Apr 12, 2018 — This week, we’re taking a close look at a part of the justice system we don’t hear much about. That’s your local village or town court and the justices who preside over them.
In the North Country, an overwhelming majority — about 85 percent — of our local judges were not lawyers before they took the bench. They don’t have to be, according to state law.
New York isn’t alone in that: More than 20 other states allow people who aren’t lawyers to be judges. New York is among just eight states that allow these “non-lawyer” judges to run criminal trials and hand down sentences. Being a local justice in this state is a big job, especially if you didn’t go to law school first, like Michael Morgan.
“I knew I had the education and the experience,” Morgan told NCPR in November 2017, the night he won his election to become Canton town judge. “You don’t have to have a law degree to be a judge.”
“You gotta want to help people.”
I’ve been following Morgan since he was elected, to find out what it’s really like for those on the bench.
On Election Night, Morgan was all dressed up, with a tie clip in the shape of handcuffs to complement his suit. Morgan — a big guy with a mustache — was almost gushing as he described why he wanted to be Canton’s newest judge.
“I really like to have the people come in front of me because I feel like I am a people person,” Morgan said. “I can talk to them, I can help them. That’s really a judge’s job. Yes, you gotta hand out some punishments. But you gotta want to help people.”
Morgan decided to go for it and run for judge after more than 20 years as a sheriff’s deputy. Growing up in the North Country, Morgan always had a soft spot for the law. “I actually thought about going to law school,” Morgan said. “But I really felt at the time that I needed to earn my keep and get the hard experience. And so that’s what I did.”
Morgan had to go up against another candidate, Chris Curley, a lawyer who’d served as a Canton town judge in the past. But believe it or not? Morgan beat him, by just shy of 120 votes.
A big transition to the bench
Two months later, I met now-Judge Morgan outside his new office at Canton’s Town Hall. The courtroom is in the “cellar of the building,” Morgan told me, as he tromped up several flights of stairs. His heavy boots were fit for the snowy weather, but a shirt and tie peeked out from beneath Morgan’s winter court.
Morgan’s new desk is across from his court clerk’s. The day I visited, it was still mostly empty except for a computer, a bottle of electric blue Gatorade Morgan was saving for court that afternoon, and a stack of books. “So I can stay on track with the cases that are presented to me,” he explained.
Settling in at his desk, Morgan started to explain how his transition — going from sheriff’s deputy to judge, learning all the code and procedure buried in his textbooks – was working out.
“Oh, I like it! I like it a lot. It is [ahem] a little bit more than what I thought it was,” Morgan said. “Most jobs are when people first – they’ve never worked in a job like that. But I like it.”
After election night, Morgan said, he caught up on the sleep he’d lost during the campaign — and then, he started to cram.
Lesson #1: “How to be a judge.”
New judges who don’t have prior legal experience have to report for in-person training with the Office of Justice Court Support. The instructors are real lawyers and experienced judges, with years of work under their belts.
The class starts with fundamentals, Morgan said: “The first class was how to be a judge, how to act like a judge.”
Unlike the rest of New York’s judges, town and village justices aren’t technically employed by the state. They collect their paychecks from the municipalities where their courts are located. But local justices are held to the same exact ethical standard as any other judge in New York State. In other words, Morgan is expected to behave just like a justice on New York’s State Supreme Court.
“We went over ethics, what you can and can’t do,” Morgan said, flipping through the massive binder that his trainers used as an instruction manual. “We learned how to run a criminal history, which I already know how to do, I’m certified. And arraignments — what do you have to say to somebody? They let us practice on each other in class.”
It went on like this for five days straight, with homework, study sessions, tests — including a more comprehensive exam that’s required if judges want to keep their job — and follow-up courses looming in the distance.
The commitment was too much for some of the justices in Morgan’s class. “Interestingly enough, there was a few that left, that didn’t feel like the job was something they could do,” Morgan said. “So they ended up quitting.”
Lesson #2: “Not a lot of work”? Think again.
“You know, the first day we have the judges come, they’re all deer in the headlight. Like they can’t believe what they’ve gotten themselves into,” said Nancy Sunukjian, director of New York’s Office of Justice Court Support.
Sunukjian — an attorney and a local judge herself, for the town of Waterford in Saratoga County — is now responsible for organizing the training of all new justices who don’t have formal legal experience. Add it all up, and there are more than 1,100 non-lawyer judges working across the state. The highest concentrations are in rural areas, including the North Country.
Sunukjian said that yes, a few judges did walk away from the training that Michael Morgan went through this winter. It happens — more often than you’d think.
“In some municipalities, the supervisor or the mayor will say, ‘Oh, Joe, run for judge, it’s easy, it’s one night a month and everyone will call you judge and you get to wear a black dress and it’s wonderful and it’s not a lot of work,'” Sunukjian said. “We sort of give them the real story.”
Lesson #3: Make it through the first month.
When someone just backs out of being a judge, it can set off a whole new election or the appointment of a brand-new person who needs to learn the job — from scratch.
The training requirements for local judges have expanded over the past decade or so. Justices are now expected to spend more time studying with Sunukjian and her team in person. The final exam for their introductory course is tougher than in previous years, and justices are expected to study more at home as they prepare to take the bench.
But even now, some legal experts will tell you that it’s not enough — because local justices have serious power in New York State. They can run trials and send people to jail. The reason training requirements expanded in the first place was largely due to serious misconduct in local courts, including misdeeds by non-lawyer judges.
Sunukjian said she doesn’t excuse their behavior. Teaching regular people to hold those responsibilities is hard work, she said, but she believes it can be done well.
“We’re doing the best we can,” Sunukjian said, adding that training is now split up into two parts, with a brief follow-up session that can ease some of the pressure on judges who had no legal experience going in. “Our focus has always been, for a judge who gets elected in November, what do we need to do to make them prepared for at least the first month?”
As most judges find out, it can get really intense — with little warning.
Lesson #4: Some things you can’t prepare for.
Back in Canton, Judge Morgan took the bench for his second day of court in late January. A more experienced judge sat off to the side, ready to offer help if needed.
Almost immediately, Morgan called up one of the hardest cases he’d get that day: a domestic assault. A man in chains and street clothes walked up to the bench, escorted by an officer. Flipping through his file, Morgan announced the man was there to be sentenced.
“Before we do go forward with the sentencing, I believe we do have a victim impact statement marked,” Morgan said, peering over his glasses at the attorneys on the case. “Is she here?”
A woman in the gallery — rows of metal office chairs lined up at the back of the courtroom — stepped forward. She unfolded a few pieces of paper and started telling her story. She stared at the pages, avoiding the possibility of eye contact with the man in chains.
“He wrestled me to the ground again, calling me a fat whore,” she said. “Broke my lamp in front of our son.”
A long list of abuses and injuries poured out. The words came faster.
“I waited mortified as he threatened to kill me and himself. I still have nightmares. The thought of [him] being out again after serving such little time scares the s*** outta me,” she said.
The woman looked up from her papers to address Judge Morgan directly.
Please, she said. Add more time to this sentence.
Lesson #5: The stakes are real.
It may not seem like it, but situations like these — tied to serious allegations, with a lot at stake – play out all the time in New York’s town and village courts.
Judges just like Morgan are responsible for arraigning anyone who’s arrested nearby. Accused kidnappers and murderers have made their way through small, North Country courts. If the offense is less serious, categorized as a misdemeanor under New York’s code of laws, local court may be the only stop for someone accused of a crime.
Back in court, Morgan shuffled through his case files and asked the attorneys how they wanted to proceed.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “This is where we are.” Under the terms of a plea agreement with the prosecutor’s office, the sentence would be one year in jail, with credit for time already served. “And we’ll have an order of protection — complete stay away.”
And with that, Morgan moved on to the next case.
Court stretched on for another two hours. Later that afternoon, I caught up with Morgan back in his office. “I mean, I’ve been in court when situations like that have occurred. It’s a tough thing to hear what people go through,” he said. “I really think the general public has no idea what happens with domestic violence and the things that the court sees in regards to that.”
What was hard for Morgan about that domestic abuse case wasn’t the emotional intensity of it; he believes he got used to that as a sheriff’s deputy. Keeping up with all the legal minutiae that a judge is responsible for, on the other hand? That’s new. If Morgan — or any local justice — should make a mistake, his ruling could get thrown out. And Morgan is seriously concerned about violating a defendant’s rights in the course of a proceeding.
“That’s important. I took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of New York State. And that’s in there,” Morgan said. “I don’t take it lightly, at all.”
By now, Morgan has been on the bench for three months. He presided over Canton town court again Wednesday morning, with 36 cases on the docket — a mix of traffic tickets, small claims, and an eviction proceeding.
How does NY elect a judge…
First you show the pictures.
Like Kavanaugh at a frat party.
Then threaten their family.