BILL NUMBER: S1409
SPONSOR: RYAN S
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the uniform justice court act, the town law and the
village law, in relation to requiring certain town and village justices
be admitted to practice law in the state
 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
This bill establishes a requirement that justices in high arraignment
volume town and village courts be licensed as attorneys and have five
years of experience.
 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section 1: amends Section 105 of the uniform justice court act to
require that a town or village justice selected for a term office in the
one hundred highest arraignment volume town and village courts in the
state as determined by OCA and DCJS be admitted to practice law in the
state of New York and have 5 years of experience, with the exception of
sitting justices.
Section 2: amends Section 31 of the town law to reflect the same
requirements.
Section 3: amends Section 3-301 of the village law to reflect the same
requirements.
Section 4 is the effective date.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
Justice Courts are town and village courts. These small local courts are
sometimes referred to as magistrate courts. Justice courts have juris-
diction over both civil and criminal matters including small claims;
landlord-tenant issues, including evictions; prosecution of misdemea-
nors; arraignments and preliminary hearings for felonies; and traffic
infractions. Despite the crucial role that justice courts play in the
state legal system, they are underfunded and have little oversight.
There are disparities across the state in the quality of facilities and
in the salaries the courts can offer. There is also no requirement that
a justice court judge be a licensed attorney. At present, New York is
one of only eight states to allow non-lawyer judges to hand down jail
sentences for misdemeanors without the right to a new trial before a
lawyer-judge. The other seven are Arizona, Montana, Colorado, Texas,
Wyoming, Nevada, and South Carolina. And Montana only permits the prac-
tice in rural and or sparsely populated counties.
In the context of criminal proceedings and eviction cases, the lack of
attorney judges raises some due process issues. Most, if not all, crimi-
nal cases involve a deprivation of liberty or property. Eviction cases,
by their very nature, threaten the deprivation of property. It is a
well-established legal principle that such cases be taken very serious-
ly, and that due care and thought be given to the decision-making proc-
ess. Criminal defendants have a right to be represented by an attorney,
and the dissent in a 1976 US Supreme Court case, North v. Russell,
asserted that just as criminal defendants have a right to be represented
by an attorney, they also have a due process right to appear before an
attorney-judge. While North v. Russeficlearly established this right, it
left it up to the states to decide how they want to protect it. Many
smaller localities lack the resources and docket to attract an attorney
to serve as the town or village justice. This bill imposes a requirement
only on those localities that have the largest number of arraignments in
the state, so as to maximize the number of defendants who appear before
lawyer-judges without putting an undue burden on smaller localities. The
requirements this bill would impose on the 100 highest-arraignment
volume courts are identical to the requirements to serve as a judge in
the Uniform City Court Act.
 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2023-2024: S.139/A.1358 Passed Senate
2022: S.8243/A.9389, S9433
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
To be determined.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the first of January next succeeding the
date on which it shall have become a law.

Statutes affected:
S1409: 31 town law, 3-301 village law