A US legal panel is about to decide

An American judge may have to give up his sideline as a stand-up comic after an ethics committee said it could compromise his legal authority.

Vince A. Sicari is facing a panel that will decide whether he can keep both jobs after being told that his comedy career could ‘negatively affect the dignity of the Judiciary’.

Sicari is a municipal judge in New Jersey – equivalent to a magistrate – hearing cases such as traffic tickets, shoplifting and disorderly conduct.

But under the stage name Vince August, he is also a stand-up, who this week is doing the audience warm-up for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and regulary appears at Caroline’s On Broadway.

However it was his role on ABC hidden camera show What Would You Do? which caused concern among the Advisory Committee on Extrajudicial Activities.

On the primetime show, he portrayed several racist and homophobic characters to see how passers-by reacted. However, the panel say those characters could make defendants question his impartiality.

The 43-year-old will learn if he can keep both his job as a comedian – his childhood dream – and as a part-time judge (on $13,000 a year) later today.

In a 2008 interview he said it was easy to separate the two parts of his life. He said: ‘ The people who find out I’m a comedian who know me as a lawyer, find it impossible. They don’t see me being humorous or anywhere near funny because I’m very serious about my job.

‘People that know me on stage as a comedian, when they find out I’m a lawyer, they simply don’t believe it. They’re like, “How can it be? You in front of a jury? Get out of here! It’s impossible.”

‘They’re very different. The one consisent is prepartaitionand you hve to be very quick on your feet... It’s very serious to be a lawyer, and yet serious to be a comedian... Both of them are great challenges.’

Published: 26 Feb 2013