NY Times Editorial Nov 28, 2010--PA's "Untenable Judicial Ethics"
Published on-line November 27, 2010 edition of The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/opinion/28sun3.html
Untenable Judicial Ethics: Pennsylvania’s highest court,and the nation’s, should hold themselves to higher ethical standards.
"When Pennsylvania’s Chief Justice Ronald Castille came to New York City’s Waldorf Astoria last December for the 111th annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Society, a booster club for the state, a law firm picked up the $1,900 tab. As The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, that is one of many gifts of dinners, event tickets, golf outings and plane rides the chief justice has gotten, some from people with cases decided by his court.
Because the chief justice reported the gifts, the favors were not illegal. By the court’s standard, they were not unethical either. The court says it has the power to establish rules of ethics for state lawyers and judges. All state judges (not dealing with minor cases) can accept any gifts if they disclose them.
Almost no other state follows this policy. Neither should Pennsylvania. It permits violations of the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Judicial Conduct, by casting doubt on judges’ “capacity to act impartially.”
Chief Justice Castille provides an ideal test of his court’s gift rule. According to The Inquirer, his votes in cases show “no pattern of favoritism.” In his 17 years on the court, he stated, “no party has sought recusal on the basis of my financial disclosures.” Mr. Castille, a former district attorney for Philadelphia, was awarded a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam.
But even a judge whose conduct seems above reproach can’t avoid doubt about his impartiality when he accepts gifts from lawyers and others with cases before him. A basic goal of a sensible gift rule is to free a judge from having to worry about whether he or she is influenced, without realizing it. Another is to assure citizens who depend on the court’s fairness that the judge can’t be influenced by anything but the essentials of a case.
Sadly, the Pennsylvania court is following a bad example, that of the United States Supreme Court. The justices are not subject to the code of conduct for federal judges, which has broad prohibitions about gifts for judges and their families. There is a growing consensus — outside the court — that the justices should change how they handle recusals: requiring a justice to explain any decision to recuse or not, and having a group of justices review each recusal decision.
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court needs to change its ethics rules. So does the nation’s. With tuning as needed, the United States Supreme Court should adopt and follow the same ethics rules as every other federal court."
COMMENT: Now we can see why Conahan and Ciaverlla in Luzerne County, and Williamson and Miller (yet to be nabbed) in Clinton, are ethically challenged an wreck lives and economies. They take their cue from Chief Justice Castille. Unfortunately, unlike the chief justice, these crooks--and that's what they are--cannot claim that “no party has sought recusal". Read "Yaw Yaw" and smell the Feese and Facey the music! And when Chief Justice Castille's protege, Justice Orie-Melvin (of Melvin vs Doe infamy, whose sisters--including Senator Jane Orie, who sits on the senate judiciary committee and have been indicted by a grand jury on numerous counts of ethical violations involving Justice Melvin's run for the state supreme court)...finishes gerrymandering the electoral disticts in Pennsylvania--you can be damn sure we'll be living in a full-blown police state.
From what I have seen during the past ten years, I don't think it is a stretch to say that Pennsylvania's judiciary (along with a good portion of our legislature and the Pennsylvania Bar Association) could be considered a "criminal enterprise"!
At the present time, the judiciary poses the strongest threat to our democractic processes and to the undermining of our Commonwealth's Constitution. In the 1830s, a Bucks County judge ruled against African Americans in a case that was later used in the 1838 state constitutional convention to strip freed slaves and free born Pennsylvania men of African descent of their right to vote--in effect, rendering their citizenship meaningless. It was nearly 40 years later--with the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that black men in this state had their right to vote restored. Watch what Castille and his cronies--will incrementally--make of our constitution with their gerrymandering via judicial decree of our electoral districts in the next few years. If your not queasy yet, then perhaps you will be after the chemicals in the water table from all hydrofracking seep into your water supply! "Yaw Yaw!"
Cronyism and favortism can exist anywhere, in both free and not-so-free states. In general, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes are more vulnerable to acts of cronyism simply because the officeholders are not accountable, and all office holders generally come from a similar background (e.g., all members of the ruling party--READ: The Bar Association!)
Notwithstanding the fact that ethical lawyers do exist and practice in the Commonwealth, the "ethically challenged" amongst them are growing in number and have hijacked our government while undermining the ethical standards of the legal profession. The sociopaths amongst them are not interested in "self-policing," as evidenced by the Luzerne County "Kids for Cash" Scandal. Ugly, self-righteous, political THUGS!
We must begin to purge the judiciary of the sociopaths and root out their cronies in the executive and legislative branch on our own. There are other things too that we can do to ensure that Pennsylvanians can have access to clean courts—one would simply to vote against retaining all sitting judges until the judicial election process is reformed in this state. For more information, see below:
Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts - http://www.pmconline.org/
HALT (Help Abolish Legal Tyranny)- An Organization of Americans for Legal Reform, Inc. - http://www.halt.org/about_halt/
Untenable Judicial Ethics: Pennsylvania’s highest court,and the nation’s, should hold themselves to higher ethical standards.
"When Pennsylvania’s Chief Justice Ronald Castille came to New York City’s Waldorf Astoria last December for the 111th annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Society, a booster club for the state, a law firm picked up the $1,900 tab. As The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, that is one of many gifts of dinners, event tickets, golf outings and plane rides the chief justice has gotten, some from people with cases decided by his court.
Because the chief justice reported the gifts, the favors were not illegal. By the court’s standard, they were not unethical either. The court says it has the power to establish rules of ethics for state lawyers and judges. All state judges (not dealing with minor cases) can accept any gifts if they disclose them.
Almost no other state follows this policy. Neither should Pennsylvania. It permits violations of the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Judicial Conduct, by casting doubt on judges’ “capacity to act impartially.”
Chief Justice Castille provides an ideal test of his court’s gift rule. According to The Inquirer, his votes in cases show “no pattern of favoritism.” In his 17 years on the court, he stated, “no party has sought recusal on the basis of my financial disclosures.” Mr. Castille, a former district attorney for Philadelphia, was awarded a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam.
But even a judge whose conduct seems above reproach can’t avoid doubt about his impartiality when he accepts gifts from lawyers and others with cases before him. A basic goal of a sensible gift rule is to free a judge from having to worry about whether he or she is influenced, without realizing it. Another is to assure citizens who depend on the court’s fairness that the judge can’t be influenced by anything but the essentials of a case.
Sadly, the Pennsylvania court is following a bad example, that of the United States Supreme Court. The justices are not subject to the code of conduct for federal judges, which has broad prohibitions about gifts for judges and their families. There is a growing consensus — outside the court — that the justices should change how they handle recusals: requiring a justice to explain any decision to recuse or not, and having a group of justices review each recusal decision.
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court needs to change its ethics rules. So does the nation’s. With tuning as needed, the United States Supreme Court should adopt and follow the same ethics rules as every other federal court."
COMMENT: Now we can see why Conahan and Ciaverlla in Luzerne County, and Williamson and Miller (yet to be nabbed) in Clinton, are ethically challenged an wreck lives and economies. They take their cue from Chief Justice Castille. Unfortunately, unlike the chief justice, these crooks--and that's what they are--cannot claim that “no party has sought recusal". Read "Yaw Yaw" and smell the Feese and Facey the music! And when Chief Justice Castille's protege, Justice Orie-Melvin (of Melvin vs Doe infamy, whose sisters--including Senator Jane Orie, who sits on the senate judiciary committee and have been indicted by a grand jury on numerous counts of ethical violations involving Justice Melvin's run for the state supreme court)...finishes gerrymandering the electoral disticts in Pennsylvania--you can be damn sure we'll be living in a full-blown police state.
From what I have seen during the past ten years, I don't think it is a stretch to say that Pennsylvania's judiciary (along with a good portion of our legislature and the Pennsylvania Bar Association) could be considered a "criminal enterprise"!
At the present time, the judiciary poses the strongest threat to our democractic processes and to the undermining of our Commonwealth's Constitution. In the 1830s, a Bucks County judge ruled against African Americans in a case that was later used in the 1838 state constitutional convention to strip freed slaves and free born Pennsylvania men of African descent of their right to vote--in effect, rendering their citizenship meaningless. It was nearly 40 years later--with the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that black men in this state had their right to vote restored. Watch what Castille and his cronies--will incrementally--make of our constitution with their gerrymandering via judicial decree of our electoral districts in the next few years. If your not queasy yet, then perhaps you will be after the chemicals in the water table from all hydrofracking seep into your water supply! "Yaw Yaw!"
Cronyism and favortism can exist anywhere, in both free and not-so-free states. In general, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes are more vulnerable to acts of cronyism simply because the officeholders are not accountable, and all office holders generally come from a similar background (e.g., all members of the ruling party--READ: The Bar Association!)
Notwithstanding the fact that ethical lawyers do exist and practice in the Commonwealth, the "ethically challenged" amongst them are growing in number and have hijacked our government while undermining the ethical standards of the legal profession. The sociopaths amongst them are not interested in "self-policing," as evidenced by the Luzerne County "Kids for Cash" Scandal. Ugly, self-righteous, political THUGS!
We must begin to purge the judiciary of the sociopaths and root out their cronies in the executive and legislative branch on our own. There are other things too that we can do to ensure that Pennsylvanians can have access to clean courts—one would simply to vote against retaining all sitting judges until the judicial election process is reformed in this state. For more information, see below:
Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts - http://www.pmconline.org/
HALT (Help Abolish Legal Tyranny)- An Organization of Americans for Legal Reform, Inc. - http://www.halt.org/about_halt/
posted by Jude Rene Montarsi | 4:49 AM
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