This week's edition of the New Jersey Law Journal carries a follow-up article entitled "Judge Held to Traint Trial by Doubling as Prosecutor, Denying Public Defender" related to Linden Municipal Judge Louis M.J. DiLeo's handling of a recent case. See here and here for background.
According to the article, DiLeo's "errors were so patent" that even the Union County Prosecutor's office joined in defendants' appeal.
In the NJLJ article, the attorney for one of the defendants wonders if DiLeo has done this before.
According to the article, neither Judge DiLeo nor Prosecutor Nicholas Scutari returned calls for comment to the NJLJ so we are still left to wonder how this trial proceeded without the Prosecutor present. The Court has a docket, no?
The end of the article reports that, despite the City Council having being aware of DiLeo's conduct, Council, by a vote of 6-5, voted down the Mayor's nomination of a new Judge.
Judge Moynihan, who heard the appeal, does not have the power to remove DiLeo from the bench. I'm pretty sure a complaint will be lodged against Judge DiLeo with the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct. Complaints against NJ Judges for years 2007 to 2011 can be reviewed here. Looking through the Complaints against Municipal Judges for those years, I haven't found any where a Judge was so arrogant to act as both Judge and Prosecutor. That ought to tell you something.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
The legal community must not only be laughing at this Judge but at council members too. At the last council meeting, Councilman Koziol was droning on and on about what a respectable court Linden has. Really?
Post a Comment