Dean 's Corruption in the Green Mountain State : Hawai'i IMC

Dean's Corruption in the Green Mountain State

by Josh Frank

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Frank_Dean-Sorrell-Corruption.htm

NOTE:

The federal litigation pending against Dean's Judicial Appointees mentioned in the above article will be before the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals for final hearing on October 20, 2003, 40 Foley Square, Ny, Ny. Also in front of the courthouse will be a peaceful protest demanding the court hold Dean's legacy, his judicial appointees, accountable. Contact s_huminski@hotmail.com for details.

Noteworthy in the above article is Dean's willingness to review his crony Sorrell's report on the Woodward shooting with a vast conflict of interest existing between Dean and Sorrell. Dean had no intention of undermining his crony's "investigation" and decision regarding the Woodward murder. This gross conflict of interest would be a crime in many states. Not in Dean's Vermont. After speaking with Justice for Woody people, the ethical and moral depravity of Dean and Sorrell becomes wholly evident and in this instance resulted in a tragic denial of justice and closure. -- scott huminski

Past items concerning Dean's Corrupt Vermont..........

"Dean’s Police State of Vermont"

http://bureaucrash.com/blogs/dispatches/000512.shtml

"Cronies V. Qualifications", Howard Dean's Dilemma"

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/9/prweb80286.htm

Editorial:

http://toughenough.org/huminski.html

"Dean's Constitutional Hang-up"

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank08122003.html

Anti-War commentary...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/justincol.html

Tar Baby Huminski Say Nuthin'

Seems our anti-Dean sue-happy gadfly Scott (after all we are on a first name since Mr. Huminski greats me in his email that way) is a little bit upset.

After my line by line refutation of Josh Frank's highly flawed "news" article "reporting" on Dean's "Constitutional Hang-Up," and my posting links to several of the indymedia sites where he was railing against Vermont (a.k.a. Dean's "Police State") I received an email from this busy little litigant intimating he might sue me if he had the time. Actually he suggests that "A law suit against a crazed Dean fanatic might cause quite a stir."

Beyond giving me a good laugh at how misguided our Mr. Huminski is, the only actual point directly addressing anything I have posted is this part:<

Howard Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up...?

More idiotic attacks from the far-left at Counterpunch, that Dean is akin to Ashcroft by Josh Frank (with the aid of Scott Huminski, an anti-Dean nut with an axe to grind):

Howard Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up

First, Dean has no "hang-up" regarding the Constitution. The overblown headline above is wholly off the mark as will be shown below.

Dean Would Rather Execute an Innocent Man, Than Let a Guilty One Walk Free

Wild hyperbolic nonsense, wholly unsupported by the facts and a clear example of the unvarnished bias of the piece that follows.

By JOSH FRANK

It is worth noting that Josh Frank previously put out the wildly off the mark piece on Dean being "regressive" because he is convinced that Dean is a pro-Zionist zealot and abject supporter of Ariel Sharon. This of course is pure bunk, and certainly introduces a not-unreasonable speculation that Josh Frank is not only 0-2 about Dean but also has an axe to grind with Dean's ascendancy to Democratic front-runner.

As Governor of Vermont, Howard Dean openly claimed that the legal system unfairly benefited criminal defendants over prosecutors.

A google search yields no results which back up this unsubstantiated assertion or even hit on anything resembling this singular claim, aside from one editorial which is also at the bottom of Josh Frank's re-hashing of Scott Huminski's personal crusade against Dean (more about him below). Of course this runs counter to the facts that Dean publicly supported former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who imposed a moratorium on the death penalty because of failings of the legal system. It also directly refutes the absurd allegation in the sub-head of the piece.

He even took measures to cut federal grant money aimed at helping mentally disabled defendants

Did he turn down the federal grant request because, as is often the case, the state would have to match it with state funds?

The only source I can find for this is the assertions of Robert Appel, the former Vermont Defender General which Dean appointed to the post for eight years, but then did not renew his appointment. This allegation came an interview amid his carping that Dean did not give his office the budgets he requested, and after he had been let go.

--as well as appointing state judges who were willing to undermine the Bill of Rights.

Wholesale bunk, and completely unsubstantiated assertion. Note there is zero evidence supporting this wild accusation.

In a 1997 interview with the Vermont News Bureau, Howard Dean admitted his desire to expedite the judicial process by using such justices to "quickly convict guilty criminals."

As opposed to slowly convicting guilty criminals?

He wanted individuals that would deem "common sense more important than legal technicalities." Constitutional protections (legal technicalities) apparently undermine Dean's yearning for speedy trials.

Apparently hyperbole undermines Franks yearning to paint Dean as a fascist.

A right to a speedy trial is in fact a vital portion (i.e. the very first sentence of the sixth amendment) of the very Constitution that Franks screams the sky is falling upon under Gov. Dean's tenure as Governor.

Perhaps he was looking to make Vermont more like George Bush's Texas, where defense lawyers are renowned for lacking the resources necessary to provide their clients a fair representation.

Let's see... Dean supports narrowing the types of crimes in which the death penalty can be persuade, applauded Ill Gov. Ryan's moratorium on the death penalty, and even the Rutland Herald editorial at the root of this nonsense noted:

"Vermont is not Texas, where the public defender's program is notorious for signing up incompetent, inebriated, or sleep-deprived lawyers for indigent clients."

Yet Mr. Frank, like Bush's administration sifting WMD data to fit the results it wants, seems to ignore what is inconvenient to what his already arrived at position will be.

Several of Dean's judicial appointments are now awaiting hearings before the United States Second Circuit Court in New York City. The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Freedom of Expression (http://www.tjcenter.org) and two other law firms have filed briefs against these justices. They are being accused of violating a number of federal rights including; the First Amendment, Right to Counsel, Double Jeopardy, and Due Process.

It should be noted that the source which Mr. Frank is relying on, is himself the litigant in those cases. In other words, he (Scott Huminski whom Franks is relying on as a legitimate source) is the one suing those judges (he lost three times on appeal) because of his losing his cases.

His appeals were thrown out of federal court.

Regarding one case where citizen reporter Scott Huminski was barred from Vermont courts, a DC lawyer stated

A google search on the quote below reveals the source of this "DC lawyer" mentioned above is non-other than Robert Corn-Revere, Huminski's attorney for the lost appeals.

in an interview with Eugenia Harris from the First Amendment Center that, "the real heart of the issue is whether local government officials can unilaterally silence speech and exert arbitrary power over their citizens."

It should be noted that nobody was preventing Mr. Huminski from speaking his mind. He simply could not do so on court grounds, after being barred from court for obstruction of justice charges, which were upheld three times by both state and federal courts.

Seems Howard Dean stuck by his word and appointed judges that care little about real "justice." And he thinks he's qualified to appoint justices at the federal level?

Mr. Corn-Revere's defense lawyer spin, nothing more.

These are not the only examples of Howard Dean's intentions to subdue the Bill of Rights. Shortly after the September 11th attacks Dean was quoted in the Rutland Herald claiming that the United States needs a "re-evaluation of the importance of some of our specific civil liberties."

It should be noted that it was actually less than 48 hours after the attacks of September 11th when Dean posed those questions during a radio interview on September 13th, and it was not in fact a call to repeal our civil rights, but correctly pointing out that we should have to debate such issues. This is confirmed by the very next sentence Dean made, but which Frank and others who attempt to make hay of this invariably fail to include:

"Again, I think that's a debate that we will have."

Even Benson Scotch, the head of the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union at the time said that while it was "too soon" after the attacks to enter that sort of debate, noted that "we're at a moment now of extreme tragedy and sorrow and anger. And tragedy and sorrow and anger are not good qualities to inform a debate about civil liberties."

Unfortunately a substantive debate was not really forth-coming on these issues since there was no real debate on the Patriot Act which sprung out of the 9/11 attacks. More importantly however, is that Dean himself came out against the draconian Patriot Act for the very reasons Mr. Frank tries to insinuate Dean is complicit in, that civil liberties should take a back seat to "homeland security". Read Dean's statement about the Patriot Act:

"Too many in my party voted for the Patriot Act. They believed that it was more important to show bipartisan support for President Bush during a moment of crisis than to stand up for the basic values of our constitution. They trusted this President, knowing full well that John Ashcroft was the Attorney General. Only one senator had the courage to vote against the Patriot Act--- Senator Russ Feingold, and he deserves credit for doing so. We need more Democrats like Senator Feingold-Democrats who are willing to stand up for what is right, and stand against this President's reckless disregard for our civil liberties. We don't need John Ashcroft-or any other Attorney General-rifling through our library records. As Americans, we need to stand up-all of us-and ensure that our laws reflect our values. As President, I will repeal those parts of the Patriot Act that undermine our constitutional rights, and will stand against any further attempts to expand the government's reach at the expense of our civil liberties."

The above directly refutes the assertion with which Mr. Huminski via Mr. Frank's misguided piece tries to paint Dean as an Ashcroft of the left (as he tried to do in his other misguided excursions into the polemic, on Dean) and renders it basically a non-issue.

Later when asked if he thought the Bill of Rights needed to be altered he said, "I think it is unlikely, but I frankly haven't gotten that far I think our freedom is what they find so threatening, our freedom and the power that I think results from that freedom."

That is not what Dean said. Mr. Frank is conflating Deans words "I haven't gotten that far yet. I think that's unlikely, but I frankly haven't gotten that far" with Vermont Law School Professor Michael Mello's later statement... "It's why they attacked us, I think our freedom is what they find so threatening, our freedom and the power that I think results directly from that freedom."

The way Mr. Frank has mangled the actual quotes makes it possible to read Howard Dean's words that he think our freedoms are why we were attacked, hence the problem is our freedoms... and right on cue Frank makes that very idiotic leap:

So according to Dean since terrorists are after our sought after freedoms, we might consider scathing back certain liberties in order to decrease the threat of future strikes. John Ashcroft must be pleased.

As previously noted, the quote Mr. Frank is railing against is his own mangled invention by editing of what was really said. I will leave it to the reader to decide to what end.

There is more. On Meet the Press last June, when asked about his support for the death penalty by Tim Russert, Dean replied,

"So I just-life without parole, which we have which I actually got passed when I was lieutenant governor- the problem with life without parole is that people get out for reasons that have nothing to do with justice. We had a case where a guy who was a rapist, a serial sex offender, was convicted, then was let out on what I would think and believe was a technicality, a new trial was ordered and the victim wouldn't come back and go through the second trial."

A "technicality" to Dean must be synonymous with "Constitutional hang-up." In the case Dean presented to Russert, a man walked free, but should have been put to death instead of challenging his unconstitutional conviction.

The logical fallacy of inventing arguments not made in which to rail against them aside, the problem is not that the convicted rapist should have been put to death, but that he was let out on parole because of a technicality and is now free within the community. Nowhere in Dean's statements or in his position is rape a crime even eligible for the death penalty.

Of course glossing over the fact that Dean supports very narrow application of the death penalty as opposed to the exuberance with which the current occupant of the White House pursued it as Governor, goes completely uncommented upon.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen commented on Dean's statement saying that, "I have never heard a politician admit that he would countenance the death of an innocent person in order to ensure that the guilty die."

Which again is not what Dean's statement or position says or even implies.

Dean's attempts to weaken the Bill of Rights began in the 1990s with his appointments of justices now awaiting hearings in New York for egregious infringements on civil liberties.

A reference to the same court cases his "research source" was a litigant in, and lost.

He then took it a step further after September 11th and indicated the "re-evaluation" of constitutional rights was in order. And now, as Dean steams ahead in his bid for the White House, he's claiming on national television that he would rather have an innocent criminal die than have them released on a "technicality."

More fabricated re-iteration of the same spin.

If elected will Dean attempt to make the United State's a country in which citizens have access to neither a fair trial, nor adequate counsel?

No.

A country where constitutional rights are viewed as "technicalities," worthy of death?

No.

To quote two venerable old sayings: first, "when one finds oneself in a hole, stop digging" and second, "check your sources."

If Mr. Frank wants to have any shred of credibility (not that he has earned any thus far) he would take to heart those bits of advice when he deciding who and what to use as source material and avoid using any desperate person with an axe to grind. He might also wish to stop trying to build a case to fit his obviously preconceived notions that Howard Dean is just short of John Ashcroft on the fascist scale, and join the rest of us back on planet earth.

In the Iowa Presidential Debate of 1/04/04, Howard Dean stated concerning the Vermont gubernatorial records lawsuit that,

"What we have done is we have stepped aside. We have turned everything over to the attorney general of the state of Vermont. And the attorney general of the state of Vermont will go to court, and a judge will look over every document in our records. And they are free to release whatever they'd like, and that's fine with me."

On 12/08/03, Dean made the same statement to the press. Sandwiched in between these two public statements, on 12/23/03 in Washington County Superior Court, Dean demands that the Court, "dismiss the complaint and deny all relief requested by the plaintiffs".
Dean's public statements and his court filings can't both be true.

Unfortunately, for the man who appointed the vast majority of the Vermont judiciary, a defendant in a civil lawsuit can not "step aside". One would expect that the man who appointed judges for over a decade in Vermont and who now wishes to appoint federal judges could grasp this fundamental legal concept. Smoke, mirrors and deception. Defendant Dean, is this the candor we can expect from you, your campaign and your appointees such as Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell?

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Howard - - no comment - - Dean

Conflict of Interest infected Dean’s Vermont Record concerning police shooting. Dean refuses multiple press requests for comment.

On two consecutive days, Dean’s campaign refused to respond to press requests from Connecticut and Vermont newspapers about his corrupt behavior concerning his conflict of interest with William Sorrell, Vermont Attorney General, related to a police shooting and how that conflict tainted his decision relating to the appointment of a special prosecutor. No comment. Couldn’t be reached. Wouldn’t return calls. See articles below.

Two years ago, Dean was petitioned by grieving friends of a slain Vermont man (Justice for Woody) to appoint a special prosecutor/investigator to look into the police shooting. The group strongly objected to the results of an investigation conducted by William Sorrell, Vermont Attorney General. Dean accepted the request to look at the matter and take appropriate action if he deemed it appropriate.

When Dean accepted the report from the Justice for Woody people he failed to disclose to the group that he had an enormous conflict of interest with William Sorrell and he would never undermine his friend’s report on the shooting. To do so would usurp his friends authority and put into question Sorrell’s abilities and judgment.

See, Cronies v. Qualifications, Howard Dean’s Dilemma

http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2003/09/100936.shtml

In many State’s Dean’s conduct would be criminal under conflict of interest statutes. Not so in Dean’s Vermont. Maybe his failure to disqualify himself from evaluating his Crony’s report may not be criminal, but, it was a breach of moral and ethical standards that would apply to any profession. It’s not necessary to debate the facts of the police shooting or to even review the reports available on the issue to make a finding of corruption against Dean for failing to recuse from the matter because of a vast conflict with the Vermont Attorney General’s Office.

Dean left Vermont in a hopeless state of corruption. Conflict of interest and even acceptance of bribes by government officials are part of doing business for Vermont government officials. When quizzed by a journalist last month about official bribery cover-up in Vermont, Sorrell responded, like Dean, with no comment. Why doesn’t Dean wish to address the conflict of interest charges leveled at him in the below articles? Similarly, why did Dean try to seal his records for 20 years? There’s much more to look at in Vermont. We can start with Dean’s #1 appointee and favorite crony, Vermont Attorney General, William Sorrell.

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Friends of shooting victim say Howard Dean failed him

By ADAM BOWLES

Norwich Bulletin, 12/02/03

Two years after a Norwich Free Academy graduate was fatally shot by police while inside a Vermont church, Robert Woodward's friends claim that presidential candidate Howard Dean mishandled the case.

Woodward's supporters are upset that Dean, governor of Vermont at the time of the shooting, did not appoint an independent investigation into the shooting.

Dean, instead, said he was comfortable with a report by the state attorney general that cleared the police of any wrongdoing, the supporters say.

Members of the "Justice for Woody" group say Dean and Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell are lifelong friends and that Sorrell's family helped launch Dean's political career.

"We feel that (Dean) purposely did not want to cross his friend, his political crony of several decades who probably has aspirations to be part of a Dean presidential cabinet," said Keith Carlson, a member of Justice for Woody. "We may not be the ones to prove it. But the public has the right to know."

Members of the group are marking the anniversary of Woodward's death with a silent march today in downtown Brattleboro.

Dean's press office said Monday that the leading Democratic presidential candidate would not comment for this story. His spokesman did not return phone calls to the press office Monday.

FULL STORY:

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/stories/20031202/localnews/746805.html

*** END ***

See also,

Brattleboro Reformer, 12/03/03

"Calls to Dean's national campaign office were not returned Tuesday."

http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~1805664,00.html

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This corruption is also mentioned at below link along with Sorrell's cover-up of bribery and violation of criminal federal civil rights law. Dean sure chooses interesting cronies.

http://hawaii.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/3802.php

If there is any question as to the ties between these two unsavory politicians......

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/09/22/a_meteoric_rise_in_vermont_politics/

See the 4th paragraph in this link, Sorrell and Dean are as close as family,

http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/dean/dean062303/dean062303spt.html

http://www.atg.state.vt.us/display.php?smod=70

http://www.justiceforwoody.org/media/articles/html/casa1.htm

http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/dean/dean0702/freyneint.html

http://rutlandherald.nybor.com/News/Story/68525.html

http://www.rutlandherald.com/News/Story/66910.html

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/8836.php

Commentary and compilation by Scott Huminski

s_huminski@hotmail.com