By Natasha Nordahl and Williams Primps

April 20, 2022: As more than two years of the COVID pandemic has passed, it seems appropriate that we, as Bronxville's local judges, report to the Village on the functioning of our court over the unprecedented period that all of us have experienced. 

To provide background, you should know that our Village Court is part of the Unified New York Court System, and as such we provide judicial services within our one square mile jurisdiction, subject to a variety of limitations. Our jurisdiction of criminal cases is limited to misdemeanor matters, generally crimes punishable by up to one year imprisonment, but we arraign all variety of crimes in Bronxville up to and including the most serious felonies. Our jurisdiction over Village landlord tenant matters is not limited by any monetary amount, while in civil matters, we can try only small claims, up to $3,000. As most Villagers know, we have full jurisdiction of all vehicle and traffic offenses, as well as all matters related to the imposition of parking fines.

Natasha Nordahl 

William Primps

With the onset of Covid in March 2020, all areas of the administration of justice in the Village were impacted.  Instead of conducting in-person proceedings, the Court presided over matters virtually, via Microsoft Teams.  Weddings were conducted outside or with masks on. Further, in response to the reluctance of many citizens to attend in-person hearings for traffic violations, we worked with Village Prosecutor, Ron Ritz, Esq. to develop a plea by mail system, subject to the Court's approval and setting of fines. 

Not only did the administration of court change on a practical level, the law itself experienced a sea-change before and during the pandemic. On January 1, 2020, the State of New York enacted an extensive package of criminal law reforms (commonly referred to "bail reform"). Similarly, in response to the pandemic, new Federal and State legislation was enacted which significantly affected landlord tenant matters. 

Despite all the changes to court functions and the law, we have been able to stay on top of our docket and continue the business of the court.  We resumed in-person proceedings in the summer of 2021, as the availability of vaccines and resultant drop in infections allowed us to resume near-normal operations. However, the emergence of the Omicron variant forced a return to virtual hearings which was recently abated. 

Thus, while we are currently conducting proceedings in person, the Office of Court Administration requires that masks be worn.  We hope that the court system will soon be able to dispense with masking.  In the interim, we ask for Village residents to exercise patience in their dealings with our court, where all transactions and proceedings must still be masked, We have found it laborious to conduct proceedings when all participants are masked, especially when we are trying, through the use of a court reporter, to produce an accurate transcript of proceedings in case where defendants are not fluent in English and using an interpreter. Nevertheless, we have successfully continued to conduct proceedings in this manner. 

With all of the changes in state law and the imposition of Covid regulations, both of us have redoubled our efforts to avail ourselves of existing resources to stay current with state and local legal developments. Thus, both of us attended last September’s conference of New York Magistrates in Niagara Falls, and we have continued to be active members of the Westchester County Magistrates Association, which features regular meetings and extensive continuing judicial education programs.

Through all these recent travails, we are pleased to report that Village residents have been well-served, as have we, by our court support personnel, long-serving Clerk Kelly DeSimone, Assistant Clerk Yecenia Tovar, and Parking Violations Clerk, Linda Thomas.

To sum matters up, the past two years have been among the most challenging in the long history of our Village Justice Court, but both of your judges are looking forward to the privilege of further service to Village residents, and all who come before us!

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