From the NY Daily News:
When a local judge laughingly said in open court that criminal defense lawyer Ruth Boyer had “a nice butt,” she was not flattered.
The sexist comment by LaGrange Town Justice Edmund Caplicki, made in July 2005, was reported to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, which yesterday publicly scolded the jurist for his “inappropriate” remark.
Caplicki, 62, told the watchdog group he was merely parroting the comments Boyer’s client – a man accused of theft – had made about the lawyer’s backside. But the panel noted the jurist not only quizzed three other male defendants on whether they agreed with the evaluation, but then mentioned it again to Boyer.
“Is that so bad?” Caplicki was quoted by the commission as asking Boyer, laughing as he spoke.
Boyer’s supervisor at the Dutchess County Public Defender’s office had the incident reported to the commission. Friends described Boyer, 42, as being anything but thin-skinned.
“She has a very cordial, respectful and diplomatic approach to everything,” an assistant at Boyer’s law office, Larry Clark, told the Daily News. “It’s very hard to get a rise out of her.”
The commission, which holds the power to strip judges of their robes, decided Caplicki’s behavior amounted to “an aberration” and limited his punishment to a public censure.
Caplicki and Boyer did not return calls seeking comment. Caplicki’s lawyer, Sara McShea of Manhattan, declined to comment.
Cripes.
This isn’t this idiot’s first public censure. He has also been censured for using his office to influence the disposition of traffic tickets in another court.
For those not familiar with New York justice courts located in the frontier towns (anything north of Westchester), many, probably most, town justices are not attorneys. Often they are reelected for decades. They provide most of the business for the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
Not long ago the New York Times ran a multi-part series on these wayward modern day Judge Roy Bean types but little if anything has changed.