The head of the New York Police Department has taken the unusual step of publicly rebuking a judge for helping a man wanted in a violent robbery elude arrest in her courtroom. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called on the Office of Court Administration to punish Judge Laura Blackburne, and police unions said she should resign. "This is outrageous conduct by any measure and beyond the pale for a sitting jurist," Kelly said in a statement Thursday. Office of Court Administration spokesman David Bookstaver would not comment. The courts were closed Friday, and telephone calls to the judge’s home went unanswered.
The controversy erupted Thursday when Derek Sterling was appearing before the judge in a hearing on drug charges, and a police detective arrived and notified the court that he planned to arrest Sterling in the robbery case once the drug hearing was over. While the detective waited in the hallway, Blackburne indicated she was upset because he had arrived without an arrest warrant. She also alleged that he tried to set a trap by claiming he was there only to question Sterling. "I’m not trying to keep you from being arrested," the judge told Sterling, according to a court transcript. "I’m trying to keep you from being arrested today in my courtroom based on obvious misrepresentations on the part of the detective." She ordered Sterling to return to a halfway house for recovering drug addicts and directed a court officer to escort him out a rear door. Sterling was arrested about 12 hours later.
Police said Friday that it is common for detectives to arrest suspects after they appear for other cases, and that no warrant was necessary. Critics said Blackburne broke the law by interfering with an investigation. It was not the first controversy surrounding Blackburne, 66. In a previous post as head of the city housing authority, Blackburne spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for office furnishings — including a $3,000 pink leather couch — and for business trips, drawing city and federal investigations that led to her resignation in 1992. She later had a brief stint as an NAACP lawyer before running unopposed in 1995 for a 10-year term as a judge. She won, despite being rated unqualified by the Queens Bar Association. At a 2000 stolen property trial, Blackburne settled a dispute over whether a police witness could remain in the courtroom by closing the court to all spectators. "The public part of this trial is over," she said. An appeals court ordered a new trial, saying the judge committed a "manifest error." A veteran defense attorney, Marvin Kornberg, called some of the criticism unfair. Blackburne "has a reputation of being one of the fairest judges in Queens County," Kornberg said. "I hope what’s alleged here won’t cause her to be removed." |