The Struggle Continues for Alton Maddox
By: Alton Maddox,
AmNews
Prompted by Dr.Harry Finkelstein’s improper recycling of contaminated syringes on Long Island to his patients, Governor David Paterson has fashioned a patient safety bill that will require a modicum of openness in the discipline of medical doctors.
Among other things, some medical doctors will have to shelve their medical practices while they are under investigation for conduct that poses an immediate threat to the public health of a community. Dr. Finkelstein was behaving as though he enjoyed medical and legal immunity.
Although this provision raises due process concerns, Black attorneys are routinely subject to interim suspensions without due process of law because their continued practices of law almost always allegedly pose an immediate threat to the public.
In my disciplinary case, which arose out of the bogus complaint of State Attorney General Robert Abrams, I had to wait nearly three years before I was accorded a hearing. I was public enemy number one. This meant no income in the interim. This alone has a chilling effect on an attorney’s inclination to “rock the boat.”
It took four years before the Brooklyn Appeals Court found that I should be suspended from the practice of law for a further period of five years. A pre-trial detainee awaiting trial is usually given credit for the time spent in jail if the jury gives the defendant thumbs down.
In my case, there was no credit for the interim suspension, and I had to satisfy a second disciplinary penalty of five years starting in 1994.I was indefinitely suspended in May 1990 without due process. This meant that I was actually suspended for more than nine years. A disbarment is only seven years.
I am now attempting to convince a federal appeals court that the lack of credit for my indefinite suspension in 1990 of four years violated due process, while the federal government has just given Osama bin Laden’s driver credit for his pre-trial detention after he was convicted of aiding and abetting terrorism against the United States.
His sentence has been reduced from 66 months to five months because of the time he spent behind bars before trial. I was indefinitely suspended for four years before I was given a suspension of five years. An Arab terrorist is entitled to jail credit to reduce a penalty.Credit for an interim suspension is not available to a competent and zealous, Black attorney.
Eventually, I filed a petition for reinstatement to practice law after waiting for State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to fulfill a campaign promise of having me immediately and automatically reinstated to the practice of law for not violating the attorney-client privilege.
The Brooklyn Grievance Committee rejected the petition because it sought to establish my innocence. This is impermissible under the New York Court Rules and Regulations. The NY Criminal Procedure Law, on the other hand, allows a wrongfully convicted defendant to show his or her innocence. A wrongfully disciplined Black attorney is without this option.
I sued the justices of the Brooklyn Appeals Court in Brooklyn Federal Court alleging a violation of civil rights, namely, a state disciplinary committee framing and railroading a Black attorney for providing pro bono legal representation to an oppressed Black community. This is called “biting the hand that feeds you.”
This case is on appeal to the U.S.2nd Circuit Court of Appeals because the lower court found that, like Dred Scott, I lacked standing to sue justices of the Brooklyn Appeals Court. Dred Scott lacked standing because he was not a citizen.
On the other hand, this same 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals had already ruled that a white doctor could sue a medical disciplinary board in New York because of “the absence of any mechanism for the reopening of a closed disciplinary proceeding in light of newly discovered evidence.”
If the convicted members of the Central Park 6 had been bound by attorney disciplinary rules instead of Article 440 of the New York Criminal Procedure Law, they would still be in prison because court rules in New York prevent an attorney from showing that he or she is innocent or has been framed and railroaded.
Abrams knew that once he was able to railroad me, my fate would be sealed in perpetuity because Black attorneys are unable to share the same rights as convicted defendants or civil litigants. Thus, he booby-trapped the grand jury in Dutchess County in the Tawana Brawley investigation.
Governor Paterson needs to amend the disciplinary rules for attorneys and doctors to allow for due process and the disclosure of exculpatory evidence. People spend too much time and money acquiring an education to end up being subject to the whims of a disciplinary board because of a person’s politics or skin color and not because of his or her skills.
My suspension was based purely on politics and race. The initial complainants were white members of the New York Legislature. This is unprecedented. The executive branch of state government misdirected the investigation, and the state’s judiciary convicted me. It sounds like a state-sponsored conspiracy.
The endless list of attorneys who were convicted of engaging in felonious conduct and who have been reinstated to the practice of law include Albert Pirro, husband of former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro; Sol Wachtler, former Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals; and Michael Dowd, a friend of the Cuomo family.
The worst crime to defend against in an attorney disciplinary proceeding is an outspoken Black attorney providing competent and zealous representation to unpopular defendants. It started in New York in the 1850s with Aaron Alpeoria Bradley, an outspoken and fearless Black attorney.
Three of the four Black attorneys in the Central Park 6 were disbarred. The other attorney was suspended from the practice of law. Disbarred attorney Lynne Stewart was sentenced to prison. She represented the late Adam Abdul-Hakim and Sheik Abdel Rahman.
Flawed disciplinary rules are a contributing factor to the persecution of progressive Black attorneys. When it was detected that the Brooklyn Appeals Court harbored the worst disciplinary rules in New York State, this intermediate appellate court appointed an investigatory committee that was chaired by Justice Gabriel M. Krausman of this court.
The Krausman Report sustained the public’s suspicions that the Brooklyn Appeals Court routinely violates the due process and equal protection rights of attorneys. Nonetheless, the intermediate appellate court in Brooklyn has rejected the committee’s substantive recommendations.
In my appeal, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals is, in effect, being asked to put the state’s judiciary in receivership. This is an appropriate remedy because the Brooklyn Appeals Court is unable or unwilling to administer justice. Blacks are its victims.
Both doctors and attorneys in New York are in need of disciplinary rules that comport with due process of law. My appeal,which was argued in the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on August 8,seeks to address these disparities in the attorney grievance procedure. Appellate judges turned off the clock, and I went for everything that I knew.
The issue before this court is whether stare decisis applies to Black attorneys. It has already decided that a white doctor may sue a medical disciplinary board when the doctor alleges that he or she was framed, railroaded and barred from medical practice. I was taught “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
I was a thorn in New York’s side, and the three branches of state government conspired to end my legal career. The proof of this conspiracy is in the Brawley files, which have been classified, sealed and stored in a state vault. Instead of doing the right thing, Governor Paterson has chosen, so far, to keep the file under lock and key.
If all of this legal abuse were not enough, the office of then-State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer informed the Brooklyn Federal Court in 2005 that I had been disbarred. This was not a surprise to me, although notice was lacking. The proof has always been in the pudding.
An attorney is normally entitled to notice and opportunity to be heard before disbarment takes effect. A disbarred attorney must beg for reinstatement. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals must now decide if Dred Scott is still in effect.
UAM Forum—The weekly UAM assemblies will be in recess for three weeks and will resume on September 3 at the Elks Plaza, 1068 Harriet Tubman Avenue (Fulton Street) near Classon Avenue in Brooklyn.
For further information on all events, call United African Movement at (718) 834-9034.
See: www.reinstatealtonmaddox.net for “The Right Mindset for United African Movement,” “Motion and Memorandum of Law in Maddox v.Prudenti et al.” and “Legal and Life Experiences of Alton H. Maddox, Jr.”