Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - this is why it should be easy to remove a sitting judge

Cynthetiq · 04-06-2007, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna

And I believe after the fact it was ruled as illegal and the government offered apologies.
What if a judge comes out and has some known bias? Shouldn't there be a way to remove him? For example say it comes out that some judge hates black people, or hates tourists. Now say this bias is clearly affecting his decisions. What should be the public recourse?

I should also point out that judges in at least Utah are elected and as such every couple years the people have a chance to remove the judges. There hasn't been any major problems caused by this but there have definetly been some bad judges removed.

there are judges that are voted in my district as well with no adverse affects or notable ones at least. But those are for local issues, via local representation.

The public recourse is for the justices to deal with it themselves.

Quote:

State Ousts a Town Justice and Criticizes the System
LINK

Copyright New York Times Company Feb 22, 2007
In court one December night in 2003, the town justice in Cuyler, N.Y., told the town's lawyer that she would postpone four zoning cases. She set a January date for the next proceeding.

But before that date arrived, without consulting the town lawyer or hearing any testimony in court, the justice ruled that ''after thinking about'' the cases, she was dismissing them. State investigators later discovered that she had had private conversations with three of the defendants and a town official about the cases.

In a decision released yesterday, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct ordered the removal of the justice, Jean Marshall, saying her conduct ''violates fundamental legal principles,'' including the requirement that judges hear both sides of a case.

On its own, what happened in Cuyler -- a rural town south of Syracuse -- was not exceptional. Over the last 30 years, scores of town and village justices across the state have been disciplined for ignoring or being unaware of the most basic legal rules.

But yesterday's decision added some remarkable details, including a finding by the commission's majority that Justice Marshall had ''seriously exacerbated her misconduct'' by lying about her actions and using multiple strips of correction tape to alter the court calendar in a clumsy attempt at a cover-up.

Justice Marshall has 30 days to appeal. Neither she nor her lawyer returned calls yesterday.

The tale of a judicial cover-up took the commission, the agency charged with disciplining all of the state's judges, directly into a growing controversy about the state's network of 1,250 town and village courts, or justice courts. Past rulings by the commission, whose members are appointed by the governor, the state's chief judge and legislative leaders, have usually avoided going beyond the particulars of a justice's misconduct to comment on systemic problems.

But in yesterday's decision, the commission chairman, the divorce lawyer Raoul Lionel Felder, wrote that Justice Marshall's ''conduct underscores the need for greater training and other reforms.''

In recent legislative hearings, critics of the local courts have said the part-time justices who preside in them often violate the rights of New Yorkers. State judicial officials have announced a five-year, $50 million plan to upgrade the courts. Some groups have called for more sweeping changes, like requiring the justices to be lawyers.

One commission member, Marvin E. Jacob, wrote that removal was too severe a sanction for Justice Marshall. But he, too, said the case reflected broader troubles in the justice courts.

''We are dealing here with a systemic problem,'' he wrote. Mr. Jacob and two of the seven other commission members who took part in the case also dissented from the majority's charge of a cover-up, saying they did not believe it had been proved.

When first elected to the $3,000-a-year town justice position in 1999, Justice Marshall, now 56, listed herself as a ''billing specialist'' on a form she filed with the state court system. She also said she had earned a certificate as a paralegal.

But the commission's decision portrayed a justice who, as one member, Richard D. Emery, wrote, ''fails to grasp at a fundamental level the unique role of a judge.''

On the docket at the court session on Dec. 29, 2003, were four cases alleging violations of the town code, including that of a resident who was storing more than 30 cars on his property.

When the justice announced that she would not hear the cases that night, the town lawyer asked for a new court date, and Justice Marshall set Jan. 26. The town lawyer and the town code enforcement officer later told the commission that they saw her write something down on the court calendar.

But before that date arrived, she issued her decision, without hearing testimony in court. She was clearly bothered by the zoning prosecution. ''Another problem I have with these so-called violations,'' she wrote in her ruling, ''is they seem to pick and choose'' among town residents.

That showed bias and prejudgment of cases, commission members said in the decision.

But she compounded the problem, the decision said, during the commission's investigation, which came in response to a complaint. During a commission hearing in 2004, she testified that she had not set Jan. 26 to hear the case, evidently in an effort to claim that she simply made a ruling and there had been no court appearance agreed to.

Sometime after her testimony, a commission investigator went to her house and looked at her court calendar. Next to the listing for the four zoning cases was some writing covered by several strips of correction tape. Under the strips, the majority said, could be read a notation that showed she had agreed to hear the case on Jan. 26.

''The judge's original behavior was bad enough,'' the commission's administrator, Robert H. Tembeckjian, said. ''But as too often happens, the cover-up was worse.''