In this snowed-in episode of Judge Talk, Bad Judges, and the Political Hacks who pick them and assign them, we’ll continue our tour of the world of scandalous Judicial behavior, and what it demonstrates about the people serving us up that nice fat juicy justice system.
Two recent highlights from Judge News.
Judge Barbera-Dalli of Suffolk nailed phone texting prosecuting tips to the DAs in the course of a trial; suspended. This happened in December. This is a high tech enhancement of the usual tactic, where the prosecutor simply barges in on the judge and makes an improper ex parte approach to discuss something in the absence of the defense. Barbera-Dalli was just being pro active, because, after all, the purpose of the judiciary is to bend over backwards to help the prosecution, right? Sadly, and not surprisingly, the prosecutors didn’t turn her over immediately. They waited until she sent a second message several days later. Maybe this is standard operating procedure in Suffolk?
Well, no one turned in Harvey Weinstein for rape, although it went on for years. And none of the people who told an author of dubious character that Trump was unfit for the office have come forward yet. Apparently a flaw in the species.
We only found out about Barbera-Dalli because she was careless.
She was suspended as an important first step to the burying of the charges altogether. Given the electorate’s reverence for the constitution, she’s clearly destined for higher elective office. Well, maybe a second career as criminal “justice” expert on Fox,.
Then we have the wonderful Hon. Judith McMahon, formerly the Queen of Staten Island, now reassigned and doing SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT I’M SURE in Manhattan pending the disposition of charges against her. The charges arose from two civil suits filed by a disgruntled former chief clerk Michael Pulizotto, who has seemingly also managed the impossible: he retained an attorney to pursue the case who is something of a lunatic, and now an indicted lunatic, so the charges are, as they say, open to question. But there are apparently tapes, natch. One of the charges, which has the ring of truth, however, was disclosed in the federal suit brought by Pullizotto, which admittedly will now probably go nowhere due to the absence of a sane attorney to pursue it.
Hey Mike, it is estimated that there are more than 175,000 registered lawyers in NY, only a few hundred of whom are certifiable crazies, and all desperate for work. Pick one!
But the claim is that McMahon steered criminal cases away from competent Judges who, in her view, were likely to give the defense a fighting chance, as opposed to preferred jurists she deemed to be under her thumb and in the bag for the prosecutor, her husband. And that she pressured judges to declare mistrials, when she sensed that an acquittal was brewing. As if it’s not hard enough to get acquitted by a Staten Island jury, where the pools are dominated by cops, firemen, court officers and their families.You have to beat the administrative judge too? One who was supposed to abstain from involvement in criminal cases, because OCA just knew, when they assigned her, that Judy would do the right thing here.
By the way; those other S.I. Judges who were participants in, or knew of, this travesty, made no complaints, and….nothing? Maybe OCA needs a suggestion box for the use of whistleblowers.
But back to the cover-up. Time’s a wastin’.
Well, it appears that the inspector general has passed the McMahon case on to the judicial disciplinary committee, where it will either receive a dignified burial, or let us pray, result in the resignation of this disgraceful judge. And more disgrace to OCA, who put her in that position.
As tempting as it is to blame Carl Hastie, he of the sophisticated strip club appetites, [oh shit, I typed “appetities”; am I in some sort of trouble?] and his equally wonderful predecessors, for the lousy judges they’ve been polluting the judiciary with as of late, the fact is that OCA takes a bad situation and makes it much worse by elevating the worst and dimmest, and most questionable, to positions of authority, and then not backing up the competent AJs [actually there are a lot of these! Shocking!] who look around in desperation and try to think of ways to get some work out of their troops.
Recently, the AJ of the Bronx, Douglas McKeon was kicked upstairs one year before he was due to age out. McKeon was elevated and then permitted to remain AJ for about seven years, in spite of two, count ‘em, two censures for unethical conduct. So OCA, in a statement remarking on the dysfunction in the court serving a county of 1.7 million souls [where they try no jury case before its time] which they had entrusted to their former anointed for so long, cynically thanked McKeon for his excellent service and sent in one of their own, George Silver, to kick ass and take names. And hopefully they’ll back him if and when he points out that some of his charges are about as productive as tree sloths, and proud of it, and show no signs of leaving their respective trees any time soon, and here’s what we should do about it.
We’ll see. The burden of proof is on OCA, which has much to prove these days.
But as always, if it’s not in the tabloids it’s not a problem. This includes systematic judicial bias towards the prosecution, something older than Tammany Hall, but which remains an unholy disgrace. Or, on the civil side, judicial bias towards the City of New York as a defendant. Well, they’re saving tax money by not forcing the city’s lawyers — Corpse Counsel — to fulfill the same basic legal requirements that other attorneys are compelled to meet in civil term. Up and until the time that the jury drops the hammer, at least. And the City gets to pick, and veto, which judges preside over the “City Parts.” Next time you get sued, try that one: I demand a judge of my choosing, or I’m not coming.
Can you imagine that happening? Oh, Noah Dear, right. But that’s Brooklyn, so it hardly counts.
Oh, Tommy Moore. Right, that’s another. I withdraw the rhetorical question.
But yes, the City chooses its Judges, and has never been shy about exercising its veto over Judges who are so careless as to treat the City the same as other parties. Check out what happened with J. Paul Victor in the Bronx a few years back. ‘Nuff said.
This is a story screaming for treatment in the NY Times, which had an extended series about the Bronx Criminal Court awhile back, got bored, and after a decent interval, stole silently away, which is the way of the [our] world. Suffice it to say that if it was well-heeled upper east siders and middle class tax payers from Queens who were being methodically processed through the dysfunctional , shameful and wasteful criminal justice system the changes would be much more than cosmetic, I assure you. But they’re not, so literally nothing has happened in Criminal Court, although The Gray Lady gave it a shot and lots of ink. And OCA gave it the full PR okey-doke treatment, and declared victory after a decent interval.
On the civil side, the corporations have been fleeing the Courts for private mediation. How long before they start telling their political retainers that they don’t want to pay for a public court system that they don’t use? Or are they doing this now? First they came for public education…..
Hell, why would Mr. or Ms. CEO want to wait a decade before they get a jury, or make a motion for summary judgment to this Court system, where the chances of getting a reasonable decision in a reasonable period of time becomes more remote with each passing year, with each new Hastie appointment? And if they get a jury, will the pool of those unfortunates trapped in jury duty have the education to understand the nuances of a corporate case which the lawyers themselves struggle to explain? Maybe if you take away their cell phones first.
I might copyright that: Hastie Appointment. Too late?
In spite of the decline and fall of print journalism, Old Journalism still has power over OCA. But the NY papers all buried [on request? inquiring minds need to know] the incredible story of how the Court Officers and Correction Officers simply refused to deliver prisoners to the Bronx Courts one day out of pique, after a Judge properly refused to dismiss charges against one of them, a scenario worthy of Putin’s Russia. Yep, Sonny I’m old enough to remember the rule of law. If not the papers, then who?
But that’s enough crabbing for a snowed-in subzero afternoon, and we’ll get back to Guardianship soon, so until next time remember, in the words of the immortal Senator Roman Hruska [Was Roman one of ours, Agrippina?] in the selection of Judges, Mediocre People Deserve Representation too.
Oh, I just channeled Hruska from Hades, and he has an update: “I didn’t mean Judy McMahon, idiots.”
