13-02-23 Los Angeles: Widespread corruption of the courts and the "free press"

 
 
From a discussion group:

me (Joseph Zernik, Human Rights Alert (NGO) change)

Post reply 10:41 AM (2 minutes ago)

Comments are regarding the suggestion of "free press" in legal matters in Los Angeles.

From my personal communications with Los Angeles Daily Journal, Met News, and Los Angeles Times reporters, I would be hard pressed to even suggest that there is "free press" in Los Angeles, when it comes to the courts in general, and in reporting wrongdoing by the courts in particular.

LA Times:

It should be noted that the LA Times went through a major transition in this matter over the past decade. 

Review of the reporting of the Los Angeles Times during the First Rampart Scandal (2000-2001), showed honest reporting, and extensive criticism of the conduct of California Judge (retired since) Jacqueline Connor.  She appeared as the presiding judge in the First Rampart Trial.  The Los Angeles Times did not hesitate to point out the deep conflicts of interest in the conduct of Jacqueline Connor in this case - she was trying to cover up framing, false prosecutions, false convictions of a staggering number of people, where she had been a key player.  

The Los Angeles Times then even interviewed the Presiding Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court and directly and repeatedly asked about such conflicts.

Moreover, Jacqueline Connor was known in previous years as especially close to the corrupt LAPD undercover narcotic officers, who were at the center of the scandal.  Two years prior to the trial, she provided an excellent recommendation letter to Rafael Perez, specifically referring to his performance as a witness on the stand in her court.  He later confessed, as part of a plea bargain that such testimonies were fabricated fraud.

Judge Connor also went ahead a couple of months prior to the trial, and from a public stage warned Perez NOT to enter a plea bargain, and warned him never to appear again in her courtroom.  Later on, the Perez, the key witness, indeed failed to appear in the trial.  Connor also made several rulings early on to limit discovery by the prosecution from LAPD (who was holding the evidence in this case).

At the end, when the jury nevertheless convicted three of the LAPD officers, Connor issued from home, Friday night before Christmas, a ruling that overturned the jury convictions. She claimed that she biased the jury in her own faulty jury instructions.  Her ruling also explicitly mocked those who "try to fix the Rampart".

All of these issues were covered in detail in the Los Angeles Time, and the reader could easily conclude that it was an honest trial.

In less than a decade, things changed dramatically, as seen in the case of Richard Fine (2009-2010).  Here the Los Angeles Times was already acting as an arm of the LASC.  Los Angeles Time reporter Victoria Kim managed to "sneak" into the Los Angeles Central Men's Jail, reach Richard Fine, who was held under solitary confinement and under prohibition by the Sheriff of any media contacts.  

Based on her reporting, the reader could easily conclude that Richard Fine was an eccentric at best, possibly somewhat insane.

Los Angeles Daily Journal

Should be considered an arm of the courts for at least a quarter century.  The paper is the whole owner of Sustain Corporation, which developed, implemented, and maintains the fraudulent case management system of the Los Angeles Superior Court.  Therefore, the paper relies on a long term contracts with the LASC, on which it is supposed to report.

The Daily Journal also refuses to disclose who is it controlled by.

Metropolitan News

In my experience, at least some reporters of the Met News are fully familiar with the level of corruption in the LASC.

However, given the position of the paper, relative to the two other enterprises, listed above, the Met News practices strict self-censorship.

JZ

On Friday, February 22, 2013 8:43:56 PM UTC+2, G wrote:

To All:

Gene Forte has been taking on the Powers That Be and fighting the good fight for a number of years.  First, he had and was attorneybusters.com website and radio show, then second he ran for governor in the special recall election of Grey Davis on a campaign to fight government corruption and unaccountablity, and next was/is The Bager Flats Gazette.

Recently, in a sham trial in a kangaroo court he was found mentally incompetent to aid in his defense, which was the pretext to allow the Merced County DA a way out of the bogus fabricated three (3) charges/cases filed against Forte.  Forte has the DA on tape stating first, that he had a conflict of interest regarding Forte (they were opposing parties in a civil case involving underground gas station fuel tanks with allegations of fraud concerning a large clean up fund) that prevented him from even investigation the charges, much less filing any charges, and thus he would have to send the case(s) to "Jerry" (then Cal AG Jerry Brown, now Cal Guv Jerry Brown) for filing by his office or assignment to another county DA.  Before the ink was dry, Brown's AG office sent the cases back without doing anything.  The Merced DA then ignored the conflct(s), his oath, his professional duties/rules, the law, Forte's constitutional right, and blindly went forward and filed the charges against Forte.  Forte then has the DA on tape saying, Gene if you promise not to sue us, I can make those charges go away.  Another big conflict that would require dismissal of the charges.

Forte was in forma paupris and was qualified for indigent status.  He had six (6) conflict/public defender attorneys furnished by the county.  Not one brought a motion to dismiss based on gross prosecutorial misconduct - although several said that they were outraged by the DA's conflict(s) and his going forward to file the charges, and said they would prepare and file the motion to dismiss.  Two of his attorneys are on tape stating they were being intimidated by the DA's office regarding the case.  Those two, and others abandoned Forte without filing proper papers/declarations re withdrawal. 

Forte's last attorney, the acting head Public Defender of Merced County - the one that moved to have him declared mentally incompetent to aid in his defense - a couple of weeks after he became Forte's attorney, told Forte he may have a problem, a possible conflict of interests, as he played on the same softball team as the court bailiff/deputy, who arrested Forte in the first two charges/cases.  That attorney then ignored that problem/conflict and did nothing about it.  Early on Forte asked that attorney to make the motion to dismiss the charges/cases based on gross prosecutorial misconduct - and also requested a second ground of gross judicial misconduct.  That attorney never brought the motion to dismiss, but again instead moved to have Forte declared mentally incompetent to aid in his defense.  That was granted.  That attorney then moved to dismiss the charges/cases against Forte on that ground, and that attorney (Forte's own attorney) then requested the court impose costs on Forte for delaying and pushing frivolous defenses.  Forte was ordered to pay the county over $9,000.00.

Clearly, the Merced County DA Morse and his office, the trial judge (ret.) James Cadle and the acting Merced PD Eric Dumars (as well as Forte's other purported attorneys and several other officials of both the City and County of Merced)  - acted in concert to ignored and abridge any semblance of Forte's constitutional rights (the Rule of Law simply ceased to exist) to frame Forte and brand him crazy to make Forte's exposure of corruption and the false charges against him - go away.  And it was rubber stamped by an appellate court.

On the Friday before the following Monday trial on Forte's "trial" re his being mentally incompetent to aid in his defense, Forte filed an emergency Writ to Stay that "trial" at about 4:30 p.m.  (It took him about 1.5 hrs to drive to/from the 5th App. District.).  When he got home that afternoon, there was a 5:06 p.m. phone message from the 5th App. District clerk stating the Writ had been denied.  That same afternoon that same 5th App. District mailed (without proof of service) Forte a Notice setting a hearing 1/13/13 why he should not be found a Vexatious Litigant.  (That Notice violated due process in several ways:  no proof of service, lack of timely notice for setting hearing date per CCP 1005, lack of substantive notice re basis of grounds/facts being moved on.)

Forte prepared objections and opposition to the Vexatious litigant charge.  I have heard the tape of the hearing.  Forte acquitted himself well there, provided several irrefutable arguments and asked several good questions that the justices could not answer or ignored.  For example, Forte brought up that one of the justices on the panel had a conflict of interest - that justice himself ruled on determined he did not have a conflict (the 2 others sat silent) and that several of the matters at issue were case file in the 6th App. District, yet had been assigned to the 5th App. Disrtict - which Forte was before.  Clearly, at a minimum irregular proceedings - yet the justice when asked how and why that happened - had no answer (the 2 others on the panel sat silent).

See in the below e-mail of an article reporting the 5th App, District has court found Forte a vexatious litigant.  Note the metnews never called Forte and probably will not and would refuse to do any investigation of what actually occurred.  Thus this "article" gives cover to the corrupt government (prosecutor, judge, public defender & appellate court), sends a message to others, all while being totally derelict to its fundamental duty to report the news, by watching power, investigating power, reporting on power and holding power accountable.  This is what the media/press has fallen to.

We may have a so-called "Free" press - but it certainly is not a responsible press.  So much for the Fourth Estate.

The rights of another American citizen are taken away without basis by a corrupt government.  And government get bigger and we get smaller.  The Police State marches on.

There is no one left to blame - but the judges/judiciary.

Liberty & Truth require constant vigilance.  G.
   

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Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:56:20 -0800
Subject: Court of Appeals Declares Gene Forte ‘Vexatious Litigant’ on Own Motion
From:
To:

http://www.metnews.com/articles/2013/vexatious022113.htm