Holding Court is a column by retired Rye City Court Judge Joe Latwin. Latwin retired from the court in December 2022 after thirteen years of service to the City. Latwin appeared on Episode 8 of Season 1 of our podcast MyRye.com Conversations with Doug French. Listen to learn more about Latwin and the Rye City Courts.
What topics do you want addressed by Judge Latwin? Tell us.
The Courthouse
Rye’s City Court is located at 21 McCullough Place above the Police station near the train station. It was built during the Depression, making it almost 100 years old. Beginning as early as 1990, the State found significant deficiencies in the Court building. More formal findings of deficiencies were made in the mid-1990s. At that time, acquiring the land for and building a new courthouse would have cost in excess of $24 million dollars – almost the size of the entire City budget. To Rye’s good fortune, Orange County suffered severe damage to its court forcing the State to take its eyes off of Rye. In the mid- 2010s, I worked with Rye’s architect and the Corporation Counsel to get the State to agree to not require Rye to fully comply with State requirements, such as separate holding cells for male, female, and youth. As a practical matter, Rye doesn’t have many youths in custody and rarely has male and females in custody at the same time. The estimate for the required work (that also included upgrades to the police station) was about $2.5 million. By the time the City was ready to commit to it, the costs had risen to about $3.2 million. Then, there was no place for the Court to operate during the construction. A proposal to use the unused space on the second floor of City Hall went nowhere.
Why is this important? There are several reasons. Although the Rye City Court is a State court, Rye is responsible for providing an adequate court building (and providing maintenance for which the State contributes). If it doesn’t provide an adequate court building, the State can withhold all State Aid to Rye. In fiscal year 2024, that amounted to $1,348,301 according to the 2026 Citizens Budget Report. To make up for that lost revenue, Rye would have to raise local taxes by about 2.7%. Don’t think the State would withhold State Aid? A couple of years ago, the State threatened do so if Schenectady didn’t upgrade its court. On the verge of losing State Aid, at the very last moment Schenectady backed down. Several other communities received the same threat and agreed and took steps to improve their court houses.
There are also safety issues that must be addressed. Being on the second floor of the building where there is no elevator, the Court is not ADA compliant exposing the City to liability. There is a wheel chair lift that was put in the building in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the lift only works sporadically, if at all, rendering the Court inaccessible to those that cannot climb stairs. Repair parts are no longer available if they need repair or replacement. Worse than that, when the lift is in use, it blocks the only public stairway between the court and the street preventing anyone from using the stairs. What would happen if the lift blocked the stairs during a fire? Everyone would be trapped in the Court! A public elevator is required to go from the street to the courtroom level. Without an elevator, if there is a person in a wheelchair that must be arraigned, the Judge and a clerk go into the public lobby outside of the police department to do an arraignment. This presents obvious security issues.
There are other safety concerns. There is no secure place to hold prisoners awaiting their court appearance on the second floor. The prisoners were sitting on folding chairs outside the courtroom until I took heavy chairs from the courtroom and bound them together with zip ties to prevent the chairs from being used as weapons. There were no bars on the walls to which prisoners could be handcuffed.
To get from the holding cells downstairs in the police station to the courtroom there is a steep staircase. I saw a 300-pound large gentleman bound with leg irons and handcuffs behind his back have to climb those stairs. If he had fallen, he might have crushed the police officer having custody over him besides severely injuring himself. Two things are required: a secure holding area on the second floor and a secured elevator for prisoner transport.
There is inadequate space for all court operations. There is no jury room. If there is a jury trial, the jury deliberates in the courtroom. That precludes any other court proceedings from happening in the court.
Here are no separate changing rooms for the Court officers. Rye has both male and female court officers that now share a supply closet as a changing room. How cozy.
There is no place for people to confer with their lawyers. There is no place for the City Attorney to negotiate with people charged with City Code or traffic violations. Right now, they talk next to the stair where the chair lift folds around the upper stair banister. Not conducive to confidential conversations.
The Court needs upgrades. The State is regularly asking about Rye’s progress in getting the Court upgraded. There has been little evident progress. If the State forces the issue, it will cost Rye dearly.
