Judge removed for jailing people over cellphone

Judge Robert Restaino “snapped” and “engaged in what can only be described as two hours of inexplicable madness” during the 2005 session, Raoul Felder, chairman of the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, wrote in the decision to remove the judge.

Restaino, who became a full-time judge in 2002, was hearing domestic violence cases when a phone rang.

“Everyone is going to jail,” the judge said. “Every single person is going to jail in this courtroom unless I get that instrument now. If anybody believes I’m kidding, ask some of the folks that have been here for a while. You are all going.”

When no one came forward, the judge ordered the group into custody and they were taken by police to the city jail, where they were searched and packed into crowded cells. Fourteen people who could not post bail were shackled and bused to the Niagara County Jail, a 30-minute drive away.

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