Disciplinary commission says William Carter tried to intercede in gun permit application; his lawyer denies it
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| When he resigned from office last in March, Albany County Judge William Carter was under investigation for allegedly trying to have a friend's application for a pistol permit assigned to him, according to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct. (Paul Buckowski/Times Union) |
ALBANY — When he resigned from office last month, Albany County Judge William Carter was under investigation for allegedly trying to have a friend's application for a pistol permit assigned to him, according to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.
The commission, whose top administrator called Carter's behavior a violation of judicial ethics, ended the probe after Carter — who had previously been disciplined multiple times by the panel — agreed to leave the bench.
"Judge Carter denied the allegations in the complaint. Nevertheless, he vacated judicial office effective March 30, 2021, and agreed never to seek or accept judicial office at any time in the future," the commission wrote in an announcement made public on Friday.
The commission said it disclosed the investigation to the judge in March after receiving a complaint that, after a friend of Carter's filed for a pistol permit application, the judge attempted to have the application assigned to him and "initiated a conversation about the matter with the judge to whom the case had been assigned."
The identity of the friend was not released by the commission. Carter did not return a call for comment on Friday.
“A judge is ethically prohibited from exerting the influence of judicial office for the personal benefit of others," Commission Administrator Robert H. Tembeckjian said in a prepared statement Friday. "The complaint that Judge Carter did so as to a gun permit application was serious. In view of his having been censured twice and cautioned twice before for misconduct, it is well that he chose to resign and agreed never to return to the bench.”
The investigation had not come to light when the 61-year-old judge announced in March that he planned to leave the bench at the end of that month. At the time he announced his retirement, Carter said he started the retirement process in January. He said he was considering retiring in September, when he turns 62.
"On many days, working through the pandemic, I felt like I was already retired," Carter said. Last spring, coronavirus forced the state to close its courts. Once they reopened, surges in cases twice prompted postponement of jury trials.
Calling the matter "a complete misunderstanding," Carter's attorney Stephen Downs said the investigation was not the primary reason for the judge's decision to retire.
"He was planning to retire already, and I think this pushed it ahead a little bit so he didn't have to spend time on it," said Downs, who insisted Carter did not discuss the gun case with another judge but rather mentioned it in the clerk's office.
Downs also disputed the commission's characterization of Carter's relationship with the permit applicant as a friendship. He said they knew each other in grade school and had "spoken maybe twice in 50 years." He declined to disclose the friend's name.
Tembeckjian offered a brief response to Downs' assertions:
“Had Judge Carter not resigned, the commission’s investigation would have continued, and I believe the facts would have been different than what his spokesman is suggesting," he said.
The disclosure of the investigation came as a shock inside the county courthouse where several people said they found Carter's retirement abrupt but that it came with no hint he faced a new allegation of wrongdoing.
In 2006, the commission censured Carter for leaving the bench to physically confront a defendant in City Court. In 2020, he was censured a second time for improperly engaging in a phone conversation with a sheriff’s deputy who was set to testify before the judge the next day in a pre-trial hearing in a murder case.
The commission said Carter was privately cautioned — a lesser sanction than censure — two times: in 2004 for failing to disqualify himself in arraignments of unrepresented defendants, and in 2012 for appearing as a guest of honor at a fundraising event for a civic group.
Carter, a former state trooper and graduate of Albany Law School on the bar since January 1992, has served as an Albany County assistant district attorney, chief assistant district attorney, assistant attorney general, defense attorney and judge. He has also served as an adjunct Albany Law School professor and was an acting County Court judge handling domestic violence cases.
In January 2002, Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings appointed Carter to the City Court bench, making Carter the first Black judge to serve the city. Carter was re-elected and remained there until 2016, when he was elected to County Court to replace retiring Judge Stephen Herrick, now the county's public defender.
Carter's tenure on the bench has included several disagreements with Albany County District Attorney David Soares' office, including one spat over Soares' decision not to prosecute Occupy Albany protesters that reached the state's highest court.
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