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: Legal Blog Watch

'L.A. Law' Meets 'Jail' -- Disbarred Attorney 14 Months Into 'Coercive Confinement'

By Eric Lipman

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Today, CNN is scheduled to air video of its interview with Richard Fine, a (now disbarred) attorney who has spent more than 14 months in the L.A. County Jail for contempt of court after he refused to provide certain financial documents pursuant to a court order in connection with a fee award in a case Fine lost. Fine considers himself a political prisoner, because his raison d'etre over the past several years has been exposing the alleged corruption inherent in the courts of Los Angeles County resulting from the county's practice of tacking on an additional $57,000 in "supplemental benefits" to the $178,000 state salary of Superior Court judges. A California appellate court actually ruled those payments unconstitutional in 2008, but the legislature then reportedly passed a law legitimizing them. To Fine, this mission was just a natural extension of his chosen role as a taxpayer advocate, challenging your typical "waste, fraud and abuse." But, says Fine, the judges don't see it that way, and that's why he's still locked up. The notion of coercive confinement, is, of course, to coerce someone to comply with a court order. Once it becomes clear that it's not gonna work, the contemnor (yes,...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on May 24, 2010 (boomark / email).