Reply #99: This is one guy who richly deserves his baloney sandwiches

[depakid]

It was a fine day when this note appeared in the California Bar Journal. It was a long time coming:

RICHARD I. FINE <#55259>, 69, of Beverly Hills was disbarred March 13, 2009, and was ordered to comply with rule 9.20.

The State Bar Court’s review department upheld a hearing judge’s recommendation that Fine be disbarred because he committed 16 acts of moral turpitude in numerous civil proceedings. Although the appellate panel reversed some of the lower court’s culpability findings, it found that the judge’s disbarment recommendation was appropriate in light of Fine’s “repeated abuse of the judicial process.”

Fine raised several procedural and constitutional claims for the first time on review, and they were rejected. Fine also attacked the sufficiency of the culpability findings, but the review department upheld those for the most part, finding that the hearing judge “fairly and fully reviewed” the evidence.

Fine repeatedly sued both state and federal judges, challenging their qualifications. His misconduct started with a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles in which the commissioners ruled against Fine’s request for attorney fees. Thus began “a pattern of deliberately misusing the process for challenging a judicial official,” wrote review Judge Joann Remke. “Even after (Fine) was repeatedly warned and sanctioned for his abusive behavior in state court, (he) continued his tactics in the federal courts where he repeatedly filed meritless lawsuits against judicial officers.”

When his case went before the bar court, he filed 27 motions to disqualify various judges: five against the trial judge, five against the supervising judge, three against other judges who were not involved, six motions to disqualify the presiding judge of the review department and eight to disqualify the other review judges.

Fine has long contended that the charges against him are politically motivated. The cases he filed against judges were not retaliatory, he said, but instead were based on his belief that judges who accept money from a county fund to augment their compensation have a conflict of interest in any matter involving government municipalities.

Fine was jailed indefinitely in March on contempt of court charges — for refusing to answer a judge’s questions and practicing law without a license. He remained in jail last month.

http://calbar.ca.gov/state/calbar/calbar_cbj.jsp?sCategoryPath=/Home/Attorney%20Resources/California%20Bar%20Journal/October2009&MONTH=October&YEAR=2009&sCatHtmlTitle=Discipline&sJournalCategory=YES#d3