Judicial Reports: LexPress: Hart Attack

By Jesse Sunenblick and Heidi Bruggink
jsunenblick@judicialstudies.com
hbruggink@judicialstudies.com
Posted: 12-06-07 

An Eastern District judge tosses claims by Queens Supreme Court Justice Duane Hart that an investigation of him by the Commission on Judicial Conduct is invalid because of the chairman's alleged racism.

 WHO IS THE "SCHMUCK?" 
African-American Queens Supreme Court Justice Duane Hart has lost his attempt to have disciplinary action against him by the Commission on Judicial Conduct tossed due to the alleged racial bias of its chair, Raul L. Felder, reports The New York Law Journal. The commission, which previously censured Hart for holding a plaintiff in contempt after a bizarre parking lot encounter between the plaintiff and the judge himself. Now the body is investigating claims that Hart falsely accused an attorney of extortion, failed to disclose a personal relationship with a defense attorney who appeared in his court, and helped his mother get around security at Queens Family Court. Hart's motion before Eastern District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis unsuccessfully sought an injunction halting the investigation, on the grounds it belonged in federal court and that Felder had demonstrated a pattern of racial bias in his recent book, “Schmucks!: Our Favorite Fakes, Frauds, Lowlifes, Liars, the Armed and Dangerous, and Good Guys Gone Bad,” which he cowrote with comedian Jackie Mason. In a statement, Felder referred back to the earlier censure. “Judge Hart's problem is that [the original censure] was confirmed by the Court of Appeals,” he said. “Judge Hart is Judge Hart's problem. It has nothing to do with me.” -J.S.

INTIFADA BLUES 
Southern District Judge Sidney H. Stein issued a preliminary ruling yesterday in the case of the fired principal of the city’s first Arabic-themed school who sued Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The New York Times has the story. Stein ruled that Debbie Almontaser lost free speech protection when she commented to a newspaper about the word “intifada,” since she participated in the interview as school principal, and that her employer was justifiably responsible for supervising messages to the public. She was subsequently asked to step down. Said Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, “This is just another example of how recent Supreme Court rulings are undermining constitutional rights in general and First Amendment rights in particular.” -J.S.

DESTEFANO CLEARED 
The Times Herald-Record has a story about the overturning of misdemeanor convictions of former Middletown Mayor Joe DeStefano. In a bench trial, a judge had found DeStefano guilty of wrongfully benefiting from federal loans that flowed through the city's Economic Development Office and from supposedly conspiring with then-city Judge Rich Guertin and economic development chief Neil Novesky to cover his tracks. The Appellate Division found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. -J.S.

JUDGE AS WITNESS 
Newsday reports that Sloatsburg Village Court Judge Thomas Newman appeared in court recently — as a witness and near-victim. Newman was nearly hit by a bullet fired from a sawed-off rifle by Leo Lewis at a court hearing after Lewis had been cleared of groping charges. He snuck the weapon in with the intention of shooting his accuser, but his wayward bullet almost hit the judge, and now he’s on trial for attempted murder. “I saw a hole in the wall behind me” and a gouge in the bench “three to four inches to six inches to my right,” Newman testified. Lewis “had had enough of the court system,” Assistant District Attorney Louis Valvo told the jury at the start of the trial. “He decided he was the judge, he was the jury, and he was going to be the executioner.” Said Lewis's wife Julie: “This isn't the man I married. The accusation from that woman changed him.” -J.S.

OFFICER "UNJUSTIFIED" IN BRONX SHOOTING 
The Times also reports on the emotional Bronx arraignment of NYPD Officer Rafael Lora, who has been charged with murder for an off-duty shooting that left a drunk man, whom Lora says tried to run him over, dead. “Officer Lora’s statements do not jibe with the physical evidence and the statements of other eyewitnesses, and ultimately it is our position that this tragic death of Fermin Arzu, a working man, was unnecessary, unjustified, and therefore illegal,” said Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson. “His own state of mind was that he was going to get run over,” said Lora’s attorney, Stuart London. “Who knows what other damage this vehicle could have done to person or property?” -J.S.

JUSTICE(S) COME TO THE ISLAND
And finally, the Staten Island Advance reports on the borough's new designation as an independent judicial district. Spitzer signed off on the legislation yesterday, "pav[ing] the way for the Island to elect nine judges of its own, meaning that more home-grown jurists, both Democrats and Republicans, will likely be elected." Spitzer rep Errol Cockfield said, "There is no question that Staten Island is underrepresented in the state Supreme Court system and this legislation will correct that." -H.B.

Posted by Jesse on December 6, 2007 09:05 AM to Judicial Reports