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Time to fight for better judges in criminal court, too
Today, Brett Kavanaugh takes his seat on the Supreme Court after hearings that, for many, demolished what little faith they had left in the legitimacy of the confirmation process or in the idea that government at the highest levels would seriously examine allegations of sexual assault against a powerful man. Kavanaugh now sits for life, or until retirement, on the country’s highest court, and he will play a role in shaping its jurisprudence for decades. Based on his record, we can expect him to vote to uphold death sentences and conditions in solitary confinement and to show broad deference to law enforcement. [Kyle C. Barry / The Appeal]
With the approach of elections in November, this is a good time to think not just about who we want confirming Supreme Court justices but also about who we want as judges in the criminal courtrooms across the country. For the vast majority of criminal defendants, “court” means the trial-level state courts where the daily grind of arraignment, bail decisions, grand jury proceedings, pretrial hearings, guilty pleas, trials, and sentencing happens. The entire federal court system hears only 354,000 trial cases a year, compared to 84 million in the state courts. These courts are far less lofty than the Supreme Court and the settings are less grand than the courtrooms in federal courthouses. On their own, each individual court’s role hardly registers against the enormous impact the Supreme Court has on American life. But these often-dispiriting settings are where the administration of justice happens for most people who are arrested and prosecuted, and for any of their loved ones who have waited in long lines outside courthouses or spent long days on courtroom benches. [Court Statistics Project]
Writing for Vice in 2015, a federal bankruptcy judge described her experience accompanying her public defender daughter to Bronx criminal court to observe arraignment and bail hearings. What she saw appalled her: “The fact that the Bronx criminal courthouse is not fancy is no shocker—no grand marble staircases like those at my courthouse. But little things matter. … Thinking about the amount of time families must spend here, I was struck by how bleak this place was intended to be.” [Hon. Shelley C. Chapman / Vice]
And it was not just the physical facilities that are disappointing. “I was shocked at the casual racism emanating from the bench,” she wrote. The judge explained a ‘stay away’ order to a Hispanic defendant by saying that if the complainant calls and invites you over for ‘rice and beans,’ you cannot go. She lectured some defendants that most young men ‘with names like yours’ have lengthy criminal records by the time they reach a certain age.” [Hon. Shelley C. Chapman / Vice]
To people subjected to those grim realities, of course, nothing the judge wrote was a surprise. In the last several years, groups in multiple cities have started court watch programs that draw wider attention to the proceedings in local courts. In New York, volunteers with the recently launched Court Watch NYC program chronicle the daily denials of justice for poor Black and brown people who appear in court. An update from September 18-24 included this:
“A middle aged black man was brought in on outstanding warrant. He had been attending a court-mandated year-long program but dropped out near it’s [sic] completion to care for his mother with Alzheimers [sic] after she became seriously ill. His mother died shortly thereafter. Judge rules he must redo program in it’s [sic] entirety.” [Court Watch NYC]
As with prosecutor elections, people aware of the injustices of the criminal legal system are waking up to the importance of judicial elections. Unlike the federal system where all judges are appointed, roughly 90 percent of state court judges are elected. There are concerns that judicial elections leave judges “beholden to special interests, campaign financiers, and the manipulations of negative advertising.” Another concern is that in states with partisan judicial elections, judges become part of partisan politics. [Jed Shugerman / Daily Beast] Very often the names that appear on primary or general election ballots are the product of backroom deals orchestrated by party leaders. Even a process where voters are directly involved in selecting judges can be engineered to leave little choice and little information. [Benjamin Mueller / New York Times]
Yet there are still openings for change. In Chicago, community groups recently organized the Coalition to Dump Matt Coghlan in an effort to oust a county circuit judge. Coghlan, like 59 other judges in Cook County, is standing for retention this fall. Injustice Watch’s review of Coghlan’s record showed that he “had a history of harsh sentences, including one-year sentences for Black defendants convicted of marijuana possession,” and had been criticized for lenient sentences for police officers convicted of crimes. He is also a defendant in a civil lawsuit for having allegedly framed two men for murder when he was a prosecutor. The effort to block Coghlan’s retention had a major victory last month when the Cook County Democratic Party refused to recommend Coghlan for retention, ending a 28-year-old tradition of blanket endorsements. This means that the party will not take the usual steps of urging voters to retain all judges in sample ballots and in automated telephone calls to voters. Because Cook County is a Democratic Party stronghold, that support is typically crucial. [Mari Cohen / Injustice Watch]
Injustice Watch has reviewed the records of all judges up for retention elections in Cook County this fall.
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