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"Judge, I want to tell you something. I want to tell you something.
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I been watching you
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and you're not two-faced.
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You treat everybody the same."
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That was said to me by a transgender prostitute
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who before I had gotten on the bench
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had fired her public defender,
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insulted the court officer
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and yelled at the person sitting next to her,
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"I don't know what you're looking at. I look better than the girl you're with."
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(Laughter)
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She said this to me
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after I said her male name low enough
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so that it could be picked up by the record,
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but I said her female name loud enough
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so that she could walk down the aisle towards counselor's table with dignity.
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This is procedural justice, also known as procedural fairness,
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at its best.
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You see, I am the daughter of an African-American garbageman
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who was born in Harlem
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and spent his summers in the segregated South.
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Soy la hija de una peluquera dominicana.
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I do that to make sure you're still paying attention.
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(Laughter)
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I'm the daughter of a Dominican beautician
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who came to this country for a better life for her unborn children.
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My parents taught me, you treat everyone you meet with dignity and respect,
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no matter how they look, no matter how they dress,
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no matter how they spoke.
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You see, the principles of fairness
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were taught to me at an early age,
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and unbeknownst to me, it would be the most important lesson
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that I carried with me to the Newark Municipal Court bench.
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And because I was dragged off the playground
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at the early age of 10 to translate for family members
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as they began to migrate to the United States,
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I understand how daunting it can be for a person, a novice,
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to navigate any government system.
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Every day across America and around the globe,
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people encounter our courts,
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and it is a place that is foreign, intimidating
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and often hostile towards them.
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They are confused about the nature of their charges,
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annoyed about their encounters with the police
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and facing consequences that might impact their relationships, their finances
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and even their liberty.
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Let me paint a picture for you
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of what it's like for the average person who encounters our courts.
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First, they're annoyed as they're probed going through court security.
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They finally get through court security, they walk around the building,
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they ask different people the same question
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and get different answers.
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When they finally get to where they're supposed to be,
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it gets really bad when they encounter the courts.
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What would you think if I told you
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that you could improve people's court experience,
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increase their compliance with the law
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and court orders,
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all the while increasing the public's trust
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in the justice system
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with a simple idea?
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Well, that simple idea is procedural justice
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and it's a concept that says
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that if people perceive they are treated fairly
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and with dignity and respect,
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they'll obey the law.
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Well, that's what Yale professor Tom Tyler found
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when he began to study as far back in the '70s
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why people obey the law.
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He found that if people see the justice system
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as a legitimate authority to impose rules and regulations,
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they would follow them.
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His research concluded
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that people would be satisfied
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with the judge's rulings,
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even when the judge ruled against them,
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if they perceived that they were treated fairly
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and with dignity and respect.
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And that perception of fairness begins with what?
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Begins with how judges speak to court participants.
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Now, being a judge
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is sometimes like having a reserve seat to a tragic reality show
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that has no commercial interruptions
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and no season finale.
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It's true.
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People come before me handcuffed,
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drug-sick, depressed, hungry
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and mentally ill.
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When I saw that their need for help
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was greater than my fear of appearing vulnerable on the bench,
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I realized that not only did I need to do something,
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but that in fact I could do something.
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The good news is is that the principles of procedural justice are easy
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and can be implemented as quickly as tomorrow.
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The even better news, that it can be done for free.
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(Laughter)
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The first principle is voice.
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Give people an opportunity to speak,
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even when you're not going to let them speak.
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Explain it.
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"Sir, I'm not letting you speak right now.
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You don't have an attorney.
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I don't want you to say anything that's going to hurt your case."
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For me, assigning essays to defendants
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has been a tremendous way of giving them voice.
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I recently gave an 18-year-old college student an essay.
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He lamented his underage drinking charge.
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As he stood before me reading his essay,
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his voice cracking and his hands trembling,
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he said that he worried that he had become an alcoholic like his mom,
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who had died a couple of months prior due to alcohol-related liver disease.
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You see, assigning a letter to my father, a letter to my son,
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"If I knew then what I know now ..."
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"If I believed one positive thing about myself,
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how would my life be different?"
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gives the person an opportunity to be introspective,
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go on the inside,
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which is where all the answers are anyway.
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But it also gives them an opportunity
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to share something with the court that goes beyond their criminal record
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and their charges.
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The next principle is neutrality.
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When increasing public trust in the justice system,
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neutrality is paramount.
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The judge cannot be perceived to be favoring one side over the other.
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The judge has to make a conscious decision not to say things like,
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"my officer," "my prosecutor," "my defense attorney."
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And this is challenging when we work in environments
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where you have people assigned to your courts,
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the same people coming in and out of your courts as well.
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When I think of neutrality,
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I'm reminded of when I was a new Rutgers Law grad
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and freshly minted attorney,
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and I entered an arbitration and I was greeted by two grey-haired men
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who were joking about the last game of golf they played together
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and planning future social outings.
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I knew my client couldn't get a fair shot in that forum.
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The next principle is understand.
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It is critical that court participants understand the process,
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the consequences of the process
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and what's expected of them.
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I like to say that legalese is the language we use to confuse.
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(Laughter)
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I am keenly aware that the people who appear before me,
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many of them have very little education
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and English is often their second language.
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So I speak plain English in court.
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A great example of this was when I was a young judge --
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oh no, I mean younger judge.
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(Laughter)
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When I was a younger judge, a senior judge comes to me,
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gives me a script and says,
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"If you think somebody has mental health issues,
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ask them these questions and you can get your evaluation."
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So the first time I saw someone
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who had what I thought was a mental health issue,
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I went for my script and I started to ask questions.
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"Um, sir, do you take psycho -- um, psychotrop --
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psychotropic medication?"
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"Nope."
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"Uh, sir, have you treated with a psychiatrist before?"
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"Nope."
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But it was obvious that the person was suffering from mental illness.
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One day, in my frustration, I decided to scrap the script and ask one question.
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"Ma'am, do you take medication to clear your mind?"
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"Yeah, judge, I take Haldol for my schizophrenia,
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Xanax for my anxiety."
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The question works even when it doesn't.
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"Mr. L, do you take medication to clear your mind?"
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"No, judge, I don't take no medication to clear my mind.
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I take medication to stop the voices in my head,
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but my mind is fine."
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(Laughter)
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You see, once people understand the question,
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they can give you valuable information
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that allows the court to make meaningful decisions
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about the cases that are before them.
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The last principle is respect,
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that without it none of the other principles can work.
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Now, respect can be as simple as,
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"Good afternoon, sir." "Good morning, ma'am."
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It's looking the person in the eye who is standing before you,
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especially when you're sentencing them.
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It's when I say, "Um, how are you doing today?
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And what's going on with you?"
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And not as a greeting,
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but as someone who is actually interested in the response.
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Respect is the difference between saying,
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"Ma'am, are you having difficulty
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understanding the information in the paperwork?"
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versus, "You can read and write, can't you?"
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when you've realized there's a literacy issue.
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And the good thing about respect is that it's contagious.
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People see you being respectful to other folks
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and they impute that respect to themselves.
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You see, that's what the transgender prostitute was telling me.
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I'm judging you just as much as you think you may be judging me.
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Now, I am not telling you what I think,
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I am telling you what I have lived,
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using procedural justice to change the culture at my courthouse
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and in the courtroom.
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After sitting comfortably for seven months
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as a traffic court judge,
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I was advised that I was being moved to the criminal court,
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Part Two, criminal courtroom.
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Now, I need you to understand,
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this was not good news.
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(Laughter)
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It was not.
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Part Two was known as the worst courtroom in the city,
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some folks would even say in the state.
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It was your typical urban courtroom with revolving door justice,
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you know, your regular lineup of low-level offenders --
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you know, the low-hanging fruit,
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the drug-addicted prostitute,
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the mentally ill homeless person with quality-of-life tickets,
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the high school dropout petty drug dealer and the misguided young people --
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you know, those folks doing a life sentence
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30 days at a time.
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Fortunately, the City of Newark decided that Newarkers deserved better,
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and they partnered with the Center for Court Innovation
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and the New Jersey Judiciary
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to create Newark Community Solutions,
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a community court program
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that provided alternative sanctions.
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This means now a judge
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can sentence a defendant to punishment with assistance.
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So a defendant who would otherwise get a jail sentence
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would now be able to get individual counseling sessions,
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group counseling sessions as well as community giveback,
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which is what we call community service.
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The only problem is that this wonderful program
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was now coming to Newark and was going to be housed where?
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Part Two criminal courtroom.
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And the attitudes there were terrible.
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And the reason that the attitudes were terrible there
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was because everyone who was sent there
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understood they were being sent there as punishment.
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The officers who were facing disciplinary actions at times,
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the public defender and prosecutor
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felt like they were doing a 30-day jail sentence on their rotation,
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the judges understood they were being hazed
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just like a college sorority or fraternity.
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I was once told that an attorney who worked there
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referred to the defendants as "the scum of the earth"
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and then had to represent them.
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I would hear things from folks like,
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"Oh, how could you work with those people? They're so nasty.
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You're a judge, not a social worker."
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But the reality is that as a society, we criminalize social ills,
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then sent people to a judge and say, "Do something."
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I decided that I was going to lead by example.
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So my first foray into the approach came when a 60-something-year-old man
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appeared before me handcuffed.
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His head was lowered and his body was showing the signs of drug withdrawal.