Do not expect Justice Laura Blackburne to subscribe to Reader's Digest anytime soon.
In its upcoming February edition, the magazine named the controversial Queens judge one of the nation's three worst jurists, awarding her the dubious distinction known as the Broken Gavel Award. Blackburne, who ordered a participant in a drug treatment program out of her court through a side door in June because she did not want him arrested by a waiting detective, joined a justice from Ohio and one from Kentucky on the list.
"It's a rare day in America when a sitting judge helps a criminal suspected of a violent crime flee a courtroom to elude a detective waiting to arrest him," the magazine staffers wrote in the article. A clerk at Blackburne's chambers said the judge had no comment on the ranking.
Source: http://gothamgazette.com/community/28/news/1144
He is a judge, [Associate Judge] on the New York State Court of Appeals [our highest Court]. He was on that Court for years before retired from the D.A's office I worked in. Reliably liberal, but not one of the cutting edge 'flamers';, like the Chief Judge, Judy Kaye, or Carmen Ciparick.