9th Circuit Orders Stay In Disbarment Case of Richard I Fine

Los Angeles, CA On Wednesday, September 2, 2009 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Commissioner Peter L. Shaw issued a Stay Order in the Disbarment case of Richard I Fine (No. 09-80130) pending his appeal of the U. S. District Court denial of his petition for a Writ a Habeas Corpus. The Order cited a "significant overlap between the discipline case and the issues raised by respondent's pending habeas petition Fine v. Sheriff of Los Angeles County (No. 09-56073)".

JUDGE FAILS TO RECUSE: NOW AN ISSUE
This New twist provides promising in the ten year ongoing saga of beleaguered Anti-Trust Attorney Richard I Fine who has been jailed for contempt of court indefinitely. Fine was jailed by L A Superior Court Judge David Yaffe on March 4, 2009 for refusing to comply with a court order which Fine claims was an illegal order imposed by a Judge who was receiving illegal payments from in interested party in the case before him. At his March 4, 2009 Superior Court sentencing hearing, (No. 109420) Mr. Fine attempted to disqualify Judge David Yaffe from sitting on the case, noting he had been receiving payments from L. A. County, an interested party in the case (Marina Strand Colony Homeowners Assn. vs. County of L.A.).

TRANSCRIPT OF COURT TESTIMONY
A transcript of Mr. Fine's court testimony, under oath is available at this URL: http://www.fulldisclosure.net/FineContemptTranscript3-4-09.pdf. Mr. Fine also cited the October 10, 2008 Fourth District Court of Appeals ruling in Sturgeon vs County of L.A. (No. D050802) that held the payments by the County to the Judge were illegal. A copy of the ruling is available here: http://www.judicialwatch.org/documents/2008/sturgeon-v-losangeles-ruling.pdf

REACTION FROM RICHARD I FINE:

• "This is highly significant because the issues in the disbarment and the issues in the Writ are identical. The California Supreme Court disbarred me because I brought federal civil rights cases against the judges because they were taking illegal, criminal and unconstitutional payments from the county. "
  
• "The underlying issue is whether the Judges were denying people due process because they were taking money from the county. And, we know that the money they were taking from the county was unconstitutional under the Sturgeon case and it was criminal under Senate Bill SBX2 11 and we know those actions were a denial of due process of under the various U S Supreme court cases from 1927 through 2009."


• "So in the end when the 9th Circuit will decide that it was a denial of due process for Judge Yaffe to have received illegal, criminal and unconstitutional payments from the county, a party to the case. This decision will control the disbarment proceeding. "


• "There is further significance because four of the six California Supreme Court Justices who refused to review the Disbarment case and thereby caused the disbarment also had received illegal, criminal and unconstitutional payments from the counties and the other two Supreme Court Justice are members of Judicial Council who wrote the Senate Bill SBX2 11. (Retroactive Judicial Immunity from Criminal and Liability Prosecution) "These justices should have recused themselves from the disbarment case and by not doing so denied me due process under the US Supreme Court’s cases."

RELATED EVENTS:

• August 12, 2009: Ninth Circuit Court Justice Andrew J. Kleinfeld restores Richard I Fine's rights to appeal the U S District Court order denying Certificate of Appealablity "with prejudice" on the issue of whether or not the Trial Court Judge David Yaffe should have recused himself.


• August 31st, 2009: Richard I Fine filed an opening brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal raised the issue of having been denied due process by L A Superior Court Judge David Yaffe who had refused to recuse himself from the case after having received illegal payments from a party involved in the case and that he himself was a party involved in the contempt case.
  

Richard I Fine Appeal Rights Restored by Ninth Circuit Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld

Los Angeles CA Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Andrew Jay Kleinfeld has issued an Order restoring Richard I. Fine's right to appeal that was previously denied with prejudice, by the lower District Court. At issue was the Civil Contempt of Court Judgment Order signed by L A Superior Court Judge David Yaffe on March 4, 2009 remanding Fine to the custody of the L. A. County Sheriff for an indefinite period of time, without bail, without a release date or a hearing date.

TRIAL JUDGE SHOULD HAVE RECUSED?
Judge Kleinfeld's Order states: "Under Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U>S> 322 (2003), appellant need not show that he is probably correct or that there is a substantial likelihood that he is correct in order to obtain a certificate of appealability. A Certificate of appealability is required if he demonstrates that reasonable jurists would find the district court's assessment of his constitutional claims "debatable." (Id. at 338.) ...........

• "Accordingly, appellant is granted a certificate of appealability in the issue of whether the trial judge should have recused himself. See28 U.S.C. 2253(c)(3); see also 9th Cir.R.22-1(e)"
  

DENIED RECUSAL OF DISTRICT JUDGES:

Ironically, Fine had previously filed motions to recuse both Judge John F. Walter and Magistrate Judge Carla Woehrle due to conflicts outlined in his recusal motions where he maintains the judges should not have considered his his Writ of Habeas Corpus and request for immediate release due to conflicts. Both recusal motions were denied by U.S. District Judge George H. King.

ILLEGAL COURT PROCEDURES QUESTIONED

Fine has been in solitary coercive confinement for five and half months based on Judge Yaffe's judgment Order. At the time of sentencing, Richard Fine raised the issue with Judge Yaffe that his sentence would be held illegal. In his Emergency Request for Release, Fine describes the conditions and circumstances of what he believes are unlawful actions by the District Court.

BRIEFING SCHEDULE FOR APPEAL SET:

Judge Kleinfeld's Order further states that once the appellant provides payment for filing and docketing fees, within 14 days, the following briefing schedule shall apply. The opening brief is due September 9, 2009, the answering brief is due October 9, and the optional reply brief is due within 14 days after service of the answering brief.

PERFECTED APPEAL WITH FILING FEES:

In a telephone interview with Mr. Fine from his jail cell today Full Disclosure learned that the required filing and docketing fees have been submitted to the U. S. Court and proof of payment is to be filed with the Ninth Circuit Court along with a motion for reconsideration of his Emergency request for immediate release.

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Breaking News On Richard I Fine........... Ninth Circuit Court To Decide Monday On Appeal Rights In Contempt Case

Los Angeles, CA The Full Disclosure Network is releasing an eight minute telephone interview with prominent Anti-Trust attorney Richard I Fine featuring his reaction to the news that a two-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will consider his request for a Certificate of Appealability on Monday, August 10, 2009 in San Francisco. Listen to the Audio of the interview here.

CIVIL CONTEMPT OF COURT

Ninth Circuit Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld and Milan Smith will decide on Monday whether to approve or deny Fine's request to issue a Certificate of Appealability . Without such an action Fine would be unable to appeal the U.S. Central District Court action that denied his Writ of Habeas Corpus request for immediate release from jail. He has been sentenced indefinitely for civil contempt of Court, for an undetermined period of time, without a trial, bail or date set for hearing or release.

JUDICIAL CONFLICT CHALLENGED
Fine was taken into custody on March 4, 2009 at a sentencing hearing following a long contempt proceeding where Fine had attempted to have the Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Yaffe disqualified from presiding due to illegal payments he had received from the County of Los Angeles, a party in the case Marina Strand Colony II Homeowners Assn. vs County of Los Angeles.

NINTH CIRCUIT PROCEDURE

According to David Madden, Assistant Executive for Court Information at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Certificate requires approval from only one Judge and considerations are not conducted in public. If the panel should issue the Certificate of Appealability, Fine's Emergency Motion would then move on to a "briefing" stage or, if denied, Fine could then request a "Reconsideration". No matter what happens, time and options are running out for Mr. Fine who has been held in the L.A. County Central Men's Jail, in solitary coercive confinement, for over five months. Strangely, no opposition to his Writ of Habeas Corpus, has been filed.

TRANSCRIPT 08-06-09 Full Disclosure telephone interview with Richard I. Fine:

• FINE: I think it's about time for the Court to consider the request for the Certificate of Appealability. That Emergency request was filed, if I remember correctly, somewhere in the vicinity of about July 3rd (2009) And, so- they're well over a month behind schedule. Normally something like that should have been considered way back early in July. The Certificate of Appealability is the very first thing that they consider with respect to an appeal, and the only reason that the 9th Circuit has to consider it is because of the fact that the District Court refused to issue a Certificate of Appealability even though we have numerous constitutional issues in the case, and even though no one opposed my Writ of Habeas Corpus at the District Court level.
  
• DUTTON: Is it unusual for the District Court to refuse or deny a Certificate of Appealability? That sounds so ominous that they would be denying you your right to appeal.
  
• FINE: Oh, it -- it's highly unusual. I mean it's basically not only unusual, it's outrageous. And particularly in this case where the Sheriff didn't even answer the Writ of Habeas Corpus and thereby broke the law, and in addition to that, the -- the Superior Court, didn't oppose any of the grounds in the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, and also didn't certify why I'm in jail. So the action in the District Court is just totally and completely outrageous.
  
• DUTTON: Will you explain to us, when the Judge John F. Walters denied the Certificate of Appealability he also made the notation "With Prejudice," what does that mean?
  
• FINE: Well, that basically means that we can't refile the Writ of Habeas Corpus in his court. And we can't really ask him to reconsider. So it meant that the case automatically goes right up to the, 9th Circuit. The way that the procedure works in the District Court is that the minute that we file a Notice of Appeal, the case is up into the 9th Circuit and the District Court has to either grant or deny a Certificate of Appealability. If the District Court grants the Certificate of Appealability, there is no question that the appeal goes forward in the 9th Circuit. If the District Court denies the Certificate of Appealability and denying With Prejudice, that means that automatically the 9th Circuit considers the Certificate of Appealability. And what Judge Walter did was he denied the Certificate of Appealability and he checked the box saying that there was no constitutional right that was (inaudible), which is totally and completely, beyond belief given the fact that there are about a number, there's the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment constitutional rights that were violated in this case. So, I mean it's -- but we know from looking at what Judge Walter did, we know that he never even read the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus. So the denial of the Certificate of Appealability is consistent with, everything he did in this case.
  
• DUTTON: Well, I guess that, the next step then is to wait for Monday to see what happens with the two judge panel in San Francisco and, and then go from there.
  
• FINE: That's correct. And hopefully, I would expect that they would grant the Certificate of Appealability and then, and then God willing they would immediately take up the Motion, to go to be released, and maybe even be correct enough to go forward and just overturn the case right then and there because given this particular case, this is such an unusual case that it's very seldom that you find a Writ of Habeas Corpus with no opposition.
  
• DUTTON: And I would like for our viewers' sake for you to explain why this is an emergency motion on your part.
  
• FINE: Well, it's an emergency motion on my part for a number of reasons. -- The first reason being that with no opposition to the Writ, there is no reason for me to have been (recording). With no opposition to the Writ, to have been in jail in the first place. The second thing that we have is the physical emergency that is taking place and that's since I've been in jail, I've contracted a staph infection, I've contracted back pains, and I have swelling of my legs, my feet and my ankles. So we've got the entire physical things that have happened that is due to having been in jail. And the third thing that we have happening is we have the financial problems that are taking place which is the, uh, the loss of the house, which can be coming up because of the fact that having been in jail, I've been denied my Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to earn a living. And, actually through that, we have the situation of possibility losing the house. So unless I get out of jail and can get out there and start earning some money, you know, I'm suffering physical hardship and suffering financial hardship.
  
• FINE: I'm now going into the sixth month of being unlawfully incarcerated.
  
• DUTTON: How is your family taking all of this?
  
• FINE: Well, needless to say my family are not happy campers about this. But, you know, there's one thing that I can say about my family, and that is that nothing is going to break our family. When this judge (inaudible) is going to try and coerce me into telling him about my assets so that he can go on with his unlawful activity and he figured he was going to break me and my family.
  
• That is not going to happen. You know, nothing will break our family unit. We will, end up prevailing and justice will prevail, and 38 million Californians are going to get their judicial system back before we will give in to this particular judge, or to any of the judges who received immunity for their criminal actions. We're going to get our judicial system back, and these judges are going to be gone whether they resign or whether we vote them out of office. But they will be gone and we will get our judicial system back.

# # # # #

Breaking News: U S. 9th Circuit Court to Free Richard I. Fine?

U S COURT OF APPEAL 9th CIRCUIT TO TAKE ON PLIGHT OF RICHARD I. FINE?

Los Angeles CA. After 93 days in L. A. County Central Men's Jail on a Civil Contempt of Court sentence, prominent Anti-Trust attorney Richard I. Fine has had enough. He has finally taken matters into his own hands by filing with the U. S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Fine is representing himself "in pro-per" and has now been assigned a file number and placed on the official Court PACER website where the next steps in his on-going battle with the California Superior Court will be posted for all to see.

According to Mr. Fred Sottile, Volunteer Staff Coordinator for the FREE RICHARD FINE committee, the 9th Circuit Court Clerk "Bradley" contacted him by telephone today, June 3, 2009 , regarding the following actions of the Court saying, "Because this Writ should have been handled by the lower (Central District) Court, and because it was their responsibility to act on the original Habeas Corpus filing, we are returning the $455 filing fee as it would be improper for us to accept it."

U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit

File No. 09-71692

and the parties listed as follows:

RICHARD I. FINE
vs
JUDGE JOHN F. WALTER and MAGISTRATE JUDGE WOEHRLE
(Sheriff of Los Angeles County has custody of prisoner)

EMERGENCY

PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS BY

A PERSON IN FEDERAL CUSTODY

(23 U.S. C. 2241)

And Request For Immediate Release

after 90 days of unlawful incarceration

Sentence Date: March 4, 2009

No bail, no hearing date, indeterminate duration

After a plea of Not Guilty

Finding by judge without a jury

GROUND ONE: Violation of 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment (denial of due process) by having violated 28 USC Sec 2243

SUPPORTING FACTS: A petition for writ of Habeas Corpus was filed on March 20th, 2009 (Case# 09-CV-1914-JFW(CW) Magistrate Woehrle violated 28 USC 2243 by not ordering a response "forthwith" and instead waiting 18 days until April 7 to order respondent, Sheriff of Los Angeles County to respond to the petition.

The Sheriff did not identify any "interested party" other than the Sheriff and Petitioner on his notice of interested parties. He responded by claiming he did not have sufficient information to respond. His attorney claimed contact with the attorney for the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles and Judge Yaffe who indicated that they would respond if "directed" to do so by the Court.

On April 23, Magistrate Woehrle directed the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles to respond to the Petitioner by May 1, 2009. Such date of May 1, 2009 was greater than the 20 days allowed for a response to the petition under 28 USC 2243. Further, the Superior Court and Judge Yaffe were not within the Jurisdiction of the Federal Court as they had never appeared in the case.

The Superior Court and Judge Yaffe filed a response on May 1, 2009 and did not file a notice of interested parties or a notice of intervention. The response did not address the substance of the petition. Neither the response of the Sheriff nor the response of the Superior Court and Judge Yaffe addressed the petitioner's Ex Parte application for immediate relief filed April 9, 2009 to which Magistrate Woehrle ordered a response by both of them. As of May 30th, 2009, Magistrate Woehrle has not issued the writ of Habeas Corpus despite the fact that no opposition has been filed to the Petitioner by the Sheriff, the Superior Court or Judge Yaffe.

In summary, under the requirements of 28 USC Section 2243 the Court should have either awarded the writ on March 20th or March 21st or "issued an order directing the respondent to show cause why the writ should not be granted" on such days. The writ or order to show cause should have been directed to the Sheriff of Los Angeles County as the person who had custody of Petitioner Fine. The Sheriff "shall make a return certifying the true cause of the detention" within three days unless for good cause additional time not exceeding twenty days is allowed." This means that the Sheriff had to respond by April 11th at the latest under the statue, and that the Superior Court and Judge Yaffe would also have had to respond by such days.

The statute further provides "when the writ or order is returned, a day shall be set for hearing, not more than five days after the return unless for good cause additional time is allowed." This means that the hearing date should have been set for April 16th , at the latest. Petitioner is still incarcerated and has now been incarcerated for approximately 90 days without any substantive opposition to the petition and without any certification of the true cause of detention and without any hearing date being set. By these actions Magistrate Judge Woerhle and Judge Walter have violated the 5th and 14th amendment and 28 USC section 2243. The petition must be immediately granted and petitioner set free.

GROUND TWO: District Court Judges are themselves violating the law.

SUPPORTING FACTS: An original Writ of Habeas Corpus is being filed with the 9th Circuit because it cannot be filed in District Court. The District Court Judges are the ones now violating the law, 28 USC Section 2243, and the rights of the Petitioner . The District Court cannot hear the matter as the District court is biased and has conflicts of interest.

GROUND THREE: District Court refused to accept the writ without discarding all previous Habeas Corpus pleadings and filings; thus prolonging Petitioner's incarceration.

SUPPORTING FACTS: The District Court was presented with a federal writ. It was marked as received by the District Court but not filed. Petitioner has been illegally incarcerated for 90 days as retaliation by Los Angeles Judges for exposing illegal payments to 1,600 California Judges. Petitioner's disbarment appeal is also before the same District Court, Judge Walter is denying Petitioner both his civil liberties and his livelihood; contributing to his own illegal retaliation against Petitioner.

STATEMENT WHY U.S. COURT REMEDY WARRANTED:
State Court appeal not allowed under CCA Sec. 1209, Writ of Habeas Corpus to California Courts is exactly the sole remedy which was fully exhausted. Moreover, since incarceration on March 4, 2009 Petitioner has been denied all access to writing materials and to all written materials and legal documents. He was allowed into the library once in two weeks. This Writ of Habeas Corpus is based on Magistrate Woehrle's refusal to follow the requirements of 28 USC Sec. 2243.

(The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals posted on their Website receipt of the above Writ , a copy was provided to Full Disclosure by Mr. Fred Sottile of the FREE RICHARD FINE Committee who prepared and filed the document at Mr. Fine's direction)

Exclusive Full Disclosure Network video interview with Richard I Fine here.