Two candidates are running for the Working Families line in the race for Saugerties town justice. Aimee Richter is the endorsed Democratic candidate, and Stanley O’Dell is the incumbent. Richter stresses that her education and background are the law, while O’Dell points to his experience on the bench in both the town and the village of Saugerties.
Aimee Richter
Aimee Richter earned a Bachelor’s degree at SUNY Albany for her undergraduate degree, majoring in Psychology, and has a Law degree from Brooklyn Law School. She has been practicing family law since 1994. “It will be 30 years in January; that’s hard to believe,” she said. She is a former president of the Brooklyn Bar Association and a past member of the New York State Bar Association Executive Committee.
Richter said that her practice has primarily been family law for her entire career. Family law “encompasses every kind of law, because whatever a family can go through, a family lawyer can assist with.” Issues such as divorce, custody, domestic violence (a lot of orders of protection over the years), housing insecurity, food insecurity, support, evictions: “Literally anything that can happen to people comes into our cases…business, appraisals, psychology…it’s really quite an extensive array of things you go through with families and children.”
Richter said that family law can be hard, and she has thought of going into a less stressful type of practice, such as real estate; but at the end of the day, “It’s a good area to practice in if you have empathy for people.”
Some attorneys stress a strict interpretation of the law with no room for empathy. How do you answer this?
“As attorneys, we come up to that line, and it’s the practice, the 30 years of doing it that helps you determine which direction you’re supposed to go in. That’s really important; I think that’s one of the most important things a judge can have. I speak with people all the time who say they wish the judges on the bench had practiced law. It gives them a different perspective from someone who has never practiced law. That is not to say that somebody who has not practiced law, who is not an attorney, is not capable of doing this job. That would be arrogant. But I do feel that someone who has the experience, as I have, is well-suited to do it.”
Richter noted that a bill has been introduced in the State Assembly — currently in summer recess from its 2023 session — that would prohibit non-lawyers from filling municipal judge slots in the 100 highest-volume courts in the State. The bill has been passed in the state Senate. However, Richter said, “It’s not really about lawyer versus non-lawyer; I think it’s about who is the right person to do the job.”
What do you think of the Saugerties Police “Lights On” program of giving drivers vouchers for the repair of equipment violations rather than tickets?
“I think it’s fabulous. Maybe someone can’t afford to fix their broken taillight. That would be better than writing a ticket, taking time in court. That way the light is fixed, and the roads are safer. I think that’s very progressive for a small town.
“While the police may get bad press at times, they have the best intentions. Everybody should come together and figure out a way to make it work.”
Should some jobs now handled by police be handled by social workers or psychologists?
“I think you always need the police. Whether or not someone who is more trained or better trained in taking those situations down a level — because they’re very intense; I have been taking cases like that for years — maybe it’s not a bad idea. But you need that presence there. These domestic cases can escalate and it can be very dangerous. I’m the one who gets the phone call in the middle of the night, and a spouse says, ‘I’m scared. My spouse is gonna hurt me; what should I do?’ I get those phone calls and I say, ‘Call the police.’ But when the police come, I know it can escalate in a bad way. But I think the use of those body cameras has been great. But it’s also about perspective: You take a picture from here it looks one way, but if you take it from a little way away, it looks completely different.”
How do you feel about the bail reform law, which allows defendants to be freed without cash bail?
On the New York initiative to grant release without requiring bail, Richter said that it has been modified to give judges more discretion. “While the idea was to prevent an innocent person from spending time in jail because they couldn’t make bail, they took the discretion away from judges. The law has been modified to allow judges to impose bail in certain cases. If I’m the judge, I would like the discretionary.
“They appointed me as a ‘special master.’ It’s not the trial court — it’s another level, the Appeals Court. You hold these meetings with the attorneys and the clients and try to get it resolved. That puts me in a quasi-judicial position. Obviously, it’s not criminal cases; it’s civil cases. But that should speak to my ability to not advocate for one side or the other.
“It’s going to come up that I haven’t been here long, so I’ll get it out of the way. I bought my house here in 2012. Did I sit around when I was in high school with everyone in town? No, but maybe that’s a good thing. When someone walks into my courtroom they don’t say, ‘Oh, we went to the prom together,’ or ‘Your mom was my teacher.’”
How much time do you spend in the City?
“It depends: four nights, sometimes six nights. Could be as much as eight, but some months, no nights. I’m someone who wants to get more involved in my community, and this is the best way because I have the skillset to do it.”
Stan O’Dell
Stan O’Dell is the sitting town justice as well as the associate justice in the Village of Saugerties Court. He is running for a full term in the town court. He was appointed unanimously by the Town Board to fill a vacancy on the court. He has been a New York State Police officer, retiring as a senior investigator, supervising a squad of investigators.
In a letter to constituents, O’Dell states that he is the only candidate who is a sitting judge, and the only candidate with a background in criminal law. “I am the candidate who has lived in and served Saugerties for a lifetime.”
O’Dell acknowledged that Working Families is a very small party, but noted that “It gives people a place where they can vote for me.” He will seek the endorsement of other parties as well, he said.
O’Dell points to his service as a firefighter in Saugerties and to his service as chair of the Waterfront Advisory Committee.
O’Dell was appointed to the associate village judge position in 2022. Village judge Robert Rightmeyer has had some medical issues, and O’Dell said that he has been the sitting judge “almost from the beginning, when I got appointed.” When a vacancy occurred in the town court in September 2022, O’Dell was appointed unanimously by the Town Board. He said that he was selected from a number of well-qualified candidates.
“We had some very important things to take care of. We had staffing issues, administrative issues, and actually I am still dealing with some of it.” O’Dell said that he has hired “some great staff,” and that he works with judge Chris Craft in the town court. “Judge Craft and I have developed a personal relationship — just getting it done. We are able to bounce cases off each other, and we back each other up.” O’Dell has wanted to serve on the court for some time, and “Now that I’m doing it and it’s going well,” he said that he wants to stay in it.
The job involves more than just the time in the courtroom. During a recent trip out of state, O’Dell fielded calls from the District Attorney’s office with requests for information they needed regarding some of the cases in front of the court (a friend was driving). “People who do other types of law don’t know this; criminal law is different from every other type of law.”
Criminal law deals with people who harm others through their actions, O’Dell said. “I could have a murderer come before me for an arraignment,” though a village or town judge doesn’t generally preside over a trial. “But you have to be competent and aware of how to proceed, even with the arraignment, on a murder case.” For example, one job O’Dell did was to teach officers how to write a search warrant, which is especially sensitive because it gives an officer the right to go into someone’s home.
While some people feel a police officer should not be a judge, O’Dell says that with more than 30 years as a police officer, “I hold the police to a higher standard than others because I know what they’re supposed to do.” One sign that O’Dell has done the job right is that people he has sentenced for crimes tell him they recognize that he has been fair. “They know I don’t punish them just to punish, but to hold them accountable. When they say ‘Thank you’ to me, I know I’ve done my job.”
O’Dell said that he was asked recently how many cases he has handled; he figured that it’s “a couple of thousand criminal cases.” That doesn’t include civil cases such as small claims, evictions and vehicle and traffic cases.
How many hours does a town or village judge spend working?
It varies, but O’Dell recalled a particularly heavy day when he was “called out to handle an early arraignment in the village, then did my civil hearings in the village, and I just finished the day when the fire whistles went off. I jumped in my truck, came across town, jumped into the firetruck in my suit and tie, handled the fire call in my suit and tie. As I was on my way back, the phone rang, and it was the town police needing an arraignment for the town.”
O’Dell has been living in Saugerties for 25 years, and his wife Debbie was born here. O’Dell, who grew up just across the river in Dutchess County, recalled coming to Saugerties to visit friends in his youth. Having lived in Saugerties as long as he has, he knows people; while he may not know everyone who comes before him, he may know their families, and “I think it’s important that you have some background on people when they come before you.”
While acknowledging that his opponent is a practicing attorney, O’Dell said that her specialty is not in municipal law. “She doesn’t know criminal law; she doesn’t know vehicle and traffic law and she hasn’t dealt with summary proceeding.”
Training for village and town attorneys is an ongoing process. “You have to have X amount of credit per year to stay certified.” He’s a member of the New York State Magistrates Association and the Ulster County Magistrates Association. “We’ve set it up so that some of our meetings are actually instructional meetings where we get credits, where it’s actually a class.”
O’Dell said he has also taught classes for police officers all over the country. “I was one of the first six drug recognition experts [DRE] in New York State,” having received his instruction in Los Angeles from the founder of the program. He has since been an instructor for the specialty, which involves recognizing drivers who are under the influence of drugs. He since took the instructor’s course and has been all over the country in the training program.
How do you feel about the bail reform law, which allows defendants to be freed without cash bail?
“Bail is not punitive, and it shouldn’t be. Bail reform was necessary. Everything needs to be tweaked every now and then. It was long overdue, and it needed to be looked at. There was no doubt about that. Unfortunately, sometimes these things get rushed through, and it gets a broad brush, so to speak. Then you have to go back and look at it, because it looks good on paper, but in reality, sometimes it doesn’t work out. That’s why there have been a couple of changes.
“There certainly are cases where I would like to be able to place bail where I can’t. You have someone who is not from the area, who has no ties. I’ve had this. The latest change gives the judges a little more leeway to be able to assure appearance.”
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