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.

How Jeffrey Deskovic betrayed the dream he claims he is serving, fighting wrongful convictions - from seeking Justice to seeking Just-US. Part II.

Why did the famous New York exoneree Jeffrey Deskovic, as it was shown in Part I of this article series, betrayed his initial dream of holding prosecutors CRIMINALLY accountable for intentionally drumming up wrongful convictions - which is already both a host of federal and state crimes, for example, it is a crime punishable under 18 U.S.C. 242 and a crime addressed in the State of New York by a whole Article of the New York Penal Code, Article 195?

Because in order to fulfil that dream, the grand jury proceeding laws must be reformed, to 

• allow direct and unimpeded public access to the grand jury, 
• ability for any public citizen to file a complaint directly with a grand jury and ask to 
• start a grand jury investigation of the complaint, which will be able to 
• return criminal charges against subjects found by the grand jury to have more likely than not violated criminal law - including judges and prosecutors.
  

And, this particular idea WAS already offered to the public - by a certain movement in the United States, called "Jail 4 Judges", here is an interesting radio show with an interview from the leader of that movement, also showing interesting insights about what non-attorney Americans think about the American judicial system, the American legal profession, their interaction and wrongful convictions that they drum.

And, that certain movement already tried to advocate for change of state Constitutions to introduce changes of grand jury proceedings through public referendums.

Referendums - because Legislatures, overwhelmed by licensed attorneys who are controlled by one of the three groups of individuals who cause wrongful convictions, judges - are unable to produce any efficient legislation to make people who cause wrongful convictions accountable.

Changing grand jury law in a way affecting their own regulator would mean professional suicide for legislators who are also lawyers, deemed "officers of the court" (licensed attorneys) and controlled in their in-court and out-of-court life by the judicial branch of the government (the majority of which is former prosecutors.

Many of these judges, former prosecutors, controlling legislators-lawyers. are likely those who have caused wrongful convictions, but were protected from civil prosecution by judicially created judicial and prosecutorial immunity and from criminal prosecution - by laws regulating grand jury proceedings putting grand juries under control and legal advice of prosecutors.

Of course, this movement, to change state Constitutions, give people free access to grand juries and make grand juries independent from the legal profession protecting its own - was quashed by the legal profession and its richest clients, corporations:

That happened in the year of Deskovic's release from prison.

See, an association of insurers calls the ideas of, again,

• giving people direct access to grand juries;
• removing control of the legal profession over the grand juries, so that grand juries may investigate judges and prosecutors - 

"radical", and "upsetting their state's entire CIVIL justice system".

You know what happened to that movement?

It was very active in 1999 and for about 10 years afterwards, that's before Deskovic's "campaigning" began.

Its leader was charged (by a prosecutor) and convicted (by a court) of a crime and locked up (the interview starts at around 15:40).

The attorney who helped that leader articulate (very well, by the way) constitutional issues involved in necessity of such direct grand jury access and in grand jury proceedings independent from prosecutors, John Wolfgram - was disbarred, tarred-and-feathered as "mentally incompetent" (an old-as-world idea to discredit your opponents as crazy when you have nothing to offer in terms of opposition on the merits), and bankrupted, despite being a war veteran and a holder of not only a law degree, but also a degree in philosophy of law.

Deskovic is on the verge of RECEIVING - from the hands of the judiciary, who are, in their overwhelming majority, former prosecutors, a law license.

He wants it.

He craves it.

He already publishes with pride pictures of himself lecturing to attorneys, judges and prosecutors about "ethics" in mandatory for attorney licensing continued legal education (CLE) courses.

He will not do anything to jeopardize the possibility of receiving a law license, and the place in attorney monopoly and the power (place in the government) that such a monopoly gives in the U.S. nowadays.

So, he instead dupes the public who GENUINLY believes him - as "one of them", an exoneree, into supporting legislative measures that will effectively BLOCK any possibility of holding prosecutors accountable.

After all, one has to take care of oneself and one's own career.

But, judging by Deskovic's statements that "just people", not licensed attorneys, are not qualified enough to take public office and review whether a prosecutorial misconduct was committed (while they are so qualified to sit on grand juries and trial juries - Deskovic does not even try to explain his reasoning), Deskovic is very far away from considering "just people" on par with himself.

He needs them as mindless cattle, for numbers only, to support his use of himself as a stamp of approval "from exonerees" upon giving the same people who caused wrongful convictions an opportunity to populate the body faking investigations of those wrongful convictions and prosecutions.

With predictable result.

Deskovic is no John Wolfgram, a brilliant philosopher of law and constitutional scholar, who tried to make grand juries do their jobs - and was expelled from the legal profession, bankrupted and proclaimed crazy for that.

Deskovic is just another fairly brainless, but actively greedy opportunist, hungry for money, power and fame.

He consistently proves it with his own statements, and actions.

How Jeffrey Deskovic betrayed the dream he claims he is serving, fighting wrongful convictions - from seeking Justice to seeking Just-US. Part I.

Jeffrey Deskovic, the famous New York exoneree, always had a weakness - flattery and recognition by people in authority.

That is how he has gotten wrongfully convicted in the first place.

According to description of facts of his own case provided in the federal court's decision denying summary judgment in one of his lawsuits, the police did not have enough evidence to even arrest him.

The police suckered him into taking a polygraph which turned into 9 hours of interrogation, brow-beating and wrongful confession - because they promised him a central role in a criminal investigation of the murder of 15-year-old older sister of his girlfriend.  Ok, at 16 you might not be able to resist such lures.

But, when you are 45-ish, like Jeffrey Deskovic is now - maybe, you should?

Not likely.

Let's compare certain positions - 

• Deskovic's position on causes of wrongful convictions and what needs to be done to eliminate them -  6 years ago nearly exactly,

• Deskovic's position several days ago:

• Deskovic's points in response to my criticism of the just-passed amendments to the Commission for Prosecutorial Conduct that Deskovic called upon his supporters and follows to ask the Governor to sign,
• and my point as to what needs to be done to eliminate wrongful convictions expressed 5 days ago

To which Deskovic answered thus:

Let's review what Deskovic "and his colleagues" worked for FOR 6 YEARS (note the period) - the starting point, those same 6 years ago - before going to law school and posing for photographs in the New York Senate, with judges, police officers, prosecutors, doing CLE lectures for these three groups and accepting awards from anybody who ives them - just for the fact that he was suckered into a wrongful conviction, then exonerated by sheer triple luck and then awarded millions of dollars when he sued for his wrongful conviction.  (The luck I am talking about is:  1. DNA evidence pointed at another killer,  2. DNA evidence from the crime Deskovic was convicted for was preserved,  3.  somebody took effort on Deskovic's behalf to prove the above and advocate for his release - the luck that does not happen in majority of wrongful convictions).

So, nearly exactly 6 years ago Deskovic answered the following question of a reporter: If there was one change, just one, that you could make in the criminal justice system, what would it be?

Deskovic:  Definitely criminalizing intentional prosecutorial misconduct



Now, compare it with my view expressed 5 days ago:



I also spoke about elimination of prosecutorial immunity - civil, by the way, there was never a prosecutorial immunity for criminal prosecution, Deskovic was mistaken in believing in 2013 that intentional prosecutorial misconduct is not criminalized, it can be charged as a number of state and federal crimes, the only problem is - who is going to charge it against prosecutors (many of whom since drumming up wrongful convictions to advance their career have become judges), when prosecutors, by laws lobbied by prosecutors, control public access to grand juries and are, in our "fair" "adversarial" justice system are operating, in an ex parte manner, as LEGAL ADVISERS of grand juries.  Imagine - a party in the proceeding operates as a law clerk advising the judge what to do, in an ex parte proceeding, and obtains a decision based on which he acquires the right to prosecute in the subsequent "public" "adversarial" "fair" proceeding - that is a wonder of the American criminal "justice" system.

What has happened over these 6 years that Deskovic transformed from an advocate for CRIMINAL penalties for prosecutors for intentional misconduct and drumming up wrongful convictions (which view I completely share) to telling me that working towards THAT SAME GOAL is "fighting against" what took him and his "colleagues" "six years to pass"?

What transformed a man who adamantly said in an interview that prosecutors and the judicial system target wrongful convictions only against the poor to a self-conceited peacock who tried to lecture to me that blocking the public from membership in the "public" Commission that seeks only to discipline (to the point of removal, but not to the point of criminal prosecution) prosecutors for creating wrongful convictions is justified - by STANDARDS no less.

That "standards" now require for Deskovic - that he is preparing to get licensed as an attorney - that a law license or working as a professor in a school approved by an Illinois corporation with foreign secret membership (the American Bar Association) is a REQUIREMENT FOR PUBLIC OFFICE.

Why - because of "standards", "quality control of education".

So, 6 years ago Deskovic, fresh-er out of prison at that time, with his memories of his wrongful incarceration that lasted 16 years (including denial of parole) fresh-er then, believed that these same people, with "standards", graduates of ABA-approved law schools and licensed attorneys - should be held criminally liable for wrongful convictions that they INTENTIONALLY cause.

Now, his beliefs suffered a dramatic transformation, and now he thinks that "someone receiving an inferior education from a school that does not meet accreditation standards should not be able to serve because they do not have the proper background for that.  They wouldn't be able to practice law: how can they be able to sin on a commission that reviews conduct of those who have went through the process of graduating from an accredited school, sat for bar exams etc. - all through an accredited/approved process".

So, Deskovic, on the brink of becoming a lawyer himself, now professes a belief that only people with law degrees are eligible for public service.  

And, only people with law degrees and law licenses 

(which in New York and across the United States also means - who never criticized a judge, including the judge who has caused a wrongful conviction) - 

people, so far, did nothing to investigate and prosecute prosecutors for wrongful convictions, 

the reason the bill for the Commission for prosecutorial misconduct was proposed in the first place - 

have the ability to properly investigate and prosecute THEMSELVES and get to the bottom why they THEMSELVES cause wrongful convictions.

The same people who create wrongful convictions - prosecutors, judges and public defenders - are the ONLY people who may, according to plan put into law by Deskovic, preside over investigations of public complaints of such wrongful convictions or wrongful prosecutions - where the decisions of that Commission, fashioned (as Deskovic openly acknowledged) after the New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct that shreds WITHOUT INVESTIGATION the overwhelming majority of meritorious complaints from the public,  will not be even appealable by the victims of prosecutorial conduct?

(The link above: this is how the federal court, judge Mae D'Agostino, the then-undisclosed Chairperson of the shadow judiciary, the State-Federal Judicial Council, the composition of which the 2nd Circuit still refuses to disclose to me in answer to my Freedom of Information request, so I do not know whether judges - defendants in this action - were or were not deciding this same case through participation in that "Council", said:  

"In the present matter, the Court finds that Plaintiffs lack standing to challenge the following: (1) the policy which allows attorneys who are members of the Judicial Conduct Committee from practicing law "in the courts where the mere appearance of such an attorney may influence the court;" (2) the New York State law "which provide[s] that no appellate review of denial of citizen complaints for judicial misconduct is available;" and (3) the policies of the Judicial Conduct Committee regarding the confidentiality of their records of investigation. See Dkt. No. 5 at ¶¶ 254-56. The law makes clear, a private citizen does not have standing to initiate or maintain a disciplinary proceeding against an attorney or a judge, or to appeal if the court or commission declines to discipline, see In re Attorney Disciplinary Appeal, 650 F.3d 202, 203-04 (2d Cir. 2011) (citing cases); and, therefore, Plaintiffs lack a legally cognizable interest in the disciplinary proceedings that follow the filing of a grievance, just as a crime victim lacks standing to challenge the decision not to prosecute. See Weisshaus v. New York, No. 08 Civ. 4053, 2009 WL 2579215, *4 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 20, 2009").

Funny.

Especially from a person who lectured me on what due process is:

Only prosecutors (and other attorneys) eligible to investigate and prosecute prosecutors for misconduct, after a lifetime of not doing that through existing attorney disciplinary system, while denying the public the right of any voice on that Commission - through membership, the right of the complainant for participation as a party, or the right of the complainant to appeal dismissals of meritorious complaints, even without investigation - is NOT a violation of due process, according to the newly transformed Deskovic.

But, appellate review by the Court of Appeals of its own decision - is a violation of due process.

For that reason, and for the reason that the Court of Appeals "did not want" to uphold the law if the law puts a certain function on it, and the wish of the Court of Appeals as to how the law must be shaped - is somehow law of its own - the decision of the Commission (fashioned, mind, after the Commission for Judicial Conduct - where its decisions go only to the Court of Appeals, no problem with non-appealability at all) will go for review to the Appellate Divisions.

The same Appellate Divisions, mind, that have a policy of non-prosecution of prosecutors, which was the reason for creation of the Commission for Prosecutorial Conduct in the first place.

This kind of argument.

So, in 2013, 6 years ago, before going to law school, Deskovic considered that the main thing to be done is to make prosecutors who intentionally caused wrongful convictions, must be made CRIMINALLY accountable.

For that, there should be an effective GRAND JURY mechanism, eliminating prosecutors (institutionally interested parties) as parties controlling public access to the grand juries, directing the grand jury investigation, advising it and being able to be present in the grand jury while the public, the subjects of the investigation and the defense cannot.

Did Deskovic, with his "colleagues", fight for implementation of that grand jury mechanism?

Oh, no.

He is proud that he has given power to a body (after getting and publishing some snapshots of himself in the New York Senate and self-advertised his close connections to all three branches of power in New York) that will make true accountability of prosecutors impossible.

And now he claims that it is people who insist on Deskovic's OWN INITIAL VERSION of what needs to be done to fight wrongful convictions are - well, in the way.  Fighting against what he "fought for 6 years to pass".

Such a busy man.

So much effort, time and money dedicated to the "cause".

Dedicated "7 figures of money" into a cause - and squandered it on a TV show without a written contract.

"There is only one me".

"Body of work, time and money spent to the degree that he "contributed" "are the true barometers".

Body of work, mind.

Not the result.

Limelight, remember?

Wrongfully convicted because he was weak for flattery, and now suckered his supporters into supporting something that will KILL their dreams of every stemming wrongful convictions - also because of his hunger for proximity to power, money and the spotlight.

As to how well Deskovic manages the money of his foundation - public money - will be my next article.

Stay tuned.