The Problem With Lawyers

One of the other curious issues involved in the Judge Livingstone affair is the conduct of lawyers. We thought they also had ethical standards and believed in a moral code which sets standards for behavior and guides their actions. In thinking about this and discussing it with the many folks now concerned it becomes evident that lawyering is only about one thing to many lawyers, winning and losing and protecting their own.

We just heard one of those radio talk shows with several “law chicks,” as they call themselves discussing non-litigious approaches to divorce in a high minded and wonderful discourse. The lawyer leading the discussion is one of those lawyers who learned to win with Judge Livingstone and clearly has no ethical or moral standards in reality.

Michael Livingstone is a lawyer, and when you consider the issue, 50% of the lawyers in front of him win. Most of our legislators are lawyers, so do we really stand a chance of forcing Michael Livingstone to listen to the people?

We are not sure but are hoping that the few non-lawyer legislators including Vinny De Macedo, Tom Calter, Therese Murray, etc. will tip the balance for justice.

Lawyers, in the best interests of their clients, learn how to play judges like Michael Livingstone and can thereby win knowing that the facts and truth are absolutely irrelevant.

As they say in the legal biz: “The best law money can buy!”

At least Michael Livingstone goes cheap, “Hi Lo Corporation”, give us a break!

We The People

We hope that soon we can take up other issues that require the attention of Windowpain Clarity but unfortunately until this Judge Livingstone matter is “disposed of” it is probably the single most pressing issue of grave importance to the residents of the entire South Shore of Massachusetts. We have just come across another very recent tale of injustice, prejudice, bias and clear malfeasance on the part of the Judge that it must be publicly shared. We know this person personally so can provide you with very direct information. This is quite an extreme example of the human side of what Judge Livingstone damages and the devil is again in the details. Perhaps it will spur on action.

There is a gentleman in his late fifties with a 30 year record of being the CEO of several children’s charities, mostly providing services to abused children and to families with a high level college degree and an extensive record as an elected and appointed municipal official in two towns on the South Shore who has been battling a nasty divorce proceeding with his ex-wife for several years with Judge Michael Livingstone presiding .

From the beginning it has been clear that this judge has decided that somehow this fellow is a deadbeat Dad and even though Dad has never missed child support which he always pays at over what the formula requires and that he has paid more than his share to put now 2 children through university and keep one in a very expensive private school while battling congestive heart failure and other heart problems, various surgeries and has been fully invested in a startup to provide services for the disabled elderly and veterans, this Judge has continued to find against him. Even though this man has paid for his children to purchase cars, go to Europe and Argentina while he struggles to just keep his health and build his business, using mortgages and credit cards as do many startups, this judge treats him with extreme bias and prejudice. Relevant to this story is the fact that this gentleman was just out of the hospital for heart treatments due to a heart attack for five days before what is to follow.

In the third week of January 2008, now last week, Michael Livingstone sentenced this man to 90 days in a maximum security prison, the Plymouth County Correctional Facility. This man’s ex-wife who now with her new husband earns almost $400,000 a year as well as some unknown payout for him from his former vice-president’s position at Kingston Technology was determined to do as much harm to her former husband as she could and her lawyer and the judge were more than willing to cooperate during this hearing which was held to finalize some relatively small financial disagreements.

In the hearing itself Jude Livingstone heard the wife’s/plainfiff’s lawyer’s argument and then before hearing the man’s case that these educational costs were already paid had his clerk call down to the holding facility and prepare for the man to be incarcerated also positioning the courtroom bailiff behind the man again making it clear that this judge had made his decision before even hearing the father’s case or looking at his numbers.

We are told by the staff at both Brockton Court and the Plymouth Court that this is very common behavior for Judge Livingston. They for obvious reasons do not want to go on the record but indicated to us that they intensely dislike this judge and are fully aware of how he operates. They are aware of the charges against this judge and they indicated great relief knowing he would be gone as he damages their own integrity and clearly puts people in jail who never should be there.

There are too many issues in this situation to go into great detail beyond clear malfeasance in not considering both case arguments and then making a decision. Why is ninety days in a maximum security prison an appropriate sentence for a financial disagreement that was never discussed in a so-called “four way meeting?” This was a man that clearly loved his children and worked hard to support them and had just had a heart attack, he could have been being sentenced to death given the stress he experienced.

For now let us just finish with the subject line, “We The People,” this judge is answerable to no one and must be held to the letter of the law, not unfairly as he treats people in his courtroom but fairly and with transparency and due process. The transparency, windowpain clarity, is up to us, the due process must take place.

Livingstone Cuts Deal

Word has it that Plymouth County Probate and Family Court Judge Michael Livingstone has cut a deal with the Commission on Judicial Conduct (CJC) to step down so they will be forced to drop their action against him. Thus the indefinite postponement first released on December 20 of last year. There are two outstanding problems with this, the first is that until he does step down he continues to irreparably damage families, children, Moms and Dads with his off the wall decisions. We thought CJC and the legislature had a duty to uphold laws and protect the public as their primary duties. Letting a guy who clearly has problems continue to stay on the bench with all of that power over folks is nuts and makes us question why CJC even exists if this is all they can do.

Media outlets other than this one are withholding publishing or going on the air with the story because they are worried that somehow this will cause him to retaliate or strike back and refuse to resign. Believe all of us who know this guy, it can’t get any worse and if you all had not heard yet, all bullies are chickens harboring deep-seated self-esteem problems and bad press is like a high colonic for them, best possible cure. Right now he is like a cornered tiger and does not care what he does being even more dangerous than he already was.

All of which leads to the “big” issue, how to prevent this happening in the future besides preventing Jane Swift from appointing judges, which should no longer be a problem. We are researching the pros and cons of elected judges and can see a system whereby judges are elected every four years and forbidden to campaign, thus no special interest money. The press has the responsibility to publicize judge profiles for the public at election timed to help the decision but the judges are forbidden from campaigning.

After seeing what can go wrong, especially in family court, we figure there has got to be a better way. Why do two of the three pillars of democracy, executive and legislative have to be subject to the will of the people but the third does not?

Many states elect judges quite successfully and layering in the component of preventing campaigning from being an issue removes some of the problems an elected judge system does experience, the influence of money.

We believe it long past time for a dialog on this issue leading to a statewide referendum to subject all state district judges to election and creating the statutes or constitutional changes to make this possible. Unfortunately Michael Livingstone is not the only judge who needs a second look and better oversight.

Charity Ratings and Realities

A new thread we are planning to comment on relates to charities, philanthropies and to how good works are best accomplished. This time of year this topic is on everyone’s minds and it is surprisingly different than many may realize. Like any business charities suffer their ups and downs and have good ones and bad ones with the bulk generally doing an okay job. The difference about charities is that they are able to cover up their activities because many folks prefer to maintain a good feeling rather than examine too closely the reality of the matter. This of course makes charitable activity a fertile ground for cons and fraudulent activity cloaking such improper and usually illegal actions in what we ahve called the “halo effect.” So rule one is not to be fooled by the subject matter of an organization, if you are thinking of donating please perform your due diligence as you would with any other business investment.

Two sites may be of particular help. www.charityezone.com is a portal that connects you to many other sites offering information on charitities including the philanthropic arm of the Better Business Bureau. www.guidestar.org contains the federal tax returns of many charities which although they can be misleading are better than nothing.

Most ratings services focus on large charities so your neighborhood shelter or animal  assistance program is probably not rated. But smaller charities are easier to scrutinize because they require less analysis and time, just talk to the clients, the staff, the volunteers and the board members to get a sense of how your money will be used.

It is not that easy to quote percentages of overhead because like any business new charities have higher overheads than old ones but generally speaking overhead should not exceed 20% without a good reason. And bear in mind that a charity must make its books available on request to anyone who asks, refusal to do this indicates a problem.

The new direction of doing good is to combine beneficial activity with business so that the two are in many cases now becoming indistinguishable.  This makes due diligence a little more difficult but the effort to understand what “social entrepreneurism” is all about will make it even more worthwhile. The advantage of a charity figuring out how to support itself as a business or how to accomplish its mission as a business is that the chances that the pain and problems they are tackling stand a much better chance of being ameliorated than if they wait on contributions or contracts.

There is no excuse for charities’ boards or staffs committing errors or crimes in their work these days as so much business assistance and guidance is available from many institutions and individuals.  Do not accept the excuse that criminal activity was committed in the name of “doing good” anymore than you accept that the killing of innocents is justified by terrorist beliefs, there is no difference except in hopefully degree of damage.

Statins and Scooters

Sorry to have been down for a couple of weeks we were managing a problem created by a couple of our doctors who are all eager pants to keep cholesterol below 70 by administering in this case Lipitor and then Vytorin. When we began this “healthy regiment” five years ago we thought it was a reaction to stopping  physcial activities of walking and swimming which produced almost debilitating pain in my legs and the doctors confirmed that it could not possibly be the statins. Come a few weeks ago and suddenly the entire body was filled with pain which for a relatively young person was not pleasant.  Research over the Internet indicates that muscle degeneration, possibly irreversible is one of those “little” side effects produced by statin use. The medical and scientific professions have little idea what causes it or how to predict it but by God it won’t stop them writing prescriptions for statins to now over 1/2 billion people. We would ourselves predict that this is going to go the way of other under-researched drugs that went to market way too soon and whose long term effects were not clearly understood

Of course now we understand why we are seeing so many scooter ads on TV. Pretty soon no one will be able to walk and will require a scooter to get around. It is hard not to see this as a convenient plot between scooter companies and big pharma benefitting both while killing off humans. True clarity is such a pain!

Smaller the take, more dangerous the crook

We wondered about this as well, he is risking losing a career for relatively small change. Besides the thought about what did the CJA not catch him on which is almost a complement in many circles is the realization that Michael Livingstone is not a very mentally stable man. Not the person we want deciding the fate of children, abused women, families, fathers and other vulnerable populations. This is why we are doing everything we can to wake up the legislators on this, they must suspend him until the CJA hearings are held. It is unbelievable that there is no oversight especially when lawyers practicing in Plymouth County are afraid of him and outside lawyers want to stay away. That blows recusal or appeal options to the winds which are the normal ways to handle judge mistakes. We were told by one lawyer that to request recusal from this guy would endanger his clients on other cases he had in front of him. This is like Germany in the 1930’s and many other dictatorships and lawless countries today. Our elected officials must take action immediately, this is too vulnerable a population which can suffer a lifetime of damage because those charged with the responsibility did not do their jobs.

Rational Legislative Response to Michael Livingston Challenge

It appears that neither Michael Livingstone or his lawyer are categorically denying the charges of the CJC. Given the seriousness of this alleged conduct and the importance of a judge’s role why has the legislature not acted to suspend, with pay if necessary, this man? Under most other circumstances, police officer, teacher, prosecuting lawyer, when charges are alleged the person is suspended pending an investigation. How can our legislature, which is the body having the authority to discipline, suspend, fire or retire judges, not take action here to protect the public? Judges are clearly the cornerstone of our legal system and our democracy, the cost of suspending with pay Michael Livingstone would be a small price to pay to protect our rights.

More Fruitcakes in Kingston or is it Smoked Catering Jobs?

Last night’s special town meeting in Kingston could be best compared to a spy versus spy exercise in Mad Magazine, incompetence and sneakiness all around or perhaps we could question what is being smoked here, meat or psychoactive substances. The main event of the evening was Motion 1 a land swap home rule petition to allow for a southbound ramp to be created between exits nine and eight on route 3 for the 730 unit 40R development. Unfortunately there exists a lot of difficult questions about the feasibility of such a ‘slip lane’ least not of which is that this was already attempted in the early nineties when the train station went in and the Federal Highway Administration made it clear that their governing rules which apply to Route 3 could not be waived relative to distance between exits, sight lines, etc.

So the back bench opposition’s plan was not to try to kill it as the usual 200+ interested parties were present to drive the motion through now being promised more ball fields, hearkening back to a famous  political promise to “put a ball field in every Kingston household,” which should be achieved shortly but to postpone full consideration of the motion until the next town meeting, not an unreasonable aim given all of the outstanding questions. Unfortunately the Mayflower survivor (just ask him) who was picked to do this selected the wrong subsidiary motion to the main motion as his tool. Instead of “postponing to a certain date,” which is a debatable motion and requires a simple majority he selected the motion to “table” or lay on the table which is not debatable and requires a 2/3 majority. The ever compliant moderator stuffed the opposition on this one even though she did have the responsibility to explain the 7 subsidiary motions which were other options to such an important issue. So Motion 1 went through like a greased porkchop.

Another fun one requiring the “executive” to exhibit great public dissembling was  the motion to change the zoning on the old town house to multi use to make it more valuable as a structure. Currently zoned single family R-20 it was generally understood that due to the requirements to keep its architectural heritage intact it was doubtful that any family would want to live in basically what would look like an old public building. So the vote was about to go through like one more porkchop until several town meeting members looked under the hood referencing the existence of a Purchase and Sale Agreement that had already committed the town to sell the property for $70,000 so the change in zoning only benefited the party paying the low price and raising more money for the sale was not driven by the zoning change, just the value to this buyer. Besides great curiosity about who this buyer is was the other notable series of facial twitches and other Spy vs. Spy sneaky body language that several members of the board of selectmen exhibited as the true story unfolded. And the motion went down.

The final shoot yourself in the foot motion involved reducing the finance committee from 9 to 7 members due to their inability to achieve quorum.  Since most of the town knows that the finance committee has been no more than a rubber stamp since the current moderator took over, this position’s arguably most important function is to appoint this check and balance advisory committee, then reducing the numbers would thereby reduce the checks on the executive juggernaut in which the moderator seems to have a stake (more singing gigs?). Of course administrative history tells us that when a committee is reduced in size consensus actually increases and the committee becomes more powerful. So Windowpain Clarity makes a prediction, our first, look for the finance committee to get stronger and no longer be the door mat it has been which can only benefit the town through what is bound to be years of difficult times.

Fruitcakes in Kingston

Alright so it is easy to kick Kingston politicians around because they already have one foot off the ground stuck in their mouth so let’s get in line.

Where to start, where to start??????

Oh I know, let’s offer free legal services to improve the value of the Kingston creme de la creme in exchange for a few hundred of them coming down to re-vote an issue and pretend it is not bribing voters???? Here is the Mass General Laws Statute:

PART I. ADMINISTRATION OF THE GOVERNMENT

TITLE VIII. ELECTIONS

CHAPTER 56. VIOLATIONS OF ELECTION LAWS

CERTAIN PRACTICES FORBIDDEN

Chapter 56: Section 32. Bribery of voter

Section 32. No person shall, directly or indirectly, pay, give or promise to a voter, any gift or reward to influence his vote or to induce him to withhold his vote.

Violation of any provision of this section shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than one year.

Wow, golly, gee that seems really complicated. I don’t see any bribery there, snicker. What do you think our judge friend “Iron Mike” would rule, yup no gift or reward there. What the hell is wrong with our appointed and elected prosecutors, surely they do not want to betray how deep the special interests have their hands in their pockets. Do something Mr. Cruz, we thought you were a good Catholic with your scion at Sacred Heart, where are your ethics and God only knows this thing falls against the Dems who are all standing there with their paws out, do it, maybe a few more people will decide to vote Republican so your meetings are not so lonely. The DA is supposed to enforce bribery laws, what are you preparing to move to Chicago (our apologies to de Bears not to mention the Blackhawks)?

And then there is the Keystone Board of Selectmen in that town. Do they realize how obvious they are, do they actually think they are being subtle or clever in promoting a 25% or so larger population and what their motives are? Do their minions not realize that everyone knows their motives………. ooooh Mr. Bott, that consultant’s salary looks really tempting doesn’t it? Why should everyone else get all the goodies, you are really the smart one. OOOOH……………….

Do you guys really think everyone in Plymouth County fell off the turnip truck?

let’s get started

So one of the most unfair and irritating experiences over the last years has been dealing with a fellow who is a judge in the Plymouth County Probate and Family Court by the name of Michael J Livingstone. Who is this guy? How did he get to be a judge? He rules without concern for the facts and does not care when his judgments are seriously flawed. He has a reputation amongst all of the lawyers who work hard for their clients as being unreasonable and unwilling to reconsider his decisions as flawed as they may be. His demeanor is juvenile and egotistical. He insults clients and lawyers alike from his bench and is the perfect example of a man who should be dismissed from the bench, if this is the kind of judge the public gets then where is the joke because this guy must be a comic. Maybe he is shooting to be a TV judge, great, get to Hollywood.

Tell us some stories, we have heard many and will relate some of them if you guys do not post them. This guy has to be de-wigged!

Or tell us about any other judges, they hide up there and withstand transparency like Darth Vader, let’s change that.