Tomorrow will be the last day on the bench for Carl Becker. People of Delaware County, New York, let's celebrate.

Tomorrow Delaware County will or should celebrate the last day on the bench of Judge Carl Becker, the judge well known for the following:

1) coming to the bench in 2012 by defrauding the voters and demeaning his opponent and, as far as I know, even by buying food for voters in the hope that that will encourage the "correct" vote; I always doubted validity of the "recount vote" that put Becker on the bench instead of his opponent Rosa, when I saw with my own eyes how young black voters were misdirected at the polls to go to the Board of Elections in Delhi for ballots while such ballots had to be available at the booths.  

The other reason to doubt validity of the vote was loyalty of the Delaware County Board of Elections to Becker to the point that the Board of Elections officials filed with the Delaware County Clerk a false certification of Becker's 2002 elections when I raised the issue that Becker is not a legitimately elected judge in a motion in 2011 (Becker presided over reviewing the motion, without authority since the motion concerned his own legitimacy as a judge, caused the Board of Elections to file the false certification of his 2002 elections and then sanctioned me for bringing it in one case and agreed that it is non-frivolous in another case - without changing his previous decision that it was frivolous).  

Why the certification filed in 2011 of Becker's elections in 2002 was false, at least in my legal opinion? 

Because, according to the answer of the Delaware County Board of Elections to my FOIL request pertaining to documents from Becker's elections, all original documents, including petitions and ballots, from the 2002 elections were destroyed within 2 years of the elections, in 2004.  It is unlawful to certify anything without underlying original documents.  

Yet, the Delaware County Board of Elections did that for Becker who represented the County for 27 years and kept close ties, to the point of ex parte communications with County officials during litigation, for the duration of his stay on the bench.

2) habitually concealing his disqualifying conflicts of interest derived from his previous work for 27 years as an attorney for the Delaware County Department of Social Services;

3) habitually putting the interests of Delaware County, its public officials and employees, the judge's friends, above the law;

4) habitually engaging in vindictive conduct against litigants, their family members and their attorneys if they raised issues of misconduct of Delaware County public officials or employees, including Judge Becker himself;

5) habitually engaging in ex parte communications pertaining to court proceedings with social services, police, school officials and favored attorneys and suppressing such evidence by retaliation against challengers;

6) being habitually rude to the "chosen" litigants and counsel, especially women;

7) being habitually and adamantly incompetent and advancing his own incompetence as the law of Delaware County;

8) using his official position for personal gain or advantage - before and after he came to the bench.

That's quite a legacy.

Tomorrow, on his last day of self-service and service to his buddies that lasted since 2002 (a devil's dozen of years), good riddance and let's not put Becker' equivalents - Kirkwood and Northrup - on the bench.

Voters, please, remember that once you put Kirkwood and Northrup on the bench, nobody will ever take them down, nobody will discipline them, the NYS Commission for Judicial Conduct will be tossing your complaints about their misconduct (if they are engaged in gross misconduct now, it will be "out of character" for them not to do that when they gain more power).

So, while you see Porter Kirkwood's bulky figure going around the streets of Delhi and smiling to residents to catch their eyeballs and support for the future elections - please, remember.  What represents Kirkwood and Northrup are their deeds.

And their deeds, as the recently announced "buy the prosecutor" deal when the new prosecutorial position is paid, with the blessing of both Northrup and Kirkwood, out of convictions, making prosecutors practically bought by the probation and the police (who are also, by the way, financed out of conviction fines, providing an incentive for the police to stop you, residents of Delaware County, unlawfully, and to collude with Northrup as a prosecutor to provide false statement to the court - to secure convictions and funds for the prosecutor).

And these ugly deeds, ladies and gentlemen, cannot be covered by any smiley faces.