NYLJ 06-06-2007
1. EX-JUDGE GETS 3 TO 10 YEARS FOR BRIBERY, TAKING FAVORS
[This is one I never seem to get tired of (see entry for February 13, 2010). Perhaps it may strike some as schadefreude, but is actually the sweetness of Justice relaized in the material world. It happens not often, and is rarely poetic, but is still a marvel to witness.]
1. The ongoing saga of corruption in Brooklyn’s court system is sordid, tawdry and a prime example of how machine politics still works; an eternal weed rooted in the soil of man’s nature, festering and spreading underground, only know when it raises its scandal as a flower of evil, one that no amount of pesticides of regulation will ever…
Yeah, a day at the vegetable patch turns into an election-year stump speech.
When Justice Garson was sentenced to 3-to-10 for bribery, receiving rewards and official misconduct, it was at the end of a classic “Law & Order” episode which swung between the detectives and the ADAs like some tennis volley in Hell. It began with an investigation into alleged sales of Democratic nominations for local office. That led to Clarence Norman, then Dem Party leader and assemblyman. In the four years since, one of the odd fruits of their labors was uncovering a link between Norman and a divorce attorney who was turned, wired, and eventually burned Garson, getting him to offer ex parte advice on how to frame his brief, guaranteeing him a win in the case before him.
What was revealed was the rather banal and meager nature of the Judge’s slide. He was convicted of providing the aforementioned advice for accepting free meals and drinks, giving court assignments and even “free range of the judge’s robbing room.” Exactly how plum that is may be open to question, but not without substantial value to the 100+ protesters and women’s groups who showed up at sentencing. They were there to express their outrage over this as an expression of the “old boy’s club” still being in full force and to offer support to the woman whose rigged trial proved to be Garson’s Waterloo.
How dearly were these favors were sold? The most money that changed hands was $1,000, for two referral fees. In this light, the fall from grace appears to be worse for being so cheap. Perhaps this is what galled the Judge’s Judge so much. It must have been obvious that Garson’s drinking problem was a factor; the defense offering a major mitigation, the State a minor one. In any case, the plea also considered his bladder cancer and heart problems…but not very much. While the Court felt these circumstances would have made him a “slam dunk” for probation, for any other defendant, this one couldn’t go there.
“A judge must be the Lone Ranger, “ and, “as pure as snow,” said the sentencing judge. However, whatever sympathy Garson might’ve had evaporated as he’d already spurned a plea deal that would’ve capped his prison time at 16 months. After that, the test of the empathy goes out from this Bench to the other robes, “and especially the Judges of Brooklyn.”
Showing posts with label Judicial Conduct. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judicial Conduct. Show all posts
Monday, April 5, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
IMPROPER CONVERSATIONS BRING CENSURE (a/k/a new pilot for next fall)
NYLJ 5-31-07
1. IMPROPER CONVERSATIONS BRING CENSURE
1. You could call it “ex-partie discussions with counsel.” Or, as the State Commission on Judicial Conduct administrator Tmebeckijan argued it, this was the latest incident of a type for which the subject was admonished less than a decade ago. Oh, and that his repetition of same undermined the integrity and impartiality of the system. Which statement was freely interpreted by the members of the commission as having “displayed an insensitivity to the appearance of bias.”
Or you could simply call it Folk Justice. And seeing as how the town of Hamden, in Delaware County, has seen fit to keep this court official in place since 1989 and being that he is both a non-lawyer and a farmer, we could—and shall—call him Justice Folkes.
(I know. This sounds like a pitch for a new TV show. Something that might have been a vehicle for Andy Griffith way back when.)
One would not expect Hamden to need extreme measures of rigor from the bench when, like as might, he will be settling nothing too drastic in the way of consequences. The 1998 action was by way of attempting to mediate in a tenant-landlord dispute, then failing to recuse himself while eviction proceedings went on. There was another one where he predetermined he would not issue a protective order against one of the parties in a property dispute before him. He also arraigned a defedant in that case without the DA being present, though the commission found he ultimately did the right thing in disqualifying himself when he found the counsel for the defense also happened to be the same attorney who represented Justice Folkes himself in his first disciplinary proceeding. Who also happened to be the local dairyman. So, Dairy Esq., was not only the only milk-&-butter man around, he was close to a local monopoly on legal matters, appearing before Folkes in six other cases from ’02 to ’05. and, again, Folkes gets a citation from the commission for both failing to recuse himself and not informing the other parties about the prior attorney-client relationship.
The latest incident evolved from his attempt to mediate a dispute between his neighbor and an auto body repair shop owner over a $3,000 bill, and the repairman holding the neighbor’s two cars as a hedge. Justice Folkes tried to get the mechanic’s lean to accept a partial of $800 to release one of the cars, which Folkes accepted, as the commission saw it, as an appearance of advocacy. Not that an arbitrator from the county seat, of Albany even, would have done it any different. But, hey—it didn’t work out for anyone in the end, the neighbor choosing the Dent King for a sparring match, the dust-up getting the Ring King a bout call against himself.
And wouldn’t you know it, again, guess what came up before the mediating magistrates bench? Yup, the assault warrant and two rather sheepish-looking dudes. So what does our boy do? Offer to let someone else adjudicate the matter. But he must have been doing something right because the two combatants did waive the option, and let the wayward weigher continue to preside over the dispute.
It is exactly this sort of behavior, of getting last minute reprieves, holding out ‘til the cows come home, that was getting the goat of the hot-blooded Armenian administrator. He’d recommended removal of judges in 16 cases in 4 years, getting his thumb’s-down approved 10 times and even reduced sanctions on the rest. Between censure and admonishment, there doesn’t lie a lot of room, but enough for Tmebeckjian to drive a HumVee through, loaded with stormtroopers out for revenge. And that he considers the former as little more than a bitch-slap to the latter’s finger-wave of tsk-tsk, also means the statement, “it is the proper role of a judge to preside in court proceedings, not to mediate disputes out of court,’ won’t cut the mustard.
But that’s Justice Folkes, and his “just folks”.
(Can't wait for the next installment.)
1. IMPROPER CONVERSATIONS BRING CENSURE
1. You could call it “ex-partie discussions with counsel.” Or, as the State Commission on Judicial Conduct administrator Tmebeckijan argued it, this was the latest incident of a type for which the subject was admonished less than a decade ago. Oh, and that his repetition of same undermined the integrity and impartiality of the system. Which statement was freely interpreted by the members of the commission as having “displayed an insensitivity to the appearance of bias.”
Or you could simply call it Folk Justice. And seeing as how the town of Hamden, in Delaware County, has seen fit to keep this court official in place since 1989 and being that he is both a non-lawyer and a farmer, we could—and shall—call him Justice Folkes.
(I know. This sounds like a pitch for a new TV show. Something that might have been a vehicle for Andy Griffith way back when.)
One would not expect Hamden to need extreme measures of rigor from the bench when, like as might, he will be settling nothing too drastic in the way of consequences. The 1998 action was by way of attempting to mediate in a tenant-landlord dispute, then failing to recuse himself while eviction proceedings went on. There was another one where he predetermined he would not issue a protective order against one of the parties in a property dispute before him. He also arraigned a defedant in that case without the DA being present, though the commission found he ultimately did the right thing in disqualifying himself when he found the counsel for the defense also happened to be the same attorney who represented Justice Folkes himself in his first disciplinary proceeding. Who also happened to be the local dairyman. So, Dairy Esq., was not only the only milk-&-butter man around, he was close to a local monopoly on legal matters, appearing before Folkes in six other cases from ’02 to ’05. and, again, Folkes gets a citation from the commission for both failing to recuse himself and not informing the other parties about the prior attorney-client relationship.
The latest incident evolved from his attempt to mediate a dispute between his neighbor and an auto body repair shop owner over a $3,000 bill, and the repairman holding the neighbor’s two cars as a hedge. Justice Folkes tried to get the mechanic’s lean to accept a partial of $800 to release one of the cars, which Folkes accepted, as the commission saw it, as an appearance of advocacy. Not that an arbitrator from the county seat, of Albany even, would have done it any different. But, hey—it didn’t work out for anyone in the end, the neighbor choosing the Dent King for a sparring match, the dust-up getting the Ring King a bout call against himself.
And wouldn’t you know it, again, guess what came up before the mediating magistrates bench? Yup, the assault warrant and two rather sheepish-looking dudes. So what does our boy do? Offer to let someone else adjudicate the matter. But he must have been doing something right because the two combatants did waive the option, and let the wayward weigher continue to preside over the dispute.
It is exactly this sort of behavior, of getting last minute reprieves, holding out ‘til the cows come home, that was getting the goat of the hot-blooded Armenian administrator. He’d recommended removal of judges in 16 cases in 4 years, getting his thumb’s-down approved 10 times and even reduced sanctions on the rest. Between censure and admonishment, there doesn’t lie a lot of room, but enough for Tmebeckjian to drive a HumVee through, loaded with stormtroopers out for revenge. And that he considers the former as little more than a bitch-slap to the latter’s finger-wave of tsk-tsk, also means the statement, “it is the proper role of a judge to preside in court proceedings, not to mediate disputes out of court,’ won’t cut the mustard.
But that’s Justice Folkes, and his “just folks”.
(Can't wait for the next installment.)
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