JUDGE OUT OF B'KLYN ARENA WAR
By RICH CALDER - The New York Post
January 16, 2008 -- A Brooklyn federal judge has removed himself from hearing an appeal on a lawsuit opposing the borough's $4 billion Atlantic Yards project, after admitting in court that he once responded favorably to the controversial plan through a promotional mailer.
Judge Edward Korman was replaced last week on the three-member panel hearing an appeal of a lower-court decision that rejected a suit to block the state's use of eminent domain to acquire private land for developer Bruce Ratner's 22-acre project.
The plan would bring an NBA arena for Ratner's Nets, who would move there from New Jersey, and 16 skyscrapers stretching from Downtown Brooklyn to Prospect Heights.
Project opponents said they believe the mailer was a glossy flier sent out to about 300,000 homes a couple of years ago. Those who sent back a card attached reading, "Yes! I Support Atlantic Yards and the Jobs, Housing, and Open Space it Will Create," received vouchers for two free tickets to a Nets game.
Korman did not return a phone message, but Matthew Brinckerhoff, the opponents' lawyer, said, "I have no reason to doubt" Korman would have voted fairly.
We add our kudos to Judge Korman.
ReplyDeleteIt is, indeed, refreshing to find a judge federal or state, with such ethical sensitivity.
Under the Code of Judicial Conduct, judges have an ethical duty to recuse themselves in a proceeding in which their "impartiality might reasonably be questioned."
Our own documented judicial horror stories, set forth on our website, www.judgewatch.org, support the view that such ethical mandate is honored more in the breach than its observance.
A judge has a further duty to disclose, sua sponte, facts bearing on his or her impartiality.
Sad to say, all too often such facts are unknown to the litigants, as well as those representing them, and not disclosed by the sitting judge.
Additionally, our front-line litigation experience shows that there are all too many judges who knowingly conceal such facts, precisely in order to sit on the case and thereby "fix" its outcome, predictably in favor of the party whose interest coincides with that of the judge.
That kind of judicial dishonesty is, precisely, why the Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. came into being. See our website, www.judgewatch.org, for a goldmine of information on the subject.
Doris L. Sassower, President
Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc.
one good deed doesn't make a just man - Judge Korman as a Jew should be ashamed of himself for what he has done with others to the Holocaust Survivors on the Swiss Bank Cases!
ReplyDeletethis guy Korman is a mutt
ReplyDeletemy father was a survivor and you should know that he was very upset with what Judge Korman did in the Swiss case, Korman has no heart
ReplyDeleteI too have no respect for Judge Korman as a result of his actions in the Swiss matters.
ReplyDelete