A Parent Misconduct Leads To Removal Of Non-Attorney Justice
A press release from the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct summarizes an order of removal
The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct has determined that J. Marshall Ayres, a Justice of the Conklin Town Court, Broome County, should be removed for lending the prestige of his judicial office to get his daughter’s traffic ticket dismissed and for trying to influence a County Court Judge to uphold restitution orders he had issued in a separate, unrelated case.
In 2015, after learning that his adult daughter had been issued a traffic ticket for using a cell phone while driving, Judge Ayres made two back-channel attempts to have the case transferred to a different judge because he believed the assigned judge could not handle the case fairly. When those attempts failed, Judge Ayres, who is not an attorney, attended a pre-trial conference with his daughter and acted as her advocate, attempted to intimidate the prosecutor and invoked his judicial position while arguing that the ticket should be dismissed.
In its determination, the Commission stated that Judge Ayres violated ethical standards when he intervened in his daughter’s case and that “viewed in their totality,” the judge’s actions, “coupled with [his] continuing insistence that his actions were appropriate, ‘demonstrate[] an unacceptable degree of insensitivity tothe demands of judicial ethics.’” The Commission was not persuaded by the judge’s repeated insistence that he was “acting as a parent” and not as a judge.
The Commission also found that, in a case unrelated to his daughter, Judge Ayres sent eight unauthorized letters – five of which were ex parte – to the County Court Judge who was handling the appeal of restitution orders Judge Ayres had issued. The Commission stated that Judge Ayres’ conduct was “highly improper” and that he “abandoned his role as a neutral arbiter and became an advocate, repeatedly telling the court that the appeal lacked ‘merit’ and should be dismissed and advancing factual and legal arguments in support of his claims while making biased, discourteous and undignified statements about the defendant and his attorney.”
In determining that Judge Ayres should be removed from office, the Commission stated that even at the oral argument, Judge Ayres “still lack[ed] an understanding of why his conduct was improper.” The Commission noted that the judge’s “failure to recognize the impropriety of his actions and to modify his behavior when ethical concerns were brought to his attention exacerbates the underlying misconduct.” The Commission concluded that “in our view, [Judge Ayres’] multiple efforts to influence the disposition of his daughter’s ticket, coupled with the additional misconduct and the aggravating factors presented here, demonstrate that he is ‘not fit for judicial office.’”
The purported concern over fairness had to do with litigation brought by the judge’s former court clerk, who was the spouse of the judge assigned to the cell phone case.
This action was commenced by plaintiff, a former court clerk of the Town Court of Conklin, seeking damages for violations of Civil Service Law § 75-b (The Whistleblower Statute), slander and libel, mental and emotional trauma, anguish and humiliation, as well as punitive damages resulting from her termination.
By way of this motion, defendants have collectively moved for dismissal of this action on the grounds of documentary evidence (CPLR § 3211 [a] [1]), violation of the applicable statute of limitations (CPLR § 3211 [a][5]), failure to state a cause of action (CPLR § 3211 [a] [7]), lack of personal jurisdiction (CPLR § 3211 [a][8]), failure to state any culpable conduct by the Town of Conklin, that the statements alleged are not defamatory, and that defendants are protected by an absolute and/or qualified privilege…
In January 2007, plaintiff was hired as court clerk for the Conklin Town Court by then Town Justice, J. Michael Bishop. On January 1, 2009, Justice J. Marshall Ayres took office as Justice for the Conklin Town Court and plaintiff remained as Court Clerk.
Suffice it to say that disagreements arose between plaintiff and Justice Ayres regarding his handling of court cases the details of which are not pertinent to the issues before this court. Plaintiff states that she reported Justice Ayres to the Town Supervisor, as well as the Office of Court Administration, both of which allegedly told her to deal directly with Justice Ayres.
On September 24th, 2009, plaintiff alleges that she was talking with the Town Supervisor when Justice Ayres approached her and informed her that she was fired.
The dismissal of the case was affirmed. (Mike Frisch)