COCHRAN FIRM FRAUD CONTINUES UNCHECKED BY COURTS

Re:  Hattie Neal and Mary Neal v. The (Johnny) Cochran Firm
United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Div; Civil Action No. 1:07-cv-1935-TCB; Legal Malpractice, Fraud, Contract Fraud, Breach of Fiduciary Duty; Jury Trial Demanded - $30 million demand - 1/3 per defendant below; Filed: 8/15/07 (pro se -- to protect the 4-year statute on contract fraud); Hattie Neal and Mary Neal - 20-year residents of Atlanta, GA metro area; Defendants Served: Cochran Cherry Givens & Smith home office- Dothan AL; Cochran Firm Memphis Office (contract was signed); David McLaughlin, Esq. (Neal's atty., as an individual); Diversity Action - different state residence among defendants and plaintiffs

UPDATE POSTED 2/23/08:   Judge Batten reversed his decision to dismiss on 2/12/08.  Apparently, the USDC Clerk's office made an error in calculating Plaintiff's time to respond.  All cases were reopened. 

FOLLOWING THE SECRET INCARCERATION AND WRONGFUL DEATH of my brother, Larry Neal, a 54‑year‑old mentally ill heart patient, my elderly mother contracted with the (Johnny) Cochran Firm to bring a wrongful death suit against Shelby County Jail, Memphis, TN, and negligence suits against the State of TN and Larry's final care home.  Larry was a lifelong mental patient, having spent from age 9 until his mid 20's in Western State Mental Hospital for his mental condition, diagnosed as being paranoid schizophrenia.  When Larry's family requested that Larry be readmitted to psychiatric facility, the request was refused, because it was determined that he did not meet the criteria of "danger to himself or others."

For approximately 25 years after release from the mental institution, Larry was often arrested for misdemeanors having to do with his mental illness, and Memphis police were counted on for safe transport to mental health facilities during Larry's occasional psychotic episodes.  Larry disappeared during a heat wave in mid-July 2003.  His social worker and family searched for him and filed a missing person report with the Memphis Police Department.  The jail repeatedly and falsely denied having Larry under arrest during his nearly three weeks "missing," until poor Larry died in jail of a fatal heart attack.  See http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com for details and substantiating documentation.

The family  immediately contracted with The (Johnny) Cochran Firm to represent Larry's elderly, grieving mother, Hattie Neal, in a wrongful death action against the jail and negligence suits against the State of Tennessee (for refusing to hospitalize this very sick patient) and Larry's final care home.  However, Julian Bolton, Esq. was the managing partner of The Cochran Firm's Memphis office, and he was also a 20+year member of the Shelby Co. Commission, the entity that owns and operates the jail where Larry was euthanized.  In fact, Mr. Bolton had been chairman of the Shelby County Commission before stepping down to help Johnny Cochran establish the Memphis office of The Cochran Firm.  This law firm apparently contracted with Larry’s family merely to keep our suit inactive while the statute ran, and then did absolutely nothing during the 10.5 months the firm were under contract as our attorneys to represent us.  By the time we discovered The Cochran Firm's conflict of interest and their inactivity as our attorneys regarding Larry's negligence and death, we only had six weeks remaining on the TN statute of limitations, and other law firms we contacted required more than a mere six weeks to gather all of the necessary hospital records, conduct interviews, and prepare the suits for court.  Therefore, The Cochran Firm succeeded in preventing Larry’s wrongful death suit against Shelby County Jail.

After our statute of limitations to file wrongful death passed, we discovered that the jail was operating under an Agreement and overview by the Justice Dept. after suit by the USA for previous infractions of inmates' civil rights.  It was partly to protect the jail from examination by the Justice Dept. that the Cochran Firm Memphis office held our suit inactive, while writing Larry’s family lying letters of a fictitious discovery process.  For more than four years, Larry’s family has been denied reports and official records of Larry's secret arrest and euthanasia.  The Justice Department denies receiving reports from Shelby Co. Jail on Larry's death or Any Reports Whatsoever for the time period of Larry’s secret arrest (mid-July to August 1), despite the fact that the jail was mandated by the terms of its agreement with the USA to file such reports monthly and semi-annually while under the USDOJ's overview.  Furthermore, the Justice Department refuses to investigate my brother's euthanasia.  A year after Larry’s family informed the Justice Department of Larry’s secret arrest and euthanasia, the United States Government held public hearings to see if Shelby County Jail met its conditions and standards to be released from federal overview. It is my understanding that the jail was in fact released from overview by the Justice Department, without any accounting for the secret death of Larry Neal.  See http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com for details and documentary evidence.

On August 1, 2005, Larry's mother and sister brought suit against the Johnny Cochran Firm for its fraud, serving suit to the law office that is held out to us as being the Atlanta, GA office of The Cochran Firm. This law office conducted Larry's family's initial client intake interview and arranged for my mother to sign contract in Memphis when she went there to bury her "special" child, Larry.  However, once served with our suit, this Atlanta office disclaimed being any part of The Cochran Firm or having any affiliation thereto, despite prolific television, rapid rail, phone book, and Internet advertising to the contrary.  Judge Wendy Shoob, Fulton Co. Sup. Ct. of GA, dismissed our fraud suit against The Cochran Firm in May 2006, upholding the premise that there was no Cochran Firm office in Georgia.  However, the name this law office used to dodge our suit  in court is actually nonexistent:  Cochran Cherry Givens Smith & Sistrunk, P.C.  Georgia’s Secretary of State's office had no such entity registered in May 2006, before May 2006, or currently.  That name was obviously a handy alias The so-called Cochran Firm's Atlanta  was allowed to use in court to have our lawsuit dismissed.After our lawsuit was dismissed, the so-called Atlanta office of The Cochran Firm was advertised as being a Cochran Firm law office for almost another year, until I threatened to sue the television stations for helping the Cochran Firm defraud the Georgia public.  Even today, the first office listed on the (Johnny) Cochran Firm's Internet list of offices is the Atlanta office at 127 Peachtree Street, the same one that denied in court having any affiliation with The Cochran Firm to have our suit dismissed.

On August 15, 2007, Larry’s mother and sister filed suit in United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia (see case style above).  There, the family again received no justice.  The Cochran Firm filed a motion to dismiss our suit on January 2, 2008, and by law, we had 10 days to respond.  According to the 10‑day rule, plaintiffs had until January 22, 2008 to file a response to defendants’ motion, because weekends and holidays do not count and three mail days are added to the equation by law.  However, Judge Timothy Batten dismissed our case on January 17, 2008, with prejudice, saying plaintiffs failed to respond timely to the Cochran Firm's motion to dismiss, although by law, we had five days remaining to respond at the time Judge Batten signed the order to dismiss on the basis of our not responding.  We then filed a request for reconsideration on January 22, 2008.  Plaintiffs asked the court to correct its math, and we are now awaiting a response.If Judge Batten does not grant our motion for reconsideration and rescind his order of dismissal, we will have to file an appeal. If Judge Batten refuses to rescind his order and we appeal, then what?  If our judiciary has decided to protect The Cochran Firm for its fraud and to protect the Justice Department from criticism for not taking a stand for my mentally ill brother who was incarcerated in a jail that was under its overview, what good will an appeal do?  Apparently, justice is dead in America.  Judge Batten's ruling even makes Larry’s 85-year-old mother and his sister, who are plaintiffs against The Cochran Firm, responsible for paying court costs and PAYING THE COCHRAN FIRM FOR ITS ATTORNEY'S FEES TO DEFEND ITSELF AGAINST OUR FRAUD ALLEGATIONS.  

UPDATE POSTED 2/23/08:   Judge Batten reversed his decision to dismiss on 2/12/08.  Apparently, the USDC Clerk's office made an error in calculating Plaintiff's time to respond.  All cases were reopened.

Having searched for three years, Larry's family has not been successful in finding an attorney to represent them against The Cochran Firm for its deliberate malpractice and fraud against my family and the Georgia public, regarding the advertising of the so-called Atlanta office as being “The Cochran Firm.”  Although Larry's family has proof of every assertion made, lawyers say they cannot get involved in something so political, or they have a conflict, or they are intimidated by the Cochran Firm's deep pockets, or they feel it could hurt their firm to be the ones to tarnish the legacy of the firm's founder, Johnny Cochran. 

I was told by a lawyer this week that she has never seen so much fraud as this in all her years of law practice.  She indicated that whomever wants to keep my brother's death secret is very powerful.  She said that if it took my contacting Georgia's Governor's office to get the Georgia Bar to send us a form to merely file a complaint against the Cochran Firm's so-called Atlanta office, then we certainly need someone more wealthy and powerful than her to represent my family, because keeping my brother's death and the Cochran Firm fraud secret is obviously of paramount importance to someone wealthy and powerful.  See http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal

Larry’s family will continue our quest for official records regarding his fatal incarceration, and we will continue to demand justice in America's courts.  Tentative plans are also underway to begin peaceful picketing of the Cochran Firm and various courts where justice has been denied Larry’s family.  Because the media is owned by corporate entities which will not report these events, my family has recorded a video presentation to broadcast these injustices, which will be released on Internet at some point.  Our radio interview is available on the website http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com.

If it has been decided that handicapped Americans are to be killed and their families denied legal recourse, Larry’s family believes that the world needs to know, and American families must be warned about the danger to their disabled and elderly loved ones.  The public also should be warned that the Cochran Firm apparently no longer holds true to the principals of its deceased founder, Johnny Cochran.  Larry's family doubts that this law firm is what the American public believes it to be, considering the sources of its protection from lawsuits and lack public exposure regarding these events.

Over this week and next, we are writing to the law schools at Harvard, Howard, UCLA, Yale, Princeton, Georgia State, Emory, and Georgetown.  Our future attorneys need to realize the importance of legal ethics.  We are asking law professors to discuss with their students how a law firm that boasts of being the largest single plaintiffs firm in the country can get away with representing itself as separate, little law firms when one sues them for FRAUD.  We request that students call the office widely advertised as the Atlanta office of the Cochran Firm at 127 Peachtree Street and ask the name of that firm.  If the firm denies being The Cochran Firm’s Atlanta office, ask why it is still represented as such in the telephone books, on the Cochran Firm’s website, and on various Internet legal search engines.

Law schools are being asked to consider the position of the media in the fraud against Larry’s family and the public.  Television stations continued running ads for the Atlanta office of the Cochran Firm for almost a year after being notified of Judge Shoob’s court order stating that the so-called Atlanta office at 127 Peachtree St. was NOT the Cochran Firm.  My recollection is that those television commercials ran without a disclaimer by the television stations.  Is that why news of my family’s legal struggles for justice are blacked out by the media?

Law schools we write to are being asked to teach their students the importance of legal ethics.  Professors should remind law students that people have computers, and if attorneys conduct themselves unethically, making fools of their clients, it will not matter what their law firm has a judge to declare or what kind of relationship they have with the press.  Their victims will see that the whole wide world (www.) knows of their fraud.

We invite our website viewers at http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com to return to our website around the middle of each month for the latest developments in my family's continuing quest for justice after the secret incarceration and euthanasia of mentally ill heart patient, Larry Neal, and the Cochran Firm's fraud of my family while pretending, under contract, to act as our wrongful death attorneys.  Just check the UPDATES tab and the CONTACT US tab for new data regarding Larry's case and our organization, Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ("AMII").  We established this organization to help advocate for other mentally ill citizens who comprise roughly 30% of America’s total prison population.

Listen to the Interview!

Listen to the interview of Mary Neal about her brother Larry on the Wake Up Call Show blogtalkradio program.

---

 UPDATE - 10/3/08

YES!  It is discovery time in our lawsuit!  Now all the conspirators can get together and see how to answer our discovery questions.  I may have to travel to various locations -- INTO THE LION'S DEN! -- TO VIEW AND COPY RECORDS.  That is why we are releasing our VIDEO -- FOR PROTECTION!  Know this:

I have no enstranged lovers and I do not sell or purchase drugs, although this is what is usually said of black people if they meet with foul play.  The only controversary in my life is this lawsuit.

Here is another person -- one of Johnnie's attoneys -- who also is suing The Cochran Firm.  She says they don't like black folks much these days.

  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12171473

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />This is a National Public Radio broadcast.

***********************************************
Mary Neal
Website:  http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com

Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill

Visit Online at:   http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.  ~ Matthew 25:37-40