SIGN AND (DON'T) TELL 
A member of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct has voiced concerns about the tool the commission uses to arrange the equivalent of plea bargains with investigated judges, reports The New York Law Journal. So-called agreed statements can lighten penalties for judges who’ve acted inappropriately, the Law Journal article suggests, but according to commission member Richard D. Emery they lack sufficient detail for the commission to make an informed penalty decision. After the recent censure of Tannersville Village Court Justice Noreen Valcich, who presided over a case despite having a professional and social relationship with the defendant, Emery wrote a dissent to the commission in which he called the penalty “a rash choice in favor of clemency for a recidivist ethical violator.” He was referring to the fact that Valdich had twice previously been issued letters of caution by the commission, but also that given the lack of detail on Valdich’s agreed statement, it was impossible to determine the severity of her act. “When an agreed statement is presented as a basis for imposing discipline, it should answer all relevant questions so that we can determine whether there has been misconduct and what sanction, if any, should be imposed,” said Emery. “It is our core responsibility to determine whether a judge is fit to remain on the bench, and we should not have to make a decision, especially on this ultimate issue, on a record with significant factual gaps, confusing characterizations or events, and critical unresolved issues.”

"INCESSANT BUREAUCRATIC NITPICKING" 
Elsewhere, Onondaga County Judge Joseph Fahey yesterday had harsh words for the county's Assigned Counsel Program, for what he described as “incessant bureaucratic nitpicking” when it comes to paying lawyers for their work, that “almost borders on an ongoing violation of the Sixth Amendment.” The Syracuse Post-Standard has the story. Fahey’s comments came during a proceeding in which a defense lawyer, Jeffrey Parry, complained he hadn’t been paid for five trials last winter he handled for indigent clients.

BAN BOOKS WILL TRAVEL 
The New York Sun reports today that the Second Circuit has granted asylum to a Chinese bureaucrat whose job was to confiscate pro-democracy books, but who also engaged in acts of private protest against the communist government. The ruling overturns two lower courts decisions that classified Xu Sheng Gao, 45, as a “persecutor,” and goes against the wishes of the Justice Department. “Without his written reports of the evidence elicited by himself and his subordinates, the Chinese Communist Government's policy of persecution of these vendors for selling books and materials expressing political opinions in opposition to the official Communist Party line could not succeed,” read the government’s brief.

NO MERCY FOR THIS TAX EVADER  
The New York Times runs a disturbing story about the 50-month sentence given by Southern District Judge Charles L. Brieant to a former Goldman Sachs analyst and tax shelter promoter who hasn’t paid taxes for 29 years, and who sometimes created fake tax returns in his daughter’s name. Throughout the 1990s, Richard Josephberg had routinely been served collection notices that he ignored; an I.R.S. collector even made a personal house call in an effort to collect.