What is official misconduct in Missouri, is business as usual in Delaware County, New York - and for two judicial candidates, Porter Kirkwood and Richard Northrup

As was reported today, a judge in Ferguson, Missouri, invalidated all arrest warrants made by the Ferguson municipal court before December of 2014 because of the alleged conspiracy between the local police, city officials and the courts to convict people in order to raise revenues.

In Missouri, apparently, such conduct of public officials is illegal.

In Delaware County, New York, similar conduct is being announced blatantly and unapologetically as a savings to taxpayer during a judicial election campaign of two county officials, and is officially approved by two current candidates for the judicial seat, Delaware County Attorney Porter Kirkwood and Delaware County District Attorney Richard Northrup (see references to press releases  and press coverage in that blog).

These two public officials approved a position of a new prosecutor with benefits paid out of conviction fines.  

That is a financial incentive to that prosecutor that him/her and his/her family will not receive medical coverage unless convictions are brought in, rightfully or wrongfully.  Boy is that an incentive to convict.

A recent New York Comptroller's report indicates that a portion of conviction fines is earmarked to finance local law enforcement.

A description on the website of the Delaware County Sheriff's Department that the STOP-DWI program as "self-sustaining" programs financed by conviction fines, together with the article in the Walton reporter (see link in the blogpost here) where Delaware County probation chief unapologetically states that not only STOP-DWI, but probation and law enforcement in Delaware County, NY, receive money from conviction fines, and that now that the new prosecutor will be similarly "stimulated", the law enforcement hopes for convictions - and revenue - to go up.

So, what is glaring official misconduct in Missouri, is business as usual - and laudable "savings" strategy pandered to voters in order to lure them to vote for two public officials responsible for the scandalous financial incentives for a prosecutor, and to put them even higher than where they are now - on the bench, for 10 years.

The more corrupt you are and the more willing you are to collude with the local law enforcement to bring up revenues and violate people's constitutional rights (to bring "savings" to taxpayers and voters, of course) - the more eligible you are for judicial office?

So, being able to use your public office in order to bring revenues at the expense of people's constitutional rights is yet another new qualification for judicial office in New York - in addition to being gay, as New York State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick insists.