...Here is the quote:
Rivera-Soto made the same request of Camden County Acting Prosecutor James P. Lynch that day, but also "asked the prosecutor to make certain that his complaint received attention," the complaint said.
I would say that crosses the line of using the power of your office for personal reasons.
Now, let's put this "receive attention" statement into context.
You have Superior Court criminal matter with a trial date scheduled weeks in advance. The lawyers have been working to get the case ready. The defense, seeking to stall, comes up with a reason to delay the trial.
The reason stinks - probably fabricated. The way it usually goes is you seek the consent of your adversary - the Prosecutor. If you get it, you make some phone calls to court personnel. If you have juice, you may get some consideration. Otherwise, you need to show up on Monday and make a formal application. Personally, I call this "The Crying Game". If the Prosecutor gives consent for an adjournment and it is granted, they need to contact their witnesses, who they have already told to clear their schedules, that the case is off.
Here, the Prosecutor knew full well that his victim, to whom he owes ststutory duties to keep informed, was the son of a Supreme Court Justice. And he just forgot to tell him not to show up. Yeah right. This was a deliberate slap.
So what do you do when you show up in court and the Judge calling the list says you case has been adjourned? Just be happy and go home? Some might do that. Or, do you speak to somebody?
So, on that Monday, you are a lowly Prosecutor doing the scut work at the trial call. You see a Supreme Court Justice sitting in the room who your office just shafted. What do you do - run away or try to smooth it over? So the lowly Prosecutor, being politically savvy probably runs over, does an introduction and offers assistance. It sure is what I would do. But this is just my SWAG
The scut work Prosecutor passes the Justice over to the low level employee who sends out the paperwork. It's the paperwork snafu gambit in full action! So here is what happened - guarantee it. The low level employee - secretary, paralegal, etc. said to the Justice, well we didn't have your conact information in the file sio we couldn't contact you, i.e. it's not my fault. That's when he gave her his business card. I have no problem with that either.
So Lynch comes out, because the scut Prosecutor has run to his office to tell him what has happened. Lynch falls on the sword and says we should have given you notice and I am sorry. The Justice says "Give this file the attention it deserves." I have no problem with that because he is absolutely right.
Third thing. So at this point Lynch gives the Justice all the reasons for the adjournment. And it stinks of fabrication. The Justice knows he has been slapped.
At that point, it is your right to complain, as a victim, that the system is not treating your case as it should. I am not sure which Judge in Camden was running the criminal list, but that is who you go to on that Monday Morning to complain as a victim that you just got shafted. Orlando is the Assignment Judge (I don't like him one bit - I am not sure, but he is probably a D). He is not the Judge that runs the criminal list. How the Justice came to confer with Orlando may come to be a problem.
The Criminla List Judge could well have said to Orlando this potato is too hot for me and Orlando could have looked at diving on the hand grenade as a way to score points with the Supremes. After all, the Supremes made him the Assignment Judge. So he proabaly fell all over himself to get to this boot licking session. But that's just my SWAG. However it went down, I still have no problem with it.
The Justice got shafted by he football coach (Lawyer), got shafted by the School administration (They want to be Football State Champs and get the Captain-bully a scholarship to Notre Dame) and then got shafted by the Court System. The Supremes are responsible to ensure that the court system works correctly. After he got shafted how could he just go home? He owed a responsibility to make inquiries and tell those who fell down on the job to get their act together. It just so happened that his his rights as a victim and his duties as a Supreme were in harmony. I see no conflict of interest.
So I stick to my original post. I don't think he did anything wrong. So maybe we can agree to disagree my FRiend.
From the get go I said the following: This hardly warrants removal from the bench of this guy, based on what is in the article. I would hope they impose one of the lesser penalties.
From the very beginning I have been saying that given what is in this article he deserves at worse a mild reprimand. As further facts are presented, I would like to consider myself open minded enough to consider them. Later I stated and in my post 65 I confirmed that the case warrants an investigation.
I do not think an investigation is unreasonable. I also believe, in spite of this occurring in NJ (I do not mean that as a slap at NJ, but others have posted comments to that effect) that the investigation will result in an honorable judgment reflecting the reality of what occurred.
I really do not think we are very far apart on this. Some of the hot headed comments directed at me by others seemed to not be a true reflection of what I have been saying all along.
Take care.
I know the story. I know the participants.
Rivera-Soto’s son is a sophomore on the high school football team. The team traditionally asks the sophomores to perform house-keeping-type duties, e.g. carry blocking and tackling dummies back to storage after practice. He refused, and explained that his refusal was due to his lack of respect for the team’s captains. Not the sort of thing to win friends and influence people on a high school football team. Despite his willful arrogance, he was not harassed by the team or its captains, unless you consider shunning by the upperclassmen to be harassment. His high school, to its credit, has strong anti-bullying policies. The senior in question was not found to be bullying or harassing the boy. The senior treated the boy as if he did not exist. This is accepted now as fact.
The incident occurred during football practice when a game called “roach football” was being organized by the coaching staff. The game is essentially “rough touch” in which tackling is not permitted, but blocking is encouraged; no protective football padding is worn. The term “roach” is used by the coaches as an inducement for the blockers to smash into the defenders hard enough to put them on their backs, limbs pointing skyward in dead-roach arrangement. This is not a game for sissies. The accuser and the accused were playing on opposite sides and on the play in question, a screen pass, the accused, playing offense, was in the flat sealing off inside pursuit. The Rivera-Soto kid, playing defense, attempting to prevent the ball’s advancing, was blocked by the accused. In the heat of battle something met with the accuser’s face and he suffered a split lip, a not uncommon occurrence in football of any sort. The accuser left the field in tears. He was tended to by the trainer (who, incidentally, claimed in the subsequent investigation that the wound could not have been caused by a head-butt due to its location on the boy’s mouth, but my digression into “Forensic Files” territory is too much even for me). The coaches investigated the incident at that time, concluding no foul play. The Rivera-Soto boy returned to the field to finish practice, then met the team later that evening for a team dinner that the accused also attended. No harsh words were exchanged at the meal. The above is accepted as fact.
The boy’s father, Judge Rivera-Soto, filed a complaint with the school over the “injury”, claiming it as part and parcel of systematic harassment at the hands of the accused. The incident was duly investigated by the school who, after interviewing the coaches, trainer and other players, found the injury to be accidental; that indeed the injury was the result of playing a game in which split lips are all too common. This is accepted fact.
The judge, however, possibly seeing a conspiracy afoot (there is competing conjecture as to his motives, described below), chose to take it to court. My understanding is that the judge pulled every trick he could to gain whatever advantage he determined his position could provide, including the old standby “do you know who I am?”, while handing out his NJ Supreme Court business card. This was at every stop along the way, incidentally, and is at the heart of the Ethic Board’s complaint.
The judge’s putative indiscretions will be decided in due course. What is interesting is why the judge would go to all this trouble in the first place. There was never a real case against the accused. He wasn’t harassing the kid, nor was there anything untoward about the split lip incident. The school has strong no-harassment policy and found no breach of that policy in its investigation. The investigation found that the accused did nothing more malicious than ignore the Rivera-Soto boy; not very nice maybe, but indisputably non-harassing. Why would Rivera-Soto, no dummy, make a mountain out of this molehill? Is there something else here?
Well, just so happens that chitchatting abounds over the bridge tables, croquet courses, and polo chukkas of Haddonfield on the very topic of the judge’s true motivations here. Here goes:
Rivera-Soto took a big pay cut to sit on the bench. His older son attends an expensive, exclusive private school in Philadelphia. Supposedly (I don’t know if this is true), NJ has a law that requires a school district to pick up the cost of a private education for any student for whom the school district can’t provide a safe or appropriate environment to meet his/her needs, e.g. special needs kids. Word is that the judge’s new meager salary doesn’t allow him to pull together the tuition he needs to send this kid to the swanky Philadelphia prep school. Some say (to quote Fox News) that Rivera-Soto started all this to set up an argument that Haddonfield High School is an unsafe place for his kid to attend, and the school district should therefore pony up at least most of the tuition to the prep school, no doubt a very large number of Franklins, as tony a place as it no doubt must be.
I have no idea if the above is true. I do know that the judge is deeply unpopular in the town, seen as arrogant, condescending, imperious, and superior. It’s basic human nature that people will think the worst of someone considered to be a jerk and Judge Rivera-Soto far exceeds the minimum qualifications. Those Haddonfieldians who know the judge are relishing his comeuppance, breathing deep the sweetened air of blissful schadenfreude.
As for the kid, there are things about him I know but won’t discuss. He is a kid and deserves the benefit of the doubt. But, there are issues beyond what can be considered normal, garden-variety kid issues.
By the way, Haddonfield football coach Frank Delano, a good guy from all accounts, is NOT a lawyer, as indicated in this thread. I don’t know why anyone would want to smear him with an accusation so vile.