Toodles, Judge Poodle

Toodles, Judge Poodle
The New York Post - EDITORIAL -  January 21, 2012

Speaking of out-of-control judges, it’s au revoir for state Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman — the leftist lapdog we dubbed Judge Poodle for her slavish devotion to the city’s bleeding-heart brigade. Goodman is calling it quits after a nearly 30-year career on the bench. She calls it retirement. We would say she’s merely formalizing a partnership she’s long maintained with — speaking of dogs — the legal beagles of the loony left.  It seems that Goodman is founding a law firm with former NYCLU chief Norman Siegel and two other leftist gadflies.  Her chamber doors were always open to such activists: She literally held court in her living room for the Legal Aid Society one night in 1998 to block a set of rent-law reforms from taking effect — the very essence of a judge legislating from the bench.

Here’s some of her greatest hits:

Free Rides: In 1998, she tried to undo the city’s workfare reforms by allowing welfare recipients to essentially call in sick. In 2001, at the behest of the group Housing Works, she held the city in contempt and ordered it to pay fines for not finding shelter quickly enough for five homeless AIDS patients — never mind that the city had done so speedily for more than 8,000 patients already that year. More recently, in 2010, she tossed even the most modest reforms of rent regulations that have strangled the city’s real-estate market and kept prices artificially low.

Crime: The NYPD led a two-year investigation of the Sound Factory, a notorious West Side nightclub and drug den where 20 patrons overdosed and two died. Cops raided it in 2003, but Goodman laughed off their evidence and ordered the club re-opened.  The party ended in 2004 only after the feds busted in on what they called a “stash house” for ecstasy and crystal meth.  Most recently, Goodman was caught displaying an official NYPD placard in her car so she could park illegally at expired meters near her apartment.  Respect for the law? Not Judge Poodle. Doggone good thing she’s leaving.