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NEW!!! The "Robed Robber" -- Former Judge, Gerald P. Garson

Crooked Columbia County & Judge Paul Czajka

New York News & Views
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January 2008

Wrapping Up The Year

By Mark Thompson

01-01-08 -- The Reversal Report takes a year-end look at the Appellate Division's record in 2007. . . . The two Appellate Division departments that cover the five counties of New York City handed down just over 1,300 decisions in 2007 that reversed a trial court ruling in whole or in part. Just 11 percent of the appellate reversals were in criminal cases, and a majority of those concerned errors in sentencing. Only about 45 of the criminal reversals handed down in New York City in 2007 (give or take a handful, depending on how you are counting) were reversals of the highest order – ones that overturned all or most of a conviction.

LexPress: Feeling the Heat

By Jesse Sunenblick

01-03-08 -- Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota says he won't retry vindicated parent killer Martin Tankleff. In other news, a Southern District magistrate bestows the right to protect confidential sources — traditionally the domain of journalists — on human rights groups like Amnesty International.

Continue reading "LexPress: Feeling the Heat" »

December 2007

Judge Liotti Legislates

New York Post Editorial

Gov. Spitzer may have ditched his disastrous plan to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens, but Long Island Judge Thomas Liotti isn't giving up so easily. . . . Unfortunately for Liotti, his blatant judicial activism may only remind New Yorkers what was so troubling about Spitzer's license scheme to begin with. . . . Liotti, a village justice in Westbury, last week declared New York's licensing restrictions unconstitutional as he dismissed charges against a presumably illegal alien for driving without a license. . . . His rationale? Illegal immigrants "are driving without licenses anyway, and will continue to do so," he says. "If they are required to pass our driving tests, we will at least promote safety on our highways." . . . He goes on to lament America's history of racism and post-9/11 "xenophobia." . . . What this has to do with the law is never made clear, but Liotti telegraphs his true motives well: "Gov. Spitzer," he says in a press release, "had it right." . . . Liotti, of course, is entitled to his opinion - as a private citizen.

Panel Accuses Judge of Favoritism

WCAX, VT

A disciplinary panel in New York wants to remove a town judge in Clinton County. . . . The Commission on Judicial Conduct says Ellenburg Judge Dennis LaBombard should be removed for what the panel calls willful misdeeds and a blatant disregard for the high ethical standards. . . . The panel claims he gave his grandchildren lenient sentences, tried to get another judge to go easy on his grandson, and for agreeing to change bail outside of the courtroom.

Juror in Long Island Killing Says He Was Pressured
Into a Guilty Verdict

By Corey Kilgannon & Nate Schweber

At 8 p.m. on Saturday, a jury deciding the racially charged manslaughter case of a black man who shot a white teenager last year was still “hopelessly deadlocked,” to use the term the jurors used earlier in a note to the judge. . . . It was the 11th hour of the fourth day of jury deliberations, and a pack of news crews was waiting, as were lawyers, anxious relatives of the defendant and the victim and a racially divided gallery that had sat on separate sides of a courtroom in the Suffolk County courthouse for a month. . . . A mistrial seemed imminent. But Judge Barbara Kahn, who had given the jury the case on Wednesday, kept them deliberating late Friday night.

State Admonishes Judge For Threatening Letter

North County Gazette

12-21-07 -- The state Commission on Judicial Conduct has slapped the hand of Junius town justice Stephen H. Brown for sending a threatening letter in a landlord-tenant dispute in an attempt to enforce an oral settlement agreement although he had no authority to do. . . . Brown was admonished for sending the letter in December 2006, after the landlord told him that the tenant had not paid the agreed-upon amount.  The judge’s letter told the tenant, “I know where you live” and stated that unless she contacted the court with a payment plan, the court had “many options” including “warrants,” “wage garnish” and “jail.”  The judge had no authority to arrest the tenant for non-payment of a debt, the commission said.

In the Matter of Stephen H. Brown

N.Y. High Court Upholds 11-Person Jury's Verdict

Joel Stashenko, New York Law Journal

12-21-07 -- New York's Court of Appeals on Tuesday abandoned one of its oldest precedents by deciding that a jury with fewer than 12 members can return a valid verdict in a criminal trial in New York state. . . . The 5-2 ruling upheld Winston Gajadhar's conviction for murder and attempted robbery by an 11-member Manhattan Supreme Court jury. Gajadhar requested that the 11 jurors decide his case after a 12th juror was hospitalized three days into deliberations, but he subsequently appealed his conviction as unconstitutional. . . . Tuesday's ruling is counter to the court's findings in the 1858 case Cancemi v. People, in which the court recognized the 12-member jury as the standard for criminal trials in New York. Cancemi came only 12 years after the formation of the court, and the issue had not been revisited until People v. Gajadhar, 166.

Going Through the Motions

The judge who let charges proceed against the Times Square sidewalk stander is reputed to be a smart guy, and he was following pretty standard practice. So why did the Court of Appeals reverse?

By Leah Nelson

12-19-07 -- . . . In June 2004, when New York County Criminal Court Judge Abraham Clott allowed charges to proceed against a man accused of obstructing sidewalk traffic in Times Square, it’s unlikely he imagined that his decision would land in the state’s highest court three years later. . . . Eric Dorsh, the Legal Aid Society lawyer who represented defendant at arraignment in Clott’s courtroom, said he didn’t anticipate such an outcome. He only vaguely recalled the case, and said there was nothing unusual about his argument to the judge that the charges were facially insufficient. . . . Nor, he said, was Judge Clott’s decision to uphold the charges erroneous. . . . “I can’t even tell you how many [disorderly conduct charges] I’ve handled,” he said. “They all look the same, they’re all boilerplate. Judge Clott’s a very smart judge — he’s one of the smartest Criminal Court judges. The only reason I would have made that argument is because it was in front of Judge Clott.” . . . Judge Clott declined to be interviewed for this story. 

+++In Reversal Report, click here, meet the family court judge who was overturned for the sixth time this year.

$14 Million Med-Mal Verdict Tossed Out due to Judge's Actions

N.Y. state appeals court orders a new trial before a different judge

Mark Fass, New York Law Journal 

12-14-07 -- A New York state appeals court has thrown out a $14 million medical malpractice verdict, holding that a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge's inappropriate conduct, including presenting the brain-damaged 4-year-old plaintiff with a box of candy in front of the jury, denied the defense a fair trial. . . . "[B]y virtue of the cumulative effect of the improper conduct of the trial court ... the jury could not have considered the issues at trial in a fair, calm and unprejudiced manner," the unanimous Appellate Division, 2nd Department, panel held in its unsigned decision, DeCrescenzo v. Gonzalez, 28828/01. . . . Plaintiff Patrick DeCrescenzo's family filed suit in 2001, claiming that Patrick suffered brain damage from trauma associated with his birth in January 2000. . . . The defendants, Dr. Orlando Gonzalez and Staten Island's St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Center, contended that an in utero stroke caused Patrick's injury. . . . The case went to trial before Justice Bernadette Bayne in December 2004. The jury awarded Patrick $600,000 on Jan. 19, 2005, one week after his fifth birthday.

Why Is Diamond Still on the Bench?

By Heidi Bruggink

12-12-07 -- Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Diamond has been investigated by the Commission on Judicial Performance, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and (more than once) by the FBI. Should she still be sitting? How would we know?  . . . Not many judges in New York have been probed by the federal investigators. But State Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Diamond has had that honor — more than once. . . . From multiple conflicts of interest between her financial holdings and matters before her on the bench, to one charge of out-and-out estate manipulation, Diamond has come under repeated official scrutiny. . . . And at least one of those investigations might not be over, according to judicial reform activist Anthony DeRosa, who believes the feds might simply be waiting for the judge to “act out again” before pushing ahead with the investigation. . . . Both Justice Diamond and a spokesman for the FBI declined to comment for this article. . . . Of course, given the presumptive secrecy surrounding judicial misconduct hearings, it’s hard to find out much of anything on probes of a current judge. We only know, for example, about the Commission on Judicial Conduct’s (CJC) current inquiry into Queens Supreme Court Justice Duane Hart because the judge himself requested a public process. . . . Such proceedings are reportedly made open less than one percent of the time — and only if the jurist in question makes the request. The CJC would have it otherwise, but the New York Legislature has left the decision to the accused.

Judge may be charged in grandson's accidental shooting

Associated Press

12-10-07 -- (AP) - Authorities in Genesee County say charges may be pending in an accidental shooting involving the grandsons of Pavilion Town Justice Robert Westacott. . . . Investigators say Westacott's 12-year-old grandson accidentally shot his 6-year-old brother while in the care of Westacott and his wife, Virginia, Friday afternoon. . . . They say the boys were playing at the judge's home in Pavilion -- about 35 miles southwest of Rochester -- when the accident happened. . . . Genesee County Sheriff's deputies say the Westacotts tried to drive the boy to a hospital in Batavia, but their car broke down on the way. The child was flown to a hospital in Rochester, where he was reported to remain in stable condition last night.

Teen beer party lands judge ‘in trouble’

By Matt Coughlin and Ben Finley, The Intelligencer

12-10-07 -- Lower Southampton District Judge Susan McEwen said she's “in trouble.” . . . On Friday, she told the Courier Times, The Intelligencer's sister paper, that she's been “indefinitely suspended” from her post after her grandson held an underage drinking party last month at the judge's house while she was home. . . . “You have an 18-year-old, he has an underage drinking party, and you're punished for it,” McEwen said as she sat in her living room. . . . According to police, McEwen is not facing criminal charges in connection with the incident. Both Lower Southampton police and McEwen said the judge was asleep and unaware of the party, which was busted by police about 10 p.m. on the night of Nov. 20.

Judge Claiming Racial Bias Is Rebuffed in Bid to Block Misconduct Case

Mark Fass, New York Law Journal

12-8-07 -- A black state judge who argued that a pending disciplinary action against him was tainted by the "racial bias" of Raoul L. Felder, chairman of the Commission on Judicial Conduct, lost his bid in federal court Wednesday to enjoin the proceedings. . . . Eastern District of New York Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis ruled that Queens Supreme Court Justice Duane A. Hart failed to satisfy the elements of a preliminary injunction and that state court is the appropriate forum for his claim. . . . "State courts adjudicate federal rights every day of the week," Garaufis said. "I'm sure Justice Hart is aware of that." . . . The commission's proceedings against Hart on six misconduct claims will therefore go forward Friday afternoon at the commission's lower Manhattan office. . . . The commission previously voted to censure Hart for abusing his summary contempt power, a recommendation that was upheld by the state Court of Appeals.

NY Judge Defends His Conduct in Rare Public Hearing

New York Lawyer, By Mark Fass, New York Law Journal

12-8-07 -- One day after Queens Supreme Court Justice Duane A. Hart unsuccessfully petitioned the federal court to stay misconduct proceedings against him, he asked the nine sitting members of the Commission on Judicial Conduct to spare his job. . . . Charged by the commission with six separate acts of misconduct, including threatening to place an attorney in jail for failing to move forward with a case and asking an attorney with a case pending before him to testify on his behalf at a previous misconduct hearing, Justice Hart yesterday contended that any errors he may have made did not rise to the level of sanctionable misconduct. . . . In the future, he assured the commission, he would likely handle similar situations differently. . . . "If I get into a situation like that, I won't hold them in contempt like that," Justice Hart said. "If I had it to do over again, I might not contact [the attorney]." . . . In Judicial Reports Reversal Report, click here, prosecutors must defend against a bias claim.

Federal Judge Lands at Center Of a New York Legal Mystery

By Joseph Goldstein, Staff Reporter of the Sun

12-03-07 -- The docket of Judge Jack Weinstein in Brooklyn has long been a magnet for big lawsuits with billions of dollars at stake. In case after case involving guns, cigarettes, Agent Orange, breast implants, typing keyboards, asbestos, and pharmaceuticals, manufacturers have defended their products before the now 86-year-old federal judge. . . . Around the courthouse, Judge Weinstein is best known for his unpretentious courtroom manner — he rarely wears a robe and addresses convicted murderers with the same courtesy he extends toward partners at major law firms. Across the country, the judge is known for having "a big strike zone" for plaintiffs, according to an expert in mass torts, David Herr, a Minneapolis attorney. Judge Weinstein's willingness to shepherd class actions built on novel legal theories toward trial has made him a hero to trial attorneys and a foe to corporations. . . . The latest interest in Judge Weinstein doesn't stem from any of his Page 1-worthy rulings but the more arcane question of how some of his cases got assigned to the judge in the first place. At issue is how more than a dozen lawsuits brought against the tobacco industry — and several suits against firearm manufacturers — ended up before the judge.

November 2007

Judge Sanctioned For 4th Time, Not Removed

North Country Gazette

11-30-07 --For the fourth time in his 25 year tenure as a town and village justice, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct has determined that Edward J. Williams has been found to have engaged in judicial misconduct but despite three disciplinary actions against him, the commission has voted only to censure the justice rather than remove him from office. . . . Williams is a justice of the Kinderhook town and Valatie village court in Columbia County. . . . In a determination dated Nov, 13,  the commis­sion found that Williams engaged in an improper out-of-court communication regarding a pending case and should be censured, notwithstanding that he had been disciplined on three prior occasions and had been previously sanctioned for the same type of prohibited ex parte communications.

Judge to Appeal Removal Over Phone Flap

Joel Stashenko, New York Law Journal 

11-30-07 --The New York judge who ordered 46 defendants detained when no one would acknowledge owning a cell phone that rang in his courtroom intends to appeal his recommended removal to the Court of Appeals. . . . Attorney Terrence M. Connors said Wednesday that Judge Robert M. Restaino "deeply regrets and sincerely apologizes" for his actions on March 11, 2005. . . . The Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended Tuesday that Judge Restaino be removed, finding that his conduct had brought irreparable harm to the public's confidence in him.

Panel Rebukes Judge, Citing ‘Lunacy’ in Court

By Danny Hakim

11-28-07 -- The next time you pass through the city court system in Niagara Falls, N.Y., remember to turn your cellphone off. . . . Yesterday, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended the removal of a judge in Niagara Falls City Court who had what the commission’s chairman called “two hours of inexplicable madness” when a cellphone rang in his courtroom. . . . On the morning of March 11, 2005, the judge, Robert M. Restaino, was presiding over a slate of domestic-violence cases when he heard a phone ring. According to the commission’s report, he told the roughly 70 people in the courtroom that “every single person is going to jail in this courtroom” unless the phone was turned over. . . . A security officer was posted at the door while other officers tied to find the phone, but failed. . . . After a brief recess, Judge Restaino returned to the bench and asked the defendant who had been standing before him in the front of the courtroom when the phone rang if he knew whose it was. . . . “No,” said the defendant, Reginald Jones. “I was up here.” The ringing had come from the back of the room. . . . Nonetheless, the judge scrapped plans to release Mr. Jones, set bail at $1,500 and sent him into custody. . . . He was the first of 46 defendants to be sent into custody that day because of what could be called the case of the ringing cellphone. The judge opined at length about his frustration over the phone.

Famous NY Lawyer Jumps to the Defense of
Quadriplegic NY Judge

New York Lawyer, By Joel Stashenko, New York Law Journal

11-28-07 -- The State Commission on Judicial Conduct often fails to sufficiently take into account the "human condition" when it considers cases, the commission's chairman asserted in an opinion concurring with the commission's decision to censure an upstate justice. . . . Chairman Raoul Felder noted that Valatie Village and Kinderhook Town Justice Edward J. Williams in Columbia County is a quadriplegic facing "often insurmountable, sometimes humiliating" challenges in daily life. Mr. Felder chided the staff of the commission for seeking to take away an important portion of his life by seeking his removal from the bench after 25 years for the ex parte conversation he had in connection with a criminal case. . . . "We cannot claim to be a civilized and caring society, and yet, in our actions, not enfold into our judgments, where pertinent, the terrible burdens that others must bear in order to traverse the landscape of life," Mr. Felder wrote. . . . The rest of the commission, in a footnote to the majority decision released yesterday, found that Mr. Felder's concurring opinion "inappropriately relies on matters not in the record regarding Judge Williams' personal life." . . . Mr. Williams, who is confined to a wheelchair, appeared in person before the commission. . . . According to the ruling, the judge's memorandum of law included a reference to his disability, though it apparently was not used in a way to mitigate the penalty.

All heart, no justice

Albany Times Union

11-28-07 -- How many breaks will Kinderhook Town Justice Edward Williams receive before he is finally removed from the bench? That question arises after the state Commission on Judicial Conduct has reprimanded the judge, yet again, marking the fourth time since 1993. Yet the answer is baffling. Apparently, the majority of commission members see nothing egregious in the judge's conduct, and the commission's chairman doesn't have the heart to tell the judge, who is disabled, that it's time to go. . . . But compassion shouldn't rule in this matter. Justice should. That's justice for a defendant whom the judge convicted based on a conversation with a state trooper at the Columbia County Fair. And justice for the citizens of Kinderhook, and those passing through, who have a right to expect that their cases will be heard before a judge who knows the law and fulfills his duty to uphold it without fear or favor. . . . There's no way Judge Williams meets these criteria. As our staff writer Robert Gavin recounted in a story Tuesday, Judge Williams was censured by the state commission in 2002 for attempting to influence a judge in a case involving friends. The year before, he was publicly admonished for improper political activity, and in 1993 he was warned in a letter from the commission after being discourteous to an attorney. And now he has yet a fourth public rebuke, this time for convicting Daniel Wloch on a harassment charge on the basis of a conversation the judge had with Trooper Eric Leonard at the county fair.

Deli shooting case: Judge accused of improper conversation

By Rebecca Baker, The Journal News

11-28-07 -- Prosecutors today accused Westchester County Judge Rory Bellantoni of having an improper conversation with an attorney connected to the 1997 murder conviction of Richard DiGuglielmo and asked the judge to recuse himself from the case. . . . Assistant District Attorney Timothy Ward asked Bellantoni to step down from presiding over a hearing that seeks to overturn DiGuglielmo's conviction for shooting Charles Campbell to death, based on a witness' recently recanted testimony. . . . Ward accused Bellantoni of having an unethical conversation yesterday with Debra Cohen, a Dobbs Ferry lawyer who represents the Campbell family, by asking her to file papers voicing the family's concerns.

Hearing Loss

By Jason Boog

11-28-07 -- A recent murder raises questions about divorce court shortcuts. Is justice sped up, justice denied? . . . Divorce cases are never pretty, but this undoubtedly will be remembered as the ugliest divorce of Justice Sidney F. Strauss’s career. . . . In 2005, a Queens couple — Dr. Mazoltuv Borukhova and Dr. Daniel Malakov — filed for divorce. The case landed in Justice Strauss’s busy courtroom (according to records from the Office of Court Administration, 126 divorce matters have been filed before him already this year), and negotiations stalled over issues of custody until this autumn. . . . In October, Strauss granted temporary custody of the couple’s 4-year-old daughter to Dr. Malakov. The mother’s attorney, Florence M. Fass, appealed but was denied a few weeks later. The girl was transferred to her father’s custody on October 22. . . . Six days later, a gunman shot and killed Dr. Malakov in front of his daughter at a Queens playground. Last week, an relative of Borukhova was arrested for the shooting; allegedly, his fingerprints covered the homemade silencer used in the killing. . . . In a New York Times article following the murder, attorney Fass characterized Justice Strauss’s custody ruling as “highly unusual” because he had reached the decision without a courtroom hearing. . . . Attorneys for both parties did not return repeated calls for comment, and Justice Strauss did not respond to an interview request. (He is now on vacation). . . . No matter what the result of the upcoming murder trial, the case raises a central question about courtroom efficiency and volatile divorce cases: Do crowded dockets encourage judges to skip proceedings that could defuse time-bomb cases? . . . The question is even more acute, given that Justice Strauss was twice reversed in the past year for leapfrogging the hearing process and skipping a motion to compel discovery.

One NY Judge Removed From Bench; Another Agrees to Resign

New York Lawyer, By Joel Stashenko, New York Law Journal

11-16-07 -- The Commission on Judicial Conduct yesterday recommended the removal of one town justice and discontinued its case against another who has agreed to resign as of Monday and never seek judicial office again. . . . The commission agreed 8-0 on removal for Charles P. Myles Jr., a justice in Esperance Town Court, Schoharie County. The action amounts to something of a formality since Mr. Myles resigned effective Nov. 18, 2006, following his conviction of a felony and three misdemeanors for tampering with his utility meter to receive electricity he was not paying for. He received five years probation. . . . Commission administrator Robert Tembeckjian said yesterday the agency did not know about his conviction and resignation until July 2007, when it started a formal proceeding against him. Removal will prohibit Mr. Myles, a nonlawyer who became justice in January 2004, from holding judicial office again in New York state. . . . The commission also agreed to conclude a proceeding against Pauline K. Ashbaugh, Cameron Town Court justice in Steuben County, for seeking to intervene on behalf of her nephew in a dispute he was having with his girlfriend in Delaware County. The commission said her behavior harmed the "integrity and impartiality" of the judiciary.

Concealed Witness, Part I

By Leah Nelson

11-14-07 -- The Constitution guarantees due process to criminal defendants. But in New York, the definition of due process is largely written by the DA — and the judge is editor. First of two parts. . . . It’s 2002: You’ve been accused of murder and held in jail. But then your lawyer says the prosecution has turned over a police report in which an informant said someone else confessed to the crime. . . . Trouble is, the District Attorney blacked out the informant’s name and contact information. Your lawyer doesn’t have much to go on. . . . Two years later, a jury finds you guilty, and a judge sentences you to 45 years in prison. Your lawyer never found the informant, and the judge excluded his reported statements to the cops as hearsay. . . . The jury never even learned that someone else confessed. . . . Legal Aid appeals your case on the grounds the prosecution suppressed exculpatory evidence by concealing the informer’s name. But the Appellate Division denies your appeal. . . . Sound like an over-the-top Hitchcock plot? . . . Not to Julio Alvarez, Green Haven Correctional Facility’s inmate number 04A1772.

LexMetrics, click here, calculates out how many judges were once prosecutors.

In Reversal Report, click here, speculative medical testimony is overruled.

Ex-Esperance justice can't serve

By Bob Gardinier, Staff writer

11-14-07 -- A former town justice in Schoharie County is now barred from returning to the bench, several months after he was accused of tampering with his home utility meter, state officials said today. . . . Charles P. Myles Jr., who took office as Esperance town justice in January 2004, resigned last year, said Robert Tembeckjian, administrator and counsel for the state Commission on Judicial Conduct. . . . A jury convicted Myles of falsifying business records, petit larceny, theft of services and criminal tampering. He was sentenced in Schoharie County Court in January to five years' probation, according to Tembeckjian.

Frayed Judicial Robes

New York Times Opinion

11-14-07 -- Imagine a courtroom scene, maybe something out of “Law & Order.” Then ask yourself which official earns the least of all those important people sitting in front of the jury. If you guessed the judge, chances are you’re right. . . . Certainly the defense lawyer, if a private attorney, makes far more in hourly fees than the person with the gavel. Some district attorneys, in New York City at least, earn more than not only the trial judge but also the chief judge. There are even nonjudicial employees in the state judiciary system who can earn as much or more than the person who is up there making the most important decisions in the entire courthouse. . . . Thanks to lawmakers in Albany, New York judges have not had a pay raise for almost nine years. New York’s part-time legislators have made it their business to piggyback on the state’s full-time judges when it comes to salaries, refusing to approve a pay raise for the judiciary unless they get one themselves. . . . The judges are so angry that some are suing the state — there are two lawsuits already — for better pay. Others are demanding that Chief Judge Judith Kaye unilaterally award the judges a pay raise out of her state budget. The hitch there is that the state comptroller could refuse to cut the checks, which could mean yet another lawsuit. . . . As things stand now, there are still plenty of excellent judges in New York, but their caseloads are skyrocketing at the same time their salaries are losing ground to inflation. At some point, as good judges exchange their robes for the monetary rewards of private practice, few but the rich or less qualified will want to replace them.

Court Removes Cattaraugus County Judge

North Country Gazette

11-9-07 -- Leon town justice Jerome C. Ellis, on the bench for 17 years, has been formally removed from office by the state Court of Appeals. . . . In July, the state Commission of Judicial Conduct had issued a determination that Ellis should be removed from office for mishandling an eviction proceeding, presiding over the case despite being biased and using a religious ethic slur. . . . Ellis had filed a request for review with the Court of Appeals on Aug. 13 and on Sept. 4, the Court had suspended Ellis, with pay, pending disposition of his appeal.  However, Ellis did not perfect his review within 30 days of filing his request nor in the subsequent 20 days after the court issued a final notice for him to do so. . . . The judicial panel ruled that the conduct of  Ellis, a non-attorney, “suggests that he fails to understand basic concepts of fairness, impartiality and due process” and demonstrates, in its totality, that he is “unfit to serve as a judge.”

In the Matter of Jerome C. Ellis

October 2007  

Judge who bribed party boss retires

By Nancie Katz, Daily News Staff Writer

10-24-07 -- A judge who busted open a Brooklyn probe into judgeships for sale by admitting he paid to get on the bench has retired - with disability pay, the Daily News has learned. . . . In secret testimony last year, Howard Ruditzky was the first judge to admit to a grand jury that he bribed deposed Democratic Chairman Clarence Norman to get to the bench, sources said. . . . Ruditzky, 67, took medical leave last June for an undisclosed ailment just before the Commission on Judicial Conduct ordered him to appear on charges he told a grand jury under immunity that he forked over at least $70,000 in 2001 to get the coveted Democratic nomination, sources said. . . . On Oct. 2, he asked the state Appellate Division for a "special disability retirement allowance" so he could get two-thirds of his $136,700 annual pay in exchange for his "unconditional resignation."

Party Line Judge

By Jason Boog, jasonboog@judicialstudies.com

10-17-07 -- Justice Gustin L. Reichbach logged his radical days of student activism, but it was his embrace of the party boss that put him where he is today. . . . An ex-radical turned political insider has begun overseeing Brooklyn’s most hardboiled courtroom drama of the year, a surreal mafia bench trial in which the storied judge might prove as fascinating as the case itself. . . . Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach was robeless on Monday, wearing civvies with a decided flair. Sporting a polka-dot tie and a powder blue handkerchief in his breast pocket, he leaned forward intently as attorneys delivered opening arguments. . . . After all, it’s not often that any venue hosts a trial involving an FBI agent accused of helping the mob make murder plans. . . . In an unusual move, the judge opened his courtroom to video and still cameras, filling the empty jury box with a pool photographer and videocamerman. A line of journalists sat in the row behind them, with every other seat in the courtoom filled.

In Reversal Report, click here, a judge ignores two psychiatrists.

Judge With A Grudge

Questions Jury Rules

By Stefanie Cohen

10-15-07 -- Controversial and highly regarded Judge Jack Weinstein has begun holding post-trial Q&As with jurors - in front of the defendant, the prosecutors and the press - to find out if understanding the mandatory sentences that charges carried would have changed their verdicts. . . . Legal experts say there's nothing technically wrong with the Brooklyn federal jurist's judge-and-jury show, just that it's a little on the unorthodox side. Not unlike the venerable Weinstein himself. . . . "It's certainly unusual for a judge to speak to a jury about their verdict," said Columbia University law Professor Dan Richman. "What's been a hallmark of his career is a readiness to do that which isn't standard." . . . Earlier this month, the 87-year-old judge created a stir when he interviewed jurors who'd convicted a man of possessing thousands of images of child pornography.

Email from a concerned friend of Judge John L. Phillips

NEW YORK ATTORNEY NEEDED FOR RETIRED JUDGE

10-14-07 -- “I am concerned about my friend, retired Judge, John Phillips who had over $10 million dollars stolen from him.  No one is being held accountable for this. He is 84 years old and has no immediate family in New York.  Judge Michael Pesce and others are in on ruining this man. I need help in finding a good lawyer to assist him in getting his property and money back and his name restored. . . . More on the story follows:”

Erasing the Kung-Fu Judge

by Christopher Ketcham, The Brooklyn Rail

The case of the plundering of the estate of retired judge John L. Phillips is the nexus where corruption and a rainbow coalition of cliché meet, Brooklyn-style: you have an Irish hack district attorney and an Italian magistrate who is either a greedhead or an imbecile, plus a Jewish money-man for the D.A. allegedly buying up property at fixed auctions, not to mention a viper’s nest of well-dressed blacks from the neighborhood getting their taste. Indeed, Kafka, Dickens and Scorsese together would have a hard time fictionalizing the web of courtroom criminality that has ensnared 84-year-old Phillips, himself retired from the very Brooklyn “justice system” that has presided over the dissolution of his affairs. . . . Phillips was once known as the Kung-Fu Judge for his habit of employing martial arts moves on the bench. He grew up poor on a Kansas farm, served in World War II, was the first black man to be admitted to the Montana State Bar, studied kung-fu in Japan, and eventually became a self-made millionaire buying up real estate in Bedford-Stuyvesant. When he ran for a judgeship in Brooklyn civil court in 1976 as the anti-machine candidate, his hired sound-trucks blasted the hit song, “Kung-Fu Fighting.” . . . Fast-forward a quarter-century: In 2000, Brooklyn D.A. Charles “Joe” Hynes, a master of the tricks of the law who had become one of the most powerful machine politicians in the borough, began a secret action to seal up Phillips’ assets and declare him mentally incompetent. Hynes claimed he was concerned about the old man’s health—Phillips was 77 years old at the time, long retired from the bench, and had no close relatives, and so Hynes sought to “help” him, according to public statements. But others wonder if Hynes’ concern was a calculation of the coldest kind: Phillips had tried to run for the D.A.’s seat in 1997—until Hynes’ election lawyers knocked him off the ballot—and the humiliating loss Hynes suffered in the 1998 race for governor suggested the D.A. was vulnerable again in 2001, when he was up for a fourth term. Phillips was thus considered a potential challenger to Hynes in 2001.

NY Judge Files Three Lawsuits Over Rivals' Endorsements By Minor Parties

New York Lawyer, By Daniel Wise, New York Law Journal

10-12-07 -- Ninth Judicial District Administrative Judge Francis A. Nicolai filed three lawsuits Friday to nullify the minor party nominations of four rivals for Supreme Court. . . . Judge Nicolai - who named Conservative, Working Families and Independence Party officials and other candidates, including his two Democratic running mates - is running for one of three open seats in the five-county district. He claims the parties followed improper procedures that violated election law in deciding which candidates to back. . . . The endorsements are important because they carry extra ballot lines and votes. In tight contests, those votes can be the margin of victory.

Jokester Judge Jousted By Judicial Panel

North Country Gazette

10-12-07 --A judge who thought he was a jokester found out it wasn’t a laughing matter. . . . A Dutchess County town justice has been censured by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct for “misguided humor”. . . . The commission found that Edmund V. Caplicki Jr., a lawyer and town justice in LaGrange since 1974, gratuitously reiterated and repeatedly joked about a defendant’s inappropriate comments about his female attorney’s physical appearance. . . .As found by the commission, after the defendant told the judge that his attorney was “cute” and “had a nice butt”, the judge noted the comments on the arraignment sheet and repeated them to the attorney 10 days later in a sidebar conference.  Judge Caplicki then repeated the comments in open court and asked the defendant if he still agreed with them, asked three other male defendants if they agreed with them, and rpeated them again when the attorney appeared before him the next day. 

10-10-07 --In Reversal Report, click here, read about a draconian sentence
that was chopped to a year.

U.S. Supremes Weigh NY Bench
Judicial Reports' comprehensive coverage includes:

1. What The High Court Won't Hear - By John Ennis.
Click here to read why SCOTUS won't learn about a third of NY's bench.

2. Signs Of A Silly System - By Scott H. Greenfield.
Click here to read one lawyer's takedown of our electoral absurdity.

3. Reform Resisters Hire Heavy Hitters - By Jason Boog.
Click here if you missed this report from earlier in the week.

And, click here for a new version of the Reversal Report, where a guilty plea was tossed by the Appellate Division.

Judge Jerky

New York Daily News Editorial

10-1-07 -- Charged by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct with being an ill-tempered wackadoo on the bench, Bronx Family Court Judge Marian Shelton went on the offensive. . . . She bought ads and charged she was the victim of a vendetta by the court officers union because she took no guff from its members. And she depicted herself as a tough New Yaaawk character, gutsy and willing to tell it like it is in a courthouse where a little grit goes a long way. . . . But yesterday, this would-be Judge Judy fessed up that, yes, in at least one case, she did get seriously carried away and violated the rules governing judicial behavior. Even Shelton had to admit that judges aren't supposed to order anyone incarcerated in a fit of pique. Oh, that.

Statement by Dean G. Yuzek, Attorney for
Judge Marian R. Shelton

10-1-07 -- (BUSINESS WIRE)--Dean G. Yuzek, attorney for Judge Marian R. Shelton, issued the following statement regarding the Stipulation first proposed to Judge Shelton by the staff of the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct and submitted to the Commission with Judge Shelton’s permission: . . . “It is important to recognize that seven weeks before the Commission on Judicial Conduct proposed a settlement to Judge Shelton, the Judge had become only the ninth Judge in the Commission’s 30-year history to waive her right of confidentiality. She did that so the public could have a full record of this matter. . . . “The admitted facts in the Stipulation (all as to Charge I) were either previously admitted by Judge Shelton in her Answer, annexed to the Stipulation as Exhibit B, or, while admitted, require context supplied in the Answer. . . . “Note that (a) the matter is discontinued without the imposition of any sanction on Judge Shelton, (b) she remains on the bench as a Judge through the completion of her term, (c) she had no intent of seeking reappointment to the Family Court and had not sought reappointment, and (d) she does not intend to seek another judgeship in the State Courts of New York. If she should, this matter may revert to status quo ante.

Reform Resisters Hire Heavy Hitters