This story sickens me. There are many in the judicial system like this, some of which are in the OED Of the patent and trademark office. Prosecutorial Misconduct – lies and so forth should be punishable by law. Any lawyer who places an innocent party in prison or twists the evidence and truth – should not only be disbarred but in criminal application, should be in prison serving the sentence imposed on the innocent.

http://www.polsinelli.com/professionals/xpqProfDet.aspx?xpST=ProfessionalDetail&professional=1315&ajax=no

Kenny Hulshof is still in “good standing” with the Missouri Bar.

Prosecutorial misconduct, much like misconduct on the part of lawyers and judges, is ignored in the State of Missouri.

As most of you know, in 1940, Missouri was the first to adopt merit selection. The premise for merit selection is great. However, the devil is in the details…and in Missouri…the details have provided a comfortable place for the devil to do his deeds.

When merit selection was adopted, it consisted of three separate entities: A judge of the Missouri Supreme Court; 3 members of the state bar; and 3 laymen appointed by the governor.

At the time of adoption, the state bar was a voluntary benevolent society…completely separate from the court. Just four years after merit selection was adopted, and having only appointed one judge to the Missouri Supreme Court under this arrangement; the Missouri Supreme Court..by their new ability to “create rules for PRACTICE and PROCEDURE..made the state bar a committee of the Missouri Supreme Court.

This gave the Court..and their newly acquired committee..a 4-3 domination of the selection committee.

The one judge of the Missouri Supreme Court that was appointed under the merit selection plan (the one the voters adopted) was paraded around the country (and even the world) by the American Judicature Society as some great prize. His name was Laurence Mastick Hyde. He is described as being a “handsome man”, and for a long time was touted as one of Missouri’s great judges. However, the only quote made by this judge, that is available anywhere on the net is ““No plan is perfect, but I don’t see how anybody could devise a better one.”

The creation of merit selection in Missouri provided a means of perpetuating the power of the “political machine”. It just moved the power from those who create the laws, to those who adjudicate the laws. In addition, it removed those in power from such pesky things as elections, and accountability.

Did you know that impeachment trials are held in the Missouri Supreme Court?

Did you know that the Missouri Commission on Retirement, Removal, and Discipline of Judges is arranged so that the vote of the lay members is easily silenced?

Did you know that the OCDC (the entity in charge of lawyer discipline) has no lay input?

The legal system in Missouri has everything but accountability.

Missouri is a hotbed of corruption that has managed to keep such hidden by using the influence of the Court’s 28,000 member army, and their multi-million dollar a year purse, to instruct the sheople (I mean voters).

If you want to find out how they did it, I suggest reading Albert Kales (co-founder of the AJS) book “Unpopular Government in the United States”. –You can download it “for free” from Google books.

Perhaps Missouri would have been better off, had they listened to the May 29th, 1942 declaration of Chief Justice Gantt. The Saint Louis Post Dispatch ran a headline stating “Gantt in Reply Declares ‘People Should Blow Court Out Of Existence’”.

Gantt also said “the court itself was under the domination of the Pendergast machine”. -Remember..this was two years after merit selection all but directly enabled the court to select their own replacements. The 1944 adoption of the Bar as a committee of the Court sealed the deal.

I doubt you will see Hulshof disciplined by a court that he has SERVED so well.

The voters of Missouri need to figure out that this isn’t about party politics..it’s about power and control.

The local news, KCTV 5, just reported that Hulsof said, “Mr. Kezer being released is a travesty of justice.”

Well, Kenny, I guess it takes one to know one, ya prick. Enjoy your disbarment! I sure will. Maybe you and that loser half-wit Phil Kline can go into the used car business together.

i have been typing legal transcripts for over 25 years. for the past year, off and on, i have been transcribing telephone calls from a defendant being held on a charge of murder (he shot and killed another kid).

it’s astonishing what this moron is willing to say even though he knows he is being recorded — and acknowledges that his lawyer has warned him many times. he thinks no one can figure out who or what he’s talking about if he “talks in code.” hilarious!

many of the discussions involve his girlfriend telling him to stop talking to people in jail because the prosecution already has one fellow prisoner testifying for the prosecution.

yeah, they can be just that stupid.

Though I cannot opine with the same authority as Professor Turley on the topic, I do note that you raise and make a good point. At common law, convicted felons were barred from testifying as their word was deemed inherently unreliable; this was true even if they were sued in Virginia for the wrongful death of someone they murdered. Alas, we rarely have Popes or boy scouts witnessing criminal acts, and have come to rely in modern times, albeit warily, on the testimony of those in the best position to know the facts, their criminality notwithstanding. While permitting felons to testify, the Court and juries are loathe to rely on their words alone to support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, but may do so as the common law prohibition has been abrogated. The practice is far from perfect and certainly not free from criticism.

“Are these folks really, really that stupid?”

You’d be surprised. As Harlan Ellison once so deftly noted, “The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.”

The whole idea makes no sense to me. Why would anyone locked up in a cell and on trial for anything “confess” to the other inmates, especially when the confessor is in trial and could receive the death penality or be incarcerated for life?

Why would a judge allow the testimony an inmate already in jail for any number of heinous crimes, say murder or rape, to be accepted as credible against the person on trial? Would not the assumption be that the murderer will lie for some promised benefit, otherwise what is to be gained?

Really, do people really waltz into a jail cell and announce “Yeah, I killed the entire family”? This is totally illogical.

Are these folks really, really that stupid?

Nice grab on ol’ cousin Sarah.

I don’t want to interupt your fun, but I’d like to leave the below for the trolls. It’s off subject, of course, but that’s their MO. It did get me to chuckle a bit when I read it, tho.

Palin to pay tax on past per diem
EXPENSES: Governor received meal money while living in Wasilla.

By LISA DEMER

Published: February 17th, 2009 10:20 PM

Gov. Sarah Palin must pay income taxes on thousands of dollars in expense money she received while living at her Wasilla home, under a new determination by state officials…….

If I could just train these cats to make my coffee for me . . .

Here the contact info if you want to help out . . .

Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan Suelthaus
7500 College Blvd
Overland Park, KS 66210

(913) 451-8788

Tell how likely you’d be to use their services while they employ an abusive prick like Hulsof.