Talk Bronx New York

Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson plans to seek a stay that would stop a parade of cons from flooding the courts with motions to get their old cases cleared.

  Thousands of misdemeanor convictions in the Bronx are in doubt after an appeals court ruled that the merger of the borough’s Criminal and Supreme courts was unconstitutional.

Prosecutors immediately vowed to appeal Tuesday’s decision by the Appellate Division, the state’s second-highest court.

“Today’s decision … will likely lead to chaos, at least in the short term,” Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson said.

He planned to seek a stay that would stop a parade of cons from flooding the courts with motions to get their old cases cleared.

His office also was working to adjourn pending cases until there was a final resolution.

He called the timing of the decision bizarre since another challenge to the merger is already before the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court.

Then-Chief Judge Judith Kaye merged the Bronx Criminal and Supreme courts in 2004, hoping to streamline clogged courtrooms.

Represented by Legal Aid, Edgar Correa - a Bronx man sentenced to 15 days after a second-degree harassment conviction - challenged the move.

The Appellate Division said that only the state Legislature - not Kaye - had the authority to merge the courts.

That meant the judge who sentenced Correa didn’t actually have the right to do so and the conviction was thrown out.

One appellate judge, in a dissenting opinion, suggested an avalanche could follow. Read more..

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Nearly every level of the Bronx criminal justice system was racing on Wednesday to deal with the ramifications of an appellate court decision that declared the 2004 merger of the borough’s Criminal Court and Supreme Court unconstitutional.

Lawyers for the State Office of Court Administration filed for a stay of the decision. The Bronx district attorney’s office was working on the appeal of the ruling, which came in a criminal case it prosecuted.

Administrative judges moved quickly to transfer 10,000 misdemeanor cases and 8,000 unindicted felonies from Supreme Court to Criminal Court, where such cases were heard before the merger. In addition, 26 judges who had been working in Supreme Court were reassigned back to Criminal Court.

It all made for a hectic day, said Judge Efrain Alvarado, the top administrative judge for criminal matters in the Bronx. “I think it has gone very well considering there was no notice.”

The cause of all the tumult was a decision by the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, issued on Tuesday, ruling the merger of the two courts unconstitutional. That threw into question tens of thousands of misdemeanor convictions over the last five years. Read more..

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Gov. David Paterson insisted the $750 million in scheduled payments to schools and local governments that will be withheld tomorrow are not a “cut” or an “impoundment.”

“The state has run out of money,” Paterson declared. “…We think we are well within the bounds of legal authority.”

NYSUT is reviewing its legal options.

Paterson defended his actions in a Plattsburgh Press-Republican OpEd.

One in five legislators have staffers who do double-duty as their campaign treasurers - an arrangement good government advocates warn could present a conflict of interest.

“Albany’s entrenched pay-to-play culture doesn’t get much more naked than this,” the DN says.

The relationship between the governor and the Legislature is so bad that Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson is refusing to attend formal events with Paterson.

Tired of living on the 32-30 knife’s edge, Senate Democrats are negotiating to make Republicans committee chairs in hopes of improving relations with the minority.

The MTA unveils its new austerity budget this morning, and drastic service cuts are expected.

Paterson said his “hands are tied” when it comes to the MTA because the state has no money.

Andrea Peyser thinks Eliot Spitzer, “whose cast-iron ego will outlast the cockroaches in a nuclear war,” has a good shot at success if he tried for a 2010 comeback.

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum was once so close to ex-state Comptroller Alan Hevesi that she hired three people close to him, including one of his sons.

Chris Smith marvels at the “indomitability” of New York’s elected officials, writing: “They refuse to go away, even when the law, the voters, or sanity says they should.

The state’s system of juvenile prisons is so riddled with problems the agency overseeing them wants all but the most dangerous of youthful offenders to stay out of them.

The Post likes the idea of letting AG Andrew Cuomo have subpoena power to go after corrupt state lawmakers.

Cindy Adams is standing by her story about Paterson saying he wanted to piss “on” the Legislature.

It’s D-Day for the Kingsbridge Armory project, and so far things are not looking good.

Jordan Moss says Bronx officials can “proudly cross the finish line or meekly toss the keys back to Mayor Bloomberg.” Read more..

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Sonia Sotomayor has a Wikipedia page, so in just a few minutes you can know more about Obama’s pick to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court than we do. You probably already know that she is a homegirl, born in the South Bronx.

You may get a glimpse of the conservative case against her at National Review’s Bench Memos, where Ed Whelan tells us some of Sotomayor’s decisions on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit have been reviewed by the Supreme Court, and that her nomination to her first big job by the first George Bush is no guarantee against right wing attack, because her nomination was engineered by the hated arch-liberal Pat Moynihan. Read more..

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