SUPREME COURT Justice Mark C. Dillon was admonished yesterday for commending a jury, lauding prosecutors and chastising a defense attorney after a 1997 murder trial, one week before his unsuccessful election bid in Westchester County.
The ruling by New York’s Commission on Judicial Conduct was rare because it reprimanded the judge for “partisan” conduct during a previous judgeship. After the judge failed to win election to a Westchester County Court seat, to which he had been appointed in 1997 by Governor Pataki, he returned to the practice of law until he was elected to the Supreme Court in 2000.
