ALBANY, N.Y. (CN) — A small town judge who whipped out a gun on a Black litigant in his courtroom will likely remain kicked off the bench, as the state’s high court seemed unpersuaded to overturn his removal.
Judge Robert Putorti, who had served as the justice for Whitehouse Town since 2014, was told to step down last year following an investigation into 2015 incident in which he quickly took out and pointed a handgun at a litigant, then boasted about the incident in news articles and in front of other judges and court personnel.
During Tuesday’s hearing, the five judges on the Court of Appeals who heard the arguments seemed inclined to uphold the removal, noting the judge’s behavior after he found out he was under investigation and the heightened standards members of the judiciary face.
“He’s a judge, we’re supposed to be looking at him as a judge,” said Judge Shirley Troutman. “We have to conduct ourselves in a certain manner, and in a manner that does not negatively impact on the administration of justice and our ability to fulfill our responsibilities.”
The complaint stems from an incident in late 2015, in which Putorti pulled a gun on a Black man who had rushed past the “stop line” in front of the bench. The man had been sentenced by Putorti over a knife assault on two people.
Initially the only account of the incident was an informal interview by Putorti’s cousin, a journalism student at Hofstra University, during which Putorti described whipping out the firearm on a “large Black man.” However, in 2018 Putorti also bragged about the altercation to other judges during a conversation about courthouse security, and had described the man as “built like a football player.”
Putorti was counseled by his supervising judge and told not to never display his gun in court unless there was a threat of deadly force. However, he also was found to have acted inappropriately by holding fundraisers for himself and the Whitehall Elks Lodge in 2019 and 2020 without properly identifying himself as a judge.
In 2020, the Commission on Judicial Conduct voted 10 to 1 to remove Putorti from the bench for engaging in “highly inappropriate conduct,” “a serious lack of judgment when he boasted about brandishing his gun in the courtroom,” and “lack of attention to his ethical obligations when he engaged in improper fundraising.”
According to the order, the justice had also brandished his gun at somebody who had approached him and his grandfather while they tried to retrieve a stolen car, as well as an incident in 2015 during which police officers in Virginia reported he carried a firearm into a convenience store at three o’clock in the morning.
“The courthouse is where threats or acts of gun violence are meant to be resolved, not generated,” Commission Administrator Robert Tembeckjian said at the time. “To then brag about it repeatedly with irrelevant racial remarks is utterly indefensible and inimical to the role of a judge.”
The sole dissenter, Ronald Rosenberg, found the decision “unjust, unwarranted, and overly harsh,” suggesting Putorti be admonished or censured instead.
Following his removal, the state’s Court of Appeals suspended Putorti without pay. His term was set to expire in 2025.
On Tuesday, Tembeckjian urged the Court of Appeals to keep Putorti off the bench, saying he “did something that no judge should do” and noting “the prejudice of the administration of justice” from the incident warranted removal.
Much of the hearing was spent on Putorti’s retelling of the incident, in particular referring to the litigant as a “large Black man” in the context of fearing for his safety and the reason for pulling the gun.
“What does the ‘Black’ add to the threat?” Chief Judge Rowan Wilson asked of Putorti's attorney. “He didn’t describe what clothing [the litigant] was wearing, because it was irrelevant to the threat.”
Attorney Nathaniel Riley, who represented Putorti, conceded the litigant’s race meant nothing to the threat and that his client merely was describing the incident to others, even if he exaggerated the man’s size. Riley also said Putorti only boasted about exercising his Second Amendment rights, not pointing a gun at a Black man, and that there was no mention of race in the initial Hofstra article.
That did not seem to sway Troutman, though, who along with Wilson is one of two Black members of the high court. “It is only after it’s published, he’s proud of the article, then race starts getting inserted and reinserted,” she countered, critiquing later that mentioning the litigant’s race and exaggerating his size could be “evidence of a stereotype.”
Riley recommended no more than censure, noting the judge had cooperated with the investigation, had no prior disciplinary history, entered into a stipulation of facts that shortened the process, and was otherwise fully compliant.
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