UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
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ALTON H. MADDOX, JR.,

Appellant,
Docket No. -07-0187CV
-against-
AFFIDAVIT

A. GAIL PRUDENTI as Presiding Justice
of the APPELLATE DIVISION, SECOND
JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT; DAVID S.
RITTER, MYRIAM J. ALTMAN; NANCY
E. SMITH, FRED T. SANTUCCI, ANITA
R. FLORIO; HOWARD MILLER; STEPHEN
G. CRANE; THOMAS A. ADAMS; DANIEL
F. LUCIANO; GABRIEL M. KRAUSMAN;
SONDRA MILLER; GLORIA GOLDSTEIN;
ROBERT W. SCHMIDT; STEVEN W.
FISHER; ROBERT A. SPOLZINO; WILLIAM
F. MASTRO; BARRY A. COZIER; REINALDO
E. RIVERA; PETER B. SKELOS; ROBERT
A. LIFSON as Associate Justices of the
Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department,

Appellees.
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STATE OF NEW YORK )
SS.:
COUNTY OF NEW YORK )

ALTON H. MADDOX, JR., being duly sworn, deposes and says as follows:
1. I am the appellant in the above-captioned civil rights action and am fully familiar with the facts alleged herein except those made upon information and belief and as to those facts your appellant verily believes them to be true.
2. I submit this affidavit in support of an order under Rule 34 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure allowing for oral argument for a period of fifteen minutes as originally requested on appellant’s brief instead of five minutes given in a pro se appeal as set forth under Local Rule 34.
Due Process on Appeal
3. Appellant, before his unlawful suspension from the practice of law in 1990, had practiced law for approximately seventeen years including perfecting and arguing appeals in this Court. Appellant is a pro se litigant only because he has been incessantly, permanently and wrongfully suspended from the practice of law for eighteen years.
4. This appeal is of real interest in the Black community which is reeling from a lack of zealous legal representation for fear from Black lawyers of judicial retaliation in racially-motivated and police-inspired cases especially resulting from a flawed grievance mechanism as has been reported by the Krausman Committee Report (www.nycourts.gov/courts/ad21). Nonetheless, appellees have failed to address these shortcomings and many of them have affected appellant’s right to a fair hearing as a suspended attorney rather than a disbarred attorney as his name may currently exist on the roll of attorneys.
5. This distinction is important to achieve appellant’s permanent suspension from the practice of law. Accordingly, appellees were motivated to alter appellant’s legal status without notice and opportunity to be heard after the initiation of this civil rights action. Appellant first learned of his new status as a disbarred attorney in appellees’ memorandum dated October 21, 2005. [A.233]. A second memorandum dated November 8, 2005 confirmed appellant’s new status [A.251].
6. This status was achieved without due process of law in both the New York courts and the federal court. Since appellant was unaware that this civil rights action had been assigned to U.S.D.C. Judge Alleyne Ross, no opportunity was afforded to appellant to challenge this due process violation. Because Judge Ross failed to mention this egregious constitutional violation in her Decision and Order dated December 19, 2006, it can be reasonably assumed that this issue was never brought to the attention of the District Court even though it is in the record.
7. The assignment of judges in this civil rights action ran afoul of Rule 50.2 of the Eastern Rules. Only the assignment of U.S.D.C. Judge Nina Gershon was made in compliance with Rule 50.2. On the other hand, Judge Gershon’s recusal raises serious concerns under 28 U.S.C. §455.
8. This shuffling and reshuffling of Rule 50.2 of the Eastern Rules not only allowed the shifting of appellant’s status from a suspended attorney to a disbarred attorney without judicial detection but also permitted appellees to wrongfully discipline appellant for exercising First Amendment rights because the District Court wrongfully assumed that the disciplinary process had ended with an admonition dated June 29, 2006.
9. The District Court decided the retaliation claim prematurely. The hearing before the Brooklyn Grievance Committee on appellant’s right as a disbarred attorney to criticize a judicial officer would not occur until July 2007. Appellant was unable to frame a claim of retaliation under the First Amendment until after July 2007. By this time, appellant had perfected an appeal in this Court. Legal status is important to making a First Amendment claim. Disbarred lawyers are not subject to the same legal restrictions as suspended attorneys.
10. Before it rendered its Decision and Order, filed on December 19, 2006, the District Court was unaware that appellant had exercised his right to a hearing under 22 NYCRR §691.6:
In cases in which an admonition or a letter of caution is issued, the attorney to whom such admonition or letter of caution is directed may, within 30 days after the issuance of the admonition or letter of caution, request a hearing before the committee or a subcommittee thereof, and after such hearing, the committee may take such steps as it deems advisable….

11. Local Rule 34 fails to prohibit a pro se litigant from enjoying more than five minutes of oral argument. This appeal requires more than five minutes of oral argument especially since appellant was shortchanged in District Court. Any deprivation of an opportunity to develop a record in District Court should be subject to cure in this Court. At the very least, appellant should not be treated as a normal pro se litigant.
Public Importance
12. Without question, the disciplinary process in the Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department is flawed and it is incapable of being self-corrected. Appellees have refused to embrace most of the recommendations of the Krausman Committee Report. Some of the recommendations would have enabled appellant to enjoy a semblance of due process in the attorney disciplinary process.
13. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine gives great comfort to litigation which seeks to challenge a flawed disciplinary process. Without the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the denial of due process in the attorney-disciplinary process in New York would continue unabated to the detriment of innocent attorneys like appellant who has a real and actual grievance.
14. This case is especially important to persons of African ancestry. There has always been a paucity of Black attorneys to provide competent and zealous legal representation to Blacks. This lack of Black attorneys continues despite any good-faith effort of affirmative action. Historically, grievance committees in New York have been harsh on outspoken Black attorneys who have challenged the status quo since the disbarment of Aaron Bradley in the 1850s. The first Black attorney, in New York, George Boyer Vashon, had to leave the country because of racial prejudice.
15. Appellees noted in their Decision and Order dated August 1, 1994 appellant had been a leader and out-spoken advocate in the Black community in matters of civil rights. In fact, appellant would venture to say that no attorney during appellant’s legal career had engaged in more pro bono cases. Most of these cases involved unpopular appellees and unpopular causes. [A copy of the August 1, 1994 Decision and Order is attached hereto and marked Exhibit “1.”
16. It was difficult for many persons in the Black community to find a legitimate cause for appellant’s suspension. Members of the New York Legislature initiated the disciplinary complaint; the executive branch of New York prosecuted the complaint, in part; through a grand jury; and the New York judiciary decided it. To many, this suggested government collusion.
17. Moreover, many Black persons are now confused by the breadth of the attorney-client privilege. In the Charles Stuart matter in Boston, MA, for example, Blacks observed the Massachusetts Supreme Court acknowledge that Charles Stuart, the apparent murderer of his wife, had a right to enjoy the attorney-client privilege and that it followed him to his gravesite while appellant, in New York, was expected to breach the attorney-client privilege which belonged to Tawana Brawley and Al Sharpton. Stuart was white. Brawley and Sharpton are Black.
18. It is now difficult for the Black community to understand the fairness of limiting the oral argument of appellant to five minutes in this appeal given the short-shrift in the Brooklyn Federal Court. After the acquittals of all policemen in the assassinations of Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell, serious questions are being raised about the fairness of the judicial system.
19. It fails to follow for those concerned about the legal plight of Blacks for this Court to hold an abbreviated hearing after appellant has been denied due process in the District Court. Appellant is only requesting a full and fair hearing in this Court.
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ALTON H. MADDOX, JR.

Sworn to before me this
24th day of July, 2008

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