Justice Nicholas A. Clemente J.D., LL.M. (2 February 1929-4 May 2009[1]) Former Justice of the New York State Supreme Court (a lower court in New York), Professor, Judicial Hearing Officer, Novelist
Justice Nicholas A. Clemente served for over 25 years as a Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, mainly in Kings County (Brooklyn). In 2005, he retired from the bench, after having sat on the bench for a few years in Sullivan County, New York. In his judicial career, he presided over a wide range of civil and criminal matters. He also became known for knowledge and expertise in medical malpractice cases.
Justice Clemente earned his undergraduate degree in English and History from New York University, earned his J.D. from St. John's University and his Ll.M. from New York University School of Law, which he earned on the GI Bill after having served as a legal officer during the Korean War, in the 101st Airborne Division.
He taught Business Law at CUNY's Borough of Manhattan Community College and served in the New York Guard as Colonel.
Many of his legal opinions have been published in both Official Reports and the New York Law Journal. It is his experience as an attorney and as a judge in New York City that serves as a backdrop for his novels.
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Justice Ron Goodman is a trial judge at the center of a high-profile medical malpractice case, and the stakes are enormous. When one of the defendants, Dr. DiTucci, is killed and another has his car blown up, Detective Jack Zangara, a friend of Goodman's, realizes that there is a connection between the case and the murder. Thus begins a complex game of treachery, deceit, and contract killings.
The malpractice case centers around a woman who is near death as a result of a botched operation at a prominent New York hospital with particularly deep pockets-a ripe target for seven-figure insurance claims. But Dr. DiTucci's suspicious death only raises more questions for all involved: who killed him-and who will be next? When Zangara alerts Goodman to the possible chicanery going on in his courtroom, the two men must determine if the woman is the victim of flagrant medical malpractice, or if mobsters are killing doctors merely to win a lawsuit.
Soon an ever-widening web of players emerges that includes organized crime heads, hit men, crooked cops, corrupt lawyers, philanderers, and gamblers. They battle each other in a seedy world that links the highest echelons of our judicial system with the lowest depths of criminal activity.
Barbara Danzig is a smart, savvy, New York attorney. Gregory Simmons is a judge on trial for insurance fraud. When he calls on Barbara to defend him, a dangerous game begins. A man with an ax to grind, District Attorney Manning intends to prosecute Justice Simmons to the fullest extent of the law. His chief witness is the man accused of stealing the judge's car. The only problem is the car thief claims he was hired by Judge Simmons himself to do the job.
The game becomes deadly when Simmons's law clerk is murdered in an assassination attempt gone wrong. Things can only get worse for the judge when mafia man Carmine Miano enters the scene.
Filled with twists and turns, Broken Gavel, by Nicholas A. Clemente, is a gripping legal thriller. Readers will be on the edge of their seats until the very end.
Both books have been reviewed by a number of publications, including: the Sullivan County Democrat, Staten Island Advance, New York Law Journal, and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
Justice Clemente died on May 4, 2009, in upstate New York. Prior to his death, he served as a Judicial Hearing Officer in Sullivan County, where he resided with his wife, the Attorney Ann Marie Clemente. He is survived by Ann Marie and their two children and two grandchildren, and, from his first marriage, three children and nine grandchildren.