Issues continue to surface in Ulster Town Court, with one town justice unavailable for overnight arraignments, a situation exacerbated by the Public Defender’s Office also being unable to consistently provide late-night service. As a result, some defendants have been unable to be arraigned for up to ten hours and are left in police custody during that time.
The problems were addressed during a meeting of the town board held on Thursday, March 7.
“We’ve had a long-standing problem that’s been going on with the problem of callouts at nighttime and getting a judge out and the necessary public defender out for callouts,” said deputy supervisor Clayton Van Kleeck. This has become a bigger problem for the town recently in that one of our judges, judge Susie Kesick has notified the town that she cannot be available in the evenings for callout. That left us with one judge (Kelly Flood-Myers) available.”
In a letter sent on Thursday, February 1, Kesick notified local and state police agencies and
David Dellehunt, a mediator and consultant from the New York State Office of Court Administration, that she was only available for callouts during the day.
“Upon medical advice I will no longer be available for overnight arraignments between the hours of 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. until further notice,” wrote Kesick.
Town supervisor James E. Quigley, III summarized the ramifications of Kesick’s overnight unavailability.
“As you know we have two judges,” he said. “We have about four weeks in each month and there’s a rotation: One judge serves the first two weeks and the second judge serves the second two weeks. With the notice from Judge Kesick that she’s unable to come out at night that leaves us with no judge in a two-week period and a judge willing to come out in the other two-week period.”
Quigley added that Flood-Myers had been taking on all overnight call outs since the start of February, and would continue to do so until the problem is rectified.
“In recognition of this commitment by Judge Myers, which is over and above her duty, I ask the town board to approve a $1,500 per month stipend effective January 1 for her appearances covering the Town of Ulster Court at night,” Quigley said.
In addition to agreeing to fund the temporary fix in the town justice issue, council members also unanimously approved the hiring of an assigned counsel at $158 per hour, which Quigley said will be reimbursed by the county. A $5,000 fund was established to cover the costs of the attorneys, hired through provision 18B of the Assigned Counsel Plan of the state’s Unified Court System.
“(The Ulster County Public Defender’s Office) are a resource constrained part of the Ulster County government where they have carved up Ulster County into five segments and they don’t have enough people to cover night call outs for all four weeks,” Quigley said. “So there is a rotation where two weeks the Northern District gets an attorney and two weeks that the Northern District doesn’t get an attorney.”
Quigley added that there have been times when they have unable to secure a public defender even during their assigned period.
“We had conversations with the Public Defender’s Office who had advised us that they had advocated to the county government that they engage 18B attorneys,” Quigley said. “As of last Friday on my executive authority I authorized the call outs for an 18B attorney which has been practiced now four times.”
Van Kleeck stressed that both solutions are only temporary.
“This is working, but it’s not forever,” he said. “We believe we’ve come up with a remedy for now, how to properly have our court be open when needed. We do believe that eventually … the county will establish a CAP (centralized arraignment parts) court, which the town looks forward to being part of when things are put together correctly. But in the meantime we do have some solutions.”
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