CITY OF LLOYD — Judge Terry Elia, a member of the Lloyd’s City Court since 1998, has been “censured” by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Disciplinary censure is the second highest sentence the commission can administer, just before removing a judge from the bench.
The decision of the committee can be found here.
According to the decision, Judge Elia was “censured for posting inappropriate messages on LinkedIn and for serving as a ‘peer support member’ of the Sheriff’s Office Critical Incident Stress Management Team. of the county of Ulster”.
The 68-year-old judge was censured after the commission learned of several instances where the judge ‘liked’ posts through his LinkedIn account on social media and also shared a post containing a photo of a Civil War soldier with the caption “Because Black Lives Matter. This and all other posts can be found in the Complaint by clicking here.
Commission Administrator Robert Tembeckjian said: “A judge must be and appear to be impartial, otherwise public confidence in the integrity of the courts could be undermined. Extracurricular alignments with law enforcement, even for a good cause, can be problematic. Similarly, a judge must also avoid partisan politics, except when running for judicial office.
Judge Elia accepted the censure. “It is with a heavy heart that I accept the determination of the commission which noted that I am not trained as a lawyer, but that I made certain errors relating to my conduct in my private life (via the social media and volunteering) that can negatively impact the public’s perception of the justice system,” Elia said in a statement from his lawyer, Deborah Scalise. “For that, I’m really sorry.”
