools, in order to be TL;DR hired or promoted in the future.

The lower-ranked law schools, thus, become a stepping stone for self-promotion of law professors (from all law schools), so lower-ranked law schools will continue to recruit students no matter how bad the incoming material is, because they are the necessary part of law professors' self-promotion game.

But, lower-ranked law review student editors are also overwhelmed with publication requests (majority of which is openly fraudulent, where law professors apply without any intention of ever being published in a lower-ranked law review, and, if the trick of soliciting a better offer from a higher-ranked law school by using an offer from the lower school does not work, professors simply decline to publish in the lower-ranked law school, preferring their supposedly "valuable" law review article to rather never reach readers and die, rather than be published in a "lowly" and non-prestigious place).

So, in both low- and high-ranking law reviews, law school editors are approached by their own professors, or professor friends of their own professors, and are "recommended" to take this or that law review article for publication.  And, given how dependent law review student editors' careers are on grading and recommendation decisions of their law school professors, law review student editors TL;DR offers of publication to the desired professor candidates.

That is fraud.

But that is not the entirety of fraud.

Moreover, some professors skip even that, and simply fake the lower-ranking offers in order to obtain an "expedited" upper-ranking publication - and, according to Michael Cicchini's law review article, published online, professors claim (anonymously) in their own online forum that there is nothing wrong in such forging and that, given the stakes, every law professor should do that - which says a lot about ethics of law professors in general.

According to Michael Cicchini's research of law professor online forums, it has become a set custom for law professors to submit their law review articles simultaneously to at least 150 law reviews at the same time, fishing for better offers in order to advance "up the food chain".

In order to sieve out not only bad submissions, but also fraudulent submissions meant only to solicit an offer in order to use it to get a TL;DR offer at a higher law review (see the practice described above), many law schools require submissions of law review articles to be made through paid submission systems - Scholastica,

charging $6.50 per each submission to each law school law review, and ExpressO,

charging $3.10 for the same.

150 (at least) submissions times $6.50 = $975.00

That is the cost of submission of one article by one law school professor to 150 law schools. 

Most law schools cover these costs of submissions of articles, passing these costs to the already overburdened-by-loans law students.

Professors accept that perk, and abuse it rampantly by making submissions PAID by law students to law reviews where professors never expect to accept an offer - professors waste student money for a chance to move up the ladder and use the potential offer from a lower-ranked law school in order to submit to a higher-ranked law school.

That waste of law student money is not made in order for the publication to see the light of day and reach the public (which is, I am sure, how covering such costs for law professors by law schools is presented to law school boards of trustees, and the low per-submission cost, just $6.50, or just $3.10, is used for that purpose, too). 

On the opposite, law professors, after having wasted that money and after having received those offers, decide not to publish their work at all, if their trick of using the offer as a stepping stone for a better offer in a higher-ranking law review does not work.

Let's also recognize that many law schools are state universities existing on taxpayer money and having their tuition rates subsidized by state taxpayers, and that many other law schools are public charities existing on tax-exempt donations.

So, taxpayers and law students are duped by law professors into paying for their self-promotion games, in order to get lazy employers to hire them without looking what exactly they published, just by looking at the rank of publishing law review.

Consider that

• nearly all law school professors are also "lawyers in good standing" in at least one state bound by ethical rules (that is a hiring requirement, you can verify it by searching any jobs search engine, like, for example, Indeed.com, for job requirements for law professors), on top of being bound by rules of ethics of not doing harm to students and engaging in good faith scholarship, not just self-promotion for money;
• that by submitting, at the employer's (law students') expense articles for publication that the professor knows is false - where the professor is soliciting an offer without ever meaning of publishing the article in that law review, the professor commits fraud upon his employer, the law school to which it is submitting the publication, and the law students who fund his submission fees; and,
• that many professors participating in that fraud are professors of legal ethics, setting an example for other students how to behave in their for lifetime careers.

The end result also is that student law review editors (those who then become lawyers and list the fact that they were law review editors in their law school as a point of advertisement and self-promotion until the day they die) who are supposed to be an example for the rest of the law student body, learn very early on, before even becoming licensed attorneys, that ethics in the legal profession are reduced to convenient declarations, and swept aside when ethics stand in the way of self-promotion for financial reasons.

And, the end result is, from this practice there arises:

• a presumption of DIShonesty and lack of competence of law professors, who are hired not because of the true value of their "scholarship" had any value, but because they managed to brush considerations of ethics and honesty aside and "move up the food chain" in law review publications, including by:
• waste of public/students' money;
• using their position of power over law student editors to elicit offers for themselves, or;
• openly forging low-ranking offers in order to cut through the chase and have their article submitted on "expedited review" to a higher-ranking law school, not to be published in general, as in - getting their word out their into the marketplace of ideas for the public to see, but to be published by a higher-ranking source in order to promote themselves in terms of their personal financial well-being and influence;
• and a presumption of DIShonesty and laziness of law school faculties hiring just based on publications in certain high-ranking schools mentioned, without reading them, and a presumption of DIShonesty of law school students who are law review editors and who later become law clerks to judges and judges.

One medicine may be valuable in this regard: exposure.

Since law schools provide a public benefit - prepare lawyers who ensure, as part of lawyer monopoly, access to court which is a constitutional right of every American and non-American located on American soil - they are all subject to Freedom of Information Laws.

Law schools are financed from the following sources:

• tax exempt private donations - where the tax exemption is subsidized by the government, thus subjecting the law school using the subsidy to FOIL requests;
• state funds (for state law schools) - and then funding of such schools are public records as direct funding by the government;
• law school students' tuition, most of which comes from government-subsidized student loans - thus, also subjecting the use of such funds to state and federal freedom of information laws.

I believe that each professor's law review submission costs, subsidized by employer, is FOILable, and then can be comparable as to where the professor actually did publish his article.

Also, since professors are funded in their submission costs by their employers, their scholarship is part of the school's own self-promotion, and all offers to publish are also subject to FOIL.

Then, offers to publish and costs may be compared with professor's own listed publications - which each professor proudly places on his public resume, in order to see which offers the professor used to go "up the food chain", which law school students the professor overburdened and used as stepping stones, and how much law student money the professor wasted on submissions.

Moreover, law students may use FOIL as tool to verify, before they pay their tuition and before they apply to various schools, as to what percentage of their tuition will be paid to cover this fraudulent practice.

I am considering to start filing such FOIL requests with law schools, and will, of course, publish any responses.

Stay tuned.

Punishing people for misconduct, Georgia style - the State of Georgia is tough on a criminal defense attorney for reasons unrelated to quality of his services - while continues to allow #ThiefJudgeBrendaWeaver to run loose without discipline

Misconduct, of course, should be punished.

And, the public should be protected..

And, the state of Georgia vigorously protects the public.

Kind of.

The State of Georgia just disbarred a criminal defense attorney  #KeithBrianHarkleroad because he had the audacity to handle a criminal jury trial for a client while not being "in good standing" for the following supposedly egregious reasons:

1. he was late in paying licensing fees that year, and
2. only obtained 6 CLE credits out of 8 required for the reporting period.

None of the "offenses" were of any moral turpitude.

There is no correlation between the number of CLE hours an attorney obtained and performance in court.

The attorney "substantially complied" with CLE requirements - having completed 6 out of 8 CLE hours.

None of the attorney's "transgressions" involved dishonesty, incompetence, or misconduct of any kind towards a client.

Yet, the decision is - professional death.  Disbarment.  Permanent loss of reputation and livelihood. The public is protected from a competent defense attorney, I guess, the State of Georgia has a lot of them to spare - a penny a dozen.

At the very same time, #JudgeBrendaWeaver who was caught last year in instituting a fabricated criminal proceeding (since dropped, after a public outrage), with the help of her own former law clerk - turned prosecutor against a journalist and his attorney for seeking public records that would reveal racist conduct of one judge (who ran from the bench) and Judge Brenda Weaver's own shenanigans in misusing public funds and trying to cover it up - remains at large, not charged for any crime (because who will charge her, her own former law clerk and co-conspirator?)

Just recently U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara lamented that he knows how the Moreland Commission (on public corruption) felt when disbanded by NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo after it started investigating Andrew Cuomo.

Of course, it was Preet Bharara himself who refused to prosecute Andrew Cuomo for disbanding the Moreland Commission when the Moreland Commission started to investigate Andrew Cuomo.

Here, the State of Georgia - by duping the public to answer trickily posed questions at a referendum - disbanded the Judicial Qualifications Commission when it started to investigate its own Chief of Commission.

Moreover, after

• Judge Brenda Weaver was forced, by public outrage, to recuse from the position of the head of Judicial Qualifications Commission (that investigated her at that same time),
• that Commission was dissolved through a duped public referendum on the initiative of a state senator, who is himself a former judge who ran from bench amid allegations of misconduct; and
• a supposedly newer, more independent, cleaner Judicial Qualifications Commission was put in place,

it was headed by Benjamin Easterlin

who was a member of the previous, now disbanded, Commission from 2002 to 2010.

While Easterlin has reportedly retired as of February 1, 2017 from his previous employment, the law firm of King & Spalding, he still lists himself as working there on his LinkedIn profile as of today:

Meanwhile, King & Spalding employs an attorney Jenni L. Weaver who bears a striking resemblance to Judge Brenda Weaver:

Intellius search claims that Jenni L Weaver has a relative by the name of Brenda Weaver:

Fannin County officials (where the whole saga took place about Judge Weaver fabricating criminal charges and jailing, with the help of judge's former law clerk-turned-prosecutor, a journalist and his attorney) confirmed, according to my sources, that Jenni L Weaver is Judge Brenda Weaver's daughter.

So, good luck expecting that the new, independent, transparent and reformed Judicial Qualifications Commission will now investigate all complaints pending at the time of disbandment of its predecessor - including the complaint against the #ThiefJudgeBrendaWeaver - instead of reciting the Mowgli pledge:

"We be of one blood, ye and I".

Remember how some people were trying to protect Judge Weaver and badmouth victims of her misconduct last year.

Nothing changed.

Judge Weaver is still in saddle, not charged, not by state authorities, not by the FBI, and certainly not disciplined.

The new Commission is now headed by Judge Weaver's former colleague of many years, and a recent employer of Judge Weaver's daughter.

So, the Mowgli pledge "We be of one blood, ye and I" is the beginning and the end of "protecting the public" from misconduct of licensed attorneys (judges included) in the State of Georgia.

Judges "supervising their own dreams" at jury trials - Kansas style

In an interesting case from Kansas, a criminal conviction after a jury trial was overturned because the judge was - literally - sleeping during portions of the jury trial.

The sleeping #judgeBenjaminBurgess,

a longtime former prosecutor, was reportedly a former ethics attorney for Koch Industries and a former U.S. Attorney.

Count on an "honorable" expert in ethics to nap while presiding over a criminal jury trial. 

What is even more interesting was that there was a dissent.

One judge, a longtime former prosecutor #MichaelBuser, 

opposed reversal of conviction claiming that the defendant was not prejudiced when the judge put in their to supervise the trial, was, as the majority opinion put it, was only supervising his own dreams.


Count on a former prosecutor supporting his brother - former prosecutor - no matter what he does.

But, here is a question - if a criminal defendant was not prejudiced when the presiding judge was sleeping at the trial, why do we need judges at the trial?

Maybe, we eliminate them altogether - that will make things so much easier? And without any prejudice...

New York State Appellate Division 3rd Judicial Department and its struggle with the best evidence rule

Today I read a schizophrenic case from New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division 3rd Department that correctly applies the best evidence rule - but puts in question prior decisions of the same 3rd Department on the same best evidence rule.

The best evidence rule is the rule of evidence requiring production in court of written document, if certain rights may only be established through written documents, and not through oral description of those documents or of those rights.

The 3rd Department has an interesting and politically tainted history with the best interest rule.

In 2012, New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division 3rd Department refused to vacate the plea of a criminal defendant where the defense counsel never properly appeared in the case by written notarized consent to change counsel, as required by law.

Of course, the defense counsel who screwed the case by obtaining a plea of a legally blind defendant to an A2 felony through stating (twice, on record) that he drove the truck where drugs were found while somebody else did, and received a speeding ticket that was in the record of the case - that legal genius was, "coincidentally"the former Vice-Chair of New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct Stephen Coffey, who sat on that Commission with the 3rd Department Chief Judge Karen Peters and dismissed, together, my complaint against Judge Becker based on misconduct in that same case, without recusal because of personal financial involvement (fee litigation) in that same case.

Whether an attorney is, or is not, attorney of record, is defined in New York only by written documents:

1. notice of appearance,
2. order of assignment of counsel, or, if there was a prior counsel in the case,
3. notarized consent to change counsel, CPLR 321(b).

Coffey had none of that, but, given his cozy position with judges, he obviously did not need to comply with any laws.

And, even though settlements negotiated by attorneys who are not officially attorneys of record, are void in New York, Coffey's plea bargain imposed upon his legally blind client was upheld by Coffey's "buddy court".

4 years later, in 2016, the 3rd Department affirmed the dismissal decision (with sanctions, attorney fees, anti-filing injunction and a threat of criminal prosecution) of a "3R" (#RecusalReentryRetaliation)judge James Tormey.

In that case, Judge Tormey refused to distinguish between two court cases - one in which I was an attorney of record after the judgment was entered, and another - where I was never an attorney of record, and claimed that attorney Jonathan Follender (also a judge in justice court in Town of Denning, Ulster County) was
not expected to know, for purposes of Judiciary Law 487, fraud upon the court, and defamation claim, whether I was or was not an attorney of record in the 2nd case.

In fact, determining that "complicated" issue was a no brainer:

1. I never physically appeared in court in the 2nd case (with a separate index number);
2. was never hired to represent anybody in that case;
3. my supposed clients in that case appeared their pro se;
4. there was no notice of appearance filed by me in that case with the court and
5. I told attorney Follender, orally and in writing, ever so many times, that I was not hired that case and was not representing anybody in that case.

That did not preclude attorney Follender from running his mouth that I am not appearing, did not appear, abandoned my clients etc. - which eventually led to a lawsuit for fraud upon the court and defamation against attorney Follender which was fixed by attorney Follender and the 3R judge Tormey who claimed that:

• attorney Follender had absolute JUDICIAL immunity from suit under Judiciary Law 487 in a case where he acted as a private attorney (a decision that Judge Kevin Dowd immediately refused to apply in my husband's case claiming it is only "dicta"); and
• that it was impossible for attorney Follender to determine whether I was or was not attorney of record, so my lawsuit against him for defamation and fraud upon the court for running his mouth and claiming that I am attorney of record in the case where there was NO BEST EVIDENCE, no written notice of appearance indicating that I was attorney of record in that case.

So, in this case, and especially because Tormey sent the decision over to be used in my disciplinary proceedings, reason, law, as well as the best evidence rule, all disappeared.

But - voila - the best evidence rule now re-appeared in the least expected of all cases, a prisoner discipline case.

On March 16, 2017, in the Matter of Lawrence George Wilson,  the best evidence rule suddenly reappeared, when the same court overturned discipline of a prisoner based on a "mail watch" (procedure where prison officials watched outgoing correspondence of the prisoner)  - because the mail watch could only be established by written permission of the prison's superintendent, and there was no such written permission given to the prisoner or included into the record.

The court rejected transcript of oral testimony of an investigator claiming that there was such permission given, insisting that, if the law requires that mail watch to be established by a written permission, and there is no such thing in the record, discipline based on a procedure not established through that required written document must be annulled.

The best evidence rule, therefore, got resurrected by the 3rd Department - of course, in that case, no criticism of judges, critics of judicial misconduct, attorneys "close to the body" of judges or claims of judicial misconduct or bias were involved.

So, it was safe to apply the law.

The circus of 3R's - recusal, re-entry, retaliation - continues, now with #JudgeBrianBurns the #PacherilleCaseHero in the ring

I wrote on this blog some time ago about the rule of 3R's - recusal, reentry, retaliation - much practiced by New York State judges.

There is a new development in the history of the "3R rule", but before I go into that, some history of the 3R rule in the same case.

3Rs 3JudgeCarlFBecker style

In 2009, the then-Delaware County and Family Court judge Carl Becker recused from a case involving myself and my husband.

In 2011 Carl Becker re-entered cases where my husband and myself were parties and ruled against us.

In August of 2012, Carl Becker recused from my cases again.

In September of 2012, Carl Becker re-entered two of the cases in order to:

• filibuster an appeal where his illegal sanctions were discussed; and
• hurt my other client with a decision that was materially different from the one that he has read after the trial in court several months before the recusal.

2 state appellate courts:

• the Appellate Division 3rd Department, and
• the New York State Court of Appeals, and

and two federal courts:

• the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York;
• the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, and

did not consider this behavior as improper, unconstitutional, retaliatory or violating my rights and rights of my clients (and that is just that issue, without considering the actual evidence of bias, personal involvement in the case and ex parte communications with parties and counsel).

In 2014, when I filed a motion to vacate Becker's sanctions based on new evidence, Judge Frank Revoir out of Chenango County was assigned to one of the cases Becker mishandled (and where he sanctioned me for criticizing him, and without disclosing conflicts of interest), yelled at me that advancing constitutional arguments in Family Court is the equivalent of lying.  New York Commission for Judicial Conduct did not find anything wrong with that behavior.  Revoir then recused, and Judge Connerton was assigned.

Judge Connerton is a bigot who found it appropriate, even when she was forced to dismiss the case brought against me and my husband by Becker's buddy William Moon in retaliation for me making a motion to recuse on behalf of a client (not my friend, just a client), because Becker did not disclose his representation of Moon and personal knowledge of Moon (petitioner in child neglect cases) for 27 years before coming to the bench.

Of course, as it was recently reported, judges in New York are not disciplined even when they directly discriminate against people based on their language disability, as it happened when four (!) judges out of Queens County, New York (New York City) scolded jurors for not knowing English enough to sit on criminal juries

(which involves perception by ear of oral testimony in the English language and perception and memorization of jury instructions, the law read by the judge sometimes for up to an hour),

one of the judges went so far as to telling jurors that if they are disqualified for not knowing the English language (a "language disability" protected by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act), the judge will order them not to be paid for that day off from work, even though they had to come and would have been prosecuted had they not come.

So, when judges are not disciplined even for that, Connerton's "furrowed brow and hurried speech" in an order of dismissal (which I could not appeal since it was in my favor) was child's play.

While dismissing the case, Connerton,

• taught social services how to bring the case better the next time; and
• made a negative inference against me for my allegedly "furrowed brow and hurried speech" at the trial -

knowing well from hearing me speak, with an accent, that English is not my native language, and that the manner how non-native speakers speak under stress should not be held against them as some kind of misconduct.

Judge Connerton denied my motion to vacate Judge Becker's sanctions without reading the evidence, because, as she confessed in an ex parte communication with other parties and counsel, in a conference where I was not allowed to attend and was not allowed by the court to see the transcript (until a party provided it to me later), she developed a headache just thinking about reading my "600-page motion".

So, I was sanctioned, and my license was suspended eventually, for allegedly NOT presenting enough evidence of judicial misconduct while making motions to recuse (as judged by the object of the motion to recuse, Judge Becker), and, Judge Connerton refused to read newly emerged evidence of Becker's misconduct that Becker did not disclose because there was too much to read of that evidence.

Moreover, Connerton lied to me, in writing, that she has never said anything about her headache when thinking about reading my motion.  I published Connerton's lies and what she really said in the transcript in a blog, here.

Then, in an interesting succession of events:

1. In June of 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court issues a case Reed v Town of Gilbert where it rules that regulation of speech based on its content without strict scrutiny violates the 1st Amendment and must be struck;
2. in November of 2015, without deciding my argument that sanctions against me for contents of my motion to recuse violate the 1st Amendment, I was suspended by state court for 2 years without a hearing, for mysterious additional "abuse of judicial process" which nobody explained to me in the disciplinary proceedings what that was, and for failure to express remorse for what I did wrong - since I did nothing wrong, there was nothing to express remorse for, and especially when my expression of remorse was required before the court's finding of liability;
3. in November of 2015 I was ALLEGEDLY - and secretly  - suspended by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York in a secret proceedings where the whole docket is still hidden - while many courts recently ruled is unconstitutional, and while the New York State Court Administration is now investigating Nassau County Courts for the same behavior, hiding court dockets; so, if there is no written public evidence of suspension (no public order of suspension), there is no suspension, but I am listed as suspended in federal court - even though I am not treated as suspended for purposes of serving on me some, but not all, pleadings in cases where I was also a party in interest, by electronic means - I am going to reflect this conceptual mess in when you are an attorney and when you are not an attorney in my upcoming book "Conceptual inconsistencies in attorney regulation in the U.S.";
4. in June of 2016, 3 events happened:
1.  the U.S. Supreme Court issues a new opinion in Williams v Pennsylvania, ruling that when the same judge acts as an accuser and an adjudicator in the same case, that is a violation of due process, and the judge's decision is void - while Carl Becker commenced all proceedings on sanctions against me sua sponte (on his own motion) and acted in those proceedings as unsworn witness, accuser, prosecutor and adjudicator, a clear match with Williams v Pennsylvania;
2. an attorney I did not personally know, Woodruff Carroll, who is known for "lacking a filter", after an ex parte communication with one of the federal judges I sued for out-of-court misconduct, came up with a new explanation as to why I was suspended - because I and my husband (who practiced law for 35 years before I was admitted to the bar in 2009) sued "everybody who is anybody" in New York State, and
3. the New York State Court of Appeals, including the Chief Judge whose appointment I opposed by written testimony before New York Senate, asking for criminal investigation of Janet DiFiore instead of elevation of her to the position of the Chief Judge of the State of New York, denied me review of my constitutional appeal that she was mandated by law to review as of right, claiming that "no substantial constitutional questions were involved" - so, the NYS Court of Appeals picks and chooses which of constitutional provisions are "substantial" enough for them to enforce.

So, after the U.S. Supreme Court issued the two opinions (2015 and 2016) directly on point of Becker's 2011 sanctions against me, the law allowed me to move to vacate sanctions based on new law, so I did.

I made a motion to vacate in Delaware County Family Court.

I wrote what happened there - unbeknownst to me, Judge Connerton recused, and the bravest judge in the world #JudgeGaryRosaTheCoward assigned himself to the case who actually discussed that case before he ran for elections and made pledges to voters based on that case claiming that Judge Becker committed misconduct in that case, and promised that he would be different - that Judge Rosa - ruled against me, refusing to vacate Judge Becker's sanctions.

Judge Rosa's "constitutional" analysis was astounding since it skipped the mandatory procedure and concentrated on facts, not issues of the case.

When I made a motion to vacate, renew, reargue and recuse, pointing out that I was not notified that Rosa was assigned before he issued his decision (without a hearing), and was not given an opportunity to timely move to recuse, Rosa responded to my motion to recuse with a diatribe acknowledging that he saw red because of my motion, and claiming what I said was a lie - even though I relied on statements of a party in that same litigation that did not oppose my motion.

Rosa recused, and then - and then, the curtain rises, and a "new" judge steps in:  Judge Brian Burn of Otsego County, THE Judge Brian Burns whose misconduct and abuse of power in order to retaliate against the father of a boy whose rights Burns violated at trial I criticized in my blog many times.

3Rs by Brian Burns and Mary Rita Connerton

Here is Judge Brian Burns order of assignment to the case - by the recused Judge Mary Rita Connerton who infused herself back into the case from which she recused.

Note three more interesting personages on that order of assignment:

• Michael Coccoma,
• Molly Fitzgerald, and
• Richard Northrup - all of them without exception "honorables".

• Michael Coccoma recused from my husband's cases in 2007 and from my cases in 2013, who my husband sued for fraud, along with his wife and who I criticized on this blog for picking and saving from discipline for egregious misconduct pretty females attorneys (Christina Ryba, fired for egregious ethical misconduct, immediately hired by Coccoma, not disciplined and then elevated to be a judge of Albany County Supreme Court, and Diane Schilling, special counsel on ethics in Coccoma's administration taken off the bench, but not disbarred, for attempt to fix a traffic ticket for a judge's wife)  - which did not prevent Coccoma from assigning judges to my husband's and my own cases ever since;
• Molly Fitzgerald has a recent addition to her staff - the former Delaware County attorney Porter Kirkwood whom I not only criticized in my blogs, but to whom my blogs very likely cost his judicial election in 2015;
• Richard Northrup has never been assigned to this case (yet), but was boss to John Hubbard, former law partner of Carl Becker (the initial 3R guy) and never disclosed that connection when, as a DA, Northrup was litigating numerous proceedings against my clients, and in 2015 Northrup recused, as a DA, and then re-entered as a judge in 2016 (in exactly same manner as in Williams v Pennsylvania, prosecutor on the case becoming a judge on the same case) , and then recused in 2016, from a traffic ticket case of my relative.

Of course, when yet another previously recused judge whom I criticized for his misconduct in the blog after his recusal, and whom I criticized about a case that he was sued for in federal court (and hired the former law firm of one of the presiding judges to defend him) same as in the case of assignment of Gary Rosa, I was not notified that Judge Burns was assigned until I received his decision, so I had no opportunity to make a timely motion to recuse, because Judge Burns recused from my cases before and his re-entry into my case was completely improper.

And here is Judge Burns' decision confirming legality of the previous illegal decision of Judge Rosa (who was clearly disqualified and whose decision was clearly void as that of a judge who discussed the case ex parte, pronounced his contrary opinion ex parte, and solicited and received votes based on his contrary assessment of the case, which now constitutes voter fraud).

The interesting part about Judge Burns' assignment is that Judge Burns also recused from all of my cases in October of 2013, after I sued him on behalf of a client and challenged constitutionality of the Family Court Act in child neglect proceedings:

In that case, I challenged constitutionality of New York Family Court Act, and judge Burns in his official capacity, enforcing that act, because:

1. while claiming it is a "civil proceeding", and affecting parental constitutional rights, the Family Court Act did not allow a jury trial in child neglect or abuse proceedings;
2. while claiming it is a "civil proceeding", the Family Court act allowed issuance of criminal arrest warrants for not appearing in a supposedly civil case where parents were not even served, or even if they would be - in a civil case non-appearance may only result in a default judgment, not a criminal arrest warrant;
3. because the Family Court Act allows change of custody of children without parents' presence in court and without service of process on them.

Burns instantly got off all of my cases.

Now, after I criticized him in my blog regarding his misconduct in the Pacherille case in the Otsego County Court -

Part I, published on November 9, 2015 (a week before suspension, so I wonder whether this blog contributed to my suspension, too, and whether Judge Burns asked for my suspension - in view of the interesting version of why I was suspended delivered to me by attorney Woodruff Carroll in court pleadings in July of 2016, that it is because of my own and my husband's civil rights lawsuits agaist "everybody who is anybody" in New York) - The Anthony Pacherille story, Part 1 - for judge Brian Burns of Otsego County Court, NY, justice is for sale;
Part 2, published November 11, 2015 (4 days before suspension) - The Anthony Pacherille story - Part 2. Judge Burns strikes back against the child because the child's father asked him for compassion;
Part 3, published November 18, 2015 - The Anthony Pacherille's story, Part 3 - after the sentencing: thin skin, long arms, the sense of entitlement and the complete lack of integrity of Judge Brian Burns of Otsego County;
Part 4 , published November 18, 2015 - The Anthony Pacherille story: Part 4 - freedom to protest in front of a public official's home; and
Part 5 , November 21, 2015 - The Anthony Pacherille story - Part 5: Judge Burns hires a law firm with ties to the presiding magistrate judge in Tony Pacherille's federal lawsuit -

after all that, Burns, a judge who recused in 2013 from all of my cases, a judge known for his thin skin and retaliative conduct against those who publicly criticize him online for his behavior in court, was now assigned by Connerton, another recused judge, to preside over my motion to vacate sanctions imposed upon me by Becker, another recused-and-reentered judge that judge Rosa, a judge who disqualified himself by soliciting and receiving votes based on his characterization of Becker's sanctions as improper, refused to vacate in retaliation against my criticism of Judge Rosa's and his law clerk's misconduct.

And what did Burns say in that decision of his?

Well, Burns was never known for being a big constitutional scholar.

In this case he painstakingly try to appear impartial and to pretend to do some "constitutional" analysis.

But, of course, the predominant feeling emanating from the decision of Judge Burns is fear - the fear of making a misstep that can ruin his own career.

And, since application of the law in my favor (when the law is in my favor) would be such a political misstep, Burns, of course, refused to apply the law the way it supposed to apply - and suggested to me instead to raise that question in front of the Appellate Division (that itself 3R'd with me and my husband several times).

First of all, I must note that Judge Burns entirely ignored the argument that Judge Rosa could not preside over proceedings that he:

1. discussed ex parte with my then client and her mother in 2012;
2. pronounced his opinion that sanctions imposed by Becker were wrong;
3. pronounced his opinion that sanctions imposed by Becker was specifically the type of misconduct that he will try to avoid if he is elected a judge, and the reason why he is running for a judge;
4. solicited and received votes based on such opinion about impropriety of Becker's sanctions.

Burns simply ignored that argument, ignored arguments of bias or appearance of bias and retaliation - of course, Burns will not know bias and retaliation if these creatures are screaming in his face, judging on his conduct in the Pacherille case, see Parts 1 through 5 above - and jumped right into analysis whether Gary Rosa's determination did or did not clearly apply the law.

Here is what Burns said about applicability of Reed v Town of Gilbert to my case. 

In my motion I specifically described procedure required by the U.S. Supreme Court for review whenever content-based regulation of speech is ALLEGED (that's what I did in my motion):

That is part of Reed v Town of Gilbert, a case which says nothing about discussing and matching FACTS of analyzed cases to the U.S. Supreme Court precedents, but LEGAL ISSUES:

So, the question in front of Judge Burns was not whether a judicial decision was to be treated the same way as a town ordinance (which is what he did):

Do you get it? "...the Reed decision establishing that strict scrutiny must be applied to a Town Ordinance was simply not applicable to judicial finding of frivolous conduct".

First, Reed did not establish that "strict scrutiny must be applied to a Town Ordinance".  It established, in the broadest and most general terms, that content-based regulation of speech by the government - any government, any branch, under any circumstances - is subject to strict scrutiny, and mandated a procedure for review of any regulation of speech that is content-based, on its face.

Yet, Burns played "merry-go-round" with the U.S. Supreme Court case, reducing it to just a case strictly about a town ordinance.

Second, Burns, after Rosa, continued to introduce the rule of review that is very popular in American courts - it is called "because I said so".

Instead of a reasoned analysis (of course, I understand that I am not in Finland where a REASONED court decision is considered a basic human right), Rosa, and Burns after him claim that content-based review of a judicial sanction for "frivolous conduct" (frivolous conduct being a motion to recuse seeking to establish for a pro bono indigent client her constitutional right for impartial judicial review) is "simply not applicable" - no explanation given.

Burns applied the same "simply not applicable because I said so" rule to Williams v Pennsylvania, too. 

Same as in Reed, Burns narrowed the holding in Williams to specific case, while the holding was very broad, and included ANY case where a judge also acted as an accuser:

This phrase about "a constitutionally intolerable probability of bias" is not restricted to a criminal case, otherwise the court would have said so.

Moreover, a habeas corpus petition - as Judge Clarence Thomas pointed out in dissent - is a civil case.

So, both Williams v Pennsylvania and my case are civil cases where the extremely broad holding of Williams, a prohibition for judges to also act as accusers in the same cases, clearly applies.

Yet, admitting that would

1. have required to rule in my favor - and potentially restore my law license, which would be a political faux pas for Judges Rosa and Burns;
2. undermine the whole idea of sua sponte sanctions by courts, acting as accusers and adjudicators - and courts in the U.S. are known only to usurp power easily, but would never cede it, even if courts are wrong.

Here is how both Rosa and Burns applied Williams in my case:

Issue	Williams v Pennsylvania	What happened in my case	How Burns and Rosa review this issue?
Characteristic of the case: civil or criminal?	Civil case (habeas corpus petition)	Civil case	Claimed that Williams v Pennsylvania is a criminal case and a death penalty case, and what the court said there, is not applicable to sanctions for frivolous conduct
Was punishment by the government involved? Y/N	Yes, death penalty	Yes, sanctions for frivolous conduct	Did not review the issue that in both cases punishment by the government occurred
Who commenced the proceeding that led to punishment?	The presiding judge (when he was a prosecutor)	The presiding judge (through a sua sponte motion – order to show cause “why counsel should not be sanctioned”)	Did not review this similarity
Was judge asked to recuse? Y/N	Yes, refused to recuse and filed a concurring opinion complaining about federal defenders who asked him to recuse	Yes, refused to recuse and punished counsel for making motion to recuse	Did not review this similarity
Did the accuser/adjudicator judge act as a witness in the case? Y/N	No	Yes	Refused to address the issue that Williams applies even more when the presiding judge was not only an accuser/adjudicator, but also an unsworn witness in the case
Did the accuser/adjudicator judge act as an alleged victim in the case? Y/N	No	Yes (the sanctions were imposed for alleged frivolous conduct, harassing the judge himself with a motion to recuse)	Refused to address the issue that Williams applies even more when the presiding judge was not only an accuser/adjudicator, but also an alleged victim in the case

In my case, as compared to Williams v Pennsylvania, the accuser-adjudicator judge (there is no doubt about that, Becker started sanctions proceedings on his own motion) also acted as an unsworn witness making statements about his own elections and about customs of following or not following the law in Delaware County, and as an alleged victim, claiming in the proceedings that he started, prosecuted and adjudicated that I was harassing him personally with the contents of my motions to recuse.

Apparently, not only the accuser/adjudicator prohibition of Williams v Pennsylvania applied, but it applied with a vengeance, in the legal language, a fortiori (even more so), because there were more disqualifying factors in how Becker brought, prosecuted and adjudicated the sanctions proceedings: Becker was

• accuser
• adjudicator,
• unsworn witness, and
• alleged victim

in the same proceedings.


Yet, the two corrupt judges, both known for their corruption and for their retaliation against critics, could not possibly apply the law to the facts as the law required it to be done - because they did not like the result.

Therefore, they fixed they geared their "constitutional" argument towards the result desirable for them.

After Burns narrowed the holdings of both U.S. Supreme Court cases to specific facts of the case, he skipped the issue of bias entirely:

Moreover, Burns then openly lied when he refused to "overrule" the 3rd Department, because, as Burns falsely claimed in his decision, the 3rd Department allegedly affirmed the sanctions against me in

Matter of Adams v Bracci

2012 NY Slip Op 07922 [100 AD3d 1214]

November 21, 2012

(which did not happen, because the 3rd Department never reviewed my appeal on sanctions, only my client', having dismissed mine without review on a technicality).

Moreover, Judge Burns must know that if a higher precedent (U.S. Supreme Court is the highest) applies, it applies and is mandatory for ALL courts, including Judge Burns, and Judge Burns does not have a right to require me to jump through another hoop and go up to an appellate court for review, simply because Burns wants to play safe and is afraid to "overrule" the 3rd Department.

The diligence of this judge is clear in that he did not even care to read the precedent he was referring to - Matter of Adams v Bracci, 100 AD3d 1214 (3rd Dept., 2012), which was NOT my appeal at all, and cannot be "deemed" as my appeal.

What can I say.

To expect honesty from an "honorable" (by job description only), but actually corrupt judge would be naïve.

Yet, the public needs to know about tricks that this judge continues to play with the law to come out on top in retaliation against critics and in pleasing his real bosses - not the People of the State of New York who elected him, but higher-ranking judges who continue to elevate him despite his obvious misconduct - because, in his misconduct, he is "one of them", part of the brotherhood, equally smeared (no, not by blood, like mafia does it, but by misconduct anyway).

So, this is the story of recusal-reentry-retaliation of Judge Burns and Judge Connerton who assigned him (and who, in her turn, answers to a 3R judge Michael Coccoma and to the employer of Porter Kirkwood judge Molly Fitzgerald).

The 3Rs of other New York judges in my cases:

• 3Rs of Judge Kevin Dowd;
• 3Rs of Judge James Tormey;
• 3Rs of Judge Michael Coccoma;
• 3Rs of the entire New York State Appellate Division 3rd Department

I described in my blog earlier.

What is significant in the 3R practice is that you may never be assured that a judge who recused from your case because he admits he cannot be impartial will not re-enter that case or other cases where you are a party, and rule against you (predictably), while refusing to recuse and even sanctioning you for asking him to recuse, and appellate courts consider that as nothing inappropriate - making litigants' constitutional right to impartial judicial review an illusion.