Lawyers Who Criticize Judges Are Being Punished

Andy Ostrowski points to the Pennsylvania kids-for-cash scandal, where two county judges were convicted of charges involving millions of alleged kickbacks to send children to private juvenile detention facilities, as an example where lawyers failed to do the right thing.  --M.C. Moewe

Will Complaint About Judge’s Evidence Tampering Lead to Criminal Indictment? It Should 
centerforjudicialexcellence.org
July 10, 2014

...The Marin Courts have engaged in questionable behavior for as long as anyone can  remember. The 2006 arrest of Marin’s top court official John  Montgomery on felony conflict of interest charges barely raised an eyebrow. A 2009 shredding party orchestrated by current Marin Court Executive Kim Turner, which delayed an official state audit of the Marin Family Court by more than six months, was justified in a report from the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC)...

[Maura Larkins' comment: We can search the archives of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and ancient civilizations, but we destroy the records of the United States' justice system?  This is hard for me to believe.  Are the documents really destroyed?  Or are they sent to the archives in Sacramento?]

Marin Judge Evidence Tampering
 June 19, 2014
Kathleen Russell
info@centerforjudicialexcellence.org

..MARIN COURT CEO BLOCKED STATE AUDITOR WITH DOCUMENT DESTRUCTION 

Turner’s 2009 destruction of child custody mediation working files, which were frequently subpoenaed when parents wanted to challenge a mediator’s recommendation to the court about child custody, took place while she was serving as a member of the Judicial Council of California.

The evidence destruction sparked a local public protest and a call for criminal investigation. However, the Marin Court stated that the destruction took place with the knowledge and approval of the California Administrative Office of the Courts (the staff agency of the Judicial Council), and both the AOC and the Marin Court argued that the destroyed documents were not “official court records.” Read the 2010 local Marin news article about this here...
 
 ...Ironically, [Kim] Turner was the recipient of the California Judicial Council’s 2013 “William C. Vickrey Leadership in Judicial Administration Award.”  According to the Judicial Council, this award honors individuals in judicial administration for “significant contributions to and leadership in their profession.” In making the award to Turner, the Judicial Council noted that she “has been a very active member of a working group improving trial court records management.”...


Lawyers Who Criticize Judges Are Being Punished — Jonathan Turley

by MCMoewe

Daily Kos

Jul 28, 2014

One is a California family law attorney documenting alleged judicial crimes, the other a Pennsylvania civil rights attorney who has lost his law license for speaking out against judges. Both say they will continue to do what most lawyers won’t.

“They don’t speak up. The reason is you get targeted and you could lose your license,” said Barbara Kauffman of lawyers who witness judicial misconduct. Last month the California attorney contacted state officials alleging that a family court judge in Marin County tampered with court records.
Civil rights attorney Don Bailey had his law license suspended for five years in October by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. “The reason I lost my license is because I criticized judges,” said Bailey, a former Democratic Congressman and state auditor general, in a phone interview last week.
The pattern of attorneys losing their careers or facing hefty fines after speaking out against judges has legal experts worried.

The law professor and legal analyst Jonathan Turley wrote of Bailey’s license suspension, “While some would agree with the case, there is a worrisome line of cases targeting lawyers who criticize judges.”

[Maura Larkins' comment: Pennlive.com notes: "Bailey's attitude is evident from his law firm's website, on which he says he is "well known for taking on the high-profile and controversial cases many attorneys fear..'He refuses to recognize...the harm that he is causing to his clients and to the judicial system,” members of a disciplinary review committee wrote.'" 

It seems that the disciplinary committee is saying that when Bailey criticizes judges, the judges can be expected to retaliate against his clients.  Shouldn't the judges--rather than Bailey--be called to account for such retaliation? 

A justice system that sends kids to private detention so that judges will get millions in kickbacks hardly needs any help from Mr. Bailey to get a bad reputation.  Why didn't someone disbar the lawyers who sat silently while the kickback scheme proceeded?

Many lawyers harm their clients, but as long as the lawyers don't criticize judges, they are in little danger of losing their licenses.]

America’s judicial system is extremely ineffective at removing bad judges, said Kathleen Russell, the founder of the Center for Judicial Excellence, a non-profit that is working to stop family court judges from giving child custody to domestic abusers and pedophiles. “Judges are judicially trafficking children to abusers by ignoring evidence of child abuse. Even when judges behave maliciously, there is no law that holds them accountable.”

Over the past 40 years, court rulings have given judges increasingly strong immunity from civil suits under the principle that judges shouldn’t be sued by anyone unhappy with their decisions in court. Most notable is the 1978 Supreme Court decision Stump v. Sparkman that rejected a suit filed against an Indiana judge who ordered a 15-year-old sterilized without her knowledge.

The Democratic nominee for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 11th District has made a focus of his campaign curbing judicial abuses and protecting lawyers who criticize judges. Andy Ostrowski points to the Pennsylvania kids-for-cash scandal, where two county judges were convicted of charges involving millions of alleged kickbacks to send children to private juvenile detention facilities, as an example where lawyers failed to do the right thing.

“That didn’t happen in a vacuum,” Ostrowski said. “There were lawyers who were in there watching as these children were led into the courtroom in shackles without representation and led out in shackles to prison. They all knew it was wrong. Why didn’t they speak up? Simple — because they were afraid.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has taken the law license of several lawyers for criticizing judges, as described in a table that follows this story.

Fearful lawyers combined with strong immunity laws keep bad judges on the bench. Even in the kids-for-cash scandal, where the judges were criminally convicted and are serving lengthy prison sentences, experts say that civil suits filed on behalf of the children will likely have a tough time piercing judicial immunity.

In a blog post published on Thursday, Turley described how judicial immunity was used to dismiss a civil suit against a Michigan judge who was having an affair with the wife of a man before him in a custody case. “By any measure, former Wayne County Circuit Judge Wade McCree was a disgrace to the bench,” Turley wrote. “His case unfortunately could embolden other judges who consider abandoning the most basic ethical demands of their office.”

Ostrowski is one of only two political candidates in the U.S. who has signed a pledge to eradicate judicial corruption started by the Campaign for Judicial Integrity, an effort founded by disbarred California attorney Richard Fine, who was jailed for 18 months by a judge who found him in contempt.

Fine’s 2009 disbarment stemmed from court filings he submitted against judges for taking $57,000 in side pay from the county to supplement their state salaries. “Fine has long contended that the charges against him are politically motivated,” the State Bar of California summary of Fine’s disbarment explained. “The cases he filed against judges were not retaliatory, he said, but instead were based on his belief that judges who accept money from a county fund to augment their compensation have a conflict of interest in any matter involving government municipalities. 

 Fine was jailed indefinitely in March on contempt of court charges — for refusing to answer a judge’s questions and practicing law without a license.”

Fine, 74, said he is still not sure why the judge finally set him free after 18 months.  

But Allan Parachini, who was the Los Angeles Superior Court spokesman while Fine was in jail, compared his incarceration to actions more common in authoritarian countries.

“Fine was effectively a political prisoner for a year and a half,” Parachini, who no longer works for the superior court, told Full Disclosure Network in 2012. “This wasn’t about contempt. This wasn’t about getting him to disclose whatever it was he was directed to disclose. It was about getting back at him.”

[Maura Larkins comment: Judges tend to be extremely subjective regarding which attorneys are forced to turn over documents.  I have been amazed at how judges let some attorneys get away with refusing requests for production of crucial documents.]

The California Bar has not opposed three successive motions in the state Supreme Court to set aside the disbarment, but the court has yet to reinstate his law license, said Fine, a former Department of Justice prosecutor. A case to force the justices to restore his license is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

“I understand why lawyers are not speaking up when they witness corruption. They want to protect their income and they want to protect their families,” Fine said. “They took an oath to uphold the laws of the United States. If they did not intend to fulfill the oath and uphold the laws, they should have saved themselves and the public from their hypocrisy.”

Kauffman, the California attorney who notified officials last month of alleged criminal wrongdoing by a judge, said protecting the integrity of the U.S. justice system can be a lonely task. Last year, she filed a lawsuit against a retired Shasta County judge who had been appointed to preside over cases 208 times since 1994, never having to face election to hold the position. “I couldn’t get anyone to serve him. I had to go to his house and do it myself,” Kauffman said. The state barred the judge from serving shortly after she filed the lawsuit.

Losing her law license is not the 58-year-old attorney’s only worry. “I have concerns about safety,” Kauffman said. “For a while my office was getting broken into on a regular basis. For months, each night the alarm would go off. I had a strange man knock on my door and tell me he knew where my kids were playing.”

Being vocal is her best protection, Kauffman said...

Vote in Carla Keehn in place of Lisa Schall for Judicial Office 20, and Brad Weinreb for Office 25, but keep Prager and Popkins

 Update April 2016:

Carla Keehn is challenging Keri Greer Katz, daughter of judge Michael Greer, in 2016 election for Superior Court Judge

 Original post:

Superior Court Judge; Office 9 • Ronald S. Prager

Superior Court Judge; Office 19 • Michael J. Popkins

Superior Court Judge; Office 20 • Carla Keehn: This race receives special attention. Keehn is running against the incumbent Lisa Schall. The problem with Schall is that during her term as judge she has been admonished three times by the state Commission on Judicial Performance. After 30 years on the bench it is time for a change. Vote for Keehn

Superior Court Judge; Office 25 • Brad Weinreb

Brad Weinreb, a state deputy attorney general for more than 20 years, was rated by the Bar as “qualified.” He has extensive experience in major criminal cases and claims one of the highest active caseloads in death penalty cases. He won the endorsement of Goldsmith, Gore, Chula Vista Police Chief David Bejarano, county Public Defender Henry Coker, numerous organizations and some 50 current judges. Both his opponents, Michele Hagan and Ken Gosselin, received the lowest rating of “lacking qualifications” from the Bar. And Gosselin has been accused of misleading voters about his education and experience.

Superior Court Judge; Office 44 • Joseph Adelizzi (SDER choice to replace incumbent Judge Jacqueline Stern)

Judge has been admonished three times
No jurist in the state has a less favorable record
By Greg Moran
U-T San Diego
May 12, 2014

The campaign website for San Diego Superior Court Judge Lisa Schall touts her three decades of experience on the bench, including assignments in every division of law, from criminal courts to probate matters and family law.

What it doesn’t talk about is Schall’s record of discipline with the state agency that oversees judges.

No other active judge among the state’s 1,827 judges on the Superior Court, appeals court and Supreme Court bench has been publicly disciplined more times than Schall has, a review of disciplinary records from the Commission on Judicial Performance shows. She has received two public admonishments and one private admonishment.

Only one other judge, in Contra Costa, has a similar record.

Schall said the record involves three incidents over a nearly-30-year career on the bench, that she has learned from her mistakes, and that her work record has earned her the continuing support of the legal community.

The record shows Schall has been publicly admonished twice, most recently in March 2008 when she pleaded guilty to an alcohol-related driving charge. A public admonishment is the third most-serious level of punishment the commission can hand out, behind only public censure and removal from the bench.

She was stopped while driving the wrong way on Centre City Parkway in Escondido in September 2007 and found to have a blood-alcohol level of 0.09. That is just over the legal limit.

The arrest came just months before she was up for re-election to her fourth term and was not made public at the time. Court records show the case was delayed for six months, and Schall pleaded guilty to a lesser offense — one week after the filing period for a candidate to run against her had closed.

Under state election law, if a sitting judge does not draw a challenger during the filing period, they are deemed automatically re-elected to the office for another term.

Both the judge and her attorney, William Wolfe, said she was not given any special consideration and that Schall did not seek to delay the disposition of the case until after the filing period.

Shall said this week she was dealing with a divorce and caring for her elderly parents at the time of the DUI arrest. She said that is not an excuse, and has apologized to colleagues and family since.

“I took ownership of that,” she said. “I didn’t try to hide it or cover it up.”

Schall was also publicly admonished in 1999 for abusing her power and not following the law when she jailed a woman for five days for contempt of court. The woman was disruptive in the courtroom during a hearing on a restraining order and was taken out of the courtroom.

When the woman said to Schall’s bailiff that she would “go off” if not allowed to tell her story, Schall cited her for contempt without holding a hearing or making factual findings — and when the woman was not in the courtroom.

In 1995 Schall received a private admonishment from the commission for what commission records describe as “her embroilment in a juvenile dependency matter.” Schall said during a child welfare case she was told an appellate lawyer for one parent had been revealing confidential testimony from the court proceedings. She held a hearing with the appellate lawyer and others to find out what had happened, and the commission concluded that was wrong.

...The disciplinary commission has doled out public admonishments just 75 times since 1995 to 22 judges, records show. Several judges who received two public admonishments either retired or were removed by the commission after the second...

Michael Roddy silent after receiving reports of shenanigans by clerks at San Diego Superior Court

*
UPDATE JANUARY 30, 2013

In the same case discussed below, Stutz v. Larkins, we now have documents missing from the case file.

UPDATE JANUARY 3, 2013 re Michael Roddy silent about document falsified by clerk

Karen Dalton, in charge of public relations for the court, was able to get a response for me from Mr. Roddy. Here it is:

Dear Ms. Larkins,

The October 2012 inquiries cited in your blog were received and investigated by the court. After investigating the issues you raised, we concluded that no improper action has been taken by any court employees related to your case. The matter has been closed.


Sincerely,
Mike Roddy
Executive Officer

(I guess this means business as usual will continue in the court.)

Maria Hayes is the Supervisor of the Superior Court Appeals Division. Kathy Williams is the Manager of that Department and several other departments. Stephen Cascioppo is the Assistant Executive Officer, Central Division. And of course, Michael Roddy is the Executive Officer. Michael Roddy has clearly approved the creation of a false document to get rid of Appeal regarding one of the decisions of Judge Judith Hayes and her research attorney, Monica Barry.

ORIGINAL POST:

At a time of layoffs of clerks, why is the court forcing clerks to spend time creating false documents and then more time correcting the record?

Michael Roddy is silent regarding the bizarre and unsuccessful effort of the San Diego Superior Court Appeals Division to default my September 6, 2012 appeal regarding an injunction in the Stutz v. Larkins case.

The Court of Appeal has already ruled one of Judge Judith Hayes' injunctions unconstitutional in this same case. It would seem that Mr. Roddy wants to protect judges who ignore the law. He has not responded to either of the two letters below.

Notice the two signatures on the document at left. Someone has merely written "/s/" on each signature line! This suggests that the clerk didn't like having to sign this document, so she applied this imprecise symbol. Perhaps she feared she'd lose her job if she didn't put something on the signature line.

It appears that Superior Court Appeals division clerk ZZZ ordered her subordinate to dismiss my appeal, claiming that my Designation of Record was unacceptable because there were no hearings on three of the dates I had listed in my Designation of Record.

Even if the court had been correct regarding this issue, it is normal practice to allow the appellant a grace period to correct such mistakes.

In fact, the court was completely, absolutely, wrong.

Not only were there hearings on those dates, but the transcripts of those hearings had actually been received by the Superior Court Appeals division in 2010 for my earlier appeal about the other unconstitutional injunction in this same case. The court apparently invented this excuse in an effort to find any reason at all to justify defaulting my appeal.

What would be the motive? To make sure than Judge Judith Hayes didn't have another injunction overturned by the Court of Appeal in the Stutz v. Larkins case.


October 23, 2012

Michael Roddy, Executive Officer
Stephen Cascioppo, Assistant Executive Officer, Central Division
Third Floor
220 West Broadway
San Diego, CA 92101

Dear Executives of San Diego Superior Court:

Following is not necessarily word-for-word accurate, but all the ideas expressed are accurate. Not every word spoken is recorded here, but this transcript contains about 80% of what was spoken. Some parts were repeated.

I spoke to deputy clerk XXX in the Appeals Section on October 22, 2012 about the fact that all three of the dates she used to justify Defaulting my Appeal were, in fact, dates on which hearings had occurred.

Ms. XXX went to her computer and checked all three dates, then came back to me and said, “There were no minute orders on those dates.”

“Were there hearings on those dates?” I asked.

Instead of answering this question, she repeated a couple more times that there were no minute orders on those dates.

“What if the judge took the matter under submission?” I asked. “There wouldn’t be any minute order, even though there had been a hearing.”

Ms. XXX told me that her computer does not show whether a hearing has occurred—unless there was a minute order!!!!

I showed Ms. Rodriquez two Reporter’s Transcript cover sheets for my 2010 appeal in the same case. I had drawn circles around the three dates in question. Ms. XXX made copies of the two cover sheets, and said that this cleared up the problem.

I said, “No, it doesn’t. The fact that this happened is a problem. Someone told you to do this, didn’t they?”

She said that no one had told her to do it.

I said, “You’re going to take the fall for this?”

I said I didn’t believe she could have made three mistakes like this, and she didn’t have any motive to sabotage my appeal.

When she went to her desk, her supervisor ZZZ came up to her and told her she should leave. Then she said, “It’s your break. I’ll take care of it.”

Then they both came over to where I was sitting, and XXX explained the situation to ZZZ.

ZZZ said to XXX, “Did you look it up on the V3 system?”

XXX said she did.

I said, “So the name of the system you use is V3?

ZZZ waved her hand dismissively, ending the gesture with her palm stationary in front of my face, and said, “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

I requested that she not stick her hand in my face and asked, “Do you not want me to have information about what system you use?”

ZZZ said she didn’t mind giving me the information, and said that V3 was the system used by the Court.

“Does it show when a hearing has occurred?” I asked.

“Yes,” ZZZ said.

“That’s interesting. XXX said that it didn’t,” I said.

ZZZ said, “No, it doesn’t show hearings. It shows the minute orders. The minute orders are printed on yellow paper and placed in the file.”

I said, “So there’s no record on your computer of hearings at which no minute order was issued?”

ZZZ said, “Well, yes, there’s a little one line notation showing that there was a hearing.” She held up her two index fingers, a short distance apart, to show how small the notation was, apparently to demonstrate how easily it could be overlooked. I said, “Someone must have told XXX to do this. Was it you?”

ZZZ said, “No.”

ZZZ turned to XXX and told her to leave.

XXX was obviously uncomfortable to be asked to leave. It was clearly not her normal break time. I happen to know that clerks sometimes take their breaks at their desks, so it was not necessary for XXX to leave even if it actually had been her break time. XXXX did not feel good to be told to leave; her facial expression and body movements revealed that she was unhappy and anxious. I interpreted the order to leave as ZZZ’s effort to prevent XXX from revealing that ZZZ had told her to create the Notice of Default. This was quite paranoid of ZZZ, since XXX was absolutely steadfast in sticking to the story that the Notice of Default was entirely her own idea.

I asked to speak to Ms. ZZZZ’s supervisor, but Ms. ZZZZ said the supervisor had her door closed and was in a meeting.

I gave ZZZ my 1-page letter with three attachments, addressed to Mr. Roddy, Mr. Cascioppo, and XXXX, and she stamped it received and stamped my copy. I went to Michael Roddy’s office, but it was closed for lunch. I went back and asked ZZZ to put another copy in Mr. Roddy’s mail box. I saw her put the letter in a mail box on the west wall.

It’s worse to force a young, vulnerable person to subvert justice than it is to simply subvert justice oneself. And whoever pressured ZZZ was worse than ZZZ. Sincerely,

Maura Larkins



October 21, 2012

Michael Roddy, Executive Officer
Stephen Cascioppo, Assistant Executive Officer, Central Division
XXXXXXXX, Deputy Clerk of the Superior Court, 3rd Floor, Room 3005
220 West Broadway, San Diego, CA 92101

Dear San Diego Superior Court:

Deputy Clerk of the Superior Court XXXXXX states in her October 18, 2012 Notice of Default (attached) that for the dates 4/25/08, 4/03/09 and 3/05/10 “there are no minutes/hearings for those dates according to our record.”

I can’t begin to imagine how Ms. XXX could come up with not one, but three separate mistakes of this type. Not only did hearings occur on all three of these dates, but court reporter Marvie Votaw delivered the transcripts of these three hearings to your Appeals Section in connection with my March 2010 appeal. I have attached Ms. Votaw’s cover pages showing that transcripts were prepared for these dates. Also, in September 2012 the court reporters had no trouble preparing estimates for the cost of preparing the current record because I obviously designated the record with adequate specificity.

It is bizarre that the Superior Court would interfere in this way with my appeals process. If the deputy clerk didn’t have enough time to check carefully, why would she go out of her way to prepare a Notice of Default? Left to her own devices, she would have left it alone rather than picking three dates and declaring that hearings didn’t happen on those days. More likely, someone else picked those three dates and told Ms. XXXX that no hearings occurred on those days.

I suspect that someone in San Diego Superior Court who wanted to get rid of my appeal asked XXXX to prepare this Notice of Default.

Please investigate this shocking subversion of the judicial process.

XXX had no motive to do this on her own initiative, but obviously there is at least one person in San Diego Superior Court who does have a motive. Judge Judith Hayes almost certainly wants to prevent another ruling by the Court of Appeal that finds one of her injunctions to be “exceedingly broad.” But Judge Hayes probably didn’t talk directly to Ms. XXXX. More likely it would have been xxxxxx or xxxxxx.

Sincerely,

Maura Larkins



The clerk seemed quite happy to reverse the default she had been forced to prepare. She sent me the following:

Here's a recent court transcript revealing the judge's bizarre behavior in this case.

See all posts re Stutz v. Larkins.

Michael Roddy is employed directly by the California Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC).