N.J. judge’s antics highlight the shortage of good ones | Editorial
There may well be a Top-quality Court docket decide shortage in New Jersey, but the antics of just one choose who sits in Camden County have designed issues even worse.
In accordance to an official complaint by the state’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Misconduct, Choose Michael Kassel evidently did every little thing he could to protest a short-term assignment on the bench — such as building a mockery of the technique.
Kassel, who generally hears instances in the civil division, was transferred to a shorter-handed household courtroom, which impacts people’s life much more directly and continually. The choose did not like the household court docket assignment, which lasted about two months past 12 months. Which is no justification for a decide to basically sabotage the situations that came in front of him.
According to the ACJM, in at least 16 spouse and children conditions, Kassel instructed litigants and their legal professionals that “he lacked familiarity with their case, was ignorant of the relevant legislation and incapable of adjudicating family courtroom matters, and expressed dissatisfaction with the temporary assignment and the system by which that assignment was produced.”
In 1 listening to, he’s alleged to have informed the get-togethers to “…treat [him] like a ninth-grader in significant school” given that he so ignorant of the statutes. One more time, he supposedly remarked “you could get a male off the road that’s more seasoned than me with this stuff.”
The one thing in Kassel’s favor may well be that he does not overestimate his very own capabilities. But he cheated absolutely everyone in entrance of him out of a authentic working day in court docket. What was at stake? A single father not getting critical boy or girl guidance. A teenager caught residing more time with a parent with whom he or she doesn’t get together, and who could even be abusive.
Kassel’s perform also reportedly bundled refusing to wear judicial robes, and propping up his feet on his desk. These antics remind a person of the late Harry Anderson as Choose Harry T. Stone on “Night Court,” or of the tortured, seat-of-the-trousers choices at present getting rendered by “Judge Steve Harvey.” These are Tv set comedians, there for our entertainment only.
You could say, on the other hand, that “Judge Judy” and the “Hot Bench” judges treat situations critically, attempt to make your mind up them dependent on authentic regulations, and usually address plaintiffs and defendants with regard. (Okay, Decide Judy yells at times.) That is additional than we can say for Kassel. He acted like a courtroom jester, an unfunny one particular at that, missing Anderson’s talent at magic methods.
In accordance to NJ Advance Media analysis, some 400 misconduct grievances are submitted against New Jersey judges every year, but few are highlighted. Among the most publicized such situations was in 2016, when John F. Russo, a loved ones court docket judge in Ocean County, infamously explained to an alleged rape target that she perhaps could have averted the circumstance if she experienced “closed her legs.” He was ultimately taken out from the bench in 2020.
Only 8 judges statewide have been suspended with out pay considering that 2004, and 5 have forever been banned. The reduced rate strongly implies that, just like law enforcement, the judiciary goes to excellent lengths to guard its possess and protect its worst conduct from public scrutiny. Legislative reforms may well be in buy.
It is up to the state Supreme Court to come to a decision what, if anything at all, to do about renegade judges like Kassel. Self-discipline can consist of a general public reprimand, suspension, censure, or, as in Russo’s circumstance, removal. Kassel was appointed in 2001 and tenured in 2008, so he no lengthier faces gubernatorial reappointment or point out Senate acceptance. He reaches the retirement age of 70 in 2027.
In the meantime, the judge scarcity will access a report 75 this thirty day period, although additional than 7,000 defendants await justice in prison courts on your own, partly because of to a backlog that created in the course of the COVID-19 court shutdown. Partisan squabbles and the use of senatorial courtesy — when a condition senator can block the nomination of any individual from their house county — hold the logjam heading.
The absurdity of Kassel’s situation will engage in out in its entirety if the condition Supreme Court docket does not admonish him very harshly because it can not pay for to get rid of another residing, respiration human body able of wearing robes, even a person who chooses not to do so.
Our journalism demands your guidance. Be sure to subscribe now to NJ.com.
Mail a letter to the editor of South Jersey Periods at sjletters@njadvancemedia.com
Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Adhere to on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and obtain NJ.com Feeling on Facebook.
