- Good morning, everybody.
I'm here to introduce our next speaker,
The Honorable Arthur F. Engoron.
He was born in New York City
and graduated from the Wheatley School, a public,
you want, perhaps?
Can you here me now?
- [Man] It's good.
- How 'bout if I just speak louder?
What's that?
Great, yeah?
Okay, so, he graduated from the Wheatley School,
a public high school on Long Island.
He received his BA from Columbia University
and his JD, that's a law degree,
from the New York University School of Law.
After working four years for major law firms,
he spent several years as a teacher of classical piano
as well as a performing musician.
He spent the next dozen years as a law clerk.
In 2002, he began an eight-year term as a judge
in the New York City Civil Court.
In 2011, he began a new position
in the New York County Supreme Court, civil term,
as acting supreme court justice.
He has been active on several bar association committees,
received high acclaim from multiple
multiple of law societies, panels, and commissions.
Has received two prestigious awards
and has published numerous articles
as well as small claims manual which is given
to all civil court judges and arbitrators.
In 2014, New York Bar State Association
Torts, Insurance, and Compensation Law Committee
awarded him its distinguished jurist award.
They noted that they decided to honor him
because they said they heard he was a nice guy
and a good judge, (audience member laughs)
which he has shared is precisely what he aspires to be.
It is my pleasure to introduce
to you The Honorable Arthur F. Engoron.
(audience applauds)
- All right, first, first let me thank everybody,
Susan, Alyssa, the dean for treating me like royalty.
I'm reminded of a New Yorker cartoon some years ago
where a judge says, in court, it's Your Honor, Your Honor.
At home, I'm just a bozo that takes out the garbage.
But thanks for the big build-up.
One quick comment about Queensborough Community College,
this is the second time I've been here.
First time was about 42 years ago when I was a taxi driver
when I drove a passenger here.
And what I saw was trailers on a hillside,
and that's what I thought
Queensborough Community College was,
and now you've got this beautiful campus.
So, you've had wonderful leaders obviously and supporters.
Congratulations.
I'm officially the legal expert here I suppose,
but journalism has been sort of a thread in my life,
including when I was deciding what to do with it.
And at one point I was at a crossroad
and I decided I had to be either a journalist,
a psychologist, teacher, or a lawyer.
I had some very good friends who were
from journalism families.
I thought all right, they'll be the journalists.
I didn't become a psychologist
because I wasn't sure I believed in it.
I am now married to a psychologist,
and let me tell you, I believe in it,
absolutely, totally believe in it.
One of your speakers mentioned writing about sports.
I was the sports editor of my high school newspaper,
and I learned an important lesson.
I interviewed the star quarterback of the team,
and he said something about well, we'd be better
if coach X and coach Y got along better.
So, okay, I wrote that in the article.
Oh, were they angry at me.
So, you do have to think about your audience.
On the other hand, as The New York Times says
we report the news without fear or favor.
Sometimes you just have to say the facts.
Let the chips fall where they may.
At least that's my two cents.
I'll tell you something my mother said,
which has always informed my view of journalism.
She said anytime you're part of a story,
you see how wrong the newspapers get it.
And that's been true in my life.
I'll be some spectator or maybe even participant,
and I'll read a newspaper article about what happened,
and it's just so wrong so often about so many facts,
more likely the smaller facts than the bigger facts.
So, part of me says yes, everything you've heard today
about being objective, getting the facts right,
very important stuff, and follow that.
One thing you can do if you're reporting
on trials is read the record.
You see this in the movies.
It was probably in My Cousin Vinny.
There's a reporter there taking this all down.
And those are facts.
What somebody said is a fact,
and if you say that, you can't really be criticized.
In fact, in judge school,
they send us to school for a week to learn how to be a judge
after being a lawyer for 10 years,
they say the record is your friend, meaning, my friend.
Why is that?
Because judges are often tempted,
as I am, to go off the record.
But if you do that, somebody later on is gonna say
that judge made racist slurs,
sexist slurs, homophobic statements.
Not if I'm always on the record.
The record will be clear.
So, again, read the record if you're reporting on trials.
There was a recent comment up here
about making snap judgments.
And we talked a little bit about the Timothy McVeigh
Oklahoma City bombing trial.
I was with a friend, a colleague,
the moment that that news story came down.
What was her snap judgment?
Middle-Eastern terrorist.
That's what people thought.
That's what she thought.
I don't know, I don't remember what I thought
'cause I remember what she thought.
And of course, it was the exact opposite in some ways
than a Middle-Eastern terrorist.
Comment about objectivity and subjectivity,
but first I wanna say what I think Alyssa said.
If you wanna be a journalist, read the papers.
There are so many people
that don't know what's going on in the world.
You don't wanna be one of them.
Oh, and by the way,
I worked for the Columbia Daily Spectator
for a couple of weeks.
What happened was I went there every day,
and I wrote a few stories.
One I got criticized on
because I wrote that some Ku Klux Klanners
had murdered some people, and I was told you can't say that.
How do we know?
You weren't there.
Well, that was what everybody thought.
Anyway, after coming once a week for a couple of weeks,
one of the editors said now you have to come every day.
I said, what do you mean come every day?
I have other things to do.
Well, that's when I stopped doing it,
but it's a very demanding profession.
Read the papers because that's what you're writing for.
Somebody, or a couple of people,
talked about not asking yes or no questions.
That is a great point, and I completely agree with it.
Anybody know what a yes or no question is in the courtroom?
Don't you watch Law and Order?
No? (students murmur)
- [Man] Did you do it?
Did you do it?
- No, no, the technical term for a yes
or no question is a leading question.
So, let's say, my example of a trial
is always a motor vehicle accident at an intersection.
And the question is who had the green light
and who had the red light.
So, there's an eyewitness,
and the plaintiff's lawyer says,
did you see the defendant go through the red light?
Objection, leading question.
A leading question's basically one
that can be answered yes or no.
The proper question is, what did you see?
And that's exactly what the point was before up here,
ask people questions that aren't susceptible to a yes or no.
One other comment about The Times.
I just always thought this was so interesting,
and it has to do with objectivity.
In the mid '60s, The New York Times had editorials
against the war in Vietnam.
Okay.
Most of the country was in favor of it.
The reporters were mostly in favor of it,
or the lower editors.
So, they would talk about the enemy.
So, they would say there was a battle at Khe Sanh.
100 of the enemy were killed.
But if you were against the war,
they weren't necessarily enemy, were they?
So, the choice of words is very important.
In law, one of the important ways
that comes out is someone will say the contract says.
Well, one side in this debate
may think there is no contract.
That's what the fight is often about,
whether there is a contract.
One of the emails I received before coming here
said that you'd be interested
in something about how judges decide cases.
Well, that's a great oversimplification,
although it's an interesting question.
We don't just decide cases.
I don't get a case and say okay,
plaintiff wins, the defendant wins.
They get decided at different stages,
and I'll just run through this real fast.
If you're gonna sue somebody,
you have to tell them you're suing them
so they can come defend themselves.
We call it due process.
A lot of times cases are decided by being thrown out.
Somebody didn't get notice.
Plaintiff could say well,
the defendant promised to give me $1,000.
Well, that gets thrown out because a promise isn't binding
unless there's consideration.
So, you make a motion to dismiss
for failure to state a claim.
Right, it may be true, but so what?
The next stage is summary judgment
where all right, everybody has to swear,
put in a sworn statement, and let's see,
is there a real issue for trial,
or is the outcome predetermined?
Finally, there are trials,
sort of the most exciting part of the whole business,
and there are two types, jury trials and non-jury trials.
I once worked for a judge, and he had a non-jury trial.
I said that's great,
you get to decide the law and the facts.
And he said no, that's not great.
I don't wanna decide the facts.
I want a jury to decide the facts.
Oh, okay, and now that I do a lot of non-jury trials,
I feel the same way.
How do I know who's lying?
I don't have a lie detector.
Plaintiff says I had the green light.
Defendant says I had the green light.
The witness says the plaintiff had the green light.
Well, I can't just say that's two against one
like you do in a playground.
So, if you're writing about trials,
you're not always gonna know the facts.
What you're gonna know is what people have to say.
Objectivity, subjectivity.
Anybody know who John Roberts is,
or maybe John Roberts, Jr.?
Oh, come on, somebody must know that.
He's the chief justice of the United States.
I think that's his official title.
He's on the United States Supreme Court.
I sit in New York Supreme Court.
He's on the United States Supreme Court.
And at his Senate hearing about whether to be approved
or not, he was asked this question,
do you have an agenda, an ideology?
He says nope, I'm not the batter.
I'm not the pitcher.
I'm just calling balls and strikes.
And he's the umpire.
And in fact, by the way, that's how I feel as a judge,
although I usually use the football analogy.
I'm not getting beat up out there.
I'm just saying was that a touchdown or not.
I suppose there's an objective reality in life.
I mean, that's my personal opinion.
There are atoms, molecules, people, things, objects.
Somebody went through the red light,
but how to determine that,
that's up to the jury in the jury trial.
Now, I'm gonna say something controversial
even though I'm being taped.
Juries get it wrong a lot.
That's my own opinion.
I do only civil trials,
personal injury cases, contract disputes,
but I've had situations where like,
oh my heaven's sake,
how could they have thought that?
Well, I have a tool that I can deal with that.
It's called jury not withstanding the,
judgment not withstanding the verdict.
I can say there is no possible way
that a reasonable jury would have reached that conclusion.
And I've done that twice,
and once I got reversed, and once I got affirmed.
That's not bad considering it's sort
of controversial to overturn a jury.
We love juries.
They decide the facts.
Like I said, judges don't wanna do that.
Juries, that's you,
some of you actually have been on juries.
By the way, I'm not being a judge.
If you wanna go to law school,
you can find someone who knows how to reach me.
It's a wonderful job.
I had one last thing to say about tools.
A lot of what I do involves motions,
these summary judgment motions I mentioned.
And, all right, am I following the law, or am I making law?
Okay, I'm following law.
I'm an impartial referee.
But it's hard to factor out my own emotions,
and I have tools.
Somebody can say well, Your Honor,
you have to throw out this case
because it's just like another case.
Well, is it just like another case?
What if the defendant was wearing a red sweater
instead of a blue sweater?
Well, that's an extreme example.
That wouldn't distinguish most cases,
but there are other facts that do.
Maybe the education of somebody
who supposedly entered into a contract
would decide whether the contract was binding.
I have a tool that I'll call,
what I'll call a tool called a stopple.
If somebody makes an argument,
and I say you can't make that argument.
You've made a different argument three months ago
in this case or even in another case.
So, I wish you all luck.
I'll stand here or around afterward for questions,
and again, thanks to the administration for having me.
(audience applauds)
Oh, yeah, questions.
- [Woman] Anyone have questions?
- Or answers, I'll give you the question.
Question here.
- Have you ever had a case
where you've found yourself too empathetic?
- (sighs) You had to ask a hard one?
Yes, there are times when I don't like what I have to do.
Let's put it that way.
A lot of times, let's say somebody is poor, old, frail.
They bring a case that just has no merit.
And what a colleague of mine
and I often say, the law is what the law is.
Sometimes, most of the time,
you just have to do what the law is.
And despite those tools I mentioned,
a lot of verdicts, a lot of outcomes are preordained
whether I like it or not.
And that's probably the same thing you'll find as reporters.
You may not like what's going on,
but that's what's going on.
Any other questions?
In the red sweatshirt.
Yeah, you, with the curly hair.
- [Woman] I'll stand up.
- Yeah, stand up, that'd be great.
- [Woman] I wanted to know, does the media have a big effect
on many of the court trials that you have to do?
- There occasionally have been reporters in my courtroom.
I had some high profile cases involving taxi service
in New York and the use of a park in New York.
No, it wouldn't affect what I do.
It shouldn't, and I hope it doesn't.
Many years ago there was a friend of a friend
that said well, doesn't the Supreme Court care
what President Carter thinks?
I thought, are you kidding?
That's the last thing that they think.
There's a famous quote.
I don't remember the exact words or context.
Does the Supreme Court read the daily papers
or something like that.
I could care less.
No, I gotta do what I gotta do.
And you've gotta do what you've gotta do
if that's what you're doing.
And it's interesting.
Basically, judges cannot speak out.
In fact, there's a rule
which I've kept very much in mind coming here.
We are ethically prohibited from commenting
on pending or impending cases,
cases that exist or cases that could exist.
So, we can't comment,
and if a newspaper says the judge wasn't paying attention,
made a stupid ruling, we're not allowed to say anything.
But that's okay, that's fair.
We have our defenders.
But I couldn't care less what a newspaper says.
I'd like to be thought well of (laughs).
There was another question right there, yeah.
- [Man] Do you have any opinion
on a judge's absolute immunity
even though he's adverse to the actual law,
and he's making incorrect decisions?
- Well, we've all made incorrect decisions.
I can't remember anyway, but there must have been a few.
I'm very biased about that 'cause I am a judge.
But yeah, I think we should have absolute immunity.
We're just doing a job.
The question you asked seemed to be
if we make a wrong decision.
All right, we're all human.
I've made I think 5,000 decisions, the last count,
written decisions, not to mention at a trial
where you're snap, snap, snap decisions.
Yeah, we should have absolute immunity.
What if we defame somebody?
That's how it usually comes up.
You know, you call somebody a murderer or a heroin addict,
that sort of thing, a pedophile.
And if it's done in court, yeah,
I think we should have absolute immunity.
There are other places, other fora, forums,
in which this can play out,
such as newspapers, editorials, letters.
But please don't sue me.
It'll get dismissed.
Okay, well, thanks again and good luck.
(audience applauds)