A judge told a Black defendant “naturally she played the race card.” New York’s top court has removed him.

A Black woman stood in front of a New York judge in May 2024 and said she believed her race had shaped how much bail he set. He answered on the record: “Naturally she played the race card.”

On Oct. 27, New York’s highest court removed that judge, Canandaigua Town Justice Walter W. Jones, from the bench. The Court of Appeals upheld two misconduct charges against him and accepted the recommendation of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Six judges supported removal, including Chief Judge Rowan Wilson. One took no part.

The second charge is the one that matters most to Black people who may someday stand in a town court. A defendant who says she is being treated differently because she is Black is raising the oldest complaint in American courtrooms. Jones, the record shows, treated it as a tactic.

The first charge came five days earlier. On May 10, 2024, Jones used the N-word repeatedly while telling a story to two colleagues, according to the commission’s findings. He told the commission he was repeating his father’s words to teach a lesson about tolerance. A referee did not accept that account, finding he used the slur more than once and gave no warning before he did.

The woman before him on May 15 was facing an assault charge. She told the court she could not afford bail because of a pending eye surgery and her job. After he denied her request, Jones made the “race card” remark.

This was not his first brush with the commission. He had received two letters of caution, in August 2021 and March 2024, for separate violations. Both came before the conduct the court has now ruled on. He had been on the bench for 27 years.

Jones had fought the recommendation, and the Court of Appeals suspended him with pay in April while it reviewed the case. In its decision, the court found he did not recognize how his statements could damage public confidence that judges are impartial.

Town and village courts across New York are staffed largely by part-time justices, and many of them are not lawyers. For a defendant who cannot afford to post bail, the person on the bench decides whether she goes home to her job or sits in jail. Bail is the point in a case where bias, if it exists, costs a person her freedom before anyone has proved anything against her.

The commission and the court acted only after a complaint, a referee’s hearing and a year and a half. The woman who raised the question in that courtroom was told on the record that she was playing a card. Judges who hear a Black defendant say race may be a factor should be required to listen, not to answer with a sneer. New York needs to ask how many other town benches have never had a complaint like this one reach the commission.