Delaware County (NY) judicial candidate John Hubbard MUST PUBLISH for the voters his family tree by consanguinity and affinity up to the 6th degree to determine percentage of cases from which he will be disqualified by law

A County judge in Delaware County also carries out the duties of the Family Court and the Surrogate Court's judge.

The salary of such a judge - based on the published salary of the recently-retired judge Richard D. Northrup, Jr., whose vacated place is now up for elections - is $210,893.

That amount is payable not by the state of New York, but by Delaware County Taxpayers - according to the New York State Family Court Act:

So, when you vote in Delaware County for who is going to be your judge, you need to think how often the judge will be NOT ABLE to discharge his duties because he is going to be prohibited to do that by law, and how often instead Delaware County will have to pay for services of an additional judge.

For the current judicial candidate John Hubbard, such a percentage may be staggering.

 

New York State has a statute, Judiciary Law Section 14, containing ABSOLUTE prohibitions for judges to preside over certain cases.

"A judge shall not sit as such in, or take any part in the decision of, an action, claim, matter, motion or proceeding 

• to which he is a party, or 
• in which he has been attorney or counsel, or 
• in which he is interested, or 
• if he is related by consanguinity or affinity to any party to the controversy within the sixth degree.  The degree shall be ascertained by ascending from the judge to the common ancestor, descending to the party, counting a degree for each person in both lines, including the judge and party, and excluding the common ancestor.  

But no judge of a court of record shall be disqualified in any action, claim, matter, motion or proceeding in which an insurance company is a party or is interested by reason of his being a policy holder therein.  No judge shall be deemed disqualified from passing upon any litigation before him because of his ownership of shares of stock or other securities of a corporate litigant, provided that the parties, by their attorneys, in writing, or in open court upon the record, waive any claim as to disqualification of the judge."

This article will deal with only one problem with candidacy of John Hubbard (the current District Attorney) for the position of a judge of the County, Family and Surrogate's Court in Delaware County New York, his likely mandatory disqualifications from an overwhelming number of cases because of his multi-generational familial connections in the area.

John Hubbard is currently actively campaigning for the highly-paid  position of a 3-bench (Family Court, County Court, Surrogate's Court) judge, giving away candy and American flags.

Recently, John Hubbard, to bolster his election stance, he has also provided a very peculiar evidence, supposedly in support of his position as the county judge: a picture of the grave of his revolutionary hero relative who has supposedly lived in this same area a couple hundred years prior.

I guess, the blood of the revolutionary hero sings in John Hubbard's veins and this makes him qualified as a judge - by pedigree.

The usual identity politics, nothing new here.

Yet, let us count, based on John Hubbard's own disclosure, how many generations of his ancestors (at the very least, there may have been more before the person buried under the shown grave marker) have lived in the area.

John Hubbard describes David Ellerson as his "5X great-grandfather".  So, it is 6 generations up.

Let us consider that Delaware County (and I lived there for 16 years, and knew, because of my husband's and my own profession, many people in the area) is a rural, woody and mountainous, poor, thinly populated, with scant population movement and, consequently, highly interbred county (the going characterization of the population in the Delaware County is that it is "the land of kissing cousins").

Thus, going 6 generations up and down from John Hubbard in terms of blood relations (consanguinity) and marital relations (affinity) may result in a finding that John Hubbard, whose ancestors, as Hubbard has himself proudly demonstrated with the help of a picture of his revolutionary hero-ancestor's grave marker on his election campaign page - may have an absolutely disqualifying familial relationship through blood or marriages with the absolute majority of the County residents.

Don't you think that Hubbard owes its voters, instead of giving out candy, American flags and posing with his brilliant smile at different old-boy gatherings, to make a disclosure as to how much of their money will be wasted if they elect him - and to PUBLISH his full family tree, up to the 6th degree of consanguinity and affinity up and down in age.

If he can't do it, even more so he can't be a judge - because taxpayers in the poor rural Delaware County will be then put into an untenable position of wasting their limited resources on a huge Hubbard's judicial salary and benefits, AND for Hubbard presiding over proceedings which may at any point in time may be pronounced VOID (as in: zero, nullity, never happened) because of his absolutely prohibited as a matter of law familial connection to a party in the proceeding.

So, will John Hubbard publish his family tree covering relatives in all disqualifying degrees of consanguinity and affinity?

Or will he continue to bamboozle voters with candy, American flags and his photo-ops?

By the way, the same disqualification problem may exist for the already sitting judge, Gary Rosa, also a multi-generational native of Delaware County - who is also in no hurry to publish his family tree and enlightening parties in front of him about his mandatory disqualifications.

The ONLY way Judiciary Law 14 will be meaningful and have the intended protections for the public is that all judges and judicial candidates are required to publish their family trees to the 6th degrees of consanguinity and affinity - so that the public may readily see where the judge is prohibited by law to preside over a case, making any decisions in such a case void.

Since this is a highly paid and powerful public office, any expenses for putting together such a family tree shall be on the judge or judicial candidate, and the law must be introduced that nobody may be punished for requesting such a family tree or for challenging its authenticity.

For problems with Hubbard's likely or, rather, 100% positive disqualification based on other 3 mandatory bases listed above (being a party, and attorney for the party and having an interest in litigation), I will publish more articles before elections, so stay tuned.