- depose his accuser (not a victim yet, before the final decision of the court) before trial;
- have the accuser answer, under oath, interrogatories, questions of defendants about the case;
- have the accuser answer, under oath, Notices to admit, about crucial points of the case;
- disclose crucial documentary evidence about the case - where discovery laws are "liberally construed" in favor of discovery.
THE EVOLUTION OF JUDICIAL TYRANNY IN THE UNITED STATES:
"If the judges interpret the laws themselves, and suffer none else to interpret, they may easily make, of the laws, [a shredded] shipman's hose!" - King James I of England, around 1616.
“No class of the community ought to be allowed freer scope in the expression or publication of opinions as to the capacity, impartiality or integrity of judges than members of the bar. They have the best opportunities of observing and forming a correct judgment. They are in constant attendance on the courts. Hundreds of those who are called on to vote never enter a court-house, or if they do, it is only at intervals as jurors, witnesses or parties. To say that an attorney can only act or speak on this subject under liability to be called to account and to be deprived of his profession and livelihood by the very judge or judges whom he may consider it his duty to attack and expose, is a position too monstrous to be entertained for a moment under our present system,” Justice Sharwood in Ex Parte Steinman and Hensel, 95 Pa 220, 238-39 (1880).
“This case illustrates to me the serious consequences to the Bar itself of not affording the full protections of the First Amendment to its applicants for admission. For this record shows that [the rejected attorney candidate] has many of the qualities that are needed in the American Bar. It shows not only that [the rejected attorney candidate] has followed a high moral, ethical and patriotic course in all of the activities of his life, but also that he combines these more common virtues with the uncommon virtue of courage to stand by his principles at any cost.
It is such men as these who have most greatly honored the profession of the law. The legal profession will lose much of its nobility and its glory if it is not constantly replenished with lawyers like these. To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it.” In Re Anastaplo, 18 Ill. 2d 182, 163 N.E.2d 429 (1959), cert. granted, 362 U.S. 968 (1960), affirmed over strong dissent, 366 U.S. 82 (1961), Justice Black, Chief Justice Douglas and Justice Brennan, dissenting.
" I do not believe that the practice of law is a "privilege" which empowers Government to deny lawyers their constitutional rights. The mere fact that a lawyer has important responsibilities in society does not require or even permit the State to deprive him of those protections of freedom set out in the Bill of Rights for the precise purpose of insuring the independence of the individual against the Government and those acting for the Government”. Lathrop v Donohue, 367 US 820 (1961), Justice Black, dissenting.
"The legal profession must take great care not to emulate the many occupational groups that have managed to convert licensure from a sharp weapon of public defense into blunt instrument of self-enrichment". Walter Gellhorn, "The Abuse of Occupational Licensing", University of Chicago Law Review, Volume 44 Issue 1, September of 1976.
“Because the law requires that judges no matter how corrupt, who do not act in the clear absence of jurisdiction while performing a judicial act, are immune from suit, former Judge Ciavarella will escape liability for the vast majority of his conduct in this action. This is, to be sure, against the popular will, but it is the very oath which he is alleged to have so indecently, cavalierly, baselessly and willfully violated for personal gain that requires this Court to find him immune from suit”, District Judge A. Richard Caputo in H.T., et al, v. Ciavarella, Jr, et al, Case No. 3:09-cv-00286-ARC in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Document 336, page 18, November 20, 2009. This is about judges who were sentencing kids to juvenile detention for kickbacks.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Why Albany County (New York) District Attorney P. David Soares should be removed from office, immediately
Monday, March 25, 2019
Why I think that it is a VERY BAD idea to support amendments to the bill for the Commission on prosecutorial conduct in New York
Of course, the whole idea of creating such a Commission posed a question - is that an admission, then, that the system of attorney discipline in the State of New York would not prosecute rogue prosecutors and that attorney discipline in the state is politically selective and politically motivated?
After the creation of the Commission - in January of 2019 - was created in the summer of 2018 by a legislative act, the Governor who has signed that bill into law has been re-elected.
After he has been re-elected, it was revealed to the public that the Commission, the way it was signed into law, was never meant to be, and the Governor did not sign appointments to it come January 2019.
Instead, in the fall of 2018 the state prosecutor's association - as was pre-agreed by players in this "process" of "creating" this Commission - filed a lawsuit challenging constitutionality of the initial bill.
I wrote about that lawsuit extensively here:
The sham of Prosecutoricla Conduct Commission in New York, Part 8, one more "good violation" of the "bedrock principle" of separation of powers
Part IX is here. - The New York prosecutor's lawsuit - a selective approach to infringments upon prosecutorial discretion.
Now, the amendments to the bill have passed both chambers of the New York legislature and went to the Governor for signature.
And, sadly, now that the bill - a very bad bill, as I will show further - has hit Cuomo's desk, Jeffrey Deskovic, a 3rd-year Pace Law School student, a soon-to-be lawyer who has been exonerated and paid a large settlement after serving 16 years in prison for rape and murder that he did not commit, and is currently trying to build his future career as a lawyer by capitalizing on his exoneration from a wrongful conviction, while giving CLE lectures to judges, prosecutors and the police - those same people who drum up wrongful convictions, rubbing shoulders with top state public officials and running various shows - has recently posted an appeal to his supporters asking them to support amendments to the Commission for prosecutorial conduct.
The amendments have already passed the New York State Legislature, both the Senate and the Assembly,
and there is no way - not after the amendments gave Cuomo and his friend-in-crime Chief Judge DiFiore a supermajority of appointees on the Commission - that Cuomo will not sign those amendments, so it is just a matter of time, and I do not even understand why Deskovic asked his supporters to call the Governor's office and urge him to sign it. He will anyway.
But, since Deskovic did issue such a call to his supporters to support these amendments, I actually read them - and am calling upon people to call the Governor and urge him NOT to sign the amendments, at least as a matter of principle - since we know that Cuomo will definitely sign the bill, as an assertion of power and one more act of self-aggrandizing that Cuomo loves so much.
They are very, very, very bad.
Here are several points that I have made to Jeffrey Deskovic - and he has actually answered them, so I will be posting my points, his answers and my responses to those answers, as his answers provide interesting revelations about how and for what real, not declarative, goals, were the amendments passed and the Commission put into being.
Here are my points - why these amendments SHOULD NOT be passed into law.
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Stay tuned.
Friday, February 22, 2019
#TheCrimeToBeNamedMelania. Part 9. How to cheat people out of court representation that costs 17 cents per hour or less.
- $300 per hour for a partner,$250 per hour for an associate, and even
- after their attorney have just proven that they cannot pay, and
- after the City of Oneonta has just complained that they are supposedly not doing costly "bringing-up-to-code" the place where multiple government agencies have put the poor, after inspections of the pace
- represent yourself - and lose because you do not know the law very well, do not know the tricks, do not know the judge and because judges are hostile to pro se parties; or
- bankrupt yourself and your family and friends on another extortionist lawyer.
Yet another AI legal software, ROSS, is being sold - to lawyers only - for just $123 per month's subscription, a price of a family cell phone plan.
Beyond Elite Law: Access to Civil Justice in America (p. xv). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition. Note the edition. Cambridge University Press. Note who developed Luminance.
Monday, February 18, 2019
#TheCrimeOfBeingNamedMelania. Part 8. The jurisdictional defect that made all orders in City of Oneonta v. Pervu void. Do the poor have a right to be treated as actual people in Otsego County and not as a bunch of unnamed and unnumbered stuff to be "removed" into the street?
This is Part 7 of the article series #TheCrimeOfBeingNamedMelania, about the apparent collusion between some local, state court and now federal public officials to ruin the business and undermine the real estate value, for easy takeover, of a prime piece of real estate belonging to a Romanian American couple, Melania and Nicolae Pervu, in the middle of a business district of the City of Oneonta, New York.
Part 5 - #TheCrimeToBeNamedMelania. Part 5. No immigrant farmer will own prime real estate in the middle of the business district of Oneonta, New York. A special kind of due diligence necessary before buying property in Oneonta, New York and Otsego County - can be read here.
Part 7 - #TheCrimeOfBeingNamedMelania. Part 7. Who benefits? The interesting tenants at 189 Main Street and the Lambert-Merzig-Delgado connection - can be read here.
This is Section 1001 of the Civil Practice Law and Rules of the State of New York, or CPLR 1001.
- included as named parties into the proceedings;
- be served in accordance with the law, with the initial lawsuit papers and with all other papers, throughout the proceedings.
- intervene into the proceeding even if they are not included as necessary parties;
- file counter-claims in proceedings (against the plaintiff);
- file cross-claims in proceedings (against co-defendants).
Note paragraphs 9 and 10.
This is as far as any judge of minimal competence and integrity should have read this petition before tossing it for lack of jurisdiction, for failure to include necessary parties, the tenants of the "approximately 20 rental units that are occupied with either single or multiple tenants", while the City mentioned that there were actually "approximately 40 residential units on floors 2 through 5".
It does not matter whether the City knew or did not know the identities of those tenants - the City had a proactive obligation to verify those identities, as any other Plaintiff has, before filing a lawsuit in court, to verify identities of defendants who are necessary parties in the action.
Tenants of 20 rental units in the middle of a business district on the Main Street of a city are not ghosts, their identities are easily ascertainable.
Moreover, identities of these particular tenants in this particular case were KNOWN by the City of Oneonta - since the City actively sought it out and gave them legal advice HOW TO SUE Melania and Nicolae Pervu - in a court other than where the City, or, rather, husband and wife Merzigs, have filed their petition.
These are excertps from a small claims court case, Calderson v Pervu, litigated in front of Judge Lucy Bernier in Oneonta City Court:
The plaintiffs say there:
"Under the supervision of the Assistant District Attorney Michael F. Getman.
My husband and I spoke to him when we first received the City letter. We were told we should never have been obliged to pay rent to live in an unsafe place, and that we should not continue to pay until the property was up to code and the order to vacate diminished. Take that money and put it towards a new apartment and the moving costs".
Witnesses reported to me that Judge Lucy Bernier had the good grace to look shocked when this piece of information was presented to her in court.
So, from the very beginning of the litigation filed by husband and wife Merzigs in the Otsego County Supreme Court, the prosecutor for the City of Oneonta (and the benefactor of many businesses of that city, through the Dewar Foundation, distributing money to businesses he likes), Michael Getman, son of a late judge actually GAVE LEGAL ADVICE to the necessary OPPOSING parties in the Supreme Court litigation, which was a conflict of interest and an ethical violation, as to how to sue the Pervus in another court - while the City "forgot" to include them right in the Supreme Court litigation, AS DEFENDANTS, under the requirements of CPLR 1001.
Because, had they been included as defendants, it would have been clear that the City cannot possibly give legal advice to them, and especially not at the time when the case was still only filed, only at the very beginning, and the City did not prove its case in court yet.
If the tenants had any right to sue the Pervus for rent recovery, they had to do that within the pending litigation, in the Supreme Court, as cross-claims, not outside of that litigation, in another court, and especially not prompted by the ghost legal advice of Michael F. Getman, the city prosecutor.
Under the circumstances, Judge Lucy Bernier had no jurisdiction to review that case, she should have dismissed the claim as having been filed in the wrong court.
Now, my question is - how did it happen that not 1, but 2 judges, Michael V. Coccoma, a judge with 40 years of experience as an attorney
and 24 years of experience as a judge,
and John F. Lambert, a judge with 20 years of experience as an attorney,
and 10 years of experience as a judge,
both educated in expensive private law schools, both with many years of experience presiding over foreclosure actions, not only accepted a jurisdictionally defective petition, but made multiple orders on it, the final one, of February 5, 2019, by Judge Lambert, being to evict, WITHIN A SPAN OF TWO DAYS, an uncertain number of UNNAMED tenants, into the street, IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER, who were not even included as necessary parties or served with the Petition as the law requires, and never had an opportunity to be present in court and oppose the eviction?
First, Judge Lambert cannot even spell one of the parties' names correctly - making the validity of the order questionable. The Respondent's name is Nicolae, not Nicolas.
But, also look at the deceptive wording of Judge Lambert's order:
"ORDERED, that the Respondents Melania Pervu and Nicolas Pervu shall immediately cause to be vacated each and every person from all of the residential apartments located on floors 2-5 of the building located at 195 Main Street, Oneonta, New York, and that the vacating of the said premises of all persons shall be accomplished no later than 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 7, 2019".
I already wrote about how wrong it was for Judge Lambert - as far as the Pervus were concerned - to:
- advise the City, through his law clerk, to file a contempt of court Order to Show Cause, and what documents to support it with;
- sign the Order to Show Cause that he taught the City how to file;
- allow the Pervu attorneys to abandon them in the middle of that contempt proceeding;
- proceed on the merits in that proceeding after the attorneys withdrew, and while
- the Pervus, by law, had to have 30 days to replace them (thus, proceedings on the merits had to STOP once the attorneys were released), not to mention that
- the Pervus, by law, were entitled to a notification from Judge Lambert, that, in contempt proceedings they are entitled to:
- a free attorney assigned at no charge to them, if they are eligible, and that if they do not have funds for an attorney (and the judge had every reason to expect they do not since he has just released their private attorneys complaining of their inability to pay them), they should apply for a free counsel, to be assigned by Judge Lambert;
- a separate evidentiary hearing, with testimony of witnesses and the burden of proof on the City of Oneonta, in a contempt proceeding
- rubber-stamp the order prepared by Kehoe & Merzig (with the stamp of that law firm on the order), attorneys for the City of Oneonta and for U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado, who was opening an office next door on February 7, 2019 and needed their hotel to be rid of the poor by that date - directing the Pervu to evict their low-income tenants, in the middle of winter, in 2-days' time;
And, look at those who Judge Lambert ordered to serve with this so-called Order of February 5, 2019.
Nor did Judge Lambert care to change who the order is to be served upon.
Obviously, Kehoe & Merzig prepared the draft of the order when Ryan T. Donovan was still the Pervus' attorney.
This order the judge needs to serve upon two pro se parties.
Yet, he does not care a fig whether these parties, whom he rendered pro se in the middle of a contempt of court proceedings that he taught the City of Oneonta to bring, and then continued to rule on the merits of contempt proceedings against two pro se parties, without giving them a chance of substitution of counsel or assigning counsel to them for free, or giving them information that they are entitled to such free counsel - whether these two pro se parties are served with this order at all or not.
The order by which Judge Lambert orders them to "cause" people from 40 residential apartments to "be evicted".
Judge Lambert may not have even read that draft.
Since the signature was electronic, it could have been the same law clerk Mark Oursler who taught the City of Oneonta how to file the Contempt motion who signed the order granting it, instead of Judge Lambert.
The case was prejudged before it was filed, so neither Lambert, nor Oursler give a fig about the people who suffered.
They do not give a fig about anybody's "constitutional rights", in fact, they may laugh you in the face if you mention such things.
Lambert did not even care to print out the damned order for signing - he received the draft from Merzig by e-mail and signed it or had his law clerk sign it for him electronically, without looking what was in it - including the law firm stamp and the former attorneys instead of the pro se parties to be served.
Judge Coccoma who has issued the first order in this proceeding allowing it to go forward and shifting the burden of proof to the Pervus, as well as Judge Lambert and his law clerk Mark Oursler cannot be sued - because judges gave themselves immunity for malicious and corrupt acts, since 1975.
Lambert and Coccoma can only be turned into the New York State Judicial Conduct Commission and the Attorney Grievance Committee of the Appellate Division 3rd Judicial Department - with a request to take the bastards off the bench and disbar them.
Coccoma, Lambert and their law clerks can be prosecuted criminally, though - the U.S. Attorney can prosecute them under 18 U.S.C. 242, for the crime of violating of civil rights of multiple people, in a gross manner and under the color of law.
As it is appropriate, in my opinion, for the U.S. Attorney to prosecute criminally David Merzig, his client Rep. Antonio Delgado and Judges Coccoma and Lambert, as well as Lambert's law clerk Mark Oursler, for a conspiracy to deprive the Pervus and their tenants of honest services of two judges, under 18 U.S.C. 1346.
I hope that the bastards are charged, convicted and put into federal prison where they belong.
I hope that the tenants file petitions in the Otsego County Supreme Court to intervene into these proceedings, with accompanying motions to recuse Judge Lambert, vacate all orders in the case and dismiss the City's petition as jurisdictionally defective, for failure to include necessary parties, with sanctions against the City of Oneonta's Chairperson of the Board of Public Service Margery Merzig and her husband who brought the petition on her behalf, the City of Oneonta attorney David Merzig.