Legal News

NY Judge Censured For Recusals, Insults During Pay War

By Amir Efrati

To those of you who reside outside the great state of New York, believe us when we say that the dispute over the pay of state-court judges has gotten heated over the years — 10 years to be exact.

Judges have sued the state government, arguing that the legislature's failure to provide judicial pay raises violated the state constitution. The litigation is pending.

Now one judge’s wrist has been slapped for bad behavior.

A censure “determination” released yesterday said Larry Himelein (pictured), a judge in Cattaraugus County, western New York, improperly disqualified himself from 11 cases in which parties were represented by law firms that include members of the legislature, “not because he could not be impartial but as a tactic intended to force the Legislature to pass a judicial pay raise,” and that he encouraged other judges to do the same. To wit, in 2007 Himelein sent a mass email to state judges that stated:

I remain convinced that the only weapon in our arsenal is recusal on all cases where a firm has a legislator or a relative of a legislator in a firm … Some of us may not want to poke our fingers in the eyes of the politicians (some of us, however, might like to do exactly that) but I firmly believe that [recusal] is the only weapon we have that has any likelihood of making some of those clowns suffer for their actions…

Censure is the second most severe form of punishment a judge in New York state can receive; the lowest reprimand is a public admonishment, while the most serious action is removal from the bench.

Click here for the censure order, handed down by New York’s commission on judicial conduct, and here are stories from NYLJ, Albany Times Union, and NYT.

Yesterday’s filing also said Himelein (Ithaca College ‘71, Suffolk Law ‘75) participated in: “[c]hiding, browbeating and insulting judges who did not
recuse (calling them ‘wusses,’ ‘non-self-respecting,’ ‘gutless,’ and ‘wimp[s]‘), denigrating downstate judges in particular (’lackies’ and ‘toadies for the politicians’) and telling them to ‘grow some stones,’ respondent repeatedly urged his judicial colleagues to recuse en masse (’How about everyone recuses by 5:00 today???’).”

Although Judge Himelein is a county court judge, he also sits on State Supreme Court, Family Court and Surrogate's Court, as is common in many upstate counties, wrote the NYT. A decision to refuse certain cases by a judge with so many judicial "hats," could be a major obstacle for affected law firms, lawyers said.

Justices of the Supreme Court, the state's highest-level trial court, earn $136,700 a year, the NYT said. County judges earn a minimum of $119,800.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 29, 2009 (boomark / email).