No Crimes And Misdeweiners: Rachel Hunter vs. The NC State Bar

Rachel Lea Hunter . . . the Raleigh-Durham lawyer and ballsy/mouthy broad that (during her campaign for a seat on the NC Supreme Court) Omnipotent, Blogger King & Key-West-slumming Trust-Fund Baby, Ed Cone, once dubbed "batshit crazy" (very sensitive and poetic on Edward's part, since Rachel survived a brain tumor) . . . is in hot water again with the NC State Bar.

In my humble opinion, it's not hot water at all. In fact, it's cold-as-ice slime.

Before I get started, I suppose I should re-state my disgust for the NC State Bar. No one circles the wagons better . . . except maybe the NC Medical Board.

Let's be clear. I don't agree with Rachel on everything, and her campaign's rhetoric at times was WAY-over-the-top (as much as I am often a connoisseur of things way-over-the-top). But the last time she ran for judge, I voted for her.

You see, Rachel Lea Hunter was spot-on about the corruption & good-ole-boy/pay-to-play politics that permeates North Carolina's halls of justice.

She had no use for the status quo. Rachel called it "the Beast".

Now that term may have made the Coneheads' heads spin, but it's when she got my vote (along with around 640,000 others). When you think about it, she was one of the first candidates to run on the concept that we desperately needed "change" in state government.

(Allow me to pause while I picture the heads of "progressives" everywhere exploding in front of their keyboards).

Rachel is married, of course, to Connie Mack Berry, Jr. He's my absolute favorite "convicted felon" (something the progressive-yet-not-so-compassionate "Cone-heads" loved to call him when he did battle on Rachel's behalf). Since the end of the campaign, we've kept in contact by e-mail.

Connie and Rachel were both very kind to me at a time when I needed it, and I don't forget kindness. I kept up with their health battles . . . and periodically asked for updates on Connie's son . . . who served tours in Iraq and (recently) South Korea. Connie's had some very rough medical seas to navigate lately . . . several very serious/dangerous surgeries for vascular problems - as well as the partial removal of a lung. But he's back online and seems to be feisty as ever. The man that our local Cone-heads (who served no tours in Iraq) said was "running on one cylinder" is definitely fired up . . . and his aim is keen.

I love it.

Call me enlightened, but the thing about convicted felons is that they have accepted responsibility for their actions, and are paying . . . or have paid . . . their debt to society (p.s., they can vote too). The great thing about America is that when you pay your debt, you get second chances. And thirds, etc., etc., etc.

Or at least that's what those liberal local bloggers tell the rest of the less-enlightened world.

Of course, accepting responsibility and paying a debt would be in stark contrast to the unconvicted felons that for years have been protected and shielded by members-in-good-standing of the North Carolina State Bar.

Now, the enlightened local liberal bloggers around here don't care about that. The victims of these white-collar criminals can be easily dismissed as obsessed "wack-jobs" who are supposed to just get over it . . . to move on along. It's easier for the enlightened liberals to focus on themselves and their much more relevant agendas.

Indeed, given how many felons convicted and otherwise were/are involved in the governing (and billion-dollar bilking) of North Carolina . . . and how most of them have gotten a free pass . . . I always thought it was way beyond lame for our supposedly enlightened local liberal bloggers to be slamming Connie. Given my own experience being targeted for professional/economic destruction (go to sleep, Roch), Connie's explanation for what happened in GA (i.e. things got out of control because he was very ill from cancer, his wife had died, he was targeted by political enemies - and he made a plea decision based on those circumstances) is something I can easily conceptualize, understand and accept.

Especially now that someone else is being targeted for total destruction.

Let's get to the point of this post: A little while ago, Connie forwarded me a copy of the latest TOTALLY BOGUS complaint lodged against his beloved Rachel by the North Carolina State Bar.

The complaint, filed back in November, is perhaps the silliest, most transparently vindictive, politically-motivated "pay-back" I have ever seen.

It's a joke. Its premise assumes (in the grandest "ass of you and me" fashion) that the average North Carolinian surfing sites/blogs in the Internet age (or voting) is a back-woods moron incapable of making even the most simplistic judgements.

I dunno. Maybe it's true. The voters keep sending the same crooks back to Raleigh.

The boys at the Bar (I am loathe to capitalize the word) must have a lot of time on their hands since they busted Mike Nifong . . . who, in their book, must be the only dishonest lawyer in the state of North Carolina.

The Bar is so very proud of that pounding. The Nifong case is still featured prominently on the Bar's home page. Moreover, Law & Order Roy Cooper prominently featured his deft handling (yes, that was sarcastic) of the case in his bid for re-election as NC Attorney General.

Yet somehow, in the aftermath of that fiasco, no one at the Bar, or the NCAG's office or in state government has thought it prudent to address the laws in this state that do not allow citizens (the ones Bev Perdue says she cares so much about) to make direct appeals to the Attorney General's office when they believe that a DA is behaving badly (it's a common public misconception that all one has to do to make a DA jump is call up the AG/SBI - and that's not the way it works). Indeed, in the Nifong case, the hammer could not and did not drop until Nifong himself (likely naively expecting to be shown some mercy - maybe because another lawyer - or bunch of lawyers - snowed him) cut his own throat.

After the example that was made of Nifong, do you honeslty think any other DA will make the same mistake? The Duke boys may be set for life, but the rest of us are screwed.

The State Bar and NCAG's office are now resting on their (one) laurel, when they really need to get out a scythe and start clearing house. But we'll get to that.

In the complaint against Rachel, the bullies at the Bar allege that her use of the moniker, "Madame Justice", on her website is "false and misleading" (since she doesn't sit on the NC Supreme Court), and a "misrepresentation" of her identity/legal credentials/qualifications . . . "in violation" of the Revised Rules Codes of Professional Conduct.

If Rachel is in "violation" of the "revised rules", I'd hate to see the original ones. And were they "revised" to go after Rachel?

Given my own awful experience with some fairly big-gun lawyers in this state (asleep yet, Roch?), the complaint against was so pathetic & absurd in its fundamental hypocrisy that I had to laugh - even though it's so not funny.

Never mind that Rachel used the moniker "Madame Justice" long before she campaigned for anything (since about 1997) . . . on what Connie likes to call "the Ancient sites" . . . and that several fairly prominent people are apparently prepared to provide sworn affidavits to that effect. Moreover, she used the moniker in her 2004 judicial campaign, and not a peep was heard from the Bar.

Must have been before the rules were "revised".

Follow the dots. This complaint is ALL and ONLY about intimidating Rachel Hunter and keeping her from running again in 2010.

The Bar maintains that "Madame Justice" clearly implies that Rachel is a female member of the Judiciary. Now THAT is really hilarious. Because when I punched "Madame Justice" into Google, the first page I was able to pull up was NOT that of a member of the judiciary . . . or even Rachel's site . . . but the bio for "Madame Justice" . . . a 21-year-old gay, self-described "vampire freak" from the United Kingdom.

I don't think the "vampire freak" is a lawyer.

"Madame Justice" is Rachel's online "handle". I call myself "Dr. J", but nobody thinks I'm a black man who makes a rim smoke on the basketball court. And nobody thinks Julius Erving is a badly-burned/ballsy Pediatrician from a dying mill-town who doesn't suffer liars or fools.

Did these learned legal IDIOTS not ever see "Smokey and the Bandit"? I mean, we do live in North Carolina.

Calling the Snowman! To quote Buford T. Justice, the NC State Bar needs to have its ass barbequed in molasses. I think Rachel and Connie are just the people to do it.

And OBTW, what about that little Constitutional right called "Free Speech"?

Am I, "Jane Q. Public" (another handle I have used on occasion - on my CB radio - yes, I an square enough to have one), supposed to believe that Rachel's use of a moniker that she, IN NO WAY, has used to mislead paying clients . . . is some kind of threat to society?

The abject frivolity of the complaint against Rachel is especially galling since, I, Dr. Mary Johnson/"Dr. J"/"Jane Q. Public" (former client/plaintiff/defendant) have begged the North Carolina State Bar to do something . . . anything . . . about lawyers who most certainly violated their ethical/professional codes of conduct . . . in a range of offenses . . . from lying to a client (Steve Schmidly) . . . to knowingly filing false answers on behalf of a client/"non-profit" - it's called suborning perjury (Robert Ford and Demetrius Worley on behalf of Randolph Hospital administrators, Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin) . . . to failing to rectify said perjury (and thus perpetuating fraud) when it was brought to the attention of Randolph Hospital's lawyer (Robert Wilson). . . to the "habitual intemperance" of an officer of the court (Garland Yates) when the perjury was reported to local law enforcement.

In Garland's case, his determined inaction amounts to what I like to call the "reverse Nifong".

And please don't get me started on the lawyers who run the NC Medical Board. They are not interested AT ALL in protecting or defending the duties they require. When a good doctor needs help, they cut and run.

What these very important lawyers did or did not do helped Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin defraud the state & federal governments of hundreds-of-thousands of dollars they sunk into physician loan-repayment . . . "incentive" money (Keith Crisco should understand that) intended to recruit and RETAIN (key word) Pediatricians to Asheboro.

The physicians, best friends treated like garbage (one fired/one disgusted by the firing), left town. And now "under-served" kids can fall back on PA's at the Merce.

Moreover what these legal eagles did completely obstructed justice for a citizen/public servant profoundly wronged . . . and in the perpetuation of the fraud, these lawyers subverted the whole reason the lawsuit was filed in the first place . . . i.e. to obtain the professional vindication and fiscal restitution that might have made it possible for at least one of those Pediatricians to stay in Asheboro and practice Pediatrics . . . to reclaim the intent and "vision" and "mission" of the NC & US Departments of Health & Human Services when they issued the checks to the doctors.

Do these things NOT violate the NC State Bar's Ethical/Professional Codes of Conduct (revised or otherwise)?

HOW CAN THEY NOT?

Yet the NC State Bar quickly dismissed my complaints - completely blowing them off.

I mean, my complaints to the NC State Bar . . . as a licensed, reasonably-intelligent/somewhat-eloquent (if I do say so myself) doctor-in-public-service repeatedly burned by lawyers-who-can-only-be-described-as-snakes . . . did not get even a sniff from the upturned noses at the North Carolina State Bar.

Yet some clown wielding a political-hatchet (who apparently has no adult reasoning skills at all) can file a complaint like this, and the NC State Bar will pursue it at the taxpayer's expense . . . making Rachel's life miserable . . . having her incur the expense of defending herself (again) . . . against a bogus charge?

There is NO crime here. There's certainly no ethical violation.

Whatever you may think of Rachel Hunter or Connie Mack Berry, Jr., THIS BS IS JUST PLAIN WRONG.

I watched an interview with Beverly Perdue last week (on Public Television I think) in which she said she was surrounded & aided by some pretty good lawyers.

I beg to disagree. She's surrounded by sycophants and oily dweebs . . . legal eagles that cannot fly for the crap stuck to their wings.

They're MISDEWEINERS.

It's called harassment. Beverly Perdue promised change.

I'd really like to see some REAL change at BOTH the NC State Bar and NC Medical Board.