Baby_Nutz

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A judge in New York state lost his job after taking 46 people into custody after they all refused to admit whose mobile phone rang while court was in session, court sources said Wednesday.

Judge Robert Restaino was presiding over family court in Niagara Falls, New York on March 11, 2005 when a portable phone rang in the public seating area.

The judge demanded that the owner of the phone make himself known, and when no one did he ordered 46 people present taken into custody.

Most got out on bond but 14 people who were unable wound up in county jail.

"In an egregious and unprecedented abuse of judicial power, respondent committed 46 defendants into police custody in a bizarre, unsuccessful effort to discover the owner of a ringing cell phone in the courtroom," the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct said Tuesday.

Restaino's "conduct, which resulted in the unjustified detention of the defendants for several hours and the incarceration of 14 defendants in the County Jail, caused irreparable damage to public confidence in the fair and proper administration of justice in his court."

Despite a "previously unblemished record on the bench and the testimony as to his character and reputation," the panel concluded that his "behavior was such a gross deviation from the proper role of a judge that it warrants the sanction of removal."

*** "If you love somebody, let them go. If they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were." ***

*** Yippi! My 1000st post on Dec 30 2007 09:40AM ***
*** Yippi! My 1500st post on Feb 20 2008 12:18AM ***