by Sharon Noonan Kramer

           On November 4, 2014, California voters will have the opportunity to tell the state’s judges, justices, legislators, attorney general and governor; that elitist, unconstitutional and illegal acts in the state’s judicial branch will no longer be tolerated by California’s citizens.

          Toward that end, the bi-partisan group Campaign For Judicial Integrity (CFJI) is urging all California voters to vote “NO” retention of all supreme and court of appeal justices who are on the November ballot.

          California state justices are originally appointed to office by the governor. Opportunity for voters to retain or remove justices from office arises only every four years. This is because each supreme and appellate court justice must run for voter re-election at the end of their twelve-year term after first being appointed. Newly appointed justices must also run in the first four-year election cycle after their initial appointment.

Voters decide the justices’ employment futures in the nation’s largest state court system, California’s, by simply checking “Yes” or “NO” in the box next to their names on the ballot.

         According the CFJI Chairman, Dr. Richard Fine

“November 4, is crucial as so many justices seeking re-election may never occur again. ….we can change California’s corrupt judiciary by voting out 3 of the 6 current California Supreme Court justices and 42 of the 105 Court of Appeal justices…The November 4 election is a “Yes” or “No” vote on each justice. A majority of votes cast determines whether each justice is re-elected or voted out.

On November 4, we vote ‘no’ to California Supreme Court Justices Werdegar, Liu, and Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, who was recently appointed by Governor Brown to replace retiring Justice Baxter. On November 4, we vote ‘no’ to [ ] California Court of Appeal justices in the six Court of Appeal Districts. 

          In 2009, Dr. Fine, a California licensed attorney and former federal prosecutor, was ordered by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to spend 18 months in a county jail cell without ever being charged with a crime — let alone found guilty of one. While Dr. Fine was incarcerated, the State Bar of California revoked his law license. 

          What he had done that so angered the compromised powers that be, is expose a double-dipping judicial salary scheme which causes conflicts of interest in court rulings favorable to California county governments.  The judge who ordered the incarceration, Judge Jaffey, has since retired with full pension and no punishment for his abuse of judicial office.

          According to the national non-profit, Judicial Watch, which has filed another lawsuit over the matter in April of 2014, the double-dipping scheme continues in California’s superior courts to this very day, much to the detriment of the citizens of California. For a greater understanding of the illegal compensation that the California judges are receiving and what the judicial branch leadership has done to assure it continues; visit the Emmy award winning Full Disclosure Network and watch their mini-documentaries on the subject.

SOUND LOGIC BEHIND THE BLANKET “NO” VOTE

          The sound logic behind the blanket “NO” vote as encouraged by CJFI, is that if all 45 of the state’s 111 justices, who are currently subject to re-election for twelve more years, are ousted by the voters; then the governor will have to appoint nearly half of all the state’s justices in his upcoming term.

          As newly appointed justices, voters will then have the ability to vote to retain or oust the 45 new appointees in the next election cycle of 2018, along with the additional justices whose twelve-year terms expire in 2018.  

          This means that California’s judicial branch would have a substantial turnover and its leaders would have four years to clean up their act — or an even greater ousting will occur by will of the voters in 2018.  The governor’s office and its committees which recommend the judicial appointments, would have a second chance to better vet new judicial appointees with the goal being the restoration of fair and impartial courts in the state of California. 

           If the urgently needed branch reform does not occur within the next four years after the 2014 blanket judicial ousting, the voting public will again be able to vote to remove any and all appointed politicians masquerading as fair and impartial judicial officers of the California courts.  Peer motivation to turn blind eyes to the criminal and unlawful elements among the state’s judiciary will be eliminated by the elimination of  jurists from branch leadership and vetting processes, who are too deeply embedded in the systemic dysfunction, to address the rampant ethics problems themselves. 

          In other words, removing half of the worn-out large cogs from the dysfunctional judicial machinery and replacing them with brand-new functioning parts, would go a long way toward overhauling the entire system for the good of the people of California.  The blanket “NO” vote is similar to rebuilding an engine.

          Like CJFI, Judicial Watch, and Full Disclosure Network; Center for Judicial Excellence (CJE), is another organization which works to stop the mass cronyism and corruption in California’s judicial branch.  CJE has been diligently working to force someone (anyone!) in California government to clarify who is the ultimate responsible party when jurists and their clerks are caught abusing the judicial process by falsifying court documents.  So far, the run-around that CJE has received from various government bodies has proven to be an astounding collaborative feat of willful blindness and deliberate indifference. 

          According the CJE,

“Members of the judicial branch are supposed to be guardians of the law, but who is guarding the guards?…For decades the California Judicial Council has been the recipient of ongoing reports of misconduct and waste within the Judicial Branch. Yet, misconduct and waste continue unabated. Governor Brown and Attorney General Harris have denied they have the authority to act on complaints of misconduct within the branch, and have referred complainants to the Judicial Council. Complaints have been made to the Judicial Council, but have gone unanswered…

Our own concerns include but are not limited to judges, court administrators, and court experts who refuse to follow the law, with impunity and immunity; abuse of the CCP section 170 et seq. disqualification statutes; the elimination of court reporters who provide an official record of substantive court proceedings, notwithstanding Commission on Judicial Performance concerns and recommendations about the need for an official record; ongoing branch waste while court fees and penalties are operating to deny the public access to the courts; rampant document destruction by branch members with Judicial Council approval; improper record-keeping within the branch; the withholding of court records by court personnel; the thwarting of legislative investigative and oversight efforts; record tampering and backdating by members of the Judicial Branch; abuse of the assigned judges program; the lack of adequate data collection and management by the Judicial branch, notwithstanding the expenditure of millions on court computer systems; the abuse of ex parte procedures such that judges are having secret non-emergency hearings with one side of the case, and issuing secret non-emergency orders withheld from the other side of the case, thereby repeatedly denying basic due process rights to notice and an opportunity to be heard by an impartial decision maker, and equal protection of the laws; the denial of affordable legal resources and adequate fee orders for financially disadvantaged litigants; cronyism within the branch; the lack of diversity of viewpoints and public representation on the Judicial Council; the practice of judges picking judges, via the assigned judges program, and the selection of Court Commissioners who exercise full judicial powers and are then often converted to judges; the improper delegation of judicial power; and the lack of adequate oversight of the Judicial Branch as a whole.

          According to yet another bi-partisan organization formed to combat the systemic corruption in California’s courts,  the California Coalition for Families and Children (CCFC),  

The rank and file judges [of California’s family courts] are plagued with horrific personality defects of their own far more serious than any parent in their courtroom–personal and professional misconduct, multiple divorcees, serious domestic violence perpetrators, addicts, some near perversions, financial misdealing, abundant disregard for the rule of law–and disdain for anyone who disagrees.  Good old-fashioned thuggery by a rogue gallery of unethical lawyers, judges, and psychologists in what has become a free-for-all crime ring.

COURT & OTHER CALIFORNIA GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES BEG FOR OVERSIGHT

          The website of Judicial Council Watcher (JCW) is followed and contributed to, primarily by California judicial branch employees and former employees. The site is backed by Michael Paul, a former administrative office court employee who was fired in 2010 for exposing that there was $500,000,000.00 missing from the court’s construction fund. The website focuses on egregious ethics problems at the helm of the California courts — namely the Judicial Council and its staff (formerly known as the Administrative Offices of the Courts (AOC)).  Many court employees frequently share tales on JCW which would cause one to think they are discussing Mafia dons, rather than the leadership of the largest state court in the United States, California’s.

          This past week, the employees of California’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) held a meeting. The turn-out was massive.  It was regarding their outrage of the recent scandal of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) successfully judge-shopping within the PUC for appointment of an administrative law judge who would rule favorably to their case. There is a proposed $1.4 billion penalty against PG&E for the deadly San Bruno explosion. The 2010 blast killed eight people and leveled 38 homes. The case will decide how the cost of post-San Bruno pipeline improvements will be divided between customers and shareholders. PG&E is seeking to have its customers pick up nearly $1.3 billion in costs.

             At the recent meeting, an informed PUC employee eloquently stated the problem and that a band-aid approach will not solve it.  The PUC employee is quoted as saying:

“Are we just going to throw a couple of people under the bus, or are we going to look at the real causes in our culture that create this kind of corruptness and basically sleazy environment? I want to be proud to work for the state of California….Who is giving us our marching orders to behave this way?”

          In response to the PUC scandal, Nick Pacilio, a spokesman for California’s Attorney General Kamala Harris, stated, 

        “The attorney general takes allegations of improper behavior by public officials very seriously”

          This appears to be a misstatement of fact.  As many California citizens and state employees will attest, over the years since Harris first became California’s attorney general in 2011, she has received uncountable complaints accompanied by mountains of evidence from many different sources, of criminal acts occurring by numerous public officials within in the California courts. Rarely, does her office even bother respond. And when they do, it is typically a response which deflects responsibility to another department of government — while sending the complainant on a wild goose chase, as the frauds upon the court[1] play on.

          The fact of the matter is, if Attorney General Harris really took “allegations of improper behavior by public official very seriously“; at the very least,  she would have long ago prosecuted several California judges, justices and clerks for the felonious acts of falsifying court documents[2], sometimes while knowing their courts have no subject matter jurisdiction[3]. 

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[1] “Fraud upon the court is fraud which is directed to the judicial machinery itself..It is where the court or a member is corrupted or influenced or influence is attempted or where the judge has not performed his judicial function — thus where the impartial functions of the court have been directly corrupted.” Bulloch v. United States, 763 F.2d 1115, 1121 (10th Cir. 1985)

[2]  California Penal Code 134 states, “Every person guilty of preparing any false or ante-dated book, paper, record, instrument in writing, or other matter or thing, with intent to produce it, or allow it to be produced for any fraudulent or deceitful purpose, as genuine or true, upon any trial, proceeding, or inquiry whatever, authorized by law, is guilty of felony.”

[3]  “in a jurisdictional vacuum (that is, absence of all jurisdiction) the second prong necessary to absolute judicial immunity is missing.”  Stump v. Sparkman, id., 435 U.S. 349

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          Had Harris and branch leaders done their jobs in the past, and judicial appointees were better vetted by the governor’s appointment committees; there would be no need now for voters to remove ALL California justices in an effort to save the decaying branch from the spoilers of the bunch.

 We agree with the Campaign for Judicial Excellence.  VOTE “NO” on ALL California Justices  

On November 4^th, your “NO” vote for each of the following California supreme and court of appeal justices, is a “YES” vote for future justice in all of California.

California Supreme Court

 Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar                        NO

Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar                            NO

Justice Goodwin Liu                                                      NO

 

First District Court of Appeal

Justice Stuart Pollak                                                     NO

Justice Terence L. Bruiniers                                       NO

Justice Mark Simons                                                     NO

Justice Kathleen M. Banke                                          NO

Justice Ignazio Ruvolo                                                  NO

Justice James M. Humes                                             NO

Justice Anthony Kline                                                  NO

Justice Martin J. Jenkins                                            NO

Justice Therese M. Stewart                                         NO

 

Second District Court of Appeal

Justice Laurence Rubin                                               NO

Justice Nora Manella                                                   NO

Justice Kenneth Yegan                                                NO

Justice Jeffrey W. Johnson                                        NO

Justice Frances Rothschild                                        NO

Justice Madeleine Flier                                               NO

Justice Dennis Perluss                                                 NO

Justice Audrey Collins                                                NO

Justice Brian M. Hoffstadt                                         NO

Justice Lee Smalley Edmon                                       NO

 

Third District Court of Appeal

Justice Elena J. Duarte                                              NO

Justice Vance Raye                                                      NO

Justice Andrea L. Hoch                                              NO

Justice William J. Murray, Jr.                               NO

Justice Ronald Robie                                                   NO

Justice Louis R. Mauro                                               NO

Justice Jonathan Renner                                          NO

 

Fourth District Court of Appeal

Justice Richard Aronson                                           NO

Justice William Rylaarsdam                                   NO

Justice David A. Thompson                                     NO

Justice Richard Fybel                                                NO

Justice Kathleen O’Leary                                          NO

Justice Thomas Hollenhorst                                    NO

Justice Terry O’Rourke                                             NO

Justice Alex McDonald                                              NO

Justice Gilbert Nares                                                 NO

Justice James McIntyre                                            NO

 

Fifth District Court of Appeal

Justice Rosendo Peña, Jr.                                         NO

Justice Donald R. Franson, Jr.                               NO

Justice Dennis Cornell                                              NO

Justice Gene Gomes                                                   NO

Justice Stephen Kane                                                NO

 

Sixth District Court of Appeal

Justice Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian                NO

Justice Adrienne M. Grover                                    NO

Justice Franklin Elia                                                 NO

Justice Eugene Premo                                               NO

Justice Miguel Márquez                                            NO