ARRIVE EARLY, USE THE PAYPHONE
The new Bronx courthouse, already maligned for its tilting parking garage, has a number of design flaws that have made the combining of felony and misdemeanor cases a challenge, reports The New York Law Journal. The courthouse was designed 15 years only to accommodate felony cases. But in 2005, the borough’s criminal and supreme courts were merged into a single court, a move that began in earnest when the Bronx Hall of Justice opened its doors. The unanticipated high volume of cases has meant impossibly long lines at the courthouse doors and a lack of interview rooms, while additional design and security issues — including dead spots for radio communication and cracking glass facades — have added to attorneys’ and judges’ concerns. “We are trying to redesign and reinvent to make the courthouse work,” said the court’s Administrative Judge, John Collins. “We are the consumer here and, as issues arise, we will work with the city and state agencies who built the courthouse to correct anything that needs to be fixed,” added OCA spokesperson David Bookstaver.

KASMAN AND CORRUPTION  
Lewis Kasman, the self-described “adopted son” of mobster John Gotti who the tabloids outed as a government informant last month, has allegedly provided information about two corrupt, unnamed judges in Queens, one of whom is still on the bench. Kasman also said an unnamed Nassau County judge took a bribe from the deceased mob lawyer Michael Coiro, who originally introduced Kasman to organized crime figures. The Daily News has the story. Kasman — who provided Gotti with a legitimate stream of income in the 1980s through his garment business — turned informant because he felt disrespected by members of the Gambino crime family after Gotti went to jail. In return for his information, Kasman receives immunity for “participation in bribery of various public officials from approximately 1986 through 1999.”

"FORECLOSURE MILL" NO MORE
After the subprime mortgage meltdown, how are Queens judges handling the run in foreclosure cases? In years past the courthouse was dubbed a “foreclosure mill,” with even the seediest fly-by-night lenders rarely challenged by borrowers. But the tide has turned, reports The Daily News, with lenders more often getting the benefit of the doubt. “The way the courts are seeing it right now, if there’s fraud involved, you’re in a repairable situation. If you have some money, you can stand your ground,” said Peggy Morris, director of the advocacy group Jamaica Housing Improvement. The News recounts a recent example in which a couple unable to pay a $2400 monthly payment hired foreclosure attorney Howard Sherman, who discovered that the Jamaica realty firm Dream Homes Realty had falsified the pair’s income on its loan application. Sherman says that judges have come to “understand that the people who were wronged were the borrowers…One judge summed it up: ‘14,000 Queens residents can't be wrong.’”

SILVESTRI'S LOSS, MUKASEY'S GAIN
Finally, The New York Sun reports that the Second Circuit has rejected former NYPD detective Michael Silvestri’s efforts to have his 12-year prison sentence for covering up a mafia-related murder reconsidered. In 2003, then-Southern District Judge Michael Mukasey sentenced Silvestri after a jury determined he’d help conceal evidence in his cousin’s 1998 shooting of loanshark Joseph Conigliaro. (Silvestri had removed bullet casings from Conigliaro’s car and asked another detective to fake a police report.) Silvestri’s lawyers had argued that Mukasey did not adequately consider a number of factors in meting out the sentence.