Chicago to $10 an Hour!

RESEARCH ATTORNEY (4105 W. 26th St.) Date: 2010-03-08, 9:11AM job-ff5pp-1633948536@craigslist.org

Illinois licensed attorney with exceptional research and legal drafting skills needed to support attorney work in several areas of law, including immigration, bankruptcy, mortgage foreclosure and loan modification, family, criminal, among others. The position is full time -- 9am to 6pm, Monday through Friday, and requires a natural talent for writing and research, an ability to produce exceptional work within a short amount of time, as numerous assignments will always be in the queue. This is a great intro position for someone who has this talent but minimal experience, and wants to learn a great deal quickly in many areas of law. The pay is non-negotiable $10/hour with a review in six months' time. Full benefits are provided after three month probation term is passed. This is the legal equivalent of the medical school graduate's residency experience.

• Location: 4105 W. 26th St.
• Compensation: $10/hour
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Federal Judge in PA Says That The Two "Kids For Cash" Judges Can Be sued

"Kids For Cash" Judges Conahan and Ciavarella

Federal Judge Rules Ciavarella and Conahan Can be Sued for Non-Judicial, Administrative Actions

Judges Not Dismissed from Lawsuit

Philadelphia, PA (November 20, 2009)—U.S. District Judge Richard Caputo today granted in part and denied in part Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella’s requests for judicial immunity. The court declined to dismiss the two former Luzerne County judges from the federal civil lawsuit with respect to their conduct outside the courtroom as alleged in the complaint filed by the plaintiffs.

“This is an important victory for the plaintiffs. They will have the opportunity to pursue their allegations against the judges for their conduct outside the courtroom, including their acceptance of kickbacks and their conspiring with the developer and owner of the private for profit facilities,” says Marsha Levick, Deputy Director at Juvenile Law Center.

In the order, the court granted Ciavarella’s request for judicial immunity for his actions inside the courtroom. Although the judicial immunity doctrine is well entrenched in U.S. court history - thus barring civil lawsuits against judges for acts inside the courtroom - this will not shield Ciavarella from criminal proceedings against him and provides no protections for his actions outside the courtroom in the civil litigation.

Today’s order states, “That is not to say, however, that every act alleged of the two was judicial in nature. For example, Conahan’s signing of a ‘Placement Agreement’ would be an administrative, not a judicial act. Similarly, any acts in making budget requests to the Luzerne County commissioners would also be administrative or executive in nature. And the actions of Conahan and Ciavarella in coercing probation officers to change their recommendations is outside of the role of a judicial officer.”

The order continues, “The Motions to Dismiss by Ciavarella and Conahan will be granted as to their courtroom conduct. Specifically, Conahan’s motion will be granted as to his action granting injunctive relief preventing the release of the PACC audit. Ciavarella’s motion will be granted as to his juvenile delinquency determinations and the sentences he imposed. As to the remaining allegations against each, the doctrine of judicial immunity does not shield them from liability, because the other allegations relate to non-judicial acts. I will deny their Motions to Dismiss as to such non-judicial conduct.”

Juvenile Law Center is a national, non-profit, public interest law firm that advances and protects the rights and well-being of children in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. For more information contact Lourdes Rosado at (215) 625-0551.

See also my articles on these two judges on Parentadvocates.org:

The "Kids For Cash" Scandal: The Decisions of Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella in Hundreds of Juvenile Convictions are Overturned.

Pennsylvania's Judicial Conduct Board Tries To Salve The Reputations of The Board As Well As The Two "Kids For Cash" Judges

Don't Worry Bout It!

Oh the problem of these four little words. When I hear them I cringe. I have heard these words all too often in Court. They are usually spoken by some lawyer to their client. As in, "don't worry about ... your legal status (non-citizen), your out of state license privileges, your future ability to find employment, your ability to get a professional license, your ability to travel to Canada, etc. etc.

You have to anticipate Collateral Consequences of anything. Everything (every decision) has far reaching and typically long lasting affects. Much like the game of dominoes, once we set a course of events into action, many fall one against the other, and often we cannot even predict when this chain of action will end.

So that said,

1. You have to talk to more than one lawyer about your problem. Get some different perspectives.

2. It is best to talk to a lawyer who specializes in the specific type of problem you are facing.

3. Just because someone has 20, 30, or 40 years of experience does not make him better.

4. Lawyers that use the phrase, "Don't Worry Bout It" should be avoided like the plague.

5. A DWI conviction can affect multiple life areas including your out of state driver's license, your professional licensure, your employability, your permanent record, your ability to travel freely, and your insurance rates and insurability.

As an example of this, I recently had a college student come to me with a first time DWI charge. He held a driver's license from another state. He was attending college in New York State. Since he was planning on staying here for a number of years (establishing residency) for college he should have switched over his license to New York State.

Now he faced a crossroads. Should he switch his license before his initial appearance? Should he get a New York State license? Some lawyers told him, "Don't worry bout it," I told him if I represented him I would investigate the potential DWI conviction ramifications back in his home state. I am a member of the National College of DUI Defense, and have DWI defense friends (on my list serve) as an invaluable resource of information.

The range of consequences in these situations is immense. From fines of $3,000 (ie. New Jersey) to license revocations of 210 days (ie. New Jersey) without conditional (any) driving privileges. So these decisions (much like choosing a lawyer) should not be made or taken lightly. What happens in Colorado, Mass., PA, and the other 43 states varies. But making educated and informed decisions by knowing what happens and saying "don't worry bout it" are two totally different things.

Obama's Health Reform news

Over the past year the House and the Senate have been working on an effort to provide health insurance reform that lowers costs, guarantees choices, and enhances quality health care for all Americans.

continue

Lack of Estate Tax in 2010: Now Cheaper to Die?

Lack of Estate Tax in 2010: Now Cheaper to Die?

Fighting Corruption in Medicine: How about Looking Into EmblemHealth?

NY. Fighting Corruption in Healthcare – We Thought Spitzer Had Left The Building
LINK

More corruption at very high levels of government in NY…

Can you say NY’s corruption is like a bottomless cesspool. It stinks so bad, no one wants to clean it.

This story written by a Member of an Association of Retired Police Officers:
This is a story of how disgraced former NYS Gov. Eliot Spitzer “fast-tracked” legislation through the New York State legislature that authorized his hand-picked Insurance Superintendent, Eric Dinallo, (pictured at right) to approve the merger and conversion of non-profit health insurers HIP and GHI into a for-profit corporation.

So far, the conversion has been prevented with Mr. Spitzer resigning as Governor after being involved in a prostitution scandal, and Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo resigning on July 2, 2009. Mr. Dinallo was replaced by James Wrynn on August 20, 2009.
After being confirmed by the NYS Senate, Mr. Wrynn agreed to meet with myself and a group of NYPD/FDNY retirees on October 26, 2009 to discuss our concerns regarding former governor Spitzer [a/k/a client number 9, resigned for getting caught with a prostitute with only his socks on] creating a public corporation where he, former Senator Joseph Bruno, who also resigned after being convicted of corruption, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver [another crook] would have control of the anticipated $3 to $5 billion proceeds from the initial sale of EmblemHealth stock if HIP/GHI was converted from a non-profit to a for-profit corporation under EmblemHealth.

Joe Bruno

Since Emblemhealth is a “shell” corporation formed by the board of directors of HIP and GHI, we filed a “Freedom of Information” request for the Independent Audit reports of HIP, GHI and EmblemHealth.

This FOIL request was recently denied by the NYS Insurance Department based on the objections of the Board of Directors of HIP and GHI[not grounds for denial as NYS FOIL law controls what documents by law need to be disclosed, not any board of directors] stating that since EmblemHealth, the “shell” corporation formed by the HIP/GHI boards was a “holding company”, EmblemHealth was not subject to NYS’s “Freedom of Information Laws”. [We'd love to know the actual NYS law the FOIL people sited for this.]

We now advise that this merger is corrupt and in need of investigation:

1. According to NYC records, in 2006, HIP had cash reserves of over $900 million and on March 10, 2005 HIP purchased a for-profit health care insurer named ConnectiCare for $354 million when, according to the Massachusetts Commissioner of Insurance, ConnectiCare, which operated in Massachusetts, had a net worth of only $4.0 million.

2. Since President Obama is saying that his health care reform bill will include investigating the “waste, fraud and corruption” that appears to be endemic to New York City’s health care system, I believe the Congress should look into why HIP would pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a small out-of-state health care insurer whose credit rating in December 2003 was lowered by Standard and Poor’s from “marginal” to “weak”, after ConnectiCare took out a $115 million bank loan that allowed ConnectiCare’s owners, “The Carlyle Group” and “Liberty Partners”, two Wall Street private equity firms, to get a dividend on their investment in the ConnectiCare.

3. In addition, as stated above, since HIP paid $354 million for a health insurer whose net worth was only $4.0 million, and Attorney General Cuomo has ignored Mayor Bloomberg’s complaint that the conversion of HIP/GHI to a “single for-profit entity could increase health care costs by hundreds of millions of dollars” for New York City taxpayers, I fail to see how any New York member of the House, or the U.S. Senate, can support “fast-tracking” President Obama’s health reform bill that would add millions of dollars to New York State’s health care costs without first ensuring New York City’s health care insurers are being run in the best interest of New York City’s taxpayers and their active and retired employees, including the members of the NYPD Superior Officers Association Retired.

If you have any questions regarding the above, please feel free to contact me at your convenience.

Best regards,

NYPD Superior Officers Association Retired

Story Link

PS: Please feel free to pass the above and Mayor Bloomberg’s attached members to the other members of Congress and U.S. Senate for their consideration as well.

710.30 Un-noticed statements and voluntariness

Please join me as we take a trip deep into the weeds.

Fact - the People are required to serve a 710.30 notice when they intend to use statements of the defendant, which meet other criteria which will not be enumerated here.

Fact - Sometimes the People do not serve a 710.30 notice as to some or all statements meeting those criteria.

Fact - The Appellate Division, Fourth Department, has ruled that using such statements for the purpose of impeachment is perfectly okay even so (People v Pruitt, 6 AD3d 1233 [4th Dept, 2004] ["Contrary to defendant's further contention, a CPL 710.30 notice was not required because the challenged statement was elicited during rebuttal and was 'offered solely for the purpose of impeachment' (People v Hill, 281 AD2d 917...)"]). Note that this wasn't simply impeachment of a defendant during his testimony, but elicited during rebuttal, conceivably to impeach someone other than the defendant, though probably to impeach the defendant. A fortiori, if there is an un-noticed statement it can be used in direct impeachment of the defendant who testifies on his own behalf.

Where the People serve no 710.30 notice, the defendant cannot move to suppress, or else he forfeits his right to preclusion under 710.30. Therefore, if the only issue were notice, every un-noticed statement would be uniformly admissible regardless of the circumstances under which it was obtained. Police could literally beat a statement out of the defendant and, on this analysis, use it to impeach. This can't be the law.

What the prosecution would no doubt like is this: where there are issues of true voluntariness, such that a statement would not be usable even to impeach, the defendant must allege such when the statements are offered. This, however, represents a motion to suppress, which immediately forfeits the defendant's right to preclusion. Therefore, in my view, this would unduly burden the defendant's federal and state constitutional rights, which prohibit the use of truly involuntarily obtained statements, by requiring the defendant to forfeit state statutory rights in order to protect constitutional ones.

In my opinion, and here's the shiny object in the weeds that I wanted to get to, the People have a burden under People v Huntley (15 NY2d 72 [1965]) to establish that the statement is voluntary before it can be admitted:"the jury passes on voluntariness only after the judge has fully and independently resolved the issue against the accused’ and has made express findings upon the disputed fact question of voluntariness." 710.30 doesn't reduce the People's burden on voluntariness from beyond a reasonable doubt to nothing whatever. The defendant should not be deprived of this constitutional right by requiring him to forfeit his state statutory right in order to exercise his federal right. Using an un-noticed statement, it seems to me, represents a due process violation not because the statement should be suppressed, but because it should not be admitted without proof that it was not involuntarily obtained, which the defendant need not even allege because to do so would improperly require him to forfeit other rights.

It might still be worth making a suppression motion mid-trial, certainly if there is potential proof on your side that the statement was truly involuntarily made, and potentially if the normal Huntley motion can be made (I am somewhat uncertain about this - it's a esoteric part of an obscure topic), i.e. move to suppress without specificity. The People's inconvenience at this point is due to their failure to serve notice.