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This Post is a Personal Resource

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Thursday, March 15, 2007 2:02:40 AM
22 Reasons

Rationale on using the retention system

Did Gordon Violate the ethics rules? 

A Reasonable Seeming Unreasonable Decision

An unpublished Opinion

Why Lawyers Can Promote Treason

Why do we have these crazy rules?  

Making an ethics complaint against a Colorado Judge

A Constitutional Question   Looking behind the secrecy curtain

Another Salient Comment from SX

Tort Reform vs. Legal Ethics Reform

The Colorado Lawyer    The day I discovered that lawyers were getting discipline reports via TCL

Attorney Malpractice Insurance 

Attorney General John Suthers 

SX Finds Some Interesting Stuff 

Judging Judges   

Commission on Judicial Discipline-Secrecy

Commission on Judicial Discipline - Powers

Commission on Judicial Discipline - Established

Thinking out loud on legal ethics reform 

A Pattern Developing 

Justice Kourli's Denver Post Editorial 

More Nitpicking 

Public Input on Judicial Retention 

Yes, Heaven Forbid 

Time for a legal joke 
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If You Are Ever on a Jury

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:14:45 PM
 It is no accident that we call the Trial Lawyers the American Association for Occasional Justice.  They would prefer that we leave the "Occasional" out but when we hear a story like this one, how can we?

It seems that a couple of women were in an accident.  They went to hospital number 1 and got Tylenol.  Hospital number 2 prescribed Ibuprofen  A doctor refused to treat them but sent them to a Chiropractor where they ran up $40,000 in bills.

They sued for pain and suffering as well as the bills.

If you were on a jury, what would you do?  What one juror did is worth reading.

Thanks to overlawyered.

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A Real Life Legal Quiz

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Saturday, March 10, 2007 6:39:56 PM
Overlawyered has a neat real life quiz.  We will provide the question, they have the answer.

So here's a quiz to see whether you have what it takes to be a trial lawyer: Man walks into a bar, has some drinks, rides over to a diner with his friend. At the diner, the man orders a sandwich, chokes on it, and dies. So the question is, who do you sue?

(A) You don't. It's nobody's fault; it was just a tragic accident. If anybody is to blame, it's the man who got drunk and then carelessly choked.
(B) The diner, for serving the sandwich.
(C) The friend, for driving the man to the diner.
(D) The bar, for serving him alcohol; if he hadn't been drunk, he might not have choked.

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Is the Colorado Chief Justice Going to Jail?

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Friday, March 09, 2007 5:13:44 PM
The words "obstruction of justice" appeared in Colorado News today.  A Supreme Court spokesman said:

"From the state court administrator's perspective, there would be no obstruction of justice with how we handled this."

At issue was a judge who resigned after allegedly stealing a $1600 computer.  The court administrator blocked a felony prosecution until an elected DA found out about it.  The administrator wanted the Commission on Judicial Discipline to handle the matter.  Since the judge had already resigned, the harshest penalty the Commission could hand out was an admonishment that would be kept secret from the public.  

Trying to short circuit a felony prosecution and substitute "admonishment" seems like obstruction of justice.

The Colorado Index has the story, and a recommendation for the State Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor from out of state, since the Chief Justice appears to be involved.

We predict that Colorado Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey will have some hard questions to answer on this obstruction of justice issue.  Perhaps she can get Martha Stewart to give her some decorating advice.
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Lawyer Lawmaker who Puts his Profession's Interests First

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Thursday, March 08, 2007 1:08:03 PM

Representative Terrance Carroll has admitted that he uses his judiciary chairman position to kill legislation.  The quote appeared in a May 2005 Coloradopoliticalnews.com aka Colorado Pols interview:

2.  What surprised you about being in the majority?
As a committee chair, I was initially surprised by the amount of work required if you want to chair a good committee. It was not simply about reading the bills beforehand. As committee chair, I tried my best to minimize surprises in committee and to make the committee work as efficiently as possible. Since GAVEL, committee chairs do not have the power of the pocket veto so the most important tools at the chair's disposal is the ability to influence committee members before the hearing; controlling debate in committee; influencing legislation before it arrives in committee; control of the committee calendar; and knowledge of the rules.

Readers will say "but that isn't new news.  Committee chairs to that all the time."

That's true, but most committee chairs are sophisticated enough not to admit what they are doing in public.  This admission places Representative Terrance Carroll in the awkward position of admitting before the fact that he has worked behind the scenes to kill bills that most would find in the public interest and to promote bills that are not.  To avoid the appearance of trying to fix the outcome beforehand, he needs get at least one Republican vote.

Take HB 1227, Judicial Performance Commissions, for example.  It would have removed the conflict of interest that occurs when the Chief Justice has direct or indirect influence over the lives, livelihood, and appointments of half of the commission members. Reasonable men can infer that it is impossible for very legitimate complaints against a justice to achieve the super majority required for a recommendation of non retention, making the whole process a sham. 

The Colorado Bar Association opposes any provision that would make the members of the Supreme Court accountable to the public, and automatically opposed HB 1227 in two minute testimony.  Eight citizens, including two lawyers and a former State Senator testified in favor of the bill calling for a retention system whose members were more representative of the public.

The bill failed on a party line vote.  As The Colorado Index observed in an essay on the same issue:

Future Claire Levy [ Terrance Carroll and Isaacson Rosenbaum  ] clients must wonder how a jury will react to her pleas of fair treatment for her client when she is so obviously unwilling to allow a fair hearing before an unbiased commission. 

There is concern in the legal community about the possibility that potential jurors will be doing Internet searches on lawyers who are trying cases before them.  It is expected to happen despite admonitions from judges to jurors not to do it.  In the final analysis, it can't be prevented, and as long as a juror doesn't admit that he did it, either to the judge or to his fellow jurors, it can't be detected.

In effect, as the testimony made clear, Claire Levy's vote was a vote to allow the current fraudulent legal ethics system to remain in place by keeping the authors and administrators of that system (Supreme Court Justices) free of oversight by unbiased commissioners.

Note:  The original purpose of this essay was to preserve a damaging quote by a legislator.  Somehow it developed into a full scale thought piece on two Democratic legislators. 

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Elephants on the Downward Slope

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Wednesday, March 07, 2007 2:42:23 PM
After 2006, it doesn't seem as though it could get much worse for Republicans.  Today's Rocky Mountain News had more bad news with an editorial titled Elephants on the Downward Slope.

OK, I admit it.  I've been doing so much political writing and thinking that I got fooled by this title too.  And then I saw the humor in it.
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DC Justice System Gets a Black Eye

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Tuesday, March 06, 2007 5:30:11 PM
Well, Scooter Libby gets convicted. Before people panic or begin to celebrate, it is good to remember some things which call the quality of justice available to Republicans into question.

First, recall that Bill Clinton was taped in the act of committing perjury.  It is hard to imagine more convincing proof than video tape.  Yet, the special prosecutor declined to prosecute.  Was it out of fear that he couldn't get a jury in Washington D.C. to convict?  So it would seem.

Second, consider that the Democrats, led by Harry Reid, voted in lock step not to convict President William Jefferson Clinton at his impeachment trial.  Perjury didn't seem all that important to any of them then, but now that Libby has been convicted, perjury is a high crime, not to be forgiven.

Third, consider Sandy Berger who was given a slap on the hand for stealing very highly classified documents, documents that had a very short list of folks authorized to see them..  He didn't just steal them, he hid them in a place where they could easily have been found by someone else.

Fourth, consider Harry Reid's anger and consternation when he discovered that Sandy Berger wasn't being prosecuted to the full extent of the law!  What, you don't remember anger and consternation?  Neither do I.

If Republican media outlets (including blogs) handle this right, and keep their cool, the the Libby verdict and its aftermath could be a real blessing for everyone but Libby.

Meanwhile, the legal ethics system gets one more black eye.  We can't have two systems of justice anywhere, and it is clear we do in Washington, D.C.
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A Democratic Bill I Could Support

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Monday, March 05, 2007 5:42:24 PM
Those who have followed this blog for the six months of its existence know that I never, NEVER find much useful coming out of the Colorado Democrats in the legislature.  Well, that is changing.  I've found something I can get behind 100%.

Now that I have your attention, allow me to provide the link.

You may note that I was careful not to make this a googleable article.  Who knows when I may want to say something naughty about the sponsor.

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Let's Remember What Happened

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Monday, March 05, 2007 4:52:41 PM
The Rocky Mountain News is reporting on a lawsuit filed by three Republicans and a Democrat which reached and was rebuffed by the US Supreme Court. 

At issue was the clever stunt pulled by the Democrats when they won the Colorado State Senate after the 2000 election.  Rather than negotiate with the Republican House, they went to a friendly Democratic judge.  The judge told the two houses that if they couldn't negotiate to come up with a plan within a short time, he would impose a plan of his own.

Having set this ploy up, the Democrats proceeded to execute it.  The Senate came up with one plan, favorable to the Democrats, of course, and refused to budge.  The Republicans did try to negotiate with the Senate and proposed several plans.  Time ran out, and the judge imposed a plan very favorable to the Democrats. 

The 2006 Republican debacle in Colorado had many fathers, but one was this stunt where the judiciary was used to leverage power toward the Democrats in 2002.

As you might guess, a lawsuit was filed and proceeded through the courts.  Since the appeals courts were dominated by Democrats who have little interest in ethical behavior, they saw nothing wrong with what had happened.

The Supreme Court dislikes getting involved in political disputes involving Gerrymandering.  Sometimes they are forced to get involved by Civil Rights acts, but otherwise, they duck the issue.  When the Colorado appeal made it to the Court, they ducked it.  Nothing new.

This blog has made the point over and over again that there is one mechanism and one mechanism only that will make lawyers, including lawyer-legislators like Ken Gordon behave ethically.  That mechanism is a working legal ethics system that the legal profession and the judiciary does not control. 

If Colorado had had a legal ethics system that worked in 2002, the ploy would not have occurred because the lawyers in the Senate would have feared losing their license over it.  The judge would have feared losing both his license and his position.  The State Supreme Court would not have dared to claim that the courts were part of the legislative process.

Ask any Republican lawyer if he favors either term limits for judges or a reform of the legal ethics system.  He will tell you in a heartbeat that he favors neither.  That is the lawyer speaking, not the Republican.  As a lawyer stated in a recent Colorado House Judiciary Committee Meeting "Lawyers work for judges.  They are our bosses."

It's time for reform!
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So Much to Do

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Sunday, March 04, 2007 11:20:23 PM
I was blogging today, just not here.  For those who would like to see what I am doing, follow the link and read all five posts.  The link leads to a temporary web page.  I hope to have it domain mapped tomorrow.

Some of you might be entertained by the five posts I have created. 
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Colorado Republican Central Committee

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Saturday, March 03, 2007 11:24:42 PM
Today the Colorado Republican State Central Committee meeting was held in Castle Rock, and I went, not to hear speeches, but to promote my newest project.

For those not familiar with the Colorado Republican party organization, we have caucuses in February of the election year.  Delegates are chosen to the various assemblys, County, Congressional District, and the State.  Each precinct also chooses two committee people.

Those committee people form part of the County Central Committee.  Almost exactly a year after the caucuses, the County Central Committee meets to select new county chair people and bonus members who themselves become members of the state Central Committee.

A number of Central Committees met today, including the State Central Committee to select leaders for two year terms and get some speechifying in.

I'm not going to report on the speeches or the meetings because I didn't attend.  I went up to promote my new effort to make it easier for Colorado Republicans to find Republican blogs, so I spent about three hours handing out flyers.  I didn't find any on the floor, so that is a good sign.

The dot com version of the promotion site isn't up yet, but here is a link to the mirror typepad version.  There are four posts there.
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A Grenade Where?

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Friday, March 02, 2007 8:12:00 PM
Did you ever think about swallowing your cell phone?  Neither did I, but I guess if you are desperate, you will try anything.  But, how do you get it back out?

Better yet, how do you conceal a grenade in a prison?   You put it where?
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Cokie Roberts is Despicable

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Friday, March 02, 2007 6:55:35 PM
I used to be a fan of ABC's Sunday morning talk show.  I didn't have a lot of use for Sam Donaldson, but I thought Cokie Roberts was one smart lady.  No more.

She and her husband, Steve Roberts have an editorial in the Rocky Mountain News that is breathtaking in its ignorance of Usama bin Ladin's own words.  Quoting Cokie and Steve:

But Democrats should not remain silent. They were elected with a mandate to express opposition to the war, and it's despicable for Vice President Cheney to be arguing that anti-war critics "validate the strategy of al-Qaida."

Bin Ladin expects that at every turn, the United States lacks the will to stand and fight.  The anti-war critics, including the Roberts want us to forget that.  This editorial is "despicable" in failing to understand our own history and why bin Laden might believe we would cut and run.  Equally despicable is Robert's use of the word in falsely impuning Vice President Cheney.
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Edited because I did not make it clear that Cokie used the word "despicable" inaccurately.  I just threw her word back at her.  My apologies to my readers.
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A Second Lieutenant With a Map

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Friday, March 02, 2007 4:54:14 PM
The joke when I was in the army was that there wasn't anything more dangerous than a Second Lieutenant with a map.  I guess that has changed with the advent of GPS, but not in some armies. 

The Denver Post is reporting that there is an embarrassed Swiss Army Captain who accidentally led his unit a mile into Liechtenstein in an accidental "invasion" before he noticed his mistake.  He managed to get back out of the country before the citizens noticed.
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My Latest Project

Posted by NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Friday, March 02, 2007 1:19:00 AM
I have learned a great deal about blogging since I started this blog six months ago. 

Republicans aren't good blog READERS and so it is difficult to get them to promote a blog with their readership.  Without readership, bloggers eventually get tired of writing and fold up their blog.  Democrats are different.  They are avid readers, so avid that their blogs routinely support advertising.

I have tried to come up with a way to fix the problem of readership.  What I think might work, and I am in the process of putting some time and effort into, is an index site where Republicans can go when they check their email to find out what is being written.  Each day this index site would put together a set of links to other blogs which have written original essays, ideally with at least some original research, on issues of interest to Republicans in Colorado.

The links would have a one sentence descriptor of the article and the reader would be encouraged to go look at two of the links each day, in all, a five minute exercise.

A project of this nature needs to be neutral when it promotes blogs, though not so neutral that Democratic blogs could pass themselves as Republican.  There would be periods around election time when the 11th Commandment would apply, and be enforced, but otherwise, almost anything reasonable would be allowed.  The word "almost" was carefully chosen as I consider the acronym "RINO" to be unnecessarily divisive and demonstrative of an author who lacks the intellectual power to write a hard hitting essay without resorting to name calling.  The quickest way for an essay or a blog to get ignored is for the author to fall into that bad habit.

I would expect to blog on the sit to model what I am looking for, but I would not ever blog on Republican persons or issues.  Those who think I can't do that should review this blog.  Neutral essays attacking the MSM or Democrats behaving badly are easy to write, and there is no shortage of material.

My purpose is to encourage bloggers to write honest critiques of Colorado Democrats and the MSM.  They are getting a free ride from the press, and I want that to come to an end.  It is unlikely to ever promote articles about Iraq, though it might well promote Presidential primary articles, especially if written from a Colorado perspective.

I registered the URL and signed up for a blogging service today.  The URL is "thecoloradoindex.com," though it will probably not go active until Monday.  It takes 48 hours to get mapped from the blogging service to the URL, and I need to design the site.

It should be an interesting project.  Comments and suggestions are welcome.
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