Know your offices part 1: City Court Judge

This post is part of a series about offices up for election in Syracuse in 2020. The goal of the series is to take these offices one at a time and consider how each office impacts [and could impact] the lived experiences of residents in Syracuse, NY.

The NY State primary election is coming up on June 23, 2020 – a short 9 days from now. The primary election will be a chance for registered party members to decide individuals who will represent their party on local, state, and National sections of the November ballot [see previous post for more information on the primary process in Onondaga County].

So what makes an “informed voter” for a primary election like this? After thinking about this question a lot in the wake of the national attention on the BLM movement and police violence and reform, I realized that I wanted to hold myself accountable for more knowing the answers to these questions:

• Which offices are up for election this year?
• What do these officials actually do? Specifically, what is their role in reforming law enforcement, housing policies, education, and social safety nets in Syracuse?
• What are the qualifications, perspectives, and agendas of the candidates running in the 2020 election?
• How can I and other citizens hold these officials accountable for their work after election day?

Looking at the 2020 ballot, the first office I decided to research was City Court Judge. In this post (click to jump):

1. What is a City Court Judge?
2. Qualifications for Office
3. Term and Salary
4. Some ways Syracuse city court judges can impact policies in local law enforcement, justice, and anti-racist

[Note: I admit, I feel late to the game on doing the kind of thorough research necessary to answer the questions above before the June 23 primary. My goal in this series is to present a cursory overview between now and June 23, and to return to each post in the series between July and November to ‘beef up’ each post with more peer-reviewed research and local historical data.]

What is a City Court Judge?

Note: I drew extensively on the NYS Local Government Handbook for much of the information below.

Briefly: A city court judge oversees city misdemeanor (and less-than-misdemeanor) criminal proceedings, violations cases, as well as civil proceedings (aka, law suits) ranging up to $15,000.

Some examples of cases that would go before a city court judge for a pre-trial hearing (where the judge decides if the prosecution has evidence for the charges) and/or trial (if one is required, which it isn’t for violations):

• traffic tickets
• misdemeanor drug charges
• tenant-landlord disputes
• Pre-indictment hearings for felony charges filed in the city of Syracuse.

Two things are worth noting about the range of cases City Court Judges see: First, in New York State, Family Court is separated from criminal court – family court oversees most domestic violence cases, paternity cases, abuse and neglect cases, and adoption cases – along with juvenile delinquency cases (where the defendant is between 7 and 16). [Note: family court judges will be the focus of the next post in this series.]

Second, the last bullet above means that even serious felony cases – e.g., felony drug cases, violent felony cases, etc. – have their start in city court if the charges were originally filed at the city courthouse. Defendants have the right to request this pre-indictment hearing, during which the prosecution must present evidence and/or testimony to substantiate the charges. If the judge is satisfied that the charges are substantiated, the case goes to the grand jury for indictment, and then to a higher court for trial. Otherwise, the case may be dismissed or the charges may be reduced.

City court judges are also responsible for sentencing in the cases they hear, and can sentence up to 1 year in county jail for class A misdemeanors, along with probation, fines, community service, and a wide array of other arrangements.

In learning about Syracuse City Courts, I found it interesting how many specialized courts or separate dockets the city has. Judge Limpert, who is on the 2020 primary ballot for re-election to city court, is the presiding judge in two such specialized courts in Syracuse – the human trafficking intervention court and veteran’s treatment court.

Qualifications for Office

In order to serve as a city court judge (both in New York City and in other city courts in the state), a candidate must be at least 18 years old, needs to be a resident of the city, and must have been practicing law in the state of NY for at least 10 years.

Term & Salary

The Syracuse City Court Judge term is 10 years and comes with an annual salary of approximately $189,000.

Dismantling racism and injustice from within: action items for city court judges in Syracuse

Last week, the Washington State Supreme Court justices challenged judges across the country to “recognize the role we have played in devaluing black lives” and “administer justice and support court rules in a way that brings greater racial justice to our system as a whole.”

Below are a few ways city court judges in Syracuse might take up this challenge in their own work on and off the bench [bracketed numbers refer to sources for further reading below]:

• Hold attorneys accountable for disrespectful and derogatory language used against defendants of color, particularly during jury selection and trial. [1]
• Work with outside research teams, such as those at nearby research universities, to investigate and analyze practices in policing that may be biased against black or indigenous people of color (BIPOC). [2]
• Adopt alternatives to criminal/punitive courts in view of restorative & “problem-solving” courts – for example, drug court, human trafficking court, and veteran’s court, which are already established in Syracuse – and work with other local judges to bring these alternatives to Syracuse and surrounding smaller town courts. [3]
• Work with prosecutors to explore alternative sentencing possibilities that involve local treatment centers, mental health supports, therapeutic and educational agencies, and housing supports. [4]
• Recognize the historical and persistent problems with the cash bail system, and commit to using cash bail sparingly for misdemeanors – even when permitted. While the 2019 NYS bail reform law did a lot to limit the use of cash bail for nonviolent misdemeanors, alterations to the law in April 2020 allowed much more judicial discretion in assigning (and increased use of) cash bail. [5]
• Understand that the under-funded and problematic probation (“community supervision”) system sets people – especially poor black and Latino men – up to fail in the long term, and implement sentencing strategies that reduce the number and terms of probationers. [6, 7]
• Recognize that no one is immune to implicit bias – including sitting judges. Instead of relying on “introspection” or personal reflection to detect personal bias towards BIPOC in the courtroom, collect and make regular analytical use of data to detect bias in judiciary practice. [8, 9,10, 11]