In 2006, The New York Times ran an expose on the State’s Town and Village Court system that provoked a series of reforms for the allegedly troubled courts.

But the article might have had another consequence: increased funding for the Commission on Judicial Conduct, which had lobbied in vain for a budget increase for years.

Commission Administrator Robert Tembeckjian readily admits that increased focus on the Town and Village Courts might have created the necessary climate for the Legislature to approve a doubling of his organization’s budget. (A year later, the Commission has doubled the square footage of its headquarters, grown the number of staff attorneys from 10 to 19, and increased its number of investigators from 7 to 10.)

One of the reasons the Commission already ranks as the most robust of its kind nationwide, after all, is because it devotes so much time to overseeing the Town and Village Courts, whose 2300 judges occupy 70 percent of the State’s bench seats.

Indeed, two-thirds of the Commissions’ public disciplines concern Town and Village Judges (many of whom are not attorneys).   

The Commission says this is a numbers game: more Town and Village judges mean more complaints mean more investigations. But as the following statistics show, Town and Village Judges also face a much higher probability of having complaints against them ripen into investigations, which seems less of a math problem and more of a substantive issue.

Does the Commission side with people who want to abolish the Town and Village system outright? Are they biased towards these judges?

Says Tembeckjian, “Complaints of misconduct against Town and Village justices are more likely to have merit, warrant investigation, and result in punishment than complaints against judges of higher courts. This underscores that the lion's share of Commission resources is devoted to investigating and litigating complaints against Town and Village justices.”

That this is so is clear. But as to why such complaints are found more meritorious, Tembeckjian did not say.

2008 Rankings by Percentage of Complaints
that led to an Investigation (for actions taken in 2007)