STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Today's column reviews significant law-related developments on Staten Island in 2012:
On Jan. 2, 15 year-old Amanda Cummings succumbed to injuries sustained when she jumped in front of a bus a week earlier. Investigators found no evidence to support claims that she had been driven to suicide by bullies.
Still, cruel postings on a Facebook tribute to Amanda propelled the tragedy into an international citation for the urgency of cracking down on cyberbullying.
Unfortunately, several factors make this a daunting task. They include the difficulty in identifying and obtaining jurisdiction over perpetrators, the U.S. Supreme Court's expansive definition of constitutionally protected speech, and multiple laws that insulate Internet service providers, website owners, and others operating online forums from liability for statements made by third parties who use their services.
On Jan. 31, Fausat Ogunbayo initiated a $900-trillion dollar lawsuit against the city for allegedly having placed her children in foster care illegally. The absurd monetary demand aside, her complaint does raise interesting questions about the applicability of child abuse and neglect laws to parents suffering from mental illness.
A Staten Island Family Court judge had originally found Ogunbayo to be mentally ill and her children, then 12 and 10 years old, "at risk of harm" because of her failure to seek treatment.
Subsequently, however, a mid-level appellate court reversed that finding, holding that mental illness, by itself, does not support a finding of child neglect, and noting that Ogunbayo's children were physically fit, current in their medical examinations and vaccinations, and attending school regularly.
Even if the ruling is correct on these particular facts, the court's blanket assertion about the legal implications of a parent's mental illness is troubling.
Suppose, for instance, that a floridly psychotic single mother is the sole caretaker of a 6-month-old child. The mere fact that the infant might be physically OK for the moment does not lessen the continuing immediacy of the threat posed by the mother's mental state.
Surely, the child protective service need not wait for such a child to be harmed before it can lawfully intervene.
On Feb. 27, Staten Island lost former Supreme Court Justice Thomas R. Sullivan. An accomplished trial attorney, he served two terms as Staten Island's district attorney before being elected to the state Supreme Court in 1982.
Four years later, Gov. Mario Cuomo appointed him to the Appellate Division, Second Department, where, for 15 years, he impressed appellate lawyers with his ability to cut to the heart of complex issues.
Tom Sullivan, however, was much more than his impressive professional r?sum?. He was a community treasure, a truly revered man who will long be remembered for his wisdom, wit, integrity, charm, delightful storytelling skills and, in this age of skepticism, his unshakable Catholic faith.
?For the second year in a row, Brian Levine, the senior administrative law judge at the Traffic Violations Bureau on Staten Island, had the highest conviction rate by far in the state. Levine isn't a real judge and he doesn't preside in a real court.
In fact, the town justice in New York's tiniest hamlet has far more power than Levine, including the power to jail motorists for offenses for which Levine can only fine them.
Levine is nothing more than a bureaucrat working for an agency whose primary purpose is to raise money for the state. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that a 2007 report by the New York State Bar Association found that the TVB is replete "with due-process abuses and institution-wide bias against motorists."
Levine's 87.1-percent conviction rate in 2011, as reported by the Advance last September, simply cannot be reconciled with the legal requirement that a motorist's guilt be proven by "clear and convincing evidence."
If he were a real judge, he would have been removed from office long ago.
?Last year saw the restoration of yellow school bus service for all middle-school students on Staten Island, the handiwork of Assemblyman Michael Cusick and state Sen. Andrew Lanza.
Despite the Department of Education's shifting rationales for kicking the kids off the buses, the two veteran lawmakers never took their eyes off the ball. In the end, it was their deftly crafted legislation and brilliant strategic maneuvering that brought the arduous, two-year battle to a successful conclusion.
?The NYPD's stop-and-frisk procedures came under fire in 2012 from the New York Civil Liberties Union and several politicians, including North Shore Councilwoman Debi Rose, who claimed that blacks and Hispanics are being unfairly and disproportionately targeted.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended his department, pointing out that over 8,000 weapons, including 819 guns, were seized citywide during 2011 from such encounters.
The right of police to stop and frisk an individual under delineated circumstances was overwhelmingly upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio.
And while statistics do, indeed, establish that blacks and Hispanics are stopped and frisked in disproportionate numbers, the statistics also show that they commit violent crimes in similarly disproportionate numbers.
Besides, any person aggrieved by an unlawful stop-and-frisk has civil remedies available to him.
The bottom line here? Leave the police alone.
?
?
[Daniel Leddy's column appears each Tuesday on the Advance Editorial Page. His e-mail address is JudgeLeddy@si.rr.com.]
Source: http://www.silive.com/opinion/danielleddy/index.ssf/2013/01/advance_legal_columnist_the_me.html
staten island chuck dr jekyll and mr hyde edwin jackson punksatony phil 2012 groundhog day groundhog phil pee wee herman
