Judicial Reports: LexPress: Public Calamity, Punitive Pirro

By Jesse Sunenblick
jsunenblick@judicialstudies.com
Posted: 05-06-08 

New York City begins enforcing its new health code requiring certain restaurants to prominently display calorie counts on menus. In other news, here comes Court Pestilence.

 

INSPECTORS ON THE LOOSE
To the chagrin of adversaries of a new health code requiring chains with 15 or more restaurants nationwide to prominently display calorie counts on menus of local establishments, New York City has begun issuing citations for noncompliance. The New York Times has the story. Although the violation notices stipulate no fines — Southern District Richard J. Holwell ruled that the city couldn’t start profiting (err, collecting) until mid-July — health inspectors delivered a form to five restaurants, including a Dunkin Donuts on Park Avenue and a McDonald's on Broadway. The document said the health department “expects that the conditions will be addressed promptly” and “any recurrence of these conditions could result in further action being taken.” Said Chuck Hunt, a spokesman for the New York State Restaurant Association, “Two different inspectors came on two different occasions and had two different approaches to how they weren’t doing it right. There’s undoubtedly going to be inconsistency in how they intend to enforce this.”

PESTILENCE, WAR, AND THE COURTS
Republican State Senator and Judiciary Committee Chairman John DeFrancisco has introduced a bill that seeks to modernize the protocols for keeping courts operating during times of war, “pestilence," and “public calamity,” The New York Law Journal reports. The legislation, already approved by the Assembly Judiciary Committee and sponsored by its chairperson, Helene Weinstein, defines the circumstances under which courts may be moved to alternate locations at which they can reconvene safely in the event of any “emergency or other exigent circumstance or the imminent threat thereof" that “prevents the safe and practicable holding of a term of any court at the location designated by law." The current law dates back to 1866, the year after the end of the Civil War, and is confusing about who has the authority to move courts. It lets a governor relocate a court outside of New York City to another location within “its district” while also letting judges do the same thing.

 
JUDGE JEANINE
From The Journal News comes word that former Westchester DA and conservative firebrand Jeanine Pirro is getting her own television show — as a judge. The hour-long program, "Judge Jeanine Pirro," will premiere on September 22 on the CW network and feature Pirro meting out justice in her own “go for the jugular” style. “Rest assured, the audience will take something away from this, not just about the law but about real life,” said Pirro. “And my own experience, both professionally as a DA and a judge, as well as my personal life experience, are going to add to a very exciting and very real court show.”

 
PRESUMED GUILTY?
The North Country Gazette, that tempestuous court watcher, is at it again. The newspaper takes to task Warren County Court Judge John S. Hall for an alleged breach of a defendant’s due process rights during pretrial proceedings in the manslaughter case of Alicia Lewie. Lewie’s seven-month-old baby was beaten to death last fall by her roommate, who has already pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. The Gazette thinks Hall ditched the presumption of Lewie’s innocence in the case and may have encouraged her to plead guilty, telling her during a hearing that “judges generally don’t look favorably on those who don’t accept responsibility for their misdeeds” — an exchange later published in The Warren County Post-Star, prompting a recusal motion by Lewie’s attorney.

Posted by Jesse on May 6, 2008 08:47 AM to Judicial Reports