Local Paper Covers Local Justice

Following up on my previous post on unqualified Village Justices issuing illegal decisions, the Saranac Lake based Adirondack Daily Enterprise has an example of a judge who doesn't know how the court system works:

After sentencing a Saranac Lake man to jail time over a traffic infraction, a prosecutor and public defender have accused a village justice of overstepping his authority in village court.

...

Herrmann reportedly said he’d start collecting maximum fines in cases such as these as way to defray costs for the village.

Bringing village finances as a consideration in criminal justice cases violates important principles, public defender Virginia Morrow said.

“He wanted to raise money for the village police department,” Morrow said in an interview. “But we have a separation of powers. We don’t have village justices raising money just as we don’t have village trustees writing tickets.”

Also, the judge decided that decorum isn't necessary for the courtroom, and had a temper tantrum:

Ken Pickreign, Amell’s grandfather, who appeared with him several times in village court, corroborated Delehanty and Morrow’s account of Herrmann losing his temper and yelling at attorneys.

“He was out of control by his screaming and hollering and throwing paperwork around and slamming it on the desk,” Pickreign said of Herrmann. “The judge was doing all of the hollering. The lawyers conducted themselves in an orderly way.”

My day-after take on the local justices has softened somewhat. You can't be justifiably angry at the ignorant. But coverage of all breaches of the judicial process should be reported. After all, you don't want a bunch of "activist judges" subverting the law of the land, right? Judges apply the law, they don't make it.