From: "John Beamish" 

Not the kind you see on L&O, but the local ones in smaller hamlets. 
Good grief, it seems like something out of "Deliverance"!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/nyregion/25courts.html?ei=5090&en=4701aab85cb
b73bf&ex=1316836800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

These are New York� �s town and village courts, or justice courts, as the
1,250 of them are widely known. In the public imagination, they are quaint
holdovers from a bygone era, handling nothing weightier than traffic
tickets and small claims. They get a roll of the eyes from lawyers who
amuse one another with tales of incompetent small-town justices.

A woman in Malone, N.Y., was not amused. A mother of four, she went to
court in that North Country village seeking an order of protection against
her husband, who the police said had choked her, kicked her in the stomach
and threatened to kill her. The justice, Donald R. Roberts, a former state
trooper with a high school diploma, not only refused, according to state
officials, but later told the court clerk, � �Every woman needs a good
pounding every now and then.� �

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