The "Secret Society" of US Courts?

Dear Mr. McDemott,

Thank you for your encouraging words.

It is most unlikely that the staff of the Judicial
Conference will grant you permission to be in the
building to videotape its meeting.

But after you call the staff, you can call each member
tomorrow and ask to state their respective position on
granting you such permission.
http://Judicial-Discipline-Reform.org/judicial_complaints/Jud_Confer_contact_info.pdf.


Then on Tuesday, you can film them as they come into
the building. To recognize them, you can go to the
website of each court and print their photo.
http://www.uscourts.gov/courtlinks/.

Moreover, you can share that information with your
colleagues and acquaintances in the press. Indeed, the
impact of your video will be much more powerful if you
can film a crowd of journalists in front of the
building all asking the judges to let them in only for
them to repeat time and again that theirs is a
“confidential” meeting. (See photo at
http://www.uscourts.gov/library/annualreports/2006/2006_annualreport.pdf,
page 54.)

By the end of it all, they will sound as if they were
members of a secret society, not the highest
policy-making body of public officers charged with
administering justice in public.

What a masterful touch of journalistic ingenuity if
you could life stream that scene on the Internet and
attract even more journalists or even protesters!

This is an opportunity for you and your colleagues to
stage the news since they will not let you videotape
their meeting. Show imagination and take the
initiative in leading others. If you have to start
orchestrating the scene today, then get on with it.
You can be the man who organized a most embarrassing
but revealing scene for the judges.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Dr. Richard Cordero, Esq.
********************************


--- George McDermott 
wrote:

> Dr. Cordero,

> Thank you for forwarding the e-mail to me I
> have checked the calendar of the judicial Center and
> was unable to determine at what time or date this
> would be held.  By supplying me with these important
> contacts I can now make arrangements to cover this
> event for secretjustice.com.  Secretjustice news.com
> and secretjustice news @ YOU TUBE.
> Mr. James C. Duff
> Judicial Conference Secretary & AO Director
> Judicial Conference of the U.S.
> c/o Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
> One Columbus Circle NE
> Washington, DC 20544
>
> For details, contact Judicial Conference Staff
> Member
> Sharon Zdobysz at (202) 502-2400;
> sharon_zdobysz@ao.uscourts.gov.
>   
>   Once again thank you for the information I will be
> contacting sharon_zdobysz@ao.uscourts.gov.  For the
> exact time and permission to videotape the
> conference for if these judges are so arrogant as to
> put themselves above the law of common man then they
> should not object to having their actions
> memorialized on videotape and broadcast throughout
> the nation.
>   My sincerest thanks
>   
>   George McDermott secretjustice news.com
************************************************

Dear Judicial Reform Advocates,

The Judicial Conference of the U.S., which is the
highest policy-making body of the Federal Judiciary
and presided over by the Chief Justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court, will meet in Washington, D.C., on
Tuesday, March 11, to in all likelihood adopt the
Revised Rules for processing misconduct and disability
complaints filed by any person against a federal
judge.

These Rules were drafted in self-interest by the
Conference’s Committee on Judicial Conduct and
Disability. They change in no way the current rules
that they are supposed to replace. Therefore, they
will continue to allow federal judges to dismiss
systematically those complaints in order to
self-exempt from any discipline and exercise their
vast judicial power over people’s property, liberty,
and even life immune to any disciplinary control.

The exercise of vast uncontrolled power is absolute
power, which corrupts absolutely. This is all the more
so when the Rules for exercising such power free of
any control are adopted in secrecy, as they will be by
the Conference next Tuesday.

Therefore, I encourage you to contact the following
journalists, who have shown interest in the subject,
in order to ask that they and their media outlets
both:

1) cover the Conference meeting, most likely to be
held at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts,
where you can contact these officers for details or to
express your views:

Mr. James C. Duff
Judicial Conference Secretary & AO Director
Judicial Conference of the U.S.
c/o Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
One Columbus Circle NE
Washington, DC 20544

For details, contact Judicial Conference Staff Member
Sharon Zdobysz at (202) 502-2400;
sharon_zdobysz@ao.uscourts.gov.

See also the names and phone numbers of the Conference
members at
http://Judicial-Discipline-Reform.org/judicial_complaints/Jud_Confer_contact_info.pdf;
and


2) investigate the issue of wrongdoing coordinated
among life-tenured judges who can engage in misconduct
and experience disability with total immunity if only
they protect each other.


1. National Law Journal Reporter Pamela A. MacLean,
who wrote the series “Policing the Bench, Judging
federal judges” concerning the Revised Rules;
Washington, D.C., PMacLean@alm.com;

2. National Law Journal Opinion Page Editor Ruth
Singleton, who published my comments on Reporter
MacLean’s second installment, New York City,
rsingleton@alm.com;

3. CBSNews News Analyst Natasha Rudnick, who requested
information about the Revised Rules; New York City,
tel. (212)352-1930, cell (646)724-6099;
rudnickn@cbsnews.com;

4. Legal Times Reporter Joe Palazzolo, who expressed
interest in obtaining information about the Revised
Rules; Washington, D.C., tel. (202)828-315, cell
(314)898-2058.
See also the email pages of the Legal Times editorial
team members at
http://www.law.com/jsp/dc/specials.jsp?p=contact#publisher;

5. McClatchy News Investigative Editor James Asher,
Director of the I-Team, who indicated that he would
look into the subject of the Revised Rules;
Washington, D.C., jasher@mcclatchydc.com;

6. Bocce Balls Productions, Inc., Film Producer and
Editor Barbara Ricci, who will publish my open letter
to Chief Justice Roberts; New York,
studio43@optonline.net;

7. Los Angeles Times Michael J. Goodman and William C.
Rempel, who directed a two year investigation of
corruption in the state and federal judiciary of
Nevada and coauthored the series “Juice v. Justice”;
Los Angeles, mj.good@yahoo.com and
william.rempel@latimes.com;

8. Los Angeles Daily Journal Staff Writers Amy
Yarbrough and Troy Anderson, who have written articles
on the attempt by local authorities to disbar Att.
Richard I. Fine for claiming corruption among the
judiciary and the bar; Los Angeles,
Amy_Yarbrough@dailyjournal.com and
troy.anderson@dailynews.com.


Swapping e-mails among us will continue to do no good
for judicial reform. The judges will not even have to
ignore them; they will never know about them at all.

The only reasonable strategy is for us, through
collaborative activity, to cause journalists to
investigate the judges and put their wrongdoing on the
public spotlight through their reporting so that an
outraged public put pressure on law enforcement and
legislative authorities to conduct their own
investigation of the judiciary and eventually adopt
meaningful judicial discipline policies and reform
legislation and ensure their effective application.

That is a strategy that requires us to bring the
subject to the attention of journalists and bloggers
in such a sustained and massive way that it may
register with them and lead them to recognize that
there is an audience for the story. Journalists do not
write articles on stories that nobody cares about.

The list above shows that the strategy works, but it
has required me to send well over 10,000 emails during
the last months. Cf.
http://Judicial-Discipline-Reform.org/judicial_complaints/media_contact_info.pdf.


By the same token, it shows that others must join the
effort. Implementing that strategy requires that we
divert some effort, time, and resources from our
individual judicial misconduct cases and bring them to
bear on a common task reasonably calculated to move us
a step forward. That is the way of achieving unity of
purpose aimed at attaining effectiveness of action.

Unity is not achieved by coming physically together in
a room only for each of us to vent our pain,
frustration, and resentment and voice ill-considered
ideas on the spur of the moment. Moreover, after such
meeting somebody would have to sit and write down the
basis for an agreement of understanding of common
action that eventually becomes signed and binding. We
can do that now through emails. If we cannot reach an
agreement now, we will not do so by simply meeting in
a place.

The concrete steps for action now on the proposed
strategy are the following:

1) to participate in an emailing and phone campaign to
contact the journalists listed above as well as many
others as possible;

2) to bring a lawsuit after the adoption of the
Revised Rules to challenge their Constitutionality as
well as that of the Judicial Conduct and Disability
Act of 1980 from which they derive.

A lawsuit requires:

a) knowledgeable lawyers to research and write briefs;
read, analyze, and respond to those served on them;
argue motions, conduct depositions; hold press
conferences; etc.;

b) a most committed team of lay people willing to do
the enormous amount of work involved in typing, proof
reading, printing, mailing, and serving papers;
arranging the logistics of depositions…that is, if the
case survives a motion for summary judgment; searching
for judicial complainants in order to ensure the
growth of the base of similarly situated people who
can become coworkers and financial supporters;

c) a most realistic team of people capable of
recognizing that such a lawsuit costs money, lots of
money, and are willing to make a corresponding
financial contribution to defray the cost of the
lawyers, court filing fees, other court costs, court
reporters to record depositions and transcribe
hearings, long distance telephone calls and
conferences, mailing, transportation, meeting places;
etc.;

d) a most disciplined team of people who are willing
to engage in publicizing the lawsuit and will not
highjack the opportunity to highlight their own cases
and blast the judges that harmed them, thereby not
only causing the group to speak with many voices and
offer divergent positions on the lawsuit, but also
exposing themselves and the others to defamation suits
as well as building a record of statements that
opposing counsel will use to paint all of us as a
bunch of disgruntled losers at law, pro se litigants
that have no clue as to how the law works and cannot
see their cases but from their narrow personal point
of view to the exclusion of the broader context of
many opposing interests in a complex society like
ours.

Only such a team can reasonably take on the powerful
and wealthy judges of the Third Branch of Government
of the United States and the best and brightest of
lawyers that will represent them. I encourage you to
examine yourself to determine whether you are one of
them and, if so, to look for other like-minded people
so that we can unite to collaborate effectively.

Meantime, between now and Tuesday, you can contact the
above-listed journalists to insist that they cover the
Judicial Conference meeting and the adoption of the
Revised Rules.

Sincerely,

Dr. Richard Cordero, Esq.