Prometheus 6

I just wanted to get off that line...the judges they're talking about are more like the sheriffs down in ol' Dixie. 

Assembly Hearing Looks at Reform of New York’s Town Courts
By WILLIAM GLABERSON

ALBANY, Dec. 14 — The Legislature began considering changes to New York’s vast network of town and village courts on Thursday, hearing testimony from judicial officials, prosecutors, local justices and court monitoring groups. Some insisted that a drastic overhaul was long overdue, while others said reforms already under way would suffice.

Among the most powerful statements made was a prosecutor’s account of what he called “jaw-dropping moments” of judicial incompetence in the New York City suburbs. Michael E. Bongiorno, the district attorney of Rockland County, told a State Assembly hearing that cases simply vanished in the local courts for lack of attention, that some justices did not know how to conduct trials, and that some even committed crimes or violated ethical rules.

The testimony came as lawmakers began examining the state’s system of 1,277 town and village courts, also known as justice courts. The courts, which date to the Colonial era, have been criticized for nearly a century as poorly supervised, inadequately funded and sometimes hostile to constitutional rights. The State Senate plans to hold a hearing next month, and last month the state’s top court officials announced that they would begin an ambitious series of reforms.

But Mr. Bongiorno, the president of the New York State District Attorneys Association, told the legislators that those reforms “do not go far enough in providing a long-term solution to the litany of serious shortcomings that plague the justice courts.”