By Ed Truncellito, JD

June 5, 2003

Yesterday seven Justices of the Virginia Supreme Court were put on trial in their own court by attorney Linda Kennedy who was disbarred last year.

The Justices had the spotlight turned around on them when Kennedy addressed them from the podium. Kennedy was there to appeal her disbarment for violating the First Unwritten Rule of Virginia Legal Ethics: do not embarrass the Virginia Bar by blowing the whistle on white-collar crimes they commit against an unwitting Virginia public.

Kennedy began by throwing Chief Justice Leroy Rountree Hassell, Sr. off guard. She complimented him saying she heard him preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ at Regent University. Maybe he momentarily forgot that a similar tactic was used by the Apostle Paul to subdue King Agrippa. The Justice straightened up and beamed with pride as he was reminded of the distinction that Regent bestowed upon him in the eyes of his black community by honoring him as a professor of law and theology.

Next Kennedy quoted a second one of the Justices, a woman, who was published as stating that legal process must always be above suspicion. Kennedy thanked her for the statement but added that the message apparently has not yet reached the Virginia Bar.

Kennedy silenced a third Justice by interrupting his question and asking that the Justices not ask her any more questions. She said they had a copy of her written brief, and she wanted to use her entire 15 minutes to explain to them in person how their legal system has become disgracefully corrupt. And if that did not convince them, then nothing ever would.

Nonetheless a moment later a fourth Justice, another woman, interrupted to ask if she understood correctly that Kennedy did not want to answer their questions, perhaps implying that Kennedy had something to hide. But Kennedy rebuked her. Kennedy said it could not have been made any plainer: "no questions." The Justice pushed herself back in her chair showing consternation, but she had nothing more to say.

Having silenced the Justices, Kennedy then proceeded --- shall we say "earnestly" --- to "chew their butts" as plain folk in Virginia would call it.

Good for you, Kennedy, because the buck stops here. These Justices are the senior officers of the Virginia Bar whose lawyers are trying to cover up the fact that Kennedy caught them red-handed falsifying the very court record that these Justices had sitting right there under their noses on the bench. The legal process that brought them the case record was not merely suspicious. It was blatantly fraudulent.

Kennedy had fished through the trial court's trash cans and found the trial court's handwritten notes that the trial judge had approved falsifications of the trial record to cover up perjury by the lawyer who heads the Virginia Bar's Ethics Committee.

Kennedy has audiotapes that prove what the Ethics leader really said, in his own recorded voice. But the trial court cut out the part of the record where the trial judge refused to allow those audiotapes to be played. Ironically, the trial judge's comments were falsified in the record claiming he said he would have exonerated Kennedy if only she could have proved what the audiotapes in fact do prove.

Talk about smoking guns. But this is just one of the more glaring cases. It is an open secret that records are being falsified routinely in cases all over the state and all over the country while the high courts hear it with a deaf ear. Zed McLarnon, a forensic audio-visual expert, has documented that transcripts in Massachusetts courts are altered with the knowledge of court personnel. In Indiana, Rebecca Rohrs has conclusively documented literally thousands of alterations in hearing transcripts in a child custody case. "This is criminal misconduct," attorney Eugene Wrona says of similar practices in Pennsylvania, "and these people belong in jail."

Further, it is notorious that lawyer whistleblowers can all expect to share Kennedy's fate. Law students are misled like the public, being told in law school that law is an honorable profession. Not until they begin practicing do they discover how money really changes hands. Only after they have invested years in their law school education are they taught that they must maintain an unwritten code of secrecy. Then they shut up --- or they are disbarred.

After Kennedy's 15 minutes, Chief Justice Leroy Rountree Hassell, Sr. told her the time was up. Kennedy announced that there was no need for her to listen to her opponent's excuses or comment on them. Then she walked out with some of the 30 supporters who accompanied her including pastors and lawyers.

The Justices in this case will pronounce a verdict on themselves.

If they order a full investigation and a new trial of Kennedy's disbarment, then the Justices will have pronounced their innocence. Otherwise, Regent ought to reconsider whom they allow to preach to our youth.