Five women whose divorce cases were heard by Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Paul X. Escandon are petitioning the New Jersey General Assembly to impeach the Judge they say violated their rights of due process and equal protection.
WABC-NY first reported the story of the impeachment petition.
Under the New Jersey Constitution, the General Assembly has the sole power to impeach judges by majority vote of the members. Should a judge be impeached by the Assembly, a trial is held in the Senate. A conviction and removal from office requires the vote of two-thirds of the Senate members.
Patricia Madison aka Patricia Pisciotti, Rachel Alintoff, Tameka Hunt, Paula Diaz Antonopoulos Wolfe, and Kristen Williams are represented by Robert A. Tandy, Esq., a Woodcliff Lake civil rights and employment attorney.
The women argue that they have no recourse against Escandon, other than impeachment and removal from office, for violating their civil rights due to the broad immunities granted Judges. They make the following allegations in their petition:
Assemblyman Sean Kean says he and Judge Paul Escandon do not share a political agenda, that his proposed legislation to reform alimony and child support is not anti-women, and that he believes in the integrity, ethics and fairness of Escandon.
Kean was responding to Rachel Alintoff’s comment to Governor Chris Christie, “Judge Escandon is the former law partner of Assemblyman Sean Kean whose main platform is reducing Alimony for women. What will you do as Governor to make sure that Judges are kept from carrying out their own political agendas from the bench?”
“Alintoff has been having lots of people call my office about her case,” said Kean, “we tell them we are not familiar with the case and it would be inappropriate for a legislator to call a Judge about a case.”
Kean is the sponsor of two pieces of legislation regarding alimony and child support.
A685, which is co-sponsored by Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon. The companion bill in the Senate, S1388 is sponsored by Democratic Senator Nicholas Scutari, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Republican Senator Gerald Cardinale. The bill provides for modification of child support and certain alimony cases due to changed circumstances. Kean says this bill makes the Lepis decision, a 1980 NJ Supreme Court decision that defined “change of circumstances” for alimony cases legislated law rather than case law. “This bill puts the current case law into legislation,” said Kean.
