Judicial Reports: LexPress: Judges 'Betray' Brooklyn

By Lily Henning

Posted 10-09-06

Some judicial tires get kicked in Brooklyn, and Sidley Austin finds itself back in Manhattan Supreme Court (but on the wrong side of the realization rate.)

PARKED BENCH
They might have a brand new $670 million courthouse, but Brooklyn judge are still parking in a public park, and residents are hopping mad. The Daily News reports that all the way back in 1999, then-Administrative Judge Michael Pesce promised that the judges would stop parking their cars in Columbus Park, which is between the old Brooklyn Supreme Court building and Borough Hall. “The community was betrayed,” said Judy Stanton of the Brooklyn Heights Association. ”Somebody has to get the cars out of the park. It is open space and belongs to the public." Court officials now say that there aren’t enough parking spaces in the new building and that the only promise they ever made was that cars would be moved from one part of the park.

 

MEASURED DEFENSE
An Albany courtroom had to be measured to make sure it could fit the 12 defendants in a drug trial. County Judge Stephen Herrick’s courtroom was measured with yardsticks. The Albany Times Union also makes a note of the expense of legal representation for the dozen indigent defendants, who were picked up in a May drug sweep and opted for one really big trial.

STAR CHAMBERS
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will have a special guest on the bench this week. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will sit with the federal appeals court in Manhattan on Wednesday on a three-judge panel with Senior Judge John Walker, Jr., and Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs. No word in the Post story, though, on what cases she’s slated to hear.

LOSS OF SHELTER
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Bernard Fried reinstated a suit against law firm Sidley Austin (along with German bank HypoVereinsbank), claiming that the two induced clients into a tax shelter that was later declared illegal by the IRS. The suit was thrown out earlier this year by Fried, according to the New York Law Journal, but after the bank entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s Office, Fried reconsidered the fraud and conspiracy claims.

ABUSING THE SYSTEM
Albor Ruiz has a column in the Daily News about Javaid Iqbal’s suit in federal court against an array of federal officials for his treatment in the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center. “The fact that no evidence linked him to any terrorist attack or organization made no difference,” writes Ruiz. “In these days that the ‘war on terror’ is routinely used to justify the assault on civil liberties and democratic rights, a court decision in favor of Iqbal would be a forceful reminder that no one — not even high-level officials — are above the law, something that many in Washington seem to have forgotten.” A ruling from the Second Circuit could come at any time.

Posted by Dirk on October 9, 2006 11:30 AM to Judicial Reports