Declarations of Some of the Public Who
Watched Sulkin and Eadie in Action
Declaration of GD
Text of affidavit filed with Superior Court of King County, December 12, 2012. Dkt. 327.
I, [GD] being of legal age and competent to testify; swear under penalty of perjury of the State of Washington, the
following statement is correct.
On November 16, 2012, I attended a hearing for partial summary judgment in the matter of Lane Powell v. Mark
Decoursey and Carol DeCoursey, Case No. 11-2-34596-3-SEA, Judge Richard D. Eadie presiding.
My observations were these:
The judge seemed to ignore important facts in the testimony of Mark Decoursey about dubious documentation of charges
by Lane Powell.
The judge also would not reply to Carol’s DeCoursey in her request for an explanation for not discussing the records
she had presented demonstrating false and contradictory testimony by Lane Powell.
The judge seemed too willing to accept a handwritten document presented by Lane Powell's attorney Robert Sulkin. I
later saw the document, and it is illegible.
The judge politely ignored Mark and Carol DeCoursey and seemed willing to be led through the whole proceeding by Lane
Powell attorney Sulkin.
[Signed]
====
Declaration of CD
Text of affidavit filed with Superior Court of King County, December 12, 2012, Dkt. 326.
I, [CD], being of legal age and competent to testify, swear under penalty of perjury pursuant to the laws of the
State of Washington, the following is true and correct.
On November 16, 2012, I attended a courtroom hearing (for partial summary judgment) in the matter of Lane Powell
v. Mark Decoursey and Carol Decoursey, Case No. 11-2-34596-3-SEA. Judge Richard D. Eadie presided at the hearing. This
is what I observed.
I was struck by the behavior of the Judge and the primary lawyer for Lane Powell. There was a symbiotic relationship
that bordered on merging. I had a difficult time determining who was running the court, the Judge or the Lane Powell
lawyer. I have to officially say that it was, in my observed opinion, the Lane Powell lawyer that was running the show
and determining what the judge allowed in evidence and how the judge was going to rule.
The Lane Powell lawyer was the recipient of many constant knowing head bops, and other attentions that were
disturbing to me.
The Lane Powell lawyer supplied almost word for word what the judge was going to use in the ruling, even to the point
of making small what I observed was the reasonable and pertinent objections that the DeCourseys were striving to make
about the lying in the proceedings.
Of course, this was deleterious to the DeCourseys case. In summation, I simply did not see the impartiality that I
expected in the courtroom from a representative of the state, the judge.
I was surprised by what seemed to be a rush to judgment, an ignoring of evidence, and an obvious, again to me, bowing
to the lawyer for Lane Powell.
I was particularly disturbed by something called Exhibit K. The Lane Powell lawyer said it was something the
DeCourseys had written and signed and sent to Land Powell. Mark Decoursey asked to see the document and it turned out
that Exhibit K had been written and sent by Lane Powell to the DeCourseys. When this was revealed the judge ignored the
discrepancy and then prevented the DeCoursey's from presenting evidence.
This is my observation.
[Signed]
Declaration of DW
Text of affidavit filed with Superior Court of King County, December 10, 2012, Dkt. 320.
I, [DW], being of legal age and competent to testify, swear under penalty of perjury of the State of Washington, the
following statement is correct.
On November 16, 2012, I attended a hearing for partial summary judgment in the matter of Lane Powell v. Mark
Decoursey and Carol Decoursey, Case No. 11-2-34596-3-SEA, Judge Richard D. Eadie presiding. My observations were these:
First of all, this was a sham of a hearing in my opinion. Why? Because present in Judge Eadie's courtroom that day
were only two players that seemed to matter - Judge Eadie and Mr. Robert Sulkin of Lane Powell. If this hearing was in
any way typical of the manner in which judicial decisions are made in King County Superior Court - and especially in
cases involving pro se litigants - then the entire state of Washington should not only be highly concerned, but totally
outraged. Citizens should be alerted to instances such as I witnessed on November 16, 2012.
It couldn't have been clearer who was running that courtroom -- Mr. Robert Sulkin. He had Judge Eadie's undivided
attention. Yet Judge Eadie appeared to find the DeCourseys little more than mild irritants taking up his time.
There was little fair or just about what I witnessed that day - unless of course one assumes that only attorneys know
what is right and just, and pro se litigants like the DeCourseys are too ignorant of the law and proper procedure to
deserve full consideration from the high and mighty court. Mark and Carol Decoursey certainly did not get that full
consideration from Judge Eadie's court. Both Judge Eadie and Mr. Sulkin seemed to imply that the DeCoursey's concerns
were frivolous at best, and certainly not worthy of taking up time in a court of law.
On display that day in the King County Courthouse was a full-fledged embarrassment. Hopefully, it was an exception.
The mere fact that Judge Eadie acknowledged having somewhat of a conflict of interest in handling the case was an
eye-opener. How often do judges handle cases in King County when they should recuse themselves due to an admitted
conflict of interest? What I witnessed on November 16, 2012 bordered on a blatant disregard for the law.
Observing the hearing that day, one would think that the DeCourseys were not even in the courtroom for much of the
time. Sulkin showed his utter distain for the whole proceeding when he entered the courtroom, nose in the air, turning
his chair facing away from the DeCourseys as he sat squarely facing Judge Eadie. It couldn't have been more obvious that
Judge Eadie and Sulkin were the prime actors in this drama. Judge Eadie appeared riveted on every word Sulkin said, at
times seeming to take his cues from Sulkin. He noted the documents to which Sulkin referred, taking all the time he
needed to make sure he understood what Sulkin wanted him to do.
However, every time Mark and Carol Decoursey presented their arguments - sometimes by having to interrupt the
on-going dialogue between Sulkin and Eadie to get their voices heard -- Eadie's body language seemed to change. He
appeared to be irritated- as if he had little patience for what they had to say. He showed no interest in looking at the
DeCoursey's documentation, even though it was offered to him more than once as proof of allegedly incorrect statements
made over and over by Mr. Sulkin. Several times, the DeCourseys had to speak up to correct information that the Judge
Eadie appeared eager to accept as fact from Sulkin, even though the DeCoursey's had evidence that such was not the
case. Their remarks got little notice from Judge Eadie who seemed more concerned with pleasing Sulkin and how much time
he was spending in the courtroom than with dispensing justice.
At the end of the hearing, Judge Eadie acknowledged that he would check the "rules" on an issue of law, and then
decide if he should recuse himself from the case because of his connection with Windermere. It came across as nothing
more than a ploy to show his "concern" that he might - at that point- have a conflict of interest. It seemed to me that
he was just interested in appearing to those of us in the courtroom that he was indeed "fair," and unbiased in this case
even though his wife is a Windermere real estate agent. I thought the law is clear that even if there is the
"appearance" of bias or prejudice, a judge should recuse himself. Does that not apply in Washington state? Apparently
not in Judge Eadie's courtroom.
Watching Judge Eadie show such favoritism to Mr. Sulkin while treating the prose DeCoursey as nuisances, was a sad
commentary on our entire judicial system. That was certainly not a fair and impartial hearing - the very thing that our
constitution guarantees every citizen.
[Signed]
Affidavit of TM
Text of affidavit filed with Superior Court of King County, December 18, 2012, Dkt. 337.
I, [TM] being of legal age and competent to testify, swear under penalty of perjury pursuant to the laws of the State
of Washington, the following is true and correct.
On November 16, 2012, I attended a courtroom hearing (for partial summary judgment) in the matter of Lane Powell
v. Mark Decoursey and Carol Decoursey, Case No. 11-2-34596-3-SEA. Judge Richard D.Eadie presided at the hearing. This
is what I observed:
Judge Eadie appeared to be somewhat nervous and concerned about his public image, as he squirmed about his desk
checking frequently with glances toward the Lane Powell attorney as if asking for approval on each statement he made and
then glancing toward the large audience in the courtroom who attended in support of the DeCourseys. He was obviously
nervous of his suggested conflict of interest with the case (He was married to a Windermere Broker) and repeatedly
proclaimed that he had no conflict of interest. Any reasonable person would agree that burying the DeCourseys in legal
debt would certainly discourage any other plaintiff from suing Windermere. He gave little recognition to the fact that
DeCourseys had pointed out lies and distortions told continually by the Lane Powell attorney acting as if these lies and
distortions were normal in the course of court business and he was little interested in the actual truth. Judge Eadie's
behavior gave me an uneasy feeling that this was but a kangaroo court whose final decisions were made long ago with the
assistance of the defendant's attorneys.
[Signed]
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