You probably have no idea what a travesty the New York Town Court system is. And the cold statistics just won't get the idea across. It's the anecdotes that help to explain how unfair this court system, a vestige of 18th and 19th century rural America, can be.
Town Court judges make important decisions in misdemeanor criminal cases, in which they decide on bail and conduct jury trials and can put someone in jail for a year, and in the first stages of felony cases, in which they determine bail and decide if a case should be held over for a grand jury. They also decide numerous traffic cases and small civil and small claims cases.
It's a huge, unfair system. There are more than 1200 Town Courts in New York, and more than 1700 Town Court Judges. Of these more than 70% are non-lawyers. There is no educational requirement to be a judge. Judges are elected in town wide elections. To be a judge it is required that the judge have 8 hours of training before sitting in Court and 12 hours of training per year after that. There is a test given after the initial course. Only one person has failed it since 1999.
Join me in Court.
You don't have to strain your imagination to imagine the kinds of unfair decisions these non-lawyer judges are capable of making. And the kinds of egregious mistakes they can make. And the number of ethics and other complaints they generate. In 2010 New York's Commission on Judicial Conduct received more than 340 complaints about judges' conduct and 2/3's of those were about the non-lawyer, Town Court judges. The stats for 2006 through 2009 were similar.
I could easily now turn to a full steam rant about these judges. I've done that before. But I'm not going to rant about this. No. Not now. It's not that I've suddenly decided not to rant any more, or that I've developed restraint. Nope. I've got a better idea to communicate the problem. Technology is our friend (even if I can't figure out how to get them to embed). Check out these two videos.
Why Town Court In New York Should Be Abolished
by: davidseth
Why Town Court Should Be Abolished In New York, Part 2
by: davidseth
That's just the very tippy top of the iceberg. That's how Town Court can be. These videos are composites of errors I've seen over the past decades. You get to taste the bitter fruit these courts call justice. I probably have enough material for a lot more of these.
My intention here is very simple. I want to put a spotlight on this unjust system, so that together we can see that it really is inadequate and unfair. If we see that, perhaps we can move toward abolishing it and putting something in its place that is better, more just, more fair. And probably far less expensive. This is not new. A few years ago William Glaberson wrote a series of articles in theNew York Times about how awful these courts were. The stories he told were shocking. A year later he wrote a follow up. After that, Crickets. No real changes.
No matter. Now you know what it's like. Let's see what's next.