A judge in Wayne County has resigned while facing an accusation about making inappropriate remarks about the law and defendants several years ago.

The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct says those statements by Butler Town and Wolcott Village Justice Scott Stone came during a village board meeting in October 2015.

According to the state commission, Judge Stone was served with a formal complaint on December 7, 2017, containing one charge. 

The charge alleged that on October 13, 2015, the judge made the following statements about the judicial system at a public meeting of the Wolcott Village Board in which concerns regarding crime were discussed:

• “To start with, the whole system, quite frankly, sucks.”
• “If they are a minor, I’m never going to see them because they are going to family court.”
• “After five days, if the county decides not to do [a] preliminary hearing, I have to release them. It doesn’t matter, it’s not my choice. It’s a lawyers’ world.”
• “Most of these individuals, if I had my way, you’d see them probably swinging outside the door, okay? That’s the way I was brought up.”
• “But thanks to lawyers, everybody has rights.”

State Commission on Judicial Conduct Administrator Robert Tembeckjian released this statement:

“On or off the bench, a judge must promote public confidence in the rule of law and the integrity of the judiciary.  Public remarks to the effect that the legal system ‘sucks,’ or that defendants should ‘swing,’ convey contempt for due process and evoke an ugly example of cruel injustice that has no place in modern society.”

Stone has been a Butler Town Justice since 2006; he has been a Wolcott Village Justice since earlier this year. Before that, he was an Associate Justice of the Wolcott Village Court since 2015.  He resigned his positions as both town and village justice as of May 30.