Calm Judicial Eye in Storm Over Bail
The New York Times
Published: Jan 13, 2009
The federal Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV got a phone call Monday morning from a colleague on the bench, who teased him about a ruling he had made, which had made the front page of a legal publication.
Judge Francis said he joked back, saying the only reason his ruling had gotten media attention was because his colleague had not yet finished one of his own opinions, which would have knocked him from the front page.
There is no question about that. The ruling that the colleague, Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis, had been working on would become big news when he issued it later Monday: he refused to revoke bail for Bernard L. Madoff, who has been charged with running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Judge Francis said it was not surprising that Judge Ellis would take extra time to finish his opinion, which ran 22 pages, and carefully explain his reasons for continuing Mr. Madoff’s bail. “He’s thoughtful,” Judge Francis said. “He’s not somebody who shoots from the hip.”
Judge Francis added that although Judge Ellis would not have cared about whether his ruling got media attention, he was probably aware that it would have a wider audience than most, and would have wanted to explain how he reached his decision.
Judge Ellis declined to be interviewed for this article. Like most federal magistrate judges in Manhattan, who decide bail questions, take guilty pleas and conduct arraignments, he is not well known. In even the most contentious of matters, he tends to maintain a calm demeanor on the bench. In August, for example, he listened to a defense lawyer make a passionate argument to dismiss charges against Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist charged with trying to kill American soldiers and F.B.I. agents in Afghanistan. He declined to dismiss the charges, and ordered Ms. Siddiqui held pending further proceedings.
“He’s very steady, impervious to the politics of the day, and takes his role as a dispassionate observer very seriously,” said Raymond Audain, a former law clerk.
Judge Ellis, 58, was appointed in 1993. Born in Lafourche Crossing, La., he graduated from New York University School of Law, and before joining the bench worked as a lawyer at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
In his Madoff ruling, Judge Ellis made it clear that the question was not whether Mr. Madoff had been charged in “perhaps the largest Ponzi scheme ever,” or whether “Madoff’s alleged actions should result in his widespread disapprobation by the public.”
It was only whether prosecutors had shown that he was a flight or security risk — and they had not, he concluded.
© The New York Times. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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