Why horrible, soft-on-crime judges plague New York – Latest News
Inflicting let-’em-loose judges like Janice Robinson on New York City is just one foul end result of the Empire State’s judge-picking system: It feeds loads of corruption, too.
But let’s begin with how she spins the revolving doorways of the prison justice system like a crooked roulette wheel, liberating harmful, violent criminals as quickly as they’re arraigned.
Her egregious rulings embody sending two alleged tried murderers strutting out of courtroom with no bail set in any respect; she has by no means gone together with a prosecutor’s suggestions for bail, or to carry a perp on remand.
And she’s not a uncommon unhealthy apple: She’s the all-too-typical fruit of the poisoned tree of the state’s rotten courtroom system.
City courts, particularly, are the final vestige of Tammany-style bossism, with judges overwhelmingly chosen not on any type of benefit, however by the wants of the native Democratic leaders who control the occasion judicial-screening panels: If they put you on the poll, you win.
This system doesn’t simply favor insiders — it’s designed and run by insiders for insiders; rebel candidates hardly ever hassle operating, because it’s nearly unimaginable to win.
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Judge Robinson, for one, is the niece of Nick Perry, the longtime assemblyman from East Flatbush who served as the bulk whip for twenty years earlier than stepping down to change into the US Ambassador to Jamaica.
Once elected, lower-level Civil Court judges like Janice Robinson can get bumped up to fill vacancies on the Criminal Court bench — the place she sits now — which is often a mayor-appointed place subject to a increased degree of scrutiny.
An unqualified nepo-baby like Robinson — who received a “not approved” ranking from town Bar Association — would have hassle suckering even a badly politicized physique like Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary into tapping her for the prison bench.
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But the state Democrats who control the courts have limitless workarounds to suit occasion favorites into plum jobs as “interim appointments.”
The system rewards political hackery — and since Democratic hacks swim in a lake of “abolish prisons” and “decarceral justice” lunacy, many of the spittoon-polishers who make it to the bench are criminal-friendly ideologues like Robinson.
Others are simply venal (see particularly the Surrogate’s Court) and a few don’t care about something besides the paycheck.
The Legislature’s made a mess of the state’s prison legal guidelines, nevertheless it’s the county Democratic Party chiefs who burden the courts with so many worse-than-useless judges.
