Occupy Albany arrest case flares up in court

[AnotherMcIntosh]

14. Judge William Carter lacks such power and has been censored before for unprofessional conduct.

His history indicates that there are times when he is more like a street thug who applies his own rules than a learned member of the bench who follows the law.

As reported by the ABA, for example, during a November 2004 hearing in an Albany courtroom he invited a fistfight:

"Judge William A. Carter of Albany County, N.Y., allegedly removed his glasses, threw off his robe and approached an agitated pro se defendant, saying, "You want a piece of me?"

He has his own views as to how his courtroom should be run and what remedies should be applied.

Another "incident came four months later, when an Albany police officer complained that Carter failed to address a defendant's obscene gesture in the courtroom. Carter reportedly replied, "If you are so upset about it, why don’t you just thump the shit {out} of him outside the courthouse because I am not going to do anything about it."

http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2006/10/judge_you_want_.html

No one can accuse him of being a model for how a judge should conduct himself. But when New York's 10-member Commission on Judicial Conduct investigated the incidents, the commission's counsel recommended the judge's removal from the bench along with two members of the Commission. They merely censured him.

His threats to hold the prosecutor in contempt are rude but otherwise generally meaningless. No appellate court would uphold him on the issue.