On January 14, 2014, the United States Supreme Court docketed a Supplemental Brief filed by a civil rights advocate in Leon Koziol v Committee on Professional Standards, Case No. 13-702. It was distributed to the Justices of the Court the same day for consideration on January 24, 2014. The original petition was filed by Mr. Koziol on December 9, 2013, and it can be viewed on his website Leon Koziol.com. The case features profound and timely questions in light of website monitoring by government and escalating abuses in our nation’s domestic relations courts.

The central question in this precedent seeking case is whether our third branch of government is properly subject to the First Amendment and, if so, whether the protections of our Fourteenth Amendment can be set aside to suppress the website disclosures, whistle blowing activities and public forums of a a civil rights attorney. Until his criticisms of our courts, Mr. Koziol enjoyed an unblemished record that spanned 23 years of successful verdicts, six figure recoveries and a perfect record of dismissals in criminal jury cases. His work has been covered by major media including New York Times, CNN, NPR and an appearance on the CBS program 60 Minutes.

In an ironic twist, the ethics lawyers targeting Mr. Koziol’s criticisms over a period of years were recently discharged for ethical misconduct discovered by an outside agency. They were falsifying time sheets as public employees of the Third Department appeals court. This is the same court in Albany which suspended Mr. Koziol for six months only weeks before this discovery. On May 22, 2013, these same lawyers conceded in court that they were targeting Mr. Koziol’s website and public forums. However the court refused to consider the First Amendment issues, hence the filings and proceedings now underway before our nation’s high court.

The Supplemental Brief poses an additional implicit question of whether the public filing of the case itself may have exacted further retribution by the Committee on Professional Standards when it issued a flurry of inquiries on December 30, 2013 directed to Koziol’s website. There was no specificity to the website postings which this Committee found objectionable, leading to a logical conclusion that the publicized petition only days earlier might have been a culprit. The particulars can be read on-line at the same targeted website featuring more than 2000 followers across the country and an unknown viral impact produced by bloggers and individuals.

As most citizens know, the Supreme Court takes very few cases each year filed from persons and entities from around the globe. For this reason, in order to keep internet freedoms and parenting rights intact, it is important for our followers to seek public support behind the Koziol case. Our freedoms are all at risk when a super branch of government is able to silence the people most qualified to report on abuses in our state courts. When you view the site, Leon Koziol.com, you are receiving vital information available nowhere else which government is vigorously seeking to shut down. For this reason, we need you to contact journalists, civil rights organizations and your representatives in congress so that our constitutional rights are not further eroded.