Bad Judges & Bad Law

Yet again, a New York judge has turned loose a deranged and potentially dangerous criminal — one who’d actually targeted police — without bail.

But hiding behind state law, which precludes a judge from ordering preventive detention because someone is deemed a threat to the community, won’t hold up.

Kurdel Emmanuel stormed into a Brooklyn station house last weekend and lunged at a cop, clutching her firearm belt as he tried to dislodge her service revolver.

He later reportedly told cops he heard voices in his head and “would have killed as many police officers as I could” — this just days after the coldblooded assassination of Police Officer Miosotis Familia.

Charged with assaulting a police officer and robbery, Emmanuel appeared before acting Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Loren Baily-Schiffman. Prosecutors demanded $250,000 bail — but the judge released him on his own recognizance.

Though state law says judges can only consider whether a defendant is a flight risk, they still have wide discretion when setting bail. Indeed, given the evidence, the judge could have ordered him held for a psychiatric evaluation — but didn’t.

Freeing Emmanuel wasn’t the only questionable decision she made that weekend. She also refused to set bail for a suspect who’d threatened to kill a nun and then released two thugs charged with assault in what has been deemed a hate crime.

That’s a pretty good argument for sending her back down to civil court, where she was serving before being promoted. As a recent Post investigation showed, nearly half of all state Supreme Court justices are in their positions by virtue of appointment — in a process that insiders admitted is loaded with “political grease.”

But that’s only part of the problem. It’s been a decade since then-Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman proposed comprehensive bail reform to give judges the right (as they enjoy in 46 states) to impose preventive detention for those who pose a potential community threat.

Lippman’s no conservative, and even Mayor de Blasio has long been on board with that reform. But neither house of the Legislature will even consider it. Meanwhile, 50 percent of city defendants are set free without bail — double the rate of other large cities.

Bad judges and bad law: It’s a deadly combination. And it’s long past time the Albany cesspool did something about it.