From killer prosecutor to criminal court judge to sex-crazed maniac, James Gibbons has taken an unusual career path. Via the Daily News :
A cleavage-crazed criminal court judge – who fathered a son with a young Legal Aid lawyer – quit after officials found a massive porn stash on his work computer, sources said Thursday.
Disgraced Manhattan jurist James Gibbons, a whip-smart ex-prosecutor who once convicted rapists and killers, fired off a terse resignation letter last week after the nasty cache was uncovered.
“There was a lot of porn on his computer – all young women,” an investigator told the Daily News. “Lots of crotch and cleavage shots.”
Whip-smart? Well that’s an interesting choice of words.
There’s nothing wrong with a judge who, in his spare time, happens to enjoy looking at sexually provocative images. They aren’t neutered before taking the bench. But it’s a job that requires a bit of discretion, and one would expect them to exercise that discretion while using their court-provided computers.
Consider being on trial before Gibbons and, as you rise to your feet to voice a critical objection, you see him staring intently at the computer before him on the bench. “Objection, Your Honor!”
Huh?
I said Objection.
What, I’m sorry, objection? Objection to what?
The question that was just asked, it was outrageous judge. Totally outrageous!
What question?
Weren’t you listening judge? I saw you staring at your computer.
Well, um, uh, humm, I missed it. I was doing some, um, uh, research into a fascinating legal issue up here.
There was this little bit of drool coming from the side of your mouth, Your Honor.
Yeah, well, that happens when I read a particularly interesting decision.
Oh. I see.
Curious that it’s always the uptight looking guys who seem to get off on the kinky stuff, perhaps to compensate for a gap in their adolescence. Of course, Elie Mystal at Above the Law thinks that there’s nothing wrong with Gibbons enjoying a bit of afternoon virtual delight under his robe, if only he was smart enough to keep the internal hard drive clean.
Sorry, I’m just not so quick to crucify a man for having porn on his computer. Maybe he should have to step down for being a freaking idiot. Why do people insist on keeping porn on their work computers? The external hard drive was invented for porn, much like the internet itself.
But aside from giant stupidity, I don’t have an inherent problem with a judge bringing some porn into his chambers. It’s better than hiring a prostitute, it’s better than sexually harassing counsel or criminal defendants, it’s better than cheating on your cancer stricken wife.
There are a whole host of things it’s better than, and yet that’s not exactly the criteria one expects a judge to fill. Would it be so wrong to have higher aspirations for the judiciary, like to keep their porn at home?
I hate to be such a stick in the mud about such things, but I have this wild expectation that guys who assume the position of sitting in judgment of others, deciding their fate and tossing them in jail, might demonstrate the force of will to control their sexual urges long enough to perform their job woody-less. Is that so wrong?
In preparation of this post, I went to the court’s website to get Judge Gibbons’ bio, and found that it had already been deleted. He was disappeared awfully quick. If only something more useful was accomplished by the system as quickly as they terminated his judicial existence.
But regardless, we know that he was a one-time “whip-smart” prosecutor, and that’s usually enough of a background to leave us with a sense of comfort. After all, there are plenty of other one-time prosecutors who would like to wear a robe. Now that there’s a seat empty on the bench, they have the chance to fill it. I would just recommend they wipe it off first. You never know how sticky it could be.
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Remind me not to rely on Elie Mystal for my morality fix.
I agree that Judges who give the holier than thou sentences, absolutely better be. But, beyond your made up example, there is nothing that has been presented so far that suggests the porn interfered with his job. Good riddance as a moral example to the community, but not much more to care about here.
Meanie. If he were a whip-smart former public defender, would your post have been different?
On the other hand, I don’t think former public defenders generally suffer from stunted adolescence.
Let’s face it, there’s something pathological about an aggressive prosecutor. The zeal to inflict pain on others hints at underlying issues.
There’s no doubt in my mind that one of the most effective “reforms” that could be made in the justice system is to bar prosecutors from ever being judges. You make your choice at the beginning of your career. Want to be on the side of power? Fine, but you will never be a judge.
Not that it’s ever going to happen. And not that prosecutors can NEVER be decent judges. But as a group they do not belong on the bench.
I saw the headline late last night and figured it might inspire a Simple Justice post.
Thanks for posting the pic. Now the story is complete for me.
I don’t know, I sympathize. I imagine it is really boring to be a judge when you’re not on the bench. Lord knows they don’t read much, I’ve never seen a television in chambers. So other than wandering around bothering other judges, what’s a guy to do? Masturbation is most certainly boredom’s greatest enemy.
On a sidenote, that seems to be precisely what they mean when they say “egg head,” no?
What’s the alternative? Defense attorneys, or at least the kind who aspire to and reach the bench, seem to not make very good judges. They’re either so afraid of being perceived as biased or so excited to finally wield some institutional power that they are often a terror to deal with. Civil guys can come around to it, but it takes few years of screwing it up royally. There are certainly some ex-prosecutors who are awful judges and never really got out of the mindset of being prosecutors, but I think like the defense attorneys who suddenly show a side we never knew existed, there are a lot of ex-prosecutor judges who long perceived the unfair advantages given to them and are more than happy to try to right the ship a bit. The absolute best is the prosecutor who comes to the bench with a grudge against her former office. They are just fun to watch.
Just porn on his computer? He’s a piker. Here in Oklahoma, we’ve had a judge who was using a penis pump during a capital murder trial.
Of course, for a judge, I suspect there are very things more erotic than getting to pronounce a death sentence.
Again, not that I think this is ever going to happen, but after excluding prosecutors, the most important thing would be to exclude anyone who actually wants to be a judge. Only those who have neither sided with power nor secretly want to will make good judges.
Judges should be drafted from the ranks of CDL’s.
Even that, of course would not be perfect. But it would be far better than what we have.
Ah, that should read “very few things.”
Not quite enough coffee this morning, it seems.
I’m not sure how you intend to weed out people who have just secretly wanted to side with power. Would Senator McCarthy be any help there?
And while Lee is offering mitigation, I say we also give the guy credit for not possessing child porn like the judge did in the county where Lee and I practice. Google ‘Judge Ronald C. Kline’ to read the details.
When it comes to people who take on the ability to sentence other people, I’m a pretty middle of the road critic. I couldn’t care less if the guy wants to oogle porn, but I expect him to focus on being a judge when he’s on the clock. It’s not all that much to ask of someone who believes that he’s got the moral authority to put others in jail, whether former prosecutor, public defender or otherwise.
I didn’t come to OC until 06, so I’ve only heard of Kline. Was his on the work computer or at home?
Both.
Well, I said it wouldn’t be perfect, but just generally, you want someone who has a genuine aversion to the job. If at any point it appears to be a pretended aversion, like Calvin Coolidge pretending having to be courted for the Republican presidential nomination, that should be disqualifying.
Not that it’s ever going to happen, and not to pick on Cool Cal.
I don’t know how Benjamin Cardozo ever got to be a judge. It’s like a miracle happened. Or maybe I’m just deluded, and he wasn’t what he seemed to be.
But what he seemed to be was awesome.