Gov. Cuomo is being hammered by black and Hispanic lawyers to make the judiciary more diverse, especially now that the state is forcing several minority judges to retire.
Last month, the state told 46 judges who are 70 or older that they’ll be taking off their robes at year’s end — a $55 million cost-cutting move driven by the coronavirus pandemic. Often, judges are allowed to stay past the “mandatory” retirement age if they are recertified by the state.
In the city’s trial courts, five judges of color are being forced out: in Bronx civil court, Justices Robert Johnson and Donald Miles, who are black, and Justice Fernando Tapia, who is Hispanic; in Brooklyn civil court, Justice Larry Martin, who is black; and in Queens criminal court, Justice Daniel Lewis, who is black.
Ten judges have already voluntarily retired and two have died, among them three Latinos and one African American.
In Queens, the most diverse county in the nation, two black judges — Justices Ronald Hollie and Leslie Leach — are voluntarily retiring at the end of the year. With their exit and the forced departure of Lewis, the borough’s percentage of black judges will fall to 9%. With a population of 2.3 million, Queens will be left with one black male judge, Justice Kenneth Holder.
Critics say the state bench needs to be far more reflective of the city’s population. In New York City’s criminal courts, where nearly 200,000 defendants pass through every year, two-thirds of the 104 judges are white, while only 12% and 11% are black or Hispanic, respectively. Yet the city’s population is one-third white, 30% Latino and 24% black, according to the latest census data.
“People want to see that they are represented,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Erika Edwards told The Post, speaking as president of the Judicial Friends Association, a group of more than 200 black and Hispanic judges statewide. “People want to feel confident that they’re not getting railroaded.”
Cuomo could choose from what Edwards describes as “a vast pool” of minority candidates, from prosecutors and defenders to professors to politicos.
“The governor can appoint them,” she said. “But the number of appointments made by the governor have not been kind to people of color.”
Lawyer Monica Dula, who is also black, was more blunt about Cuomo: “His appointments have been lily white.”
Judicial racial gap
Getty Images104 state Criminal Court judges in New York City, by race and ethnicity:
- White: 65.7%
- Black: 11.7%
- Asian: 10.8%
- Hispanic: 10.8%
- Multi-race or unknown: 2.8%
NYC population in 2019, by race and ethnicity:
- White: 32.1%
- Hispanic: 29.1%
- Black: 24.3%
- Asian: 13.9%
- Other: 0.6%
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, State Unified Court System
Cuomo’s office pointed out the governor had named the first Latina as well as the first openly gay judge to the Court of Appeals — Justices Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick and Paul Fineman.
Of Cuomo’s 73 appointments to the appellate division and the Court of Claims, which handles lawsuits against the state and is considered a stepping stone to the trial courts, 23 are “diverse” appointees, said spokesman Richard Azzopardi, who didn’t give a further breakdown.
“If there is a governor in modern New York history with a better record I challenge you to find it,” he told The Post.
Lawyer Andre Travieso, who is Hispanic, has witnessed white judges giving longer jail time to his minority clients: “I don’t want to point to systemic racism because that’s hard to prove, but 10-20-30 years of historical records bear me out.”
Steve Raiser, who is white, hasn’t seen the same thing — not when he was a prosecutor and not now as a defense attorney.
“I don’t have a lot of concerns about it — whether the judge is white or black.”
Still, Raiser isn’t naive. He believes all judges have prejudices that they work hard to keep in check. Justice Edwards agrees.
“We have amazing judges — white, black, Latino and Asian. I don’t question their hearts,” she said. “But the truth is that we all have unperceived biases.”
Edwards and her colleagues are always on the lookout for qualified minority lawyers to offer up as judicial candidates. So is the Metropolitan Black Bar Association, which has an eight-month judicial training academy. Thirteen prospects graduated last year‚ and two have sent their paperwork to screening committees, said President Anta Cissé-Green.
“We want to make sure that the community members are getting the justice they need,” she told The Post. “We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go.”
