BILL NUMBER: S8243

SPONSOR: RYAN
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the uniform justice court act and the town law, in
relation to requiring certain town and village justices be admitted to
practice law in the state

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

This bill establishes a requirement that justices in high-volume town
and village courts be licensed as attorneys.

 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

  1. Section 1 amends Section 105 of the uniform justice court act to
require that a town or village justice selected for a term office in the
fifty highest volume caseloads in town and village courts in the state
as determined by OCA and DCJS be admitted to practice law in the state
of New York.
  2. Section 2 amends Section 31 of the town law to reflect the same
              

requirements.
  3. Section 3 is the effective date.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

Justice Courts are town and village courts. These small local courts are
sometimes referred to as magistrate courts. Justice courts have juris-
diction over both civil and criminal matters including smalls claim;
landlord tenant issues, including evictions; prosecution of misdemea-
nors; arraignments preliminary hearings for felonies; and traffic
infractions. Despite the crucial role that justice courts play in the
state legal system, they are underfunded and have little oversight.
There are disparities across the state in the quality of facilities and
in the salaries the courts can offer. There is also no requirement that
a justice court judge be a licensed attorney.

At present, New York is one of only eight states to allow non-lawyer
judges to hand down jail sentences for misdemeanors without the right to
a new trial before a lawyer-judge. The other seven are Arizona, Montana,
Colorado, Texas, Wyoming, Nevada, and South Carolina. And Montana only
permits the practice in rural and or sparsely populated counties.

In the context of criminal proceedings and eviction cases, the lack of
attorney judges raises some due process issues. Most, if not all, crimi-
nal cases involve a deprivation of liberty or property. Eviction cases,
by their very nature are a deprivation of property. It is a well-establ-
ished legal principle that such cases be taken very seriously, and due
care and thought be given to the decision making process. Criminal
defendants have a right to be represented by an attorney, and a 1976
Supreme Court case, North v. Russell, held that just as criminal defend-
ants have a right to be represented by an attorney, they also have a due
process right to appear before an attorney judge. While North v. Russell
clearly established this right, it left it up to the states to decide
how they want to protect it.

Many smaller localities lack the resources and docket to attract an
attorney to serve as the town or village justice. This bill imposes a
requirement only on those localities that have the largest number of
cases in the state, so as to maximize the number of defendants who
appear before lawyer-judges without putting an undue burden on smaller
localities.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

To be determined.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.