This blog entry was written by John Caher, the court system’s senior advisor for strategic and technical communications. It discusses his recent interview with the Hon. Albert M. Rosenblatt, President of The Historical Society of the New York Courts, and the Hon. Michael Obus, Administrative Judge for Criminal Matters in New York County. Judges Rosenblatt and Obus were interviewed by Caher for an “Amici” podcast (the court system maintains a self-produced podcast library at http://www.nycourts.gov/admin/amici/index.shtml) on the upcoming program, “Bad Apples in the Big Apple: Notorious Criminal Trials in New York.”
New York tends to do everything in a big way (often to excess), including organized crime, and its bad apples are among the rottenest in American history. At an event July 28 at the New York City Bar Association, Judge Rosenblatt will introduce and Judge Obus will moderate a unique program on the history of organized crime cases, featuring a panel discussion among trial lawyers. I was fortunate to get both judges on the line for an Amici podcast interview—and if the July 28 program is as interesting and entertaining as the judges, the audience is in for a real treat.
Here are a couple excerpts:
Judge Rosenblatt: “When you think about ethnicity, we cover the whole spectrum, and when you look at some of the baddies in the 30’s and 40’s, immediately you come to names like Meyer Lansky and Arnold Rothstein and Benny Siegel and Dutch Schultz and Legs Diamond. I think most of those guys are Jewish, and it probably reflects early immigration practices—people coming at the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, most of whom go on to live good, orderly lives, and some of whom seek the opposite direction. So, sure, all the ethnics had their turn in that department.”
Judge Obus: “My experience with those kinds of cases has been more as an administrator, because, while people may not really focus on this, it requires a certain preparation to handle cases like that. When we are told that they’re going to arrest 30 or 40 people to take down an investigation, and they come from different gangs, and they’re all going to be brought in for arraignment, we have to be careful about not even having them housed in the same detention pens, and sometimes not even being arraigned in the same courtrooms because of concerns about warring factions, not only among the people who’ve been arrested, but the people who are coming to court as their friends and family.”
The program will begin with a historical presentation at 6:30 p.m. followed by a panel discussion featuring: Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Chief Assistant D.A. in Manhattan; Daniel Gitner, a partner at Lankler Siffert & Wohl and former federal prosecutor; Laurie Korenbaum, an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District; and Harlan Protass, a partner at Clayman & Rosenberg and criminal defense attorney.
Listen to the entire podcast with Judge Rosenblatt and Judge Obus: http://bit.ly/bad-apples-podcast
Register for the event Bad Apples in the Big Apple: Notorious Criminal Trials in New York on Thursday, July 28th at 6:30 PM at the New York City Bar Association: http://bit.ly/bad-apples-7-28-16