# Really scary article on local town courts... **URL:** \ **Category:** NYSpeed Off Topic\ **Created:** [September 27, 2006, 8:23am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/really-scary-article-on-local-town-courts/18098 "2006-09-27T08:23:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![traumadog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@traumadog](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/traumadog)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 8:23am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/really-scary-article-on-local-town-courts/18098/1 "2006-09-27T08:23:59Z")
[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/nyregion/25courts.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087%0A&en=60df99ab2bcde2a1&ex=1159502400](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/nyregion/25courts.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087%0A&en=60df99ab2bcde2a1&ex=1159502400) It’s a long article (8 pages). In short, it says that many small-town courts are run by judges that are less than qualified - and some make pretty outrageous findings… It makes me really wonder what would happen to me if I happened to be stopped for any minor offence outside of Rochester… Some select quotes: > Outside Rochester, in Le Roy, a justice who is still in office concocted false statements, state officials said, to help immigration officials deport a Hispanic migrant worker in 2003. Although the man had pleaded not guilty to trespassing, the town justice, Charles E. Dusen, issued a court order saying he had been convicted. In an interview, Justice Dusen said he tried to right his wrong after the worker’s lawyer complained. But the man was still deported. > Last December, disciplinary officials disclosed that in a five-year period, a Rochester-area justice had mistakenly imposed $170,000 in traffic fines beyond what the law allowed. And in June, a justice in western New York was disciplined for threatening to jail a man — and warning him to “bring a couple thousand in bail money” — over a complaining phone message the man had left him. > Of those who are not lawyers, about a third — more than 400 — had no formal education beyond high school. At least 40 did not complete high school, though several went on to earn equivalency degrees… > …Those without law degrees must take six days of classes at the start. Lawyers do not have to attend, but all justices must take a 12-hour refresher course once a year… > > …At training’s end, justices must score at least 70 percent on a test of 50 questions, all true or false. Those who fail can retake the course, and the test. “We don’t decide whether they’re qualified to be a judge,” Ms. Dobiel said. “The people who have elected them have already made that decision. > In 2004, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund found that people awaiting trial in Schuyler County in the Finger Lakes were jailed for months simply waiting for court to convene again. A high school student arrested on a minor drug charge in the summer of 2003, it said, was still sitting in jail in October… > …A Rochester poverty lawyer, Laurie Lambrix, said that when she appealed the case of a mother of six — a black woman evicted in 1999 by a white landlord who she said had made racist comments — a justice in nearby Gates told her she could not examine the court file of her own client. “I knew court records were public records,” Ms. Lambrix said. “I couldn’t believe a judge would be ignorant of that.” > > She was lucky; at least there were records, which she eventually obtained. In many justice courts, it is next to impossible to reconstruct what happened. Some towns spring for a stenographer or taping system, and some justices try to scrawl notes while they preside. But in some cases, there are not even notes. ---
**Author:** ![sureshot007](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/sureshot007/32/7345_2.png) [@sureshot007](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/sureshot007)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:05am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/really-scary-article-on-local-town-courts/18098/2 "2006-09-27T09:05:17Z")
I got some rediculous speeding fine in LeRoy about 3 years ago. I thought he was being a prick for no reason - apparently, his reason was ignorance.