Why terrible, soft-on-crime judges plague New York courts

Inflicting let-’em-loose judges like Janice Robinson on New York City is only one foul result of the Empire State’s judge-picking system: It feeds plenty of corruption, too.But let’s start with how she spins the revolving doors of the criminal justice system like a crooked roulette wheel, freeing dangerous, violent criminals as soon as they’re arraigned.

Her egregious rulings include sending two alleged attempted murderers strutting out of court with no bail set at all; she has never gone along with a prosecutor’s recommendations for bail, or to hold a perp on remand.And she’s not a rare bad apple: She’s the all-too-typical fruit of the poisoned tree of the state’s rotten court system.City courts, in particular, are the last vestige of Tammany-style bossism, with judges overwhelmingly selected not on any kind of merit, but by the needs of the local Democratic leaders who control the party judicial-screening panels: If they put you on the ballot, you win.This system doesn’t just favor insiders — it is designed and run by insiders for insiders; insurgent candidates rarely bother running, as it’s virtually impossible to win.Judge Robinson, for one, is the niece of Nick Perry, the longtime assemblyman from East Flatbush who served as the majority whip for two decades before stepping down to become the US Ambassador to Jamaica.Once elected, lower-level Civil Court judges like Janice Robinson can get bumped up to fill vacancies on the Criminal Court bench — where she sits now — which is normally a mayor-appointed position subject to a higher degree of scrutiny.An unqualified nepo-baby like Robinson — who got a “not approved” rating from the city Bar Association — would have trouble suckering even a badly politicized body like Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary into tapping her for the criminal bench.

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