And on the other end of the spectrum....
Posted on 09/24/2006 8:44:23 PM PDT by neverdem
Broken Bench
Some of the courtrooms are not even courtrooms: tiny offices or basement rooms without a judge’s bench or jury box. Sometimes the public is not admitted, witnesses are not sworn to tell the truth, and there is no word-for-word record of the proceedings.
Nearly three-quarters of the judges are not lawyers, and many — truck drivers, sewer workers or laborers...
--snip--
A woman in Malone, N.Y., was not amused. A mother of four, she went to court in that North Country village seeking an order of protection against her husband, who the police said had choked her, kicked her in the stomach and threatened to kill her. The justice, Donald R. Roberts, a former state trooper with a high school diploma, not only refused, according to state officials, but later told the court clerk, “Every woman needs a good pounding every now and then.”
A black soldier charged in a bar fight near Fort Drum became alarmed when his accuser described him in court as “that colored man.” But the village justice, Charles A. Pennington, a boat hauler and a high school graduate, denied his objections and later convicted him. “You know,” the justice said, “I could understand if he would have called you a Negro, or he had called you a nigger.”
--snip--
Eeric D. Bailey, a 21-year-old black soldier from nearby Fort Drum, was facing a disorderly conduct charge after a tussle with a white bar bouncer. Sitting three feet from Mr. Bailey, the bouncer identified him as “that colored man.” Mr. Bailey’s jaw dropped.
The soldier, who did not have a lawyer, told the judge that the term was offensive. But Justice Pennington said that while certain other words were racist, “colored” was not. “For years we had no colored people here,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
UNIONS AND THE MOB.
And on the other end of the spectrum....
The result, records and interviews show, is a second-class system of justice.
The first class — the city, county and higher courts — is familiar to anyone who has served on a jury or watched “Law & Order”: hardly perfect, but a place of law-schooled judges, support staffs and strict rules. The lower and far larger rung of town and village courts relies on part-time justices, most of them poorly paid, some without a single clerk. Those justices — two-thirds of all the state’s judges — are not required to make transcripts or tape recordings of what goes on, so it is often difficult to appeal their decisions."
The abuses are real, but I have to giggle at the pretensions of the Times that trained lawyers are the answer. The best liars and screwers of other people in the legal system are lawyers, and to every instance of abuse by the mere peon citizenry listed in this article, I can cite probably ten others in NY State of other judges and attorneys who have abused their position, railroaded people, lied, cheated and embezzeled.
Reforms, particularly the need for transcripts and restrictions on the power to jail, are probably needed. But this piece drips such condescension on ordinary people that it's a stunning portrait of what libs really think about the rest of us.
I mean, image that, someone with only a high school diploma trying to adjudicate the complexity of a traffic citation. But getting felons, welfare cheats and drug addicts to vote; well, that's a fundamental liberty.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
Sounds like here in WNY..
Huh?
If it is, the NAACP has to change its name. Until they do, one has to assume it's neither racist nor offensive.
I'm sorry, but I'm sick and tired of the PC terrorists being able to drop a charge of racism based solely on "I AM offened" as a reason.
Ditto for the United Negro College Fund.
UNIONS AND THE MOB.
Huh?
I know personally that the east coast teamsters were the mob, at least when I was a child.
I haven't gone back since a kid though. Great move IMO.
Now it's Wall Street.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Without those guys we'd be like Mississippi or Alabama.
I was grabbed by the by the story about the black soldier, and the apparent reaction by the author to the word "colored," implying that it was racist terminology. If so, how come the NAACP has not changed its name yet? It maybe archaic, but it isn't inherently racist. Various whites are called "white devils," and no one bats an eye.
I'll buy that argument in densely populated areas of the state, not the rural parts.
The mob is business oriented, so if the action was somehow rural, they could be there to if it was lucrative.
There isn't enough money in the rural parts for them to pursue.
Neither do I recall any example in the story that hinted of mob or union influence.
Thanks for the ping!
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