When Nassau County District Court Judge David Gross  was arrested in one of the most bizarre and ridiculous schemes I’ve ever heard of, it was hard to believe.  Last Friday, he  was sentenced to 33 months, the bottom of the guidelines.

When you’re a judge committing crimes, you need to say something at sentence.  This is what David Gross had to say:

“I stand before [the court] a broken man, full of remorse, guilt, shame and regret,” said Mr. Gross, adding that law was his life-long passion.

He said a turbulent life led him to befriend individuals involved in organized crime.

“My despair and frustration led me to seek distraction in a fantasy life,” the ex-judge said.

What’s he talking about?  What “turbulent life” drove him to “seek distraction in a fantasy life?”  No word on that in the story, but talk like this disturbs me well beyond the incredibly stupid crime that he committed. 

David Gross was an elected judge.  Ironically, United States District Court Judge Arthur Spatt, who was about to sentence Gross, had this to say:

The office of district judge, Judge Spatt said, “was one that I myself never attained, even though I tried three times. The position of a judge in our society is a prized achievement and brings with it the responsibility of total integrity and honesty.”

Spatt ran for the job three times.  He lost.  Gross ran for the job once.  He won.  Not a good showing for the voters of Nassau County, one of the most politically-bound places on earth.  If the prevailing party put Mickey Mouse on the ballot, we’d be calling “him” your honor.  It’s that simple.

But how does a person who is so psychologically fragile, so badly messed up, get to wear the black robe?  Do we need to put judicial candidates through some serious psych testing before they get to lick envelopes in the party HQ, and earn their way onto the ballot?

I never had a case before David Gross, but I met him and talked to him socially while he was on the bench.  He seemed like a good guy.  There were no overt signs of such deep desperation that he would be unable to resist the compulsion to engage in criminal conduct in his “fantasy life.”  What other judges have a “fantasy life” to overcome their “despair and desperation,” and just how sick and warped are these fantasies. 

These judges are given the power and duty to make decisions about the lives of other human beings.  The responsibility is huge.  The obligation to do so appropriately is huge.  Does this case suggest that the types of people who are seeking the position need to come under far more scrutiny by far less political people before they can be trusted to sit in judgment of others?  I believe it does. 

That David Gross made it onto the bench is an indictment of a system, not just a man.  There are no excuses that make this okay.  We cannot have judges living out their fantasy lives in black robes, and we cannot have a system that is incapable of distinguishing the good and competent people from the warped and criminal ones.  It’s just not good enough.