10-02-04 The mysterious finances of the Los Angeles Superior Court...

    
Charles McCoy   John Clarke

Date: Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:26:23 -0800
To: lawsters@googlegroups.com
From: joseph zernik
Subject: Financials of the Los Angeles Superior Court

Hi Brad:

I am sorry that I did not know that you were going to meet McCoy on financial issues... I could have offered you some quetions on the matter:

1) Already in 1999 the Washington-based "Insight Magazine" published a series of articles regarding shady corporations controlled by the judges of the LA Superior Court, which held substantial sums of money from unclear sources and for unclear purposes.  The evidence showed that the judges continue to hold such corporations to this date.
The questions are:
a) For what purpose did the judges create such corporations?
b) What is the source of the funds?
c) What is the purpose of such funds?

2) The LA Superior Court has not published an audited financial report in years, or for that matter, any financial report whatsoever.  Charles McCoy, Presiding Judge, and John A Clarke, Clerk of the Court, refused requests to provide copies of such reports, if they existed.
The question are:
a) Why are the Presiding Judge and the Clerk of the Court refusing to publish any audited financial reports?
b) Were the Court's finances ever audited?

3) I identified a series of cases where all fees were falsely designated as "Journal Entry", where in normal cases they were designated "Filing Fees", "Motion Fees", "Stipulation Fees". Accountancy texts consider false use of "Journal Entry" as a cardinal sign of financial fraud. Both Charles McCoy, Presiding Judge, and John A Clarke, Clerk of the Court refuse to disclose the designation of funds that were collected as fees, but were listed as "Journal Entry".
The questions are:
a) What were the reasons for designating fees in such cases as "Journal Entry"?
b) What was the final destination of such "Journal Entry" funds?

In case you ever have a chance to talk with either of these gentlemen on financial issues again, please raise these questions with them.  I am eager to hear their responses.

Truly, 

 

Joseph Zernik, PhD

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At 04:02 PM 2/4/2010, Brad wrote:

Yes there was a decline in the US Supreme Court case load, but Steve Cooley and Judge McCoy told me their filings are up.  Cooley's criminal filings are up 20% per yr since he came into office.  He gave that figure in a speech he made seeking more funds to operate his office from the Supervisors and repeated it since them to others, including me.
   Judge McCoy held a small meeting in Dec. 2009, of the 12-14 participants I was in attendance at which he laid out the court's fiscal problems.  One of them was a huge increase in pro per filings, HUGE!  He said it was clogging up the works, taking massive time from the court clerks.  They announced today 305 of those clerks were being laid off.
More lay offs to come and less access to justice.
    The legal clinics and foundations are helping many tenants to stay in their apartments without paying rent.  Some landlords are having their houses foreclosed, affecting and lowering property values.  Less property values means less tax revenue.  Less tax revenue means more layoffs.  More layoffs mean more people will resort to self-help and be charged with crimes, further clogging up the overwhelmed criminal justice system, whose judges will be sharing court clerks.  A recipe for chaos, but a very interesting chaos.
    At some point people are going to ask, "if you're so smart, and you're a judge, why is the court system all screwed up?" - Brad

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At 03:07 PM 2/4/2010, Joseph Zernik wrote:

From: joseph zernik
To: lawsters@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, February 4, 2010 3:07:53 PM
Subject: Re: Another Judge Gone Wild


You have to also remember the dramatic decline in number of cases filed with the US Supreme Court.  I also hear unofficial data that there was decline here in LA in the number of filings at the LA Superior Court.  The public figured out that the system is corrupt, and they would do anything to avoid it.

At 03:03 PM 2/4/2010, Brad wrote:

Good description, but the real victim is the public who use the justice system to resolve disputes and of course the government to collect money in taxes and traffic fines. It takes 8 years to make one lawyer.
    So what I do is urge prospective lawyers to go to medical school by explaining the high cost of law school and the high probability of losing ones law license but low probability of losing ones medical license.
    For our discussion this is important because soon only government lawyers will become judges and uphold the government's position in ALL cases or kill the lawyer with the message, as they did to Fine by disbarment and imprisonment. - Brad

NOTICE OF PRIVACY & CONFIDENTIALITY:
This message is private and confidential. It contains confidential and privileged information which is both privileged & confidential under state and federal law and/or exempt from disclosure under law, including but not limited to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 USC 2510-2521. NO reader may disclose, distribute or copy this email. If you get this e-mail in error, notify me immediately by electronic-mail reply and delete this original message. No recording, printing or sharing of this email, which has been sent over telephone lines, is allowed, and recording it is illegal. Cal. Penal Code 632.

At 02:57 PM 2/4/2010, Joseph Zernik wrote:

From: joseph zernik
To: lawsters@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, February 4, 2010 2:57:22 PM
Subject: Re: Another Judge Gone Wild
Brad:  Others described it simply as the bar, after feeding on the public, is now turning to cannibalism, eating its own... jz

At 02:51 PM 2/4/2010, Brad wrote:

As lawyers rebel they are being quietly removed from practice.  In the last four year over 6000 lawyers have been removed from practice by the Calif Bar Assoc. Corp.  Like Richard Fine, Phil Kay and others.  These 6000 lawyers, with just a few exceptions provided legal services mainly to the general public. 
    The cost to the Bar appeared to be their membership fee of $405 x 6000 or $2,430,000 a year.  The bar makes 80 million a year from dues so why would they get rid of those lawyers?  It's the public who complain and 1/2 of all lawsuits are losers, regardless of who is the lawyer in the case.  However, as the bar gets rid of the lawyers who serve the public the public turns to Legal Document assistants and LegalZoom instead.  The Result?  the number of bar complaints has dropped from 110K a year to 11K a year, a 905 decrease in 4 years. 
     All the rest of the lawyers are government lawyers, and the government never makes a bar complaint against those lawyers, Corporation Legal Dept Lawyers, The Bar protected large law firm lawyers and those lawyers who don't practice for various reasons, like Jeff Lustman who is a licensed Private Eye in LA.
   As the Bar takes out the remaining group of lawyers providing legal services to the public the number of complaints will be dropping even further as pro pers bungle their cases or have their cases handled by large firm lawyers or lawyers the bar can't touch, such as Binder and Binder who practice social security benefit law.  Pro pers are being guided by the Self Help centers in Calif Courts as the Bar removes more and more lawyers from practice.
    The last few classes of law grads have no jobs and no training in how to open and successfully operate a law office.  Large law firms are closing down as fast as retail auto dealers in Calif.
    As judges deal with lawyers in this negative manner, they will be seeing a tsunami of pro pers coming at them, making cases take far longer than normal, with pro pers not obeying court rules, both local and state, and creating general havoc with court rules of both criminal and civil procedure. 
     To try to stop the bleeding Assemblyman Mike Feuer got a law enacted to provide lawyers to the poor in civil cases.  That law provides for limited appointments and is in the experimental stages.  This is like trying to stop a giant stomach hemorrhage with a band-aid.  The problem isn't the public doesn't have the money for lawyers, its the removal of lawyers in practice from providing legal services to provide bodies in State Bar Court to obtain COST awards from those former attorneys, up to $20K per case.  Those awards are judgments.  Older lawyers, from 70 on are not required to pay dues.   So the bar mainly goes after older lawyers and with some exceptions ignores the violations of rookies who don't know what they are doing in the first 10-20 years, including the drug addicts, alcoholics, felons and mentally ill (Which account for more than 50% of all lawyers).
     So you see there is an equilibrium to maintain.  As Judges go wild their actions are having an imperceptible but growing affect on the entire justice system that will and is affecting judges.  One such effect is the growing prison population and the lack of money to cage our fellow human beings.  In fact in calif it would be cheaper to actually give the inmate mental health than imprison them, but that doesn't benefit the prison guard union.
     Karma can be such a b***h. - Brad
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At 12:19 PM 2/4/2010, Joseph Zernik wrote:

From: joseph zernik
To: lawsters@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, February 4, 2010 12:19:20 PM
Subject: Re: Another Judge Gone Wild

Gary, it was not "poorly reported", it deliberately concealed from the public the critical facts in the matter.  Likewise, the sealing of the large corruption case in El Paso, Texas, must be protested across the US, and challenged in court. It only serves to protect the corrupt judges on trial there.  Texas is clearly a runner up after Los Angeles, California, in the level of corruption, but southern Florida, is quietly climbing to extremes as well.   

THEORETICAL SUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION:  Maybe it is overexposure to the sun in sunbelt states that causes the extreme corruption?

jz

At 12:08 PM 2/4/2010, Gary wrote:

Heres another clear example of  Judges Going Wild a judge abusing power.  Judicial tyranny from a judicial tyrant.

TEXAS lawyer gets 90 days for rolling eyes

February 3, 2010 wwmt.com
TEXAS (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - Down in Texas a lawyer will spend 90 days in jail because he rolled his eyes in court.
The defense attorney says he made the gesture at the prosecutor during a trial, but the judge thought it was aimed at her and slapped him with a charge for contempt.
The lawyer now says it's a mistake he won't make again.
"I've learned that in my business, it doesn't matter what the circumstances are, anything that shows anything less than utmost respect is something that is dealt with harshly and that's a lesson I've learned and I'm going to continue to learn the hard way," said lawyer Adam Reposa.
The attorney plans to meet with the judge Wednesday morning to see if he can serve his sentence through home confinement.
http://www.wwmt.com/articles/margin-1372151-texas-bottom.html
Granted this is a poor report/article.  It fails to identify the city where this happened, the judge and any detail of the factual context on the incident. But fact is, Journalism like every other institution in America today, has dropped any pretense at having standards or integrity.  Moreover, the media hardly ever take on the judges anyway.
Apparently, the sentence is not yet final.  Usually what happens in such a situation is that other judges in the courthouse will hear of this, and get the sentencing judge to back off some and adjust the sentence down and some older attorneys will get the purported offender here attorney Reposa - to fall on his sword and apologize, and a much lighter sentence will eventually be imposed, because this conduct by the judge is simply stupid and can not be defended and is embarrassing to the bench and bar.  Reposa already though appears to have given up his rights and bowed to the all powerful judge. 
But that does not solve the problem of Judges Going Wild judges that suffer from megalomania.  90 days for rolling your eyes in any context - is an insane punishment and shows that the judiciary simply has too, too, much power, wield it in a reckless and abusive manner, with almost total impunity. 
Just  proposing 90 days even if a much less sentence eventually is imposed, shows that the judiciary is out of control and is feared, and not respected.  Who could respect a judge like this?  This judge should immediately be suspended, investigated and removed unless the judge can come up with some good evidence to justify such inexplicable conduct. 
I can not think of any?  Can you?
Clearly, even if no jail time is eventually ordered, attorney Reposa will never walk into a courtroom again believing in the Rule of Law or that justice is found there.  And anyone reading the article should be struck with fear, from the arbitrary and tyrannical conduct of  this judge.  And apparently - that is just what the judiciary wants

Attorney Richard Fine is still rotting away in the LA County Jail,  Today is his 11^th month Anniversary there. 
There is no one left to blame but the judiciary/judges.
Liberty & Truth require constant vigilance.   GLZ.

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