Wayne County Justice resigns

Butler Town Court and Wolcott Village Court Justice Scott Stone (Wayne County) has resigned while under formal charges by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct for making statements at a village board meeting which conveyed disdain for certain laws and aspects of the legal process, a predisposition to presume defendants’ guilt and a personal annoyance with criminal defense attorneys. Judge Stone, who resigned from office effective May 30, 2019, has agreed never to seek or accept judicial office at any time in the future. The Commission accepted a stipulation to that effect signed by the judge and the Commission’s Administrator and closed its formal proceeding. Judge Stone was served with a Formal Written Complaint dated December 7, 2017, containing one charge. The charge alleged that on October 13, 2015, the judge made the following statements about the judicial system at a public meeting of the Wolcott Village Board in which concerns regarding crime were discussed:

- “To start with, the whole system, quite frankly, sucks.”

 -“If they are a minor, I’m never going to see them because they are going to family court.”

- “After five days, if the county decides not to do [a] preliminary hearing, I have to release them. It doesn’t matter, it’s not my choice. It’s a lawyers’ world.”

 -“Most of these individuals, if I had my way, you’d see them probably swinging outside the door, okay? That’s the way I was brought up.”

 -“But thanks to lawyers, everybody has rights.”

Judge Stone waived the statutory provision of confidentiality applicable to Commission proceedings, to the limited extent that the stipulation and Commission’s order accepting it and closing the case would be public. Judge Stone, who is not an attorney, has been a Justice of the Butler Town Court since 2006. He has been a Justice of the Wolcott Village Court, Wayne County, since 2019; prior to that he was an Associate Justice of the Wolcott Village Court since 2015. His current terms expire, respectively, on December 31, 2021, and March 31, 2023.

The stipulation and the Commission’s order closing the case can be found on the Commission’s website: www.cjc.ny.gov.

Statement by Commission Administrator

Commission Administrator Robert H. Tembeckjian made the following statement. “On or off the bench, a judge must promote public confidence in the rule of law and the integrity of the judiciary. Public remarks to the effect that the legal system ‘sucks,’ or that defendants should ‘swing,’ convey contempt for due process and evoke an ugly example of cruel injustice that has no place in modern society.”