LABOMBARD'S LAMENT  
The Plattsburgh Press Republican interviews Ellenburg Town Justice Dennis LaBombard days after his removal from the bench for giving his step-grandchildren lenient sentences and trying to get preferential treatment for another relative. LaBombard says his appeal to the Court of Appeals of a decision made by the Commission on Judicial Conduct months ago was dismissed due to a technicality — the paperwork (which his attorney handled) apparently wasn’t bound correctly. “How would I know what the proper way to bind this is? I got the paperwork sent, and all of this was all supposed to be taken care of,” LaBombard told the paper. “It’s really a mess. I don’t understand what they’re trying to do to me. I’m just fed up with the system. This is just overwhelming what the commission has done to me. I'm just exhausted — totally, totally exhausted — trying to fight to stay on this bench. I’m very upset and disgruntled about this.”

A "COMPROMISE" DECISION 
After four days of deliberations, the jury in round one of the Nixzmary Brown murder case reached a “compromise” verdict in finding the girl’s stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, guilty of manslaughter in her death, reports Newsday. Jurors were split on whether the evidence proved Rodriguez had acted with “depraved indifference toward human life,” the prerequisite needed to prove murder. “They felt like the people didn’t give enough evidence. We needed to know who delivered the actual last blow,” said Janice Richardson, 62, one of seven jurors she said believed Rodriguez was guilty of murder. “The bottom line is, the pictures were proof enough for us that he should have been convicted for murder.” Rodriguez, 29, faces up to 25 years in prison, as opposed to the 25-years-to-life had he been convicted of murder.

HEY, THE U.N. AIN'T FREE! 
The New York Times reports on Southern District Judge Jed S. Rakoff’s ruling ordering the nations of India, Mongolia, and the Philippines to pay a combined $57 million in unpaid property taxes related to housing diplomats and other costs associated with the countries’ presence in the United Nations. However, it is unclear to what extent the decision is enforceable, since the city cannot enforce the liens in the usual way by foreclosing on the buildings. “If the consequence of not paying your taxes simply is you’re going to get sued, and you’re going to pay a lot of interest, I think a rational person would say, 'I just might as well pay my taxes,' ” said New York City Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo. “We don’t like to sue these countries; that’s not what we want to do. We want to be good neighbors and we want to be a good host, but they should be paying.”

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT ORDER VOIDED
From The New York Law Journal comes news of a split Appellate Division, First Department decision chastising a Manhattan judge for placing a man in solitary confinement after he’d already been sentenced to a term that didn’t include the punishment. After sentencing previously convicted (and, at the time, incarcerated) forger Jovan Fludd to additional time for filing fake liens against the public officials who helped prosecute him, Acting Supreme Court Justice Arlene D. Goldberg cited her “inherent power” in allowing the Department of Corrections “to take such steps that it deems necessary, including placement of this defendant in restrictive housing” to stop Fludd from continuing his shenanigans. (The corrections department had temporarily put Fludd in solitary confinement, until administrators ruled that only a judge could authorize the action.) In the absence of “a specific authorization by law, a trial court loses its authority to alter or dictate the terms of a defendant's sentence or confinement” after sentencing has taken place, Judge James Catterson wrote for the majority. “[I]t is a bedrock principle of our justice system that incarceration to prevent crime is not permitted prior to a criminal conviction. . . . To allow the court to place the petitioner in solitary confinement because it believes that the petitioner intends to commit further harassment is repulsive and contrary to the whole foundation of our penal system.”