PUBLICIZING PORK
The Albany-Times Union won a challenge yesterday to make public the names of lawmakers who sponsor legislation for “pork barrel” projects. The paper had sued Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to find out who was tapping a discretionary $200 million pool of taxpayer revenue within the state budget — and for what. The newspaper first filed Freedom of Information requests for records on how the money was allocated and who sponsored so-called member item projects for fiscal years 2003-04 and 2004-05. Gov. Governor George Pataki complied with the FOIL request (he gets to disburse $30 million of the funds), as did Senate Democratic Minority Leader David Paterson and Assembly Republican Minority Leader James Tedisco. But when the paper got back a list with information redacted for Bruno and Silver, the TU took the two powerful political leaders to court. State Supreme Court Justice Robert Sackett of Sullivan County ruled Bruno and Silver "failed to articulate a rational basis for redacting the names" in documents turned over to the newspaper. “We undertook this lawsuit as a last resort: It was the only way we could fulfill our watchdog responsibility on this story,” Times Union Editor Rex Smith said. “It's a shame this is what it takes to open up state government for our readers."

INSECURITY COMPLEX
A half-dozen support magistrate judges shuttered their Queens Family courtrooms yesterday because of a shortage of security officers. There wasn’t any advance notice that the courtrooms would be without security, which prompted the judges to adjourn a total of 180 cases involving 300 litigants, the New York Law Journal reports. The magistrate judges said without security officers they feared for both their own safety and all of those in the courtroom. David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration, attributed yesterday's shortage to an unusual number of officers reporting sick, but Dennis Quirk, head of the New York State Court Officers Association, says the Queens Family Court has been plagued by chronic security staff shortages.

WEDDING OR NOT
The New Jersey Supreme Court is expected to release its decision on same-sex marriages today. If the court rules in favor of the seven gay couples who say the state’s constitution allows them to marry, New Jersey could become the second state — Massachusetts is the other — to allow gay marriages. The AP (via The New York Times) notes that New Jersey is one of only five states with neither a law nor a state constitutional amendment blocking same-sex marriage.

 
RAPPIN' ON HEAVEN'S DOOR
It turns out it was a two-rapper day at the Manhattan Criminal Court. Busta Rhymes and Foxy Brown, aka Inga Marchand, appeared before Judges ShawnDya Simpson and Melissa Jackson, respectively, on unrelated misdemeanor assault charges. We know these charges are small potatoes and, ok, that no novel legal questions are at stake. But there might be some kind of lesson in this exchange in Judge Jackson’s courtroom (courtesy of the Times):

 
“I know that I am innocent,” Ms. Marchand told the judge. “I have a lot of faith in God.”

 
“How are you innocent?” Judge Jackson asked.

 
Ms. Marchand seemed at a loss for an answer. . . . Unmoved, Judge Jackson sentenced Ms. Marchand to three years’ probation and anger management counseling. Having fought tooth and cerise-painted nail to the finish   . . . Ms. Marchand made her exit clutching a black silk rose for the benefit of photographers and her forthcoming album. She insisted that the judge had misjudged her. “I’m headed to the studio,” she said. “Right after the studio, I’m headed to Bible studies.”