Posted on 09/25/2006 10:11:58 PM PDT by neverdem
Broken Bench
DUANE, N.Y. — Gary Betters thought he understood the law as well as any average American. A school psychologist, he wanted $1,588.60 he said the nearby village of Malone owed him for helping run a summer recreation program. When he brought a small claim in Duane Town Court, he expected that the judge would listen to both sides, then rule.
Like many others who go to court across New York State, he got a crash course in the strange ways of small-town justice.
Although no one showed up to defend the village, Justice William J. Gori started the trial anyway. Although the judge had Mr. Betters testify at length, he neglected to have him swear to tell the truth. And although Justice Gori told Mr. Betters he had another week to submit more evidence, the judge went ahead and decided the case anyway.
Mr. Betters received the news in a letter from the court: his case had been dismissed. No reason was given. “I cannot understand how a defendant can win when they don’t even show up,” he said in an interview.
The State Commission on Judicial Conduct figured out how. Justice Gori, it seems, had gone to the village offices in Malone before the trial, interviewed the village’s chief witness, then informed the village lawyer that he had decided to throw out the case.
Justice Gori told the commission that he had never heard of the elementary legal rule that bars a judge, except in the most extraordinary circumstances, from secret contact with one side of a case. “It’s not even explained in my manual,” he said.
An unfamiliarity with basic legal principles is remarkably common in what are known as the justice courts, legacies of the Colonial era that survive in more than 1,000 New York...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Umm, a manual written in crayon and in somebody's notebook doesn't really count, Your Honor...
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