In Croton Village Court, two high-profile cases to start the year. Village Justice Sam Watkins is on the bench.
Among a lineup of fairly "routine" matters, the cases of an alleged Croton burglar and an alleged hit-and-run driver (with fatality) are on the court docket.
“All rise for the honorable Judge Watkins!”
It’s 9:00 am on Wednesday, January 3. Croton’s Village Court is in session—and on time.
Judge Watkins tells everyone to sit down, and surveys the courtroom—which, as it happens, is the Georgianna Grant Meeting Room, where Croton’s Board of Trustees, Planning Board, and certain other august bodies of Croton-on-Hudson meet. Every Wednesday morning, it becomes a courtroom.
“I see we have the regular rogue’s gallery of attorneys,” Watkins observes. The room is surprisingly full for a village court, perhaps vindicating those in Croton—including Judge Watkins himself—who fought hard against the cost-cutting proposal by Croton’s mayor and village manager that the court should be closed down and its business moved to the town of Cortlandt.
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