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Injustice is a regular part of the criminal justice system in AmeriKKKa, but this is far beyond anything we’ve ever heard before.
Justice Robert J. Putorti served as a magistrate for Whitehall Town and Village Court in upstate New York, and according to a Yahoo! News report, his time on the bench has come to an unceremonious end. Putorti was removed from his seat permanently by the New York State Court of Appeals after the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct investigated a 2015 incident where he pointed a loaded firearm at a Black defendant during a hearing.
You read that correctly. A judge pointed a gun at a Black defendant in the middle of a trial!
According to an independent review of the situation, Putorti claimed to have drawn his weapon and trained it on the unnamed man because he approached the bench too quickly and crossed a stopping line marked on the courtroom floor. When recounting the incident to his colleagues, Putorti allegedly went out of his way to boastfully indicate that the man was Black. Moreover, Putorti described the defendant as a 6-foot-9 man who was “built like a football player.” However, the man in question is really only 6-feet and weighs 165 pounds. The Court of Appeals took this wild exaggeration as an indication of bigotry saying that Putorti “exploited a classic and common racist trope that Black men are inherently threatening or dangerous, exhibiting bias or, at least, implicit bias.”
Via Yahoo!:
“It is indefensible and inimical to the role of a judge to brandish a loaded weapon in court, without provocation or justification, then brag about it repeatedly with irrelevant racial remarks,” said Robert H. Tembeckjian, administrator for the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct, in a statement. “The Court’s ruling today makes clear that there is no place on the bench for one who behaves this way.”
This judge makes the opps in the streets look like Mr. Rogers. He should be arrested and put in prison.
