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Don't sigh, fidget or turn your back in the courtroom of Nassau County Family Court judge Richard S. Lawrence or he'll find you in contempt.
Well, maybe not now that he's been admonished for doing so by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct who concluded that the judge's conduct constituted a "gross abuse of discretion".
In a determination rendered Oct. 20, the judicial panel made public action taken against Lawrence, stating that in November, 2002 the judge had violated the ethical rules by holding a litigant in contempt without following the procedures mandated by law.
An admonishment is the minimum public sanction rendered by the panel.
The commission said that Lawrence had found the litigant in contempt for alleged disruptive behavior without issuing a warning and giving him an opportunity to desist. After sentencing the litigant to jail for five days in jail for his behavior, the judge increased the sentence to 10 days and then to 12 days when the litigant and his attorney objected.
Family Court judges such as Lawrence are increasingly abusing their contempt powers throughout the state with more and more litigants filing complaints against the alleged abusive nature and misconduct of judges.
In a concurring opinion penned by attorney Richard D. Emery, a commission member, Emery addressed the issue of judicial abuse of summary contempt power. He listed previous commission determinations regarding such abuse of the contempt power and said that "given the frequency of our public discipline for this unique abuse of judicial power, it is a mystery to me how any judge in New York could ignore the well-established rules that are fashioned to restrict and even defuse imposition of summary punishment….Speculation aside, this is a profound, persistent and troubling pattern of judicial misconduct".
Lawrence has been a Family Court judge since 1997. In November, 2002, he presided over petitions filed by Eva and Mark Schulman against each other in which Ms. Schulman accused her husband of domestic violence against her and child custody/visitation matters arising out of an order of a different Family Court judge awarding joint custody of their two children.
On the day before the hearing at issue, Mr. Schulman had been found in civil contempt by Supreme Court Justice Robert Ross as a result of his failure to comply to a previous order of the Supreme Court and his failure to pay child support, maintenance, mortgage and other related expenses that he was previously ordered to pay. He had been sentenced to 120 days in jail for non-payment of support and related amounts due, which term of incarceration was to commence immediately. Schulman and his attorney, David Teeter, were aware of this contempt holding and order of incarceration at the time that they appeared before Lawrence but neither one advised Lawrence of it during the hearing, therefore Lawrence was not aware of the previous contempt charge.
The commission found that during the proceeding on several occasions, "Schulman signed. i.e. exhaled audibly in a long, deep breath, while others were addressing the court. Schulman was also reportedly "fidgeting and on several occasions turned around, with his back toward respondent (Lawrence), apparently to reach for his personal belongings on a chair behind him. Respondent believed Mr. Schulman's conduct to be disrespectful and disruptive".
When his wife's attorney was addressing the court, the commission said Schulman sighed again and shook his head and Lawrence declared Schulman in summary contempt and imposed a five-day jail sentence. When his attorney protested, Lawrence increased the sentence to 10 days and then to 12 days. The judge did not provide either Schulman or his attorney an opportunity to make a statement in his defense of in extenuation of his conduct.
Schulman was handcuffed and taken into custody and spent the night at Nassau County Medical Center. After his attorney filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus the following day, Supreme Court Justice Victor Ort granted a stay of the contempt ruling on Schulman's posting of $5,000 bail.
The commission determined that Lawrence's "adjudication of contempt which resulted in (Schulman's) incarceration and detention was unnecessarily hasty and without procedural justification……respondent's failure to adhere to mandated contempt procedures-which he clearly knew about but disregarded---constitutes misconduct warranting public discipline". 11-17-05
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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