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Judge That Said Defendants Should Be 'Swinging Outside The Door' Out Of A Job

You have to read his outrageous statements for yourself.

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Scott Stone has resigned from his role as town justice with an additional agreement to never seek judicial office again, and, if you’ll pardon the editorializing for a moment, that’s a good thing.

Stone, who worked as a nonlawyer town justice in Butler Town Court and Wolcott Village Court in New York, was facing an ethics complaint for making statements that convey a disdain for the legal system. That complaint has now been resolved, with Stone resigning from his position and agreeing not to seek judicial office again, with the stipulation stating he “undermined public confidence in the fair and impartial administration of justice and the integrity of the judicial process, in that his statements conveyed disdain for certain laws and aspects of legal process, a predisposition to presume defendants guilty, and personal annoyance with lawyers who represent criminal defendants.”

As reported by ABA Journal, the ethics complaint against Stone stems from a October 2015 village meeting, where he went off about the legal process. The discussion at the public meeting was about crime, and, Stone had some thoughts which included the following statements you really have to read:

• “To start with, the whole system, quite frankly, sucks.”

• “If they are a minor, I’m never going to see them because they are going to family court.”

• “After five days, if the county decides not to do [a] preliminary hearing, I have to release them. It doesn’t matter, it’s not my choice. It’s a lawyers’ world.”

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• “Most of these individuals, if I had my way, you’d see them probably swinging outside the door, OK? That’s the way I was brought up.”

• “But thanks to lawyers, everybody has rights.”

Yeah, that doesn’t seem like the kind of person you want responsible for the administration of justice in your town.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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