Hood noted Family Court has authority to deal with juvenile delinquents down to age 7, adding she respectfully disagreed with what police reportedly had told the questioner. Schroeppel Town Justice Fran Ciardullo carried the honesty bug into the second hour of the panel discussion as she responded to a local lawyer's concerns about the sanctity of jury trials and some courts' attempts to place time limits on lawyers' jury-selection questioning. But, she added, most lawyers aren't looking for that at all. Most lawyers, she said, are looking for jurors biased in favor of their side. That answer won Ciardullo a round of applause from the audience.
Timing is everything, even in judicial election campaigns.
The fund-raiser was not unusual, given recent judicial races. What was unusual was the timing. The invitation sought contributions for Carni's race for state Supreme Court, but it came in the mail before the governor appointed Carni to the vacancy he is raising campaign money to try to hold onto in the November election. The appointment announcement came last week after a couple of months of rumors within the legal community. That's J. Patrick Barrett , the Telergy Inc. president who solidly backed Carni's unsuccessful attempt to win the GOP nomination to run for Supreme Court last year.