A Bronx judge ridiculed a defense attorney and criticized his arguments in front of a jury by using loaded words such as “clown,” “silly,” “outrageous” and “comedy,” prompting a unanimous appeals panel yesterday to overturn a robbery conviction and to direct that on remand the case be tried before a different judge.
A unanimous panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, found that the “trial court’s pervasive denigration of defendant’s counsel, in front of the jury, deprived the defendant of a fair trial.”
