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.

What's in a Name?

On the way back home from work (where I've apparently going to become a non-peon, and start to be able to crack heads), I was listening to the VPR news, in which they said that the Ethan Allen Homestead is going to close.

That's quite a shame. It was the home of uber-Vermonter Ethan Allen, who took Ft. Ticonderoga from the Brits. He retired to Burlington (where else) and lived in the Intervale. At first, I thought of him on this side of the pond, and enjoying his raid on "the other side of the pond" (which is how all Vermonters think of the Adirondacks). My self-identified Adirondackerness chafed at the thought.

Thinking more, though, the inhabitants of the Champlain Basin are much alike, as Bill McKibben noted in his short little book Wandering Home? Is there a common culture in the Basin? I'd say so. St. Albans is nothing more than an extension of the dreary North Country towns of northern NY (drive across Rt. 11 and see what I mean), albeit with a little Vermont flair and a tiny downtown (makes me think of Potsdam, if anywhere in the NC). The accent is the same.

I keep the name of my blog as such to take note of that, and I hope we can get together. That whole Adirondack seccesionist movement was a pretty radical idea, I bet Allen would approve...

A Journey on the Raquette River

Just got back from my 3-day weekend with my father. Apart from sore shoulders and a little incident of forgetting keys in a car, it was a great trip. It was hot and sunny the first day, and clouded over for the second. Then it rained for the third. I actually like to paddle in the rain (as long as there's a warm, dry place for me to hole up afterwards). The river gets very quiet, and the sound of mist/rain is all there is. Here are some shots from the trip (the remaining are at my flickr page):








Reflections












The Raquette River, in the rain.