In the course of my research for a book, I came across a 1996 law review article by the then-judge of the New York State Court of Appeals (and now law professor) Joe Bellacosa.
I already wrote about the "process" of submitting law reviews for publications to the captive audience of law students who have no choice by to publish any garbage from high-enough individual.
The law review from Judge Bellacosa was exactly that type of garbage.
In no other profession (I would hope) a supposedly academic article is published simply to air complaints in the form of rantings of a high-ranking public officials about criticism of himself, his organization and his branch of the government.
Yet, that's what Judge Bellacosa allowed himself to do.
Neither the quality of "scholarship", nor the topic of the conference (prosecutor training for death penalty cases) even remotely suggested any connection with Judge Bellacosa complaints.
Moreover, Judge Bellacosa committed a crime of aiding and abetting unauthorized practice of law by having an unlicensed individual, his own "law clerk" who at that time did not have a law license, do "research" for him to put in footnotes into his complaint, mostly without any specifics, to a captive audience.
It is even more disgusting that the complaints were "bestowed" upon prosecutors in a luxury lake resort on a business day. While complaining that at that time the New York State Court of Appeals had 5,000 cases per year, and that it was doing its job admirably, Judge Bellacosa considered it possible for himself to deviate from his duties and huge case load to not only complain to prosecutors about critics of the judiciary, but also to sic those prosecutors on those critics - by expressing a "hope" (at the beginning of the article) and giving a not-so-thinly veiled directive (at its end) to pursue attorneys-critics of the judiciary for disciplinary violations.
Judge Bellacosa was complaining about the "quality of criticism". Like any judge would love criticism of himself and "his" court, given the criticism's high quality - in the eyes of the judge.
Judge Bellacosa was also raving about his own decision (made together with his friend Chief Judge Wachtler who by the time of the article was released from federal prison) where Wachtler and Bellacosa ordered competitor of Wachtler's family members in NYC construction business to cut off 12 stories of a completed residential skyscraper, see Parkview Associates v. City of New York ,71 N.Y.2d 274 (1988).
Let's not forget that Sol Wachtler, Bellacosa's buddy, came to power and dragged Bellacosa into the same power, through the money of his wife's uncle, Alvin Wolosoff, a construction magnate from NYC, and thus a competitor of the developer whose building Bellacosa and Wachtler ordered destroyed. Obviously, Bellacosa not only did not feel any shame about that case, where he had the power to refuse to order demolition of the already constructed residential building because the mistake in the building permit was the City's and not the developers. No, Bellacosa obviously was proud of that case, "in awe" of his own power, and considering himself some sort of a king whose "independence" from the law must be safeguarded as a "crown jewel", safeguarded from any criticism, and at whose direction anything can happen, law or no law, justice or no justice.
Bellacosa was obviously relishing in his own power when telling the prosecutors at that luxury resort:
1) I do not care what the topic of this conference is, I would rave about what I want;
2) I want to rave about criticism of me, my buddy Wachtler and "my" court;
3) I can do anything, even cut off stories off completed residential buildings to hurt competitors of another judge's family members; and
4) I demonstrate my power in front of you, the cattle, the captive audience, whose licenses I regulate, so that you know that when I demand pursuing my critics - you listen.
When I see posts on social media where people from other countries are "in awe" of how the 1st Amendment is honored and cherished, re-read this piece of "scholarship".
Consider the sickeningly self-praising lofty language of this courtier-judge.
Consider the name-calling of professors who dared to do what the judge didn't - the actual, real academic scholarship about the court. Professors Judge Bellacosa demeaned were Professor Bonventre of Albany Law School and professor Luke Bierman pointing out that Judge Bellacosa switched his views as to whether and how the judiciary should be criticized - from claiming that the judiciary must be criticized and its actions scrutinized as if it is operating in a "glasshouse", to threats of disciplinary action against attorneys for criticism of judges and chest-thumping about his own power to lop off 12 stories off residential skyscrapers, despite the fact that that same skyscraper was built according to a valid building permit.
Of course, if Bellacosa's sensitivity as to criticism was so fragile, he should have been removed from the bench the moment the law review article was published.
Of course, he wasn't.
This law review article, I understand, was some kind of a judicial Manifesto of an open hunt on critics of the judiciary.
I encourage my readers to read it and consider the doublespeak, the implications, the language and the threats.
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