A New York judge who invoked her position and threatened to shoot Black teenagers at a party has resigned and dropped her monthslong fight to remain on the bench after a state commission recommended that she be forced to leave office.
The judge, Justice Erin P. Gall of State Supreme Court in Oneida County, was suspended with pay from her $232,600-a-year position in July after the state Commission on Judicial Conduct determined that she had engaged in a “racially offensive, profane” tirade at a high school graduation party.
Justice Gall said at the time that she planned to appeal the panel’s recommendation to the state Court of Appeals. But in a motion filed by her lawyer on Wednesday, she said she was giving up her request that the court review the matter.
“The decision to no longer pursue review and abandon hope of remaining on the bench has been extremely difficult,” she said in the motion, which the court, New York’s highest, made public.
Justice Gall, who had one year remaining in her 14-year term, said in the motion that she had officially resigned her judgeship as of Dec. 15 and had no intention of serving on the bench again.
Her lawyer, Robert F. Julian, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Robert H. Tembeckjian, the judicial commission’s administrator, said the panel would submit a formal reply to Justice Gall’s motion next week but welcomed her decision.
“It appears she has finally conceded that her reprehensible conduct would result in her formal removal from office, which under the New York constitution would bar her from ever returning to the bench,” Mr. Tembeckjian said.
The episode that led to Justice Gall’s ouster occurred in July 2022 as she spoke to law enforcement officers after a series of arguments and physical fights broke out when a large number of uninvited guests arrived at the graduation party.
The disputes, which included Justice Gall’s husband and 18-year-old son, began when the initial party crashers showed up shortly after 11:30 p.m. and escalated after four Black teenagers arrived, the commission found. It was unclear what role the Black teenagers had played in the fighting, the commission found.
The teenager who drove them there lost his car key during the skirmish. As police officers arrived and tried to clear the area, the teenager and his companions continued to look for the key, the commission found.
At that point, the commission found, Justice Gall, who is white, said, “get off the property — and that’s from Judge Gall.”
“I’m a judge,” she added, using a vulgarity for emphasis.
An officer told her that if someone found the key, it should be turned over to the police. If it was not found, the officer said, someone from the group of teenagers would have to return to look for it.
“If they come back looking for it, I’ll call you while they’re on the property,” Justice Gall then said, adding: “If they did, they’ll be arrested, or they’ll be shot on the property. Because when they trespass, you can shoot them on the property. I’ll shoot them on the property.”
In another exchange, Justice Gall said to the officers that the Black teenagers “don’t look like they’re that smart” and “were not going to business school, that’s for sure.”
Justice Gall, a Republican, admitted to making the comments after the police released body and dashboard-camera footage of their dealings with her.
The episode lasted more than an hour and a half, with the judge invoking her position more than a dozen times, the commission found. “I would take anyone down for you guys,” she told the officers at one point.
“You know that,” she added. “I am on your side.”
Justice Gall wrote in her filing this week that after the episode became public, her family had received “numerous death threats” that caused “immeasurable” fear and prompted her to hire a 24-hour protective detail.
She asked in the motion that if the court were to accept the commission’s recommendation, it make no specific formal findings beyond that in order to minimize further social media and national news attention on her and her family.
“I certainly do not think it fair to characterize my reactions as racially motivated and to stigmatize me with that finding based on the facts in the case,” she wrote.
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