The Dexter Taylor case raises interesting Second Amendment issues to be sure.
A New York jury found Taylor guilty of second-degree criminal possession of a loaded weapon, four counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, five counts of criminal possession of a firearm, second-degree criminal possession of five or more firearms, unlawful possession of pistol ammunition, violation of certificate of registration, prohibition on unfinished frames or receivers. Now Taylor, a 52-year-old African-American software engineer, is on Rikers Island waiting to be sentenced. He became interested in gunsmithing as a hobby years ago, but a joint ATF/NYPD task force discovered he was legally buying gun parts from various companies and began investigating him, leading to a SWAT raid and his arrest. His legal team explains his side of the case here.
That’s not the focus of this post, however. This is: during his trial, Judge Abena Darkeh allegedly said at one point, “Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York.” Darkeh was appointed by New York City’s crypto-communist Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015.
The comment caught my attention because it perfectly encapsulates the increasingly common attitude of the Left in 2024. That Constitution thingy is an old, archaic, irrelevant piece of paper created by a bunch of white, male, racist slaveholders, and it just gets in the way of remaking the United States into a progressive Nirvana.
The judge’s statement also violated the legal ethics standards and requirements New York judges are supposedly sworn to follow. That comment all by itself violates at least three of them:
- Section 100.1 A judge shall uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary… A judge should participate in establishing, maintaining and enforcing high standards of conduct, and shall personally observe those standards so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary will be preserved….
Declaring that New York isn’t subject to the U.S. Constitution does not reflect well on the judge or the judiciary.
- Section 100.2 A judge shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of the judge’s activities.
(A) A judge shall respect and comply with the law and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.
Funny, I don’t have confidence in the judicial system when judges declare that they can ignore key provisions in the Constitution. Hitler’s judges did that kind of thing.
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Section 100.3 A judge shall perform the duties of judicial office impartially and diligently…(B) Adjudicative Responsibilities.
(1) A judge shall be faithful to the law and maintain professional competence in it. A judge shall not be swayed by partisan interests, public clamor or fear of criticism….
I’d say declaring that a Constitutional amendment included in the Bill Of Rights “doesn’t exist” is failing to be faithful to the law, wouldn’t you?
There are more items in the Rules that the statement offends, but that’s enough. The judge should be removed, and if she isn’t, we’ll know what that means.
Ethics Alarms 
My list of Judges that are unethical and require immediate removal from the bench is growing day by day. Thanks for this additional miscreant involved in our devolving judiciary system.
If you remove her for this, you will have to remove half the judges in this country. If you count the judges that allow laws that violate the 2nd Amendment (as laid out in the Heller and Bruen decisions) vs those who do not, the majority would be on the Constitutional violation side. The more disturbing part of this case is that your bank and credit card companies are required to report any purchase of a firearms-related item to the federal government. They also want the companies to report their sales. If they don’t, they will be raided and their records seized. If they don’t do that, they will hack into the company and steal the records. The ATF is going door-to-door to demand that people return firearms parts they purchased, sometimes years ago, under threat of arrest. No warrant needed. How do they know that person purchased such an item? So lots of effort there to monitor legal purchases, but if you bomb a church, the FBI has better things to do.
She’s simply repeating standard judicial review of the 2nd before it got incorporated in 2008.
Even SCOTUS skillfully slithered past the 2nd in U.S. V. Lopez like Christina Zeta Jones in a catsuit.
If, indeed, the lawyers’ description of events is accurate, then there’s a serious problem, and your solution would seem to be the minimum required response.
But I think your use of the word “allegedly” is wise. All that we (or at least all that I) know for certain is that a defense attorney lost his case and blames the judge for it. Like that’s never happened before, right? Oh, and then there’s a write-up in one of the most partisan sites in the country. Color me unconvinced.
I have no idea if Mr. Taylor did anything illegal, or if his actions should indeed have been protected by the 2nd amendment. I do know that I find building your own AR-47 type rifle a little less than “the coolest thing ever.” That doesn’t make Taylor a criminal, but I’m very much OK with the fact that he’s not my neighbor.
I’ve been embarrassed enough times by believing what a lawyer says because it fits my worldview, only to be proven to have been insufficiently skeptical. Presumably there’s a transcript of the trial. If it shows what Taylor’s lawyers say it does, Darkeh should be out of a job. If it doesn’t, they should be.
Yup. I assume that the lawyers noted the statement accurately because it’s a slam dunk appeal winner, though I’m amazed that any judge would say that out loud.
When something gets ingrained in the culture enough, people forget that they can’t say it in a wider setting. The House candidate in NY who recently tweeted that he wanted all MAGA supporters dead is a good recent example. The students holding up signs suggesting that they want to murder Jews is another.
Do they want to murder Jews before or after we pay off their student loans?
It doesn’t matter, they’ll confiscate your ill-gotten wealth either way. (I don’t actually believe the wealth is ill-gotten, but that’s a standard anti-Semitic trope).
Well, it doesn’t matter. All the current student loans are made by the US government. The government is paying itself from taxpayer money for money it gave out to taxpayers. There are no private loans anymore, no banks are involved.
I was referring to the taxpayer.
This is weird. Most mayors don’t have the power to appoint judges, only governors can do that, and not all of them. Normally this court functions more like a municipal court, handling lesser offenses. This probably shouldn’t have been in that court, it should have been handled in the Supreme Court (In NY that’s the trial court, and the state supreme court is called the Court of Appeals) for New York County.
Remember, NY has a special court system for banking and investment matters, but Trump’s trial on his loans was not held in those courts. They hold it in front of the judge that will give them the result they want.
Remove a black woman? Ain’t gonna happen, not in Wokeland.
Unless Taylor was assembling full-auto weapons or short-barreled rifles, and not registering them, none of the things he was accused of doing are illegal in most of the United States. Sucks to live in the People’s Commune of New York. He should probably consider himself lucky that he didn’t get a midnight guns-blazing, no-knock visit from a couple of dozen ATF agents, like this guy (I hadn’t heard of this until a day or two ago):
https://www.kark.com/news/local-news/attorney-of-former-little-rock-airport-exec-bryan-malinowski-releases-video-events-ahead-of-deadly-atf-raid/?ipid=promo-link-block2
It does appear that Malinowski may have stretched the limits on private firearms sales, but info indicates agents were supposed to do a daylight service of a search warrant, and have been required for at least a year to wear body cams. They attacked at 6:00am in the dark while Malinowski and his wife were asleep, taped over the doorbell camera, and apparently all forgot to wear their cameras. Recently released warrant details show they had multiple opportunities during their surveillance of him to serve and/or arrest him outside the home (they bought guns from him), in transit to/from work, or at his office… he was the the executive director at the Little Rock National Airport. (Second most disgusting thing I learned here is that there’s an airport named after Bill & Hillary Clinton.)
ATF did issue a statement saying that they regret that they were unable to find a dog to shoot during the home invasion, but otherwise considered it a success. “We decided that the logistics of first visiting him at his airport office were just too complicated” added a spokesperson. (I made up this last bit, but wouldn’t completely discount the possibility that it’s also true.)
For the “Imagine If” game, pretend Malinowski was black.