AOC moves to smother criticism by judges, stifling First Amendment rights along the way

A story first made the rounds quietly in November of last year about a proposed ethics rule that is just broad enough and vague enough that it can be used as a tool by AOC to punish any judge with the gumption to criticize decisions of the AOC.  That rule has passed, unsurprisingly (Note: when you see a news report that something entirely likely to occur is "unexpected," that should tip you off to the agenda of the reporter, not that the event was "unexpected").  It was entirely expected that it would pass.  It was proposed to stifle dissent by using the costs associated with an ethics inquiry to shut down free speech.

We have two simultaneous problems in California's judicial branch of government, a constitutional and co-equal branch.  First, the judicial branch is catastrophically underfunded.  The Los Angeles Superior Court should not be shutting down courtrooms.  A member of the bench who shall remain nameless told me that with the coming courtroom closures in Los Angeles, the average caseload that is currently running somewhere between 550 and 600 cases per judge will jump by about 150 cases per courtroom.  What sort of justice will anyone receive under those conditions?

Second, the AOC has ballooned into a bloated bureaucracy that serves itself.  Why did the AOC mushroom from 100 employees to well over 1,000 employees inside of a decade?  Fixing this bloat would save some money.  Getting rid of the endless boondoggle of the unicorn known as CCMS saved some money, but it doesn't close the gap between current funding levels and what those levels should be at to have courts in each county that can manage the caseloads they face.  I don't know the right caseload for a civil trial court, but it isn't 550 case, and it surely isn't 700 cases.  You'd probably receive real attention and a better measure of justice if those caseloads were more like 250-300 cases per courtroom.

I condemn the current and past legislatures for allowing this to happen.  I condemn AOC for succumbing to corruption and administrative bloat (I refer to the allegation of embezzlement in the alleged amount of $100,000 that was not reported or charged as an example of that).

So to the massive audience of Legislators reading this and waiting for my go-signal, here it is: Fix the funding shortfall (who cares if you have to cancel a high speed train to do it - this is a co-equal branch of government we're talking about) and root out the administrative bloat (in other words, start insisting upon the firing of AOC staff until you have half the number you started at and then reassess, and then get rid of some more).

By the way, if someone handed me half the amount of money that was wasted on CCMS, I could have a Statewide court system database up and running in a few years, with enough left for me to retire on in a castle that I would have constructed out of rare marble on my own private island.

If you don't respect the privacy rights of others...

your privacy rights might be treated in a similar fashion.  Fair is fair.

More Supreme Court News from the December 14, 2012 Weekly Conference

While I reported on two depublication orders on Wednesday, other activity of note occured at the California Supreme Court's Weekly Conference hed on December 14, 2012.  The Court Granted a Petition for Review in Reyes v. Liberman Broadcasting (in which the Court of Appeal reversed the denial of a petition to compel arbitration) and Ordered the matter Held pending the outcome of Iskanian.  Many years from now we may know more about the extent to which arbitration agreements will be enforced in different settings.

Perhaps a name change for a controversial plaintiff-side class action law firm is in the works... (Bumped)

It appears that attorneys at Initiative Legal Group are starting to appear at a "new" firm named Capstone Law, APC.  But Capstone is in the same building as Initiative Legal Group, so, fishy.  Perhaps its is just a coincidence, but maybe it has something to do with the problems Iniative Legal Group is having in Lofton v. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Case No. CGC-11-509502 (see also, Maxon v. Initiative Legal Group APC, App. Ct. Case No. A136626).  Nothing like a change of name to shake off the taint of allegations like those, right?

Update on 2012-11-10 01:07 by The Complex Litigator

Would you look at that?  What was once a three-laywer firm now has 38 lawyers!  My, Capstone, how you've grown...in the last two weeks.

Update on 2012-11-10 01:17 by The Complex Litigator

Maybe Orders like this are contributing some urgency to the effort to shuffle ILG attorneys to a "new" firm, but I'm just going out on a limb and speculating there.

Update on 2012-11-16 21:59 by The Complex Litigator

Holy smokes!  Capstone must be the fastest growing law firm in the state of California.  Capstone now has 50 lawyers, according to the state bar records on November 16, 2012, at about 1:14 p.m.  At this rate, they may be at 51 or 52 lawyers by the end of the day!  Strange thing though - it looks like Capstone's growth continues to come almost exclusively from ILG, which has dwindled to around 17 lawyers.  So odd that attorneys abandoning ILG would all choose to work with the exact same people that seem to have gotten into a few tough scrapes lately...  Errr, unless, maybe, just speculating here, this is a turnkey firm to carry on where ILG leaves off.

Update on 2012-11-28 18:31 by The Complex Litigator

And with ILG down to 13 unique attorneys (removing two duplicate entries) and Capstone up to 54 entries (not checked for duplicates), I think I see a trend starting to develop.

Some people still have honor

While there are plenty of examples to the contrary, honor is not dead.  Via Instapundit.

Ted Frank sure loves all class actions...

I just haven't found an instance yet where he actually commended the outcome of one.  But I'm looking.  Still looking...

I was going to link to a very recent example of his affection for a particular class action settlement by directing reader to a post on the blog he edits for publisher Center for Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute.  However, his post is, arguably, defamatory and/or slander per se.  If I link to it, I could, theoretically, be construed as a republisher.  So, my apologies; I can't supply authority to support my sarcasm.

Update on 2012-08-15 17:07 by The Complex Litigator

Mr. Frank was kind enough to respond in the comments section!  I'm very excited.  Mr. Frank is something of a celebrity in the world of class actions.  I consider myself honored.

As an aside, due to the increasing volume of comment spam (things like shoe ads and mortgage refinance options), commenting on this blog goes into a hold queue until I can release the comment.  I will approve any substative comment that is not spam, even if it is highly critical of my post.  I will not approve profanity, spam, or any comment that advocated any unlawful or violent activity.  I will not respond to specific requests for legal advice about a specific fact pattern.  If a practitioner wants to debate a theoretical fact pattern as a way of testing a case holding or proposed alternative holding, that is entirely acceptable, but the theoretical nature of the discussion needs to be clearly stated.

Harvard Law Unbound blog successfully blacklisted by Harvard

As a blogger myself, I find myself growing increasingly uncomfortable about reports of speech suppression of other bloggers through threats, intimidation, maliciously false process and the like.  In this installment, some dissenting Harvard Law students were the victims of a likely bogus DMCA takedown demand issued by Harvard to WordPress.com.  Bogus is as bogus does.  If you are a Harvard alum, tell them you'll be a little short in the donation area this year.  But this story has a better ending than some; the students didn't stand for it and immediately started a new blog.  Keep fighting the good fight.

Memorial Day

As this post on Popehat eloquently says, we should defend fundamental liberties (such as free speech), not because someone on "our side" was wronged, but because all of us lose when the fundamental liberties of anyone are trampled.

Governor Brown proposes taking unconstitutional under-funding of Courts to unconscionable new high (low)

Yesterday, Governor Brown's rosy revenue projections ran smack into the brick wall of reality.  California's budgetary deficit isn't the paltry $9 billion predicted by the Governor.  Heck, we could have found $9 billion in the state's couch cushions.  No problem.

Instead, our deficit, thanks to the inexcusable fiscal malfeasance of years of legislators spending beyond our means, and the inexcusable electorate allowing them to do so, is more like $16 billion.  That's billion with a "B."  This year.  A one-year deficit against a $91 billion budget.

The solution proposed by the Governor is to (1) tax us more than we already are, and (2) cut stuff.  What gets cut?  As far as our constitutionally created branch of government knows as the judiciary is concerned, the cut proposed is another $544 million from the courts budget, which has already lost $650 million over the last three years.

One retired judge recently told me that the Los Angeles Superior Court is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  But, for the most part, the leaders of the Courts, while complaining loudly about the cuts, are too political to take on the Legislature and Governor over this constutional crisis.

Where is the leadership? When are the advocates of Court access and the constitutional scholars and the judges crushed under this unchecked robbery going to stand up and demand that the third branch of government receive the first distribution of funds, regardless of what revenue is available.  The Courts are entitled to protected funds sufficient to discharge their constitutional role in California.

See, for example, coverage in the Los Angeles Times.

The unconstitutional dismantling of California's judicial branch continues unchallenged

I have written previously about the unconstitutionality of underfunding California's Courts, including a Daily Journal article posted here.  And with every additional funding cut, I believe that the legislative and executive branches march further down the path of unconstitutional conduct.  In the latest example of grevious injury to our Courts, the Los Angeles Superior Court has announced $30 million in additional cuts (about $70 million in prior cuts).  These cuts include the loss of 56 courtrooms, layoffs of 100 additional non-courtroom staff (above 329 layoffs and 229 attrition-based reductions), and a significant reduction in court reporter availability.

It is my fondest wish that a victim of these latest layoffs, a litigant, and a judge will all step forward and challenge the constitutionality of starving a co-equal branch of government.  Where are the checks and balances when one allegedly equal branch exists at the mercy of politicians that refuse to make the tough choices necessary to ensure, as a first priority, that the judicial branch is capable fo resolving the legal disputes it was created to resolve?

Regardless of whether you represent plaintiffs, or defendants, civil litigants or those charged with crimes, you cannot acquiesce to this relentless assault on fundamental, constitutional rights.   This is not a political question.  The California legislature is not constitutionally empowered to eviscerate the judicial branch.

Write your legislators.  Tell them that they must discharge their constitutional obligations before any other consideration.

And no, this is not the end of my rant.  It's just a pause...