At this time, as I see from the local press in Delaware County, New York, a judicial election campaign is raging in the county, for the coveted judicial seat of the Family/County/Surrogate's court judge (with an appendage of an Acting Supreme Court Justice), a position gaining
- a good salary (see salary of the just-resigned Judge Richard D. Northrup Jr in 2020);
- an absolute power over the local people - their family integrity, right to custody of children, right to property, right to liberty -
and, on top of that, a judicially given
So, the fight at this time in Delaware County is for a job almost too good to be true - and- especially in a county larger than many European countries, consisting of rural mountain wooded roads and with hardly any people (44,308 people in the entire county by the 2020 census) - an ideal place for safe and effective criminal trafficking of any kind (people, guns, drugs - you name it), and for profiting from that trafficking; and
- especially when the alternative, being in private business, is very sad - the local law school has declared a couple of years ago that rural attorneys have no paying clients, are starving and are "eating a lot of spaghettis" to survive.
Moreover, not discussed by candidates for such positions are some extremely interesting provisions of the Family Court Act (and a person running for the County Judge seat will also occupy the Family Court judge seat in Delaware County - as well as the Surrogate's Court judge seat).
For example, that ALL EXPENSES of the Family Court judge - including his "non-judicial personnel", are put on the County taxpayers, and the County Board may grant or deny the judge permission to give to his friends and relatives various lucrative jobs.
And, the judge can have any and all such lucrative jobs - if THE COUNTY GIVES HIM THE FINANCES.
Which means - Family Court judges in New York are put, by the legislators, quite literally, into the local County Board's pockets.
While County Boards might not withhold salaries of the Family Court judge and his minimum personnel, they can control what kind of additional, "auxiliary", jobs the judge can give out to whoever he/she likes.
And that is a very significant leverage over the judge, virtually destroying the judge's impartiality.
Voters should be aware of that - and should talk to their legislative representatives to end this legitimized corruption.
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When you shop for a service provider, you can get online or word of mouth reviews on that provider and make your choice.
When you are making a very significant decision as to who to vote into the office of a County/Family/Surrogate's court judge - who you are vesting with the power to take you children away, temporarily or forever, to put you in jail, up to a lifetime, to take your property away - you have virtually no information other than gleeful blabbering of the candidates who, like car salespeople, are giving you the nonsense about their years of "faithful and honorable service" and that they never hurt a fly in their lives.
For all that matters, candidates describing themselves to voters (as well as their political party supporting them) are people who cannot exist in real life - they are always flawless and beyond reproach.
Now, the most likely witnesses of negative character features of such candidates would be local practicing attorneys.
After all, as a Pennsylvania judge has stated in the year 1880, 142 years ago,
"“No class of the community ought to be allowed freer scope in the expression or publication of opinions as to the capacity, impartiality or integrity of judges than members of the bar.
They have the best opportunities of observing and forming a correct judgment.
They are in constant attendance on the courts.
Hundreds of those who are called on to vote never enter a court-house, or if they do, it is only at intervals as jurors, witnesses or parties.
To say that an attorney can only act or speak on this subject under liability to be called to account and to be deprived of his profession and livelihood by the very judge or judges whom he may consider it his duty to attack and expose, is a position too monstrous to be entertained for a moment under our present system,”
Justice Sharwood in Ex Parte Steinman and Hensel, 95 Pa 220, 238-39 (1880).
But, much water has flown under various bridges over the last 142 years.
And, now what Judge Sharwood considered "a position too monstrous to be entertained for a moment under our present system" is, instead, the standard of the legal profession throughout the United States, including the State of New York.
Since now all attorneys in the United States - and in the State of New York - are licensed BY JUDGES, those same people whom, by Judge Sharwood's account, an attorney "may consider it his duty to attack and expose".
And, judges controlling attorneys through their licenses, not being complete idiots, invented the first rule of "attorney ethics" - prohibiting attorneys to, using their rights guaranteed by the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, criticize JUDGES OR JUDICIAL CANDIDATES.
Of course, the rule is not exactly that - the rule is prohibiting attorneys to "make false statements" about judges or judicial candidates.
But, the 1st Amendment protects such criticism, even if statements are false - which licensing judges do not care about, "canceling" attorneys left and right for such criticism.
Moreover, the judiciary has created several court or quasi-court systems - one for the poor, the other for the wealthy, a completely different system dealing with their own misconduct, and a system insulated from any laws usually used in civil or criminal proceedings, including form the U.S. Constitution where judges may take livelihood and licenses of attorneys for such criticism.
And where judges are interpreting criticism of attorneys of judges always as being false. Naturally.
An attorney in Indiana counted, for example, in Pennsylvania, the percentage when judges considered criticism of themselves by attorneys as false and warranting discipline. The percentage was 98%, nearly 100%!
And the result of this gagging of attorneys was - the Kids for Cash scandal, when attorneys knew for years that certain judges were packing children away to juvenile prisons in exchange for kickbacks, so that the private management of those prisons would get enough money to run prisons from the county - and kept silent. Which resulted in a lot of grief for the children and 1 suicide of a child.
But, until now this scheme continues to exist throughout the country and in the State of New York, and will exist unless voters call upon their legislative representative to change it. Which requires time, not enough time to prevent voting in Delaware County in 2020 to go according to the usual scheme, where attorneys are gagged and prohibited to give voters negative (even though truthful) information about judges and judicial candidates.
There is a reason why there was an ancient Roman rule prohibiting anybody to sit in judgment of their own cases.
And, there is a reason why regulator of any state licenses should be neutral impartial and have no self-interest in the regulation.
Not in the world of the judiciary and attorneys regulated by the judiciary.
As I said above, the first and main rule that the state regulator (judiciary) invented in regulation of licenses of attorneys (the main and best witnesses of judicial misconduct as per Justice Shawrood as of 1880) was to gag that criticism of themselves by severe punishment of often lifetime prohibition to practice the lawyer's profession if he/she dares to EDUCATE VOTERS about negative features of a judge or judicial candidate.
In other words, judges in the US (and in New York) use their regulatory authority in a self-serving manner, for about a century now in the United States, and the main purpose of attorney regulation is to GAG WITNESSES OF JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT and prevent them from educating voters as to who they are putting on the bench.
Moreover, specifically in New York, voters are RESTRICTED in who they want to put on what bench.
For example, in village courts judges - who rule over property and over criminal matters, having authority to issue arrest warrants and sentence people for up to 1 year in jail (per count, meaning - if there are several counts running consecutively, the village court judge may sentence a person for many years in jail) - do not have to have ANY education, at all. Nor a law degree, nor a law license.
Likely this aberration exists because positions of village justices do not pay much and thus are not so lucrative for the judicial/attorney mafia.
But not so in Family Court, County Court, Surrogate's Court and Supreme Court, where salaries are already over $200,000 a year, with benefits and A LOT of additional perks.
There the judicial lobby has got their way a long time ago by RESTRICTING VOTERS' CHOICE by putting that restriction INTO THE STATE CONSTITUTION, where only those who kept their heads low, did not criticize judicial misconduct for 5 years (Constitution) and 10 years (the Family Court Act) may become Family Court judges.
It is a kind of a carrot-and-stick scheme for attorneys/witnesses of judicial misconduct.
Criticize - and be banned from your chosen profession.
Stay mum about judicial misconduct - and you may be rewarded by permission to become one of the regulators yourself, one of the judges.
An honorable profession, indeed.
So, dear voters, the most likely and most knowledgeable witnesses of misconduct of candidates for judicial office, local practicing attorneys, are effectively gagged by these rules and will not tell you, what they know of the potential negative features of any candidates.
Which means - you need to amass this information on your own to inform your voting decisions.
By connecting the dots, seeking this information from different sources, not believing a word that is coming at the "meet-and-greet" meetings of candidates, by asking those candidates inconvenient and tough questions and seeing their reactions.
And bearing in mind that the reaction of candidates will not be the same as it will be if they become judges - it will be dampened by their desire to appease voters and get the prize - the judgeship.
When you next time see those same people if they get their wish, they will not longer desire to appease you as a voter, but instead they will have an absolute immunity for malicious and corrupt acts in office (Stump v Sparkman, US Supreme Court case) to do with you and your property, child, family ANYTHING THEY WANT.
Think before giving such an enormous power to people, no matter how hard they are trying to praise themselves to you.
Be very much on the alert as to insincerity, dishonesty, however small, snapping and irritation - because on the bench these features will grow manifold and may destroy your life.
And, if your voting decisions did not affect the outcome of elections, at least inform yourself as to what you can expect in the future from such judges.
Informed often means well-armed to protect yourself.
As to some information I am ready to share with you about the particular candidates for the Delaware County (NY) judicial elections this year, stay tuned for next blogs on this topic.
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