JUDGE IS MURDER ON CITY'S KILLERS

Judge Robert Hanophy of Queens, a perfect gentleman of a jurist, keeps
a putter in his office with a special set of golf balls labeled "The
Wings of Death."

The custom balls were a gift from his son, chief of gang violence and
hate crimes for the Queens district attorney.

The nickname was a gift from a local defense lawyer.

Hanophy, 70, is the dean of New York City murder cases - and by any
measure, he has earned a reputation as, simply, the toughest judge in
town.

"Hang 'em Hanophy," as some courthouse people call him, has sentenced
232 people for murder, manslaughter or homicide since computers
started recording city criminal cases in 1987 - and Hanophy's career
on the bench began about a year earlier.

An elected Supreme Court justice, he is widely believed to have
imprisoned more murderers than any sitting judge in the United States.

"I don't have anything else but homicides," Hanophy said in an
unusually candid interview last week. "That's all I try. I like what I
do. I love it."

Hanophy has sentenced killers to prison for a cumulative 5,700 years
minimum, with 74 of them given maximum life terms. One murderer,
Richard Timmons of Long Island City, who decapitated his wife and
7-year-old son in 1997, then hacked his teenage stepson to death with
an ax, got life without parole.

Moo Chul Shin, 32, is currently doing 39-to-life at the state prison
in Attica for butchering his ex-lover, her husband and her two young
daughters. He is eligible for parole in 2041.

Forget probation in Hanophy's court. Only one in 28 defendants
convicted in his courtroom had any hope of avoiding incarceration,
records show. His incarceration rate is 97%.

Chief judges have given Hanophy power to pick cases for himself, and
he always chooses homicide.

"You have to understand that somebody's been killed," he said. "These
are horrendous crimes."

But since New York State law mandates prison with a maximum life term
for murder and serious levels of manslaughter, it's not as though
Hanophy could be lenient. "A lot of people think I'm God, but I'm
not," he said.

Yet he always offers a defendant a plea bargain, and continues to be
surprised when they opt for a trial.

"I can't offer them anything but a life sentence," he said. "Look, if
you're convicted of a homicide, you're not going to get two to four."

Hanophy said the one aspect of a murder case that can deeply affect
him is the testimony from a victim's family.

"It's traumatic," Hanophy said. "You hear some eloquent
statements."

The judge said he is often equally affected by the family of a
defendant. "They might be dead by the time that someone gets out of
prison," he said. "I take that into consideration very strongly."

Hanophy's words have landed him in trouble. He occasionally betrays
his anger in court.

"It is my pleasure to sentence you because I think you are a bad
person," he once fumed before handing a 25-to-life prison term to
Jerome Mitchell, who executed a Senegalese immigrant taxi driver in
1996.

"It is my wish that you never be let out of prison, Mr. Mitchell," the
judge said, "and it's society's demand."

Hanophy was censured in 1997 for a "vituperative" speech from the
bench to British parents of a mentally ill woman who had killed her
newborn child. The speech triggered an angry reaction in the House of
Commons.

Hanophy let the troubled woman serve probation in Britain and even
expedited the case. Nevertheless, her parents complained it was taking
too long to send their daughter home.

That ticked Hanophy off.

"I said, hell, you're coming from the most liberal criminal justice
system in the world," the judge recalled.

Does Hanophy regret that - or any other act during his 19 years on the
bench? "No," he said.

Homicide cases are heavily appealed, but Hanophy is almost never
reversed, and acquittals in his courtroom are equally rare.

In one instance, an appeals court did sternly overturn a manslaughter
conviction against a bouncer who killed a bystander during a strip
club brawl in 1997.

The defendant had been jokingly nicknamed "Homicide," and prosecutors
referred to him as such 31 times. Hanophy failed to properly tell
jurors how to weigh the defendant's self-defense claim.

Unfair, said the appeals court.

Hanophy said he can't recall the case.

Despite his tough record, Hanophy is respected, even admired by
defense attorneys in Queens.

However attorneys do question his and other judicial
assignments.

"The system is structured in a manner in which the district attorney's
office is able to have one judge hear all the homicide cases," said
Marvyn Kornberg, a prominent Queens defense lawyer.

"When you give one judge nothing but murder ... and they see that day
after day, you create a situation where it normally becomes a bias
toward the prosecutor," Kornberg said. Still, Kornberg acknowledged:
"I would say Judge Hanophy is a fair judge."

Jack Ryan, chief assistant district attorney in Queens, said Hanophy
can be as tough on ADAs as he is on defense attorneys.

"We by no means agree with all of his decisions," Ryan said. "But when
he has made up his mind on something, he has made up his mind. ...
That's the type of man he is - tough and fair."

In drug court, lots of dealing

Some New York City courtrooms serve as plea-bargain mills where
defendants have an almost even chance to avoid jail.

In drug courts and so-called first appearance courts, addicts are
often sent to drug treatment rather than prison. Prosecutors cut deals
to clear their dockets of weak or minor cases.

About two out of five cases in those courts end in probation or
community service for the defendant, computer records show.

Bronx Supreme Court Judge John Collins, chief administrative judge for
Bronx criminal courts, presides over one drug court there. In recent
years, hundreds of felony drug-dealing defendants have received
probation through agreements made by prosecutors.

Acting Supreme Court Judges William Garnett of Brooklyn and Pauline
Mullings of Queens manage appearance courtrooms where defendants, some
charged with serious felony crimes, are pressured to make a plea bargain.

Judges, by and large, are not driving these decisions. Prosecutors are
negotiating punishments. "The notion of governmental supervision is a
big thing," observed veteran Judge Juanita Bing-Newton of Manhattan.
"A conviction goes on their record, they can't vote, they can't obtain
licenses for many professions, and they can't associate with criminals
without risking prison time."

Even when a felon is shipped off to prison with a maximum life
sentence, mandatory punishment for many drug crimes, state records
show life doesn't mean life.

A three-year-to-life sentence, a typical prison term for a repeat drug
dealer, leads to a median time served of four years. A
five-year-to-life drug sentence gets a median of six years actually
served.