Word: rothwax
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DIED. HAROLD ROTHWAX, 67, no-nonsense New York judge catapulted to prominence by the libel suit he brought against loose-mouthed radio talkster Don Imus; of complications from a stroke; in New York City. Though the public may have been fascinated by the flap with Imus, jurists were more intrigued by Rothwax's legal odyssey over the years from civil liberties lawyer to law-and-order judge. In an attention-catching 1996 book, Guilty: The Collapse of Criminal Justice, Rothwax argued that justice would be better served by clipping defendants' rights and giving police more leeway to seize evidence...
...knows a good lawyer. This didn't put off Don Imus, the radio talk-show host mellow in voice but not outlook. When Deirdre Coleman, Imus' wife, asked to be excused from jury duty on a murder trial because Imus' show was covering it, Judge Harold J. Rothwax asked her to ask him not to cover it. The judge then relented, but not before earning Imus' ire. On his nationally syndicated show, the shock jock ranted against Rothwax, using such epithets as "Scuzwax," "Rothworm" and "senile old dirtbag." Thus it was Rothwax's turn...
Steinberg's lawyers plan to appeal the verdict, arguing that Acting State Supreme Court Judge Harold Rothwax improperly instructed the jurors on the meaning of intent. They also contend that he should not have permitted the jurors to view a videotape made shortly after Nussbaum's arrest showing her covered with scars, bruises and ulcerations...
...sentences should vary, of course, according to the character and prior record of the defendant. The fact that shoplifters usually go to jail if they get caught in Charlotte, N.C., whereas they get probation in Albuquerque, may just reflect different local mores. As New York Criminal Court Judge Harold Rothwax says, "Communities have a right to view crime differently." Mandatory sentences set by the legislature, which several states use for at least some crimes, can be more heavy-handed than evenhanded. Such laws cannot distinguish, for instance, between someone who steals to feed his family and someone who steals...
...Sheer volume almost mandates it," says Judge Rothwax, who is careful to make sure the defendant agreed to the bargain and that it is fair. In New York, according to District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, the sentence a defendant gets from pleading guilty is not much different from the sentence he would get by going to trial. But in many other courts, clearing the docket, otherwise known as moving the business, becomes almost an end in itself...