Evidence of cover up by the judicial system

[Sharing Lights]

A Proposal and Solution:


This is a preliminary statement, which I designed, as was wring the facts of the CJC abuse.

The idea there is just and proper to my belief, and its urgency is self-evident.

Wordings may be polished; yet, the central idea should be clear enough as is, particularly after reading the Post.

As the fundamental is laid here, let us continue on it and polish the body of the new Policy that must be implanted if the People of the US, ever, hope to get a fair chance for any judicial investigation.

Proposal for the Constitutional Policy are welcomed to be posted here.
It is done by the People for the People and that is how it should have been done from the start.

I began, you continue so that we all can jointly form a Policy as close to perfection as possible.


Any Commission on Judicial Conduct in order to become legitimate and Constitutional must be comprised of equal numbers of the People as of the presiding judges.

As there are, presently, 11 judges in CJC, there has to be 5 judges and Civilians or 6 and 6.
It seems to me that form of jury should be chosen as it has been utilized in trials.

Why reinvent the wheel?

Such people would be elected from the civilians of non-judges, non-attorneys- background, would show competency in
basic law and ability to learn and comprehend the pertaining to investigations data.

All votes should have equal value.
Any bias, agenda, or incompetence should result in dismissal of the jury or presiding judge
in order to retain integrity.

An example: a comment by judge that his/her close friend is being investigated should relive such judge of duty.

A comment that a jury hates all judges should relive such from his/her duty.

All should have an equal chance those who investigate and the one who is being investigated.

Any Commission which is, only, comprised of the members the same group or agenda which is authorized to render decisions must be dissolved and declared unconstitutional as it can't, possibly, be constitutional and contradicts the Maxims of fairness!

That refers to judges and all. All means all!

Impartial decisions can only be achieved by the impartial panel of People who form the Commission.

Judges judging judges produces absolute tyranny of the power exhibited by the individuals as they belong to the class of judges supervised by their class, once more - the Bar Association.

Just read that concept and really s-l-o-w-ly:

judges
judging
judges

How more absurd can it get?

There is no room for any one or anything else left there.
They know what they have done and they fear us to
awaken and realize how absurd their Commissions
are from the onset.

It's no more than a token to appease people.
It may not be tolerated and people must raise their votes in their, self-defense.

True Justice would be done.

The key factor is to involve the Media so that when People hear the news on the TV and Radio, then they can realize what is at stake.

The next step is to take them to Court.
But, first, enough allies must be located as one, unified front utilized.

Being in the Court, run by the judge once more is not the best scenario to abolish their supremacy.

Yet, only Courts can render Decisions.

They trapped us literally in their circle.

Only when enough exposure is achieved and enough people are aware and begin to raise their voices and contact the Senate, Congress and utilize their voting power, can real results take place.

Exposure to truth and facts, exposure, exposure.



How many folks know of how Commission functions?
A tiny fraction of the population, say I.

Travesty must be exposed and would be revealed by facts and nothing but the facts.


Who could allow that to happen unless some heinous corruption took place on the Governmental level?


It creates an unparalleled window of the widely opened abuse.
A group of lawyers-judges formed an association which gained power.

Lawyers-judges are delegated from that association.

Any lawyer-judge if needs to be investigated for any, possible violation of law, is investigated by his/her colleagues, people of the similar background, common interests, and even possibly friends with the chance for all the scenario to be true in whole or partially is, extremely, high.

The regulations for such investigation are, once again, set up by the elite group of the same or very similar background, interests, associations, values, agendas, place of study, friendship.

This is equivalent to forming commission comprised of convicts who would render decisions on other convicts.

Impartial decisions can only be achieved by the decisions being rendered by the impartial groups of people who have no interest in the outcome of the decision except of the decisions itself.

There is a very well written article on what happened to the Judiciary branch. Apparently the move from public law to public policy happened in 1938. (The reason any Supreme Court ruling/case before 1938 is now invalid.) What occured, via a secret meeting, to move everything into Admiralty/Maritime Law, which is now disguised as Statutory Jurisdiction... and lots of really fun and not so funny, other stuff of interest. You will find the article at this address:
www.gemworld.com/UCC-applied.htm

alia

[Sharing Lights]

Originally Posted by alia

There is a very well written article on what happened to the Judiciary branch. Apparently the move from public law to public policy happened in 1938. (The reason any Supreme Court ruling/case before 1938 is now invalid.) What occurred, via a secret meeting, to move everything into Admiralty/Maritime Law, which is now disguised as Statutory Jurisdiction... and lots of really fun and not so funny, other stuff of interest. You will find the article at this address:
www.gemworld.com/UCC-applied.htm

alia

I thank you, very much, for the link, as sharing knowledge is helpfull to many.
I would read and learn, as most of us, are here to learn and share.

There can be no sharing without learning.

Valuable links are priceless, as searching for them may take so much time and, also, shows care.
Thank you.

[Sharing Lights]

Joe Hynes: My Greatest Disappointment
posted by maurice gumbs
Wed, 10/04/2006 - 10:15am



I may have said before. I will say it again. For the last time. One day the full and true story of two decades of Corruption in Kings County will be written. And at that time District Attorney Joe Hynes will be fingered as the single person most responsible for the sleaziness of these years. Joe Hynes is my greatest disappointment. I don’t need to be reminded that I have supported Hynes from the first time he ran for office, through last year. And at the same time I have no apology for choosing against John Sampson last year. It was like making a decision between prostate cancer and a massive heart attack.
As often has to be done in politics, I went with the lesser of evils. It was easy.

In reviewing the tragedy that is Joe Hynes, think of it like this. In the worst school district of New York City, where schools are disorderly and chaotic, there is going to be one building where a conscientious principal is completely in control and children are behaving and learning as though they were in a suburban private school.

In the middle of a crime infested and drug-riddled precinct there will be blocks kept a safe haven by decent cops who are determined to have it so. In Housing Projects as dismal, dreary, and filthy as the Pink Houses, there are children who will become doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, nurses, millionaires, and rocket scientists, because their parents refused to let them surrender to their shabby environment.

The District Attorney is like the parent in a project apartment, the principal in a school, and the cop on the beat. He sets the tone in the Borough. It is the District Attorney who sends out the message with respect to crime. Not only to petty criminals in the streets, but to criminal judges in the Courts, and criminal political leaders. The District Attorney is like the honest Sheriff in the old Western movies who prohibits bandits, gun-fighters, and rustlers from “bringing their guns to town.“ The bad guys know that they will have head-on confrontation with the sheriff and can only enter over his dead body.

That is what Brooklyn needs and deserves in a District Attorney. A man of courage and integrity who would have said to people like Vito Lopez, Jeff Feldman and their ilk.

LISTEN UP, NOW. THIS IS MY BOROUGH. THESE ARE MY COURTS. I AM NOT GOING TO LET YOU DEFECATE IN KINGS COUNTY. YOU ARE DISRESPECTING ME AND MY OFFICE AND I AM NOT GOING TO LET YOU GET AWAY WITH IT. I WILL STICK TO YOU LIKE WHITE ON RICE. AND I AM GOING TO GET YOU. I AM GOING TO INDICT YOU, TAKE YOU TO TRIAL, AND LOCK YOU UP, ALL WITHIN TWO YEARS. I AM GOING TO MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF YOU. SO CUT IT OUT. NOW!!!!

Joe Hynes is incapable of demanding respect from crooked elected officials. He is the dead body of a Sheriff lying on the ground where characters like Vito Lopez and Jeff Feldman step over him and go about their business. Joe is the cop drinking coffee and eating a bag of donuts in his cruiser while guys are peddling dope on the street corner. He is the school principal doing the crossword puzzle in his office while kids are running wild in the halls. He is the Assemblywoman trolling for votes in a Housing project that looks like a public bathroom at the end of a long weekend. But of course, like all other failures, Joe Hynes has excuses and explanations for the disaster around him. And sure…I don’t understand. And guess what, Joe? I really do not want to understand why you cannot get the job done that you were hired to do.

[Sharing Lights]

How much respect does Joe Hynes command? How bad is it? Get this.

Jeff Feldman, husband of a judge has been indicted and is facing trial for bribery and extortion. Jeff is cited in a decision by a Federal Judge as one of the arrogant, insulting, gross Party bosses playing a leading role in the crooked process of selecting Supreme Court judges for Kings County. It’s there in Judge Gleeson’s decision for everyone who wants to read it. And maybe someone will set up a link.

Yet Jeff Feldman played a leadership role in the nomination of State Supreme Court judges this year. And Jeff Feldman’s name was boldly and shamelessly placed on the petitions of every candidate endorsed by the Kings County Democratic organization.

Think of it this way. Imagine deceased Mafia bosses John Gotti and Paul Castellano selecting the judges for Kings County State Supreme Court. And why not? Extortion is where these guys make the big bucks. Extortion is the same crime Jeff Feldman and Clarence Norman were accused of attempting. Extortion!!! Imagine a candidate for judge out there with a sheet of green paper saying that she was supported and recommended by John Gotti. That’s what it amounts to. And just about every candidate for judge would have been willing to carry the name of Jeff Feldman if the Bosses had endorsed them and told them to do so. That’s the level to which the Kings County has reached.

If Joe Hynes had been District Attorney in the old days, Gotti and Castellano wouldn’t have had to do their business in smoke-filled basements with armed goons. They could meet on the steps of Borough Hall. BP Marty Markowitz would send them out some pastry and maybe Joe Hynes himself would have walked over the few blocks to congratulate them when they made their selections.

And why not? With Joe Hynes around, a lawyer who had been head of the Brooklyn Bar Association was taking bribes to sell off Court property to insiders at a bargain price. Right on the steps of the Supreme Court(or was it Borough Hall).

And not far from Hynes’ office a Dinner Club for judges and a select group of lawyers was under surveillance by Federal agents. It’s clear that the Feds did not trust Joe Hynes’ office to clean up corruption in Brooklyn. And the City Inspector General who worked with the DA’s office to set up a sting on Diane Gordon should have taken a clue from that episode and done the video-taping without including Hynes’ leaky office.

And then, there’s Vito Lopez, the County Leader whose name appears prominently in Judge Gleason’s decision. Several individuals were named as having attempted to coerce Judge Margarita Lopez Torres into hiring Vito’s daughter as her Law Clerk. Or put it this way. It amounted to Judge Lopez Torres being offered a bribe for hiring Vito’s daughter, and being threatened with being black-balled from promotion if she didn’t.

I’m no lawyer. But it certainly seems like there was extortion or bribery involved here. No one came forward to refute the story as told in Judge Gleeson’s Federal court, and it rests as fact in the decision. Yet all of this was known to the DA’s office just months after it occurred and he did nothing. Nor did he do anything when the partners of the Law-firm of Garry Ludwig announced in a written statement that they had been paid with Court receiverships to do political hack-work for County bosses. And there certainly seemed to be a felony in this.

Clarence Norman and Jeff Feldman were indicted in October 2003 (correction?). Rumor on the street was that the Feds were about to step in and grab Clarence. And according to the story, Hynes who had refused to move on information he had, begged them to let him go forward.

[Sharing Lights]

Once the trial started, Hynes stated that he was waiting for Gary Naftalis to complete a major case so he could take over Clarence‘s defense. So there was a 6 month delay. As it turned out, Naftalis never took over the defense. Clarence got to run for office and win, but was convicted and sentenced to jail in Spring 2005. 3 years after his indictment and a year and a half after his conviction Clarence is still free to walk the streets. And Jeff Feldman has not yet been tried.

Assemblywoman Diane Gordon would have been serving time by now if Hynes had not been duped into making a plea-bargain deal with her. It was the NYC Inspector General’s office who broke this case. But we now hear that there had been previous reports to the District Attorney’s office that current and previous elected officials were involved in deal-making with developers. Hynes also appears to be intent on letting time run out on two other felony matters involving Gordon. And one of these matters is tied to Alan Hevesi who was on the ticket with Hynes’ in 2001.

After loud announcements about investigating individuals involved in the scandal that led to the dismissal of Judge Feinberg, the Counsel to the Court, and his Public Advocate Marietta Small, Hynes will do absolutely nothing until there is some newspaper story or until the Feds begin to show an interest.

On the other hand, Hynes has a different level of energy when it comes to prosecuting his enemies. Take John O’Hara, a young lawyer who voted from an address where he did not live, was tried and re-tried, and re-tried to set a record in Kings County for retrials. And finally John was convicted, disbarred, fined $20,000, and assigned to clean parks because he committed the same offense that more than 100,000 voters in Brooklyn probably commit every year, and candidates are found guilty of committing, and are not even reprimanded.

And there was Sandra Roper who was brazen enough to run against Joe, and suddenly found allegations being made against her by an ex-client who frequented the District Attorney’s Help room. Roper quickly lost her job as a Law Clerk, and facing a long, and expensive “John OrHara” trial which she could not afford, agreed to settle the matter without a decision.

Worse than all is the matter of former Judge John Phillips. In addition to having been a judge, John Phillips was the owner of almost a block of property on Herkimer Street in Brooklyn. He also owned a theatre on Fulton Street, and several buildings on Nostrand Avenue. Phillips’ estate is estimated by some to have been worth as much as 50 million $$$$ today. Shortly after he announced that he would run against Hynes, the DA’s office claimed that Phillips was the target of a plot by predators.

Somehow the DA’s office succeeded in providing the Court system that Phillips was incompetent to handle his own affairs, and he was put under the charge of guardians. Under the care of these guardians we understand that much, if not most of Phillips estate has disappeared. Rumors in Bedford/Stuy are that part of his estate was “sold” to persons connected to a Brooklyn judge, and other parcels to politically-connected individuals who are friends of the DA.

My prediction is that the time will come when the dots will be connected and Brooklyn will understand the motivation behind the all the actions and inaction of District Attorney Charles Hynes. Joe made that first step towards Howard Golden when he betrayed Joe Ferris many years ago. And he has never been able to get off from that slippery slope. He has become comfortable with big money and affluent surroundings just as he has become comfortable in his home in the peaceful, segregated community of Breezy Point, Queens.

But it won’t be long.

The suffering of John Phillips and John O’Hara and Sandra Roper will not be in vain, Joe. And won’t it be a hoot if a bunch of John Phillips’ friends from Bed/Stuy come to visit you in Breezy Point one Sunday morning after church? Maybe to pray for you?

THIS ARTICLE AND OTHER FOOTNOTESNY ARTICLES MAY BE FOUND ARCHIVED AT
ROOM 8NY.COM UNDER MAURICE GUMBS BLOG

[Sharing Lights]

Hynes is not the man to clean up Brooklyn’s troubled courts
May 5, 2003 - BROOKLYN PAPERS
As Brooklyn’s latest courthouse corruption scandal exploded this week, District Attorney Charles Hynes appeared shocked — shocked! — that bribery was allegedly committed on his watch, and he suggested there is something inherently wrong with the buying and selling of judgeships as well as judgements.

Justice should be blind; a district attorney, however, may not be blind to injustice and judicial corruption. Hynes, nursed at the bosom of the Brooklyn Democratic machine, is, in this case, friends with all the wrong people.

Whatever his public pronouncements now, Hynes’ decades-old allegiance to the sources of our judiciary’s dark days will taint his actions. Every prosecution he brings can appear to be both a cover for the prosecutions he will not bring and a reminder of those he did not bring before.

In the interest of blind justice, Hynes should recuse himself as prosecutor of Brooklyn’s judicial mess. A special federal prosecutor should take his place.


The fruit of a poisoned tree

In the legal trade it’s called “fruit of a poisoned tree.”

That’s the term lawyers use to argue that valid evidence obtained improperly not be admitted at trial. With the arrest this week of Judge Gerald Garson, a longtime treasurer of the Kings County Democratic Committee, and the declaration by District Attorney Charles Hynes that the system used to select Brooklyn judges is a sham, all of Brooklyn’s judges — and Hynes himself — must be considered such fruit.

The poisoned tree, of course, is the county Democratic Party and its judicial screening process. At the tree’s root is party leader Clarence Norman and his chief executive Jeffrey Feldman. The tree holds Hynes as well.

After nearly two years of judicial corruption staring him in the face, Hynes, forced to confront strong evidence in the Garson case, deflected attention from individual judges who might be engaged in improprieties (the tree’s fruit) and targeted the tree itself.

“Any suggestion this is a process giving voting rights to the public is nothing less than a sham,” Hynes said. He empaneled a grand jury to investigate how the borough’s judges are selected.

[Sharing Lights]

Hynes may be well intentioned here. But his close ties to the Brooklyn Democrats, especially Norman, Feldman and former Borough President Howard Golden (a longtime party leader to whom Hynes provided a six-figure, do-nothing job after Golden was term-limited out of office), combined with Hynes’ failure to address the problem sooner, make him the wrong man for this task.

Hynes has for his entire political career had no qualms with the way judges are hand-picked by the county organization. Now, after more than a dozen years as district attorney, we are asked to believe that he’s found religion.

• • •

Charles Hynes, the great court reformer. Imagine!

Consider the case of Supreme Court Justice Victor Barron, who last year was caught shaking down an attorney. The court scandal did not begin with Barron, and we see that it didn’t end with him. Yet Hynes declined at the time — in the face of a constant barrage of criticism by reformers and editorial writers at the Daily News — to widen his probe.

“It’s overstated, without a scintilla of evidence, that this is an endemic problem,” Hynes said then. “I don’t believe it. Not here in this county or any other county.”

By all appearances, Hynes had an airtight case against Barron. Following Barron’s arraignment, the DA told reporters that he had marked money that was exchanged between the crooked judge and the attorney, who was cooperating with investigators. He also had an incriminating recording of Barron accepting the cash.

According to a Brooklyn Papers source, Barron’s best defense would have been to put the whole system on trial.

“The only thing you could do for Barron is to show the jury the corruption of the courthouse and show that Barron is a fall guy,” the source said.

Hynes let Barron cop a plea deal, avoiding a trial that would likely have gone far to expose the system of corruption in Brooklyn’s courts. That was less than a year ago. Why should we trust Hynes not to sweep the whole mess under the rug this time?

It would be welcome news, but incredibly hard to believe, that Hynes is ready to burn all his political bridges.

• • •

Hynes can contribute to the restoration of public respect for the judiciary and the rule of law in Brooklyn by acknowledging his inherent conflicts of interest in these cases and recusing himself from their investigation and prosecution. If he fails to act with honor in this, the public will be justified in wondering, with each conviction Hynes extracts, how many others were dealt with among friends.

A special federal prosecutor with no ties to the Kings County Democratic Committee should head these investigations and present evidence to a grand jury. Even Brooklynites have a right to justice.

[Sharing Lights]

Prosecuting judges for ethical violations: are criminal sanctions constitutional and prudent, or do they constitute a threat to judicial independence?

COPYRIGHT 2006 Fordham Urban Law Journal

I. INTRODUCTION

On April 29, 2004, the Kings County Supreme Court made legal history by dismissing eight counts of an indictment against then-Justice Gerald Garson. (1) In six of these counts, Justice Garson was accused of receiving reward for official misconduct under Section 200.25 of the New York Penal Law, in that he allegedly obtained or agreed to obtain a benefit in return for violating his duty as a public servant. (2) This is hardly an unusual charge to be leveled against an allegedly corrupt public official, but in Justice Garson's case, the "duty" he was accused of violating was based purely upon the New York State Code of Judicial Ethics. Specifically, it was alleged that Justice Garson acted criminally by conducting improper ex parte communications and by accepting fees for referring unrelated cases to a private attorney. (3)

This was only the second time in New York, and the fourth time anywhere in the United States, (4) that a judge was prosecuted for violating ethical strictures that were not explicitly forbidden by a penal statute. In all three previous cases, the appellate courts held that such attempts were improper, characterizing them as violations of the principles of separation of powers and judicial independence. (5) In the Garson case, however, the Kings County District Attorney was ready to try again, claiming that a 1977 amendment to the New York State Constitution explicitly incorporated the ethical rules into the duties of a judge. (6)

The Kings County Supreme Court rejected this argument, holding that the considerations of judicial independence, separation of powers, and constitutional vagueness that informed the previous cases were still valid. (7) This decision was affirmed by the Second Department of the Appellate Division, (8) but leave to appeal was granted by the New York Court of Appeals. (9) If the highest court in New York upholds the arguments of the District Attorney's office, it will mark a dramatic shift of power from judges to prosecutors, with local prosecutorial agencies having the ability to selectively pursue indictments against judges for violations of broadly-worded ethical rules. Moreover, by shifting judicial disciplinary authority toward the District Attorney's office, it would undermine separation of powers as well as the role of disciplinary boards in regulating the American judiciary.

[Sharing Lights]

Accordingly, this Article will examine the constitutional and practical issues surrounding prosecutions of judges for ethical violations. The first part of this Article will focus on the Garson prosecution as an example of unwarranted prosecution of judges for violation of ethical codes. The second part will examine cases elsewhere in the United States in which judges and other public officials have been prosecuted for violations of ethical codes. This part will also analyze the manner in which the courts have dealt with considerations of constitutional vagueness, judicial independence, separation of powers, and the potential for vindictive prosecutions. Finally, the third part will discuss the threats to judicial independence that exist even under the current American legal framework, as well as the growing tendency to blur the line between civil and criminal liability. The Article will conclude that these factors, in combination with the fact that the code of judicial ethics was never intended to be a basis for criminal liability, militate against the use of such codes to define offenses under New York law.

H. THE GARSON PROSECUTION

The investigation of Kings County Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson was a product of an ongoing probe into corruption in the Brooklyn courts. On January 24, 2002, Justice Victor I. Barron was indicted on charges of demanding a $115,000 bribe to approve a settlement in favor of an infant. (10) The indictment, which was the result of a two-year investigation, opened a Pandora's box of charges against other Brooklyn judges. Within two months of the indictment, no fewer than eight judges in Kings County were under investigation for activities ranging from nepotism, patronage, and outright bribe-receiving, to moonlighting as private counsel. (11) A twenty-nine member commission headed by Professor John D. Feerick of Fordham Law School was empaneled to recommend reforms to enhance judicial ethics throughout the state. (12) On February 8, 2002, Justice Ann T. Pfau, a long-time official in the New York Office of Court Administration and a key assistant to Chief Administrative Judge Jonathan Lippman, was appointed administrative judge in Kings County Supreme Court with a mandate to clean up an alleged culture of corruption. (13) Her appointment led to additional internal probes of judges, private attorneys, and Brooklyn public officials with ties to the courts. (14)

It was during this period that Frieda Hanimov, a matrimonial litigant in Brooklyn, became dissatisfied with her treatment by Justice Garson. Hanimov, whose matrimonial action was pending in front of Justice Garson, had lost custody of her children to her husband. She was then allegedly told by her attorney, Paul Siminovsky, that she had lost the case because her husband had bribed the judge, and that she could obtain a more favorable ruling if she made a better offer. Siminovsky introduced her to Nissim Elmann, a Brooklyn businessman who was allegedly able to influence Garson by bribing him.