tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55648908485558903452024-03-08T13:39:48.042-08:00Judicial Transparency NowDemonstrating why being a professional citizen is an important job.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-6115401594765670982012-04-28T13:38:00.000-07:002012-04-28T14:14:40.589-07:00When Media Protects a Bad JudgeNot exactly sure how long media has been "declining" to identify judges who make bad, to lethal rulings, (see <a href="http://killerjudges.com/" style="color: blue;">Killerjudges.com</a>) but am sure those judges are pretty happy about it. Particularly in an election year.<br />
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The Fourth Estate has a duty to the public to change the way judges are covered. The public cannot be expected to make wise voting choices if the so-called "Watch dog press" remains a lap dog.<br />
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For a brief list of some judges enjoying the benefits of media blessed anonymity see the "<b style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.familylawcourts.com/archives.html">Archives</a></b>" section of <a href="http://www.familylawcourts.com/" style="color: blue;">Familylawcourts.com</a>.<br />
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As the voting public deserves better, voters could write letters to editors requesting better coverage. Particularly in Family Court. The nation's largest, busiest court, most used, most often - for the longest period of time, court.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-30135216799987552302012-04-28T11:58:00.000-07:002012-04-28T12:30:50.377-07:00Judging JudgesDear America,
Is <a href="http://www.familylawcourts.com/judges.html">Anyone paying attention</a>?
How about <a href="http://www.familylawcourts.com/abuse_of_discretion.html">Judge Gregory Pollack</a>?
Voters? These are the people <b>we<i></i></b> selected.
Lets get busy. There's a lot of doing that needs to be undone.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-55668209628444487772009-10-28T08:16:00.000-07:002009-10-28T08:16:10.189-07:00More on those state, sweet rides<b>Top manager resigns amid probe of idle state vehicles</b><br />
By Andrew McIntosh<br />
amcintosh@sacbee.com<br />
Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009<br />
<br />
A top Department of General Services manager resigned and a Department of Transportation employee was reassigned Tuesday as the Schwarzenegger administration reacted to an investigation by The Bee that found officials spent $5.5 million on new vehicles this year but left many idle and gathering dust for months.<br />
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Kathleen Webb, a Department of General Services deputy director who oversaw the state's vehicle fleet, offered to resign during a probe into the purchase of $1.2 million worth of hybrid Toyota Priuses, said Erin Shaw, a spokeswoman for the State and Consumer Services Agency, which oversees the General Services department.<br />
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"Her resignation, effective Oct. 31, was accepted," Shaw said.<br />
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Webb, who was appointed by the Schwarzenegger administration on June 12, 2008, earned $106,800 a year.<br />
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The Bee reported that the Priuses sat parked on the roof of the state garage for months, even as legislators nearby slashed state spending, cut state worker pay and eliminated key public services after tax revenue plunged and they needed to balance the budget.<br />
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In a related move, Mark DeSio, a spokesman for Caltrans, confirmed that an agency employee had been reassigned. It was part of a personnel action launched in connection with a number of truck purchases made earlier this year, including a flurry on June 30 – the last day of the state's fiscal year.<br />
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DeSio said that because of state personnel and privacy rules, he could not name the employee, give details about the reassignment or say why the employee had been disciplined.<br />
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The actions came late Tuesday, after Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said at a morning news briefing that officials were investigating vehicle purchases that The Bee had highlighted and would act, if warranted.<br />
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"We want to make sure that taxpayers' dollars are being used effectively," McLear said.<br />
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The Bee reported Monday that General Services and Caltrans spent more than $5.5 million on new trucks and cars earlier this year but left many idle.<br />
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Thirty-seven of the 50 Prius hybrids that General Services bought in February had no committed buyers among other departments at the time. They're now being converted into plug-in electric vehicles as part of a pilot project – with more public money.<br />
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The Bee also reported that Caltrans bought dozens more trucks while it still had pickups and larger trucks parked in its yard that it had purchased in 2006, 2007 and 2008, some with extended warranties ticking away. Those vehicles are sitting idle in Caltrans yards beneath or beside Highway 50, awaiting final assembly.<br />
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Monday night, Dale E. Bonner, secretary of the state's Business, Transportation & Housing Agency, sent a letter urging Caltrans Director Randell Iwasaki and his officials to cut spending and "wisely" buy only items "critical to the health and safety of Californians."<br />
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"Given the impact of the recession on the California economy, and the continuing strain on the state's budget, it is very important that every employee in our organization share responsibility for preserving resources, spending wisely, and incurring expenses solely on things that are critical to the health and safety of Californians," Bonner wrote.<br />
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Fred Aguiar, head of the State and Consumer Services Agency, also blasted his Department of General Services for spending the $1.2 million on the Priuses and letting them sit for months.<br />
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"The fact that the Department of General Services purchased fifty Priuses and let them sit longer than necessary is completely and totally unacceptable. As soon as agency became aware that those cars were sitting unused, I immediately ordered the department to put them into circulation," Aguiar said in a statement.<br />
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Acting General Services Director Ron Diedrich, asked to comment on Aguiar's remarks, said he agreed, adding: "The taxpayers of California expect more from government, and I will work to ensure that they get it."Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-14735792749326870892009-07-31T08:01:00.000-07:002009-07-31T08:05:31.077-07:00Media Prohibiting Judicial TransparencyAlthough a number of in print and television reports have covered the murder of toddler Cole Frazier, <a href="http://www.kentucky.com/latest_news/story/879717.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=5911766#Comments_Container">not a single editor or producer chose to reveal the name of the judge </a>who signed the order resulting in the police taking Cole Frazier from his mother, Candice Dempsey, and delivering the toddler over to his father, Timothy Frazier, who had earlier agreed to supervised visitation, in a custody matter.<br /><br />Timothy Frazier instead, manufactured a story and obtained an "Emergency Protective Order" to win temporary custody. Shortly after Timothy Frazier shot their son, Cole Fraizer and them himself.<br /><br />As this nightmare began with a judicial order, journalism anyone?<br /><br />The signing judge was Judge John David, "Jack" Seay. Judge Seay can be found on <a href="http://www.killerjudges.com">KillerJudges.com</a> and case info at <a href="http://www.familylawcourts.com">FamilyLawCourts.com</a><br /><br />The question of Why the fourth estate is depriving voters of critical information remains unanswered.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-75406700609727771182009-07-30T14:00:00.000-07:002009-07-30T14:18:22.103-07:00Mississippi Judge Bobby DeLaughter Admits He Lied to FBIMississippi judge Bobby DeLaughter pleads guilty to lying to FBI agent<br /><br />Miss. — Mississippi judge Bobby DeLaughter pleaded guilty to an obstruction of justice charge after lying to an FBI agent during an investigation into corruption.<br /><br />In return for DeLaughter admitting guilt, conspiracy and mail fraud charges were dropped by prosecutors.<br /><br />Previously, DeLaughter had been accused of giving an unfair advantage to former attorney Richard Richard "Dickie" Scruggs; who won millions from asbestos lawsuits. <br /><br />(Scruggs, father and son, are in prison.)<br /><br />Prosecutors recommended an 18-month prison sentence for Delaughter.<br /><br />To make a report on other judges, see <a href="http://www.USAjudges.com">USAJudges.com</a> or, <a href="http://www.killerjudges.com/States.html">KillerJudges.com</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-11464965943085142982009-07-14T19:33:00.000-07:002009-07-14T19:58:38.426-07:00OHIO SUPREME COURT FAULTS DIVORCE COURT<span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/07/ohio_supreme_court_report_says.html">Ohio's Significant Report</a><a href="http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/07/ohio_supreme_court_report_says.html"></a></span><br /><br />Between Ohio judges steering cases towards the favored few, Ohio's Divorce Court problems mirror California's. <br /><br />Including, as noted in the report:<br /><br /><blockquote><font color=blue>The high-court's performance review recommended more than 90 improvements and labeled 28 of them as "critical" enough to demand immediate action. Many of the concerns dealt with problems first disclosed in a series of stories published in The Plain Dealer.<br /><br />In March, the newspaper reported that Domestic Relations Judge James Celebrezze steered hundreds of thousands of dollars of work to his longtime friend Mark Dottore, who charged $225 an hour to handle assets in divorce cases.<br /><br />The newspaper also found that Celebrezze and his daughter, Leslie Ann, who replaced him on the bench after he retired in December 2008, used teams of special masters to mediate divorce cases rather than doing the work themselves.<br /><br />Scanned from a handout January 29, 2008. Domestic Relations Judge Leslie Ann Celebrezze<br /><br />In their 91-page report, Supreme Court investigators seized on the questionable practices.<br /><br />When appointing receivers, their report noted, a judge must do so impartially and on the basis of merit, while avoiding favoritism and unnecessary appointments. The fees, they added, must be "reasonable, fair and affordable."<br /><br />They went on to caution that, with few exceptions, a judge has no authority to appoint special masters to perform what essentially is the judge's job."</blockquote></font color=blue><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The difference between Ohio and California is the difference between night and day.</span><br /><br />Where Ohio first admitted, then chooses to squarely face the problems judges cause, California judges from the top down, will not.<br /><br />Although Chief Justice Ronald George "invited the public to apply" to the<span style="font-weight:bold;"> <a href="http://www.elkinstaskforce.org">Elkins Task Force</a><a href="http://www.elkinstaskforce.org"></a></span>, tellingly, not a single member of the public was selected to serve. <br /><br />The task force instead, is replete with some of the very people the public clearly does not accept as credible, including San Diego's member, <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.elkinstaskforce.org/San_Diego.html">Judge Lorna Alksne</a><a href="http://www.elkinstaskforce.org/San_Diego.html"></a></span>.<br /><br />The Elkins Task Force which held promise, quickly deteriorated after those selected were first chosen, and second, began missing meetings.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-71728250427701168302009-04-22T18:03:00.000-07:002009-04-22T18:12:05.965-07:00The Sheriff's Sweet Ride<span style="font-weight:bold;">When it comes to gouging the public, the hits just keep coming.<br /><br />The Sheriff's Sweet Rides<br /><br />One of the $32,000-plus Dodge Chargers recently purchased by the Sheriff's Department for upper-level administrators sits in the agency's parking garage.<br />By WILL CARLESS Voice Staff Writer<br /><br />Friday, April 4, 2008 | At least four upper-level administrators at the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, including Deputy Sheriff Bill Gore, currently drive top-of-the-range Dodge Chargers, cars that cost San Diego taxpayers between $32,615 and $35,459 apiece.<br /><br />The Chargers are equipped with powerful V-8 "Hemi" engines and feature leather seats. They're part of a fleet of vehicles the Sheriff's Department provides for mid- and upper- level managers from the sheriff himself to the department's information technology chief information officer. The current fleet cost taxpayers almost $780,000.<br /><br />At a time when many local law enforcement agencies are cutting back on costs across the board, good government advocates questioned the provision of take-home cars to administrators, who are not on patrol or working on investigations, and the purchase of expensive, non fuel-efficient vehicles.<br /><br />"Why do those employees need county owned-cars, and why such expensive cars?" said Bob Stern, president of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies, and a former attorney for the state Fair Political Practices Commission. "It comes down to the appropriate use of taxpayer money at a time of belt-tightening."<br /><br /><Font color=red>All Sheriff's Department vehicles, including those driven by office workers and lawyers, are also fitted with license plates known in law enforcement circles as "undercover plates," rather than the standard California Exempt plates, leaving them indistinguishable from non-government vehicles. That policy is defended by Gore, but California law provides for the use of unmarked plates only by officers involved with investigations. The department's policy is also at odds with other local California law enforcement agencies.</font color=red><br /><br />Gore said the Sheriff's Department purchased the $32,000-plus Dodge Chargers for the managers as part of a deal that included buying five Chargers for the department's patrol fleet. He said the Chargers were purchased so he and some of his managers could try out the vehicles to see if they would make good patrol cars.<br />Related Links<br /><br /><br />San Diego County Sheriff’s Department<br /><br />After a Fatal Collision, Sheriff's Deputy Unpunished<br /><br />They've since decided that the cars are not ideally suited for patrol use.<br /><br />The V-8 version of the Charger retails at more than $10,000 more than the standard V-6 model. Gore said the decision to buy the more powerful, better-equipped model was up to Sheriff Bill Kolender.<br /><br />"We don't get the cheapest cars we can get, that's a decision made by the sheriff. That's not the way he operates -- that's not the way he treats his senior management," Gore said.<br /><br />The practice of providing take-home vehicles to mid- and upper-level administrators at the Sheriff's Department has irked managers in other county departments for decades. With the exception of the District Attorney's Office, the county only provides vehicles or a vehicle allowance to department heads.<br /><br />The Sheriff's Department provides a range of different vehicles for its administrative staff, Gore said. Most employees drive Ford Five Hundreds, which cost the department about $24,500. Gore said some employees -- those who are on-call or who work in the field -- can take their cars home and drive them to and from work, but that the extent to which the cars can be used outside of strictly driving to official engagements depends on each position.<br /><br />The Sheriff's Department's policy of providing vehicles to administrators and managers also goes beyond what is offered at other county departments and has been a bone of contention at the county for decades. In other county departments, take-home vehicles or car allowances are rare and are usually only offered to department heads.<br /><br />Gore said the Sheriff's Department has concluded that it's more cost-effective to provide employees with cars than to pay staff mileage rates. That's something the Sheriff's Department will be re-assessing this year, he said.<br /><br />But Stern scoffed at the idea that providing take-home cars is cheaper for taxpayers.<br /><br />"I can't believe that's the case. This is a perk, it's a way to recruit people," Stern said. "If you're going to give them a car, give them a Prius, not a gas-guzzling $35,000 car."<br /><br />A 2007 Dodge Charger gets an average of 15 miles per gallon, according to a government fuel economy website. A 2007 Prius gets 46 mpg, and a 2007 Ford Taurus, the workhorse of many law enforcement agencies, gets 20 mpg.<br /><br />Officials at other sheriff's departments and police departments around the state expressed amusement and sometimes shock when told about the San Diego County Sheriff's Department's new Dodge Chargers.<br /><br />"I think that's a ridiculous car for law enforcement officers," said Ugo "Butch" Arnoldi, a senior lieutenant at the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department. "I don't think that would be the best vehicle for an administrator, let me put it that way."<br /><br />Arnoldi, who has been a law enforcement officer for 35 years, said there are other vehicles, like the Ford Crown Victoria, which are far more fuel-efficient and much better value for law enforcement use.<br /><br />All the sheriff's vehicles also feature the undercover plates. Because government agencies do not pay registration fees on their vehicles, they are normally required to fit those vehicles with licenses that read "California Exempt."<br /><br />The exempt plates are a signal to taxpayers that the vehicle is paid for out of tax dollars, said David Kline, a spokesman for the California Taxpayers' Association. The plates allow the public to ensure the vehicles are being used in a suitable way, he said, that government employees aren't speeding at 100 miles per hour or using their vehicles to travel to Disneyland on the weekend.<br /><br />"It's a more efficient and cheaper way than painting every car with a government insignia of letting people know how their tax dollars are being spent," Kline said.<br /><br />A section of the California Vehicle Code makes an exception for law enforcement vehicles "assigned to persons responsible for investigating actual or suspected violations of the law." For those vehicles, the DMV will provide license plates that look just like normal plates, so law enforcement officers retain their anonymity out in the field. Those are the plates that the San Diego Sheriff's Department puts on all its vehicles.<br /><br />Gore said each vehicle the Sheriff's Department buys is passed around the department from detectives to administrators, to lawyers to undercover cops. He said because the department doesn't know who might be driving the vehicles at any given time, it has a policy of providing all the cars with the undercover plates. That's standard at most California law enforcement agencies, he said.<br /><br />But that's not the case at the San Diego Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, the San Francisco Police Department or the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department, among others. Officials at all these agencies said the undercover plates are only issued to police officers who need to operate incognito, including undercover officers or wardens at county jails who do not want their identity to be known by inmates who might see them park their car.<br /><br />"It's standard operating procedure, when a car comes in for a chief, a captain or a lieutenant, unless they're in an undercover assignment, they don't get undercover plates," said John Alley, deputy director of the San Diego Police Department's Fleet Services Division.<br /><br />Stern said there are other reasons why the Sheriff's Department doesn't want its vehicles to have California Exempt license plates that distinguish them as taxpayer-bought vehicles.<br /><br />"If they're taking the car up to Yosemite, people aren't looking at the car saying 'Hey, why's that car in Yosemite?' " Stern said.<br /><br />Please contact Will Carless directly with your thoughts, ideas, personal stories or tips. Or send a letter to the editor.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-70640116431954301622009-02-12T21:26:00.000-08:002009-02-14T09:53:57.274-08:00Dear AP: Thank you for finally finishing the story.TO: AP Wire Services: <br /><br />Heads up! Journalism 101: Basic reporting in criminal court sentencing means identifying the sentencing judge.<br /><br />However, missing from AP's earlier wire report featuring former city councilman <span style="font-weight:bold;"><font color=black>Mario Beltran</font color=black> </span>pleading guilty to a variety campaign law violations, (four misdemeanor counts of failing to file campaign disclosure forms and failing to deposit cash contributions); was the name of the sentencing judge.<br /><br />This interested us as the judge dismissed several felony charges against the now former councilman, sentencing Beltran to (drum roll) probation. <br /><br />We thought readers/voters might appreciate the given name of Judge Wrist Slap and complained.<br /><br />The LA based AP reporter we spoke with refused to identify himself, (English accent) but continued to make excuses as to why the judge wasn't identified.<br /><br />We obtained for readers, (voters) the name of Judge Wrist Slap and will share it with you now. <span style="font-weight:bold;"><font color=red>Judge George G. Lomeli.</font color=red></span><br /><br />Happily for readers/voters, eventually editors decided to make a full report and later edited the story to include this information. After we did. Better late than never.<br /><br />But frankly, reporting as shoddy as this is the reason for this blog.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-67913220926627282412009-02-12T21:22:00.000-08:002009-04-20T13:18:23.423-07:00Dear Reporters at Citizens Voice: They're not judges anymore.Throughout the day reporters at <a href="http://www.citizensvoice.com/articles/2009/02/12/news/doc499445eee3fce129831256.txt">Citizens Voice</a><br /><br />repeatedly referred to the the "Judges" pleading guilty to various crimes. They're not judges anymore.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-63368204285217074502009-02-07T08:06:00.000-08:002009-02-07T08:11:11.104-08:00Bad reporting from Joel Rubin of the LA Times.<style></style><div>Bad reporting. Why wasn't Rubin's article balanced? It's not as if the police don't go to great lengths to protect crooked cops.</div> <div><a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1052440734466">http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1052440734466</a></div> <div> </div> <div><br />More at <a href="http://www.familylawcourts.com/countylosangeles.html">http://www.familylawcourts.com/countylosangeles.html</a></div> <div> </div> <div><br />It's not as if Rubin couldn't have done a little background on this. Instead, readers were not treated to LAPD's history of protecting bad cops. Bad reporting.</div> <div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-67892703117517698972009-01-02T08:42:00.000-08:002009-01-02T08:55:35.867-08:00Palm Beach Judge Jorge "Pay back" Labarga.<h1 class="storyHeadline"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" >While appreciating Judge Payback's honesty, we are sorry this agenda won him a promotion.</span><br /></h1><h1 class="storyHeadline">Judge gets appellate spot despite payback talk</h1> <h3 class="byline">BY DAN CHRISTENSEN AND TODD WRIGHT</h3> <!-- begin /production/story/credit_line_format.comp --> <h3 class="credit_line"> <a href="mailto:dchristensen@MiamiHerald.com">dchristensen@MiamiHerald.com</a> </h3> <!-- end /production/story/credit_line_format.comp --> <div class="" id="storyBodyContent"> <p> Gov. Charlie Crist promoted Palm Beach Judge Jorge Labarga to a seat on a South Florida appellate court last week despite Labarga's comments from the bench last year that judges will get even with lawyers who cross them, even if it takes years.</p><p>''When you pick a fight with a judge, ultimately, you are gonna lose. Not today, but five years from now, 10 years from now, six years from now. That judge is going to remember you, always, always,'' Labarga said.</p><p>``And, you know, when you do -- there is an old saying that if you go after a judge, you better kill him. Because, like I said, it's true.'' </p> <p> Labarga, who was also among five finalists recommended this month for appointment to the Florida Supreme Court, made his remarks while presiding over an otherwise routine criminal hearing in Palm Beach Circuit Court on May 23, 2007.</p><p>Fort Lauderdale attorney Gary Kollin, whom Labarga was talking about, sent a transcript of the hearing and letter critical of Labarga to the governor's office on Dec. 2. The governor's office released them to The Miami Herald. The Herald also obtained a recording of the hearing.</p><p>A Crist spokesman said Thursday that the governor was briefed about the transcript by his general counsel, ``but they just didn't feel it was like to the level to affect the governor's decision.''</p><p>But Anthony Alfieri, founder and director of the University of Miami law school's Center for Ethics and Public Service, called Labarga's statements in open court ``injudicious and unwise.</p><p>''They damage the credibility of individual judges and tarnish the integrity of the courts as a public institution,'' said Alfieri.</p><p>Labarga said Sunday that he remembered the 2007 case, but did not recall making the specific statements.</p><p>''I go through 50, 60 cases a day,'' he said. ``If it's on the transcript, I said it. Judges are human. I had a bad day.''</p><p>Labarga said the average person could read the statements and question his ability to be fair and impartial, but he said his record shows that is not the case.</p><p>''I've been a judge 13 years, and there is no evidence that I hold a grudge,'' Labarga said. ``I have a really good record. To pick one negative incident out of my whole career is not an accurate portrayal of my overall job performance.''</p><p>Gov. Crist named Labarga, a Cuban American, to the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach on Dec. 10. Labarga has been a Palm Beach circuit judge since 1996.</p><p>Labarga, 55, of Wellington, is out of the running for the Supreme Court seat. The governor asked a nominating group for a new name last week after he picked Labarga for the appeal court, a spokesman said.</p><p><strong>2000 RECOUNT</strong></p><p>Labarga, an activist with the Cuban American Republican Club before he became a judge, is best known for his role in the 2000 presidential recount.</p><p>In one case, Labarga ruled the county's canvassing board could not arbitrarily toss out all votes with ''dimpled chads,'' and could decide whether each dimple constituted a vote. In another, he rejected a plea for a revote by voters who said the county's unique butterfly ballot was so confusing that the election was unfair.</p><p>The court's recording system was running in May 2007 when Kollin appeared before Labarga on behalf of a client accused of selling counterfeit merchandise.</p><p>Labarga announced at the outset that he was stepping down from the case because his former law partner, David Roth, represented a co-defendant.</p><p>But when a prosecutor's concern about meeting the law's speedy trial requirements prompted Labarga to start issuing instructions to a clerk, Kollin objected. And Labarga got annoyed.</p><p>''Your Honor, I -- since you recused yourself, I would object to you making any directions to the clerk because you can't make any more rulings on it,'' Kollin said.</p><p>''I know that,'' Labarga responded. ``I appreciate you coming here and educating me. I'm just a little country guy. I just got here off the boat a few months ago. I understand those things.''</p><p>''I don't appreciate the sarcasm,'' Kollin replied.</p><p>Kollin left the courtroom, and didn't come back.</p><p>But about an hour and a half later, Labarga started talking about him again, saying Kollin wanted to ``pick a fight.</p><p>''But you know, five years from now, he may have an attorney's fees hearing in front of me, he may have this in front of me then. And you are always going to remember those guys,'' Labarga said. ``He's very combative. I have to be honest with you. I kind of wish I would have kept that case 'cause he would have been fun.''</p><p>Kollin called those remarks ''especially heinous'' in his letter to the governor. And he accused Labarga of bias, and said he violated judicial canons that say judges must avoid the appearance of impropriety, and perform their duties impartially.</p><p><strong>PERSONAL BIAS</strong></p><p>Alfieri called the transcript ''ambiguous,'' however, and said it isn't clear from it whether Kollin was the victim of a personal bias.</p><p>Broward County Bar President Christopher Neilson said working with a judge who seems to be holding a grudge against an attorney would make it ''extremely'' difficult to practice law.</p><p>''Everyone has a right to a fair shot, and if a judge is talking about payback that would be a difficult situation to practice in,'' Neilson said. ``Judges wield a tremendous amount of power and discretion in their courtroom when it comes to granting motions. It's sad to hear about any type of payback from a judge.''</p><p>Palm Beach Post staff writer Bill Dipaolo contributed to this report. </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-71542634185753362592008-11-18T09:09:00.000-08:002008-11-18T10:05:57.852-08:00ABC's BOB SABO STAFF SCREWS UP, ALL WEEK.<span style="color:red;"><b>The woman at the assignment desk said she had emails on this all week on this, but no one wanted to cover it. <br /><br />Yes, I did remind her it's a news story. Yes I did mention Family Court is the one court that impacts the most people. She yawned.<br /><br />But when I asked her name, she refused. However she did provide the name of her boss, Bob Sabo. Maybe you can reach him at 612-588-6397.</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And we're doubly glad The Pioneer Press is on the job!</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-82606806086772150682008-08-22T12:04:00.000-07:002008-08-22T12:08:33.574-07:00This story just smells. One judge not named? Nancy Pollard.Reporters would do better investigating why any parent not charged with a crime, is ordered not to see their children. Our Constitution guarantees the right to live with the Least amount of government interference. Family Court judges however, remain the single, most intrusive form of government, (when and if one can parent, and for how long) in this country. Family Court is the busiest court in the nation. Why no coverage? Or, why coverage, but judges not identified?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-55306488755940421932008-07-30T12:03:00.000-07:002008-07-30T14:22:17.952-07:00Another Possible Divorce Related Murder - Another Judge Not Identified.<span style="font-weight:bold;">From the LA TIMES:<br /><br />it would be best if the LA Times identified judges in these "news" articles</span><br /><br />"Court records also showed that Pamela Fayed tried to get a restraining order against her brother-in-law in 2003, <span style="font-weight:bold;"><font color=red>but the request was denied because of "insufficient facts."</span></font color=red> She contended in court papers that he had harassed her and made "hateful, racist remarks" after being fired from the family business.<br /><br />(There's no indication to date the murder was divorce related. However, as getting a divorce sometimes causes the vulnerable to be killed, it's always good to identify judges who refuse to grant restraining orders.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-91322394981289319452008-07-29T09:31:00.000-07:002008-07-29T18:30:08.058-07:00NBC files a report identifying NEITHER Judge in Custody Matter<span style="font-weight:bold;">What is it with "reporters" who condense televised reports which identify judges, but lose the name for the web report, which lasts so much longer? Who blue pencils this relevant information? The producers? The Assignment editor? Tony Shin's televised report named one judge, Joseph P. Brannigan, (who should recuse himself from the case) but the web report lacked much in the way of relevant information. It's not "news" when half the information is missing remains a mystery.</span><br /><br />Also not covered in this slapped together mess of a feature? The problem with San Diego Judges ignoring requests for restraining orders. www.FamilyLawCourts.com receives many complaints of the continuing problem of San Diego Judges willingly ignoring requests for restraining orders. Should NBC decide to conduct an investigation, those reports would be made available. Interestingly, one is from a different woman in Orange County, and a judge in Vista, Ca.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-11158733357124986382008-07-12T04:47:00.000-07:002008-07-12T04:59:04.131-07:00A Stack of Sealed casesAlthough we remember the cover story in California Lawyer featuring elder and probate fiduciary abuse <B>from the bench</b> of the now deceased, <B>Judge William H. Sullivan</B> ...sadly, it now appears greedy minds think alike. <br /><br />More examples from the State of Washington are posted at <a href="http://www.USAjudges.com"><font color=blue>USAjudges.com</font color=blue></a> - a site where empowered attorneys and members of the public bypass the largely ineffective state judicial commissions and restore transparency to government (and three cheers for these responsible citizens.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-4906011316003530662008-07-10T00:00:00.000-07:002008-07-30T12:12:10.511-07:00OC Register's Kimberly Edds Misses it... AGAIN.Spoke with editor Bill Diepenbrock two days ago, who agreed the judges in family court should be named when cases they've handled are profiled. After all, how is the public supposed to decided whether to retain them or not during an election year.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br /><font color=red>The Judge in this case is none other than the star-struck, Nancy Pollard.</span></font color=red.><br /><br />However, don't look for this information to trickle down into the brain of Ms Edds, with her medium sized history of sloppy reporting, failure to check sources, and an apparent ability to <B><I>grasp</I></b> the overall picture. Readers of of Ms. Edds column can expect to remain uninformed. As such, assigning her to actual news events remains a disservice to readers.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-31950277766665322682008-07-07T17:26:00.000-07:002008-07-12T04:44:26.912-07:00Five Major Articles and Not ONCE is Judge Mentioned.We've spoken to Salvador before. He agreed judges ought to be named. But so far it's been all hat, no cattle.<br /><br />One has to wonder why the so called Fourth Estate continues to refuse to identify the family court judge who allowed the Lonnie Ramos family court matter to go on and on and on; ending only with an assault with a fire-arm, kidnap and international flight.<br /><br />The name of the family court judge was not identified in the Orange Country Register, The LA Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX. <br /><br />How else are voters to determine which judges to retain during an election year if the press flat out refuses to identify a record of their rulings?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-78865833574967440472008-06-13T13:33:00.000-07:002008-07-12T04:45:10.695-07:00Tim Russert Dies Suddenly<span style="font-weight:bold;">We profoundly regret the loss of Tim Russert. Russert was a not only a great family man, but journalistically, The Man when it came to using his considerable intellect fairly to educate viewers</span><br /><br />Russet was an attorney. He never would have half-reported. <font color=red>His reporting would have included identifying the judges involved.</font color=red> Seems like most journalists could learn a thing or a hundred, from him.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-13099868608279515802008-06-13T08:44:00.000-07:002008-07-12T04:47:00.029-07:00Judge Alex Kozinski<a href="http://www.FamilyLawCourts.com">www.FamilyLawCourts.com</a> - Just spoke with Cyrus Sanai, the LA attorney who accidentally made Judge Kozinski call for his own investigation. <br /><br />Isn't it ironic? While the Kozinski stuff began with dirty pictures, it turns out the big stuff always winds up being ultimately, as a result of <font color=red><b>family court.</font color=red></B><br /><br />For background on other big cases involving "sealed" records, see<br /><a href="http://www.FamilyLawCourts.com">www.FamilyLawCourts.com/burton.html</a><br /><br />And remember, it was Jack Welch's former wife who got the ball rolling with his retirement account when they divorced after the Pre-nup expired. (Being a lawyer herself, she was smart enough to factor in an End date to their prenup.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-15108132253460511842008-06-04T12:37:00.000-07:002008-06-04T12:44:20.361-07:00Former Tulsa nursing home official sentenced for exploitation<div><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Separate from not identifying the judge; is the completely misleading headline.</span> <div class="header"> <h1>Former Tulsa nursing home official sentenced for exploitation</h1></div> <div style="float: right; padding-top: 8px;"> <script type="text/javascript"> //----------------------------------------------------------------------------// function popup(theURL,winName,features) { window.open(theURL,winName,features); } //----------------------------------------------------------------------------// /*use this to launch the interactives*/ function PopUp(url,w,h) { var dim = eval('"width=' + w + ',height=' + h + '"'); Npop = window.open(url,"pop",dim); } //----------------------------------------------------------------------------// </script> <div class="t-header"> </div><!-- AddThis Bookmark Button BEGIN --> <script type="text/javascript">var addthis_pub = 'newsok';</script> <script src="http://s5.addthis.com/js/widget.php?v=10" type="text/javascript"></script> <!-- AddThis Bookmark Button END --></div> <div style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana;"> </div> <div class="author" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana;">By The Associated Press<br />June 4, 2008<br /></div></div> <div> </div> <div> <div style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana;"><br /><br /><br />TULSA -- A former Tulsa nursing home administrator who pleaded no contest to financially exploiting patients is avoiding prison. </div> <p style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana;"><a title="Mark Ferris" href="http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Mark+Ferris&CATEGORY=PERSON">Mark Ferris</a> was sentenced Tuesday after entering the plea to two counts of financial exploitation by a caregiver. </p> <div class="ad" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana;">Ferris was originally charged with nine counts of taking nearly $5,400 from the trust funds of two patients but seven counts were dismissed for insufficient evidence. </div> <p style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana;">The case against <a title="Mark Ferris" href="http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Mark+Ferris&CATEGORY=PERSON">Ferris</a> will be dismissed without a conviction if he completes the terms of a two-year probation. </p> <p style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana;">Copyright 2008 <a title="The Associated Press" href="http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=The+Associated+Press&CATEGORY=COMPANY">The Associated Press</a>. </p> <p style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana;"> </p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-38374815615504926092008-06-01T09:17:00.000-07:002008-07-18T06:00:36.301-07:00Why is Gordon Dillow Protecting the Bench?<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">In his article below, Orange County columnist Gordon Dillow protects not one, but TWO judges who refused to send what seems like a career criminal to jail. </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;">Isn't the job of Fourth Estate supposed Uncover this sort of thing?</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Somehow, in light of two deaths, Dillow's airy "jail overcrowding" doesn't quite ring true.</span> </span><br /><br />Dillow omits which judges sentenced Ruiz to how many years for his crimes and continuing with a complete lack of research, this paragraph; <br /> <br /><font color=red><br />Instead, a court commissioner <font color=blue>GORDON: Which Court Commissioner?!? </font color=blue>fined Ruiz $390 plus costs, put him on three years informal probation and ordered him to undergo alcohol counseling. Even after Ruiz violated his probation by skipping out on a counseling session, another judge simply renewed it.</font color=red>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-74501597859037143942008-04-05T13:35:00.000-07:002009-04-22T18:03:07.781-07:00 Perks of Government Work - No Tickets! from The Orange County Register...the hits just keep coming.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Special license plates shield officials from traffic tickets</span> <div class="byline"><br />By JENNIFER MUIR</div> <div class="source">THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER</div> <span type="end" id="default"></span> <span type="start" inlinediv="false"></span> <p>It's 1:45 p.m. on a Wednesday in February and a Toyota Camry is driving west on the 91 Express Lanes, for free, for the 470th time.</p><p>The electronic transponder on the dashboard – used to bill tollway users – is inactive. The Camry's owners, airport traffic officer Rudolph Duplessis and his wife, Loretta, have never had a toll road account, officials say.</p><p>They've never received a violation notice in the mail, either. Their car is registered as part of a state program which hides their home address on Department of Motor Vehicles records. The agency that operates the tollway does not have legal access to their address.</p><p>Their Toyota is one of 996,716 vehicles registered to motorists who are affiliated with 1,800 state and local agencies and who are allowed to shield their addresses under the Confidential Records Program.</p><p>An Orange County Register investigation has found that the program, designed 30 years ago to protect police from criminals, has been expanded to cover hundreds of thousands of public employees – from police dispatchers to museum guards – who face little threat from the public. Their spouses and children can get the plates, too. <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">[No mention why it took the newspaper a couple of decades to discover this.]</span><br /></p><p>This has happened despite warnings from state officials that the safeguard is no longer needed because updated laws have made all DMV information confidential to the public. <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">[Warnings, but no actual, action.]</span><br /></p><p style="font-weight: bold;">The Register found that the confidential plate program shields these motorists in ways most of us can only dream about:</p><p>•Vehicles with protected license plates can run through dozens of intersections controlled by red light cameras and breeze along the 91 toll lanes with impunity.</p><p>•Parking citations issued to vehicles with protected plates are often dismissed because the process necessary to pierce the shield is too cumbersome.</p><p>•Some patrol officers let drivers with protected plates off with a warning because the plates signal that the drivers are "one of their own" or related to someone who is.</p><p>Exactly how many people are taking advantage of their protected plates is impossible to calculate. Like the Orange County Transportation Authority, which operates the tollway, many agencies have automated processes and have never focused on what happens to confidential plate holders. Sometimes police take note of the plate and don't write a ticket at all.</p><p>The Register used public records laws to obtain OCTA computer logs for the 91 Express Lanes and found 14,535 unpaid trips by motorists with confidential plates in the past five years. A Register analysis showed that was 3,722 separate vehicles, some running the toll road hundreds of times.</p><p>That's only about $29,500 in tolls, but under the penalty schedule set by state law, fines for chronic violators can reach $500 per toll, which would total more than $5 million for the confidential plate holders with multiple violations if they ignored warning notices. OCTA officials said that if they had been able to notify these people, they believe most would have paid before penalties ballooned.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">A<span style="font-weight: bold;">mong the top violators on OCTA's list were Dwight and Michell Storay (he's a parole agent with the Department of Corrections), with 622 violations; Lenai and Arnold Carraway (she's an Orange County social worker), with 239 violations and Susie and Mike Stephen (she's a Chino Police Department dispatcher), with 227 violations.</span></p><p>Speaking through a corrections spokeswoman, Storay denied driving the toll roads without paying. He showed records indicating that he has a valid toll road account and said he had contacted the OCTA to settle the matter.</p><p>Lenai Carraway showed a reporter evidence that she had a toll road account, but had no evidence that she'd paid the tolls that OCTA listed as delinquent. Carraway said she planned to contact OCTA.</p><p>Susie Stephen did not respond to repeated requests for an interview; Chino police officials said they would investigate the situation.</p><p>It's impossible to tell whether every motorist included on the list knowingly exploited their confidential plates—and many of those contacted by The Register insisted it was some kind of mistake.</p><p>But by the time a California Highway Patrol officer recognized Loretta Duplessis' Camry from a "heavy hitter" list of toll evaders and pulled her over Feb. 27, the couple had racked up $34,805.95 in penalties from OCTA, according to a note the officer wrote on her citation. The couple did not respond to repeated requests for comment, including a note left on their front door in Riverside County.</p><p>An activist who lobbies for fair traffic laws said the entire program is out of control.</p><p>"They've exempted themselves from the rules they're enforcing," said Chad Dornsife, director of the Best Highway Safety Practices Institute. "They know it, is what's really sick about this. This isn't some surprise that when the camera comes out they don't have to worry about it."</p><p>Proponents of the program argue that confidential plates offer a necessary protection.</p><p>"I would highly doubt that anybody is registering their vehicles on a confidential basis to do anything but protect themselves," Garden Grove Police Capt. Mike Handfield said. "I just don't think people are thinking they're getting away with anything….Is the value of having a confidential plate and protecting the law enforcement community from people who might hurt them, is that worth that risk? I believe it is."</p><p>The Register asked the DMV for a list of the number of motorists participating in the program and the agencies they claim as an employer. But the DMV refused to provide those records unless The Register paid $8,442, which officials said was the cost of extracting the list from its database.</p><p>The Register felt that was an excessive cost to obtain public records; the DMV has refused to waive the fee.</p><p><b>CONFIDENTIAL HISTORY</b></p><p>The DMV first started withholding police officers' addresses from the public in 1978, back when anyone could walk into a DMV office with a license plate number and walk out with the car owner's home address. The purpose was to block criminals from finding out where police live, then using the information to harm the officers or their families.</p><p>Under the Confidential Records Program the name of the police agency appears in lieu of the officer's address.</p><p>In the first seven years of the program, lawmakers added judges, district attorneys – and themselves.</p><p>Since then, the list of people afforded confidentiality has swelled to include jail guards, district attorney investigators and National Park Service rangers, as well as city council members and city attorneys, among others.</p><p>Officials can keep the secret plates when they retire. If they change to a civilian job, they can stay shielded for another three years.</p><p>In some cases the secret plates have been negotiated as part of a labor contract. For example, museum security officers were added as part of an employment agreement with the state's public safety union in 2001.</p><p>Meanwhile, public access to DMV information was nearly eliminated in 1989 after the death of actress Rebecca Schaeffer. A private investigator found Schaeffer's home address through the DMV on behalf of an obsessed fan, who gunned down the 21-year-old at her Los Angeles apartment. Lawmakers responded by making every motorist's information confidential.</p><p>Today, addresses for every driver in the state are off limits to the public. Some businesses, such as insurance companies, financial institutions and businesses that contract with police to process citations, still maintain limited access through strict agreements with the DMV.</p><p>The level of protection granted to all motorists makes "it all but impossible for unauthorized individuals to receive residence address data from the DMV," officials told the Legislature in 2004.</p><p>The DMV said private data now available on the Internet makes it easy to find home addresses. "Such ready access makes it unnecessary to use DMV as an access point."</p><p>None of the lawmakers or agencies interviewed by The Register was able to point to a case where a person was harmed by information obtained through the DMV in the nearly 20 years since the Schaeffer case changed the law.</p><p>Still, police and lawmakers say that increasing access to information on the Internet makes it even more imperative that records are protected.</p><p>"The street has become a technological freeway that is being used by everybody, so the more layers of confidentiality you can add to those who need it the better," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.</p><p>Since 1980, lawmakers have passed 19 pieces of legislation adding more groups, revising the language or increasing the punishment against people who use the DMV to harm people with confidential plates.</p><p>In 2001 Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza, who is now a state senator, sponsored legislation that allowed police chiefs to give the plates to non-sworn employees in "sensitive" positions, such as those testifying against other law enforcement officers, records show.</p><p>"Law enforcement came to me and asked me to sponsor it," said Oropeza, D-Carson.</p><p>This year, Assemblyman Sandré Swanson, D-Alameda, is sponsoring a bill that would add some zoo veterinarians, animal control agency workers and humane society shelter workers to the program. After introducing the bill, he added firefighters and code enforcement officers, as well. He said the union that represents those workers – the American Federation of County Municipal Employees – asked for the protection to stave off retribution from criminals, such as people who run criminal dog fighting rings.</p><p>DMV employees must process requests for confidential records manually at a cost of $220,000 a year. The workload expands every time lawmakers allow a new group to participate in the program.</p><p><b>'COURTESY TO LAW ENFORCEMENT'</b></p><p>As the program has grown, so have the benefits.</p><p>Some police officers confess that when they pull over someone with a confidential license plate they're more likely to let them off with a warning. In most cases, one said, if an officer realizes a motorist has a confidential plate, the car won't be pulled over at all.</p><p>"It's an unwritten rule that we would extend professional courtesy," said Ron Smith, a retired Los Angeles Police Department officer who worked patrol for 23 years. "Nine out of 10 times I would."</p><p>California Highway Patrol officer Jennifer Hink put it a little differently. "It's officer discretion … (But) just because you have confidential plates doesn't mean you're going to get out of a citation."</p><p>Many police departments that run red light camera programs systematically dismiss citations issued to confidential plates.</p><p>"It's a courtesy, law enforcement to law enforcement," San Francisco Police Sgt. Tom Lee said. "We let it go."</p><p>Four Orange County cities with red light cameras told the Register earlier this year that they don't have time to track down the addresses. The private companies that process the citations don't have access to the shielded information. Police officers do have access, but not the time.</p><p>State law requires police to mail out red light camera citations within 15 days; Orange County allows only 11. "It takes eight to 13 business days to receive that information back from the DMV," said Santa Ana Police officer Gary Fratus. "There are far too few to do it … The time frame is not conducive for us."</p><p>Some departments, for example, the cities of Los Alamitos and Los Angeles, send the citations to the agency listed in place of the home address. But they have no way of knowing whether the person ticketed ever received the citation. In Orange County, inactive red light camera citations are dismissed after a year.</p><p>San Diego is the only department interviewed by the Register that does the necessary work to track down protected plate holders. Laguna Woods and Santa Ana began doing the same this year after the Register began asking questions.</p><p>The shielded plates can also be a free pass to park illegally.</p><p>"Many agencies, especially parking citation processing agencies, report that the process is so cumbersome and costly that they simply dismiss the parking citation as it is not worth the time and effort necessary to identify the vehicle owner," the DMV told the legislature in 2004.</p><p>Sen. Oropeza said the problem isn't the confidential records program, it's that police are enforcing the law unevenly.</p><p>"Professional courtesy, that's a total inappropriate response," Oropeza said. "And to say they don't have time is totally inappropriate …The law should be applied equally to everybody."</p><p>DMV spokesman Mike Marando said the agency may be able to come up with a more streamlined method of accessing the shielded addresses.</p><p>"We'll be happy to work with them," Marando said.</p><p><b>TROUBLE WITH TOLLS</b></p><p>Toll road operators face an added barrier in collecting payment because they don't have legal access to confidential addresses. The two agencies in Orange County handle the problem differently.</p><p>The Transportation Corridor Agencies, which operates the Foothill, San Joaquin Hills and Eastern toll roads, said it mails delinquent toll notices to the agency listed in lieu of the home address, and believes such tickets are getting paid.</p><p>"There is the potential that the violation may not be forwarded by the agency to the individual, but we have yet to experience that condition," Frank Barbagallo, deputy director of toll operations wrote in an e-mail.</p><p>The OCTA, the agency that runs the 91 Express Lanes, sends the violations to a collections agency in New York, which attempts to find home addresses through its own means.</p><p>It's an automated process OCTA inherited when it purchased the toll road in 2003. OCTA spokesman Joel Zlotnik said that is why the agency was unaware of the thousands of confidential plate violations that had gone unpaid. The violations make up a fraction of the 14.5 million trips on the toll road each year.</p><p>After obtaining the OCTA logs, the Register used media access rights at the DMV to attach names to the license plates, then attempted to contact the top violators through the agency that employed them. The Register also tried to find personal telephones and attempted to contact the violators that way. Most motorists did not respond to the calls.</p><p>"With so many violations I'm stunned that the toll road wouldn't have at least reached out," said Orange County Sheriff Capt. Dave Nighswonger, who was contacted by The Register about a jail guard, Edward Lutz, who had 171 toll violations over a two-year period. "We can encourage our employees to reach out to them and reconcile that."</p><p>News of the violations caused officials in many of the agencies to launch internal investigations. The Los Angeles World Airport Police Organization, which employs Duplessis, said it was initiating a complete review of its confidentiality records.</p><p>Several agencies said their employees had toll accounts in good standing but had failed to add new vehicles to their accounts or had problems with their transponders. Some violators contacted OCTA after hearing from a reporter and paid the past-due tolls.</p><p>Unlike most motorists with toll account problems, many of these violators won't have to pay delinquent fees. Because of the protected plates, OCTA did not find them within the 66 days required by law and can't assess fines.</p><p>So Lutz, for example, the Orange County jail guard, simply paid the outstanding tolls, about $300, Nighswonger said.</p><p>Regular toll road customers caught in a similar situation are typically found through their DMV records, sent violation notices, and charged tens of thousands of dollars in fines if they ignore the bills.</p><p>As an example, the penalties on the account of an Orange County couple who accrued some 80 toll violations in 2003 because of an expired credit card ballooned from $580 in tolls to $53,550 in civil penalties, court records show.</p><p>After The Register found the toll road scofflaws, OCTA's Zlotnik acknowledged that the agency may not have been doing all it could to track them down. "Since this issue has arisen, we're looking at ways to address the situation to help prevent this from happening in the future," he said.</p><p>The Register found few checks on the confidential plates program.</p><p>The DMV does not independently audit the system, relying on the responsible agencies to monitor their own participants. But that doesn't always happen.</p><p>The San Bernardino Police Department could not identify a woman named Brenda Orantes, who ran up 411 violations on the 91 tollway under a confidential plate obtained through that department, the records show. Lt. Scott Paterson said Orantes is not an employee and is not listed as a relative.</p><p>A few agencies audit their program and were able to give a count of their participants. Fullerton Police, for example, said that 273 vehicles and 338 drivers have confidentiality through the department.</p><p>But most of those contacted, including the California Highway Patrol, the LAPD and the California Department of Corrections, were not able to tell a reporter how many people have obtained DMV confidentiality through their departments.</p><p>"We don't have a system to go through," LAPD Sgt. Leland Sands says. "That's not something that we would check."</p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-48019165814160673532008-04-02T11:17:00.000-07:002008-04-02T12:03:08.928-07:00This time the social worker is shielded<span style="color:red;"> Government shielding Incompetence. Social worker not identified. This is too common to allow to continue. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Social Workers Immune From Suit Over Investigation C.A.</span><br /><br />By STEVEN M. ELLIS, Staff Writer<br /><br />The Third District Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that social workers who released a minor back into her father's custody less than three days after she had been removed because of his PCP-induced behavior are immune from liability in the minor's suit over her father's subsequent attempt to kill her.<br /><br />Affirming the decision of Sacramento Superior Court Judge Eugene L. Balonon, the court ruled that employees of the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services are entitled to discretionary acts immunity under Government Code Sec. 820.2 because state law requiring an investigation of the potential risk to a child prior to such a release imposes a discretionary, rather than mandatory duty, and because the social worker's admittedly "lousy" investigation was nonetheless a "considered decision balancing risks and advantages."<br /><br />Mijalina Ortega, then 11 years old, was taken into custody by Child Protective Services on Aug. 21, 2001 after her father was found screaming in the street and arrested. Her mother was absent, and tests showed later that her father was under the influence of phencyclidine, or PCP, a hallucinogenic drug that can create profound psychological disturbances for days after ingestion.<br /><br />A social worker conducted an investigation whether releasing Ortega from custody would place her at risk under state law requiring such an investigation and initial decision within 48 hours, but allegedly failed to look into the father's background or the effect of his PCP use.<br /><br />Ortega's father had both a history of domestic violence and substance abuse, and Ortega had previously been removed from his custody in 1998 when he was arrested in her presence on outstanding warrants.<br /><br />Nevertheless, on Aug. 24, the social worker released Ortega into her father's custody.<br /><br />Four days later, Ortega's father approached her in their shared apartment with nail polish remover and told her to drink it to kill herself. When she refused, he brought her a knife and told her to use it kill herself.<br /><br />When she again refused, he stabbed her in the heart. Ortega fled, but her father chased her down, pulled her back into the apartment, and stabbed her in the lung.<br /><br />Ortega fled the apartment a second time and collapsed before receiving medical attention.<br /><br />The stabbing led to a 22-year prison sentence for her father.<br /><br />Ortega brought suit in 2005, alleging that the social workers violated mandatory duties imposed by statute and were negligent in releasing her into her father's custody because they failed to determine the facts surrounding her entry into custody, failed to determine the potential for existence of conditions placing her at risk if released, and failed to perform tasks identified in the CPS handbook.<br /><br />Anticipating that the defendants would assert a defense of discretionary acts immunity under Sec. 820.20which provides that, "[e]xcept as otherwise provided by statute, a public employee is not liable for an injury resulting from his act or omission where the act or omission was the result of the exercise of the discretion vested in him, whether or not such discretion be abused" Ortega alleged that the social workers's failures related to operational, ministerial matters not subject to their discretion.<br /><br />However, Balonon granted summary judgment for the defendants, holding that they were entitled to discretionary immunity because investigations are uniquely discretionary activities with highly subjective decisions.<br /><br />On appeal, Justice Richard Sims III wrote for the Court of Appeal to affirm Balonen's ruling.<br /><br />Rejecting Ortega's claims that Sec. 815.6 which requires an investigation and determine potential risk to child imposes discretionary, rather than mandatory duties, Sims wrote:<br /><br />"[T]he statute and regulation relied upon by plaintiff merely required defendants to conduct an investigation and determine the potential risk to the child. Neither of these are ministerial duties, and both involve a formidable amount of discretion."<br /><br />Sims also rejected Ortega's claims that the CPS handbook which sets forth specific protocols to be followed in conducting 48-hour investigation set forth ministerial, rather than discretionary duties.<br /><br />Noting that the social worker had conducted an investigation albeit on "woefully inadequate information" - that was a considered decision balancing the risks and advantages of releasing Ortega, Sims said that "the exercise of discretion invariably entails the collection and evaluation of information."<br /><br />He continued:<br /><br />"Thus, the collection and evaluation of information is an integral part of "the exercise of discretion immunized by section 820.2. The distinction urged by plaintiff would eviscerate section 820.2 immunity, because in every case there would have to be a trial on the step-by-step actions which comprised the investigation forming the basis for an exercise of discretion.<br /><br />"This is an untenable result."<br /><br />Justices Coleman Blease and Ronald B. Robie joined Sims in his opinion.<br /><br />The case is Ortega v. Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services, C054262.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5564890848555890345.post-43565336986986872632008-03-27T19:41:00.000-07:002008-03-27T19:43:53.510-07:00How Bad Can Alabama Reporting GET?<span style="font-weight:bold;">Former Millbrook Police Officer Sentenced to One Year in Prison</span><br /><font color=red> WSFA 12 NEWS STATION Failed To Identify the JUDGE</font Color=red><br /><br />March 27, 2008 10:48 AM<br /><font color=red> Is this a joke?!?</font color=red><br />Stay Informed and Help Us Cover The News<br />What We're Working On emails from WSFA 12 News.<br />Talk to WSFA 12 News About This Story<br /><font color=red> (Hey, how about Doing the story?)</font color=red><br /><br />Montgomery, Al. (WSFA)-- A former Millbrook police officer who pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct charges in January will serve one year in prison. <br /><br />Francisco Aponte was arrested in May of 2007 for the rape of a Millbrook woman while he was on duty.<br /><br />The victim told medics at the hospital she had been attacked and raped by a Millbrooke officer.<br /><br />When Chief Kenneth Bradley of the Millbrook P.D. learned one of his officer was involved in the case he immediately turned the case over to the Elmore County Sheriff's Department.<br /><br />Aponte was fired immediately after being taken into custody.<br /><br />A grand jury then indicted him in July of 2007 for rape, sexual abuse, and sexual misconduct. <br /><br />On Thursday morning, he was sentenced to one year in prsion.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com