Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Sunday, October 08, 2006 9:34:23 PM
Frigglesnitz' last question was:
Examples where such independence and immunity have harmed any entity would also be of interest.
Hmmm . . . Let me think . . .Me, over and over.
This blog would not exist had I ever been able to stop attorney misconduct, or get my judge to do so. I have only described a few of the stunts he has pulled so far. I have found NO MECHANISM to stop his unethical conduct. I gave the judge a 12 example, 30 page description of what was happening. The judge blew it off. I sent it to attorney regulation, and they told me they had no jurisdiction but that I should approach the Commission on Judicial Conduct. They told me in a "confidential"* letter that it was attorney regulation's job. Both of these outfits work for the State Supreme Court and neither can figure out how to solve the problem.
This fall, the judge in question was up for a retention election. Justice Kourlis loves our retention system, as I discovered in her study. I hate to burst her bubble. It doesn't work for many reasons, mostly having to do with attorney conflicts of interest.
I was so concerned about the issue of stopping the lawyer's unethical conduct and getting the judge to enforce the ethics rules as court rules and his own ethics rules require that I spent $500 to put together a 200 page document. I specifically told the retention commission
in writing that the judge was not enforcing the ethics rules, and provided about 15 examples, including one where the attorney flat out admitted an ethics violation, and several that were easily demonstrated by that attorney's careless filings.
Besides not enforcing the ethics rules, this judge had a few ethics problems of his own, such as failing to rule on motions for more than two years, appointing a special master to make a decision he should have made, failing to supervise the special master and more.
Because the commission felt this judge was an "asset to the community" the commission decided not to tell the public any of this.
The whole system is broken, and I blame blanket immunity for part of the problem. No one wants to fix anything because they don't have to and they know litigants can do NOTHING about it. In the internet age, that is a dangerous attitude. I blog.
Incidently, Frigglesnitz, and other new readers, none of this is new news to this blog. You might want to look at my two featured posts and then begin at the beginning of the blog.
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*I have more than a minor ethics issue with this commission. I made a complaint against the judge. I
never would have done so if I had known the Colorado Constitution requires that citizens not reveal that fact. Their web site is intentionally deceptive. I'd much rather publicly discuss what this judge did than watch the Supreme Court issue him a "reprimand" and be silenced by the fact that I had made a complaint. I immediately withdrew the complaint. More on this later.