No excuse for lawyer's chronic lateness: judge

A defense attorney who showed up to a trial 30 minutes late has been slapped with sanctions by a Brooklyn judge who said she's fed up with his "pattern of practice to delay trials."

In an order made public Monday, Kings County Acting Supreme Court Justice Suzanne Mondo directed Brooklyn attorney Douglas Rankin to pay $500 for his "premeditated, blatant and willful" late arrival to court on March 5, after he had received repeated warnings to be on time.

"He knew full well that a trial would commence and that it was his obligation to be present at 9:30 a.m., the time the court ordered him to appear," Mondo wrote. "Mr. Rankin's conduct in (this) case exemplifies his practice of failing to appear on specified dates and times before this and other courts."

Rankin has 31 cases pending in Kings County Supreme Court, 19 of which are older than two years -- and together those cases "encompass hundreds of adjournments that waste hundreds of hours of court resources," according to Mondo.

An attorney for Rankin, Richard Grayson, said his client intends to appeal the sanctions.

The case at hand involves a defendant, Marcia King, who is awaiting trial on charges including grand larceny and welfare fraud. The case was originally slated to go to trial in February 2010, but due to various motions, discovery issues and Rankin's occasional failure to appear, the trial date was adjourned more than a dozen times, Mondo said.

The final straw came on Feb. 28, when Rankin showed up three hours after the trial was scheduled to begin, Mondo wrote. After Rankin requested an additional week-long adjournment due to doctor's appointments and a family commitment, Mondo "reluctantly" granted his request, despite her "skepticism of the validity of the medical appointments, which appear to have been manufactured by counsel to avoid trial," the ruling stated.

Mondo made it clear that if Rankin were not present in court at 9:30 on March 5, sanctions and fines would follow, according to the ruling.

But on March 5 at 9:30, there was no sign of Rankin, the ruling said. A few minutes before 10 a.m., he walked into the courtroom, put down his coat and then walked back out, talking on his cell phone, according to the ruling.

When asked why he was late, Rankin replied that he had been caught in traffic. But given his history -- and his apparent familiarity with New York City traffic patterns -- the excuse was "inadequate," Mondo found. She imposed the $500 sanction, which was affirmed after a subsequent hearing on the sanctions.

It's not the first time Rankin has gotten in trouble for his tardiness, Mondo noted. In 2004, the Lawyers Fund for Client Protection imposed sanctions against him in a proceeding in Westchester County Court, and in 2011, Rankin was relieved as counsel following similar conduct in a New York County drunk-driving case that had been pending for nearly three years, the ruling stated.

The case is Matter of Rankin, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Kings County, no. 5502/2009.

For Rankin: Richard Grayson.

(Published by Reuters - April 9,2012)