Request for the NY Commission on Judicial Conduct to Investigate Judge Wiggins for Bias in his Decision on the Challenge to the Marriage Equality Act
The absurdly-named theocratic group New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms — whose Executive Director Reverend Jason J. McGuire says he belives that a gay person successfully can pray to Jesus and thereby become heterosexual, and that that is a constitutionally valid reason legally to prohibit same sex marriage — along with other theocratic plaintiffs brought a lawsuit seeking to have New York’s Marriage Equality Act declared null and void, and all of the same sex marriages entered into under it also declared annulled.
In a Decision signed November 18, 2011, Livingston County Acting Supreme Court Judge Robert B. Wiggins dismissed all but one of the Plaintiffs’ allegations. The one surviving allegation is legally dubious. Judge Wiggins’s written decision is chock full of unjudicial, unprofessional bias and political propaganda. Even if it turns out that he has properly decided on the one surviving allegation, the bias and political propaganda he wrote into his Decision constitutes conduct unbecoming an Acting Supreme Court Judge.
It is significant that Wiggins is an Acting Supreme Court Judge, because it is imaginable that he might want to do things to appeal to political gay-bashing Republicans and Tea Partiers in rural Livingston County such that they would nominate him for a full fourteen-year term on the Livingston County Supreme Court.
The Plaintiffs’ largely if not entirely bogus Complaint may be viewed here, Attorney General Schneiderman’s Response may be viewed here, and Judge Wiggins’s Decision shot through with unprofessional, non-judicial bias and political propaganda may be viewed here. A sober-minded and highly-intelligent legal assessment of the situation may be read here, on New York Law School Professor Arthur S. Leonard’s blog, always a “must read.”
What follows is the text of a letter I am sending to the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct, asking it to investigate Judge Wiggins. The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct’s site is here.
***
Whereas, the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct receives and reviews written complaints of misconduct against judges of the state unified court system;
And whereas, the types of complaints that may be investigated by the Commission include bias, prejudice, corruption, prohibited business or political activity and other misconduct on or off the bench;
I, Scott Rose, acting both as a New York State resident and as an investigative journalist for — and contributor to — the publication The New Civil Rights Movement (www.TheNewCivilRightsMovement.com), submit to the Commission the present Complaint regarding Acting Supreme Court Judge Robert B. Wiggins of the Supreme Court in Livingston County in the State of New York.
This Complaint involves Judge Wiggins’s “Decision and Order,†having the Index Number 807-2011 and dated November 18, 2011. The Decision regards a challenge to New York’s Marriage Equality Act.
The Verified Complaint that initiated the case lists as Plaintiffs 1) New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, an anti-gay organization of bullying theocrats, whose website states “As a Christian ministry, NYCF exists to influence legislation and legislators for the Lord Jesus Christâ€; 2) NYCF’s Executive Director, Reverend Jason J. McGuire; 3) NYCF’s Senior Lobbyist Reverend Duane R. Motley, and 4) Rabbi Nathan S. Leiter, another anti-gay, bullying theocrat who is Executive Director of Torah Jews for Decency.
Named as Defendants are 1) The New York State Senate; 2) The New York State Department of Health; and 3) Eric T. Schneiderman in his official capacity as The Attorney General of the State of New York.
Judge Wiggins’s Decision emanates bias.Â
In this case, Defendant Schneiderman had filed a Motion to Dismiss, as well as a Memorandum of Law in support of that motion. In his Decision, Judge Wiggins said apropos of Schneiderman’s Memorandum of Law that it “spews sanctimonious verbiage.†The question arises whether an unbiased, impartial judge would in a Decision write that a Defendant’s court document “spews sanctimonious verbiage.â€
An examination of the context of Judge Wiggins’s phrase “spews sanctimonious verbiage†solidifies an impression that in his Decision, Judge Wiggins included non-judicial, political propaganda indicative of bias. Where Judge Wiggins wrote that the State’s brief “spews sanctimonious verbiage,†he was emotionally expressing an opinion regarding the Plaintiffs’ allegation – (as made in the Plaintiffs’ Verified Complaint) — of a “corrupt legislative process†including “the Governor’s violation of the constitutionally mandated three-day review period before the Legislature votes on a bill by unjustifiably issuing a message of necessity.â€
Judge Wiggins concluded that Governor Cuomo’s handling of the message of necessity was entirely legal. That is to say, in his Decision, Judge Wiggins ultimately acknowledges that legally, the Plaintiffs’ allegation regarding Cuomo’s use of the message of necessity was without merit. Nonetheless, instead of organizing this section of his Decision around a legal analysis of why the Plaintiffs’ allegation regarding Cuomo’s use of the message of necessity was without merit, Judge Wiggins organized this section of his Decision around chastising Governor Cuomo over his use of the message of necessity. He did so, even though as a matter of law, a Governor’s message of necessity is not subject to judicial review.
Several aspects of this section of Judge Wiggins’s Decision suggest that Judge Wiggins might 1) personally engage in bullying non-acceptance of gay people; and/or that he might 2) in hopes of advancing his personal professional fortunes, not stop short of pandering – within the text of a Court Decision — to those that documentably do engage in bullying non-acceptance of gay people.
There is an appearance that Judge Wiggins — presently an ***Acting*** Supreme Court Judge — could be politicking, through this Decision document, in hopes of getting Livingston County conservatives to ***nominate*** him for a full fourteen year term as Supreme Court Judge in Livingston County.Â
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Continue to Part II.
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New York City-​based novelist and freelance writer Scott Rose’s LGBT-​interest by-​line has appeared on Advocate​.com, PoliticusUSA​.com, The New York Blade, Queerty​.com, Girlfriends and in numerous additional venues. Among his other interests are the arts, boating and yachting, wine and food, travel, poker and dogs. His “Mr. David Cooper’s Happy Suicide†is about a New York City advertising executive assigned to a condom account.
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Attorneys representing Donald Trump in the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s prosecution of the former president on what reportedly are seven categories of federal felonies have resigned from representing him, just hours after a grand jury indicted their client.
“Two lawyers who represented Donald Trump in the months before he was indicted on federal charges over his handling of classified documents quit working for him Friday morning,” CNBC reports.
“This morning we tendered our resignations as counsel to President Trump, and we will no longer represent him on either the indicted case or the January 6 investigation,” Trump attorneys Jim Trusty (photo) and John Rowley said in a joint statement, according to CNN’s Alayna Treene.
“The attorneys,” CNBC also reported, “did not explain in detail why they had resigned, other than to say that ‘this is a logical moment’ to do given his indictment Thursday in U.S. District Court in Miami.”
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, “Trump announces on Truth Social that Todd Blanche will be his criminal defense attorney in the Mar-a-Lago docs case with another firm yet to be named. Jim Trusty and John Rowley are out.”
This is far from the first time Trump’s lawyers have quit.
Less than one month ago, as Alternet reported, “Timothy Parlatore, an attorney for Donald Trump, made a major announcement on Wednesday, May 17: He is leaving the former president’s legal team.”
Trusty appeared on CNN just Thursday night, to defend Trump.
Watch video below or at this link.
CNN lets Trusty make unsubstantiated claims 5 times, lets him to make false claims about the Special Counsel, lets him call a warranted search a raid (tho does finally call him on talking about THAT but not when he got a target letter). https://t.co/YEoBYnLzRt
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) June 9, 2023
This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change.
News
‘Disgraced’ Trump-Appointed Florida Judge Initially Assigned to Oversee Ex-President’s Criminal Case: Report
A federal judge whose highly-controversial rulings favoring Donald Trump were derided by legal experts and judges on a higher court, has been initially assigned to the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s criminal case against the ex-president, who appointed her to the bench three years ago.
Judge Aileen Cannon, known for agreeing to Trump’s request by assigning a special master to review the entirety of federal government documents the FBI retrieved from Mar-a-Lago last summer during the execution of a search and seizure warrant will, at least for now, oversee the government’s case allegedly charging Donald Trump with seven different felony categories in its classified documents probe, according to ABC News.
“The summons sent to former President Donald Trump and his legal team late Thursday indicates that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon will be assigned to oversee his case, at least initially, according to sources briefed on the matter,” ABC News reports.
“Cannon’s apparent assignment would add yet another unprecedented wrinkle to a case involving the first federal charges against a former president: Trump appointed Cannon to the federal bench in 2019, meaning that, if Trump is ultimately convicted, she would be responsible for determining the sentence – which may include prison time – for the man who elevated her to the role.”
Cannon, agreeing to Trump’s request to appoint a special master last September, also halted the Dept. of Justice’s use of those materials, which included at least one hundred classified documents, in its criminal investigation into Trump.
Harvard University professor emeritus of constitutional law, Laurence Tribe, called Judge Cannon’s special master decision “utterly lawless,” and said: “She has disgraced her position as an Article III judge.”
ABC News notes that “Legal experts [had] accused Cannon of handing Trump a series of head-scratching victories over the course of those proceedings,” and added, “Cannon’s order was ultimately thrown out in its entirety by an 11th Circuit Court of appeals panel, which found she overstepped in exercising her jurisdiction in the probe.”
The 11th Circuit issued a scathing rebuke of Judge’ Cannon’s decision to appoint the special master. One week later, without explanation or reasoning, she overruled the special master’s decision and extended deadlines – decisions which favored Donald Trump.
Cannon is not the only judge whose name appears on the summons.
“In addition to Cannon, Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart’s name also appeared on the summons sent to Trump on Thursday, the sources said,” ABC adds. “Reinhart, who was sworn in as a magistrate judge in 2018, is also familiar with the proceedings against Trump: he signed off on the initial search warrant of Mar-a-Lago last year and later ruled to unseal the search affidavit – decisions that made him the target of antisemitic jabs on the internet.”
The New York Times in August of last year reported, “in a segment on Fox News, a host showed a manipulated photo that appeared to show Judge Reinhart seated on a plane with Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. [Jeffrey] Epstein’s companion who had been convicted last year of aiding Mr. Epstein in sexually abusing minors.”
Brian Kilmeade, the Fox News host, the following day tweeted: “Last night while subbing for Tucker Carlson, we showed you an image of Judge Bruce Reinhart w/ Ghislaine Maxwell that was sourced on screen to a meme pulled from Twitter & wasn’t real. This depiction never took place & we wanted to make clear that we were showing a meme in jest.”
The Times noted “the scrutiny of Judge Reinhart has also prompted the local authorities to step up security. His synagogue canceled a Friday night Shabbat service last week in response to multiple antisemitic threats, and the police in his neighborhood said officers had intensified patrols near his house.”
Professor of Law Joyce Vance, an NBC News/MSNBC contributor and former U.S. Attorney responded to the news of Cannon’s assignment. Pointing to an earlier case as precedent, Vance says: “This is persuasive authority that Judge Cannon must step aside if the case falls to her as a permanent assignment. Her court & certainly the 11th [Circuit] won’t tolerate the damage it would do to their credibility if she failed to voluntarily recuse.”
News
Trump Lawyers Blindsided by Existence of Bombshell Recording – ‘They Don’t Know How to Defend This’: Maggie Haberman
CNN on Friday morning obtained a bombshell transcript of a recording in which former President Donald Trump boasts of retaining “secret” military information that he never declassified while he was president.
Appearing on CNN shortly after this news broke, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman revealed that the former president’s team was essentially blindsided by this recording’s existence.
“I don’t think they quite know how to defend this… from what we have heard,” she said. “They were… startled by the existence of this tape. This tape was something that they learned existed when this aide to Trump testified. The prosecutors were already in possession of this tape. They didn’t get it from the aide, although it appears the aide had a copy when it was subpoenaed later, but this is has been described to us by multiple sources… as a really problematic piece of evidence for Trump.”
Haberman predicted that the recording’s existence would not change the Trump legal team’s overall defense strategy, however.
READ MORE: ‘He’s just not that smart’: Trump buried by Morning Joe for handing investigators all they need
“I think they are going to stick that their line: ‘He says things, he didn’t mean it a certain way,'” she said. “I am sure they can come up with all kinds of explanations for why he used the language he used. But it’s on tape.”
Trump is due in court in Miami next week to face seven felony counts related to his handling of top-secret government documents.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Image via Shutterstock
Trump Lawyers in Classified Docs Case Quit Hours After Indictment: Report
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Contrast Between House GOP and Dems Grows as Republican Asks ‘Why the Hell’ Are Her Colleagues Pushing Extremist Bills
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‘Disgraced’ Trump-Appointed Florida Judge Initially Assigned to Oversee Ex-President’s Criminal Case: Report
Trump Lawyers in Classified Docs Case Quit Hours After Indictment: Report
‘Disgraced’ Trump-Appointed Florida Judge Initially Assigned to Oversee Ex-President’s Criminal Case: Report
Trump Lawyers Blindsided by Existence of Bombshell Recording – ‘They Don’t Know How to Defend This’: Maggie Haberman
Trump Indicted by Grand Jury: Reports
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