Court Opinion

ID: 9722120
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:17:10.504507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:06:15.884483
License: Public Domain

Read, J. (dissenting).
The State Commission on Judicial Conduct effectively snapshots occasions when petitioner, a Judge of the Troy City Court, unquestionably failed to fulfill his obligations under CPL 170.10. We agree that this conduct cannot be condoned and should be sanctioned. Unlike the majority, however, we refuse to find misconduct based on the allegation that petitioner routinely set excessive bails. We dissent because censure is the appropriate remedy.
Our first disagreement with the majority involves the Commission’s decision to charge misconduct in 26 cases where it believes petitioner set “excessive bail.” Even were we to agree that bail was “shockingly” high in these cases (majority op at 161), we question whether the Commission’s authority extends to this highly discretionary judicial realm (see e.g. CPL 510.30 [2]). One of the members of the Commission, in a dissent recommending censure rather than removal, explained that
“[throughout its history, the Commission has cautiously refrained from intruding into areas that encroach upon judicial discretion. Expressing its reluctance to review a judge’s bail determinations, the Commission stated in its 1991 annual report: ‘Although the Commission has not authority to consider complaints that judges have abused their discretion in setting bail, it may consider complaints that judges have used the bail procedure for other than its intended purpose,’ e.g., to punish a defendant or coerce a guilty plea. I subscribe to this limitation upon our authority.”
*166We agree.
The Commission’s allegation that petitioner set excessive bails impinges on his discretion as a judge and is, in our opinion, outside the Commission’s scope of authority. CPL 510.30 sets forth the factors on which an application for bail is determined. Critically, it provides that, except in specific circumstances prescribed by statute, “the issuance of an order of recognizance or bail and the terms thereof are matters of discretion rather than of law” (CPL 510.30 [2] [emphasis added]).
As the majority acknowledges, there is a “wide range in the amounts [of bail] set by reasonable judges” (majority op at 163). Because of this “wide range,” bail determinations can only be reviewed on habeas corpus for an error of law, such as an abuse of discretion (see People ex rel. Lazer v Warden, 79 NY2d 839 [1992]). CPL 530.30 also provides relief from excessive bail, but it does not subject the arraigning judge’s decision to review. Rather, it allows de novo review of a local criminal court’s bail determination on application by the defendant to a superior court judge. A judge who abuses discretion in setting bail may err as a matter of law, but such errors of law are usually not grounds for judicial misconduct.
Bail determinations are not completely outside the Commission’s scope of authority, however. In Matter of LaBelle (79 NY2d 350 [1992]), we concluded that by failing to follow the bail procedures in the CPL, petitioner “knowingly committed legal error and engaged in sanctionable conduct” (id. at 358). Here, the Commission refines its excessive bail argument by alleging that petitioner failed to “consider” the CPL 510.30 factors in setting bail, and improperly jailed defendants in lieu of bail. These charges, alleging a failure to follow statutory procedure, are firmly within the scope of the Commission’s authority. We do not regard them to be sustainable, however, because petitioner testified that he did, in fact, “consider” the statutory factors, and we find no basis in the record to presume otherwise.1
In its recommendation, the Commission also suggests that petitioner used bail for impermissible reasons, concluding that he wielded bail not “to insure that the defendants would return to court, but ... to insure that these defendants spent time in *167jail.” If this charge were sustainable, it would be within the Commission’s authority as defined in its own annual report. But we find no basis upon which to conclude that petitioner’s goal was jail time rather than the defendant’s appearance in court. Maybe lower bails would have achieved this purpose, but it cannot be said that petitioner’s neglect to set lower bails amounted to misuse of the bail process.
Further, the Commission acknowledged that “the record does not establish that [petitioner] was motivated by bias against particular defendants or a class of defendants.” This is significant because without an improper motive, all that remains of the Commission’s allegation that petitioner was misusing the bail process is its conclusion that he was harsh. While the majority may be willing to imply misconduct from petitioner’s admittedly severe bail process, we are not.
The Commission’s real grievance is not the alleged excessiveness of bail standing alone, however. The Commission and the majority believe that the true misconduct in this record is that certain defendants, charged with crimes punishable only with fines, were secured by an order of bail and, being unable to meet bail, were jailed (majority op at 160-161). Nothing in the CPL forbids this result, as nothing restricts a judge’s securing options based on the punishments available for the crime (see CPL 510.10). This situation arises from the necessity of a securing order in all cases, and so does not demonstrate a violation of law or any other impropriety, and cannot support a charge of judicial misconduct.
Having rejected the Commission’s allegations concerning bail, we turn to the remaining charges. We agree that more should have been done to advise defendants of their rights under CPL 170.10. As the Referee concludes in his report, petitioner’s justifications for his conduct are “insufficient and . . . [his] conduct did not fulfill his obligations under the statute.” Had petitioner been censured, a change in his practice going forward would have been required.
But we caution that the Commission’s entire CPL 170.10 case against petitioner consists of 19 sustained charges, which occurred during two years of a 10-year judicial career. There is no way to discern whether these cases are exceptions to or representative of petitioner’s general conduct on the bench. Counsel for petitioner represented at oral argument that petitioner presides over approximately 3,400 arraignments a year, a *168number which is in line with the statistical information in the record concerning case volume in Troy City Court. Moreover, at least four of the section 170.10 violations took place on Saturdays when no transcript was available. Unlike the majority, we are unwilling to infer from the absence of a record that a section 170.10 violation must have occurred (majority op at 164-165). We further note that no complaints were lodged against petitioner after the commencement of this investigation.
We also would refuse to sustain the allegations of “coerced guilty pleas” as independent acts of misconduct. The Commission offers no evidence that petitioner forced any defendant who wanted a trial to plead. The allegations are merely conclusions that the Commission reached based on its speculation about how petitioner’s other alleged failures affected defendants.
The remaining allegations involve legal errors on petitioner’s part, not knowing acts of judicial misconduct. The record shows that on two occasions, petitioner allowed pleas without the presence of the defendant,2 and on four occasions, petitioner entered inaccurate fines and sentences, albeit with the consent of both the District Attorney and defense counsel. Petitioner admits these errors. We see nothing in these mistakes to transform them from ordinary judicial error into judicial misconduct.
Removal is a severe remedy—indeed a terminal remedy for a judge. “[T]he purpose of judicial disciplinary proceedings is not punishment but the imposition of sanctions where necessary to safeguard the Bench from unfit incumbents” (Matter of Watson, 100 NY2d 290, 303 [2003] [citation omitted]). None of the aggravating factors that have supported removal in past cases involving bail and section 170.10 are present here (see e.g. Matter of Esworthy, 77 NY2d 280 [1991] [failure to advise of right to counsel along with racist comments and intemperate manner warrants removal]; Matter of Reeves, 63 NY2d 105 [1984] [failure to advise of right to counsel, falsification of records, failure to obtain statutorily required financial statements from litigants and improper ex parte communication justify removal]; Matter *169of Sardino v State Commn. on Jud. Conduct, 58 NY2d 286 [1983] [failure to advise defendants of right to counsel and improper bail determinations combined with improper judicial temperament justifies removal]). This record reveals no intemperate behaviors and no discriminatory comments or motivations.
Moreover, prior to the appearance of the Commission in his courtroom, petitioner had never been cautioned that his conduct was inappropriate. The cases petitioner arraigned were misdemeanors or less with minor punishments and so were unlikely to result in appeal. Thus, as a Commission member pointed out in a dissent recommending censure, there was no appellate court looking over petitioner’s shoulder and correcting his errors. His administrative judge testified under subpoena that from February 1998 to July 2003, he received no complaints regarding petitioner, his bail or his counsel practices. His “supervising judge” testified under subpoena that he had never had any occasion to counsel petitioner regarding his bail or counsel practices.
Prior to his tenure on City Court, petitioner served as assistant public defender in Rensselaer County. The Commission looked to this experience as evidence of petitioner’s knowledge that his conduct was wrongful. An equally supportable conclusion is that petitioner’s conduct as a judge was guided by his experience as a public defender. The record establishes that for at least 20 years, the practice in Rensselaer County has been for the court to determine whether a defendant should be assigned counsel, and not the Public Defender’s Office, as is apparently the case elsewhere in the state. Thus, petitioner was charged with carrying out the dual roles of guarding the public fisc and informing defendants of their right to seek assigned counsel. Perhaps he conflated these two arguably incompatible roles and, having decided that assigned counsel was not warranted in a particular case, failed to fulfill his obligations under section 170.10. We do not offer this to excuse petitioner’s conduct, but rather to provide context.
This longstanding practice in Rensselaer County may also explain why the record is replete with support from members of the legal community, particularly members of the defense bar. The Rensselaer County Public Defender testified that in his eight years on the job, none of his assistants had complained to him “about the bail practices” of petitioner. Indeed, the Public Defender’s only complaint was that his office was “assigned, *170maybe, cases where [it] shouldn’t be” by petitioner. An assistant public defender praised petitioner for “being very respectful of clients’ rights.” A prominent private defense attorney appeared without a subpoena at petitioner’s hearing. While his testimony was properly struck, his support for petitioner was clear. Other local attorneys also wrote the Commission to commend petitioner.
The Executive Director of the local Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime and supervisor of drug court in Troy stated that “[petitioner] is very concerned and has always been concerned about individuals and the way that they get from the criminal justice system into treatment.” Moreover, “[h]e is interested in defendants on a personal level and one sees that as he relates to each of these defendants personally every time they appear before him.” The Fund for Modern Courts published a glowing review of petitioner in 1998, prior to the commencement of the Commission’s investigation. Petitioner was observed on behalf of the Fund a total of 64 times by 18 different monitors on 32 different occasions.
Finally, the majority adverts to petitioner’s “lack of contrition” as a compounding factor (majority op at 165). While we agree that contrition is important, we also caution that judges must be allowed to defend their actions before the Commission and at the same time express a willingness to change their practices. This has apparently occurred here.
In his own testimony before the Commission, petitioner acknowledged that his conduct had, in fact, changed. When asked whether he had “changed [his] practices regarding bail,” petitioner responded “I still consider the same factors,” an apparent reference to his assertion that he always had, in fact, considered the statutory factors when setting bail. When asked whether his practices concerning section 170.10 had changed, he responded “Yes, there’s been some revision, and when you look at transcripts, and certainly, when you’re quizzed on matters such as these, you give it more attention.” We need not gauge the sincerity of petitioner’s words (majority op at 165), because the Commission’s own witness, an assistant public defender, testified in July 2003 that, in the previous year and a half to two years—a period coinciding with the Commission’s investigation—petitioner “has become pretty scrupulous about advising people of their right to counsel . . . and tries to make sure that they have counsel before any important decisions are made.”
*171In short, the sustainable misconduct here primarily involves petitioner’s failure to “fulfill his obligations” under section 170.10, which is akin to the error of the petitioner in LaBelle where censure was imposed. Three members of the Commission, in fact, dissented and recommended censure rather than removal.
We find it impossible to conclude, on the basis of this record, that petitioner will not respond to a censure. Because there is no evidence that he is unfit to serve as a judge, we also conclude that censure, rather than removal, is the proper remedy. Accordingly, we respectfully dissent.

. We note that petitioner represented in his brief that he set approximately 2,500 bails per year. Given this volume of bail determinations, we further question whether the 26 instances of excessive bail alleged by the Commission so permeate petitioner’s practice as to warrant removal rather than censure.

. These two cases apparently involve CPL 340.20 (2) (a) which provides that “a plea to an information must be entered orally by the defendant in person unless the court permits entry thereof by counsel upon the filing by him of a written and subscribed statement by the defendant declaring that he waives his right to plead to the information in person and authorizing his attorney to enter a plea on his behalf as set forth in the authorization.” (Emphasis added.) The record does not contain a subscribed statement and thus demonstrates a violation of section 340.20 (2).