Below is the text of an open letter to U.S. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., regarding a concrete case that illustrates how judges’ lack of accountability for their exercise of their power over people's property, liberty, and even lives leads to absolute power, which corrupts absolutely. The case deals with federal bankruptcy, district, and circuit judges that are supporting or tolerating a bankruptcy fraud scheme and its cover-up since they do not have to account to anybody.

 To show the corruptive effect of unaccountable judicial power, a judicial misconduct complaint against the bankruptcy judge has been filed, as required by law (28 U.S.C. §351), with the chief circuit judge of the federal circuit court that reappointed that judge to a second term of 14 years (cf. 28 U.S.C. §152). That constitutes an insurmountable conflict of interests, for if the chief circuit judge were to investigate the bankruptcy judge, the chief and his circuit judge peers could end up being incriminated in having supported or tolerated the bankruptcy fraud scheme.

Their own interest in either avoiding detection or preserving their camaraderie with their peers provides the driving motive for the judges not to investigate their peers. This explains their systematic dismissal without any investigation of 99.88% of all misconduct complaints against them filed in 1997-2006. Such self-exemption from any discipline and the assurance of future impunity lead to further abuse of unaccountable judicial power.

This case reveals how the Federal Judiciary has institutionalized the abuse of its judicial power by supporting and tolerating coordinated wrongdoing among judges, court staff, lawyers, bankruptcy trustees, and other insiders of the bankruptcy system.

What goes on in the bankruptcy system is bound to occur in other areas of the federal judiciary. Indeed, once a judge does wrong in one area and is protected by other judges, he –or she- realizes that he can do wrong in any other area any time because if he were denounced by them, he could bring them down by exposing their complicit

support or toleration in the first instance of wrongdoing. By the same token, from then on he must cover up for them too.

The dynamics of corruption govern their conduct given their mutual interdependence for survival and the risk-free pursuit of unlawful or unethical benefits.

 This case shows that such support and toleration reaches all the way to the Supreme Court Justices, who once were district or circuit judges, and who now, as circuit justices allotted to one or more of the 13 federal judicial circuits, have tolerated federal judges who engage in, and cover-up for each other’s, coordinated wrongdoing.

 To find out what is at stake in pursuing the facts of this case through a Watergate-like Follow the Money! investigation, see the proposal at http://Judicial-Discipline-Reform.org/DeLano_case/to_editors.pdf . It contains links to official complaint statistics and to graphs illustrating them.

Part I. The Facts of Coordinated Judicial Wrongdoing

1. The Dynamics of Organized Corruption in the Courts: How judicial wrongdoing tolerated in one instance gives rise to the mentality of judicial impunity that triggers generalized wrongdoing and weaves relationships among the judges of multilateral interdependency of survival where any subsequent unlawful act is allowed and must be covered up

2. The Supreme Court Justices and the Chief Judges Have Semi-annually Received Official Information About the Self-immunizing Systematic Dismissal of Judicial Conduct Complaints, But Have Tolerated It With Disregard for the Consequent Abuse of Power and Corruption

3. The official statistics of judicial complaints filed and action taken that the judicial councils have produced and the Administrative Office published for 1997-2006 show that federal judges have engaged in the systematic dismissal of the 7,462 complaints filed, out of which they have disciplined only 9 peers! (page 8§III) Thereby judges have become unaccountable in their exercise of judicial power subject to no control, which is the hallmark of absolute power that corrupts absolutely.

4. Unimpeachable judges are judges above the law, Yet  the Constitution provides judges with no immunity, nonetheless through the self-exemption from discipline judges have managed the feat that in the 218 years since the creation of the federal judiciary the number of judges impeached and removed from the bench is 7!

5.  The Judicial Conduct and Disability Study Committee and the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States had access to, and actual or constructive knowledge of, the official statistics showing the systematic dismissal by judges of complaints against them, yet they issued the Breyer Report and the Draft Rules Governing the Processing of Complaints, respectively, that pretended that the system of judicial self-discipline has worked effectively and can even be improved through the Draft Rules as if judges had ever been and were now willing to risk self-incrimination through the exercise of self-discipline...a sham!

a. The Revised Rules Governing the Processing of Judicial Misconduct Complaints Adopted by the Judicial Conference of the U.S. on March 11, 2008, Will Not Stop Judges From Systematically Dismissing Them. Rule 2(b) provides that the rules are mandatory unless there is a finding of "exceptional circumstances," which is an easy finding to make since no two cases are ever identical. Through that pretext, “a chief judge, a special committee, a judicial council, the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability, or the Judicial Conference”, that is, any judge or judicial body that handles complaints can suspend the application of any rule. In practice, the rules will be optional. The “mandatory” nature of the rules is illusory!

Detailed analysis of the revised rules is available at http://Judicial-Discipline-Reform.org/judicial_complaints/DrCordero_revised_rules.pdf.

See what to do about the rules at  http://Judicial-Discipline-Reform.org/judicial_complaints/how_petition_redress.pdf.

b. Why there is a need and how to join forces to inform the public as well as members of Congress that the Revised Rules in effect authorize the systematic dismissal by federal judges of judicial misconduct and disability complaints against their peers. A new and effective system of judicial accountability and discipline must be adopted to replace the current system of judicial self discipline set up by the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980 (28 U.S.C. §351-364). This Act of Congress has been in practice abrogated by the Judiciary through such the judges' systematic dismissal of complaints against them:  The official statistics of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and the graphs based thereon (supra) show that in the 10-year period 1997- 2006, there were filed 7,462 judicial complaints, but the judges disciplined only 9 of their peers!, thus dismissing  99.88% of all complaints!

6. Evidence of AG Michael Mukasey's incapacity to investigate former colleagues in the judiciary engaged in wrongdoing, lest he incriminate himself

Part II. In re DeLano or the case of a judicially

 supported bankruptcy fraud scheme

1. The Salient Facts of The DeLano Case showing a bankruptcy fraud scheme as well as the support or toleration of bankruptcy, district, and circuit judges that show how a bankruptcy fraud scheme works

2. Judges that  impair even the appearance of justice administered in public by disposing of motions with the circling of the words "Denied"      or "Granted" and of cases with a summary order form of  "Affirmance"  or "Reversal" under Local Rule 0.23 and without any oral argument under Local Rule 34 of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

3.  Issues Presented For Review to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Dr. Richard Cordero v. David and Mary Ann DeLano, docket no. 06-4780-bk, CA2; appellant's brief

4.  How a court of appeals runs into a disqualifying conflict of interests when asked to review the decision of a bankruptcy judge, its appointee under 28 U.S.C. §152, who has supported or participated in a bankruptcy fraud scheme

Part III. A Plan of Action to Counter Judicial Wrongdoing

1. Analysis of Judicial Misconduct by Identifying Motive and Strategy to Expose it Through the Joint Effort of Judicial Misconduct Complainants and Citizens Concerned About Judicial Integrity

2. Two Approaches to Reforming the Judiciary: from inside the courts and from the outside

3. Programmatic Proposal to Unite Entities and Individuals to Use Their Resources Effectively  in Our Common Mission  to Ensure Integrity in Our Courts by Engaging in Specific Activities and Achieving Concrete Objectives 1/ 2/ 3/ 4/ 5/ 6/ 7/ 8/ 9/ 10;  all in PDF

4. Synopsis of the proposal for a Watergate-like Follow the Money! investigation from the mandatory annual financial disclosure reports of judges, filed in Washington, DC, through the public property registries of county clerks' offices, to wherever concealed assets are found and can help answer the question whether for lack of accountability and discipline a federal judgeship become a safe haven for the coordinated wrongdoing

5. How You Can Help to Take the First Concrete Step Toward the Implementation of the Programmatic Proposal Through the Formation of the Virtual Firm on the Internet of Investigative Journalists and Lawyers to Expose Judges Engaged in Coordinated Wrongdoing and Thereby Cause Official Investigations that End Up in the Enactment of Judicial Discipline and Accountability Legislation

a. Table of Division of Labor for the Formation of the Virtual Firm of Investigative Journalists and Lawyers described in the Programmatic Proposal

b. Summarize your judicial misconduct complaint in 350 or fewer words to convince newspapers and bloggers of the need to investigate how judges engage in misconduct and self-exempt from any discipline

6. Proposal for a Citizens Board of Judicial Accountability and Discipline, composed of individuals unrelated and unresponsive to judges and not appointed by them, to process in public judicial conduct and disability complaints by requiring judges to account for their conduct and meting out discipline

7. Why editors and investigative journalists should investigate the use by federal judges of the new rules that became effective on April 10 for processing misconduct and disability complaints against their peers which will allow them to continue both to exempt themselves from any discipline and to support or tolerate with impunity their coordinated judicial wrongdoing (also at http://Judicial-Discipline-Reform.org/judicial_complaints/to_editors_investigators_17apr8.pdf )

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