A non-attorney town court justice in St. Lawrence County should be admonished for holding court in his chambers between 2003 and 2010, as opposed to in his courtroom, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct has recommended. The commission held that the practice by Justice John W. Riordan in the town of Gouverneur ran counter to §4 of the Judiciary Law, which requires that “the sitting of every court within the state shall be public, and every citizen may freely attend the same.”
Read the commission’s recommendation and stipulation.
