Judge Booted from Bench for Bizarrely Pulling Loaded Gun on Defendant in Court
A judge who served a small town in upstate New York has been kicked off the bench over a 2015 incident in which he pulled a loaded gun on a defendant he claimed was threatening him. Robert J. Putorti had been the judge…
A judge who served a small town in upstate New York has been kicked off the bench over a 2015 incident in which he pulled a loaded gun on a defendant he claimed was threatening him.
Robert J. Putorti had been the judge in Whitehall Town and Village Court since 2014. Whitehall is about 80 miles north of Albany.
The decision by the state Court of Appeals on Thursday said Putorti, who is white, claimed he had been threatened by a “big black man.”
Putorti “exploited a classic and common racist trope that Black men are inherently threatening or dangerous, exhibiting bias or, at least, implicit bias,” the Court of Appeals ruling said.
“It is indefensible and inimical to the role of a judge to brandish a loaded weapon in Court, without provocation or justification, then brag about it repeatedly with irrelevant racial remarks,” Robert H. Tembeckjian, administrator for the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct, said in a statement, according to