A Judge’s ‘Inexplicable Madness’ Over a Cellphone...(MORE, CLICK HERE)

A Judge’s ‘Inexplicable Madness’ Over a Cellphone
The New York Times - News Briefs
November 27, 2007
By Danny Hakim

The next time you pass through the city court system in Niagara Falls, N.Y., remember to turn your cellphone off.

Today, the Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended the removal of a judge in Niagara Falls City Court who had what the commission’s chairman, Raoul L. Felder, called, “two hours of inexplicable madness” when a cellphone rang in his courtroom.

Specifically, on the morning of March 11, 2005, the judge, Robert M. Restaino, was presiding over a slate of domestic violence cases when he heard a phone ring in his courtroom. He told the roughly 70 people in the courtroom, according to the commission’s report, that “every single person is going to jail in this courtroom” unless the phone was turned over.

He continued: “If anybody believes I’m kidding, ask some of the folks that have been here for a while. You are all going.”

Security officers attempted to find the phone, but failed, while an officer was posted at the door.

After a brief recess, Judge Restaino returned to the bench and asked the defendant who had been standing before him when the phone rang — from the back of the room — and if he knew whose phone it was.

“No,” the defendant, Reginald Jones, said. “I was up here.”

Nonetheless, the judge scrapped plans to release Mr. Jones, set bail at $1,500 and sent him into custody. He was the first of 46 defendants to be sent into custody because of what could be called the case of the ringing cellphone.” The judge opined at length about his frustration over the phone.

“This troubles me more than any of you people can understand,” Judge Restaino said, adding: “This person, whoever he or she may be, doesn’t have a whole lot of concern. Let’s see how much concern they have when they are sitting in the back there with all the rest of you. Ultimately, when you go back there to be booked, you got to surrender what you got on you. One way or another we’re going to get our hands on something.”

One defendant, according to the report, told the judge, “This is not fair to the rest of us.” To which the judge replied, “I know it isn’t.”
Another told the judge, “This ain’t right.” The judge responded: “You’re right, it ain’t right. Ain’t right at all.”

The commission said that Judge Restaino acted “without any semblance of a lawful basis,” behaved like a “petty tyrant” and said his conduct “transcended poor judgment.”

Mr. Felder, the chairman — who is best known as a celebrity divorce lawyer — was the lone dissenter; he voted instead to censure the judge.