Town Justice Rapped for Holding Court in Chambers for 7 Years
A longtime town justice in upstate New York held court in his chambers for seven years, even after his clerks told him he was supposed to use the courtroom and he attended a 2009 training conference where administrators expressly said the same.
However, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended today only that Judge John Riordan of Gouverneur be admonished, because he stopped holding court in his chambers after a CJC investigator visited his courtroom in St. Lawrence County last year, Reuters reports.
Riordan, who is not a lawyer and was first elected in 1996, can contest the proposed penalty, if he wishes, to the state Court of Appeals.
Although the judge routinely kept the door open between his chambers and the courtroom he was supposed to use, the practice of holding court in chambers violated public-access requirements because there was no space for observers.
“The totality of these circumstances establishes that by conducting court proceedings in his chambers, [Riordan] effectively excluded members of the public and thereby violated the statutory mandate … and his ethical obligation to be faithful to the law,” the CJC explained in its ruling.
“At the very least, the public nature of court proceedings was severely compromised, which impairs public confidence in the fair and proper administration of justice.”
