Indiana rocks: when a judge commits a VIOLENT felony, only a reprimand is due

I regularly write on this blog how practically in all jurisdictions across the country judges committing crimes, including violent crimes, are given extreme leniency.

For example, in New York, when an administrative law judge (and an attorney) committed an assault upon a lawyer, knocked him to the ground in a drunken rage under the security cameras, causing him grievous injuries, and left him for dead - he was only charged with a misdemeanor and not put in jail, because charging him with a felony would require automatic disbarment on conviction, and we cannot have that with a judge.  There are no reports as to what happened to Administrative Law Judge and attorney Robert Beltrani's case, and no indication attorney Beltrani was disciplined in any way from his attorney registration information.  In fact, his attorney registration information lists, as of today, "no record of public discipline".

More than likely, Beltrani will be (if he was not yet) plead down to some kind of a "violation, not a crime", or given probation.  Coincidentally, he is an Administrative Law Judge presiding over parole violations, and there is no indication he was yanked from his job.

Yet, what Beltrani did, undoubtedly qualified as a violent felony.

Judge who are not attorneys, and where there is no need to spare a judge's law license from automatic disbarment, can be charged with felonies, apparently - as it was done in Indiana with Judge Tom Phillips who punched his own nephew (a police officer) at an official town meeting.

Judge Phillips was charged and convicted of a felony battery, and was sentenced to 1 year in jail, all commuted to probation and 100 hours of community service.

And you know what kind of discipline judge Phillips was meted out?

A public reprimand.

He resigned, thankfully, but the message that the Judicial Qualifications Commission in Indiana is sending to the public is that a judge who is a CONVICTED VIOLENT FELON could have continued on the bench but for his voluntary resignation.

Great job, Indiana.

And, when we talk about the rule of law and equal protection of laws in this country, as the first step, we need to look how laws are applied to those who apply them - judges.  If judges give themselves more breaks than to everybody else

(and they do, by giving themselves absolute judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts, issuing lenient judicial ethics opinion allowing practically bribes in many formats to themselves - as exclusively judge-populated New York Commission of Judicial Ethics, and rules of federal judiciary regularly do, allowing judges to accept wining-and-dining and free trips from attorneys)

then there is no rule of law and no equal protection of law.