Amy L. Zanelli, an elected Magisterial District Judge in Lehigh County in Pennsylvania, is in a peck of trouble due to some unjudicial conduct that can only be responded to with “What was she thinking?”
For example, when a court employee tried to whisper to her that she had made an erroneous statement in court about a defendant’s sentence, the judge first ignored the staffer, then when the woman tried to get her attention again, exploded with “I am the judge, and you are just a fucking secretary! I will decide and make the determination about what happens in this courtroom!”
Judge Zanelli has habitually used vulgar rhetoric, apparently being especially fond of the word “cuntrageous.”
Classy! The judge also brought into her office a desk calendar that contained explicit sexual messages”evidently intended to be humorous” in the words of the ethics complaint, such as “Bedroom Plants He’ll Have to Slice Through With a Machete If He Wants That Pussy.” This was displayed in the general work area until Judge Zanelli removed it after complaints from her staff.
But here’s my favorite: Zanelli possessed what she termed a “Book of Grudges” in her office, which had the appearance of an ancient leather-bound tome with papyrus pages. The “Book of Grudges” bore an inscription written by the judge which stated, “Upon this day, we shall begin to record within our Book of Grudges.” Zanelli entered notes in her book, like describing a local attorney as “Just a Dick.” The judge encouraged her staff to make additions to the notes in the “Book of Grudges” about other individuals doing business in Zanelli’s court. They declined, though Zanelli placed the “Book of Grudges” in a general work area accessible to all staff for them to add notations to it to it, if they wished.
Eventually she was persuaded to remove it, but judges are not supposed to advertise their “grudges.” Canon 1, Rule 1.2 of the Code of Judicial Ethics states:
“A magisterial district judge shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.”
Judge Zanelli also was routinely late for court, skipped work, often choosing not to preside on Fridays. The whole eye-popping complaint is here.
A question: Has our judiciary always contained so many unethical, corrupt, biased, incompetent and just plain lousy judges, or is it just because of the internet that this is now so obvious?
Ethics Alarms 
I was expecting one big Costanza to finish out this post.
-Jut
You know me too well: George was the planned intro, then I was beguiled by how lovely an unethical judge she is. Probably helped her get elected.
She’s a lazy slug and an abusive b—h who thinks the rules don’t apply to her and that a judgeship is a cushy gig. This isn’t that uncommon, there are plenty of judges who stop just short of being abusive and don’t exactly rush to get the court’s business done. However, most of them aren’t flagrant, most know where the line is, and most don’t cross it. In NJ, where judges are appointed, not elected, most know to tread VERY carefully for the first seven years, after which time they come up for tenure and then can only be fired for good cause. A few don’t, like one who stupidly ordered her secretary to do personal business and tried to record a conversation with the chief judge on the sly and another who went to a party for probation officers, got drunk, and started playing grab-ass with the women there. Both were not granted tenure and are considered to have “blown it.”
Then there are those who just become useless, like one who was a drunk and was given nothing but settlement conferences and very light motions, or obviously biased, like another who made no bones about the fact that he hated one particular insurance company to the point where plaintiff’s attorneys asked specifically for cases with that company to be scheduled with him if at all possible. He also routinely denied even minor motions about things like correcting clerical errors over being a day late or other no-harm, no-foul issues, self-praising as a “stickler for the rules.” Then there are the sexual harassers who squeeze the good-looking intern’s behind and other stupid stuff.
The one that takes the cake, though, which story I may have told, is an infamous lawyer who was neither well-liked nor particularly outstanding who was appointed to be the presiding civil judge in one county with a severe backlog. Well, she cleared the backlog, at the expense of acting like a tyrant, denying any and all requests, and screaming and insulting attorneys from the bench. Finally, the attorneys sent one very politically powerful attorney up against her, she was abusive to him, he made a call, and she lost the chief judgeship.
It gets better. This same judge was dealing with a pro se litigant, which no judge likes to do, and he claimed not to have gotten a court notice. She sneered at him that she was sure his welfare check had no problem finding its way to him. He called his assemblyman, the assemblyman called the Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, essentially the chief judge for all of NJ, and the director called this judge and told her she had until close of business that day to retire, or he’d personally enter an order at 9 a.m. the following morning kicking her off the bench and stripping her pension.
So yeah, what this woman did is common, even bush league compared to some of what I’ve seen.
Given her vocabulary, I’m going to guess she’s a Democrat.
Old Bill, I was unable to determine for sure whether she’s a registered Democrat or Republican (the judge position itself is nonpartisan, it seems) but when she was on the Lehigh County Board she sponsored a bill to give a $5K grant to the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center. Unlike you, I don’t consider foul language a reliable indicator of political leanings — for example, you are more prone to this than I am, and I am confident you are NOT a Democrat! — but support of LGBT definitely is more aligned with the Democrat stereotype! So like you, I would bet that if she has a party affiliation, it is most likely Democratic.
Nor am I a politician or an elected or appointed official. I’m a private citizen. No one other than my kids and grandkids looks to me as a role model.
I expect the number of people who look to politicians as role models is pretty small… compared to those who look to, what are those people called again? “Influencers”?
Which actually raises an interesting question — do you count any politicians among your role models? If not, what are some non-politicians you look to as role models? Or are role models not your thing?
The President of the United States is traditionally a role model. Some Presidents play that role better than others. Trump may be the worst at that part of the job—approximately half of it, in my view—than any or the 45 men who preceded him.
Me? My dad is a role model. All of the figures recognized in the Ethics Alarms Hall of Heroes are my role models.
Thank you for that link! It’s wonderful! Just finished reading the entry for Virginia Hall, and I plan to work my way through the other entries.
This will help me balance out the ethical villain (or ethical idiot) stories that form the bulk of the day-to-day posts and comments.
I realize it is a “target rich environment” for villains and idiots, as they say, and I do derive some amusement from the antics of the clowns (on the left) and jokers (on the right) but do those behaving badly really DESERVE to attract more of our attention than those being their best selves?
The latter are of course harder to notice (Virginia Hall explicitly DIDN’T want public recognition). Whether or not both extraordinary and more everyday mostly unknown heroes (don’t know which category your dad fits best) actively avoid the limelight, stories of ethics heroes are necessarily unpopular topics in a media landscape that runs on outrage and fear and doom casting (more clicks! better strategy for controlling the populace!) … but maybe we could all look a little harder?
I hereby resolve to look for people who clearly ARE behaving ethically for the Friday Open Forum.
“but do those behaving badly really DESERVE to attract more of our attention than those being their best selves?”
The answer is no. However, getting people to emulate integrity, respectfulness, or any otherwise ethical behavior is far more difficult than criticizing bad behavior.
The question arises why does bad behavior continue if it is routinely called out. The answer in my estimation is that there are very few real consequences and substantial positive gain by continuing the unethical behavior. For example, if bank robbery was a misdemeanor and resulted in a 100 dollar fine if caught many would start robbing banks because of a positive payoff. Conversely, most good works go unnoticed because those that actually benefitted from another’s good act fail to acknowledge it in any meaningful way.
To inculcate good behavior it has to be ingrained early on by those who understand the inherent value in ethical behavior despite the fact it often comes with some personal costs. That’s why I come here to get that reinforcement.
“The question arises why does bad behavior continue if it is routinely called out.”
We live in an attention economy. Attracting attention IS the reward (see the media landscape). “If it bleeds, it leads… if it shocks, it rocks.”
My cousin told me one that Nancy Pelosi was someone she admired. Mostly for breaking glass ceilings, I think.
Although I would certainly not consider Pelosi any kind of ethical hero, I can recognize extreme competence. Pelosi and Mitch McConnell have both demonstrated a notable command of their jobs, and I believe have earned the respect of many colleagues in Congress regardless of their positioning on the political spectrum.
It’s also true that the skills deployed by highly effective politicians are not necessarily the virtues many of us would prefer to embody!
Yes, and Mussolini made the trains run on time….
Actually Mussolini’s skill was in propaganda, not trains. And that propaganda continues to propagate! Hence your comment.
According to the interwebs: “Mussolini is often credited with making the trains run on time in Italy, but this claim is largely a myth. While there were some improvements in the railway system during his rule, many of these changes were initiated before he came to power, and trains did not consistently run on time as propaganda suggested.”
Of course, you know my comment was not intended to convey a fact, but rather the frequent refrain that an established Ethics Villain was still “competent.” I deny competence in the case of both McConnell and Pelosi. They both left Congress and the nation in worse shape than when they began their service. Their duty was to the nation, not to their respective parties.
I expect the number of people who look to politicians as role models is pretty small… It’s not the worst thing. We should accept all sorts of bad behaviors. La de dah. Life’s good! compared to those who look to, what are those people called again? “Influencers”? Let’s change the subject! Look at that shiny object over there!
Which actually raises an interesting question No, it’s an irrelevant question because the entire post rests on the idea that misbehavior by public officials is corrosive — do you count any politicians among your role models? What difference does that make? I’m past the age of having role models. If not, what are some non-politicians you look to as role models? I was surrounded by role models growing up. My parents, my friend’s parents, neighbors, teachers, our doctors, people on television and in the movies and the newspapers. When you’re young and are learning how to behave, everyone’s a role model. Once you’re formed, you don’t model behavior, you behave. Or are role models not your thing? Why are you compelled to interject all sorts of irrelevancies into the comments? It seems like some sort of intentional pedantry. You’re smart, everyone else is dumb? We’ve seen this before and it doesn’t achieve your apparent objective of gumming up the works. Finally, this judge is not just a role model, the role model thing is another distraction. She’s a judge. She’s setting the tone in her court room. The Judiciary is an essential component of a functioning society. She’s diminishing the judiciary, and attention must be paid. You’re entire effort is to brush this off and say, “It ain’t so bad.” You’re wrong.
Old Bill being Old Bill! Like clockwork!
Who was it that mentioned “role model” (you know the thing that “is another distraction”)
Let’s see…. reviewing the conversation:
Old Bill: “Nor am I a politician or an elected or appointed official. I’m a private citizen. No one other than my kids and grandkids looks to me as a role model.”
Is mentioning your grandkids a distraction here? What, actually, do they have to do with the judiciary? Could this be….an interjection of an irrelevancy? NO! SAY IT AIN’T SO!
Buzz off, Holly. You’re a shit stirrer.
JEEEZ, OB!
Ironies abound…
(1) Old Bill seems to read my comments with eager attention — he is more likely to respond to pretty much anything I write than anyone else on EA (2) For whatever reason he seems to find my comments to be deeply infuriating.
Kind of reminds me of how my mother reacts to POTUS — she deeply dislikes him AND can’t seem to stop herself eagerly consuming any new item about the man…
Perhaps we have discovered a new syndrome here? Holly Derangement Syndrome? Gee, makes me feel special!!