Judge of the Day: Robert Restaino
This episode gives new meaning to the term “flip phone.” A cell phone that went off during court proceedings caused one judge to, well, flip out. From the NYT’s City Room blog:
The next time you pass through the city court system in Niagara Falls, N.Y., remember to turn your cellphone off.
Today, the Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended the removal of a judge in Niagara Falls City Court who had, what the commission’s chairman, Raoul L. Felder, called, “two hours of inexplicable madness” when a cellphone rang in his courtroom.
Specifically, on the morning of March 11, 2005, the judge, Robert M. Restaino, was presiding over a slate of domestic violence cases when he heard a phone ring in his courtroom. He told the roughly 70 people in the courtroom, according to the commission’s report, that “every single person is going to jail in this courtroom” unless the phone was turned over.
Look, we hate cellphones ringing at inappropriate times as much as the next guy. But was Judge Restaino’s reaction a tad over the top? We suggest — with respect, Your Honor — that you’re a few beeps short of a ringtone.
Read what happened next, after the jump.
Back to the proceedings:
After a brief recess, Judge Restaino returned to the bench and asked the defendant who had been standing before him when the phone rang — from the back of the room — and if he knew whose phone it was.“No,” the defendant, Reginald Jones, said. “I was up here.”
Nonetheless, the judge scrapped plans to release Mr. Jones, set bail at $1,500 and sent him into custody. He was the first of 46 defendants to be sent into custody because of what could be called the case of the ringing cellphone.”
Almost 50 people sent to the pokey, over an unsilenced cell phone? Kinda awesome.
Let’s look at the situation from the judge’s perspective:
“This troubles me more than any of you people can understand,” Judge Restaino said, adding: “This person, whoever he or she may be, doesn’t have a whole lot of concern. Let’s see how much concern they have when they are sitting in the back there with all the rest of you. Ultimately, when you go back there to be booked, you got to surrender what you got on you. One way or another we’re going to get our hands on something.”One defendant, according to the report, told the judge, “This is not fair to the rest of us.” To which the judge replied, “I know it isn’t.”
Another told the judge, “This ain’t right.” The judge responded: “You’re right, it ain’t right. Ain’t right at all.”
But in a courtroom, things don’t have to be “right”; they just have to be “so ordered.”
So go on with your bad self, Judge Restaino. Even if you get stripped of your robes over this, pursuant to the Commission’s recommendation, you’ll always be our #1 Judicial Divo.
P.S. This is not the first such episode we’ve heard of. Remember Judge Diane Boswell, who found three people in contempt of court for refusing to own up to who had a ringing cell phone?
A Judge’s ‘Inexplicable Madness’ Over a Cellphone [City Room / New York Times]
Earlier: Judge of the Day: Diane Boswell
(49) Comments
Comments
obvi
this must be a joke
But First
Hasn't Judge Restaino ever read Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85 (1979)?
I think the judge should have ordered the the bailif to start shooting kneecaps until someone fessed up. That's what I would have done, anyway.
at least this judge didn't drunkenly go down on a defendant years ago when he was a college student. boy would that be embarrasing if that ever happened to someone...
what a douchebag
It is a universal phenomenon that state court judges in the traffic and municipal courts are extremely uncivil to the public and some attorneys. And so often they just don’t get their ethical obligations—including those related to courtesy and demeanor.
For a prime example of this in CA see here:
http://cjp.ca.gov/PubAdm/Mills%20D&O%206-12-06.pdf
It is a universal phenomenon that state court judges in the traffic and municipal courts are extremely uncivil to the public and some attorneys. And so often they just don’t get their ethical obligations—including those related to courtesy and demeanor.
For a prime example of this in CA see here:
http://cjp.ca.gov/PubAdm/Mills%20D&O%206-12-06.pdf
NF 4 life.
Interesting, but not surprising. The New York Commission on Judicial Conduct comes down hard on NY judges more often than the average. Not being a NY lawyer, I don't know why this is. Looking at their website, it does appear that NY has more than its share of uneducated and/or stupid magistrates, but beyond that the Commission has frequently removed or censured judges from higher courts as well.
The Commission even removed a sitting Justice from Queens Supreme because she allegedly helped a guy in drug court avoid arrest for a robbery (for which he ultimately was exonerated) by a detective who came to the courthouse looking for him. In Re Blackburne, 2006 NY Int. 85 (N.Y. 2006).
Damn, why am I typing this stuff at 11pm?
Icky state judges.
The judge needs to exercise more *restraino!*
/Try the veal
I agree with the Judge. Turn off your damn cell phone in court. Duh.
Besides, all those crooks deserved to go to jail. I would have jailed all the lawyers, too.
Sucks big time to be at work at 11:47 and with no end in sight...ah BIGLAW you are the bane of the existence...
So unlike the federal judges, such as those in EDVA, for example, where you can't even bring any electronics into the building. Lots of cell phones and blackberries in the bushes.
I hear you 11:49 - sometimes I wonder whether this shi$ is even worth all the $$$s...
11:22: "It's the best in the City".
Maybe all you Biglaw people could go home earlier if you didn't dick around on ATL when you should be working. Just a thought.
The best thing invented in the last 20 years is the consumer cell phone jammer. I highly recommend to all people, judge or juror.
I think Senior Partner stole my firm slippers
"Maybe all you Biglaw people could go home earlier if you didn't dick around on ATL when you should be working. Just a thought.
Posted by: Anonymous | November 28, 2007 12:15 AM"
File this in the same place as "I saw you at the strip club last night--shame on you" and "Let me just tell you how much I absolutely hate people who complain"
Lat, as the end of the semester is nearing, I think you should do a post on the "clap-off" and what law schools still do this.
What is a "clap off"?
Where you applaud at the end of the last day until the professor leaves the room.
I don't understand the need for a "clap off" and was shocked when I encountered it in a few of my 1L classes. These professors don't deserve it as much as, say, undergraduate professors do. After all, undergrad profs are often more educated and do more of a 'performance' throughout the course while law profs often belittle, berate, and direct US -- if anyone should be clapping, it should be the professor, as a way of congratulating us for enduring his wrath.
why can't courthouses just invest in cell phone jammers?
I smell a future People's Court star. Maybe this guy could berate some Miami 3L on TV.
Or maybe he could put a couple of bills in a Miami 3L's g-string while she dances.
This discussion is making me hot.
Clap-off is overrated. Try the veal instead.
I love this guy. At my school these fat chicks with kids always have their cell phone on "In case my baby might need me!!!"
One time I was away from my desk and my phone vibrated and one of these chicks picked up my phone and started yelling "THIS PHONE IS RINGING!!!" I looked at her and said they can leave a message and she proceeded to announce how "it could be an emergency, I don't know if you have kids or not" I told her if it was an emergency they need to call 911 not me in class. I'm going back to sleep.
It was my cell phone. Sorry everyone.
I hate the clap-off. I think only one or two of my profs ever actually deserved it.
On an unrelated note, I'm clerking for a state judge next year that is definitely not icky.
9:43 - Do you go to the American Justice School of Law?
10:42 - - It's AMERICAN JUSTICE! School of Law. And I second your question.
I say, good for the judge. I am sick and tired of the narcissistic peabrains who can't put their phone on vibrate before going into a movie, theater, church or courtroom, and who have to take every call that comes in and talk loudly about their personal business in a public place. Maybe if a few more judges did this, we'd see a little less of this BS.
Yeah, Tracey, you effing moron. I'm sick of people selling drugs. I think we should therefore lock up everyone who lives in neighborhoods where drugs are sold - that'll learn 'em.
Well, I just experience my first clap-off. I was caught off guard; it's like the slow clap at the end of a romantic comedy and you don't know exactly what is happening. You just suddenly find yourself clapping as Sunstein runs out of the room.
For some reason, I am craving veal.
The judge is right.
Many people have lost all respect for the decorum of certain events. I've heard people's cell phones go off in church, court, weddings, and other formal events, and seen them answer it. Society needs a spanking, and the judge delivered it.
If you can't be adult enough to turn off your phone for important events, and then aren't adult enough to own up to it, you deserve to be treated as a child and given a tap on the hands.
Have some respect for the courts.
Judge didn't go far enough;
He should have jailed ALL the staff from the cell phone company as well, maybe even the subscribers.
Seriously, the judicial system just got a little closer to being perfect, one less lunatic on the bench.
One thing that hasn't been pointed out is that this courthouse has a strict policy disallowing cell phones, pagers, blackberries etc. into the courthouse let alone the courtroom.
Granted, the courtroom is no place to take personal phone calls. But how many of you have ever accidentally left yours on and had to scramble to turn it off at an inopportune moment? It happens to the best of us, and I seriously doubt the owner of the offending cell intended to obstruct justice with a five-second soundbite of "Baby's Got Back" (I like to think that was the ringtone). The judge is fucking insane for letting a minor courtroom faux pas become more important than the rights of 46 individuals (and his career). Talk about a power trip.
[mmmm... veal.]
You would think that a judge who is used to trying people for murder and the like would have no trouble unravelling the case of the ringing cell phone which happened right under his nose.
if it were up to me, i would put this judge in jail for at least the same amount of time as the person who was in county jail the longest.
Lets pause for a moment.
What if it wasn't any of the 46 individuals,
but the judges own phone that he forgot he had in his pocket.
It's easy enough to find out; the time, the ping and the names of everyone in the room including his honor.
Theory of Karma states that this grave injustice should come to haunt the wrong doer times 46. People on drugs are often very irritable and volatile.
You mean to say none of the lawyers had cellphones on the persons? Lawyers never carry cellphones, lawyers never forget to turn them off? And by some accounts it may have been a watch alarm that went of with ten beeps at ten am.