Gotta love it! This is still the guy I said he was when he was assigned the case...
My favorite part is that he says all the right things about the "precedent" set by the Appeals Court, but then lets fly with these zingers:
"The commissioner’s arbitration award was not entitled to “deference” by the courts also because he had a personal stake in the outcome of the appeal. That is, he had an incurable conflict of interest, evident partiality, and could not possibly be fair … he was reviewing the discipline which he himself had imposed. Under these circumstances, the commissioner’s appeal decision must be held to a much higher level of scrutiny by the courts."
and
"Even though it is provided in the collective bargaining agreement, in my opinion, it makes no sense that the person who made the decision would hear the appeal of that same decision. That person, try as they might, cannot be fair and cannot be objective. It’s just this inherent conflict of interest. You could argue, OK, they negotiated it and put it in there, and that is true, but as a judge looking at a situation like that, there is just no way that I am going to find that it is fair. So, I would do it the same way."
and, the icing on the cake:
"I have had other big cases. When I first started, I had this fabulous wine case. Not a criminal case, but a civil case, having to do with importation of wine from out of state, which was illegal in New York State. I ruled that that law was unconstitutional. I immediately got reversed 3-0 by the Second Circuit, but then it went to the Supreme Court and the Second Circuit got reversed 5-4. That case is in the same league as Deflategate. On the two occasions that I have had cases go to the Supremes after being reversed, they have been reversed."
