"While campaigning for his seat in 2023, Plass, who served as a Hyde Park police officer and worked at his family's limousine business for decades, sent out a campaign mailer where he pledged to keep drug dealers off our streets and out of our hotels, incarcerate offenders and protect victims of domestic violence, and assure repeat offenders are sentenced to the full extent of the law."
"Judicial candidates are prohibited from making pledges or promises regarding their actions if they're elected in order to promote public confidence, preserve the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary and ensure it does not appear that judges are pre-judging cases. Plass, who is not an attorney and has no education past high school, said he did not know about rules governing judicial campaigning and made his mailers based off of campaigns he'd seen for non-judicial office."
The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct admonished Hyde Park Town Justice Michael Plass for campaign mailers that conveyed an appearance of bias in favor of law enforcement rather than neutral application of the law. Plass, a former Hyde Park police officer who worked in his family's limousine business, sent a mailer pledging to keep drug dealers off streets and out of hotels, incarcerate offenders, protect domestic violence victims, and ensure repeat offenders face full sentencing. Judicial candidates are barred from making pledges or promises to preserve judicial impartiality. Plass said he lacked knowledge of judicial campaign rules, revised his mailer after local reporting, and later took a Court Office of Administration class on being a judge in December 2023 where ethics arose.
Read at www.amny.com
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