One Thing You Can’t Say as a Judge
A New Jersey judge stepped down from his job due to a comment he said in court. Philip Maenza called a couple ‘tomatoes’ and the couple saw it as an Italian insult. Maenza claims he was referring to someone else in the courtroom and was only using the tomato comment as an analogy about divorce. According to New Jersey law there are a few ways litigants can seek to remove a judge or a judge can remove himself/herself from a case. A few reasons are because the judge is related to one of the parties, the judge has given an opinion which is offensive and more. In most cases, judges are allowed to determine themselves regarding a specific situation with bias. In Maenza’s case he chose to step down to avoid further questioning about his comment. “It is more vital to maintain the public confidence in our system of justice than for this judge to sit on this case,” he added. Read the rest of the article online to see other aspects that factor in a judge’s opinion.