ON THE TARMAC
New York’s Airline Passenger Bill of Rights — which requires airlines to provide food, water, clean toilets and fresh air to passengers trapped on planes delayed on the tarmac — doesn't sit well with judges at the Eastern District. There, a panel of judges is hearing an appeal by the airline industry that the bill, the first nationwide, is illegal. As reported by The Daily News, because the regulation implies that federal authority may preempt state laws, Judge Debra Ann Livingston said, “There is a patchwork problem in that every state should be concerned about this and probably would write different regulations.” Added Judge Richard Wesley: “Judges aren't heartless people in black robes. Three judges must decide whether New York stepped over the preemption line.” Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, one of the bill’s sponsors, said New York can’t wait for federal legislation. “Here in New York, where we have some of the longest delays in the country, we thought we needed to step forward first.”  -J.S.

WEST INDIANS AND JURIES 
From yesterday’s New York Times comes word on Southern District Judge William H. Pauley III’s ruling on the discriminatory exclusion of West Indians on a jury in the Bronx. The case concerned the trial of Mark Watson, a Jamaican-born man who was convicted in 2000 of rape, sodomy and burglary. If prosecutors cannot prove in a hearing that four Jamaicans and one Trinidadian were excluded from the jury for reasons other than their national origin, Pauley said that Watson could receive a new trial. The decision further elucidates the extent to which peremptory challenges can be used to exclude jurors due to race, ethnicity, gender and national origin. (The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that blacks, in general, cannot be excluded for this reason, and that peremptory challenges — which require no explanation — can be used by prosecutors only “to secure a fair and impartial jury.”) -J.S.

IN DEFENSE OF WINTER 
Western District Judge David G. Larimer has refused to delay the trial of appraiser John E. Nicolo, who is accused of manipulating assessments of Eastman Kodak Co. properties in return for kickbacks. While Nicolo’s physician testified that starting the trial on Monday would expose Nicolo to Rochester’s aggressively cold winter, aggravating various physical ailments and forcing him to take more medication, Larimer refused a request to delay the trial for three months. “There’s no guarantee that if we hold this [trial] on the hottest day in July that Mr. Nicolo won’t have to take some kind of medication,” said Larimer. As reported by The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the kickbacks scheme allegedly began with Kodak properties in the town of Greece and evolved into properties owned by IBM, Rochester Gas and Electric Corp., Global Crossing Telecommunications Inc., and ITT Industries in various Monroe County municipalities, as well as the states of Colorado, New Jersey, and Ohio. L.N.

TANTRUMS DON'T WORK 
The Daily News reports that the sister of a doctor accused of hiring a hit man to kill her estranged husband was yanked out of Queens Supreme Court yesterday after screaming at Justice Ira Marqulis in an effort to have her $150,000 bail for threatening a witness reduced. Natella Natanova allegedly stalked a witness in the case, Gaviril Malakov, telling him, “You will be next to go” if he talked. Malakov’s brother, the dentist Daniel Malakov, was shot dead execution-style last October a Forest Hills park in front of his young daughter.  J.S.

NOT 'ABHORRENT'
The New York Times also reports on Manhattan Justice Laura Drager’s decision last week to grant a divorce to a lesbian couple that married in Canada. When it comes to marriages from other jurisdictions, New York courts presume reciprocity: Judges are essentially bound to recognize legal marriages from other jurisdictions as long as they are not “abhorrent to public policy,” as polygamy or incest would be. Last year, the New York recognized a Rhode Island marriage between an uncle and niece (which would have been forbidden in New York) – a fact that Drager cited in her ruling on the divorce of the lesbian couple at hand. The decision potentially breaks new ground, the Times observed, setting a precedent under which gay couples wishing to be legally married in New York may seek “de facto” legalization by getting married across the border and, on return, demanding reciprocity regarding a multitude of rights that accrue to other married couples in the state. Susan Sommer, counsel to gay rights group Lambda Legal, said the ruling “just helps give an air of inevitability” to the full legalization of gay marriage in New York. For more on gay divorce in Manhattan, see Judicial Reports’s article from this summer on Manhattan Justice Rosalyn Richter’s divorce law-based ruling on the partition of a townhouse jointly owned by a lesbian couple. -L.N.