Ending racism and sexism in NY state courts and in the administration of justice are stated
institutional objectives of our courts. But, is this happening or do these pernicious and undermining
qualities still characterize the administration of justice in New York?
The Democratic Alliance has initiated a new court watching program to help find out. The
program is relatively simple: groups of 2-3 people attend court sessions in local Justice Courts, County
Courts and Family Courts and carefully chronicle what happens in each case. The teams note the race,
national origin and gender of the defendant, the charge[s], the bail set, the disposition of the case and
anything noteworthy about the attitude of either the Judge, the Prosecutor or the defense lawyers. All
this data is then sent to a central office for processing and analysis and a report is drawn setting forth
empirically-derived conclusions.
The system then, we hope, will self correct as necessary. Judges who have expressed bias need
to be counseled and/or removed. Biases in any facet of the administrative of justice system should be
discerned through these intense and decentralized volunteer effort to observe, record and hold
accountable.
Attached is the sheet which each volunteer will use in court watching. All these forms will be
returned to sussman1@frontiernet.net and analysis will be forthcoming. Anyone interested in this
program should email sussman1@frontiernet.net and indicate which court/she/she will be monitoring. |