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February 2010

TEXAS  

Even judges should say ‘I'm sorry'

By Rick Casey, Houston Chronicle Commentary

02-04-10 -- You may remember the case of Casey Price, the young woman who back in 2008 was put on trial for driving while intoxicated and then forced by the judge to undergo a drug test — after the jury came back with a verdict of not guilty. . . . It was about as blatant an abuse of judicial authority as I can remember. . . . The judge, Carolyn Marks Johnson (who is retired and was sitting as a visiting judge), ordered the drug test while the jury was deliberating and told Johnson if it turned out positive she would give that information to the jury. . . . The jury returned with its verdict before the urine test could be arranged. At that point, the judge had no more authority over Price than over any spectator in the courtroom, yet she ordered her to have the test anyway. . . . Two hours later and, to add insult to injury, an $11 charge to Price, the test came back negative. . . . It has taken a year and a half, but the judicial system's wheels of accountability have turned in this matter, and the spectacle is not pretty.

January 2010

FLORIDA  

Florida grandma Gabrielle Shaink Trudeau left in jail for 15 days over driver's license mistake

By Rich O'Malley, New York Daily News Staff Writer

01-12-10 -- Grandma got ramrodded by the state, dear. . . . A 78-year-old indigent Florida woman was left in jail for 15 days -- including over Thanksgiving -- on charges of  driving with a suspended license, according to a story in the online newspaper BrowardBulldog.org. . . . But authorities then admitted her license wasn't suspended and an outraged judge released her at a December arraignment, the article reported. . . . The story of Hallandale Beach grandmother Gabrielle Shaink Trudeau has sparked a serious case of navel orange gazing within the Sunshine State's legal system. . . . First reported by BrowardBulldog.org and posted on the Miami Herald Web site, Trudeau's odyssey began in September when she was pulled over for driving slowly and issued a summons for driving with a suspended or revoked driver's license. . . . A misunderstanding of official correspondence from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles from a previous matter led Shaink Trudeau to mistakenly think she no longer needed to show for a desk appearance stemming from that traffic stop, the article said. She didn't show up and an arrest warrant was issued. On Nov. 18, she was taken into custody by police at her home, where she was also facing eviction, in the Lone Pine Mobile Country Club West. The next day her bond was set at $2,000.

FLORIDA  

Seminole judge jailing people for court debts

By Rene Stutzman, Orlando Sentinel

01-07-10 -- Seminole County Judge Ralph Eriksson improperly jailed more than 20 people during the past five months, finding them in contempt of court and locking them up for failing to pay court costs, court records show. . . . In each case, an appeals judge ruled Eriksson violated their constitutional rights and ordered their release. . . . In fact, Circuit Judge Donna McIntosh provided Eriksson with written appeal orders, explaining why he was wrong and specifying his errors. . . . That didn't stop Eriksson. . . . On Dec. 15, he jailed four more men, including 22-year-old Stephen Antonio Kelley, who lives near Casselberry and said he had not paid $600 in court costs because he could not find a job. . . . Asked Eriksson: "What did you do with all of the jewelry you were wearing to court on December the 7th? ... If you wanted, you could sell that and clear [your fines]." . . . Said Kelley: "That was a gift from my mother." . . . Eriksson ordered Kelley to jail for 30 days. Two days later, McIntosh freed him and three others Eriksson jailed the same day for contempt.

CALIFORNIA  

Judicial Bias Out of Control in SF Superior Court

by Dean Preston‚ Beyond Chron   Jan. 05‚ 2010

01-05-10 -- As 2009 drew to a close, the Appellate Panel at SF Superior Court quietly upheld the eviction of long-term San Francisco resident, Susan Suval. Without any explanation, the court rubber-stamped the erroneous trial court ruling that allowed a landlord to invoke the Ellis Act despite a written agreement with the City that he would do no such thing. . . . The case stands as the latest example of judicial bias against renters in San Francisco’s Superior Courts. Despite its progressive political climate, San Francisco continues to be one of the worst places in California when it comes to judicial bias against tenants. / Suval Eviction – From Bad to Worse  . . . I previously reported on the illegal eviction of Susan Suval. Suval’s landlord initiated an Ellis Act eviction in direct violation of his written agreement with the City to continue renting to low-income tenants for five years. The judge refused to even allow the jury to hear evidence at trial of the landlord’s agreement with the City, assuring a victory for the landlord. . . . The judicial proceedings in this case are best summarized in the words of Fielding Melish, Woody Allen’s character in the movie Bananas: “This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.” Suval’s attorney, Raquel Fox, must have used every ounce of restraint not to say something along these lines at trial.

 Dean Preston is an attorney and director of Tenants Together, California’s Statewide Organization for Renters’ Rights.

For more information about Tenants Together, go to www.tenantstogether.org.

TENNESSEE  

Man Says Judge Arrested Him 'On a Hunch'

By Liz Potocsnak, Courthouse News Service

01-04-10 -- A judge in Dickson County, Tenn., had officers pull a spectator out of his courtroom "on a hunch," held him in custody and made him submit to a urinalysis for drugs, the man claims in Federal Court. Benjamin Marchant claims that General Sessions Judge Durwood Moore admitted that he "routinely drug-screens 'spectators' in his courtroom if he 'thinks' they may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol." Moore allegedly called it the "routine policy of the court." . . . Marchant says he was in Moore's courtroom supporting a friend, when Moore ordered officers to take him into custody. They grabbed Marchant, allegedly without any evidence of illegal behavior, and took him to a different place in the courthouse where he was made to submit to a drug screen urinalysis. He was released from custody when the results came back negative. . . . In response to Marchant's judicial ethics complaint, Moore allegedly said that plucking suspicious spectators from his courtroom and screening them for drugs was "the routine policy of the court."

December 2009

ARIZONA  

Victim of the court system?  Man faces arrest after court dismisses charge

By Linda Stein, Prescott Daily Courier

12-28-09 -- Imagine officers arresting you because you failed to answer a summons for a misdemeanor that you never received. . . . That's what happened to David Waters, who said he's been living a nightmare since complaining about a neighbor's barking dog. . . . Waters, 55, got a ticket charging him with "dumping on a public roadway" on March 9. The neighbor, who complained to police that he'd discarded a cigar while driving his quad-runner was the dog owner who Waters turned in. . . . "How am I going to smoke a stogie when I have a full face helmet on?" Waters asked. "Even if I didn't have a helmet on, you'd have burn marks and with my wife on the back?" . . . In May the Mayer Justice Court dismissed the case for jurisdictional reasons but the complainant re-filed it in the Dewey-Humboldt Court. However, because the ticket listed Waters' street address and not his post office box, where he gets his mail, Waters never received a summons for a hearing. Instead, Yavapai County Sheriff's deputies came to his door on Sept. 1 and arrested him.

GENERAL

And justice for all?

A Rochester author exposes the shocking shortcomings of our legal system-and gets national attention for it.

Jim Memmott, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

12-21-09 -- After a few years had passed, friends and family began to wonder. . . . "When are you going to finish your book?" they would ask. . . . Amy Bach, a lawyer and journalist living in Rochester. . . . It was an understandable question. Bach, who is 41, had begun her field reporting on the justice system in the United States in 2001. Funded in part by fellowships, she kept digging deeper and deeper as the years went by. Interviews piled on interviews; the stacks of notes got higher and higher. . . . Along the way, she learned discouraging and appalling facts. For lots of reasons, including lack of money and lack of political will, average citizens sometimes lose their basic rights when they're accused of crimes or are the victims of crimes. . . . "You don't want ordinary people to suffer day in and day out because of failures of the system," Bach says. She was onto something important, so she knew she would finish the book. "But I wanted to get it right," she adds. . . . And so she did. Encouraged by her husband and others, Bach has produced a compelling book that has drawn national media attention. . . . Published in September by Macmillan's Metropolitan Books, Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court tells its stories through the eyes of people caught up in, and sometimes ground down by, the judicial system. . . . In the process it questions some of our basic assumptions about the law.

WASHINGTON

$10 an hour with 2 kids? IRS pounces

Rachel Porcaro knows she's hardly rich. When you're a single mom making 10 bucks an hour, you don't need government experts to tell you how broke you are.

Danny Westneat, Seattle Times staff columnist

12-06-09 -- Rachel Porcaro knows she's hardly rich. When you're a single mom making 10 bucks an hour, you don't need government experts to tell you how broke you are. . . . But that's what happened. The government not only told Porcaro she was poor. They said she was too poor to make it in Seattle. . . . It all started a year ago, when Porcaro, a 32-year-old mom with two boys, was summoned to the Seattle office of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She had been flagged for an audit. . . . She couldn't believe it. She made $18,992 the previous year cutting hair at Supercuts. A few hundred of that she spent to have her taxes prepared by H&R Block. . . . "I asked the IRS lady straight upfront — 'I don't have anything, why are you auditing me?' " Porcaro recalled. "I said, 'Why me, when I don't own a home, a business, a car?' " . . . The answer stunned both Porcaro and the private tax specialist her dad had gotten to help her. . . . "They showed us a spreadsheet of incomes in the Seattle area," says Dante Driver, an accountant at Seattle's G.A. Michael and Co. "The auditor said, 'You made eighteen thousand, and our data show a family of three needs at least thirty-six thousand to get by in Seattle." . . . "They thought she must have unreported income. That she was hiding something. Basically they were auditing her for not making enough money."

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FBI, DOJ refuse to investigate charges of judicial corruption

By: Barbara Hollingsworth, Washington Examiner (blog)

Re: “SEC IG looks into United Airlines bankruptcy,” Nov. 24

12-3-09 -- For three years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice have refused to investigate material evidence of a nationwide criminal racket that has allegedly infiltrated state and federal courts and is unlawfully manipulating and exploiting litigants in bankruptcy, family and probate courts. . . . According to court documents filed in Chicago, the FBI and DOJ turned a blind eye to retaliation against citizens who attempted to expose the corruption, including “kidnapping of children, false incarceration after being ‘framed’ by criminal elements in civil and criminal authorities, impoverishment, coercion under duress, and serious physical injury up to and including death.” . . . The 2006 affidavit claims that “multiple judges and lawyers are aware of and/or involved in alleged criminal acts,” but have not reported wrongdoing to authorities in violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct. It specifically mentions four federal judges, including Eugene R. Wedoff, who was appointed chief bankruptcy judge of the Northern District of Illinois in 1986. . . . Judge Wedoff presided over the 2005 bankruptcy of United Airlines, in which 20 large unsecured creditors lost nearly $18 million. The airline also defaulted on $3.2 billion worth of pension obligations for over 134,000 United employees –the largest pension default in three decades – while its top executives walked off with millions in exit bonuses.

RHODE ISLAND  

Teen sues over ID in online arrest log

By Amanda Pinto, New Haven Register Staff

12-4-09 -- In what may be the first lawsuit of its kind in the state, a Rhode Island man is suing the town because he was listed in an online arrest log when he was 17 years old, which is not permitted by law. . . . The plantiff, now 18, is identified in the suit as John Doe to protect his privacy. State law mandates that arrest records for people under the age of 18 “shall be confidential and shall not be open to public inspection,” his attorney, Diane Polan of New Haven, wrote in the suit. . . . Polan and other law scholars said the case is unique. . . . “In my experience, (police) are scrupulous about this, following the state law,” Polan said. “I’ve never heard of this happening.” . . . Once it did happen, in this “age of Internet privacy invasion” police could not put the genie back in the bottle, Polan said. . . . According to the lawsuit filed in Superior Court in New Haven, the information remained on the Web site for nearly one year, and is now available on other Web sites.

WEST VIRGINIA   

Goldfaced Paint Huffer Sues Companies For Using His Awful Mug Shot (AMZN)

Lawrence Delevingne, Business Insider

12-2-09 -- So you got arrested. Your police mug shot is awful. But can others make money off the embarrassing photo? . . . In 2005, West Virginia man Patrick Tribett was booked for paint huffing. The mug shot (below) shows the 45-year-old's face partially covered with gold spray paint. . . . The shot became a Web hit, and companies plastered a likeness on T-shirts and mugs for sale online. . . . Now, Tribett is suing.

Leave My Mug Shot Alone!

"Goldface" man considers suing over use of iconic booking photo

Smoking Gun

12-1-09 -- His attorney, H. John Rogers, is reportedly preparing federal lawsuits against several companies that have sold merchandise featuring Tribett's photo, including Amazon.com, Cafe Press, and Hot Toys, a Chinese manufacturer. T-shirts with Tribett's photo (and the phrase "I wanna know where da gold at") are currently being sold on Zazzle.com for about $20 (though the site offers a volume discount if you order more than 10 shirts). Tribett, who has been clean for about two months, did not respond to a message left for him at Lazarus House, a Wheeling recovery facility where he resides.

VIRGINIA  

Judge who fined Gloucester petitioners will retire next summer

By Matt Sabo, Daily Press

12-1-09 -- Westbrook J. Parker, the circuit judge from Southampton who levied $80,000 in sanctions against 40 Gloucester citizens last year, intends to retire at the end of his term in June. . . . Parker is chief judge of the Fifth Judicial District, which covers the cities of Suffolk and Franklin and the counties of Isle of Wight and Southampton. He was up for reappointment at a state legislative committee hearing Dec. 17, which was expected to draw dozens of Gloucester residents who intended on traveling to the hearing. . . . Patricia Cowan, one of the 40 Gloucester citizens sanctioned by Parker, said there was even talk of renting a bus to carry people to the hearing. . . . "I can't even begin to tell you the number of people," Cowan said. "Several dozen." ********* But Parker's sanctioning of the 40 Gloucester citizens was roundly criticized by legal experts and scholars. The sanctions have been appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court, which could decide whether to review the case as soon as February. . . . In April, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression bestowed upon Parker a "Jefferson Muzzle" award for docking the 40 Gloucester petitioners $2,000 apiece. Citing the First Amendment, which guarantees a citizen's right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, the Jefferson Center intoned that Westbrook "feels one should pay a price — literally — to exercise his or her rights."

2008

November 2007

NEW YORK

Judicial Perjury* – a Black Wall of Silence Tragedy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

For further information: Jorge Bernal

917-270-2498 / 718-235-7472

11-17-07 -- The New York State Appellate Department Second Division’s Decision and Order on Mr. Jorge Bernal’s appeal is a flagrant judicial tragedy to protect a judicial perjurer, Family Court Judge Salvatore Modica.

The Decision was published on November 9, 2007, on the Appellant Department’s website.

Mr. Bernal’s Brief requested a new hearing on his Motion to Vacate Final Order, the removal of Judge Modica from the bench and Judge Modica’s disbarment. Mr. Bernal’s Brief contains, among others, factually documented lies, fabrications of evidence and inflammatory statements of Judge Modica in his Order and Decision of March 6, 2007.

The Appellant Department denied Mr. Bernal’s appeal wrongfully based on a failure to establish a good cause and failure to have provided evidence in a timely manner. In addition, the Appellant Department stated that all other contentions were without merit.

The crux of Mr. Bernal’s anger is the fact that it was clearly established in his Brief that Judge Modica had held ex-parte communications, with counsel representing the opposing party, for the purpose of cutting Mr. Bernal’s oral arguments off.  

Mr. Bernal contents that he could not argue his ‘good cause’ and ‘timely evidence’ because he was cut off. Mr. Bernal is a self-represented. The Decisions, Brief and Certified Court Transcripts can be found in Mr. Bernal’s website www.kangaroo-court.net.

Victims-of-Law Commentary

When a judge commits Judicial Perjury* you know the “fix” is in favor of a certain litigant. Judges who insert obvious “false facts” into their opinions are operating under a corrupt influence – it’s easier to change the ‘facts’ to fit statutory law, case law, rules of evidence & court rules. Appellate courts will always sanction the trial court judge’s facts no matter how false they are even if they are proven to the nth degree.

“Over the years, when we suspected a judge was corrupt, we examined their rulings to see if there are judicial perjuries. An honest judge, mis-stating the undisputed facts, would quickly correct wrong statements. A crooked judge, even when confronted *** refuses.” -- SHERMAN H. SKOLNICK

*Judicial Perjury was coined by Sherman H. Skolnick (deceased).

Click a link to access subject:
 Legal Research / Family Law / Legal Writing / Legal Ethics

September 2007

KENTUCKY

Black farmer files judicial complaint against federal judge

by Monica Davis ( davis4000_2000 [at] yahoo.clm )

9-24-07 -- Harry Young, a black farmer whose land was sold in an allegedly illegal auction by the Farm Services Administration has filed a legal complaint in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals against a sitting federal judge in Owensboro, Kentucky. . . . Harry Young, a black farmer from Owensboro, Kentucky has upped the ante in his quest to regain possession of his farm and overturn what many farm activists claim was an illegal auction. Young has filed a complaint against the Western District of US Court in Owensboro, in the 6th Circuit of the US Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. . . . The farm has been in the Young family since the late 19th century and contains valuable mineral rights--at least $18 million dollars worth of coal reserves. A major point of contention is whether those reserves were included in the $500,000 sale of the farm. Young says that he has been denied access to documents which would verify whether these valuable reserves were included in the half a million dollar sale. . . . Filing for himself in a pro se argument, Young's complaint says: "It is the purpose of the ancient institution of property to protect those claims which people rely in their daily lives, and this reliance must not be arbitrarily undermined; it is a purpose of the constitutional right to a hearing, protected by procedural due proces, to provide an opportunity for a person to vindicate those claims. (Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 US ]564, 92 s Ct 2701 33 Led 2d 548)

August 2006

MASSACHUSETTS   

Lawyer vows to fight her disbarment

By Associated Press

Controversial lawyer and former gubernatorial candidate Barbara Johnson said she will fight her disbarment this week by the state's highest court to the US Supreme Court. . . . Johnson, who's been highly critical of the state court system, called the disbarment process a ``kangaroo court" and compared Massachusetts to a Third World country. . . . ``They'll disbar me, which is fine; I'll write my judicial murder mysteries," Johnson told The Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence on Thursday. ``I'm going to kill off a judge in the prologue of every one. It'll be like a Where's Waldo murder mystery, and I'll use real names for the judges." . . . Johnson was disbarred for charges including putting sensitive confidential information from two of her cases on her website, refusing to pay legal fines after being held in contempt, and conducting herself in an ``insulting, vituperative" manner in court.

Victims-of-Law Commentary -- Barbara Johnson, in all likelihood, is being retaliated against for taking unpopular positions and exposing judicial corruption. A web page will be set-up on this site.

Charles Lincoln's Trials & Tribulations

Older Articles: Victims Review

The Terri Schindler-Schiavo Story

THE ON-GOING JUDICIAL ARROGANCE OF JUDGE GREER