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June 17, 2004 Law And Disorder—Queens Supreme Court Judge Transferredby Patrick McCarthy
A Queens judge once again found herself at the center of a media storm amid allegations that she helped a robbery suspect elude detectives. Police officials voiced their anger and demanded an investigation into the conduct of state Supreme Court Judge Laura Blackburne, after she allowed robbery suspect Derek Sterling to leave her courtroom, preventing detectives from executing his arrest. Sterling was a suspect in an attack, which occurred last month when a group of men beat and robbed an individual in South Ozone Park. Sterling, a convicted drug dealer, was in Blackburne’s courtroom for a follow-up on his drug treatment program. Detectives were nearby when the judge made arrangements for Sterling to leave by having a court officer escort him out a rear door and to an elevator used exclusively by judges. According to courtroom transcripts, the 66-year-old judge, who was previously head of the New York City Housing Authority, was heard telling Sterling, “I’m not trying to keep you from being arrested, I’m trying to keep you from being arrested today in my courtroom based on obvious misrepresentations on the part of the detective.” Although detectives were unable to immediately locate Sterling, he was arrested at 1 a.m. on Friday, by detectives from the 106th Precinct, without incident. Immediately following the Sterling incident, Blackburne, a graduate of St. John’s University School of Law and wife of Elmer Blackburne, a former Democratic leader in southeast Queens, faced harsh criticism from Mayor Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, as well as police rank and file. Kelly released a statement which called her conduct, “Outrageous by any measure and beyond the pale for a sitting jurist. At a minimum, her actions merit investigation for judicial misconduct.” Through his press spokesperson, Jordan Barowitz, the mayor commented, “I thought what she did was an outrage and she should be ashamed, but that’s for the courts and the review process to decide,” he said. “She deliberately tried to keep that person from getting arrested and to get that person back out on the streets where he can commit more crimes.” On Monday, Blackburne was reassigned from the criminal case side of the state Supreme Court to its civil side. David Bookstaver, spokesman for the state Office of Court Administration, said the reassignment followed a discussion with Blackburne, the administrative judge in Queens and the state’s chief administrative judge. Robert Tembeckjian, administrator of the Judicial Conduct Commission, said a complaint about Blackburne had been received and the commission was expected to discuss the matter at a meeting scheduled for June 17th. This is not the first time Blackburne is on the hot seat. In 2002, she dismissed charges against William Hodges after he allegedly shot Police Officer David Gonzalez in the right leg, femur and buttocks with the officer’s own revolver. Blackburne’s reason for allowing Hodges to go free was because he did not receive a speedy trial. When she was head of the city Housing Authority, she used taxpayer money to buy a $3,000 pink leather sofa for her office. Through a statement, Detectives’ Endowment Association President Michael Palladino and Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch called for the immediate removal of Blackburne from the bench. “Judge Blackburne’s long career has been one of misjudgments, which continued yesterday with an act that is clearly criminal obstruction of governmental administration,” Lynch said. “From her extravagant pink leather sofa to her wasteful spending of taxpayers’ dollars for her own comfort and pleasure, she has consistently demonstrated, in an embarrassingly public way, that the only judgment she possesses is bad judgment.” Lynch said that he holds the judge responsible for putting a cop shooter back on the streets only to be arrested again for assaulting a police officer and driving while intoxicated. “She endangered the people of New York by allowing a suspected violent felon to evade detectives who were there to arrest him. This is one judge who should not be sitting in judgment of anything.” Palladino said that the judge’s actions were shocking but not surprising given her long history of anti-police behavior. “NYC detectives had the opportunity to arrest an individual
accused of a violent felony in a relatively risk-free, controlled environment,”
he said. “Judge Blackburne turned the controlled situation into a potentially
dangerous one to the public, the police and the suspect himself by tipping off
the individual about the impending arrest and allowing him to elude the police
by directing the perpetrator out of the courthouse through a non-public back exit.” |
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