Longtime Brooklyn judge Vincent Del Giudice retiring amid pressure from advocacy groups, questions about extreme sentences, reversals

Vincent Del Giudice, a longtime Brooklyn judge who has drawn both praise and fury across his 22-year career on the bench, is slated to retire in June amid sharp criticism leveled by activists.

An analysis by the Center for Community Alternatives said that over the years, appellate courts have reduced 19 of Del Giudice’s sentences for being too extreme, knocking a total of 503 years off of them. The 19 sentencing reversals are twice as many as for any other active New York judge, and the amount of time eliminated was six times more than for any other judge, the group said.

Earlier this year, the center mounted a campaign to pressure Gov. Hochul not to reappoint Del Giudice to the bench. As word of his retirement spread in the past two weeks, the group took credit for it.

“We are proud that our advocacy has compelled Justice Del Giudice to announce his retirement,” Peter Martin, the director of judicial accountability for the Center for Community Alternatives, told the Daily News.

Del Giudice did not reply to inquiries from The News, but the judge’s chief law clerk said he’s been planning to step down.

“He was planning to retire and he is retiring,” said William Neri, organizer of a retirement event. Neri declined to comment further.

Others said it was unfair to tag Del Giudice as being too tough, given his caseload.

Del Giudice has his supporters, and has earned the respect of defense lawyers who have appeared before him — many of whom point out that he deals almost exclusively in homicide cases, often dispensing justice for loved ones of victims in horrific murders.

“I have had successes as well as losses in front of him, but not due to him,” said defense lawyer Sam Karliner.

“I think attacking him for heavy sentences is unfair because he deals with some of the worst cases in the city. He has an exclusive homicide caseload. He’s not dealing with minor crimes. He’s dealing with the worst of the worst.”

Karliner, who has tried murders and high-profile cases before Del Giudice for more than a decade, described him as “extremely fair.”

“He’s one of the longest-tenured judges in, certainly in Brooklyn, and one of the very few judges who has a prosecutor’s background as well as a defense attorney’s background,” Karliner said. “So he brings a very, I think, unique and fair perspective and understands both sides.”

Lawyer Gary Farrell, who conducted two trials before Del Giudice, said the jurist had the benefit of prior experience as a prosecutor and a defense attorney prior to ascending to the bench.

“He gave defense counsel leeway on cross-examination that other judges would not,” Farrell said. “He was tough as a sentencer during his stint as a judge who handled almost exclusively murder trials. However, these were defendants who were convicted of the most serious crimes and for many it was not their first conviction.”

Farrell noted that Del Giudice did not levy the maximum sentence in a gun possession case he had even though prosecutors argued for it. He was also respectful of lawyers’ schedules.

Martin, of the Center for Community Alternatives, called on Hochul and the state Senate to move to a new system where the tenure of judges is not automatically continued without review. His group was part of the coalition that scuttled the nomination of Hector LaSalle for chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, and helped get Rowan Wilson elected to the post.

“The worst judges in our court system are allowed to spend decades on the bench,” Ismael Diaz, a community organizer with the Center for Community Alternatives, said May 9.

In 2018, Del Giudice was famously caught vaping on the bench during a murder trial, a definite no-no under city rules that was captured in one tabloid headline after another.

The state Office of Court Administration declined to comment.

Hochul spokesman Avi Small refused to answer when asked by The News whether the governor had declined to reappoint Del Giudice.

“As she has done since taking office, Gov. Hochul will select judicial nominees based on their experience, qualifications and judicial temperament,” Small said.

Giudice, 69, is slated to be feted at Gargiulo’s restaurant in Coney Island on June 27, according to the event flyer.

Tim Balk contributed to this story