The Rickel Knox Memorial

July 1st 1998 ~ Rick Halperin

Ulster County Court Judge J. Michael Bruhn should be censured for
speaking about the death penalty at a 1996 police awards banquet while
presiding over the Larry Whitehurst murder case, the state's judicial
watchdog commission recommended Wednesday.

An attorney for Bruhn said the judge would likely accept the penalty
rather than appeal the recommendation to the state's highest court, the
Court of Appeals, as is his right.

Should the recommended penalty stand, it would mark the 3rd time in 11
years that Bruhn has been censured since he became a judge in 1982.
Censure amounts to a public slap on the wrist. Bruhn would be the 1st
New York judge to be censured 3 times if the recommended penalty stands.

The commission has the power to recommend judges be removed from the
bench.

Whitehurst was facing a possible death sentence in connection with the
1995 murder of 7-year-old Rickel Knox of Kingston when he pleaded
guilty on Nov. 20, 1996, in return for a sentence of life in prison
without the possibility of parole. Bruhn handed down that sentence on
Dec. 12, 1996.

The commission said that in April 1996, Bruhn was asked to speak at a
police awards banquet sponsored by the Ulster County Police Chiefs'
Association, specifically on the Whitehurst case. While Bruhn said he
could not do that given that the case was pending in his court, he did
agree to speak about the state's new death penalty law.

At the May 18 dinner, the commission said Bruhn not only spoke about the
law in front of potential Whitehurst case witnesses who were police
officers, but also was critical of the state Capital Defenders Office
that was defending Whitehurst.

The commission said that by speaking at the dinner, Bruhn "cast
reasonable doubt on his ability to be impartial in the case." It added
that given the high-profile nature of the Whitehurst case, "his
disclaimer that he was not speaking about any particular case was a
mockery."

And noting that some of the award recipients at the dinner were police
witnesses in the case, the commission said that "by praising them, while
disparaging the defendant's counsel, he abandoned the mantle of a
neutral and detached magistrate."

Bruhn's lawyer, former state judge Robert Sise, said Wednesday that
having been a judge for 30 years he knows how hard it is to turn down
requests from groups to speak.

"Everybody has 20-20 hindsight, but he would have served himself better
by saying, 'Look, I'm glad to talk about different aspects of the law
and so forth, but I'm not going anywhere near anything to do with
capital punishment or the (Whitehurst) case,'" Sise said.

Bruhn, 55, was elected a Kingston City Court judge in 1982 and served in
that post through 1993 when he became an Ulster County Court judge.

Gerald Stern, the judicial watchdog commission's counsel, said Bruhn was
censured in 1987 and again in 1990 for conflicts between his private law
practice and his judicial duties.

Stern said that while previous disciplinary actions against a judge are
taken into account by the commission when it considers possible penalties
for new transgressions, there is no legal limit to the number of times
judges can be censured before they are thrown off the bench.

4/30/99 - Judge denies Whitehurst's withdrawal try

KINGSTON NY � Child murderer Larry Whitehurst's bid to withdraw his 1996 guilty plea and invalidate the original indictment against him, in hopes he may someday be paroled, was rejected yesterday. The county court judge who heard Whitehurst's legal arguments last month, yesterday denied Whitehurst's bid to withdraw his guilty plea or enforce a controversial deal he made with prosecutors. So Whitehurst, 28, remains in prison for life without the possibility of parole for the Sept. 21, 1995 kidnapping, rape and murder of 7-year-old Rickel Knox. "That's good news to me," said Rev. Willie Hardin, the pastor who counseled the Knox family throughout the ordeal. "Again, my position is that he come out in a body bag, period, that's it. That's still my position. I just don't think he belongs outside." Whitehurst pleaded guilty to first-degree murder Nov. 20, 1996 in Ulster County Court. In doing so he avoided the possibility of execution by lethal injection. Since then he has argued that the plea should be withdrawn because his lawyers didn't properly advise him of the consequences. Also, he was trying to enforce a deal he signed with prosecutors late Sept. 24 in which he was promised 10 years in prison before being eligible for parole if he led police to the girl and she was still alive. If found dead, he would be eligible for parole in 15 years. Once Rickel was found, her skull crushed in and her body hidden under dirt, twigs and leaves in Kingston's wooded outskirts, prosecutors disregarded the deal and announced their intention to seek the death penalty. Whitehurst, "misled authorities to believe that she might still be alive," County Court Judge Frank LaBuda wrote in yesterday's decision.
LaBuda, normally Sullivan County Court judge, sat on the case because Ulster County Court Judge J. Michael Bruhn was recused. Whitehurst can now appeal yesterday's decision. Only testimony or evidence heard or seen in a courtroom can be considered by an appeals court. John Casey, Jr., the lawyer representing Whitehurst in his appeals, said it could be a year or more before the case gets heard by a mid-level appeals court. Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams, who was Whitehurst's original prosecutor, said it's impossible to speculate what may ultimately become of the case during the appeals process. He went on: "This man deserves to spend every possible day of his life in prison. It's terrible the Knoxes have to go through this ordeal but we will be relentless in the remainder of the appellate process."

By Paul Kirby

The mayor said he plans to continue the city's close relationship with the Bruderhof. In the past, the group has donated labor and materials to city projects, particularly ones focused on children. Last year, the Bruderhof donated $10,000 to help build the Rickel Knox Memorial Playground on Gill Street - dedicated to a Kingston 7-year-old who was kidnapped and killed in 1995 - and provided the labor to put it up.

"They have been supporters of the city of Kingston ... and this community is very lucky to have them just a phone call away," Sottile said.