A weblog about the politics and affairs of the old and glorious City of Albany, New York, USA. Articles written and disseminated from Albany's beautiful and historic South End by Daniel Van Riper. If you wish to make a response, have anything to add or would like to make an empty threat, please contact me.
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August 19, 2010
Jerry’s Judge And The Stupid Trial
Albany City Court judge Helena Heath-Roland convincingly demonstrates that she is not emotionally qualified to sit in judgment of others
* * UPDATE * * Surrogate Judge Kate Doyle's re-election campaign website has been found, along with plenty of photos.
* * UPDATE #2 * *It's now official, Helena Heath-Roland is unqualified to be a judge.
Judges are politicians like any other. Most are chosen by political bosses who in turn are influenced by big money privateers. The chosen judges that need to be elected are then presented to the public and we are told to rubber stamp their selection with our votes. Only very rarely does an individual attain a judgeship without the approval of the back room boys and girls, much less often than with other kinds of politicians.
Yet we citizens are often told that judges, despite their enormous arbitrary power over the public, are supposed to be above public criticism. Any complaint by a court participant about obviously biased decisions from the bench, or about downright childish behavior by the judge, are usually dismissed out of hand as the loser sputtering Sour Grapes. This is generally why you and I are at the mercy of judges, but meanwhile the political bosses and big money privateers are almost never held accountable by their judges.
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Helena Heath-Roland Poses For The Cameras with Jerry Jennings And John Egan On MLK Day In My Neighborhood 2009 |
Albany City Court Judge Helena Heath-Roland wants to move up the ladder to the Albany County Surrogate Court. She was not elected to the City Court judgeship, mind you. She was appointed by her main benefactor, City of Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings, to fill out the remainder of a ten year term. Backed by Jennings’ crumbling but still powerful political machine and backed by Jennings’ money, she is attempting to replace an incumbent judge at the Democratic Primary this coming September.
Her intended victim is incumbant Albany County Surrogate Court Judge Kate Doyle, who has served in that position for some twenty years without any serious complaint. I’ve asked everyone I can think of and no one has anything bad to say about Judge Doyle. Nothing of any importance, anyway. The impression I’ve gotten is that she has been low key and competent, serving and doing her job well.
Except, perhaps, for one small thing. The folks who are concerned with LGBT issues tell me that they are more than satisfied with Judge Doyle’s handling of gay adoption cases, that is, the adoption of children by gay couples. As we all know, there are certain people out there who are rabidly opposed to such things. Perhaps this is the matter buried at the heart of this attempted electoral coup detat.
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Chairman Dan McCoy |
What else could it be? Albany County Democratic Chairman Dan McCoy has given his approval to the Primary challenge of Judge Doyle. This is totally unheard of, the County Democratic Party turning against one of their own solid veteran incumbent judges. Dan McCoy likes to play ball with Jerry Jennings, but it seems awfully odd that he wants to allow one of Jennings’ loyal followers to occupy a County position.
Backed by Jennings and apparently preferred by McCoy, Heath-Roland has been campaign spending like crazy since before the beginning of summer. According to news reports she had burned through her campaign chest by the end of July. Clearly she has been expecting to receive a lot more cash real fast to finance the crucial month and a half leading up to the September 14 Democratic Primary. Again, that expected fountain of ready cash would have to be Jerry Jennings.
Strange to say, Heath-Roland and her backers may succeed in unseating the incumbent. Judge Kate Doyle may be a steady, competent judge but she is clearly not much of a politician. I mean, she’s running for reelection and she doesn’t even have a campaign website. [See * * UPDATE * * at the top of the page.] I couldn’t even find her photo. In contrast Heath-Roland is, among other online presences, the queen of Facebook.
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Hackett Public School Auditorium This Past MLK Day |
This past January, Helena Heath-Roland marched into Hackett Middle School on Delaware Avenue and demanded special attention. This was before the start of the City of Albany’s annual Martin Luther King celebration put on by our very talented public middle school kids. The program that day in the Hackett auditorium included lots of really entertaining singing and dancing by the kids which did a great job of making the speeches and invocations by their elders tolerable.
Before the program started that afternoon we had a free lunch served by public school volunteers. Since I don’t like standing in long lines I didn’t get any lunch for myself, but I understand there was plenty for all and it was pretty good. Certainly folks considered it worth the wait. Instead I walked along the lunch line greeting and chatting with folks I know, after all this was a community social occasion.
Along with public school kids, parents and regular folks waiting patiently in line were plenty of politicians. Naturally. In fact the place was lousy with elected officials. They ranged from Congressman Paul Tonko down to Albany Common Council members, enough of whom were present for a quorum.
And right down at the bottom of the political totem pole we had City and County judges. I eventually found The Wife in the line chattering away with Albany City Court Judge Tom Keefe and Albany County Family Court Judge Margaret Walsh. (The Wife has known Judge Keefe since they were both college students.) I didn’t want to interrupt, so I moved on.
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City Court Judge Tom Keefe (With State Family Court Judge Karen Burstein); Albany Family Court Judge Margaret Walsh |
A few moments after I left, a public school administrator lady who was more or less in charge of the program (I don’t have her name) came up to the trio and did interrupt. With polite deference she told Judge Keefe and Judge Walsh that they could, if they wished, jump to the head of the line and be served so that they didn’t have to wait for lunch.
The two judges were, to put it mildly, taken aback. What was this all about?
It seems that Helena Heath-Roland, arriving a bit late, took one look at that long line and demanded to see “the person in charge.” (“With an attitude” according to one account. “Nose way up” was another. There were lots of witnesses.) She made it clear to all concerned that she was a busy person and had no time to stand in line, she needed to be served immediately.
Imagine being a public school administrator confronted by this City Court judge demanding extraordinary privileges. What could she do? If she had said I’m sorry, I can’t make an exception for you, perhaps if she forgets to pay a parking ticket this judge will throw her in jail and laugh in her face. Naturally the public school administrator took the path of least resistance. Be honest, wouldn’t you?
And Heath-Roland, having secured a special privilege by browbeating one of her imagined social inferiors, decided to show her generosity by inviting her “colleagues” to join her as she la de dahed to the front of the line. Or more likely she wanted the two of them to owe her a favor. The two judges declined of course, according to The Wife they were both quite appalled.
Heath-Roland did indeed receive her free lunch promptly ahead of everyone else, but here’s the funny thing. Naturally she didn’t want to eat all by herself, so she ended up waiting for her two fellow judges to collect lunch so she could sit with them.
The Wife ended up sitting across from Heath-Roland for a good twenty minutes or so. Since the other two judges did not seem inclined to include Heath-Roland in their conversation, The Wife ended up chatting with her. Like it or not, Heath-Roland was forced to get to know The Wife. Keep that in mind as I tell you about The Stupid Trial.
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Helena Heath-Roland (Center) In A Typical Pose |
First, a little background. I rent out apartments that I own in my neighborhood, been doing so for more than two decades. Most of the tenants I’ve rented to have been reasonable people, but inevitably a certain number have been jerks and idiots. Now and then one of these jerks tries to scam me or rip me off. Dealing with these sleazebags has certainly been a learning experience.
Over the years I’ve gotten fairly good at spotting the obvious jerks before I let them rent my apartments. But ideal tenants who always pay the rent on time and give me no trouble are always in short supply. The majority of folks fall along a gradual scale between the two extremes, from excellent down to scum.
Thus in my own way I have been forced to become a judge of human character. The key question that I need to consider: is this person who wants to rent my apartment serious about having a decent place to live? Or is he or she an irresponsible nitwit who is planning to create problems for me and the other tenants?
Earlier this year I rented an apartment to a creepy young sleazebag who I will refer to as Dumb Boy. His personality is a combination of excessive vanity and pure stupidity, always an exceedingly annoying combination. Such self-obsessed dingalings are all too common, I’m half convinced they’re mass produced in a factory somewhere in California. (All of this is my personal opinion, of course.)
So you might wonder why I rented to Dumb Boy, especially since I have no trouble renting apartments. The honest truth is that when he asked to rent my apartment I felt sorry for him. I watched him pose for my sake and try to convince me that he had a “career.” He seemed so pathetic trying to cover up his low self esteem that I thought, aw, he needs a break.
When will I learn. Anyway, after a month and seven days of Dumb Boy’s childish behavior that disrupted the entire building he skipped out of the apartment at night, furniture and all. Good riddance, I said. That’s why we collect security deposits.
But Dumb Boy, being profoundly dumb (in my opinion) came up with a money making plan. He paid the $5 dollar fee down at City Hall and sued me in small claims court. His claim? After occupying the apartment effectively for two months he decided that the apartment was not up to his personal standards. Therefore, as he eventually explained in court, the landlord should refund him two months rent as compensation.
As far as I can figure, Dumb Boy’s idea was to sit in an open courtroom and charm the judge with a bunch of obvious deceptions. I was looking forward to this trial. My experience with local judges has been that no matter how biased they are toward one party or the other, the one thing they do not tolerate is lying in their courtroom.
Well, as the saying goes, God protects fools and drunks. But apparently God does not protect the taxpayers quite as well. The presiding judge that day was Helena Heath-Roland, and as far as I can tell she decided to use this idiotic claim as an opportunity to use her lofty exalted position to have fun and play games from the bench.
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Helena Heath-Roland Stands Up Front with The Big Boys, Jerry Jennings, Jack McEneny, Ron Canestrari And Bob Reilly, MLK Day 2008 |
This was scheduled to be a one hour trial or less, but Heath-Roland managed to drag out The Stupid Trial for over two hours. She began the proceedings by first turning to Dumb Boy and, with a big smile and an encouraging attitude, carefully explained to the silly twerp how to conduct himself in a courtroom. Basically, the two of them ended up chatting amiably for about ten minutes. (This is all in the transcript, BTW.)
Uh oh, I thought. After bonding with Dumb Boy, Heath-Roland turned to me and The Wife (she’s co-owner of the building so of course she had to join me) and at last consented to notice our presence in the courtroom. Looking down at us with glassy eyes and down turned mouth like a dead codfish, Heath-Roland very deliberately mispronounced my name.
Time to explain something. Up until publishing this post on my blog, I have never, publicly or privately, said so much as one negative or critical thing about Helena Heath-Roland. I’d never given her much thought at all, up until this Stupid Trial. In short, this City Court judge had absolutely no legitimate reason to personally resent The Wife and I. From where comes her attitude problem I can only guess.
But her attitude was real and present in the courtroom. I deferentially corrected her pronunciation of my name and she ignored me. Then she mispronounced it again. Then again. I corrected her again. She ignored me again.
Finally I corrected her pronunciation of my name in a context which she could not ignore. “Well,” she turned full on me with lowered eyelids and slightly open mouth, “that’s why I asked you to pronounce it properly.”
I did not take the bait. I sat silent and looked her full in the face. Her eyes opened wide involuntarily and for a moment she had the surprised expression of a phony who has been found out. At that moment I understood everything I will ever need to know about Helena Heath-Roland.
After this little mistake on her part Heath-Roland made a special point of pretending that The Wife and myself were new and unknown people to her. Of course, as I’ve pointed out, she was already familiar with The Wife by more than her public reputation for rabble rousing. As for me, I can assure you that after four and a half years of writing this blog that every single elected official in the City of Albany knows exactly who I am. (I’ll never be famous, so I’ll settle for locally notorious.)
The rest of the Stupid Trial was a waste of time for all involved, including the taxpayers who pay for such nonsense. At one point Heath-Roland complained that the trial was going on too long, the implication being that someone other than herself was responsible for wasting time.
Somehow The Wife and I couldn’t do anything right for her. But Dumb Boy, who kept making absurd statements that were either irrelevant or obviously untrue or both, could do no wrong. And she always smiled encouragingly at him. At a couple of points Dumb Boy actually got up and wandered around the courtroom, yet received only the gentlest of suggested admonishments from the bench.
The Stupid Trial went on so long that Heath-Roland was forced to interrupt the stupidity to take care of more serious business. We had to sit and watch as two other parties from another small claims case scheduled for that time needed the day’s presiding judge to finalize their settlement. As it happened, the plaintiff in that case was wearing a suit and tie.
“I just love men in suits,” she said to him. “Are you a lawyer?” The poor guy, having no clue what this was about, mumbled “Um, no.”
That’s when City Court Judge Helen Heath-Roland, from high on her bench, started gushing about “men in suits.” Over and over. “I have nothing but admiration for men in suits.”
All that gushing sounded to me like men in suits... got the judge excited. She rose slightly from her seat and started wiggling. The parties in the other case, all of whom happened to be men wearing suits, said nothing while she gushed and wiggled. I watched them shift uneasily where they stood as they waited for her to shut up and sit down.
Dumb Boy, you see, was wearing a cheap suit. I of course was not wearing a suit as I do not wear ties. Ever. Ties are not merely the universal statement of subservience, anytime someone wants to strangle you all they have to do is grab and yank. But I have to say that Heath-Roland’s gushing display has to be one of the lamest attempts I’ve ever seen by an elected official to cover up her own foolish bias.
Well, what can you expect from someone who lists her hobbies as “dancing and exercising.”
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Helena Heath-Roland At The Saratoga Racetrack July 27, With Rich Guy Ed Swyer |
After two hours of The Stupid Trial Heath-Roland finally admitted out loud that the plaintiff’s claim had no merit. At all. Dumb Boy cried out in what sounded to me like despair. So, you see, I can’t be accused of Sour Grapes since The Wife and I won the case. In addition, the judge had no choice but to reluctantly grant our counterclaim against Dumb Boy for costs incurred by filing this spurious claim and wasting our time.
But I did not rejoice just yet because I could see by the shifty look on Heath-Roland’s face that she had one more little cheap shot to deliver. At one point before Dumb Boy had skipped out of the apartment he put his hands on his hips and insisted that I give him a partial refund of $350 on the rent. Realizing by then that Dumb Boy probably had no intention of honoring his commitments, I said sure, I’ll give you money after you pay the next month’s rent. I figured if he did pay the rent he could use some positive reinforcement to help him grow up.
So the “promised” refund was dependent upon Dumb Boy paying the next month’s rent. The transcript of the Stupid Trial clearly shows that Heath-Roland understood this point. But next thing you know she was waving a calculator and babbling in a sing-song voice with a little happy smile.
“Let’s see, add this subtract that and carry this...” Her final decision, based on this “promise,” was that we the defendants owed Dumb Boy $186.00.
How, you might ask, could that be? We found out afterwards that if a party in a claim wants to appeal a judge’s bad decision, the filing fee is $250. Heath-Roland was making sure that it wasn’t worth our while to challenge what I consider an obviously out of line decision on her part. I consider this one more example of Heath-Roland’s chronic foolishness that makes her unfit to sit on any judicial bench or, for that matter, to hold public office.
As for Dumb Boy, I take comfort knowing that he is (in my opinion) so stupid that he will someday soon waltz into a courtroom and try to pull the same nonsense in front of a competent judge. From what I’ve seen, I strongly suspect that he will throw a big tantrum when the judge bawls him out. I’d love to watch that. Thanks to Heath-Roland the taxpayers will eventually have to foot the bill for teaching this grown brat to behave.
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Helena Heath-Roland (Right) At The Track |
Some folks may be wondering how I could dare to openly tell the truth about a sitting judge, particularly one that I am more than likely to encounter again in a future courtroom. To that I say, this judge already has her own secret personal reasons for openly displaying bias against me. If I have to put up with her abuse anyway, I consider silence to be inappropriate and respect for her as a person to be misplaced.
And this is not the first time that she has singled me out for unwarranted abuse. Last year I had a traffic ticket before Heath-Roland, that’s when I first heard that sing-song voice as she turned down my request to address the court and found me guilty. I was the only defendent that day who was not allowed to speak. I thought nothing of iher attitude at the time, but now I know that I was most probably not at fault.
Indeed, I am hearing that Heath-Roland makes a habit of such behavior and that I am merely one of many victims of her courtroom games. That’s what happens when We The People let the worst sorts of power brokers choose our judges for us. Not unexpectedly, I couldn’t find anyone who was willing to lend their name to this article. No one wanted to incur the wrath of The Judge or her backers.
Yet it seems to me that LGBT advocates in Albany are making a serious mistake by not focusing on this Democratic Primary race. Surrogate Court deals with adoptions and inheritances, thus the court in Albany County has been and will increasingly become an important local arena for resolving gay partnership issues. I would think that the quality of the sitting judge ought to be of prime importance.
A leading LGBT rights activist wrote to me (name withheld by request, naturally) this following assessment of Helena-Heath Roland:
She (Heath-Roland) will probably not be too favorable, follow the law but give people a hard time. She has been really hardnosed in City Court when she was filling in in criminal court, sending people to jail when they could have been let out until meeting with the judge. She is arrogant, and not bright. I do not trust her to be open on LGBT issues.
As for sitting Surrogate Court Judge Kate Doyle, the same advocate wrote “Kate Doyle has never hesitated and believes that both people should adopt as a family. She is pro marriage and equal rights. Heath-Roland has been silent on these issues.”
I’ll follow Heath-Roland’s lead and end this article with a cheap shot. It seems that Heath-Roland has a bad habit of forgetting to pay her credit card bills. Unfortunately, I can’t give you the details because my informant is terrified of being identified. Too bad, it’s a great story.
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Albany County Surrogate Judge Cathryn "Kate" Doyle, her reelection website is here.
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