Font Size: 
N.Y. Judge to Step Down at Year's End After Admitting to Misconduct Charge
Admitted count was one of 13 accusing judge of being rude, intemperate and demeaning to litigants, lawyers, court personnel
New York Law Journal
October 01, 2007
Bronx Family Court Judge Marian R. Shelton, after vigorously contesting charges of misconduct, cut a deal Thursday with the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct under which she admitted a single violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct.
In a stipulation approved by the commission Thursday, Shelton acknowledged that she had violated the code's injunction that judges be "patient, dignified and courteous" when she ordered the wife of a court clerk in her Bronx courtroom handcuffed and jailed over a weekend.
The judge was allowed to remain on the bench until her term ends Dec. 31 without any sanction. However, she stated that she did not intend to seek or accept judicial office or a position as a judicial hearing officer at any time in the future.
The admitted count was one of 13 proffered by the commission accusing Shelton of being rude, intemperate and demeaning in her treatment of litigants, lawyers and court personnel, including two judges. Pursuant to the stipulation, the remaining 12 counts were withdrawn though they could be reinstated if Shelton again seeks to become a judge or violates the terms of the stipulation. However, the commission does not have jurisdiction over hearing officers and could not reinstate the charges if she accepted such a position.
As elaborated in the stipulation, the episode that led Shelton to find Michele Nusser in contempt of court started when Ms. Nusser motioned to her husband, Ben Nusser, who was working in Shelton's courtroom at 6:45 p.m. after all the litigants had left.
Shelton then ordered Ms. Nusser to leave, and Nusser called the judge an "asshole." The judge jailed Ms. Nusser, but freed the woman a short time later after she had apologized.
Shelton, who was appointed to the Family Court in July 1998 by then-Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, had previously disclosed that she would not seek reappointment.
The commission would have lost jurisdiction over Shelton once her term expired. But it could not have completed a hearing before year's end given the notice and other requirements in its rules governing its hearings.
According to the commission's Web site, Shelton's case was the 19th in which it has agreed to forgo pressing charges against a departing judge in exchange for an agreement to never return to the bench and, in some instances, admissions.
Had the case proceeded to a hearing, the commission's charges -- and Shelton's defense -- would have been publicly aired since Shelton was the ninth judge in the commission's history to have waived the confidentiality of the process.
Until acknowledging the conduct concerning Ms. Nusser, Shelton had blasted the commission's case and the commission itself on several fronts.
In her answer, Shelton accused the commission of doing the bidding of Dennis Quirk, the combative president of the 1,500-member New York Court Officers Association who she claimed had a grudge against her because she had "refused to accede" to his demands that he control the Family Court's courtrooms.
In a statement given to the press when she waived confidentiality, Shelton denounced the commission proceedings as "surreal" and referred to the commission's selection of the referee to hear her case as "the kangaroo's latest hop."
Shelton's husband, Saul Cohen, a former partner at Proskauer Rose and general counsel of Lehman Brothers, also financed a group that took out two full-page ads in The New York Times criticizing both the commission and its chairman, Raoul Felder.
Dean Yuzek, Shelton's lawyer, declined to elaborate on why Shelton had decided to accept a stipulation after so broadly condemning the commission's charges and its proceedings against her.
Yuzek, of Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll & Bertolotti, said he could not comment beyond a statement he had issued Thursday. In that statement, he said all the facts admitted by Shelton had previously been admitted in her answer or "while admitted, require context supplied in the answer."
Yuzek also noted that the stipulation allows Shelton to finish her term without the imposition of a sanction, and suggested that the commission's administrator and counsel, Robert H. Tembeckjian, should be asked why the commission agreed to a stipulation in which she only admitted conduct to one of 13 counts.
Tembeckjian said the "admission and stipulation were appropriate" particularly because "there was not enough time to finish the hearing and the commission would have lost jurisdiction anyway."
Both sides agreed that they would not make any comments which "appear" to be at odds with any of the terms of the stipulation, including Shelton's admission.
Among the charges the commission agreed to withdraw but could reinstate if Shelton again seeks a judgeship are charges that she:
• Mocked a legal aid attorney's accent and said "where is she from" and how can she be an attorney "when you cannot understand what she is saying."
• Treated two other Bronx Family Court judges rudely, one in a dispute over who was entitled to have an attorney present in her courtroom and the other over who was responsible for a case.
• Refused a directive from the Bronx Family Court's supervising judge to continue hearing newly commenced cases in the intake part after one of her court officers was assigned to another courtroom.
• Told a litigant before her that his lawyer "has mental health issues."
• Said to a litigant from the Caribbean who had multicolored bands in his hair that he looked "bizarre ... like someone I would not give my pet mouse to."
