Malorie M. Street, Public Defender

Nancy J. Johnson, Berliner-Cohen, SARC Attorney

Fn February 4, 2003, Malorie M. Street was appointed by the newly assigned Santa Clara County probate judge Hon. Judge Thomas Edwards to be Nancy Golin’s court appointed attorney. Only one week before this the mother’s unsubstantiated criminal charges were dismissed on motion by the DA and the father’s criminal charges were scheduled to be dismissed in August, on the condition that this would have no effect on the conservatorship proceeding.

Two months previously, the parents went to the outgoing probate judge Catherine Gallagher showing her shocking evidence discovered accidentally that Nancy had suffered a untreated and unreported broken collarbone and dislocated shoulder five months previously in state care, along with an expert orthopedist’s report estimating the date of injury at a time which was unquestionably in the custody of the state. Judge Gallagher partially sided with the parents saying that “if this is to be believed, Nancy Golin has suffered injury in state care” and suggesting that Nancy get a personal injury attorney recruited by the parents. However, Street had other ideas. It appeared that the veteran probate attorney Street was enlisted to fend off any such possible liability lawsuits. She told Edwards, “I field calls from personal injury attorneys, and I will have nothing of it”. Street was the regular court appointed probate public defender, and a search of court cases showed that she and SARC attorney Nancy J. Johnson and DDS attorney H. Dean Stiles had been a team in such cases for at least ten years. Before the pivotal hearing on February 4, 2005, Street was overheard to say, “Judge Gallagher ‘overstepped her bounds’, you will see that this judge is different, you won’t get the same kind of rulings from this judge that you got from those judges”.

When Mr. Golin pointed out in briefs the number of occasions in which the Street/Johnson/Stiles team had performed together in past cases, a curious and unbelievable thing happened. Before making this statement, the Santa Clara County Superior Court online public self serve court website where cases can be searched showed numerous such cases. Afterwards, they simply disappeared from the searches, all except for the Golin case and one other! This amazing result was checked repeatedly with the same results. Known cases involving friends could not be searched online anymore, by attorney or case number. Even in the on-site Records Department the same site showed the same curious results. All the cases she had worked on were redacted from the court records. Mrs. Street was known to have appeared in probate court cases for various indigent parties nearly every day she was assigned there, but now only a few of her cases were found. This encapsulates the degree of control that she exercised over the Santa Clara County Superior Courts. Street from the start was adversarial against the parents.

Without a single noticed motion before Edwards to prepare the parents’ attorney Morrissey to brief or oppose, Edwards granted Street the following on February 4, 2005 in what was supposed to be a mere “status review conference”:

· Lamb was to be removed as temporary conservator on the absurd excuse that she had supposedly failed in her duties by removing Nancy from the terribly damaging psychotropic drugs Risperdal and Zyprexa (actually a very good thing), which Street, not a medical expert, claimed were “perfectly safe” were “not off label when given at Agnews”, and with Nancy Johnson claiming that “Nancy just blossomed on Risperdal”. Two weeks later, Nancy was rushed to San Jose Medical Center as a result of the resumed drugging throwing up her esophageal lining, in serious condition. In fact, Lamb had secretly resumed the drugging with Zyprexa in December 2002 without notifying the parents, under pressure from care aide Gelle.

· Even though the parents had priority in standing and their criminal charges had been dropped, amended to a frivolous probable cause, they were denied temporary conservatorship. Street asked for and was granted a trial contesting the parents’ petition and the State’s. (Was this double jeopardy?)

· Supervised visitation dissolved by the criminal courts was “continued”.

· The State DDS was granted temporary conservatorship despite their proven abuses. This effectively shut off discovery available to all under Lamb.

· Nancy was to remain at Embee Manor where the abuses had been shown to have happened.

· Nancy was not to leave Santa Clara County.

· Nancy could not sue the County or anyone else for her injuries on the theory that Street represented her and she was not going to sue anyone on Nancy’s behalf.

· Nancy was denied a jury trial on Street’s motion. Street said she alone represented Nancy and only Nancy could ask for a jury trial and she wasn’t asking.

· Edwards clearly had already been enlisted to a predetermined agenda, saying that they were “going to take the first baby steps leading to the one big step”. Clearly since the first baby step was temporary conservatorship by the state, the big step in his agenda had to be the permanent conservatorship by the State. His idea was to “level the playing field” clearly absurd since the powerful state hardly needed any advantages over the parents, playing Goliath against the parents’ David, and the parents were supposed to have preference by law (Prob C §1812) not be on a level playing field with the state.

· Edwards granted the State six of the seven powers available even though the conservatorship was only temporary and the conservatorship was supposedly “limited”. This assured during the pendency of the appeal that the parents would have only limited access to their daughter for their defense and no access to records.

Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Malorie Street in Conservatorship of Nancy Golin

Q: At all times Malorie Melrose Street of the Santa Clara Office of Public Defender (OPD) acted under color of State law by failing to zealously represent her client Nancy Golin by

A:

1. Blocking Discovery of Records: Called all of the people Golins subpoenaed in or around March 2003 in preparation for trial for medical records involved since her removal from Golins’ custody, the regional center, the APS, Stanford, the group home, and demanding that they not to comply with the subpoenas, ordering them not to talk to us, all of which is civilly and criminally punishable as obstruction of justice, misinforming them that the subpoenas which Golins prepared with the advice of an attorney and personally served were not valid because Golins supposedly forged the signatures of the court executive, which were validly pre-printed on the form (see affidavit of Eric Conner who was supervising the distribution of these subpoenas, that was in Golins’ evidence book) and in every way vigorously obstructing discovery of any evidence showing that her client was injured or subjected to medical malpractice in state care.

2. Defeated Motion to Compel: When Golins then moved exparte to compel discovery, she appeared in court in or around March 2003 to oppose it and misrepresented the HIPAA federal privacy statute as preventing her from releasing this information, whereas in fact HIPAA does expressly contain provisions for releasing such information by subpoena or court order. At all times she represented that her primary concern was to protect her client's privacy as her primary interest, not concern about her client's welfare. She blocked all Golins’ attempts to obtain an independent medical examination. Discovery was blocked by the pre-trial courts, and Golins were forced into a compromise where the regional center attorney would decide what Golins would get and what Golins would not get, and Golins could not go outside to get anything independently that Golins wanted.

3. Objections during Trial to Introduction of Evidence of State Abuse: She raised objection after objection any time during trial that Golins attempted to move for court orders to release the information that Golins needed, of admission of evidence against the state showing mistreatment of her client. Street sat with the state and the regional center attorneys at the same opposing counsel table and joined in every one of their objections and motions. The courts amazingly always went along with whatever she asked. Then during trial, the state joined by Street blocked the admission of the very evidence they had produced pre-trial on the excuse that they had not provided the verifications of the records with the evidence they had shared and refused to do so at trial, and the judge went along with that. The attorney Golin had coaching me by phone said he couldn’t believe me when Golin told him that everyone at the trial was there and agreed that Golins should get the records Golins were still trying to get, the state, Street, and the judge, yet the judge refused to issue an order giving us access to them.

4. Introduced falsified records against her own client. At the end of trial, Street introduced medical records from Stanford that she said were “updated”, meaning that they were not the same as the records produced at the time of the visit to the clinic, and which contained slanderous mischaracterizations of the parents, who were never presented as witnesses or subjected to cross examinations. The judge accepted these into evidence, using these as better evidence to trump the live witnesses who testified to the contrary. Golins were never shown this evidence before and had no time to challenge it.

5. Acted in concert with State Attorneys. In the failed settlement conference, Street sat in with the State attacking the parents. Judge Gallagher went back and forth between rooms, parents in one and state in the other. Street sat with the state. She made a number of slanderous and unsupported attacks against the parents, including that they were supposedly homeless and roaming around the back streets of San Jose, even though they had a nice house in Santa Nella California in a fine neighborhood, that they had denied Nancy access to bathrooms, that they had never gotten along with any of their doctors and needed to be kept away from Nancy’s present doctors from fear they would be bothered by them. Numerous times she filed Joinder Motions with the Regional Center attorney Street.

6. Acted as a witness attacking her own client. In closing arguments, Street questioned the non-dangerousness of her own client which Golins had testified to, speaking about Golins’ testimony that Golins had had some difficulty when Nancy was tried on Tegretol, an anti-seizure medication that doctors wanted to try, which Golins were warned might cause personality changes, where Nancy would come up to us without warning and painfully scratch and pinch us, which on one occasion caused open scratches on my arm and Golin had to defend myself against her by pushing her away which upset my wife. This was a mess. Golins dropped the Tegretol soon afterwards, and Street contended that this constituted non-compliance with doctors orders, yet during closing arguments, she said this showed her client was not harmless, and cried out “SHE DREW BLOOD!” Not the sort of attorney one would keep for very long if you are able to fire your attorney.

7. Slander and Fraud: In the very first status review hearing on February 4, 2003 before the new Judge Thomas Edwards, the non-noticed massacre that happened right after Golins’ criminal charges were dropped, and Golins were going back into court with attorney Morrissey asking for conservatorship, right after the broken collarbone and neurological impairment from the drugging was discovered by the temporary interim conservator, and stopped...Street appeared for the first time alleging that she was taking over as Nancy's attorney from the public defender's office, and claimed that the state must assume temporary conservatorship away from the interim conservator instead of giving her back to her family or letting the interim conservator continue, for three reasons:

a. Nancy’s drugging must resume. Alleging without medical evidence (there were no witnesses or briefing before this hearing) that the interim conservator acted improperly by removing Nancy from the psychiatric drugs, claiming (in chorus with the regional center attorney Johnson) that "Nancy just blossomed on Risperdal" and advocating that the state needed to take over again in order to restore the drugging, even though all evidence showed that this could kill her because she had already exhibited signs of tardive dyskinesia and extrapyrimidal, cholinergenic side effects from the previous unmonitored drugging by caregivers.

Results in Injury and Conflict: Two weeks later, on February 19 Nancy was rushed in serious condition to San Jose Medical Center, throwing up blood and chunks of her esophagus, which Golins showed later in court by examination of three medical witnesses was caused by uncontrolled seizures, caused by lowering of seizure thresholds by psychiatric drugs re-administered. When Golins were closing in for the kill after having gotten all the supporting testimony from other doctors and giving a valid offer of proof during trial, they tried subpoenaing Dr. Farr, the GI doctor that had run the endoscopic exam on Nancy who had critical evidence of how bad Nancy was at the time and whether she had a cancerous condition from it, he refused to come to the trial and Martin rested our case. Golins believe, from her past performance, that Street called Farr and told him not to appear that she would fix it with the judge. That is a matter for further discovery. Golins have not been able to talk to Farr since then and got no more medical records from him.

b. Discovery Requires State Control, used to Block Discovery: The next reasons given by Street was that the state supposedly could not get discovery unless they were conservators, whereas in fact they had all access to records, and in fact the reason that they wanted conservatorship was to push us out and prevent Golins access to records, as attorney Chapnik predicted on record and later included in a declaration included in Golins evidence book to the Court of Appeals, see Golins’ footnote from the record. Judge just sat there and granted her whatever she wanted. And that is exactly what they did. As Chapnik stated in the hearing:

[1]February 4, 2003 transcript, MR. CHAPNIK: “The reason [that they want to get conservatorship] is to remove our powers to get the records; we’re perfectly willing to sign over power of attorney. They can get records, I believe DDS is entitled to investigate anything within their jurisdiction even without a specific jurisdiction to do so. If there is no evidentiary hearing set, they can get discover[y] and my client is willing to give power of attorney to give access to the records, but she is not willing to be pushed out so that her power to get records is cut off.”

c. Sleaze: Then Street stooped into the gutter and alleged in open court clear out of the blue that she was aware of an allegation that Mr. Golin had committed a rape of Nancy, whereas in fact there was never any such allegation against him whatever at any time by anyone, no facts were ever alleged, and later she denied making it but it remained on the record in that transcript.

d. Denies making allegations on record: Golins objected to her continuing to represent their daughter in a letter to her supervisor Mary Greenwood (attached), demanding to know what facts she had relied on to support such a charge, and never got any response.

e. Challenge to Street representation in pre-trial motions. In pre-trial Golins tried to get Street removed by the trial judge. They tried to substitute an independent private attorney (Chapnik), but Street got away with saying that Nancy was indigent and therefore the Public Defender’s office had to represent her, even though they were (at that time) not indigent and were ready to give Nancy the money to pay her attorney. Golins complained in their brief that Street had slandered them playing a nuclear weapon against them and had a conflict of interest having caused Nancy personal injuries she had to cover up:

Golin Denial Brief of May 2, 2003, page 47:

“…d. Street’s sleazy unfounded accusations against Mr. Golin were made on record and proved her bias and unethicality. Malorie Street in her recent declaration filed April 25 has denied making sleazy accusations against Mr. Golin of having assaulted his daughter in order to prejudice and bias the court. She backed down on all such claims:

“The Office of Public Defender makes no claim now or at any prior court proceeding that Jeffrey Golin raped his daughter, the proposed conservatee, Nancy Golin…This is not a legitimate basis for removal of the Office of the Public Defender as Mr. Golin is the sole party who has made this al-legation…The Office of the Public Defender neither now or in the past makes any such allegation….”

Yet, in fact the evidence that she in fact made these statements is contained in the February 4, 2003 transcript of the hearing before Judge Edwards:

“MS. STREET: It has been accused that Mr. Golin had perpetrated a rape.” (page 20, lines 27-28)

“and later:

“MS. STREET: We have to look at the dependency action where the Court intervened. They alleged in that action that she had been sexually assaulted.” (page 21, lines 20-21):

Besides being untrue, because there have never even been any such allegations made against Mr. Golin, she did make these statements. She simply plucked these remarks out of thin air, with absolutely no supporting facts whatever. There have never been any details provided, dates, reports, investigation, circumstances, nothing, by anyone in the past, in the dependency action or anywhere else. Then she left it hanging denying that she ever made such statements. Behind the scenes, Golin heard intimations that Ms. Street was seeking to peddle these sleazy rumors to others, Golin received an e-mail which he saved, from civil rights attorney intern William Gilliam, who briefly worked on this case, but dropped it after he talked to Ms. Street.

He wrote me on January 29, 2003:

“The public defender has a stated position of opposing your appointment as conservator "over her dead body." She intimated an investigation of the alleged rape of Nancy, and suggested that Jeff is the most likely suspect.

Golin immediately wrote Ms. Street an e-mail demanding to know if this was what she had said to him and demanding to know what the source of her false allegations had been. He received no reply. After receiving the Edwards transcript he again wrote Ms. Street expressing his dismay at her statements and demanding to know if she made those statements in court and if so why. Golin again received no reply. To date he has never received any explanation for these statements. Ms. Street has stooped too far into the gutter in her determination to win at any costs by slandering my reputation, and they demand she be removed for unprofessional conduct if for this reason alone.

That is the basis for Golins’ action among other things for slander and fraud against Malorie Street in Federal Court, still pending.

During the entire three week trial in October, 2003, Street never mentioned or repeated this claim that such an allegation existed, and neither did anyone else.

f. Trial Judge refuses to admit hearing transcript. This appeared in the transcripts but when Elsie tried to introduce the transcripts into the record at trial, Street piped up objecting, “Oh we all know there are errors in that transcript”, and the judge denied admission of a certified transcript into evidence.

g. Trial Judge Orders Slanderous Transcript Kept Prominently in Records. In reviewing Golins’ file in the Superior Court records, Golins were shocked to find that despite the fact that the February 4 records containing these slanders were denied admission into evidence, they were displayed prominently in the records, with a post-it note from Judge Martin ordering that these transcripts were not to be removed from the records, prejudicing anyone that might go review the record.

h. Street’s other adversarial non-noticed motions before Edwards, February 4, 2003

(a) Reimposed Supervised Visitation by Probate. At the end of the criminal trial and dismissal the criminal court dissolved the supervised visit orders. Street claimed that these orders should be reinstated by probate and prevailed, saying that “Mr. Golin has plead guilty to a crime of which my client is the victim”, omitting to state that the plea was not “guilty” but a deferred plea of not guilty, and that the “crime” was frivolous, that Golins allowed Nancy to wander away one time on November 15, 2001, and that did not make us dangerous to her in any way, especially compared to the state’s record which was far worse, but the motion prevailed and Golins were forced to continue supervised visitation without any showing of good cause.

(b) Nancy to remain in Embee Manor. Despite the showing that this group home had demonstrated a pattern of orthopedic injuries and unnecessary off-label drugging, despite the fact that Golins had shown the x-rays to the court, Street wanted her to remain there. She alleged that Golins’ conduct in reporting this group home’s proven abuse to state licensing had disrupted the home and “almost caused Nancy to be evicted from ‘her home’” and thus Golins were acting against her best interests and needed to be restrained and not allowed to enter the house anymore.

(c) Nancy to be confined to Santa Clara County. Nancy could not be taken out of the County, where she was being “protected” by APS and San Andreas Regional Center. That meant Golins could not take her to her former doctors who were all out of county, or seek help from other agencies. That was “outside our network”, Street claimed in the settlement conference. (Network? What kind of network?!)

(d) Must have a trial to determine conservator. There must be an evidentiary trial to determine who the conservator would be, state of family, despite family preferences.

(e) No personal injury attorney retained to sue county and state.

As Golin stated in another footnote:

[1] February 4, 2003 status review transcript: “MS. STREET: I have been contacted by civil attorneys. There are all sorts of civil allegations being made in this case and my position has been, as it is in every case, there will be no retention of any civil attorney without the Court’s permission. I am concerned about what information is being disseminated. I have been trying to get the information. Mr. Golin has today showed me the x-ray, but we need one unified voice to be able to account to the Court, and I think time is of the essence.”

(f) Not to be taken to any doctors by Parents. Supposedly Golins were so disruptive and assertive with Nancy’s doctors, and since Golins were not doctors ourselves Golins could not be trusted to interact with them at all, [since the cut-rate regional center doctors were over their heads in treating someone like Nancy] based on Golins’ “overconfidence in our medical knowledge”, Golins’ “willingness to shop around to find doctors that agreed with us rather than stand up to us” as Martin put it.

i. Intimidated Medical Witnesses During Trial not to Cooperate with Parents. As Golin stated in Golins’ petition:

“[1] Street was seen in the hallway during breaks openly threatening petitioner’s witnesses during trial (AER-S34), such as Drs. Morgan and Cerezo, after which Morgan lamely tried to disparage the Golins in his testimony, but backed down on cross examination (AER-S33-34). Martin refused to order Street’s intimidation stopped, and cites only Morgan’s initial disparaging remarks (AER-Q9) as evidence of the parents supposed inability to get along with “most professionals”. The parents relationship with both Morgan and Cerezo was actually quite cordial. The parents got alone fine over a long period of time with most knowledgeable professionals as attested by the second declaration of expert witnesses including attending physician Dr. Kaplan (AER-M1-M2), and with orthopedist Dr. Nguyen (AER-L1-L2) who both testified consistently with this declaration, and neurologist Dr. Belfer (AER-B1, J4).”

Golins heard Street telling Morgan who she corralled in the hallway during a session break after he had given testimony helpful to the parents, “the parents are out to get you, so you’d better not help them, we can’t protect you if you do”. When Golins approached she swore at us saying that this was a private conversation and Golins have to leave at once. She tried to do the same thing with psychiatrist Cerezo who ran away from her into the men’s room. Cerezo’s very helpful testimony is never mentioned by the judge in his opinion, and in the transcript is altered significantly when he agreed it was abuse to take Nancy to a doctor without any access to her prior medical records. His assent is altered to a dissent, Yes into a No. Golins objected to Street’s intimidation to Judge Martin who laughed off the motion to stop the intimidation.

j. Conflict of Interest: Pre-trial Golin challenged Street saying she had a serious conflict of interest and asked the then trial judge Gallagher to have her removed. Because of the part she had played in injuring her own client, she had a lot to cover up. Nobody listened to this.

k. Cover up of Court Records of Other Proceedings. Unbelievably when Golin discovered and reported in briefs that Street had been involved in countless other similar cases as a team with these same other state actors Johnson and Stiles for up to ten years ago, from an examination of the computer file search, the next time Golin looked those other cases were gone! Even cases Golin knew the case numbers on and the parties, such as that of Golins’ friend who had her son grabbed, did not show up on any further searches. Street is clearly a very powerful operative of the system.

l. Was Street actually a prosecutor? Twice during proceedings, Street under pressure misspoke and identified herself as a “deputy district attorney”. Was this a mistake or the real truth?

Q: At all times the State of California which was allegedly acting in the best interests of Nancy Golin demonstrated approval for the actions of Attorney Malorie Melrose Street of the Santa Clara Office of Public Defender (OPD) by failing to object to her actions and by failing to replace her with Counsel who would zealously represent Nancy Golin and her rights to due process under the 14th amendment and her liberty interests, her family liberty interests and her life interests.

A: Yes. Furthermore the Court itself knew what Malorie Street was and how she acted and thus lost all claims to impartiality when they appointed her and refused to allow her to be replaced.

Page last updated August 31, 2008