Hudson Falls Judge Should Have Been Removed
Posted on Friday, 27 of November , 2009 at 10:01 pm
COMMENTARY
HUDSON FALLS—Michael M. Feeder, Hudson Falls village court judge, has been censured by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct for four charges of misconduct. Removal was the only reasonable decision.
While Robert Tembeckjian, commission administrator, recommended that Feeder be removed from office, he was instead censured in a 6-3 vote and allowed to remain on the bench. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2009/11/25/feeder_censure/
Three of the commission members voted to remove Feeder from office. We agree. Any judge who intentionally lies in an attempt to cover up his misconduct isn’t fit to be in judicial office and threatens the proper administration of justice.
According to the dissenting opinion written by commission members Richard D. Emery, when “Judge Feeder came before the commission at the oral argument, he misrepresented his earlier sworn testimony and calculatedly changed his presentation of the events to conform to the testimony of other witnesses”.
It can only be hoped that when Feeder’s term expires on March 31, 2012, he will not seek election, of he doesn’t have the good sense to resign first, and if he should unwisely decide to seek another term, that he be resoundingly defeated. A person such as Michael Feeder should not on the bench.
The text of the dissenting opinion follows:
“A majority of the Commission finds Hudson Falls Village Justice Michael Feeder to have committed misconduct in the context of four charges that, in the majority’s opinion, warrants censure.
In fact, the four counts of misconduct really comprise seven serious acts of misconduct because the first charge comprised three violations and the third charge comprises two.
With respect to Charge I, Judge Feeder (1) misused his judicial powers to effectuate the arrest of a motorist he claimed failed to give way to a pedestrian; (2) acted as a judge in the same case in which he initiated the arrest; and (3) commented to the press about his vigilante arrest while the case was pending and implied that the defendant was not credible.
On Charge III, the majority finds two acts of misconduct when Judge Feeder implicitly promised a mother in an ex parte conversation not to jail her defendant daughter notwithstanding two prior drunk-driving convictions, and then, in fact, carried through on the promise.
Finally, in Charges IV and V, the majority finds misconduct as a result of Judge Feeder granting a defendant an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal without consulting the district attorney whose consent is required by law, and presiding in numerous criminal cases without revealing that he had a close, longstanding personal relationship with the assistant chief of police.
Notwithstanding this veritable rampage of serious misconduct, Judge Feeder escapes with a censure. Under normal circumstances I might quietly assent to the majority’s lenience, even though I disagree, for fear that to dissent would highlight a precedent which likely will give comfort to other wayward judges.
But in this case I cannot for a singular reason: when Judge Feeder came before the Commission at the oral argument, he misrepresented his earlier sworn testimony and calculatedly changed his presentation of the events to conform to the testimony of other witnesses.
Appearing before the full Commission, Judge Feeder conceded that he spoke ex parte with the mother of the drunk-driving defendant about her daughter’s case. He tried to minimize the significance of the conversation but he clearly admitted it:
“Tanya’s mother came in and asked that I not put her daughter in jail. What I said to Mrs. Looney is, ‘You know me better, you know I’m fair, have your daughter come in, have Tanya come in.’ I never made a promise about keeping her out of jail; the only promise I did make was being fair. My error was allowing her to come in, and as my counsel did say, this is not a big, fancy courtroom. It’s a room a fraction of the size of this room, probably more like the size of that office. My clerk wasn’t there; I was there in the office and Mrs. Looney came right in. My error was not disclosing that to the district attorney. My error was not disclosing to her attorney regardless of what I said to Mrs. Looney.”
(Oral argument, pp. 61-62)
“The commission’s vice chair (Stephen Coffey) then asked the judge whether the statement he had just made at the oral argument about that incident was consistent with his testimony during the commission’s investigation, and the judge declared that it was:
“MR. COFFEY: …[W]ere you asked questions, if you recall at the IA, about the conversation that you had with the mother that’s the subject of this complaint? Do you recall being – I don’t know what the IA –
JUDGE FEEDER: – I believe I was questioned and I believe I answered exactly as I –
MR. COFFEY: – So your statement today in your recollection is consistent with that?
JUDGE FEEDER: Yes, sir.”
(Oral argument, p. 63)
After the judge made this statement at the oral argument, staff counsel, on rebuttal, read from the transcript of the judge’s investigative testimony, which was in evidence (Resp. Ex. C). As recounted by staff counsel, Judge Feeder, under oath, had testified earlier that he had no recollection of speaking with Linda Looney about her daughter’s case:
“MS. CENCI: …At page 117 he testified in this manner:
Question: Well, do you have a recollection of Linda Looney coming to court to speak with you prior to Tanya Looney’s appearance on the most recent charge?
Answer: Yes. My clerk had left me a note that Mrs. Looney – when I say Mrs. Looney, Linda Looney had come in requesting to speak to me –’
Question: Did you then have a conversation with Linda Looney?
Answer: Not to my knowledge. I don’t believe I did, because it was a pending case. Question – JUDGE PETERS: – So he denied the conversation?
MS. CENCI: ‘So, you don’t recall telling her that she did not want — telling you that she did not want Tanya to go to jail because she, Linda Looney, has Crohn’s disease and would be left with the care of Tanya’s children?
Answer: I don’t recall that conversation. My impression was that — I am aware that Linda Looney has — I thought she had cancer but I am not sure what her ailment is.
Question: Well, does my telling you that refresh your recollection as to any conversation that you had with Linda Looney concerning her daughter, Tanya?
Answer: I don’t recall having a conversation about Tanya specifically.’”
(Oral argument, pp. 72, 74)
Judge Feeder’s investigative appearance took place on Nov. 29, 2005, only 11 months after the events at issue. Of course, the critical change in circumstances between Judge Feeder’s two statements was the mother’s testimony which corroborated the allegation that the ex parte conversation took place.
Similarly disingenuous was Judge Feeder’s claim that his good friend, the assistant police chief, never actually appeared before him and that that was the reason he did not reveal their relationship in criminal cases. But the assistant chief had, in fact, appeared before Judge Feeder, according to reliable otherwise uncontested testimony – by an attorney and, notably, by the assistant chief himself.
Judge Feeder did not reveal the relationship even though he had vacationed with his friend and had lived at the friend’s home when the judge was having marital difficulties.
This sort of convenient “truth-telling,” as recently as at his appearance before us, along with the array of the proven misconduct that Judge Feeder denied, reveals to me that Judge Feeder continues to be a danger to the public, who trusts us “to safeguard the Bench from unfit incumbents”.
When he committed this misconduct and then lacked candor when the Commission questioned him about it, he forfeited his privilege to judge others on behalf of the State of New York. He should be removed”.
Liars like Feeder don’t belong on the bench. It the commission proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he lied under oath, why wasn’t he criminally charged with perjury? Feeder should hang up his black robe permanently. 11-27-09
Category: Courts, New York State
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