Common Pleas
1. Anthony Kyriakakis
2. Betsy Wahl
3. Chris Mallios
4. Daine Grey
5. James Berardinelli
6. Jodi Lobel
7. Joshua Hill
8. Kai Scott
9. Mia Roberts-Perez
10. Rainy Papademetriou
11. Stephanie Sawyer
12. Vincent Melchiorre
Municipal Court
1. Daniel Sulman
2. Joffie Pittman
3. Matthew Perks
Commonwealth Court
Michael Wojcik
Superior Court
Robert Colville
Supreme Court:
David Wecht
Kevin Dougherty
Dwayne Woodruff
I by and large feel the same about these three candidates. They are are leaders at a high point in their career. Their answers are those of calm, polished professionals at a job interview, lacking some of the candor of other candidates’. They’re each big fans of diversionary programs, and have similar views on the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and justice in general. It’s hard to say what someone will be l like on the bench, but I believe Papademetriou, Scott, and Lobel will at the very least strive to do the job well, as they have prided themselves on their past work.
Rainy Papademetriou
I don’t know why, but I expected something almost stern from Rainy Papademetriou (PAH-pa-deh-MEET-ree-oh). Something about her pictures, barely grinning in her heavy winter coat said “don’t mess with me.” Instead, I met a woman with a delicate, somewhat muted mien. She looks up to Judge Evelyn Trommer, who started the first domestic violence court in the country. She appreciates “her lovely, quiet manner. You don’t need to be loud and aggressive to stand up for victims. Just give them a voice and a confidence. Prosecutors can be thoughtful and caring, and can be the force that helps bring justice to a situation.”
Although she calls it a long time since she was a district attorney, she remembers it fondly. “I learned trial skills, being in a courtroom, standing up to people, standing up for victims and being the person who was going to try to protect them. It was still a strongly male office. I made wonderful friends that are now throughout the legal community.” Her mentor told her to go to the DA’s office because “You would shake them up,” and Ed Rendell ended up hiring her. She started in the criminal unit, then went to juvenile, then child support enforcement and domestic violence. I asked if having prosecution experience would bias her. “I wouldn’t be a judge if I thought I was going to be biased. By nature I am an open-minded person and listen to all sides before deciding something.”
Papademetriou moved to Philadelphia in 1978 to go to Temple. In her last semester, she had serious health problems that impacted her life and her career path. After working for the DA, she worked for Women Against Abuse as the director of the legal program, where she spent a lot of time in family court. Papademetriou hasn’t been in court as much in last 10 years, since she’s been Managing Attorney at Philadelphia VIP, which recruits volunteer attorneys to represent low-income clients who have no where else to turn for help. She recruits, trains, and supports volunteer attorneys from throughout the legal community in Philadelphia for cases that deal largely with civil, family, and orphans’ courts. It’s work that clearly means a lot to her.
“I’ve been an attorney for more than thirty years and I’ve helped a lot of people. My career has been devoted to helping people. I’ve seen the impact having a lawyer has in court and on the judge. We should keep pushing forward to help expand access to justice for all. A lot of people are dedicated to this goal, like The Civil Gideon movement. I am on that task force at the Philadelphia Bar Association, which is a leader on this in the country. There’s also the help desk in family court and in landlord/tenant court. There’s the public defender, Philadelphia VIP volunteers, and other great public interest legal services organizations. That’s one thing. Write this down. I am so proud to be a public interest lawyer. They’re among the best in the city. We’re dedicated to doing the best and hardest work with few resources and no spotlights. There’s about thirty organizations that do this, from the big ones like CLS and PLA, to smaller ones like the Senior Law Center, Women Against Abuse, Legal Clinic for the Disabled, the ACLU, the Support Center for kids, and many others that do great and important work. The public interest lawyers in Philadelphia do good work for people who can’t afford it, and they do it out of dedication to standing up for what’s right. I am very proud to be part of this great group of lawyers.”
Papademetriou touts diversionary programs with a different perspective–that of the survivor of abuse. Although protection orders are important for survivors, she notes that a lot of survivors of domestic violence don’t want to see the perpetrator in prison. Often this person has substance abuse issues, anger management problems, needs a job, or housing. “We have many really great judges and great attorneys working to develop these programs.” Other positives she sees as improving access are the family law help desk, the landlord/tenant help center, and the mortgage foreclosure diversionary program, which is a national model and has helped many families stay in their homes. She also looks at the new building for family court as a huge improvement, even raising the status of the court. “Family court is really important. Those decisions are some of the hardest to make. The most heart-wrenching. The most important.”
Another heart-wrenching matter, Black Lives Matter. “It’s is an important movement. It’s heart-breaking, those videos. Those parents that stand up for countless other parents. The conversation is long overdue, good to have, and hopefully will lead to some important changes in the justice system. The other day I saw a Black Lives Matter banner on a church. I thought, ‘How great,’ I noticed it; many others must have noticed it, too. It put it in people’s minds to think about, plants a seed. It’s an important movement in our history.”
Papademetriou doesn’t come off as much of a reformer. She sees what’s wrong with the justice system as “Huge backlogs. Waiting. There’s so much waiting and waiting. Often cases go awry because of it. Treatment programs and diversionary programs continue to need to be expanded. Some judges worked very hard to get those programs off the ground. …If there’s a drug-addicted parent, what happens to those kids? We need to focus on prevention, on helping kids in school. It’s a huge question for society, not something I can do or you alone.”
Asked what she would do to prepare for the bench, Papademetriou said she’d be learning from others, training, hunkering down, and would look to colleagues and training programs “People deserve that.”
Papademetriou is listening to: The Beatles, Clapton, The Stones, Michael Jackson, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Diana Ross, The Temptations, The 60s, The Beach Boys, and Joni Mitchell. She gets her news from The Inquirer, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Philadelphia Weekly, The City Paper, a little Daily News and a little Philly.com. “I still like holding the paper.”
Kai Scott
Kai Scott was a little disappointing. With more than 20 years practicing law, she’s one of only three highly recommended by the Bar, but I didn’t see much difference between her and her fellow running-mates. Sure, she’s involved with the community, but she didn’t describe it in a way that was very tangible. And when I asked her about Black Lives Matter, she went with “All lives matter,” an answer that generally gets an eye roll from me. So not the point. She also belittles it somewhat by saying that it’s nothing new. However, she did point out how being from the black community can make a difference as a judge.
“In some courtrooms, not the majority, judges don’t have a clear understanding of all communities. They have a myopic view of life from where they come from. We need people of different perspectives. That’s a way of being an agent of change. Things don’t shock you because you’re from a community where these things happen.” Take the example of cars being rented out by crack smokers, and then someone claiming it’s a stolen car. “You have to know that that kind of thing can and does happen.”
Scott says it also takes strength to be a judge, “[You have to] evaluate what people are saying. Does it make sense? There are two very different stories and circumstances that people are advocating. None of us is infallible. You have to take very seriously what you’re hearing, be thoughtful and deliberate, and at the end of the day, you have to be able to look yourself in the mirror and deal with your own conscience. It takes a lot of courage sometimes to make the right decision. People can perceive it as wrong. It may be disappointing or outrageous to some people. That courage comes from the work I’m doing. Nobody wants you to do your job as a defense attorney. The judges and the court want to move cases along. The police officer believes the client is guilty. You start not to care what people think of you for doing your job. …If you’re running to go on an ego trip, I wouldn’t advise you to go through it. But if you’re running to be a change agent, it’s worth it.”
However, Scott didn’t really speak to changes she would want to see. “The drug war is failing. When I think of the drug war, I think of a crackdown on dealers and users. All this money and energy cracking down on those they think are responsible. It should be top down. We need to address poverty and family. There has to be something else than going to jail. It’s not working very well. I have no huge idea to make it different, I just know what we’re doing is not working well.”
“Mass incarceration is not working. Huge groups and populations are being sentenced harshly. We’re taking people away from their community and their family and then when they come back, we expect them to be completely different individuals.”
Even her sentencing philosophy was fairly lacking in complexity. “The sentence depends on the crime. On what the crime is, what the harm is to the community, and I would look at the individual. I’d try to balance the harm to society and who the individual is. It’s not one size fits all. There are too many variables.”
She also believes in a lot of ways that you can’t prepare to be judge. “The best way to get good at it is to do it. If I had a question, I would ask the attorneys, other judges, the law clerks. There’s a whole lot on the line. You want a judge who took the time to be educated on your matter. I wouldn’t give or expect anything less than that.” She looks up to “Judge Defino, who was a hard worker, a decent, fair man. Judge DuBois who really takes his time to be very deliberate, thoughtful, and gives you time to present what you need to do without a lot of interruptions or questions. I admire that. And Judge McLaughlin for being really smart.”
Scott recommends going to candidate forums as a way to get to know candidates. “Judges sit a long time, longer than any other office. And their decisions are more likely to impact your life. Most people vote from the gut. You don’t get a lot of time to speak at events, two to seven minutes, but you can tell a lot based on the time given, like their background, and what they’re involved in. It’s a better sense than going to the booth and looking at the names and having no clue. It’s better than voting based on names you like. It’s something.”
Scott listens to old school hip hop, 80s, 90s, gospel, some r&b, jazz, blues, and is not a lover of country. She gets her news online, or from the newspaper, as she doesn’t care for TV and thinks it’s mostly fluff. She reads The Inquirer, The Daily News, and when time, the Washington post on Sundays, and the New York Times.
Jodi Lobel
Jodi Lobel also surprised me. With her arms crossed in her photo, and 23 years of experience, mostly in leadership, at the District Attorney’s office, I expected her to be almost unapologetically tough. But there’s a palpable softness to Jodi that makes her very sympathetic. She emphasized that being a prosecutor was really just a matter of the path she took, but that it could have been different.
She enjoyed what she was doing at the District Attorney’s office; it felt relevant, that she was making a positive difference, especially with the reforms she put in place. “I’ve worked for two administrations. Both have put me in leadership roles. Seth Williams was clear that he wanted to not just put people in jail. Convictions can equate to economic suicide. Finding smart ways to dispose of cases, not just putting everyone who is arrested in jail, is appropriate and it unclogs the system.”
First, Lobel revamped the charging unit with a whole new system. ” We started from scratch.” And that’s when she put into place the Small Amounts of Marijuana program, getting thousands of cases out of trial courts. Those charged can take a class, and then their record is closed. Most of those cases are expunged. “It’s saved so much money and time, and made a difference in people’s lives. Trying a marijuana case is consuming and there were so many on the list. The maximum penalty was thirty days; you can’t even open a probation case with thirty days.”
“The drug war is targeting the wrong people and issues. The priority needs to be on keeping the community and citizens safe. The system now picks at the bottom of the food chain. The users and the most vulnerable in society are treated as criminals, and we’re ruining their opportunity for later in life with criminal convictions. High-level dealers should be arrested, but they’re few and far between. We can never get to the core of the problem. As for people who send in the drugs and produce them, especially synthetic drugs because they create such unbelievable harm, there’s not enough attention to that issue.”
Second was the Accelerated Misdemeanor Program. Forty percent of misdemeanors are put into community service resolutions. She had meetings with courts, public defender’s office, Judge Neifield and her staff to make it so that non-violent criminals could pursue 12-18 hours of community service and then having their record closed in lieu of prosecution. “It’s been wildly successful. The community has been willing to take those charged back into the community for a second chance. It’s delineated between less and more serious crimes, between repeat offenders and those just having a bad day, and it’s involved the community in the solution. Anyone invested in the solution is vastly more satisfied with the outcome because they can help be part of the results.”
“Justice in Philadelphia tends to be reactive. We wait until things get so broken before we fix it. We need to be proactive and get people talking and engaged. We can’t treat everyone the same just because they committed a crime. Everyone has a different situation. Everyone needs to be treated individually. I can tell you that with my staff, every case was discussed on an individual basis. If something didn’t work, we’d rethink it. ”
For Lobel, running for judge is not about getting a better job or making more money, since it would be fairly comparable to what she was making at the DA’s. Her father, of recent memory, asked her to look at the marathon, not the sprint. Where do you want to be in 10 years? She was also approached by other colleagues who wanted her to run in a year with such a large number of openings, and she’s asked other judges what they like and don’t like about their job. She believed it was the right thing to do and the right time, so she quit her job and decided to run, with no plan B. Although she pulled a relatively low ballot number, she’s staying in the race. If she and others didn’t, “We’d just be victims of the lottery system. Voters wouldn’t have a real choice. Judges would be chosen by luck, not merit. I wish people would understand the power a judge has. It’s not just a job, it’s really a calling.”
Lobel spoke passionately about Black Lives Matter. “Black Lives Matter is my living philosophy. I created these programs with black lives in mind,” she pointed to her rack card as she spoke. “And I keep them in my mind every day. The criminal justice system is not always fair. It’s important to bring attention and a voice to black lives. I have respect for the movement. It’s informative, respectful, and doing an excellent job highlighting the issues. We need to be preventative. Chief Ramsey formed a committee to look into the use of force. I’m all about committees that do things, and the people on it have experience. They’re not naive. Also, training helps to increase awareness and good judgment.”
How would she sentence on the bench? “Take a step back. there’s a lot of alternatives to traditional sentencing, and I know what they are. I have a broad base of knowledge in the system. …You have to learn how to be a judge. It’s a whole different skill set. A qualified candidate has the qualities of being a judge. They’re open-minded, experienced. I’ve been a female leader, I was Deputy of Training. I’ve acted as a role model. Not all attorneys make good supervisors or judges. When I was assigned to help implement the conviction review unit, I researched. I went to New york to look at their system and I worked with the Innocence Project.”
“I have prepped and provided training materials to judges, and I gave a lot of thought to what should be included. Knowing case law, sentencing guidelines, alternatives, understanding all the programs. I learn by watching. I have been going to court and watching the different styles. Judges vary about their timelines and efficiency. I admire the judges who maintain boundaries between the bench and participants, but some still manage to remove the intimidation factor and give people a chance to have a voice and have a human element. It’s personality, and it’s taking the time to really listen. I’ve given active listening training–things like making eye contact, asking follow up questions, and repeating what people say so they feel they’ve been heard. But maintaining a respectful boundary and don’t get mixed up in any nonsense.”
“I have a lot of respect for the judges in Philadelphia, especially in homicide. It’s such a difficult job. They all work exceptionally hard. Judge Lerner is wise, smart, articulate, fair, and thoughtful. Judges Neifield and Woods-Skipper–we worked on reforms together–they’re welcoming, respectful of everyone’s ideas, and process oriented. They know how to get from point A to point B.” She also mentioned Judge Judy, because their names are similar. I thought that was a rather odd choice.
I asked about giving not-guilty verdicts in front of police, and about potential fear of making waves, being in the papers. Lobel shrugged it off. “If you believe what you are about to say is warranted, justified, and right, you should be able to say it. The press is just a story. People who are in the courtroom and hear the case will be appreciative of a true, just verdict. Articles come out one day and are gone the next. You need to have integrity every day. I’m not in it for a popularity contest.”
The District Attorney’s office has not always been so great when it comes to putting shady cops on the stand. Officer Christopher Hulmes was just this week arrested for alleged perjury, false swearing, unsworn falsifications to authorities, false reports to law enforcement authorities, tampering with public records and information, and obstructing administration of law or other governmental function. Despite having been under investigation for months, the DA continued to put him on the stand. I asked Lobel about the issue of officers and credibility. She humanized officers, comparing them to having a close relationship with anyone, for example, a teenager in that they sometimes they lie, but that doesn’t make everything so. “In our daily lives, we come into contact with a lot of the same people – we’re all human. People say things they don’t mean, they make mistakes. You need to make a determination of weight that particular mistake carries with you. I have a lot of experience assessing credibility. It’s generally not all or nothing. You have to cross that bridge when you get to it.” I wish she had come out much stronger on the issue considering the controversy, but I’d vote for her nonetheless.
Lobel is listening to the Indigo Girls. “After their concert I listen to them for weeks. My sister does my playlists since she’s in the music industry. The counting crows. My son plays the sax, so some jazz and he loves The Beatles. Those were the four things this morning. I’m eclectic. I listen to classic rock to mellow stuff to Joni Mitchell. It depends on my mood.”Her news is local. The Daily News, The Inquirer, the Tribune. “I follow my brother-in-law on social media. I’m trying to get acclimated to social media. I read what’s going on locally.”
Mia Roberts-Perez overcame what is called “the ten-year presumption” to get the Bar recommendation. That is to say that though she only has eight and a half years of experience practicing law, and the Bar usually only recommends people with over ten years, her reputation spoke for her as well as her more experienced peers. Roberts-Perez came off as energetic, sweet, and pragmatic, and I think she’d bring a lot to the bench. She says she has a “ridiculous work ethic,” getting into work at six or six-thirty. “We need judges with a work ethic. This shouldn’t be a retirement job. …We need experience, but you should not get the job solely because you have been working for thirty years. If I’m down [low on cases], I’ll take your waivers.” She gives the example of courtrooms 601 and 602, where there’s a ten-month backlog. The judges in those rooms are streamlining cases and saying let’s make sure we have a jury trial scheduled each day. Because so many other cases get continued or don’t go to trial, Roberts-Perez believes there should be time for a jury trial at some point in the day. “Judges should be putting in a minimum of eight hours a day. Both clients and victims are hurt by the wait. Justice delayed is not justice for either side.”
“Judges should be making sure that attorneys are getting their cases ready, and not allow so many continuances. I’m going to hold your feet to the fire. There needs to be a legitimate reason to continue. As a lawyer, you adapt to where your case is. When you know your audience [the particular judge], their personality quirks, leanings, the same way you look at picking a jury, you can try anything. I want to be a judge that you can try a waiver in front of, that has reasonable doubt and is not scared to say ‘not guilty,’ but in front of whom the DA understands they will get a fair shake.”
Since I put her on my list with the caveat that her husband is a police officer, we spoke a lot about their relationship and what that means. She called my skepticism a “fair question.” She knows there’s lying that happens, and says that having a husband in the Police Department takes away the superhero aspect. She and her husband say to each other, “I’ll never embarrass you, don’t do something to embarrass me. For him that would be getting written up or having a personnel file. I don’t want my colleagues pulling a file on my husband. And for me that not losing my composure at court.”
“My husband has views of his own, and sometimes we agree to disagree.” For example, on the death penalty, which she’s against. “Each police officer is a little different. Now my husband works in a district that is 70% Latino, and he knows the good, the bad, and the ugly in everything. He says, ‘A bad guy today will be a bad guy tomorrow.’ It’s only a matter of time before the officer gets them for something else, and that a case is not worth risking your career or lying. I don’t want his job. Looking at photos is different than being there,” she continued to describe how she found a bloody shirt after a night when a man died in her husband’s arms.
Still, I pressed her. Isn’t it problematic to seek the endorsement of the FOP, the police union, which she and may other candidates received? “With endorsements, from the police officers, fireman, Liberty City, or other unions, you’re taking judges, something that shouldn’t be politicized, and asking them to become political. But you’re looking for a voting bloc, some organization who will send their members a list. You should look at a candidate by the totality of their endorsements and see that they are not just being endorsed by one kind of organization.” She said that as a former defender, she expected to be dismissed by the FOP, but the union said to her, “When our guys get arrested, we hire you,” which she found progressive in a way, but sad another. It took her aback, though she noted, “Nine out of ten cops like the public defender more than other attorneys because defenders show respect to cops’ rank. I believe you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Use the sugar, the smile, the conversation and dialogue. It doesn’t have to be adversarial all of the time. We need to work together whenever possible.”
We moved on to talk about sentencing. She remembers her teacher at the Public Defender’s office, Stu Schuman, always saying “By the grace of God, go I,” a John Bradford quote. “We’ve all done bad things, and we’ve been given the chance at another day. Don’t judge someone on their darkest day, on something that was out of their character. I’ve done death penalty cases and for mitigation, there are more resources. We go back three generations looking for mental health issues and brain development. Your family history affects your ability to thrive and develop. All the crap a family has gone through, that has funneled down to the client. You have to figure out the client’s history and tell a story. It can be as small as dyslexia or incontinence, it doesn’t have to be the kid who was beaten in a crate. Juries are sympathetic to that, but other moments in a life can have profound impact. I would always say, tell me more. people are not numbers. They don’t end up in front of you because they had a bad day. What led up to it? The guidelines are good suggestions, but you have to pay attention to mitigating factors.”
“The Drug War is a joke. When there’s disproportionate sentencing, justice can’t be done. One person sells kilos of coke, and now pills are the big thing, but we go by weight, and there’s a few bottles of pills, and they’re given totally different sentences. Mandatory sentences are suspended, and there’s going to be lower guidelines than the sentences mandatories imposed. But drugs are all about economics. It’s like fighting a staph infection with neosporin. You’re not getting at the underlying causes for trafficking: education and poverty.”
“We’re working and living in a time that’s changing. We’re moving out of the war on drugs, it’s not our #1 priority. I love watching judges sentence education classes. Even violent crimes can be traced back to poverty and education. Education needs to be part of the conversation. With juveniles, the focus is on treatment and rehabilitation, then supervision. The juvenile system is a model, and it shouldn’t stop with juveniles. The adult system should be similar.”
“Three out of four women who are incarcerated are in for something drug-related or theft. That’s an access issue. They sell drugs to support their kids. Statistically, they’re not kingpins, they’re just holding, mules, and it’s just a means to an end. Women are the biggest place you see the drug war’s failure. They lose their housing, their kids, there’s a circular effect. We don’t talk about what happens to women in prison. We’re just compounding problems. Now, people have to be punished for illegal actions, and judges are limited in resources, but they can do their own research on non-profits. Judges have to keep educating themselves. When they stop learning, people get hurt.”
“The Salvation Army has a great treatment program though you can’t order someone go to a program run by a religious organization, but you give them a list of good programs and then have a status listing in 30 days. We had a client when I was a defender who had nobody, no support, no family, and they were struggling with drug addiction. So we brought him in every Friday to check in for five to twenty minutes, and then he would go to the probation officer to give urine. People want to be treated as people, not a number. People have lost a lot of faith.”
Indeed. There’s a movement about that, isn’t there? Ah yes, “Black Lives Matter is a continuum like every movement. There’s the overflow of disdain for cops, and there’s those who want oversight. There have been too many police-involved shootings. And there’s a culture of reacting. Philadelphia has a high level of violent crimes. I have a brother, sons, it’s a concern. I get nervous. Aggression on either side needs to be quelled. There are other non-lethal steps before going to a gun. Officers need to match their reaction to the situation without escalating. There’s no catchall solution. I am for more oversight, body cameras 100%. Then situations are less up to interpretation.”
Roberts-Perez loves being a teacher at Temple, and she lectures on social justice issues. The thing she’s most impressed about is that there is yet to come a student that isn’t ethical or a good person. “Ethics are our legacy.” It’s evident she holds herself to a high standard. “Some people have asked me why I didn’t cross-register as a republican. There is nothing republican in my DNA. It would be disingenuous.” Yet she recognizes strong ethics may not be an easy road. “I’m expecting a certain amount of loneliness on the bench. The standard is to hold yourself a little bit higher.”
Roberts-Perez is listening to Juanita Holiday. “I grew up in jazz clubs. My dad had his own club and then was the general manager for Zanzibar Blue.” She listens to salsa with her husband and her kids are into metal and had a metal band. “My favorite thing to listen to is silence.”She gets her news from Philly.com and the Huffington Post, and wishes papers were “still more in-depth.”
To be clear, I discourage voting based on identity politics. That said, as a feminist that recognizes intersectionality, I just want to point out how totally rad it is that one could, if they wanted to, vote for an all women-of-color ballot of common pleas judges, and give these ladies their due props. Hopefully, I didn’t miss anyone.
1. Tangie Boston
2. Starr Cash
3. Lucretia Clemons
4. Frances Fattah
5. Shanese Johnson
6. Mia Roberts Perez
7. Stephanie Sawyer
8. Kai Scott
9. Lynne Summers
10. Stella Tsai
11. Deborah Watson Stokes
12. Sandjai Weaver
13. Lyris Younge
I was right about Stella Tsai. She’s incredibly likeable, even cool. She started the conversation by asking me if I watch “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries,” since I go by Lizzie, and we chatted about shows we binge watch. She’s a fast talker who name-dropped quite a bit. I got the impression that she didn’t do it to signal that she knows a lot of people, but that she values her connections. Her parents came from Taiwan to be free, and she as such, she has a special appreciation for the bench. “The beauty of democracy is its judiciary. It needs to be impartial. To make decisions, a judge needs to be aware of their own biases.” She said her life has prepared her for this role, and admits with a humorous self-awareness that with 25-26 years of experience, “I’m not a spring chicken.” She pointed out that there is only one judge of Asian decent in all of Pennsylvania, and she stressed that it was important that she or people like her be there to represent the people. “[Different demographics] need to be there so that people feel they have a stake in the government.”
Many first-time candidates are a bit overwhelmed by the campaign. Tsai, however, is involved in politics and therefore understands the ward system, and find it is not hard to embrace it. She has experience working with the wards from her work as vice-chair reforming the old zoning code. In doing so, she wanted to make sure the rules were clear, and it was important to her as that civic engagement be embodied in the law so that it was enforceable. With developers it used to be all about who you knew. She wanted the new code to bring the rules into the open and be less onerous so that it is easy to know who the players are, to get training, and to put everyone on a better footing. “Community input is invaluable.”
Because she has this experience she sees many candidates advocate reform and is a bit skeptical. “One judge alone can not change the system. There’s a lot of moving pieces.” When she worked at the Law Department, she was charged to help find a way to get child welfare cases assigned to lawyers, to change away from a list system as they did in “model court,” at family court. Taking model court system-wide required lot of change. “If I could do it again, I would be mindful of the impact of each decision and of what change means. Reform takes teamwork.”
She also believes in training. She’s seen training work, and gives a relevant example for a need today: how to better deal with trans* youth. She was chair of The Women’s Law Project, dealing with sexual assault cases, and saw how training officers in how to handle such cases makes a difference. When officers are educated in what’s going on psychologically for women who are assaulted, she explained, they are more able to acknowledge that a women may need time, and that doesn’t make the woman’s claims false.
As for what’s not working, “Mass incarceration. There are unintended consequences of the rules designed to protect the public. I’m also bothered when corruption infiltrates the system, like in Luzerne county. Lawyers need to be willing to prosecute these claims.” What happened in Luzerne county, where judges were accused of accepting money from the industrial prison complex in exchange for harsh sentences placed on juveniles, known as the “kids for cash” scandal, really bothered her. “Adults misbehaving and being greedy and sacrificing other people’s lives, like in Luzerne County. That was devastating to me.” She thinks people sometimes look to the founding fathers and the past as heroic, but reminds us to look at Plessy v Ferguson, which upheld racial separate but equal laws in the states, but even in the minority opinion, where Justice Harlan strongly and singularly dissents, he writes that there is one race that is so different that they are not allowed citizenship (and therefore shouldn’t be given better treatment than black citizens)–The Chinaman. “We’ve come a long way.”
Tsai spoke a lot about implicit bias, and has taught trainings on it. She gave the example of a study where lawyers wrote a memo with intentional mistakes and sent it to 60 of their partners, informing half that the author was black and half that they were white, and asked the memo to be graded. The supposed black author got a 3.2/5 to the white author’s 4.1, with commends like “I can’t believe the author went to NYU” vs “This needs work but has promise.”
“The facts and the law will take you to the right decision, but you really need to keep your bias in check.” Tsai knows about how some biases are subconscious, and gave a few examples. Around elections, sentences go up.. Even things such as hunger and hydration can influence a judge’s decision. Studies show that when judges roll a die before sentencing, if they roll a higher number the sentence will be higher. “Judges have so much power. That’s scary. They need to be very mindful of these things.”
She also understands implicit bias on a personal level. “Black Lives Matter has been heartbreaking. I feel it nearly every day as an Asian who is singled out. When officers are not trained, there seems to be a reaction disproportionate to what’s going on. That officer hasn’t really interacted with the people. I’m friends with people who send their sons out and don’t know what will happen to them. And it’s not just the police, it’s everybody. I think Chief Ramsey is doing what he can. He takes his officers to the Holocaust museum. But people are still clutching purses as my partner, who is black, walks by them. As a parent, I can’t imagine what it is like to worry like that.”
“The Drug War seems like it is not moving in the right direction with mass incarceration. Attitudes are changing, and people don’t want to build up the prison complex. I’ve been reading The New Jim Crow, and it’s just a different mapping based on my reading of history. You need to be mindful of how the system has come to be. The war on drugs has not achieved its objectives at all. Deportation also bothers me. Look at the situation with the Cambodians in the city who came as refugees, maybe committed a misdemeanor as a youth, and years later now that Cambodia is more stable, are being sent back to a place where they didn’t even grow up. Do you have to show your numbers and be able to say ‘I’m tough on immigration?'”
Still, she has a positive outlook on justice in general. “The rule of law is respected despite what people think. The media blows things out of proportion. You know when Gore gave his concession speech after the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Bush v. Gore? That was a beautiful thing to see. A civilized society respects the law, and you can challenge the law when it’s too oppressive and compromises the rights of others. Justice is what I strive for–ensuring that people are treated in a fair fashion and that civil rights aren’t trampled on. When people try to take someone’s right to vote away, we have to advocate for the retention of those rights. I also believe in–how should I say this–gun safety.”
Tsai would pay attention to mitigating factors as well as the guidelines when sentencing. She would look at the facts as they came in as well as the law, and consider the person’s potential, and their potential for restoration, then “be as fair as possible. We have to do more to keep people from cycling back through the system, make use of re-entry programs, and give people something to live for.”
So, if I like Tsai so much, why isn’t she on the list this round? I know Tsai would likely make an excellent civil judge, as she’s now doing business litigation and at The Civil Service Commission, she decided evidentiary rulings and made recommendations as to how a judge may want to decide a case. But I just don’t have that confidence about courts in which she has little experience. She has done some work with Department of Human Services cases, so has experience with kids in delinquency court, yet that’s not much. And when I asked her how she would handle being on a criminal bench, she replied that she would volunteer for family or orphan’s court, even if they are seen as of a lesser status. “The rules of evidence are the same. Having a courtroom is management, knowing the law. Being older, you are more aware of how to do things. At the same time, nothing really scares you.” She may not be scared, but I am for those who would come before her. Maybe if she had a rigorous plan of how to prepare for a courtroom that she hasn’t tried many cases in, I would give her a pass. Really, nearly everyone says trial experience is what counts in being a good criminal judge. Even with her many years of experience as an attorney, I’m worried that she comes in a bit short.
Tsai is listening to the song “Glory” as well as podcasts such as Pop Culture Happy Hour and Snap Judgement. She gets her news from National Public Radio, The New York Times, The Inquirer, The Daily News, and Twitter.
Of all the candidates who agreed to interview with me, I was probably most excited to talk with Bennett, a fellow progressive and blogger. Which is why what follows is so unfortunate.
Bennett and I planned to meet at six where a ward meeting would be later taking place. Due to being stuck in Doylestown, we pushed back to seven ahead of time. A little bit after 7:30 is when he finally texted me that he was running late at another ward meeting, but didn’t let me know when he would be showing up nor try to reschedule. At eight, I gave up waiting for him and texted him that I was leaving. He texted me at ten to tell me that he had showed up at 8:20 and to try to reschedule. I suggested some times, but I haven’t heard from him since.
Now, I’m a patient person. As someone who has struggled with punctuality herself and having lived in other cultures who value time differently, I am pretty understanding of lateness. But this was rather unacceptable. Time management is a skill that judges need in an overwhelmed courtroom. They also need to be able to function using basic courtesies as a measure of respect.
If I do meet with him, I’d still be curious as to what he has to add to the conversation, but I’m not sure that there’s much that he could say to make up for being a no-show.
Tangi Boston (TAN-jee, rhymes with Angie) was rather rambling and circular in her interview, and I’ve tried to piece it together here in a way that makes sense. Boston mostly touted her being a part of the black community as a reason for candidacy. She grew up in North Philly, in Strawberry Mansion, and attended Temple Law. “I have the experience and general common sense that comes with being a citizen that interacts with the regular citizenry. I have seen the deficiency and lack of trust in the justice system in my community, that is, the black community. …There is a desensitization and general prejudice from a lack of understanding of the community. If you don’t live in the community, it comes from a source. People are impeded by a belief that is not based on what is real-TV, the news, general media depictions-they have no other basis for their opinion for them to make decisions. Some people understand that not everything is as it is on the news, that it’s just fear-mongering.”
Her background is as law clerk for general practitioners. Then she served five years as hearing officer in family law / as a presiding judge in the sense that she issued child support orders. She now is a ‘general practitioner’ herself. “The people I grew up around call me. It’s not limited to one court. There’s property sitting there, and nobody to advise them to go through probate court when grandma dies. There’s a lack of knowledge, so they call me. And I can research and represent them. It’s kind of like a medical general practitioner. I deal with basic things.”
She has a rather positive outlook when it comes to the justice system. One that takes me aback a bit, with statements like “I have never seen an innocent person go to prison–because they’re innocent.” She thinks the system is working. “Thank God it’s not my experience that it doesn’t work. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be pursuing this. There are moments when something goes wrong, but that’s a particular person or judge. It may appear not to work, but it relies on universal justice not being broken. Right always prevails and is made manifest. Maybe there is fractured social justice, fractured community that is saturated in the justice system, but I’ve seen it work too often to say it’s not working.”
She also has a definition of justice that makes me a little squeamish. “Justice is the difference between right and wrong, truth and lies, good and bad–it’s the ultimate good, the ultimate balance. It’s what you can expect at the end of your life when you appear before god. It’s karma. The arc of the world bends toward justice.” I’m a religious person personally, but talking about god when you’re running for judge can’t be done lightly with the importance of separation of church and state. It’s not that she is a member of a particular church, “I don’t go for organized religion. That’s a mess.” It’s just an instinctive, flinching mistrust of mine any time someone running for office inserts religion into the mix.
What bothers her most? “Perjury. Suborning perjury. It takes away from the whole process and happens all day, every day in the courtroom. There’s not enough respect, first of all, for the bible you put your hand and swear on, and for the court. Not enough fear of the consequences because they’re not pursued. They go unpunished, unprosecuted.”
Truth is a big deal for Boston. In court, she would emphasize “Truth from both sides. I don’t think it’s a game. It’s not a contest of who tells the best lies or gives the best presentation. Truth is constant and consistent. You know when you don’t hear the truth. Lies unravel if you give them time. I’m not an attorney that tells lies. I will not present lies to the court just to win.” Attorneys don’t tell lies though, they tell stories that could be a plausible defense. If that’s not something she can handle, she’s not going to sit easy on the bench.
Then there’s her views. Here’s what she had to say on sentencing: “There are guidelines. I don’t have a philosophy. I don’t go easy on people. Right is right and wrong is wrong. Am I trying to rehabilitate society one person at a time? No. I encountered people given their circumstances–you look at them and you know they don’t stand a chance of understanding social norms. Nothing has ever been normal for them. It’s sad, but true. And then you have deviants who succumb to external things, peer pressure. They are not the more dangerous ones. The more dangerous ones are the ones who never had a shot. And there’s a lot of them.”
She gave me an example of the kinds of cases that she sees. It’s a side that is a little bit hard to hear, but I think one that should be expressed, just with a little more politicqally correct finesse than she presents.
“A lot of women are not victims. They watch TV and they become manipulative in order to empower themself. There’s no medical records, no police reports, the guy moved on and has another baby, and she wants her revenge. ‘If I can’t have him, nobody will.’ Then she gets wrapped up in groups that are there to protect victims. She’s clearly not a victim. She’s taking away someone’s freedom. You should need more than her testimony to do that. And it happens too often. A guy is sitting in prison for months until she’s decided he’s had enough and stops showing up to court and eventually the case gets noelle prossed. ”
Although all she had to say about Black Lives Matter was that it wasn’t new, she did speak to some of the issues underlying the movement. “Then there’s the ‘driving and walking while black’ cases. Patrolling officers–I don’t know what they do all day. But if you don’t live in this community–how do you define what’s suspicious in an unfamiliar environment? There’s an assumption that truth comes with the uniform. It does not. And there’s this whole thing about how they put their life on the line. I was in the Air Force. In Desert Storm. It didn’t make me better than anyone. There’s no presumption I don’t have other motives, baggage, am capable of lying. There should be that someone is not a criminal just because a guy in a uniform says so. Especially when the testimony is not credible. If making an arrest is your motive, you can lie.”
Despite her personal level of understanding of what goes on in her community, she doesn’t seem to have a deep understanding of what it might take to be judge. To prepare for the bench, she only suggested that she would read the judicial code of ethics. And when it comes to whom she looks up to as a judiciary role model, she cites Tama Meyers Clark because “I walked into her courtroom and she was pretty and smart–it never left me. She was so dignified.” Dignified is just not enough for me.
She did validate my efforts, saying, “[Voters] need to take judicial elections a lot more seriously. You need to know and talk to these judges because they are amenable to voters. You need to know who is going to touch your life directly. More than presidents, senators, and the mayor. You need to know what baggage, beliefs, and valued, and community they bring with them, because you’re more likely to encounter a judge in your life than anyone else [on the ballot], no matter who you are.”
Boston is listening to inspirational music about faith, belief, and morals. “I like morals. I like jazz a little. If I’m going to listen to secular music, I listen to old school stuff. I hate popular music. It creates a subversive culture-sex, drugs, drug dealing, materialism, greed, the ends justify the means.” As for where she gets her news, “I’m selective about the stories that I read. I go for ones that are not geared toward influencing the way people think but on informing. World news, occasionally local. Not stories about the black community going berserko. That’s propaganda creating a wider divide in the community.”
Anthony Kyriakakis (KEER-yah-KAH-kiss) is one of my new favorite candidates. He seems incredibly kind and intelligent. “I ask for the support of voters based on my training, experience, and record of commitment to public service. The justice system is crucial to Philadelphia. We deserve a court system that treats every person with respect, fairly, with compassion…I have these values from my family as the son of immigrants, and it’s important to bring the human element to judging.” I believe he can.
He’s running for judge because the Philadelphia judicial system is important to the city. He has trial and courtroom experience, and wants to make systematic improvements to make court run more efficiently and have there be less waiting around. With waste, he says, there is less opportunity to provide quality justice. He wants to have a significant impact on the court system and work with other judges. He recognizes that change will not be immediate nor happen by himself; rather, he wants to reach out to other judges, and believes there can be gradual change.
“People are committed to public service. There are pro-bono people upholding professional responsibility. It’s inspiring to see people working hard to further the goals of the justice system.” However, “There’s a strain on resources and the ability to provide the level of attention to each case that each case merits. The consequence is systematic pressure to move dockets and there’s not time for each case. We should try to gain more resources. The legislature and the executive branches are accountable to voters.” Not an easy thing to do, and I doubt the pipe-dream of adequate funding for the judiciary will be actualized. Still, I like Kyriakakis’ vision of justice and his sophisticated understanding of sentencing.
“Justice is both process and results-based. The process should be fair and just. Everyone should play by the rules, time and attention should be given to everyone’s roles, to the case, and to all parties. After a fair process, we have faith that the result will flow in a way that represents the truth, a fair hearing of both sides of the argument, and you hope for a fair, just and appropriate result. That’s the goal.”
“I viewed my job as a prosecutor as not to win or convict, but to do justice. In the federal system, I had the ability to make charging decisions and can make the decision not to charge. The focus was always on what is the just result. The best prosecutors have that philosophy. I’m a vital believer that both sides need to be heard on their merits. After a case has been argued and litigated, I would act with integrity. That means putting aside bias and deciding the case on its merits.”
“Each case is different. You have to view each case on its’ own merits, without bias. You have to learn the facts and circumstances and apply the law properly and fairly with integrity and compassion. Judges are human. They draw on their own sense of compassion and fairness to guide the process to a fair result. There’s a risk with a huge docket that individuals are not given the opportunity to fully present their case and to be treated as individuals–to be treated with respect, fairness, and compassion.”
“Sentencing speaks to some of the most pressing issues judges face. It needs to be individualized, based on the circumstances, conduct, history, and background of the person. At the same time, it should be consistent, without unwarranted disparities in the treatment of different defendants who are similarly situated. There’s a struggle between these two goals. For most of our history in this country, judges had unfettered discretion in sentencing. Then in the 70s and 80s there was a sentencing reform movement that resulted in things like mandatory minimum sentences and mandatory guidelines. In the 2005, mandatory sentences were held to be unconstitutional. Now there’s more of an advisory system, which PA had from the beginning. We’re in a middle ground between unfettered discretion and mandatory sentencing. What’s good about that is that sentencing can be individualized. But there needs to be a consistent system on the whole. One judge may give a case two years that another judge would give 20. We need to seek information on similarly situated defendants sentenced by other judges. Training plays a role, but there needs to be resources and the ability to get information. We are in the digital age. There are ways to collect information through databases. There are unequal race, gender, and socioeconomic biases. We need to be sensitive to those dynamics and be on guard.”
When I said his answer was sophisticated, did I mention that he teaches sentencing at Penn? It’s this kind of thoughtfulness about justice that gains my trust. Well, that and some left-wing views.
“The drug war is something we’ve stopped thinking of as a war. For the first time in a long time, there is bipartisan support that we might want to lower the incarceration rate, which is three times higher than most other countries’. There’s a focus on non-violent crime and a feeling that it’s better to be preventative and focus on treatment and diversion programs. There are opportunities to get treatment and participate in community service and get an expungement. I think these are good ideas.”
As for Black Lives Matter: “The movement speaks to important issues. Black males are incarcerated at a rate six times higher than white men. If you care about fairness, that should trouble you. It’s a huge red flag. A police officer is a witness. The jury instructions caution jurors to listen to an officer’s testimony as they would any other witness, and judges are under the same obligation. They have to look at how the facts match up and make a credibility evaluation based on what they say. If you don’t do that, you’re going in with a bias.”
Kyriakakis believes that all players need to work together and look to outside writers, such as William Stuntz, who was a professor at Harvard, for guidance. Stuntz wrote The Collapse of the Criminal Justice System, which was recommended to him by Judge Pollak. He looks to Judge Pollak, who was a dean at Yale, Penn, and involved in the NAACP, as an inspiration. “He shook everyone’s hand; he treated people like people. He was respectful, warm, and had compassion for everyone in the process.” Now Kyriakakis assigns Stuntz’ book to his students.
As for his own education before getting to the bench, “I would seek out other judges to get guidance and mentoring to see what is helpful to focus on and how to navigate the first year on the bench. And I would continue communicating with the community–to know what their concerns are-to be in a better position to address and be cognizant of them in order to serve Philadelphians.”
I gave Kyriakakis the chance to go on a rant about anything, but “I’m not the ranting type. I think rants are counterproductive; they take a lot of energy. I’d rather find solutions to problems.”
Kyriakakis is rather exclusively listening to the Annie soundtrack, thanks to his daughter. He gets his news from Philly papers: The Inquirer, The Daily News online, and Philly magazine.
Hill is the first candidate I met with that I endorse. He did get cold feet after the interview, and some of what he said I won’t publish because he is afraid that it might be construed as campaigning on something other than his qualifications. Still, with the majority of the interview intact, you can put him in a more progressive camp.
“I’m a big fan of diversion and alternative sentencing if possible. I would look at why a crime was committed and addressing that and not locking them up. As an AmeriCorps volunteer, I ran a diversion program at the Good Shepherd. I taught a Saturday morning conflict resolution class to teens. Then they had to perform community service. If they completed the program, they would have their record expunged. Treatment court is for first time offenders, but there’s a lot of volume, and their goals need to be followed up on. You would need a judge to be solely dedicated to hear status listings to really make it work.”
He admits the limitations of being a judge when it comes to making change. “Judges can advocate to the legislature to fund good programs. Judges have tremendous power, but legislation is not what we do. We can work with the defenders and district attorney.”
As for what kind of legislation he might be advocating for behind closed doors, “The drug war has been, for the most part, a failure. I think City Council did the right thing when it decriminalized small amounts of marijuana. Resources would be better spent on drug treatment programs rather than arresting and prosecuting drug users. These diversionary treatment programs should also be expanded to include more than just first time offenders.”
He also came out strong on Black Lives Matter. “The Black Lives Matter movement, which has only gained momentum with the shooting deaths of Walter Scott and Eric Harris, has brought to the mainstream what many have known for a long time: that there is a disconnect between law enforcement and the black community. The time has come for all police officers to wear body cameras. These cameras will serve as a deterrent to police looking abuse their power, and also vindicate those officers who do their job and treat this city’s citizens with dignity and respect.”
You can really see where his heart lies when it comes to his rant: “My daughter will be 5, and we’re navigating the process of schools in the city–charters, wait lists, funding, neglect. When there’s no fireworks on the 4th of July, we find $50,000, but when we’re missing $2 million for schools, we can’t close the gap.”
Yes, Hill ticks all the boxes for me. And his strength? “Being reasonable. A good attorney has to be able to hear the other side and be able to see a resolution. In trial, you have to be on the client’s side completely, but until then, you can look at both sides.”
Hill clerked for a judge and was recently made a partner at firm working with doctors and hospitals on billing issues with medicare and Medicaid. He went into malpractice, rather than another area of law, after some time as a public defender because most civil defense is very writing intensive; instead, he looked for something that would leverage his trial experience. Personal injury or malpractice are going to require more time in court. He’s now doing a lot of work on the business side, and he wants to be a judge in order to practice without the bureaucracy and to “give back.” He did two years of AmeriCorps service, volunteers at the Support Center for Child Advocates, and is on the Board of Directors for The Good Shepherd Mediation Program, which contracts out with family court.
“Voters should look at my community service; I am a lifelong Philly resident; I grew up in Mt Airy, I was educated in public schools. The city means a lot to me, and I’m committed to making it a better place. I have the right qualifications: 6 years of civil practice and over 4 years as a public defender. I have diversity of practice. Stump speeches are shallow. People should pay attention to the Bar recommendations and the endorsements that matter like the ‘good government wards’ and Liberty City.”
Ten years is not a lot of experience in this game, but Hill was still much more able than some other candidates to point to specific issues that were pressing in the justice system, for example, list rooms. “The defendant and the victim show up at 8:30, 9:00 and are not heard until 2. By then, everyone is burnt out. It’s taxing. There should at least be an AM and PM session. There has to be a better way to schedule cases. After that experience, if the case is continued, complainants are not going to come back a second time.” List rooms are even worse in family court, he notes. The Support Center is always looking for qualified attorneys to volunteer to represent kids, but a practicing attorney can not spend six hours in court on a pro-bono case. They have to answer to their firm for that time.
Justice is: “the ability to be heard. When every litigant, win or lose, feels that they have been heard and the law applied fairly.” List rooms don’t always allow for that feeling to be achieved. He added, “Judges are bound by the law, including unjust laws, but they control sentencing and who gets to speak. People want to be heard, and a judge can allow that to happen. They are in control of proceedings… Compromise is not what court is about, but there can be compromise in reaching a just outcome. The difficult part of being a judge is that you are bound by the law.”
By way of contrast, he points to civil court as working very well. “Civil court is a model system. In other counties, cases can last for years–only the attorneys benefit from that. In Philadelphia, we have really tight case management; from the time of filing to the trial, there is strict timing.”
Hill is listening to podcasts. “I don’t really listen to music unless I’m running.” He listens to This American Life, Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect, WTF with Mark Maron, The Daily Show, Radio Lab, and formerly Brian Williams’ Nightly News. He gets his news on the internet from Philly papers, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, and listens to recaps of news. “The nightly news seems to be the only news without a slant, but give me a slant that’s funny? I’ll listen to that.”
He elucidated with the example that District Attorney used to have a program for 1st-time offenders called “The Choice is Yours,” which offered nonviolent felony drug offenders a chance to avoid prison sentences and instead receive education and workforce training, along with social services and supports. But there was no money, and the program shut down.
Why might you choose to elect DiClaudio? “You should choose a judge by way of their demeanor, patience ability to listen, and ability to be fair. I can’t promise what decisions I will make, but I will be experienced, open-minded, with a high degree of fairness, professionalism, and integrity.”
“My sentencing would be different in every case. Acceptance of responsibility would be a factor as well as whether you’re a repeat offender–is this a pattern vs immaturity or a mistake. People make mistakes. And sentences sometimes become a self-fulfilling prophesy.” It’s a good question. Has DiClaudio made mistakes or is there a greater pattern? I asked for a few responses to some questions I missed and a better picture, but unfortunately for this post, he missed another deadline.
DiClaudio listens to Billy Joel, Elton John, today’s hits, electronica, and Chris Cornell.
Philly Judges 