I have nothing but respect for the judges. Nothing. That’s the problem.

MAL CAMINO MAL DESTINO

No longer permitted to practice law, I wait to one side.

My crimes:

• demands to a miscreant judge to step aside;
• confidential complaints to supervising judges;
• an aborted inquiry into the miscreant’s ties to lawyers with court business - blocked by the miscreant - who bankrupted my solo practice with $15,000 in fines, for complaining about him, confidentially, to the Fifth Federal Court Judicial Council.

My many convictions:

• interference with the administration of “justice” by the miscreant;
• burdening lawyer-witnesses, whom guardians of judicial privilege themselves to decline to examine.

Questions which stop the ears of the guardians of both legal and judicial ethics:

1. How many judges receive money gifts from parties with court business?
2. How many do favors in return?
3. How many such judges are too many? One hundred? Ten? One?

An information asymmetry:

• the robed miscreant accepts the gift(s) and does the judicial favor(s).
• the imprudent, but honest court officer denounces the miscreant.
• One is distinguished; one is tossed aside.

When the conduct of a robed miscreant is placed in issue, plenary investigative tools (under the control of STATE judges) become as flaccid and useless as a third nipple.

You states, LOUISIANA, HAWAII, MARYLAND:

• your judges punish lawyers for not gifting them:
• your Counsels of Discipline blend the power of lions with the prestige of dung beetles.

What are YOU STATES  afraid of? Judicial spite? What do they know that we cannot know? That gifts and favors to/from a robed miscreant are routine?

No Gifts Accepted - All Gifts Returned. 

This was the Cardozo Rule.

The road from Benjamin Cardozo to this moment has been a long, downward strut and shuffle.

I have nothing but respect for the judges. Nothing. That’s the problem.

FROM: RBC, That’s What I’m Talking About, page 51 (Amazon, elsewhere)

Law Students: Spot Judicial Misconduct? Keep That to Yourself

In the first federal lawsuit I ever filed, I discovered documentary evidence that a federal judge was a landlord to his former law firm while simultaneously hearing cases brought before him by his former law partners. This meant the judge had a financial interest in the outcome of these cases, since he was collecting rent from counsel in his courtroom.

I reported this to the judge in question by way of a recusal motion.

Upshot: 

1. The Fifth Circuit supervising judges did nothing to address the factual basis of my complaint. Did they look at law firm financial records, or the judge's financial records? Of course. 

Not.

2. The judge in question failed to recuse himself from a matter focused on his financial interest (as required by the judicial conduct rules). 

Instead of following the judicial complaint rules - or being made to follow these rules by supervising judges - the judge who was the target of my complaint, bankrupted my solo practice, with $15,000 in fines, and then ordered me off the case - leaving my clients without counsel. 

3. Vindictive, indifferent state court judges in three jurisdictions (Louisiana, Hawaii, Maryland) placed me in a disciplinary procedural vortex which, by rule, cannot look into judicial misconduct - and then threw me out of the legal profession for making "allegations" which they themselves never addressed, and declined to forward to a US attorney.  

The Fifth Circuit Judicial Council remained silently on the sidelines while I was prosecuted for a matter in which they had declined to conduct even the most superficial inquiry.

Was my judge a landlord of lawyers with business in his court? I say, yes according to documentary evidence filed in the office of the Louisiana Secretary of State. The rest of the judges say, we don't care and are not going to look into that but we will surely punish you for making that "allegation." You are just too stupidly honest to be a lawyer.

In practice, the prettily-written judicial complaint rules belie the fact that these rules offer zero protection for a whistle-blowing attorney. 

In retrospect, I could have and should have done what 500,000 other lawyers do - kept quiet about the private financial arrangements federal judges have with attorneys and attorney associations. These lawyers and their associations have found ways to put money into the pockets of the judges in whose courts these lawyers appear.

In my experience, attorney disciplinary procedures are a pantomime of a fair, transparent and honest proceeding. 

My request to Disciplinary Council that my complaints about the judge be investigated before I lost my law license were simply ignored. (If you do not cooperate with the august Disciplinary Council, you can face a separate charge of 'non-cooperation' but the DC is not required to cooperate with you.)

Controlled by judges, attorney disciplinary procedures are used (three times, against me) to punish a lawyer who foolishly expects supervising judges to shine a light on an "allegation" of serious complaint  of financial misconduct by a brother judge.

In the USA, its OK (mandatory?) to slip something of value to "his'onor"

The New York Times reported today (July 19 2013) on the transparently corrupt conviction of a blogger, who has been a relentless Putin critic.

According to the Times, the chief prosecution witness 

"gave contradictory evidence, and defense lawyers were not allowed to cross-examine him. In addition, Judge Blinov barred the defense from calling 13 witnesses."

The cynical exile from civil society of a critic, effected by criminal conviction engineered by judges is not restricted to Russia. This is what happened to me.

I complained about the documented, ethical misconduct of a federal judge, but the supervising judges on the federal 5th circuit, simply circled their little wagon, not bothering to investigate the judge. 

This opened the door for state court judges, lemmings each and all, to drum me out of the legal profession by "suspending" my law license. 

None of my three licenses will be restored until (under the Louisiana disciplinary rules) I "apologize" - for telling the truth about a be-robed miscreant who probably should never have made it to the federal bench but who, once there, enjoyed a complete lack of supervision of the ethical performance of his duties.

There was never even the pretense of an investigation of my formal complaints by the Fifth Circuit Judges. 

Without investigating on their own, the top judges in the three states where I held a law license were free to characterize my documented complaints as mere "allegations" and lift my law license for coming forward to complain. 

So much for the integrity of the judges on the 

5th federal circuit 

and the state high court judges in 

Louisiana

Hawaii 

Maryland 

These judges merely pretend to high ethical standards. They are as concerned about the ethical behavior of a judicial colleague as a moo cow is in the outcome of the Kentucky Derby. 

If you want to win in federal court, slip something of value to "his'onor" since a travel gift or some other perk to the judge is the only (un)ethical rule that counts. 

When I objected to all this - travel gifts, doing business with lawyers, ignoring the judicial complaint rules, failing to transfer to another judge a motion into his financial ties to lawyers appearing before him -  all this raised no alarms in the chambers of other judges. 

Instead, each and all of my "allegations" merely provided grounds for state court judges to become the executioners of my reputation.

SOURCE: NY Times, July 19 2013: Putin Critic Gets 5-Year Jail Term, Setting Off Protests

In the New Year, Watch Those Piggies Fly

The New York Times reported on Dec 31, 2011 (Chief Justice Defends Peers’ Hearing Case on Health Law by ADAM LIPTAK) that, under federal law, judges must recuse themselves under certain circumstances. 


From the Times article:


Federal law requires that judges disqualify themselves when they have a financial interest in a case, have given advice or expressed an opinion “concerning the merits of the particular case” or when their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” 


In my experience, this 'law' is not prosecuted by U.S. attorneys. Nor do supervising federal judges enforce such strictures upon the judges they supervise.


I have been disbarred in Louisiana and two other states for insisting that my judge recuse himself or be recused from my clients' matter after I reported to other judges:

- the judge accepted overseas travel from a lawyers' organization

-the judge ignored the procedural rules of his own court so as to benefit - into the high hundreds of thousands of dollars - the president of this same group

- there is a document filed with the Louisiana Secretary of State, which shows that the judge's former law firm was paying him rent while bringing matters into his court

I brought these matters before the Judicial Council of the federal Fifth Circuit, who did nothing. Nothing, except deny my complaint and send me and my clients back into the court of this gifted judge.


My complaint to the Judicial Council (the Circuit Judges) was made in confidence, as the judicial complaint rules require. All this meant was that I was outed by the judge about whom I complained. (See below.)


I made my Judicial Council complaints in compliance with ethical standards then applicable to me, which mandate that a lawyer "shall" report the misconduct of a judge, when this conduct becomes known.


What happened? Nothing at all happened to the judge but the consequences were devastating to me.


The judge - in violation of the judicial complaint rules - identified me in a formal decision as a confidential judicial complainant. This meant, of course, that my clients' matter before this judge was wrecked. All opposing counsel had to do was wait for the judge to finish me off, since my effectiveness before this judge had been nullified by the judge himself. (He ordered that his clerk accept no more pleadings from me, including a motion for a stay of further sanctions against me. I was to be gagged before my execution.)


The judge fined me a total of $15,000 - a sum which bankrupted my solo legal practice. 


The judge also instructed me to withdraw from representation of my clients and apologize to him - under threat of further fines. I did so. 


My destruction as a lawyer was complete. Almost.


Two years after I had withdrawn from the lawsuit and discontinued my law business, the Supreme Court of Louisiana, through its employees in the office of the disciplinary counsel, prosecuted me for having filed a confidential complaint with the Judicial Council.


To guarantee my conviction, the prosecution was conducted before a three-person committee, whose chair was a member of the organization that had gifted the judge in the first place.


My underlying complaints about the judge were never investigated. They were never referred to a US attorney, as I had pleaded be done. I was convicted of abuse of the federal judiciary, by insisting that my clients receive a hearing before a judge who was not on the take.


I will never get my law licence back, in Louisiana or in Hawaii or Maryland - the three jurisdictions whose highest judges prefer to destroy the career of an office of their own court rather than embarrass a federal judge by asking him uncomfortable questions.


I will never be a lawyer again because I first must "apologize" to the Louisiana Supreme Court for my misconduct. I will not apologize for insisting that my clients are assured of appearing before an honest judge. It is disgraceful that these justices (quite a misnomer) require an apology for my having made allegations against a judicial colleague of theirs long after their own refusal to investigate my complaints. 


I have done nothing which requires an apology, but I do have many regrets. Here is the litany:


I regret that I ever thought federal judges were held to ethical standards that were actually enforced by someone.


I regret that a lawyer who brings documented evidence of a federal judge's misconduct before supervising judges can expect not protection but the destruction of his client's case and of his own career.


I regret that my clients - dozens of incarcerated women who were being abused and sexually assaulted by prison guards - were too poor to do what was expected of them: pay-to-play in federal court.


I regret that the attorney oath I took in New Orleans, promising to follow high ethical standards myself, was merely for show, that no judge actually expected me to turn in a judge for misconduct, as I swore I would do.


I regret that no one on the highest court in Louisiana actually expected me to report a federal judge for taking gifts and doing favors in return, and that this court, instead, would punish me in the most personally destructive manner that they could devise.


I regret that the Louisiana Supreme Court conducted a Disciplinary Counsel charade instead of an actual investigation into my documented complaints of federal judicial misconduct.


I regret that the judicial lemmings on the Supreme Court of Hawaii and the Maryland Court of Appeals think so little of themselves as independent jurists that they were willing to destroy the legal career of an officer of their own court rather than publish the uncomfortable truth about the misbehavior of a be-robed miscreant on the federal bench.


I regret the prevalence of the notion that pigs don't fly. I know that some pigs do fly, the ones in judicial robes - so long as someone else is paying for the piggy's flight. 


I regret that the book I have written about this mess, MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT, is not permitted to be advertised to members of the Louisiana State Bar Association.


- 

A DRUNK ON THE BENCH 'TIL PENSION KICKS IN? NO PROB IN MARYLAND

Dan Rodicks, Baltimore Sun columnist, has a piece about the dangerous on-the-bench and behind-the-wheel antics of Circuit Court Judge W. Kennedy Boone, who has not hit bottom, yet. 


Here is Rodicks' opinion piece, posted on line on Feb 7, in print edition, Feb 8, 2011 - followed by a link to the article.

baltimoresun.com

If this isn't 'judicial disability,' what is?

Dan Rodricks
4:41 PM EST, February 7, 2011

What happens if Judge W. Kennedy Boone III blows a .07 after lunch? Does he just return to the bench that day, or is the bailiff authorized to send him home with a designated driver? Does Judge Boone get to resume his duties, or does another judge of the Washington County Circuit Court relieve him of his docket? I realize that a .07 blood-alcohol level is not considered intoxication under Maryland law, but it's pretty close.


I raise these questions because Judge Boone, who presides in Hagerstown, has been ordered to take a blood-alcohol test twice a day — once before he goes on the bench in the morning, and again after lunch. Imagine that, my fellow Marylanders: We are apparently so hard up for Circuit Court judges, we're keeping one who can't be trusted to lay off the booze; we'll just check his breath twice a day.


The designer of this creative gate-keeping is the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities, which secretly investigates complaints about the behavior of judges. The term "disabilities" refers to senility, physical illness, mental illness and alcohol or drug abuse. But apparently the commission tolerates these disabilities in a judge — or at least alcohol abuse, at least with regard to Judge Boone.


The commission ordered the judge, who is 68, to take the blood-alcohol tests because he had been involved in a car accident. He'd been driving while drunk, though "blotto" would be a more appropriate word for it. A test after the accident showed Judge Boone with a blood-alcohol level of .18. That's more than twice the legal limit in Maryland. The driver of the other vehicle, a young woman, received minor neck and back injuries, according to published reports.


Judge Boone pleaded guilty to driving under the influence, was fined $1,000 and sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation.


That was last March.


The accident was in early November 2009. It took the disabilities commission all this time to conclude that Judge Boone had violated Maryland's code of judicial conduct and to come up with a sanction. And this is it: twice-daily breathalyzer tests. The judge must also go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and lay off the booze.


So perhaps the answer to my opening question is right there — if he blows a .07, that's evidence of drinking, and evidence of drinking "may result in further discipline," according to the "private reprimand" delivered by the disabilities commission. (Because the judge's DUI case was on the public record, his reprimand was made public as well.)


Still, it's reasonable to ask: Why is the commission being so nice in the matter of W. Kennedy Boone III? This is the same judge who, in 2007, referred to three black, female public defenders as "the Supremes" and advised their client to get "an experienced male attorney." In that case, the judge received a reprimand from the disabilities commission for "a serious lapse in judgment," and he apologized to the public defenders.


In light of what's happened since, you have to wonder if Judge Boone had been drinking before he made the "Supremes" remark. In fact, any litigant who had business in front of the judge after Nov. 6, 2009, might have wondered the same thing. According to the Hagerstown Herald-Mail, that was the day Judge Boone's SUV crossed the center line on North Prospect Street and struck a car driven by a 25-year-old woman and occupied by a 3-year-old in a car seat. (The child was not injured.)


Judges are notoriously soft on drunken drivers, particularly those who stand before them on a first offense. Maybe the disabilities commission thinks Judge Boone deserved a little of that love, too.


But here's the problem — W. Kennedy Boone III is ... a judge! A judge's judgment should not be in question. A judge is held to a higher standard. Citizens need to trust the man or woman who hears their cases, rules on their motions or imposes criminal sentences on their sons and daughters, nieces and nephews.


While making Judge Boone take a breath test before he goes on the bench might seem like a creative and humane concept, I can't believe we're this hard up for judges.


Perhaps the commission thought it would be kind to keep Judge Boone on the job until his mandatory retirement age of 70. It would be wiser, and in the interest of justice, if we just offer early retirement with pension, and wish him well.


Dan Rodricks' column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. He is the host of Midday on WYPR, 88.1 FM. His e-mail is dan.rodricks@baltsun.com.

Copyright © 2011, The Baltimore Sun

Dan Rodricks: A judge gets break and breathalyzer - baltimoresun.com

ONE OF THE WORST EXPERIENCES YOU CAN HAVE

One of the worst experiences you can have is to be reminded unexpectedly of a personal tragedy. This just happened to me.

I opened a file draw and inadvertently pulled out a “Congratulations” letter from the clerk of a Federal District Court in Louisiana, welcoming me, as a new officer of the court. 


I remember the sense of elation and anticipation I felt when I first received this item, years ago.

That was before I discovered that the Canons of Judicial Ethics mean nothing, and the Judicial Complaint Rules mean less than nothing.

I no longer have a law license. 

My three licenses were suspended after I filed a confidential complaint of misconduct against a federal district judge, who publicized my name as the lawyer, who had filed a confidential complaint of misconduct against him. 

This maneuver by the judge of course destroyed my effectiveness in either litigating or settling the matter at hand.

More than two years later, I was prosecuted by the Louisiana Disciplinary Counsel for having brought the confidential complaint against the federal judge. 

I was prosecuted successfully, of course; both of the lawyers on the three-person committee who adjudicated the complaint against me, were members of the lawyer organization who had gifted the judge. (This was one of several of my complaints about this judge – that he took gifts and did favors for his lawyer pals.)

The lawyers who found me guilty of misconduct of course knew what I should have known:

If you expect a judicial complaint to be taken seriously, you live in a world of illusion and delusion.

The attorneys who found me to be unethical for complaining about an unethical judge, practice before the very judge about whom I had complained. They knew there was no actual issue to be decided when it came to either punishing an officer of the federal courts for fling a truthful complaint about a judge versus stating, candidly and honestly, that the judge had done what I said he had done. 

I discovered, at the cost of my law licenses, in three states (Louisiana, Hawaii, Maryland), that no one associated with the legal system is going to criticize a federal district judge for flouting the judicial complaint rules. Why not? Those rules are not enforced by the Circuit Judges who are theoretically supposed to supervise the conduct of the judges below. The Circuit Judges set the tone and it is a very low tone. Inaudible. 

I was reminded of all this when I opened that file and found my “congratulations” letter together with my certificate of admission. I won’t be needing these items any more and don’t need to be surprised by them again. I put them in another file – a round one.           

   

WHAT THE MARYLAND ATTORNEY GRIEVANCE COMMISSION HAS TO SAY - ABOUT ME

BALTIMORE COUNTY

"COOK, Richard Baldwin - Suspended for eighteen months by Consent for filing two motions to recuse the judge in a federal lawsuit for alleged misconduct which had no connection with his client’s case and for filing discovery requests in pursuit of this motion against individuals who were not parties to the lawsuit and who did not possess discoverable information. Respondent violated Maryland Lawyers’ Rules of Professional Conduct 3.1 (meritorious claims and contentions), 4.4 (respect for rights of third persons), 8.4(a) (violation of Rules of Professional Conduct) and 8.4(d) (engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice). There was no allegation or finding in the disciplinary proceeding before the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana that Respondent made any false statements about the federal judge in his motions to recuse or at any other time." http://www.courts.state.md.us/attygrievance/sanctions08.html

Couple questions:

1. Why ought it be  improper to complain about a corrupt judge? Why must an attorney demonstrate "a connection" between a dishonest judge's conduct and a client's case?

Even the required-connection principle ignores the fact that this judge presided in a matter effecting some 100 of my clients.

Why ought my clients or any other litigants be made to come before a court with a track record of departing from the FRCP to do favors for his pals and former law partners?

The finding that a lawyer can only come forward with a judicial ethics complaint when the questioned conduct involves that lawyer's case is a novel doctrine that has no precedence or, really, any point, except to penalize a lawyer for reporting judicial bad behavior.

2. It is common for attorney's to file discovery requests against individuals who are "not parties."

To have found these potential witnesses had no "discoverable information" is an assumption made without reference to the actual facts - the miscreant on the bench ordered that no information from them could be obtained.

To find this discovery attempt to be unethical belies the fact that I had been ordered to show cause why I should not be sanctioned by the miscreant judge.

It was both proper and essential that I discover information from the former managing partner of his old law firm, especially after the Fifth Circuit Judicial Council signaled it would do nothing to protect me from this judge, after he announced he was going to punish me for filing a (so-called) confidential judicial complaint.

At no time was my conduct improper.

What was improper - and ignored by the state judges in Louisiana, Hawaii and Maryland who have destroyed my legal career - was that a judge is not supposed to rule on discovery which is directed at his own finances and his own financial misconduct. Each and all of these judges simply ignore this stricture - which is binding upon their own conduct, and is probably the reason why they do not want to go anywhere close to the practice of gift-giving to judges by litigators who appear before them.

3. To rule that I violated various ethical strictures - while steadfastly refusing to do anything at all about my truthful complaints about the judge - belies a degree of cynicism, which ought to make the Louisiana, Hawaii and Maryland Judges embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.

Of course, there is no chance of that. But questions remain:

Why do state court judges subject a lawyer to discipline for complaining about judicial misconduct - in a disciplinary proceeding which, by rule, cannot examine the conduct of a judge?

Why are state judges set on protecting a federal district judge from the consequences of his misbehavior?

Why do state judges shield well-connected lawyers, whose documented behavior demonstrates they gifted a federal judge? Is it because state court judges also benefit from lawyer-largesse?

Why do state judges refuse to forward "allegations" of judicial misconduct to a competent prosecutor before throwing a demonstrably honest attorney under the judicial bus?

4. It is worth repeating the final statement of the Maryland summary - out of the mouths of the Maryland judges' chosen guardians of legal ethics:

"There was no allegation or finding in the disciplinary proceeding before the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana that Respondent made any false statements about the federal judge in his motions to recuse or at any other time."

Only judges who are indifferent to the truth and hyper-protective of a miscreant on the bench, would make this statement - while banishing an attorney from the legal profession. Did I say "profession" ? I meant to say "club."