This is a reprint from the September 9, 2014 Mongoose newsletter. A future postulator writing a positio about Alicia Franklin will surely include as one of the two required miracles the amazing events of March 20, 2013, when Alicia Franklin billed Harris County, as well as the parents in a private amicus case, for the following all on one blessed day: 28.5 out-of-court hours in CPS cases 3.75 hours on a private amicus case 1 CPS trial appearance 4 non-trial CPS court appearances The hours billed for this one day total 32.25 hours plus Franklin claims to have been in court on CPS cases for one trial appearance and four other non-trial appearances on that same day. There may well be other private cases that Franklin also billed for on that day. In CPS cases, ad litems bill per hour for "out of court work," but they are paid a flat rate per court appearance for trial or non-trial hearings. Ad litems are paid a higher flat rate for trials than they are for non-trial court ... Read More >
Criminal Complaint Filed Against Judge Alicia Franklin
This is a reprint from the September 9, 2014 Mongoose newsletter. Click here to read the criminal complaint I have filed with the Harris County District Attorney against Judge Alicia Franklin. The more I see of how Franklin billed the county in CPS cases and parents in her amicus cases, the less pity I feel for her. I know that at some point my perfect batting record in taking down elected judges for criminal behavior will fall below 100%, but this does not feel like the time when I will strike out. I do not know that Franklin has committed a crime, but I have found 100% provable facts that need to be looked into by someone other than Republican District Attorney Devon Anderson, who bungled the Judge Pratt investigation and then made a "sweet heart" deal with Pratt that allowed her to avoid criminal prosecution. Click here to read a motion filed by a District Attorney who wisely recused herself and asked for appointment of a prosecutor pro tem under Texas Code of Criminal ... Read More >
Enos Schools County Auditor and Harangues County Judge Emmett
This is a reprint from the September 3, 2014 Mongoose newsletter. Lawyers are stealing tax payer dollars and the system in place at Harris County allows it. Here are the problems: 1. A paper based system from the 1950's is still in use. Lawyers fill out the pay vouchers by hand, the judges sign the vouchers and then they go to the County Auditor, who pays the amounts approved by the judges, no questions asked. 2. A judge, who may approve dozens of pay vouchers a week, cannot see what an attorney is billing in other cases in that same court or in other courts. 3. No one until me ever took a mass of vouchers from one single attorney and extracted the fees charged on all cases for a particular day to see what the attorney is billing the county for on that day. This is how Alicia Franklin got busted billing 23.5 hours in one day. If I can "audit" vouchers, why can't the County Auditor? 4. The real problem is that no one has any incentive to closely monitor the CPS pay ... Read More >
Alicia Franklin Scandal – County Four: Billing for Non-Lawyer Tasks Such as “Post Office Runs”
This is a reprint from the September 3, 2014 Mongoose newsletter. Alicia Franklin billed the county for one hour of work on May 6, 2014 in Cause No. 2014-02035J for "prepare letter to client, prepare to mail and post office run." In Cause No. 2008-02442J, Franklin billed a quarter of an hour twice for "post office run" on April 10 and May 19, 2014. Attorneys simply do not bill their clients for running to the post office and Harris County tax payers should not be charged for such work either. On May 1, 2014, Franklin billed the county in Cause No. 2013-41503 a quarter of an hour to e-file a document. She did the same thing on May 7, 2014 in Cause No. 2013-39931 when she charged a quarter of an hour for "e-filed affidavit." Again, this is something clerical staff do in most law offices and I have never heard of lawyers billing clients for that sort of work. Franklin also billed the county frequently for merely printing documents, something attorneys or their clerical staff ... Read More >
Alicia Franklin Scandal – Count One: Submitting CPS Pay Vouchers That Simply Cannot Be True
This is a reprint from the September 3, 2014 Mongoose newsletter. This is a long article and my proof consists of many pages of pay vouchers that Alicia Franklin submitted the month before she became a judge. Click here to read my complete, 19 page article: "Alicia Franklin Submitted CPS Pay Vouchers That Simply Cannot Be True." This article includes my legal explanation of why knowingly submitting a false CPS pay voucher to the county for payment is a crime. Here is the executive summary of my article: Attorneys, like Alicia Franklin, appointed by judges to represent abused children or their parents in CPS cases, must sign the pay vouchers they submit to the county. In the family courts, the vouchers say that they are submitted "under penalty of perjury." I looked at four consecutive work days in May 2014 and pulled her charges for those days from dozens of pay vouchers submitted by Franklin. I then added up the hours she billed for each day. Here is what I found Franklin ... Read More >
The Crime of Tampering With a Government Record
Texas Penal Code Sec. 37.10 states in part: 37.10. TAMPERING WITH GOVERNMENTAL RECORD. (a) A person commits an offense if he: (1) knowingly makes a false entry in, or false alteration of, a governmental record; (2) makes, presents, or uses any record, document, or thing with knowledge of its falsity and with intent that it be taken as a genuine governmental record;.... Sec. 37.01(2) defines a "government record" to mean: (A) anything belonging to, received by, or kept by government for information, including a court record; This is the law former Judge Denise Pratt is alleged to have violated when she apparently back-dated court orders. One example of how attorneys can run afoul of this law arose in San Antonio recently: Former defense attorney Hilda Valadez, who pleaded guilty to charges of forging judges' signatures and double billing the county for indigent defense work, was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison. .... Valadez, 52, was once regarded as the ... Read More >
The Polland Problem, Part 2
Reprinted from the August 21, 2014 Mongoose. Most Republican judges and party leaders, to their credit, realize that the brewing scandal involving court appointments and their former party chair, Gary Polland, has the potential to effect the November elections. They also realize that the current system just is not right. They point out to me that Democratic politicians, such as legislators who are also attorneys, are getting lucrative appointments from Democratic civil judges. The solution is very simple: a commitment by judges to appoint attorneys based on merit only and transparency of information. All judges of both parties should simply stop using court appointments as political patronage and ALL appointments and fees should be reported and made available to the public. Currently, the system hides appointment fees and makes it very difficult to determine accurately how much various attorneys are being paid. The County Auditor website is a great example of sharing ... Read More >
The Top 22: Who Got Paid the Most Since 2010 for Court Appointments
Reprinted from the August 13, 2014 Mongoose. Click here to see a list from the County Auditor showing everyone who has been paid by the County for court appointments since January 1, 2010. This report has a slightly different total for Mr. Polland than the other report I received, even though it covers the same time period. Here are the top 22 recipients of county funds for court appointments out of 1,574 payees according to this report: Oliver Sprott Jr $1,682, 655 Gary Polland $1,676,194 Jerome Godinich $1,161,871 R.P. Cornelius $1,619,476 Ricardo Gonzales $1,596,910 National Screening Center $1,297.398 Danny Easterling $1,036,530 Alvin Nunnery $1,031,498 George Clevenger $1,001,987 Donna Everson $981,361 William Thursland973,759 Angela Phea $973,650 Michael Trent 965,053 Hattie Shannon $950,180 Geraldo Acosta $917,927 The Griffin Law Firm $910,299 Sylvia Escobedo $901,981 Bonnie Fitch $852,952 Jimmy Ortiz $843,672 John Maisel ... Read More >
Fees For Judicial Appointments Part 2
Transparency is one way to curb the abuses involved in judges' appointments of amicus attorneys, discovery masters and mediators. However, I cannot tell you easily who, for example, Judge Pratt is appointing in private cases and how much those appointees are being paid because almost no one is following a Supreme Court order that requires reporting of all appointees' fees. The prior edition of The Mongoose quoted the 1997 Supreme Court order that requires all fees for judicial appointments to be approved in a separate order. The District Clerk is required to collect data from all such orders and report the fees in a monthly report to the state Office of Court Administration. Click here to see the state-wide report. However, the spreadsheet is too big and covers the entire state. I have taken the period September 2012 through June 2013 and created spreadsheets for each of Harris County's family district courts and sorted by bar number, so you can see who is getting reported ... Read More >
Fees For Judicial Appointments Must Be In an Order and Reported – Part 1
Transparency is one way to curb the abuses involved in judges' appointments of amicus attorneys, discovery masters and mediators. However, I cannot tell you easily who, for example, Judge Pratt is appointing in private cases and how much those appointees are being paid because almost no one is following a Supreme Court order that requires reporting of all appointees' fees. Scandals involving judicial appointments in Harris County courts in the mid-1990's caused the Texas Supreme Court to issue an order that is still in effect but largely ignored. Click here to see full order. The 1997 order states in part: Section 1. Every appointment made in a civil case, probate case, or proceeding governed by Titles 1, 2, or 4 of the Family Code, by a regular or assigned judge of any district court, constitutional county court, statutory county court, statutory probate court, court master or court referee of a person to a position for which any type of fee may be paid shall be made by ... Read More >