I have just been made aware of this interesting case of a prominent lawyer, Richard Fine in Los Angeles County Jail being held without due process in horrible conditions because he is revealing some alleged major corruption in L.A. with the Judges Associations and the County. From what I have read, it looks like there are payments being made to the judges based on cases against L.A. County that are in favor of the county.
From what I am reading, very few cases have gone against the county and that looks to be the core of the problem. Because there is an incentive for them to rule in favor of L.A. county, this looks to be a huge conflict of interest. As quoted “Fine was charged with “contempt of court” and “moral turpitude,” disbarred by California’s Supreme Court and jailed by Superior Court Judge David Yaffe “in retaliation for bringing the cases and exposing the unconstitutional payments,” ones later held to be unconstitutional.”
This sounds like some major corruption in the core of the L.A. legal system and need to be rooted out if true. The fact that he is being treated in this manner and no one is paying attention tells me there is some truth here and compelled me to shed some light on his case.
Fine’s case is currently before the US Supreme Court. The California Bar waived its right to respond, meaning his appeal is unopposed. Also in his favor was a late 2009 decision in Sturgeon v. LA County (brought by Judicial Watch) deciding that county payments to judges are illegal.
Yet, with the help of California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George, state-paid lobbyists got legislators to pass “a midnight bill” (SBX2-11) at the peak of last year’s budget crisis, changing the law to make the payments appear legally authorized to continue, besides giving everyone involved retroactive immunity from criminal prosecution.
Note: immunity is never given when no crime was committed.
The latest on SBX2-11 immunity is that it’s not in the “official Code” like the rest of the bill, Fine’s friends and associates asking, “Why are they hiding this pardon of over Ten Million Felonies from the public.” They further say the bill “is an ex post facto law. Its immunity provisions will ultimately be repealed,” so complicit judges aren’t off the hook.
As of mid-April, 2010, Fine remains in LA County Men’s Central Jail, the “worst jail in the United States,” according to an ACLU investigation and report (aclu.org/prisoners-rights/aclu-releases-report) calling it “nightmarish” because of severe overcrowding (with over 20,000 detainees), violence, and overall conditions causing serious mental illness.
Analysis: This is a political prisoner that is being used to send a message that this is what happens when you challenge power and the status quo. Totally opposite to democracy and justice and I hope he wins big time and more corruptions is brought to light. We can not allow this to happen in America or what do we really stand for?
LJ Miehe
http://www.businesseconomicsnews.com/analysis/focus-richard-fines-judicial-lynching-for-exposing-corruption-in-l-a.html
Sounds like California is already a part of Mexico.
When I first read this I was skeptical about the sanity of this attorney, Fine, but when I read this, the State Bar opinion: http://members.calbar.ca.gov/courtDocs/04-O-14366-2.pdf I’m nonplused. The State Bar claims moral turpitude against him because he filed numerous 170.6 challenges against a Commissioner Mitchell over the years. This is a common challenge and isn’t a big deal.
This case against attorney Fine looks really bogus. The California State Bar is overrun with homosexuals (no disparagement, just a fact) and you practically have to be found lying in a gutter with a needle sticking out of your arm and wads of clients’ stolen cash stuffed in your pocket and theft of attorney trust funds to get disbarred; and to top it off, it takes decades to take place.
And then to jail the attorney!
One more note, the Judge (Frederick P.) Horn mentioned in the pdf document (interesting to note they never, not once, in the entire document mentioned Judge Horn’s full name) is a complete a$$ and his involvement in this adds to my belief that this is truly, as this attorney Fine says, politically-motivated. Horn is so bad-tempered and unfit for the judgeship, after moving him around to different departments where they found he made trouble wherever he went, they made him presiding judge of Orange County Superior Court (and now apparently heads the California Judicial Council—talk about the Peter Principle) so as to keep him off trials as much as possible. The presiding judge typically spends his days doling out cases to other judges.
This really smells. Fine is starting to look more and more like a patriot; a crazy patriot perhaps, but a patriot nonetheless.
Uh oh. I just read his daughter is an editor for the Huffington Post. But I don’t care who or what his daughter is, keeping a man in jail for over a year without a trial is an outrage.
From http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_14923238
Group gathers to urge freedom for taxpayer advocate Richard Fine
By Troy Anderson, Staff Writer
Updated: 04/20/2010 06:00:44 PM PDT
Chanting “This is America, not Russia,” about 75 people gathered Tuesday morning outside the downtown Stanley Mosk Courthouse to urge the U.S. Supreme Court to free former taxpayer advocate attorney Richard I. Fine from jail.
In Washington, D.C., about 50 people staged a similar protest on the steps of the high court, which is scheduled to meet Friday to decide whether Fine should be released.
Fine, a 70-year-old Tarzana resident and former U.S. Department of Justice attorney, has spent more than a year in Men’s Central Jail for contempt after refusing to divulge financial information. Fine was placed under “coercive confinement” following a series of cases in which he alleged judges received an extra $57,000 in pay from the county on top of their $179,000 annual state salaries. Fine alleged that these “undeclared bonuses” render judges biased in cases where the county is a defendant.
“Richard Fine has been cruelly, unjustly punished for bringing to light a judicial issue that affects each of us as Los Angeles residents and U.S. citizens,” said Chatsworth resident Janette Isaacs, co-organized of “Free Richard Fine,” a grassroots, community organization committed to ending judicial corruption in California.
“This could happen to anyone.”
Retired Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Richard Valdemar, who served as the “jailer” in the case of Los Angeles Herald-Examiner reporter William Farr who was held in jail in 1972 for contempt for refusing to divulge sources relating to the Charles Manson case, said a person has a right to actually be charged with a crime if they are held in jail for more than a year.
“We don’t even house our misdemeanor people in jail for more than a year,” Valdemar said. “Yet Mr. Fine is being held longer and it’s not like Mr. Fine is a kook or something. This is a man who is an expert on the law and is trying to do the right thing. He’s basically a whistleblower and he’s being punished for that.”
In a letter to the Supreme Court, Fine’s daughter, Victoria Fine, an editor with The Huffington Post, asked the justices to release her father “from the horror he and my family have endured during the last 13 months of our lives.”
“He has raised me to trust in our country’s justice system to uphold freedom, democracy and moral right,” she wrote. “I admit that as today, as my father sits in solitary confinement, I have very little faith left in our American system. But now, as I write to you, I place that faith in your hands to make the decision that will free my father and send him home to my mother and me.”