NOTE: The following column is being considered for publication by a major newspaper

Leon R. Koziol, J.D.

Constitutionl Rights Advocate
1336 Graffenburg Road
New Hartford, New York 13413
leonkoziol@gmail.com

(315) 796-4000

The Supreme Court can no longer ignore judicial retaliation against attorney whistleblowers

There are a number of cases being heard by the Supreme Court these days regarding free speech. We also see it revisiting a privacy right in abortion first recognized in 1973.[1] However, the high court remains silent on the subject of judicial retaliation against attorney whistleblowers. There is no independent forum to hear such cases.

Mine is an exemplary one involving both free speech and parenting rights. The Supreme Court has declared the latter to be “the oldest liberty interest” protected by the Constitution. [2] Yet it has refused to hear my case since a witch hunt was initiated years ago to suppress my alarming reports of court corruption. They include my custody judge banned from holding judicial office due to pedophile admissions, [3] another found guilty of sexual harassment of court clerks by a judicial commission, [4] and a bullying judge censured for racist remarks from the bench.[5]

The Court’s refusal to act on this issue has harmed all of us because such retaliation continues to chill disclosures of misconduct from qualified insiders. Legal protection for this class of whistleblowers remains elusive or nonexistent. Any reports carry the high risk of punishment which in my case led to the loss of livelihood, child relationships, and unblemished reputation as a civil rights attorney. This kind of persecution is commonly associated with tyranny.

Meanwhile the same court heard one case which gave protection to a 14-year old cheerleader punished for off-campus vulgarity against school officials. The value in such expression paled when compared to the abuses I was exposing. They featured veteran suicides, unprecedented violence, parent-child separations, and vast declines in productivity caused by a federal funding scheme that incites conflict between cooperating parents in separated environments.

Due to my status as attorney and parent, exposed wrongdoers were able to censor a vital message of reform by exploiting highly confidential and intertwined domestic and disciplinary processes. Real or invented, the resulting complexity insulated them from investigative reporting and public accountability. Unlike others obtaining whistleblower recourse in our courts, I was being violated by the justice system itself.

Concededly my ordeal remains an extraordinary one. But the genius behind our form of self-governance is that each and every one of us is protected by virtue of individual rights against any abuse of power. The third branch is not above the law any more than the persons who are brought before it. To assure that equality then, our Supreme Court must take up this long-neglected case or join the movement to expand its number in conformity with our nation’s growth and not its politics.

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[1]  Roe v Wade, 410 US 113 (1973)

[2]  Troxel v Granville, 530 US 57 (2000)

[3]  In re Bryan Hedges, 20 NY3d 677 (2013)

[4]  NY family court judge resigns over misconduct accusations, https://apnews.com (9/21/20)

[5]  Bullying Utica judge censured for calling lawyer a ‘cigar store Indian”… www.syracuse.com 2015/02