Judge’s Behavior Sparks Outrage but Little Relief

In the throes of a civil war that left his wife, baby son and brother dead and made him the target of Muslim rebels, Moses Cirrilo fled Sudan for a free life in America.

He thought that once the authorities heard his story, they would greet him with open arms and grant him political asylum.

He never expected he would spend the next three years in jail, sometimes handcuffed and shackled, he said, “like a criminal.” Or that the immigration judge in Boston who heard his case would demand he recite the Ten Commandments to prove he was Roman Catholic, then verbally attack a priest who testified on his behalf. Or that the judge would find it incredible that he was unfamiliar with parochial schools, when in fact they don’t exist in Sudan. Or that he would eject Cirrilo’s lawyer from the courtroom when he objected to the judge’s behavior.

Or that even when an appellate board finally granted Cirrilo asylum--freeing him from a Vermont jail and rebuking Judge Thomas M. Ragno as “an embarrassment to the court”--that nothing would happen to the judge.

Cirrilo’s saga offers a rare peek at the normally confidential process that begins when someone files a complaint against an immigration judge. It is so private that the U.S. Justice Department, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, refused “to confirm or deny the existence of records” of complaints filed against immigration judges.

In 1994, a committee of immigration judges recommended that the Justice Department adopt the American Bar Assn.’s Model Code of Judicial Conduct for immigration judges. They drafted a proposal “to regularize a procedure for attorneys and/or the public to file complaints,” records state.

The proposal was never enacted. And lawyers who have tried to file complaints against judges since then say they have received confusing and contradictory information from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency that oversees immigration judges.

Chief Immigration Judge Michael J. Creppy contends that improper behavior has never been tolerated.

“Our philosophy is everyone who comes before our court should be treated with the utmost respect,” Creppy said. “The public has to have faith in us.”

That didn’t happen with Cirrilo. After his trial ended, his lawyer complained to Creppy.

“Judge Ragno had me removed from his courtroom because I objected to several questions that he asked a witness,” Robert Bensing wrote in June 1995. Two months later, Creppy answered.

“We did not discern any sanctionable conduct by Judge Ragno,” Creppy wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Times. Creppy noted that immigration judges “are tasked with the responsibility of marshaling through the hearing process thousands of cases.” He cautioned Bensing about his own behavior, noting that “there must be a recognition that as officers of the court we must maintain a proper demeanor.”

But nearly a year later, the Board of Immigration Appeals granted Cirrilo asylum. In a rare harshly worded opinion, the board noted in June 1996 that Ragno was “skeptical and hostile” and “at the least, injudicious.” It criticized his “confrontational attitude” and noted that Bensing’s objections were “well-founded.”

Ragno, through a court spokesman, refused to comment on the case.

“I was a little bit shocked and surprised that the judge would think the whole world was like just between his bathroom and his living room. I think he must go back to his notebooks and learn a little bit about the country. He had already made up his mind,” Cirrilo said in a recent interview.

The appellate decision freed Cirrilo from jail, but the campaign by his advocates to punish Ragno intensified.

Bensing renewed his complaint to Creppy. “Is this the way you want immigration judges to act?” he asked in a letter. More than 10 courtroom observers also wrote in outrage.

“It was hard to be there and hard to believe that was what our country was about,” said Kathleen Lovett, a New Hampshire bookseller who wrote one of the letters.

In the end, the Justice Department decided to meet with the refugee advocates and Ragno in his Boston courtroom. The meeting lasted two hours. The lawyers and advocates told Ragno what they had experienced. But he was never punished.

Ragno remains on the bench but rarely grants asylum. In the six-year period studied, only 22 applicants won asylum in his courtroom, about 3% of his cases.

And the Cirrilo case had a chilling effect on others. Susan Akram, who supervises cases for the Boston University Legal Aid Program, said Ragno was “hostile, intimidating, insulting and demeaning,” especially during the hearing of Eric Clerveau, a Haitian seeking political asylum.

But when Akram explored pursuing a complaint against the judge, she learned about the meeting with Ragno and Cirrilo’s lawyers, “which turned into nothing more than Ragno indicating perhaps there were some cases which he should have handled differently,” she said.

She figured the same thing would happen to her complaint, and never filed it.