Robert Clifford

Sunday was the one year anniversary of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s censure of Associate Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto for his role in a 2006 incident involving his son and a teammate on a high school football team.

The court agreed with a judicial conduct panel that Rivera-Soto "engaged in a course of conduct that created a risk that the prestige and power of his judicial office might influence and advance a private matter."

Rivera-Soto is the first state Supreme Court Justice to be censured in New Jersey history. Justice Robert Clifford was once reprimanded for a DWI conviction -- a lesser penalty.

Rivera-Soto remains on the top court -- making the penalty essentially a slap on the wrist.

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George Korpita, who served as a Municipal Court Judge in Rockaway, Dover and Victory Gardens, has been blocked from ever serving in public office again after attempting to use is official position to avoid an arrest in a 2007 drunken driving incident and another one last week in Sparta.  Last week, Livingston Municipal Court Judge Robert Jones was arrested for driving drunk in Parsippany.

New Jersey doesn’t always take a hard line on DWI cases when they involve public officials.

Robert Clifford pled guilty to DWI in 1989 while he was still serving as an Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court He was arrested again for DWI in 2000 when his vehicle struck a small bridge in his hometown, Bernards. Because Clifford's earlier conviction was more than ten years ago, the law allowed him to be viewed as a first-time offender. According to the Star-Ledger, "five state judges have been sanctioned by the Supreme Court following drunken driving convictions. Three were publicly reprimanded, one was censured and one was suspended for 60 days after he was convicted of a second driving-while-intoxicated charge. more >

New Jersey has a medium-sized controversy brewing: the naming of Route 23 after Robert Roe, who represented New Jersey in Congress from 1969 to 1993 and served as Chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee. The Legislature almost unanimously (only Ellen Karcher voted no) approved the bill last year, and Governor Jon Corzine signed it – but now people are paying attention because of a complaint levied by a Morris County man whose wife and daughter were seriously injured in a 1993 car accident involving Roe, who was driving drunk at the time (a breathalyzer showed him at .17, well beyond the .10 legal limit). Roe entered into a plea bargain with prosecutors to avoid serious charges, and paid the family a settlement of more than $500,000.

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In February 1990, the New Jersey Supreme Court publicly reprimanded Associate Justice Robert Clifford, who was convicted of drunk driving. The court said that ''a public reprimand is essential both to vindicate the interests of the judiciary and to maintain the public's confidence in it.''

Four months earlier, Clifford was stopped for driving while intoxicated in Princeton Borough. He refused a Breathalyzer test and was taken to the local police station. Later, he pleaded guilty and lost his license for one year.

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