Judge’s ‘Incessant’ Questions Cited in Reversal

Judiciary

Judge’s ‘Incessant’ Questions Cited in Reversal

Posted Sep 18, 2007, 08:31 am CST

By Debra Cassens Weiss

A New York appeals court has cited a judge’s excessive questions as a reason for overturning a felony conviction for drug possession.

The court has criticized Judge Arlene Silverman for excessive questions in at least nine other decisions, but this is the first time her interruptions have been used as ground for reversal, the New York Law Journal reports.

"While we recognize that the dynamics of a criminal trial may result in some intervention by the trial judge in the examination of witnesses, the cumulative effect of the court's extraordinarily incessant interference in this case was to obstruct counsel's effort to present a defense for his client," the court said in its opinion.

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Posted by Bill C - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 4 days, 6 hours, 16 minutes ago

I wonder if the other nine instances of excessive questioning by the judge resulted in convictions or acquittals.
Posted by Leon Feingold - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes ago

I also wonder if this would have been reversed if it were the only grounds for reversal. As the opinion is written, the real reversal grounds are the Court’s refusal to allow defendant’s witness to testify - and the second ground given in an almost afterthought paragraph is the judge’s interference.
Posted by Peter B. Sobol, Esq. - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 21 hours, 20 minutes ago

What a misreading of the Forbes case, thanks to the misleading NYLJ headline. The appellate court held that the trial judge’s exclusion of evidence warranted reversal. Only as a SECOND ground, the judge’s interferejce figured.

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