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About Me <http://inproperinla.blogspot.com/>.
This blog was written by Joseph Zernik, DMD, PhD. Dr Zernik was until recently involved in litigation in the following courts and actions:
1) LA Superior Court: Samaan v Zernik (SC087400)
Defendant and Cross Complainant in pro per
2) California Court of Appeal, 2nd District: Zernik v LA Superior Court (B203063)
Appellant in pro per
3) U.S. District Court, LA: Zernik v Connor et al (2:2008cv01550)
Plaintiff in pro per
4) U.S. Court of Appeal, 9th Circuit (08-72714)
Petitioner in pro per
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More recently, Dr Zernik refused to participate in proceedings in the LA SUPERIOR COURT, CALIFORNIA COURT OF APPEAL, 2nd DISTRICT, and U.S. DISTRICT COURT, LOS ANGELES & RIVERSIDE, holding that in all three cases the courts were engaged in sham proceedings.
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Dr. Zernik was born in Jerusalem, Israel, and grew up in a typical Israeli Jewish family with a father of European (German) background, and a mother of Middle Eastern (Palestinian) background.
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As a teenager Dr Zernik was referred to computer science classes in the Technion, the premier technical college of Israel. Although all his experiences at that time were built around punch cards and mainframe computers, as it turned out, they produced a solid foundation in the field.
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Dr Zernik served in the Israeli military for 3 years (1973-76) as part of the standard compulsory draft, in an airborne unit.
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From 1976-1979 Dr Zernik studied in Medical School of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
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From 1980-1983 Dr Zernik completed his degree in Dental Medicine at the University of Tel Aviv.
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In 1982 Dr Zernik won a summer research scholarship from the Weitzmann Institute
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In 1983 Dr Zernik moved to the US, as a graduate student at the University of Connecticut on a scholarship and a stipend. He graduated from a PhD program and specialty training in orthodontics in 1988, and then stayed on as faculty member till 1991.
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In 1991 he was recruited by USC, where he stayed till 2002, and at the conclusion of a sabbatical at UCLA he moved to full-time private practice.
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Along the years Dr Zernik won numerous grants and research awards from the National Institutes of Health and the Dept of Veteran Affairs. He also served as consultant for both departments. Zernik also served on the editorial boards or as reviewer for a number of scientific and scholarly journal.
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In 1993, barely a couple of years in LA, Zernik published a short communication in the New Republic, suggesting that the problem underlying LA political system, at least in part, stemmed from the lack of Social Contract between Government and the Governed.
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In the late 1990’s Zernik founded at USC an internet Free Speech Forum, attempting to capture some of the traditional special status of Academic Grounds on the Internet.
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In 2000 Zernik and Prof Moshe Lazar co-edited Hebron Stories, by Yitzhaq Shami (1888-1949) – a collection of early Modern middle eastern short stories. The volume, with introduction by Prof Arnold J Band, won excellent review in the Los Angeles Times, and also in several Moslem and Arabic literary magazines.
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By 2004, the Palestinian Academic Society recognized the work of Shami as one of the important Palestinian literary works of the 20th century. With that, Shami won a unique and unparalleled place, recognized as part of the shared modern literary heritage of both Israel and Palestine. With that, Dr Zernik was also invited and visited the Palestinian Authority in 2004.
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In 2006, the same volume, edited by Dr Zernik, was published by Labor et Fides, the official press of the Calvinist Church in Geneva , Switzerland. It includes a short epilogue by Dr Zernik, on the role of revelation in the Abrahamic religions.
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In collaboration with Italian colleague Fabrizio Lelli, Dr Zernik initiated another book project, incomplete, involving the history of the minute Jewish community in Toscana during the Italian Renaissance, and its unusual contribution, e.g., the Pico dela Mirandola, author of the "Oration on the Dignity of Man". For this project, the Vatican, in response to request by U.S. Ambassador the Honorable Lindy Boggs, issued special permission to open archives for research.
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Earlier this year, 2008, Dr Zernik submitted a one page Concern/Proposal to the staff of the Judiciary Committees of the House and Senate, presenting his view that case management systems in the court are prone to abuse, and that the legal framework in fact exists for their regulation, under the Rule Making Enabling Act 28 U.S.C. §§ 2071 – 2077. With it he described in general terms the necessary regulatory actions.
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SAMAAN V ZERNIK (SC087400)
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This litigation at the LA Superior Court brought Zernik face to face with a situation that he had never anticipated encountering, and which he had no qualifications to deal with. Yet he felt that he should not fold and yield in the face of brute aggression by the racketeering LA Superior Court and its judges. Instead, one of his primary goal was to record the legal transactions, which ended up with fraudulent conveyance of title on his Beverly Hills Residence by the LA Superior Court, as confirmed by fraud expert James Wedick, commended for his investigative efforts by the U.S. Congress, by FBI director, and by U.S. Attorney General.
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His secondary goal was to research the roots of such aberrant court conditions. In the process, Dr Zernik discovered that the court was operating for some 25 years a case management program, Sustain, which routinely produced fraudulent trial court litigation records. Moreover, the system is used by both the LA Superior Court and the California Court of Appeal, 2nd District (with no notice and service to parties in appeals and petitions) as the electronic court file, and effectively the governing system in the court today (vs the paper court file). And yet, the LA Superior Court routinely denies public access to the system to inspect and to copy, under the unpublished rule of court:
“Sustain is privileged – for the court only.”
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Zernik further discovered that the Local Rules of Court, in critical sections, e.g., entry of judgment, have never been updated in the last 25 years, while the court eliminated all the paper Books of Court at that time, in parallel to the installation of Sustain, where presumably electronic equivalents were implemented. Such books include the primary Public Records that for many generations proved effective in the safeguard of court integrity: Index of All Cases, Calendars of the Courts, Registers of Actions, and Book of Judgments. All such records are off limits to the public in LA County in the last 25 years. Zernik believes that such conditions were critical in allowing the growth of the enterprise at the court.
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In Samaan v Zernik, the court is denying Zernik the right to access, to inspect and to copy the Book of Judgments. Zernik was also denied the right, provided in the Local Rules of Court, to have the entry of judgment certified, alternatively – to have the non-entry of judgment certified. Zernik holds that the preponderance of evidence he gathered demonstrates that the court racketeers in real properties, in part through fraudulently failing to enter judgment, while attempting to execute such judgments, which per Cal Code of Civ Proc are
“not effectual for any purpose”.
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With elimination of the Books of Court as Public Records, and routine denial of notice of service, the LA Courts established conditions that are not far removed from those which prevailed in late medieval times. And with that – the court racketeers using fraud of the very same period. In Samaan v Zernik the court engaged for example in Judgment Fraud, and Statute of Frauds fraud.
The role, or inaction, of the legal community in the past quarter century, when conditions such as those described here were developing, is incomprehensible. Likewise, it is beyond comprehension how among a quarter century of judges and justices in LA Superior Court and the California Court of Appeal, 2nd District, all sworn by the California Oath of Office, to uphold the U.S. Constitution, there was no known case of a judge who acted pursuant to the canons of the California Code of Judicial Ethics (or parallel U.S. Code):
“ Judge shall be faithful to the law…”
Cal Code Jud Ethics 3B(2)
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"(1) Whenever a judge has reliable information that another judge has violated any provision of the Code of Judicial Ethics, the judge shall take or initiate appropriate corrective action, which may include reporting the violation to the appropriate authority."
Cal Code Jud Ethics 3D(1)
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Dr Zernik requests for investigation by various local, state and U.S. law enforcement were all denied. Letters to the Washington DC head-quarters of the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, requesting appointment of a Special Counsel remained unanswered. Fortunately, the Honorable Senator Diane Feinstein and the Honorable Congresswoman Diane Watson provided assistance by issuing inquiries to the agencies. The two agencies eventually issued responses, and Dr Zernik is now completing his reply.
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Dr Zernik holds that the most plausible explanation for the complete body of data he gathered, is that Samaan v Zernik never was part of the “True Court Track” at the LA Superior Court. Instead, it was assigned, even before the complaint was filed, to the “Enterprise Track”. As such, Dr Zernik believes that the case was never indexed and never calendared, and therefore, the courts hide those basic public records. Similarly, for that reason, the judgment, rendered by Judge Jacqueline Connor (best known for derailing the First Rampart Trial in 2000) could not be entered.
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In general, Zernik holds that overall conditions in LA County relative to entry of judgment are in violation of the law and in particular – protections guaranteed in the Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
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Dr Zernik felt that serendipity resulted in an unusual set of players, that was possibly destined to effect a change. Dr Zernik hopes that his efforts are not in vain, and that the 9.5 millions in LA County will eventually benefit from his struggle by gaining basic civil rights that he hopes and believes are taken for granted in other parts of the U.S., e.g. the First Amendment/Common Law right to access, to inspect and to copy judicial records, as affirmed in Nixon v Warner Communications. Inc.
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Dr Zernik holds that the situation he uncovered in the Civil Courts of LA Superior Court is the mirror image of the conditions in the Criminal Courts, first uncovered in the Rampart scandal (1998). The latest report of the Blue Ribbon Review Panel describes a justice system that tolerates a “significant subcult of criminality in its ranks”. It also shows that while there is practically wall to wall agreement that many are imprisoned for long terms in LA after being framed by the police, prosecutors and the courts, the number of such wrongfully imprisoned is unknown (probably in the thousands), and nothing is done to correct the wrong.
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Although he has not engaged in research of the systems of the criminal courts, Dr Zernik believes that denial of access to indices and calendars is the root cause that did not allow any of the investigative committees in the last 10 years to make any progress.
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Based on such experiences Dr Zernik proposed to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees that urgent need exists to provide public oversight of the Courts’ case management systems, that the legal framework for such oversight is already in place, under Rule Making Enabling Act 28 U.S.C. §§ 2071 – 2077, but some regulatory action may be required.
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Dr Zernik is attempting to bring such issues for debate this October of 2008 as part of the election campaign.
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