A judge who tells a city agency, “I am a Supreme Court justice,” should understand exactly how that sounds to the people waiting in line.
Justice Katherine A. Levine invoked her judicial position repeatedly while dealing with three sanitation summonses. She cited her trial schedule as a reason she could not spend hours waiting for a hearing. She used her official court email account. And, in one submission, she reminded the agency that she vacated default judgments “in the name of equity and justice”—while asking it to reopen defaults in her own case. The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct found that her conduct created the appearance she was seeking special treatment.
The tickets began at $50 each. After missed responses and hearings, the penalties grew; the New York Post reported that Levine ultimately paid the fines. She accepted an admonition, expressed remorse and had no prior disciplinary history. Those facts deserve to be included. They do not erase the central problem: a judge appeared to use the prestige of her office to seek an accommodation unavailable to ordinary New Yorkers.
I have written about this broader problem before. In “A Judiciary Long Overdue for Its Own Judgment,” I argued that a system in which judges largely police judges must make its findings visible and its accountability meaningful. In “When Judges Forget Their Limits,” I wrote about the damage judicial overreach can inflict on people whose rights and freedom are at stake. My recent columns on courtroom influence and the appointment of lucrative fiduciary roles in Brooklyn raised a related question: what happens to public confidence when the power of the bench appears to serve those who hold it?
The Levine matter is far smaller in consequence than cases involving a person’s liberty or a court appointment worth substantial money. But public trust is also tested in small encounters—with a ticket, a missed deadline, a request to bend the process. The commission itself recognized the danger: repeated references to judicial office can look like an attempt to get a different set of rules.
That is why this story matters beyond sanitation enforcement. The public expects judges to decide cases fairly and to follow the law. It also expects them to respect the ordinary processes they impose on everyone else. A busy calendar may explain frustration. It does not make a judge’s title relevant to a trash ticket.
The commission issued an admonition, and Levine accepted it. That is accountability in this case. But the lesson reaches every courthouse: authority does not place a judge above the rules. It makes the obligation to follow them more visible.
