It’s been said a man who represents himself has a fool for a client. Attorneys are understandably fond of this sentiment. But statistics reveal a higher percentage of success by pro se litigants than those represented by attorneys. Why? The answer or what to make of it isn’t clear, but the questions this raises are many and disturbing when considered in the context of due process or a ‘fair trial’.

Sure…It’s frightening to stand before a judge alone with only your own wits to protect you. It’s like being told you have cancer. But if the diagnosing doctor offered you a pill–a very expensive one with NO guarantees–to ‘cure’ your condition AND after a bit of research you found a LOWER survival rate in those who took it–WOULD YOU BUY THE PILL?? That’s right! As terrifying as cancer may be, having a lawyer (at least statistically) looks to be worse than having NO lawyer at all.

STAMFORD — Cristy Cacciotti-Fortunato doesn’t like to bring her 2-month-old son, Jason, to the courthouse. This past Wednesday, however, the 33-year-old mother bundled her infant son in a stroller and took him to what has become almost a full-time job — representing herself in a three-year-long divorce case.

She balanced a stack of documents on the stroller, the top sheets marked up with red ink. A civil courthouse clerk had found several errors on the forms and Cacciotti-Fortunato had to print out blank documents to make the corrections before trying to file them again. Cacciotti-Fortunato mostly uses the Internet to navigate the legal system and identify the next steps in her case. The work takes time. It forces her to make weekly trips to the courthouse, either to wait for a hearing or use the courthouse’s law library.

“Anything on the Internet is easy — it’s just how to fill forms out,” Cacciotti-Fortunato said. “As you can tell, they’re not really that user-friendly.”

She tried to hire a lawyer at first. Most asked for $5,000 to $10,000 retainers to handle her divorce, and more than twice as much to take the case to trial, Cacciotti-Fortunato said. That made the decision to go it alone easier.

Cacciotti-Fortunato, though, is not alone. She is among tens of thousands of self-represented litigants flooding the state’s civil courts as they try to resolve their own divorce or fight to keep their homes from bank foreclosures. According to statistics provided by the state Judicial Branch, about 29,650 self-represented litigants filed legal actions in family court during the 2010-11 fiscal year. That amounted to 84.9 percent of the total number of family cases filed that year, or more than four of every five cases in family court.

In property cases, such as foreclosures and evictions, 38 percent of all cases featured at least one self-represented party during the 2011 fiscal year. The national housing crisis factored into the sharp rise of self-represented litigants in property cases, which peaked during the 2010 fiscal year at 41-percent of the 27,486 property cases statewide.

“The numbers really do tell a story, and not a good one,” said Krista Hess, the manager of the Judicial Branch’s Court Service Centers.

A question of access

This past April, the state Judicial Branch formed the Access to Justice Commission to study ways to deal with the recession’s effects on the state’s court system. The chairman of the commission, Judge Raymond R. Norko, said the boom in self-representation applies pressures on the court system. It slows down dockets. It forces judges to sometimes hear cases where one side has an experienced trial attorney and the other a self-represented party. It becomes difficult to deal with those cases fairly, Norko said.

The courts have always seen self-represented parties, but the recent increase is overwhelming, he said.

“Those stressors get multiplied through the whole system,” Norko said. “You can see the effect without having to sit in a courtroom.”

Norko said the situation requires the judicial system to educate the public and increase the amount of information available for self-represented litigants. That includes proposed measures to increase access and transparency, such as supplying hearing aids and handicap accessible-software in courthouses, as one example. Some measures as simple as creating updated brochures for self-represented litigants.

The Access to Justice Commission is also discussing a wide-reaching method to alleviate the burden of self-representation on both the courts and the parties themselves. Proponents of “limited scope-representation,” which allows an attorney to handle only certain portions of a civil case the same way a criminal lawyer can only argue for bond reduction, say the practice better prepares pro se parties and allows attorneys to handle the more complicated tasks, such as arguing before a judge during a hearing. It allows low-income parties to hire attorneys at a lower rate than having them oversee an entire case.

In order to allow attorneys to handle limited portions of civil cases, the Judicial Branch would amend a section of the Practice Book that dictates rules and regulations for the state’s lawyers. Norko said more than 40 states allow attorneys to practice some type of limited scope representation.

“We’re not exactly in the vanguard,” Norko said.

Stephen Conover, a Stamford attorney who chairs a task force studying limited scope representation for the Connecticut Bar Association, said he hasn’t formed an opinion about the practice yet. He said the proponents of adopting limited scope representation seem to have embraced the favorable parts of other state’s programs while casting aside potentially concerning ones. The legal community has mixed feelings about the practice, Conover said.

“There are some lawyers who don’t even like the concept, and some lawyers who think the concept is well overdue,” Conover said.

Limited scope representation, however, cuts down on the cost of legal representation, and most educated litigants can handle simple legal tasks on their own. Skeptics, however, compare the practice to a doctor receiving instructions to only inspect one organ while ignoring others, he said.

“Some say it demeans the profession,” Conover said.

Pro bono work jeopardized

To make matters worse for state residents mounting their own defense in foreclosure cases or trying to escape an abusive relationship, the funding that went to legal aid organizations began to dry up just as the numbers of self-represented litigants peaked.

The housing crisis also affected the ability of the state’s legal community to offer volunteer work for low-income parties. According to the Access for Justice Commission, more than two-thirds of the funds that supported lawyers in pro bono civil cases came from revenue generated by Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts, which collect interest revenue from special escrow accounts. The housing crisis caused an 80-percent decrease in those funds, and the state responded by increasing court fees in order to raise $9 million for legal aid service providers in 2010.

The funding gap left organizations such as Connecticut Legal Services, a non-profit that provides legal counseling and assistance to low-income parties in civil cases throughout the state, scrambling to keep up with the influx of do-it-yourself litigants.

“We’re swamped with people who want a lawyer and people who want advice on their case,” said Steve Eppler-Epstein, the executive director of Connecticut Legal Services. “It’s a crisis.”

The state branched out on its own to assist self-represented parties. Hess, who also serves on the state’s Access to Justice Commission, helped form a volunteer attorney program in 2010 for self-represented litigants in Waterbury and Hartford, eventually expanding it to Bridgeport and New Haven. In 2008, the state created the foreclosure mediation program and appointed neutral officers to eventually resolve more than 8,300 mortgage disputes between cash-strapped homeowners and their banks.

“The mediation program has helped to level the playing field a bit, but I think you’re always better having representation,” Hess said. “You’re emotional. You’re losing your house. Other than losing your kids, I don’t see anything more emotional than that.”

According to Judicial Branch statistics, the volume of new property cases decreased by more than 10,000 cases in the past year, a good sign that the worst of the foreclosure crisis may be ending. Norko said the numbers of self-represented clients should rise and fall along with economic measures.

“If the economy gets better it will lessen,” Norko said. “It’s easier for percentages to go up than for them to go down based on the economy.”

For every number, a personal struggle

For Cacciotti-Fortunato, the date of April 26 looms large. A judge set a hearing in a contempt motion against her on that date, which means Cacciotti-Fortunato must appear before the court. Her ex-husband is also representing himself.

Their divorce became final this past April. Now Cacciotti-Fortunato is fighting for joint custody of her 8-year-old son, who was taken from her earlier this month after her ex-husband filed a post-judgment motion accusing Cacciotti-Fortunato of being in contempt of their divorce agreement. Her fiance has a past felony conviction, and her divorce agreement prohibited her son from living with convicted felons. A judge ordered that Cacciotti-Fortunato’s son live with his father until she stopped living with a convicted felon.

This convicted felon is also the father of Cacciotti-Fortunato’s infant son. In addition to handling post-judgment issues within her own divorce case, Cacciotti-Fortunato is working with her 34-year-old fiance, Anthony Russo, to help get his criminal record expunged of a years-old conviction for violating a protective order.

“She’s actually been doing everything,” Russo said.

The ongoing legal drama has been draining, Cacciotti-Fortunato said.

“I know I am not a perfect mother, however, I do my best,” Cacciotti-Fortunato said in an e-mail. “But when you are always being bad-mouthed or belittled in many other situations … it takes a toll out on anyone.”

Whoever said ‘drama queens’ come in only one sex. Here’s a story about a ‘drama king’ to rival Sara Dotson’s ill-fated attempt to invoke histrionics in a bid to punish a good Samaritan in Thurston County for remonstrating over her denial of accommodation to a disabled young mother: (Senator Roach–don’t feel like the odd one out. The soap opera doesn’t end at the Capitol steps–it’s alive and well in the Thurston County Courthouse cesspool and its prosecutor’s office.)

HOOVER’S HOAX

A Senate Republican senior attorney is seeking a $1.75 million settlement from the state, saying a hostile work environment has been created by allowing a controversial senator back into the GOP caucus and restoring her access to staff in exchange for a vital budget vote.

In a document obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, an attorney for Republican Senate Counsel Mike Hoover says that Hoover felt pressured to quit so that the caucus “could more easily make a trade with” Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn.

“Mr. Hoover understandably has no faith that the caucus can or will take any steps to protect him or other staff from Senator Roach’s behavior in the future,” attorney Daniel Johnson writes.

Hoover has not yet filed a lawsuit, and Johnson wrote that the purpose of the demand letter was to start negotiations “to settle those claims as amicably as possible.”

While the claims are under review, Johnson wrote, Hoover would like to go on leave from his job “to avoid any awkwardness or tension during this time.”

Hoover, who was in the Senate chamber Wednesday afternoon, declined comment, saying he wanted to consult with his attorney and officials in the Legislature.

“I honestly don’t know what to do here,” he said.

Roach was banned from the Republican caucus two years ago after an investigation concluded that she had mistreated staff. GOP leaders wrote in a letter to her that they had concluded that she should be physically separated from other members and staff.

They implemented policies barring Roach from the caucus room and deemed her ineligible to participate in caucus votes. The letter did say the policies could be re-evaluated in one year with the mutual agreement of the caucus and Roach.

While Roach had received prior reprimands for her interactions with staff, the January 2010 punishment followed numerous incidents with Hoover, culminating with an “unusually vicious attack” in 2009, according to the 15-page document sent Monday to Tom Hoemann, the secretary of the Senate. In that incident, the document says, Roach yelled at Hoover during a meeting with the rest of the caucus.

“Some fled the room or put their hands over their ears to muffle the screaming; others felt helpless, embarrassed and physically ill from watching,” the document said. “One person said it was like watching a car that “kept backing up over the victim again and again.”

The document says that Roach has targeted Hoover since 2003, and that during that first year she “regularly yelled at him, demanded that he swear loyalty to her, and threatened to have him fired if he crossed her.”

Roach wouldn’t comment Wednesday, saying she was not aware of the letter. However, she insisted that her budget vote wasn’t part of the deal for her to return to caucus and regain access to staff.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “No one ever asked for my vote.”

Johnson, Hoover’s attorney, writes that all of the restrictions on her were lifted “solely for political reasons.”

Democrats hold majorities in both the House and the Senate, but last month, Republicans established a philosophical majority in the Senate on March 2 after three Democrats stood with them on a GOP-crafted budget plan that then passed the Senate but stalled in the House. Roach also voted with them. The House passed an alternate plan agreed to by majority Democrats in the House and Senate. Lawmakers are nearing the end of a 30-day special session as they continue to try to negotiate a deal on the budget.

Republican Senate leadership declined to comment on the details of the Hoover dispute, calling it a personnel matter.

Roach was allowed back into the caucus with limited privileges to join in the budget vote, said Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee, who said she is filling in as minority leader while Sen. Mike Hewitt recovers from recent surgery.

Since Roach was reinstated back to the caucus, Johnson writes, “several” caucus members have asked Hoover to agree with what they had done.

“Mr. Hoover feels pressured to make reassuring statements that are false and not at all representative of his true feelings,” the letter states.

Senate secretary Hoemann said Wednesday that the sanctions against Roach interacting with staff, as set by the Senate Facilities and Operations Committee, had not, in fact, been lifted.

However, in the demand letter, Hoover’s attorney wrote that Roach “clearly understood that all sanctions against her have been lifted and staff restored” and noted that she wanted a public information officer assigned to her.

Johnson writes that Hoover’s physical and emotional health has been impacted by the decision to restore Roach to the caucus, saying that he has suffered headaches, stomach and heart problems, sleep disturbances and stress nightmares.

After hearing of the Senate Republican’s decision on Roach on March 2, he believed he was having a heart attack and was taken to the hospital by Senate security.

“The caucus’ lifting of all sanctions against Senator Roach, without requiring her to meet the express conditions the Senate had placed on lifting them, dispelled Mr. Hoover’s illusions that the abuse and harassment he has endured would ever really stop,” Johnson wrote.

The letter sent Monday includes two documents, including an invitation that was sent for Roach to return to the caucus Feb. 29, and a March 2 document saying that the caucus had voted to remove all sanctions against her.

Parlette said Wednesday that the second letter was not meant to imply that Roach had regained staff privileges and that it was only sent at Roach’s request.

CAIN BURDEAU | Associated Press • Published April 04, 2012

NEW ORLEANS – A federal judge sentenced five former police officers to years in prison for the deadly shootings on a New Orleans bridge in the chaotic days following Hurricane Katrina but not before lashing out at prosecutors for allowing others involved to serve lighter penalties for their crimes. The case that wrapped up Wednesday was the centerpiece of a Justice Department push to clean up New Orleans’ police department that has long been tainted with corruption.

U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt expressed frustration that he was bound by mandatory minimum sentencing laws to imprison former Sgts. Kenneth Bowen and Robert Gisevius and former officers Anthony Villavaso and Robert Faulcon for decades when other officers who engaged in similar conduct on the Danziger Bridge – but cut deals with prosecutors – are serving no more than eight years behind bars.

“These through-the-looking-glass plea deals that tied the hands of this court … are an affront to the court and a disservice to the community,” he said.

Police gunned down 17-year-old James Brissette and 40-year-old Ronald Madison, who were both unarmed, and wounded four others on Sept. 4, 2005, less than a week after the storm devastated New Orleans. To cover it up, the officers planted a gun, fabricated witnesses and falsified reports. Defense attorneys have indicated they will appeal.

Engelhardt also criticized prosecutors for the different ways they charged those who didn’t cooperate with a Justice Department civil rights investigation and those who did. The charges were filed in such a way that they left judges with little discretion in handing out sentences in each set of cases, Engelhardt said.

Faulcon received the stiffest sentence of 65 years. Bowen and Gisevius each got 40 years while Villavaso was sentenced to 38. All four were convicted of federal firearms charges that carried mandatory minimum sentences ranging from 35 to 60 years in prison. Faulcon was convicted in both deadly shootings.

“The court imposes them purely as a matter of statutory mandate,” Engelhardt said.

Retired Sgt. Arthur “Archie” Kaufman, who was assigned to investigate the shootings, received six years in prison – a sentence below the federal guidelines. Kaufman wasn’t charged in the shootings but was convicted of helping orchestrate the cover-up.

During a scathing lecture that lasted roughly two hours, Engelhardt questioned the credibility of officers who cut deals and testified against the defendants during last year’s trial.

“Citing witnesses for perjury at this trial would be like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500,” Engelhardt said.

Justice Department attorney Bobbi Bernstein defended prosecutors’ tactics, saying the officers who cooperated with the probe gave them the breakthrough they needed to reveal the cover-up.

“Those deals are the reason that the whole world now knows what happened on the Danziger Bridge,” she said.

The sentences were significantly lower than what prosecutors had recommended. They had asked the judge to sentence the four shooters to prison terms ranging from nearly 60 years for Villavaso to 87 years for Faulcon.

Engelhardt questioned why prosecutors sought a 20-year prison sentence for Kaufman when Michael Lohman, who was the highest-ranking officer at the scene of the shooting and assigned Kaufman to investigate, got just four years after pleading guilty to participating in the cover-up. Engelhardt said Lohman had the authority to quash the cover-up and didn’t.

“The buck started and stopped with him,” the judge said.

He also questioned why prosecutors allowed a former detective, Jeffrey Lehrmann, to receive a sentence of three years in prison when his role in the conspiracy was similar to Kaufman’s.

“These sentences are, in the court’s opinion, blind,” Engelhardt said.

Steve London, one of Kaufman’s attorneys, said his client was pleased that the judge gave him a sentence below the guidelines, which had called for a sentence ranging from a little over eight years to a little over 10.

“This judge recognized that the government put liars on the stand to testify and convict other people,” London said.

Lindsay Larson, one of Faulcon’s attorneys, said the judge “laid out the blueprint” for how defense attorneys will challenge the firearms convictions and sentences.

“We have only just begun to fight,” he said.

Tom Perez, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said federal investigators transformed a cold case into the “most significant police case since Rodney King.”

“We didn’t have a case in 2008 when we inherited this. We had nothing. And hindsight is 20/20. It is easy to look back in hindsight and say why did you do this, why did you do that,” he said. “You don’t go to the witness store to pick out your witnesses. You take what is dealt.”

Engelhardt heard hours of arguments and testimony earlier Wednesday from prosecutors, defense attorneys, relatives of shooting victims and the officers.

“This has been a long and painful six-and-a-half years,” said Lance Madison, whose mentally disabled brother, Ronald, was killed. “The people of New Orleans and my family are ready for justice.”

He addressed each defendant individually, including Faulcon, who shot his brother: “When I look at you, my pain becomes unbearable. You took the life of an angel and basically ripped my heart out.”

Madison also said he was horrified by Kaufman’s actions and role in the cover-up: “You tried to frame me, a man you knew was innocent, and send me to prison for the rest of my life.” Lance Madison was arrested on attempted murder charges after police falsely accused him of shooting at the officers on the bridge. He was jailed for three weeks before a judge freed him.

The Rev. Robert Faulcon Sr. told the judge his son “didn’t go looking for trouble.”

“He was on duty and he was called to do a job, and that’s what he did to the best of his ability,” the elder Faulcon said.

Twenty current or former New Orleans police officers have been charged in a series of Justice Department probes, most of which center on actions during the aftermath of Katrina. Eleven of those officers were charged in the Danziger Bridge case, which stunned a city with a long history of police corruption.

Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005, leading to the collapse of levees and flooding an estimated 80 percent of the city. New Orleans was plunged into chaos as residents who hadn’t evacuated were driven from their homes to whatever high places they could find.

Officers who worked in the city at the time but were not charged in the bridge case on Wednesday told Engelhardt of the lawlessness that followed the flood, and that they feared for their lives.

On the morning of Sept. 4, one group of residents was crossing the Danziger Bridge in the city’s Gentilly area to what they perceived as safety when police arrived.

The officers had received calls that shots were being fired. Gunfire reports were common after Katrina.

Faulcon was convicted of fatally shooting Madison, but the jury decided the killing didn’t amount to murder. He, Gisevius, Bowen and Villavaso were convicted in Brissette’s killing, but jurors didn’t hold any of them individually responsible for causing his death.

All five were convicted of participating in a cover-up.

Wednesday’s sentencing isn’t the final chapter in the case. The convicted officers are expected to appeal, and Gerard Dugue, a retired sergeant, is scheduled to be retried in May on charges stemming from his alleged role in the cover-up.

They’re not all the same. Labels, even the term ‘cops’, are dangerous. Let there be no mistake, there are decent cops serving our communities–service desperately needed. But the evidence of increasing militarization of our police departments is abundant. Moreover, the general level of training is abysmal. Perhaps the WSP (Washington State Patrol) is among the best trained our State has to offer. Still, cops lie routinely, and are encouraged to act before thinking in the interest of their own safety, to kontrol a situation/person without adequate understanding of whether a legal basis to do so exists at all. The result is a mishmash of law enforcement officers pulling the law out of their backsides and steamrolling the civil rights Americans cherish. It also has the distinctly odious side effect of allowing the officer’s prejudice, bias, and bigotry to become the cat that ate the canary. So how to bell the cat?

The criminal element gets most of the press, but arrogant elected officials and ignorant/biased (or worse) law enforcement officers are bigger threats to the community than the more pedestrian crimes they’re charged with preventing. In truth, the ‘thin blue line’ has become oppressive overseers with tanks, science fiction style weapons, and battle armament–an occupying army charged to protect the rich and bully the poor.

Looking into police officers’ minds

Thurston Prosecutor counsels juvenile probation officer Sara Dotson

THE OLYMPIAN • Published April 04, 2012

Racial profiling by police is notoriously difficult to prove. That’s not, as former Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton used to insist, because it’s uniquely difficult to get inside an officer’s head and determine why he pulled over this suspect or that. Analyzing the intent behind offenses is actually fairly commonplace – it undergirds hate-crime prosecutions, many assaults (a murder, for instance, is distinguishable from manslaughter by the intent of the perpetrator) and even civil rights violations, which generally must be committed with the intent to deprive a person of a protected right. No, what makes racial profiling so hard to prove is that it’s usually most apparent in statistics, not individual acts.

An officer can almost always produce an explanation for why he or she pulled over a driver. A broken taillight, a failure to signal, speeding – all those are legitimate reasons to wave a driver to the curb. When it becomes obnoxious – and illegal – is when an officer sees those violations only when they are committed by people of a certain race. Long before “racial profiling” became the phrase of art, this vile habit was named for those victimized by it: “driving while black.”

Now, the Los Angeles Police Department, which once was widely suspected of engaging in racial profiling, has identified an officer it says is guilty of the offense. Tellingly, the allegations against Officer Patrick Smith – if true – include a clear sign of his intent, which was in part to deceive those who analyze statistics. According to sources in the department, Smith falsified reports to suggest that he was pulling over whites when in fact some of those he identified as white were Latino. Smith has been found guilty of nothing. Still, it is worth noting that doctoring official records would make his numbers look fine but also would suggest a need to cover up something, and could be evidence that the officer’s intent was improper. What may fool the statistics may prove the crime.

The advent of sophisticated, usually computerized, tracking has allowed police departments greater insight into the actions of officers – and, thus, clues about who may be indulging in racism – but better tools must be employed smartly. A traffic officer who stops only blacks or Latinos while working in West Los Angeles is probably missing something or covering up something; an officer working a night shift in South Los Angeles might well be fully justified in making such stops exclusively, because he might go an entire shift without seeing a single white driver. Smart analysis of that data can help officials sniff out trouble, but it won’t always be enough. Where they find deception, they may see all too clearly into an officer’s head.

Published April 04, 2012 in the Olympian by JEREMY PALWLOSKI

A former Lacey police officer faces up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine after pleading guilty Tuesday for lying to a judge under oath.

The most common crime in America perpetrated by cops

While applying for a search warrant by telephone Jan. 9, Emmanuel Olivo told a judge that he had pulled a car over at Carpenter and Mullen roads after conducting a random state Department of Licensing check and discovering that the car’s owner had a suspended license. [The purpose of this lie was to establish ‘probable cause’ for the warrant else a search of the vehicle would violate 4th Amendment protections. The fact the officer pulled the vehicle over and searched it w/o such a DOL check meant the evidence seized should have been suppressed. By lying, the officer intended to deny the suspect’s right to 4th Amendment protection.]

But after Olivo’s patrol supervisor checked his reports and audited the vehicle stop, she determined that Olivo had not performed a DOL check, Thurston County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Toynbee has said.

Officers typically can check a driver’s license plate number from their patrol car and determine whether its registered owner has outstanding arrest warrants or is driving with a suspended license.

After the judge granted Olivo’s search-warrant request, Olivo found suspected methamphetamine in the vehicle. A felony meth charge against the car’s occupant was dismissed after evidence emerged that Olivo had lied.

Olivo, 28, pleaded guilty to gross-misdemeanor false swearing during a brief court hearing before Judge Kalo Wilcox. His sentencing is tentatively set for April 18.

Olivo declined to comment outside court. His attorney, Michele Shaw of Seattle, said he does not have a plea agreement in place that could affect his sentencing.

Since Olivo’s arrest, a separate criminal case he investigated has been dismissed because of questions about his credibility, a prosecutor said. Toynbee has said it’s possible that defense attorneys can challenge convictions in cases in which Olivo was a witness.

Police Lt. Phil Comstock said Tuesday that Olivo resigned last week. He previously had been on paid administrative.

The Lacey Police Department is completing a separate administrative investigation of Olivo, Comstock said.

After learning of Olivo’s possible crime, Lacey police turned the investigation of it over to the Olympia Police Department. Comstock said that the incident, while unfortunate, shows that the department holds itself accountable.

Chief Dusty Pierpoint added that he can’t recall a similar incident in his 26 years with the Lacey police. [Just never met a cop ya didn’t like, eh Chief? Come to the barrio! Some of the street people, buskers, and homeless could help provide you a remedial education in Cop 101.]

“It’s unfortunate, and we don’t like anything like this to happen,” he said. “But at the same time, when it does, we have to address that. The public does expect that.”

Judge Meadows resists 1st Amendment, substitutes ‘policy’ for Constitution:

We all want to believe our neighbors, our community, appreciates where the boundaries of the law lie, to grasp the importance of protection for minority  viewpoints and unpopular speech including the full exercise of 1st Amendment guarantees that allow for recording/photography in public places or of public information/documents. Unfortunately too many of the great ‘unwashed’ are ignorant or confused by the nuances of the law. But we have law enforcement officers trained in such matters, yes?–umm, maybe not.

A lot of cops pull stuff out of their @ss they claim is the law because they’re poorly trained and ignorant of what they’re supposed to enforce–THE LAW. The typical policeman or policewoman is trained first to CONTROL the situation/person and understanding the law they enforce comes in a distant 2nd…or worse. The most commonly committed felony in America today is perjury, on the witness stand (or in their reports) by cops–under oath! But that’s why we have lawyers, right?

If you can even afford an attorney, you’ll soon realize there are brighter and lesser lights in the universe–a LOT of the latter. In fact, more and more litigants, both civil and criminal, are representing themselves (who can afford an attorney today?) despite the old sop about a man who represents himself. Lawyers are understandably fond of that aphorism. Statistics show pro se litigants (without distinguishing between civil and criminal) have a higher success ratio than those represented by attorneys! That demands pause for thought about what this means. Answers aren’t clear, but it certainly creates a lot of questions. One conclusion is having an attorney is worse than no attorney at all, at least statistically.

If the doctor diagnosed you with a potentially terminal form of cancer and offered you a pill to cure it–an expensive pill–but you found those taking it had a lower survival rate than those who didn’t, would you buy the pill?

OK, so lawyers may be an illusory pacifier, but not to worry, after all–we have JUDGES. If anybody should know the law, it’s them, yes?? Before you breathe a sigh of relief, check out your local courthouse–listen to others that have–read this review and weep without wondering for  whom the bell tolls. Incredulously, too many judges don’t get it either…including one local district court judge. Read on for the grim facts if you expect more from your elected judicial officials.

A trip to Mason County District Court was brought on by an invitation from  recent Port of Shelton Commissioner Jack Miles who, it turned out, had a hearing scheduled @ 1:30pm on Monday, 3-2-12 for a stay of execution from his drunk driving conviction due to it being under appeal. A duly faxed request to utilize photojournalism to cover this story was transmitted and approved by Judge Meadows. Unfortunately, one of the guards hadn’t gotten the word and some last minute confusion resulted.

While in the courtroom, an elderly previous Port of Shelton Commissioner was seen in shackles and jail garb…no, it wasn’t Jay Hupp, but hope springs eternal. Recognizing that all such proceedings, court files, jail rosters, and charges are PUBLIC for an undeniably sound reason, efforts were made to discover the details of why the man was in custody. The resistance by court staff and the judge herself to that inquiry BECAME the story. You can listen to a small excerpt of the runaround received trying to access this public information and the efforts to chill the inquiry/reporting through the audio link at the end of this article…an audio made in a public area where no expectation of privacy existed, many were present to overhear the conversation, and it involved law enforcement of the highest order–the judge herself.

Judge Meadows grants Jack Miles a stay of execution w/o bias:

Before continuing, it must be reported that Judge Meadows treated Jack Miles fairly, impartially, and without apparent bias either at this hearing or during the earlier sentencing hearing. Meadows is a reasonably honest judge (though not perfect) and genuinely tries to insure defendants receive a fair trial while she simultaneously tries to protect the community she is a part of. Still, her reliance on the limited authority of her office to  resolve all impasses is a mistake–especially when based on her own misapprehensions about where the legal boundaries lie. Too often she has overstepped those boundaries presuming her long held authority gives her license. Judge Meadows’ efforts to do her job well (if not always her actual performance) deserves respect while conceding she remains human and subject to the vicissitudes of that condition. Jack alleges he has seen a pattern of discrimination in sentencing based on gender in her court. This claim in unconfirmed at this point and no basis is at hand to prove or disprove it. Judicial error does not necessarily imply bias. It may simply implicate being human.

The Mason County District Court clerks began by insisting this reporter complete a written request for the court file related to the ex-port commissioner seen in the courtroom in shackles. It was asserted his full (including middle) name and birth date or case # must be supplied. This was at variance with years of experience obtaining a case # by simply calling on the phone and giving the party’s first and last name. The clerk insisted. A trip to the superior court clerk’s office and its administrator yielded similar results when they called downstairs to inquire about getting the case #.

Not wanting to leave the courthouse in order to avoid re-entry through the security screening devices/process, the idea of using a cell phone to contact the county jail occurred. Sgt.  Sue LaMont was just getting off her shift, so she was no help. But a courtroom security guard did try to help. He called the jail and inquired as to the charges leveled against the man in question. Though told the jail roster would normally also supply the inmate’s date of birth along with the charges, only the charges were sought by the guard. As soon as he revealed they were Assault IV – Domestic Violence, a court clerk stepped into the hallway to chide him for giving out this information. The guard rightly pointed out it was public information.

Realizing this was insufficient to satisfy the clerk’s extraordinary demands in this instance, and raising suspicion some favoritism was at work, a walk next door to the jail produced the key to unlocking access to the court file, the case #. After writing this # on a discarded paper cup, a return to the clerk’s office eventually produced the coveted court file including the police report and comments made to the arresting officer by family members. It also produced an irritated Judge Meadows who objected to the reporter photographing the file.

Judge Meadows initially argued the 1st Amendment gave no license to photograph public information but could cite no countervailing authority herself. After a brief pause for thought, she invoked the specter of interfering with a suspect’s right to a ‘fair trial’. Knowing this was likely near and dear to the reporter’s heart/belief, she successfully defused the difference of opinion–for the moment.

After considerable afterthought, the following editorial conclusion was reached on the matter discussed with Judge Meadows:

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 22 of the Washington Constitution each guarantee a criminal accused the right to a public trial. Cohen v. Everett City Council, 85 Wn.2d 385, 387, 535 P.2d 801 (1975). In addition, article I, section 10 of the Washington Constitution states that [j]ustice in all cases shall be administered openly, and without unnecessary delay. This provision provides the public and press a right to open and accessible court proceedings. Seattle Times Co. v. Ishikawa, 97 Wn.2d 30, 36, 640 P.2d 716 (1982).

The courts are not subject to Washington State’s Public Records Act. The requirement for public access to their records precedes that voters’ initiative–a requirement as old as this nation. The need for transparency and immediacy in court files is much more pronounced than the need for other public documents because the alternative is ‘justice’ behind closed doors–tantamount to a denial of a ‘fair trial’.

Our courts do not ‘own’ any copyright or exclusive interest in the case files stored in their facilities. They are merely a repository for safe keeping. The files properly belong to ALL citizens without qualification for the same reason we require all proceedings and trials to be public–to preserve, not to thwart, and guarantee the right to a ‘fair trial’ via the exposure to public inquiry/attendance. To interfere with such inquiry or access by any means is to chill the right to transparency and a public trial/proceeding. Even our children are not criminally tried behind closed doors.

Were the cause of a ‘fair trial’ genuinely considered without resorting to personal biases against this publication or reporter, it would be recognized that parading suspects through the courthouse in shackles and jail clothes is more likely to instill prejudice from onlookers than a full reporting of the alleged offense(s). Worse yet, the parading of our children on the sidewalk in leg, waist, and wrist shackles in orange jumpsuits between our juvenile detention center and the county courthouse is humiliating and prejudicial.

Judge Meadows’ argument about what ‘legitimate’ press coverage includes when reporting alleged crimes is mistaken. One routinely reads accounts from every major news reporting agency of indictments and criminal charges long before any trial has occurred. Unlike Canada, this country does not typically have judicial gag orders imposed on the press or photojournalists. Our 1st Amendment prohibits such judicial excess, as does our right to public hearings/trial–a right that protects us from the kind of excess/abuse that occurs more routinely in secret or behind closed doors. e.g. The Bush administration’s secret prisons and extraordinary renditions for the purpose of conducting torture out of the public view.

A judge of long standing may be tempted to substitute judicial fiat for community cooperation, but that slippery slope eventually leads to totalitarianism. In a true democracy in a nation of laws, those laws are a process done WITH  the community rather than TO the community–an important distinction lost, in this instance, on Judge Meadows.

While Meadows’ instincts are welcomes, her execution is not. The sound judgement of our founding fathers in making the 1st Amendment the foremost of our Constitutional protections is based on principles not subject to the second guessing of our local district court magistrate. There is no statute, common law, or precedent supporting the notion that public information/records cannot be photographed. No disruption of the court clerk’s office took place and the total file size was approximately 6-7 pages. There were no lines or people waiting. Judge Meadows’ invocation of ‘fair trial’ principles was an ill considered afterthought revealing disapproval of this publication’s style and content–effectively a ‘prior restraint’ if you will.

Victoria Meadows is a decent, politically popular, well intentioned judge. This report intends no disrespect to her personally or professionally. It is intended to educate the public, and possibly herself, to the broad implications of our Constitution and its 1st Amendment. There is much room for shared values and respect within its ambit.

Click HERE to hear Audio of Reporter remonstrating with Judge Meadows to respect the 1st Amendment and her oath of office.

Click HERE to see the court file in contention and decide in your own mind if Judge Meadows is justified in 2nd guessing our founding fathers’ wisdom in drafting the 1st Amendment. Is transparency in government and our courts consistent with the right to a ‘fair trial’? Your comments are welcome.

A local mentally ill woman (w/schizo-affective disorder) clever enough to have bilked SS disability for over a decade under the pretext of being unemployable or unable to earn an income, feels so put upon by her older husband’s poor health, she’s publicly declared she wants an ‘open marriage’ and a ‘hiking partner’: Click HERE for full story.

“Two weeks ago I told my husband I want an open marriage and he agreed to it. Ahhh freedom… I’ve really been resenting my husband starting smoking again and getting out of shape so he could not hike with me. My husband is a lot older than me and he smokes and he is very feeble from a smoking related illness. I’ve promised to stick it out and support him until he dies. He is very lucky to have such a dedicated and young wife and I deserve to have a hiking partner other than my dog.” [Woof!]

The Princess

This sweetheart is a little on the high maintenance side, though, and quite litigious. Click HERE for more on that. She characterized her last husband as being nothing but a ‘sperm donor’ and implicitly a slut because he has children by more than one woman, never mind the 2 fathers of her own 2 daughters. But she also wanted to increase his child support payments for being ‘care free’.

Be sure to check this hot little number’s history and read a few of her own Court affidavits before bidding…slightly used but guaranteed to make your life ‘interesting’!

Or you can click HERE to do your own WA. court docket search.

Psych Ward Antipathy

UPDATE:

Recently (6-16-12) the ‘unemployable/disabled’ Miss Piggy published the following complaint in her http://mosswalks.blogspot.com online journal documenting her taxpayer funded sojourns into the Olympics:

“Obama cut off my Pell grants. I’m way over the newly imposed limits [Gosh! This is only her 2nd bachelor’s degree at public expense.] and they are not grandfathering in anyone. So no more Pell grants for me. I got my degrees[s] while the getting was good. Tuition is also going up by 14% again this year. If this went into effect a year earlier, I would never have learned moss or fungi microscopy.”

Miss Piggy has been on the dole for over the last decade on the pretext that her mental condition is so disabling, she can’t support herself or find work–notwithstanding her ‘registered business’ (photographs), launching numerous forays into the deep woods and mountain peaks of the Olympics, and raising 2 children. (Averring her husband does little toward this end)

Perhaps tuition goes up at such a pace because the State can’t keep up with all the leeches bankrupting Social Security Disability entitlements…or ‘crazy’ like a fox, as they say.

NY Times Published: March 28, 2012 By STUART P. GREEN

THE Justice Department is building its case against Megaupload, the hugely popular file-sharing site that was indicted earlier this year on multiple counts of copyright infringement and related crimes. The company’s servers have been shut down, its assets seized and top employees arrested. And, as is usual in such cases, prosecutors and their allies in the music and movie industries have sought to invoke the language of “theft” and “stealing” to frame the prosecutions and, presumably, obtain the moral high ground.

No harm, no foul!

Whatever wrongs Megaupload has committed, though, it’s doubtful that theft is among them.

From its earliest days, the crime of theft has been understood to involve the misappropriation of things real and tangible. For Caveman Bob to “steal” from Caveman Joe meant that Bob had taken something of value from Joe — say, his favorite club — and that Joe, crucially, no longer had it. Everyone recognized, at least intuitively, that theft constituted what can loosely be defined as a zero-sum game: what Bob gained, Joe lost.

When Industrial Age Bob and Joe started inventing less tangible things, like electricity, stocks, bonds and licenses, however, things got more complicated. What Bob took, Joe, in some sense, still had. So the law adjusted in ad hoc and at times inconsistent ways. Specialized doctrines were developed to cover the misappropriation of services (like a ride on a train), semi-tangibles (like the gas for streetlights) and true intangibles (like business goodwill).

In the middle of the 20th century, criminal law reformers were sufficiently annoyed by all of this specialization and ad hoc-ness that they decided to do something about it.

In 1962, the prestigious American Law Institute issued the Model Penal Code, resulting in the confused state of theft law we’re still dealing with today.

In a radical departure from prior law, the code defined “property” to refer to “anything of value.” Henceforth, it would no longer matter whether the property misappropriated was tangible or intangible, real or personal, a good or a service. All of these things were now to be treated uniformly.

Before long, the code would inform the criminal law that virtually every law student in the country was learning. And when these new lawyers went to work on Capitol Hill, at the Justice Department and elsewhere, they had that approach to theft in mind.

Then technology caught up.

With intangible assets like information, patents and copyrighted material playing an increasingly important role in the economy, lawyers and lobbyists for the movie and music industries, and their allies in Congress and at the Justice Department, sought to push the concept of theft beyond the basic principle of zero sum-ness. Earlier this year, for example, they proposed two major pieces of legislation premised on the notion that illegal downloading is stealing: the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

The same rhetorical strategy was used with only slightly more success by the movie industry in its memorably irritating advertising campaign designed to persuade (particularly) young people that illegal downloading is stealing. Appearing before the program content on countless DVDs, the Motion Picture Association of America’s much-parodied ad featured a pounding soundtrack and superficially logical reasoning:

You wouldn’t steal a car.

You wouldn’t steal a handbag.

You wouldn’t steal a mobile phone.

You wouldn’t steal a DVD.

Downloading pirated films is stealing.

Stealing is against the law.

Piracy: It’s a crime.

The problem is that most people simply don’t buy the claim that illegally downloading a song or video from the Internet really is like stealing a car. According to a range of empirical studies, including one conducted by me and my social psychologist collaborator, Matthew Kugler, lay observers draw a sharp moral distinction between file sharing and genuine theft, even when the value of the property is the same.

If Cyber Bob illegally downloads Digital Joe’s song from the Internet, it’s crucial to recognize that, in most cases, Joe hasn’t lost anything. Yes, one might try to argue that people who use intellectual property without paying for it steal the money they would have owed had they bought it lawfully. But there are two basic problems with this contention. First, we ordinarily can’t know whether the downloader would have paid the purchase price had he not misappropriated the property. Second, the argument assumes the conclusion that is being argued for — that it is theft.

So what are the lessons in all this? For starters, we should stop trying to shoehorn the 21st-century problem of illegal downloading into a moral and legal regime that was developed with a pre- or mid-20th-century economy in mind. Second, we should recognize that the criminal law is least effective — and least legitimate — when it is at odds with widely held moral intuitions.

Illegal downloading is, of course, a real problem. People who work hard to produce creative works are entitled to enjoy legal protection to reap the benefits of their labors. And if others want to enjoy those creative works, it’s reasonable to make them pay for the privilege. But framing illegal downloading as a form of stealing doesn’t, and probably never will, work. We would do better to consider a range of legal concepts that fit the problem more appropriately: concepts like unauthorized use, trespass, conversion and misappropriation.

This is not merely a question of nomenclature. The label we apply to criminal acts matters crucially in terms of how we conceive of and stigmatize them. What we choose to call a given type of crime ultimately determines how it’s formulated and classified and, perhaps most important, how it will be punished. Treating different forms of property deprivation as different crimes may seem untidy, but that is the nature of criminal law.

Stuart P. Green is a professor at Rutgers Law School in Newark and author of the forthcoming “13 Ways to Steal a Bicycle: Theft Law in the Information Age.”

‘JUSTICE’ ala Thurston County:

State's Complaining Witness

Live by the ex parte, Die by the ex parte. Sara Dotson’s (Drama Queen) reign ends!

Do you know the way to San Jose?

Get out of jail free card

Love, pro se

If you’re on the dance floor, near the hot trombone, it ain’t no sin, take off your skin & dance around in your bones!

Thurston County Superior Court judge Anne Hirsch was once the director of the Office of Assigned Counsel–a public defender creature of the courts. Christine Schaller is a Commissioner in her Court. And Rick Fallows is an unwed father whose young daughter is being denied his companionship because Thurston Court officials can’t seem to get the law they enforce figured out.

Rick fathered his daughter with her mother, Colleen. They co-parented their child until the relationship soured to the point Colleen invited a notorious local personality, Arthur West, to befriend her.

Arthur, a self styled ‘paralegal’ sued Rick in the latter’s capacity as the director of a non-profit, Media Island. Rick successfully defended against the suit.

Colleen sued Rick–seeking a domestic violence protection order and the termination of Rick’s parental rights. Commissioner Indu Thomas dismissed the suit as without merit. Rick initiated a petition seeking a parenting plan so he could continue to visit & raise his daughter. Commissioner Indu Thomas heard this action as well. The mother, Colleen moved to have Rick’s petition dismissed. Thomas denied the motion. Colleen timely filed a motion to revise the Commissioner’s ruling and that motion was heard by Judge Anne Hirsch while Rick, pro se, and Colleen, represented by counsel, argued the motion’s merits.

Judge Hirsch denied the motion to revise as it cited no error and argued no basis in law for overturning the Commissioner’s ruling. Thus, Rick’s petition for a parenting plan remained viable. But contrary to local court rule LSPR 90.14 which prohibits arguing issues not listed in the Motion to Revise or jurisdiction over any issue not in the record or ruled on by the Commissioner, Judge Hirsch improperly allowed a Motion for a Change of Venue to Minnesota (where Colleen had absconded w/the child once the legal confrontation with the father began) to be brought, argued, and granted.

A Change of Venue under Washington State law is discretionary. What is not is the requirement a judge have subject matter jurisdiction before granting such a request. Judge Hirsch had no such jurisdiction, presiding over a statutorily mandated review of the record only, to become the trial court inasmuch as her function was solely, in law, to provide a review de novo of the record. Her ruling was not simply voidable, but void from the outset, i.e. void ab initio. All subsequent actions flowing from that void ruling wherein Judge Hirsch had no subject matter jurisdiction were void and without force of law as well. Hirsch gave Colleen 30 days in her erroneous ruling to file an action regarding custody or a parenting plan in Minnesota. Colleen served Rick with a Minnesota summons and petition before that window of time closed.

Rick was (rightly as it turns out) still under the impression Washington State remained a proper venue to seek relief. He filed yet another pleading requesting his daughter be returned to her birthplace and his access be restored. Commissioner Schaller sanctioned him for filing a ‘specious’ motion under Rule 11, reasoning ignorance was no excuse for thinking venue remained in Washington. Schaller fined Rick $225. The trouble was, Rick was right. Venue did remain in Washington because Judge Hirsch had no basis in law for subject matter jurisdiction or to grant Colleen’s motion for a change of venue to Minnesota–a State that requires both parties to pay filing fees in a civil action such as this.

The upshot is Rick has been saddled with a punitive fine for a ‘specious’ motion when it is the Court’s own ignorance of the law that lead to the fine. A challenge for lack of jurisdiction is always timely at any stage of the proceedings or on appeal. Rick appealed.

Rick also plans to file a motion for reconsideration in which he hopes to educate Commissioner Schaller and possibly gain Judge Hirsch’s notice for her void ab initio ruling when she granted the improperly docketed Motion for a Change of Venue to Minnesota. Washington Courts disfavor, though they are discretionary, changes of venue. Thurston County judges are no exception–except, it’s well known, for Judge Hirsch. Colleen’s counsel surely was aware of this fact when he improperly calendared the motion for a change of venue.

CONCLUSION:  Don’t assume the person beneath that black robe is smarter than you are or understands the law. The reason a court of review is not allowed to review matters never made a part of the record is transparently obvious–judge shopping, prohibition from doing so in law, and mooting the entire court of record proceedings. By doing so, Judge Hirsch not only violated the prohibitions in law and local court rule, but she rewarded the mother’s bad behavior when she absconded to Minnesota for the very reason of denying the father access to his daughter when the father had properly sought relief from the Washington Court to preserve said access through a parenting plan.

“I don’t care what the law says, just tell me who the judge is!” -Roy Cohn-

“The monarchists will hide in the judiciary.” -Ben Franklin-