LexPress: West Pointless Protest
By Jesse Sunenblick
Posted: 05-21-07
A federal judge denies protestors' request to enter the grounds of West Point during V.P. Dick Cheney's commencement address, the longest trial in Albany County comes to a close (with a poisoning), and the former chief clerk of the Onondaga County Family Court files a salacious lawsuit alleging judicial corruption. Oh, and Governor Spitzer is not an Alberto Gonzales fan.
YELL LOUD, AND MAYBE CHENEY WILL HEAR YOU
Noting "recent events highlight national security concerns at our military installations,” Southern District Judge Charles Brieant on Friday refused to grant the request of a group of activists who wanted to protest “the continued invasion of Iraq” on the grounds of West Point Military Academy during Vice President Dick Cheney’s graduation address there next Saturday. As has happened since 2004, protestors will be allowed to gather outside the grounds, nearly a mile away, without a permit. But Judge Brieant panned the group’s promise to "provide security through designated marshals trained in crowd control and non-violent demonstration tactics" if they were granted further leniency. This assessment, the judge wrote, “. . . overlooks the fact that opposition to the War in Iraq has intensified greatly in recent months; that expected counter-demonstrators outside the gate may interact with the group in a hostile manner, or that participants in political 'dirty tricks' may seek to infiltrate the march for purposes of causing trouble.” As reported in The New York Law Journal, organizers of the event said that they would appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
IF ALL ELSE FAILS, POISON YOURSELF
The longest trial in the history of Albany County came to a disconcerting close on Friday when the lead defendant, Joseph Houghtaling, drank a nonfatal dose of antifreeze in the minutes before being convicted. He was on trial for falsifying business records in connection with what prosecutors called a mammoth insurance fraud scheme that staged car crashes to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance money. The Albany Times Union has the bizarre story. Ironically, moments before a jury acquitted Houghtaling of all but two of the 107 charges against him, his attorney, John Kelleher, handed his client a card depicting St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. An hour and a half later, Houghtaling underwent kidney dialysis at Albany Medical Center Hospital. His condition was not immediately available. "I think the trial caused a lot of stress on Joe," said Kelleher, who harshly criticized prosecutors for pursuing the case with what he called a "bloodlust."
WRONG CHURCH, WRONG PEW
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran two interesting stories over the weekend. The first offers the most comprehensive analysis of why a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub dismissed a last-ditch lawsuit that took aim at the Atlantic Yards development project. The lawsuit said that the New York Constitution prevented the Empire State Development Corporation from using eminent domain to construct private roads — in this case, a private parking garage. But Tolub said the lawsuit “was brought both in the wrong church and the wrong pew,” in that it should have been presented to the Appellate Division, Second Department, which has exclusive jurisdiction over cases challenging a condemnation.
Secondly, The Daily Eagle details a meeting of the Kings County Supreme Court’s Civil Term Forum last week. It’s an inside-baseball look at judges patting each other on the back, including coordinator Justice Joseph S. Levine’s assessment that the court has “never had a more responsive administrative judge” — Justice Ariel Belen, who was appointed to the position earlier this year — and a glowing review of Justice Allen Hurkin-Torres’s “firm” handling of trial calendars.
BE NICE TO MY "GOOD REPUBLICAN FRIENDS"
Could the Brooklyn disease have meandered north to Syracuse? There’s surely more to follow on this story, singularly reported by The Syracuse Post Standard. It describes a federal lawsuit recently filed by Bobette J. Morin, the former chief clerk of the Onondaga County Family Court, which claims she was pushed out of office after she refused to participate in a conspiracy to discredit a state Supreme Court candidate in 2002. Morin says that four colleagues — 5th Judicial District Administrative Justice James C. Tormey III, former Executive Assistant John Voninski, Family Court Judge Bryan Hedges and Hedges's law clerk William Dowling asked her to help provide negative information about Family Court Judge David Klim, who was running as a Democrat for Supreme Court against what Justice Tormey described as "good Republican friends.”
NIXONIAN JUSTICE?
Calling Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's continued tenure a "blight" on the U.S. Department of Justice, Eliot Spitzer makes an ominous historical comparison in The New York Times today.