The Two Minute Verdict

Judge Peters was one of the five justices of the Third Department who decided Nickel's appeal. However, she was the only one of the five who insisted that, rather than being reduced to 32 years, Nickel's sentence should remain at 54 years. (See State Appeal.) Thus, a careful look at some of her other cases is in order:

Paul Czajka was actually a Columbia — not an Albany — County Court judge. He was apparently assigned to this case because one of the two sitting Albany County Court judges had recently retired, and there was a large backload of cases.

“In the course of consulting in hundreds of cases of accusations of child sexual abuse, defense attorneys across the land have reported to us that law enforcement personnel behave differently in a sexual abuse case. Exculpatory evidence is withheld or destroyed … Lies, circumventions, subterfuge, and hostile manipulation of legal rules abound.”
from Accusations of Child Sexual Abuse, by Hollida Wakefield and Ralph Underwager, 1988, pp. 130-131.

A photograph was allegedly found on a computer disc in Nickel’s possession. But because the image had been ‘deleted,’ it was not and could not have been found by simply inserting the disc into a disc drive. Special software was required to ‘recover’ it.

Just a couple of years after Jeffrey Nickel's trial, Peter Torncello prosecuted another child sexual abuse case; this time, against a pediatric neurologist by the name of Philip Riback. Torncello's tactics there -- as well as other, subsequent events to be discussed below -- tell us a lot about his character.

Due to the fact that Arthur was under 12 years old at the time of the trial, a hearing was conducted to assess his competency to testify under oath.

A non-jury or "bench" trial is when the judge, rather than a jury, decides guilt or innocence.

Links to relevant articles about the case.

"Even in free societies, in crimes violating cardinal moral and societal beliefs...judicial impartiality is often thrown to the wind -- and we have 'political justice.'"

-- Thomas Szasz

"A Judge who requires others to 'tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth' must set an example by telling the truth herself in a legal proceeding."

-- Administrative Judge Robert Tembeckjian, State Commission on Judicial Conduct

"The underlying premise of our criminal justice system is that a defendant must be tried for what he did, not who he is."

-- Bennett Gershman, Prosecutorial Misconduct, at § 10:2, pg. 10-4 (quoting the American Bar Association's Standards for Criminal Justice)

"Child witnesses are highly susceptible to suggestion and often undergo severely suggestive interviews."

--Dugas, 'State of New Jersey v. Michaels: The Due Process Implications in Interviewing Child Witnesses,' 55 Lou.L.Rev. 1205, 1226 (1995)