‘UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR’

NJ Judge Who Asked Rape Victim if She Tried to Close Her Legs Is Removed From Bench

John Russo Jr. asked a sexual assault victim in court whether she tried to block her “body parts” or close her legs to stop her alleged rapist.

The New Jersey Supreme Court has permanently barred a judge from serving in the state due to “repeated and serious acts of misconduct” after he was previously suspended for asking a rape victim if she could have stopped her attacker by closing her legs. John Russo Jr., a former Ocean County Superior Court judge, was dismissed from the bench after he was recommended for removal by a three-judge panel earlier this year. Russo was presiding over a 2016 case when he asked a sexual assault victim, who was seeking a restraining order against her alleged assailant, if she knew “how to stop somebody from having intercourse” with her. When she responded, “to run away or try to get away,” Russo added, “Close your legs? Call the police? Did you do any of those things?” 

Chief Justice Stuart J. Rabner, who wrote the high court’s opinion, asserted that “no reasonable victim could have confidence in a court system were he to preside over those kinds of cases again.” Russo claimed that his goal was to “get her re-engaged in the hearing” with cross-examination, which was rejected by the high court. “No witness, alleged victim, or litigant should be treated that way in a court of law,” Rabner said, adding that his “disturbing comments and questions were insensitive, threatening, and discourteous, and they reflected poorly on his temperament.”