Second Judge Cites 'Schmucks!' Book to Contest Ethics Charges
A New York judge has lost a bid to block ethics proceedings against him based on a claim that the chair of the ethics commission showed racial bias in a book he co-wrote with comedian Jackie Mason.
U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis denied the judge’s request for a preliminary injunction yesterday, saying state courts should handle the matter, the New York Law Journal reports.
Judge Duane Hart of Queens had contended that chairman Raoul Felder showed hostility to blacks and affirmative action in the book, Schmucks!: Our Favorite Fakes, Frauds, Lowlifes, Liars, the Armed and Dangerous, and Good Guys Gone Bad. Felder, who heads the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct, said he withdrew from Hart’s proceedings for personal reasons before Hart filed the motion for an injunction.
Hart’s motion was the second time a judge cited Felder’s book to contest ethics proceedings, said commission counsel Robert Tembeckjian.
Hart is accused of falsely claiming a lawyer committed extortion by filing a grievance against him, failing to disclose a personal relationship with a defense lawyer who appeared before him, and trying to help his mother evade security lines at a Queens court, the legal newspaper says.
Hart was censured in 2005 for holding a litigant in contempt after his lawyer insisted that a parking lot incident involving the judge and the litigant be placed on the record.
Felder found himself at the center of controversy over the humorous book when the judicial conduct commission issued a no-confidence vote in him last spring, calling the book’s content “crude, biased, vulgar and otherwise demeaning.” One phrase the commission pointed to as unacceptable was “anytime you hear the word ‘allegedly,’ you can bet it’s true.” In another passage, the co-authors opined that “nothing is more insidious than affirmative action.”
Felder told the New York Law Journal in an interview that his views of Hart have “nothing to do with race.”
“Judge Hart is Judge Hart’s problem,” he said. “It has nothing to do with me.”
