"Judge" of the Day: George Head

Judges can get themselves in trouble when they get too involved in the lives of the individuals they supervise as part of probation. Remember Judge Manuel Real (C.D. Cal.), who almost got himself impeached for being a little too supportive of one Deborah Canter, attractive female probationer?
Well, at least Judge Real never took Ms. Canter home with him (as far as we know). That’s more than can be said for today’s “Judge” of the Day, Justice George Head, of Keeseville, New York. From the NYT:

Like many teenagers in this bleak old mill village near Lake Champlain, Michael C. Burrell had been in trouble before. But when an attempted assault case landed him at age 19 in the courtroom of the village justice, the experience was unlike anything he had faced before….

He said the justice, George J. Head, insisted that they meet each week outside court, in what people around here call his “judge’s probation” program.

There is no such thing as judge’s probation, and private sessions between a judge and a defendant facing jail violate the rules of judicial conduct.

But Justice Head seems to have stretched the rules in a number of ways. When he sentenced young men to regular probation, he sometimes drove them to their appointments. One young man was discovered driving the justice’s car, and others say they met with the justice at his home. One said he even wound up moving in for eight months.

Read the whole article. Okay, are you done? Here’s what we want to know: Is it just us, or is there a “Chester the Molester” subtext here?
Ah, the MSM. You must resort to subtext, since you can’t just shoot your mouth off, blogger-style. You’re required to rely upon actual facts to back up your statements. What fun is that?
* We put “Judge” in scare-quotes because Justice Head is not a lawyer by training. He’s a retired state trooper with no legal background. The position of village justice is an elected one in Keeseville that is not restricted to lawyers.
** Also, this is not a picture of Judge Head. It’s what we got when we went to this image database and entered “dirty old man.”
Small-Town Judge’s Personal Justice Stirs Concern [New York Times]
Judge Tells Congress He Did Nothing Wrong [Daily Journal via How Appealing Extra]

Sponsored