RICHARD 1. FINE

ID # 1 82:387 c/o Men's Central Jail

441 Bauchet Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012RichardlFine@gmail.com

xmœ W.*

November 18, 2009

R E c E i V E D

Mol-t-y .DWYE ,CLERK

O.s. COURTOFA/PEALS

Ntlk 2 t) 2229

FILED -

DOCKETEDDATE INITIAL

A?N: Pcnel Judlces Assigned io Case # 09-54073

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

95 Seventh StreetSan Francisco, CA 94103

RE: Pre-Decision on the lssue of 'lWhether the Trial Judge (Judge Yaffe) Should

Have Recused Himself'' Against Appellant Fine by the Ninth Circuit in thePending Writ of Habeas Corpus Appeal in Fine v. Sheriff of Los Angeles

County;

Ninth Circuit Case No. 09-58073, District Court Case No. CV-O9-1914 JFW

(CW)

Dear Panel:

Attached hereto is a copy of a November 2, 2009 article from Law.com which

refers to a hearing by the House Judiciary Committee on the subject of l'Federal

recusalguidelines amid controversies that have Swept through State Court

systems in recent years, culminating in a U.S. Supreme Court decision five

months ago that tightened the recusal requirements for elected state judges''.

The relevance of this article to the instant case is that the article refers to the

scheduled testimony of Ninth Circuit Justice M. Margaret McKeown, theChairwoman of the Judicial Conference's Committee on Codes of Conduct.Although she declined to be interviewed for the article, the article stated: ''In a

statement, she noted that the Committee on Codes of Conduct lprovidesethics advice and training that includes issuance of more than 1OO advisory

opinions annually and response to nearly 1 ,000 informal requests for ethics

QdViCe.'''

In this case, LA Superior Cour't Judge David P. Yaffe received $48,348.00 per yearfrom LA County. Judge Yaffe is an elected state judge, not a County

employee. LA County's payments amount to 27% of his State salary. He did not

disclose the payments on his form 70O Statement of Economic lnterests. He did

not have any contact or agreement or arrangement to perform services for LA

County. LA County waS a party before him in the Underlying case and he madean order in its favor, ordering Fine to pay LA County and its co-applicant for an

Environmental Impact Report attorneys' fees and costs. He then held Fine in

Case: 09-56073 11/20/2009 Page: 1 of 7 DktEntry: 7138890

contempt and ordered Fine into ''coercive incarceration'' without Iimit

enforce the order and itS progeny.Ninth Circuit PanelNovember 18, 2009

Page 2

Fine has been in ''coercive incarceration'' for approximately nine months, sinceMarch 4, 2009, in the LA County Jail.

LA County's payments to LA Superior Court judges have been held to violate

Article VI, Section 19, of the California Constitution in the case of Sturçeon v.

Covntv of Los Ange/es, 1 87 Cal. App. 4th 830 (2008) rev. denied 1 2/23/08. The

payments were also acknowledged to be criminal by Senate Bill SBX2-1 1 ,enacted February 2O, 2009, effective May 21 , 2009. Such Bill gave retroactiveimmunity from its effective date from criminal prosecution, civil Iiability and

disciplinary action to the judges and other government officials related to

county payments to judges.

The spectre of pre-decision by the Ninth Circuit against Fine in this case arises

from Justice McKeown's ''statement'' that the panel of which she is Chairwoman

issues 'lmore than 1O0 advisory opinions annually and resjonds to nearly 1,000

informal requests for ethics advice'', which Shows a pre-dlsposition on the issue

on appeal of ''whether the trial judge should have recused himself'' and her

scheduled appearance before the House Judiciary Committee to defend the

actions of the judges of self-recusal.

In particular, a bias against recusal is indicated to exist in this case for the

following reasons:

1) The Ninth Circuit has denied Fine's unopposed motion to grant the writ

based Upon Fine's Opening Brief;

2) The Ninth Circuit has denied Fine's Unopposed motions to strike Appellees'

Answering Briefs;

3) The Ninth Circuit has denied Fine's two Unopjosed motions to be released

from incarceration and one Unopposed motlon for reconsideration ofmotion to be released from incarceration; and

4) The Ninth Circuit has ordered that no further motions to be released from

incarceration be filed.

ln summary, the Ninth Circuit has denied five Unopposed motions. This conductis highly irregular for a court, padicularly when one of the Unopposed motionswould have disposed of the appeal by granting the writ.

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