The insidious effects of not addressing public corruption is that public corruption tends to increase as a result. Think about that for a moment with respect to criminal psychology 101: A perp knocks over a bank or convenience store. The heist was easy, no one was shot or killed, they made off with a pile of dough in mere minutes. Criminal psychology tells us that our perp will likely repeat the crime. Indeed, even our law enforcement follows leads only so far before moving on to the next higher priority case, waiting for a perp to repeat the same M.O. so that they might gather more evidence, put together a pattern and assemble more clues as to the perps identity.
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Have you ever noticed how one bank robbery is rarely covered, yet if there are a pattern of bank robberies, a picture or other evidence might be assembled and law enforcement labels the perp with a bandit name? It’s something you don’t hear a whole lot about but bank robbery is on the rise. Here is just a few names of wanted bandits in Los Angeles, A through D. http://labankrobbers.org/serial_bandits_list_of_names_A_thru_D.htm
This isn’t a coincidence. This is a product of basic criminal psychology. True manhunts typically only happen when people die, otherwise , they just collect evidence, patterns, photos and reports in the hope of some day catching the perp.
There are several troubling unanswered questions with respect to the AOC’s operations, their financial practices, their contracting practices and their construction and maintenance programs. Some of this is the subject of pending or impending litigation making it so no one can discuss these matters. Not only are those in power aware of this but if there is crime associated with this, if there are kickbacks happening, if there are bribes being paid for work being steered to certain entities at obscene costs, when the judicial council or anyone else does not demand answers from the AOC then members of the judicial council are complicit in the impropriety or the crime.
Why would judicial council members take a hit on their reputation or take a hit on their credibility like that?
Criminal psychology 101 tells us this:
1. The Judicial Council and the AOC have no effective oversight or investigative mechanisms to look into impropriety or crime.
2. No one else except for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Attorneys Office, the postal inspector or the state legislature may look into or investigate possible impropriety. Yet as others have pointed out, if impropriety is found it is likely the records surrounding the impropriety will vanish.
3. Everyone across the entire judicial branch is now aware of the above two points. Many people that do business with the AOC are also now aware of the above two points. If there is impropriety in any of the AOC’s many programs, everyone involved in the programs are cognitively aware of the above two points because the AOC were the same idiots that changed a light bulb for anywhere between 300-2500.00 and gave the work to people when dozens of other people were aware that they were unqualified and/or had no contractors licenses. This is the same AOC that made 100+ adds to the CCMS contract. This is the same AOC that believes that TEN YEARS to develop an application is normal. This is the same AOC that has been lying to us since April about the completeness and deploy-ability of CCMS but now it isn’t only the AOC that is lying to everyone, it is a justice of the first district court of appeals that is lying to everyone about this applications’ fitness.
4. This behavior will continue its insidious permeation of the organization simply because just as there are no apparent consequences for robbing a bank as long as no one dies, there is no apparent consequences for robbing the taxpayers as long as no one dies. Best of all, there is no cop on the job. It’s now well established for example that:
- You can embezzle money from the AOC and there are no consequences
- You can accept kickbacks from vendors and there are no consequences
- You can steer work to certain entities and there are no consequences
- You can misappropriate public funds and there are no consequences
- You can destroy records and there are no consequences
- You can play that you have amnesia and you can’t remember anything about your job and there are no consequences
- You can continue questionable contracting practices and there are no consequences.
- Gross incompetence and unethical behavior is the fast track to AOC management.
- It is okay not to disclose contracts before October 1, 2011
Stuart Michael
October 12, 2011
JCW is too important to let it go to sleep at this critical time (or ever)
If funding is an issue, it needs a grass-roots fund-raising mechanism . We don’t have unlimited public funding like the AOC but if each of us contributes a small amount maybe it can be kept going
JCW – please figure out how we can do this
All you court watchers – get your credit cards or checkbooks ready
Wendy Darling
October 12, 2011
More than a few of us are ready to contribute. Just let us know the particulars.
Long live the ACJ.
antonatrail
October 12, 2011
I would contribute what i can to help rid CA of corruption in the judicial branch.
Judicial Council Watcher
October 12, 2011
Thanks Mr. Michael but we’re not out to raise funds. Most of what we do has been and continues to be sponsored by the same groups. We contemplated an expansion of what we do but that would involve significantly more man hours. As it was, for quite awhile we were drawing too much from others resources at their expense to look into things and to try to do at least a post a day, every day.
At this point, the issues that stand before us are well documented. Short of a massive endowment to sponsor two full time investigative reporters with traveling and expense budgets to spearhead individual projects to their conclusion we must continue to rely upon others for both our information, investigations and our posts.
There are a few items that we thought we would be working with like xtranormal and blogtalkradio. Unfortunately, both consume manpower resources and with that come costs, like the costs of program management and production, not to mention the service costs.
We’ve also discussed opening the platform to other writers and other organizations directly, for example, permitting others to directly write and contribute their own posts as opposed to all posts coming from JCW. We remain open to this concept so that others may be more involved. Frankly, we would like to see JusticeCalifornia or Wendy Darling post directly. Maybe a court reporter on behalf of CCRA posts. Maybe the ACJ posts once a week, maybe the CJE posts once a week or even AOC Watcher posting over here instead of just at AOC Watcher. We remain open to the involved trade unions or their designated delegates or other reporters posting directly as well, instead of supplying us material to post.
We won’t be falling asleep. We just won’t have as many resources as before to draw upon so we will likely post less without others stepping forward, contributing their time or talents.
JusticeCalifornia
October 12, 2011
Argument on Paula Negley’s appeal will take place October 14, 2011 at 9:00 a.m. at the SF 9th Circuit Court of Appeal.
See:
https://judicialcouncilwatcher.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/negley-vs-aoc-appellate-reply-briefs/
JCW summarized her case as follows:
“She filed an internal complaint about a new hire being brought in to do the same work for higher pay and special consultant classificiation. From there, the AOC made her life a living hell having her jump through hoop after hoop for everything. They wanted her to quit. They did everything in their power to encourage her to quit including publicly humiliating her in front of coworkers, denying her overnight travel to faraway places and questioning every expense she submitted regardless of its legitimacy. Sometimes questioning the same expenses over and over even when provided with the same answer over and over.”
More anon.