State Bar of California Funds Retaliation of Journalist w/Member Dues Violating Keller v. State Bar

April 27, 2012 - PRLog -- In 1990, the United States Supreme Court in Keller v. State Bar of California, 496 U.S. 1 (1990), held:

"Attorneys may be compelled to belong to the State Bar, but their mandatory dues could be used only to regulate the legal profession or improve the quality of legal services available to the people of the state."

For the past three years the State Bar has used member dues to initiate and implement First Amendment civil and criminal retaliatory prosecution against Journalist, Erin Baldwin, for the sole purpose of silencing her protected speech about matters of public concern.  She reported how the State Bar was not "regulating the legal profession," specifically relating to loan modification fraud by its attorney members colluding with non-attorney members of the California Department of Real Estate.

The State Bar surreptitiously obtained an unconstitutional permanent injunction against Baldwin which shut down her blog thereby cutting off information to warn consumers in foreclosure about the aforementioned fraud.  By so doing, the State Bar hurt, not improved "the quality of legal services available to the people of the state."

In his unanimous Opinion, Chief Justice Rehnquist likened membership in the California State Bar to membership in a labor union.  Gathering from Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, 475 U.S. 292 (1986), the High Court held:

"Objectors were entitled to an adequate explanation of the basis for the fee, a reasonably prompt opportunity to challenge the amount of the fee before an impartial decision maker, and an escrow for the amounts reasonably in dispute while such challenges are pending."  

The California State Bar chose to disregard the Opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court and a second lawsuit was brought by another plaintiff from the Keller case, Ray Brosterhous and dozens of other attorneys that were angry that their dues were being used to finance political, judicial and socio-political agendas.

This time the US Supreme Court issued a court order stating:

"The Bar’s Conference of Delegates, lobbying, special activities designed to promote the careers of women and minorities, and other social and political programs could not constitutionally be funded by compulsory Bar dues."

So what do you think the U.S. Supreme Court might think about the State Bar using member dues to fund three years of non-stop, malicious, dehumanizing and unconstitutional violations of law against a journalist that did nothing but exercise her First Amendment right to speak and publish the truth about fraud being committed by the State Bar?  

We should find out … Erin Baldwin's letter to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John R. Roberts, Jr. was delivered yesterday.  See:  scr.bi/I9SvA5