Andreatta: State must act on Judge Leticia Astacio

David Andreatta | Democrat and Chronicle

An open letter to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct:

Dear Commissioners,

They say the wheels of justice turn slowly, but the crickets out of the 11 of you as to the fate of City Court Judge Leticia Astacio has all of Rochester wondering whether you’re turtles.

Astacio was charged with drunken driving in February 2016, convicted last summer, and on Thursday was found to have violated the conditions of her sentence for a second time.

The first time was eight months ago, when she admitted she tried to start her car after drinking. This time, she failed to take a court-ordered urine test in a timely fashion.

You have more than enough grist to conclude whether Astacio should ever take the bench again or is deserving or some other punishment or none at all.

In terms of discipline, the law gives you four options: slap her on the wrist with a letter of admonishment; slap her on both wrists with a censure; force her into a retirement citing physical or mental impairment preventing her from working, or kick her off the bench.

Pick one and move on because the people of Rochester have had enough of the train wreck. Ask Commissioner John Falk. He’s a partner at a local law firm and a town justice in the suburb of Brighton. He’ll tell you people here can’t stop shaking their heads.

What they can’t grasp, in addition to Astacio’s erratic behavior, is how she continues to receive her salary of $173,700.

By law, only the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, can strip a judge of her pay. That can only happen if the court has already suspended the judge from office, and the court can do that only if the judge is charged with a felony or crime of “moral turpitude.”

Since none of that has happened, right now Astacio is getting paid to sit in a jail cell. In fact, she’s been paid to do nothing for eight months, since her two supervising judges took away her cases and barred her from non-public areas of the courthouse.

They couldn’t trust her to be a judge. And why should they, when she can’t act like one?

A month ago, she took off to Thailand and hadn't planned to return until August before the judge overseeing her case issued a warrant for her arrest to find out why she didn't take the urine test he ordered.

She instructed her lawyer to tell inquiring minds that she was living with monks in the mountains as photos of her bopping around Bangkok were being posted to Instagram.

The people paid her to do that, too. Her salary might not seem like a lot to you. Judging by your biographies, you’re all jurists or attorneys with stakes in law firms with names like Mayflower, Washington, Adams and Jefferson PLLC.

But her salary is triple the metro Rochester median household income of $54,000.

You owe the people an explanation for your inaction, although they’d settle for action. No one wants you to rush to judgment. A simple trot will do.

We know the law prohibits you from even acknowledging an open investigation. But let’s not be coy. You’re investigating Astacio. She said so herself in court.

This column has explained that your investigations historically move at a glacial pace. Indeed, the five decisions you’ve rendered this year to date show the time between the judges’ wrongdoing and your determinations ranged from 18 months to seven years.

This column has also explained that you don’t remove drunken-driving judges lightly. Of the 27 judges your commission has ever disciplined for excessive use of alcohol, just two were disrobed.

That’s because you consider factors such as alcoholism, which appears to be at play in Astacio’s case, and try to give judges a chance to rehabilitate themselves. Those are good things.

But the difference between nearly every judge who was ever the subject of a commission probe and Astacio is that those other judges continued to function and fulfill their public duties while they were under investigation.

The most recent local example was state Supreme Court Justice James Piampiano, who was censured in March for his behavior during the 2015 murder trial of Charles Tan. In the interim, he handled matrimonial and civil cases.

Astacio is behind bars. Her bosses, who know her better than you, don’t want her standing in judgment of anyone. She’s being paid to do nothing. You can’t let this go on.

Unlike Astacio, you’re not getting paid. Being a commissioner is an unpaid appointment. But like her, you don’t appear to be doing much of anything, either.

Act.

Sincerely,

Everyone in Rochester

David Andreatta is a Democrat and Chronicle columnist. He can be reached at dandreatta@gannett.com.