HOME  DISINFORMATION  PEOPLE  RAMBAM  KLAUSNER  DUNN  KUHL  L.A. JUSTICE
Prytulak to Bascue:
Eight Puzzling Years in James R. Dunn Biography
Airman First Class insignia
"Los Angeles Superior Court judge Patrick Couwenberg had fabricated an expansion of his interval of higher education so that it would overlap, and thus cover up, the years he had spent taking the bar admission examination six times, failing the first five." � Lubomyr Prytulak
Another example of progress through the ranks of a person without James R. Dunn's high initial qualifications is that of Kathy A. Dunn � presumably of no relation to James R. Dunn � who began Basic Training in February 1977, received promotion to Airman First Class on 10-Feb-1978, and after eight years of service found herself halfway between Staff Sergeant and Technical Sergeant.  (United States Air Force Biography of Chief Master Sergeant Kathy A. Dunn at afas.afpc.randolph.af.mil/chiefs/CCM%20BIOS/Dunn%20Bio.doc)

Examples of the sorts of infractions that lead to demotions within the lower air service ranks can be found at many locations on the Internet, as for example at those below.  The fact that the infraction is occasionally underage drinking leads to the supposition that the lower enlisted ranks may tend to be filled by very young men, which leads to a recognition of the further incongruity of James R. Dunn, with Stanford degrees in Industrial Engineering and Law, during the time that he was 25-33 years of age, holding ranks that are sometimes held by boys who are too young to drink alcohol.

Lubomyr Prytulak
[Address]
[Telephone]
[Email]

29-Jan-2003


James A. Bascue
Presiding Judge
Los Angeles Superior Court
111 North Hill Street
Los Angeles, CA
USA     90012


Re: Rambam v Prytulak    BC271433    James R. Dunn

James A. Bascue:

James R. Dunn's official biography on file with the Los Angeles Superior Court claims that he obtained Stanford degrees in Industrial Engineering (B.S. 1959) and Law (J.D. 1962), and after that served in the California Air National Guard (CA ANG 1962-1970).  Given his outstanding qualifications upon joining the CA ANG, one would have expected James R. Dunn to either whip through an officer-training program, or at the very least to advance briskly through the enlisted ranks; however, the official biography credits Dunn with only Airman First Class, a rank that less-highly-qualified men achieve upon completing basic training in their first year of service.

The Department of Defense considers Airman First Class an E-3 (E stands for Enlisted) pay grade, a grade carrying no leadership responsibility, and not a grade that either an engineer or a lawyer would be satisfied with, and certainly not the rare individual who was both engineer and lawyer, and most decidedly not over a protracted interval:

Service members in pay grades E-1 through E-3 are usually either in some kind of training status or on their initial assignment.  The training includes the basic training phase where recruits are immersed in military culture and values and are taught the core skills required by their service component.
U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Link, Enlisted Rank Insignia www.defenselink.mil/pubs/almanac/almanac/people/insignias/enlisted.html

The only two insignia that James R. Dunn wore over his eight years of CA ANG service, then, may have resembled the two Air Force insignia on the left (the entry-level Airman Basic wearing no insignia):

Airman Airman First Class Senior Airman Staff Sergeant Technical Sergeant Master Sergeant

The incongruity that calls for explanation, then, is that after eight years of service, exceptionally-qualified James R. Dunn still had not climbed beyond the rudimentary rank of Airman First Class which men of lesser initial qualification can be seen leaving far behind over the same interval, as for example Ronald G. KRIETE who in eight years came close to reaching Technical Sergeant, or as for example Henry V. FERNANDEZ who in eight years had not only reached Technical Sergeant, but was halfway to Master Sergeant.

One may speculate that any of at least the following four explanations could contribute toward resolving this incongruity:

  1. James R. Dunn had in reality spent fewer than eight years in the California Air National Guard (which, however, would leave an unexplained gap in his biography).

  2. Over his eight years of service, James R. Dunn rose to a rank higher than Airman First Class (but where his now claiming a rank lower than he had achieved would present a puzzling display of self-abnegation).

  3. Over his eight years of service, James R. Dunn had been refused promotion, or had been demoted (for conduct which the public may have a right to know).

  4. Stanford University operates under an Honor Code which facilitates cheating, and whatever the effect of this policy may be on the majority of Stanford students, on at least a minority the effect may be to produce success at Stanford through cheating, followed by a catastrophic decline in performance after Stanford upon entry into a world which makes cheating difficult.

A failure to account for biographical incongruities invites speculation, and in view of James R. Dunn's mishandling of Rambam v Prytulak BC271433, such speculation may understandably tend toward the unflattering.  One such line of speculation starts with the recollection that Los Angeles Superior Court judge Patrick Couwenberg had fabricated an expansion of his interval of higher education so that it would overlap, and thus cover up, the years he had spent taking the bar admission examination six times, failing the first five.  From the Couwenberg example, two principles may be extracted which conduce toward restoring confidence in the Los Angeles judiciary: (1) the narrower principle that an apparent elongation of a time interval in a judge's biography demands investigation because it may signal a cover-up, and a judge with something to cover up is a judge who is susceptible to blackmail; and (2) the broader principle that if under perfunctory verification of biographical information a single judge � Couwenberg � is discovered to be guilty of massive misrepresentation, then it is likely that at least a few other judges have taken advantage of that same perfunctory verification to practice moderate misrepresentation, which necessitates that all judicial biographies be reviewed for accuracy.




Lubomyr Prytulak



cc:

John A Clarke, Executive Officer/Clerk • LASC • PO Box 151, Main Post Office • Los Angeles, CA • USA 90053
Robert A Dukes, Assistant Presiding Judge • LASC • 111 North Hill Street • Los Angeles, CA • USA 90012
James R Dunn, Judge • LASC • 111 North Hill Street • Los Angeles, CA • USA 90012
Gary Klausner, Judge • USDC • 255 East Temple Street • Los Angeles, CA • USA 90012
Carolyn B Kuhl, Supervising Judge, Civil Departments • LASC • 111 North Hill Street • Los Angeles, CA • USA 90012
Gary Kurtz, Esq • 20335 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 200 • Woodland Hills, CA • USA 91364
S James Otero, Assistant Supervising Judge • LASC • 111 North Hill Street • Los Angeles, CA • USA 90012
Barry A Taylor, Judge • LASC • 6230 Sylmar Avenue • Van Nuys, CA • USA 91401
Bernadette Torivio, Executive Secretary • CJP • 455 Golden Gate Avenue, Suite 14400 • San Francisco, CA • USA 94102-3660
HOME  DISINFORMATION  PEOPLE  RAMBAM  KLAUSNER  DUNN  KUHL  L.A. JUSTICE