Dispensing Justice, Small-Town Style
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ON a recent steamy Monday afternoon, the village courtroom here filled rapidly with 40 people who looked as if they would rather be elsewhere. The 2 o’clock Criminal Court session was about to start in this village of 4,600 people. The sober-faced defendants, dressed mostly in jeans and sneakers, fidgeted as they waited their turn to appear before Justice Walter Schwartz. On the docket at this particular session were cases of drug possession, uninsured, unregistered and intoxicated drivers, larceny, credit card fraud and harassment. For spectators accustomed to television shows like “L.A. Law” and “Law and Order,” this was hardly the stuff of high drama. But for Judge Schwartz, who patiently and courteously listened to each person’s argument, the cases were hardly banal or insignificant. “These local courts are not just there for parking tickets,” said Judge Schwartz, who practices commercial, real estate and litigation law for the firm Siegler & Schwartz in Yonkers. “In recent years, there has been an increase in cases of drunken driving and driving with suspended licenses that have loaded up our calendars. We also handle domestic situations. Last Thanksgiving night, I got a call about a respectable family in our community where the wife alleged that her husband had assaulted her. These town and village courts are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We’re on call, like surgeons.” A Part-Time Position Throughout the county, there are 74 local justices, or magistrates, said Michael E. Formoso, Acting Village Justice in Elmsford and secretary of the Westchester County Magistrates Association, a voluntary and primarily collegial group. The county’s 18 towns have 2 judges each, with the 19 villages having 1 judge and 1 acting judge. And the nature of the cases that the judges preside over — whether domestic abuse of the kind highlighted by the death of Anne Scripps Douglas in Bronxville or drug possession and related violent crimes — reflect the steadily changing nature of the county. “The farther north you go, there is much less criminal activity that you would see,” Judge Formoso said. Judge Schwartz, like his counterparts elsewhere in the county, has jurisdiction over traffic violations, some felonies, small-claims cases up to $3,000, landlord-tenant disputes, civil cases and violations of village ordinances. He has been elected four times to serve as Ardsley’s Village Justice and has served in that part-time position for the last 12 years. For his services, which include presiding at weekly sessions of Criminal and Traffic Courts and an evening session for small claims and civil cases, he is paid $11,500 a year. The judicial robes he wears at each session come out of his own pocket. During a typical criminal session, Judge Schwartz listened to defense motions to postpone or adjourn a case, assigned Legal Aid lawyers to other defendants, accepted guilty pleas and set bail for felony offenses. As Judge Schwartz reviewed the cases, treating each as if it were the first of the day, the pile of legal folders on the assistant district attorney’s desk gradually diminished. As the session switched to traffic violations, Judge Schwartz added an educational note to the proceedings, explaining the types of violations and their penalties. “By and large, people’s only involvement in the court is this: parking tickets and other violations,” Judge Schwartz said during a brief recess. “The impression we give of justice is what they take away.” But under a plan proposed by Westchester 2000, a public-private partnership in White Plains that explores various issues affecting the county’s future, the current system of local justice could become a quaint relic. Dr. Sal Prezioso, chairman of the Westchester 2000 Commission, said: “Having the functions of local courts coming into a district court has been favored by a number of local judges. It’s nice to have that local court, so if little Johnny gets into trouble you know who to go to, but in general, district courts would speed up cases, and there would be economic savings. Judges would be elected on a districtwide basis, and you wouldn’t have local favorite-son judges anymore.” Benefits and Disadvantages More : query.nytimes.com |