Minority and Women Judges
January 13, 2008
Minority and women judges: In some counties you’re lucky to find one
Female and minority judges are overwhelmingly concentrated in a few New Jersey counties, leaving large swaths of the state either completely, or mostly, lacking in judicial diversity. For example, more than half the state’s minority judges sit in Essex, Hudson and Camden counties, with only one each in Burlington, Cumberland, Gloucester and Morris, and none in Cape May, Hunterdon, Salem, Somerset, Sussex and Warren.
Litigants and defendants facing trial judges in many of New Jersey’s 21 counties would be hard-pressed to find a black, Hispanic or Asian-American peering down from the bench.
And, although not quite to that extent, female judges also are either non-existent or a rarity in some counties.
Generally, most accounts regarding diversity in New Jersey courts - long an oft-stated goal of governors and the judiciary - focus on the actual numbers and percentages of women and minorities among the state’s nearly 400 trial judges.
But, perhaps more important - and telling - is that among the 21 counties, there remain glaring pockets where bench diversity simply doesn’t exist or borders on tokenism.
As it stands, 10 of the 21 county courthouses have either one or no minorities on the bench, and six counties have one or no female judges.
And that has remained virtually unchanged the past two years even though Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s 35 bench nominations have included 10 women, five blacks and one Hispanic. Of the five black judges, four are women.
Whether the diversity drought and imbalance among the counties is a result primarily of a relatively smaller pool of women or minority lawyers in smaller counties is debatable. Groups representing these attorneys generally don’t buy that rationale.
However, Milagros Camacho, president of the Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey, noted, “Part of the problem is that the judicial selection process starts on a local level and heavily favors local attorneys over statewide choices. The pool, which is large, is an excellent one, but in practice the process favors local majority attorneys over non-local minority attorneys who, although similarly qualified, often reside in different areas of the state.”
Still, she stated that while the association believes Corzine is committed to fulfilling his pledge to appoint more minorities to the bench - in his two years in office he has appointed one Hispanic - the association is “disappointed at the results so far.” And she noted, “If this were nothing but a numbers game, it would be difficult, if not impossible, not to question the discrepancy between what is said and what has occurred.”
Even assuming all of Corzine’s pending judicial nominations are confirmed by the Senate, the system will have 55 minority judges. But in terms of overall diversity, imbalances run deep so that the statewide numbers are vastly misleading.
For example, more than half the minority judges are grouped in three counties - Essex with 15, Hudson, nine, and Camden, six.
There is just one minority judge in Burlington, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Morris counties, and none in Cape May, Hunterdon, Salem, Somerset, Sussex and Warren.
While the lone minority judge in Morris is one better than a year ago, Cape May during the same period lost its only one.
From a broader perspective, 70 percent or 15 of the 21 county courthouses have two or fewer minority judges.
Since a year ago, Corzine has increased by one the number of minority judges in Atlantic, Camden, Hudson, Monmouth, Morris and Ocean.
The same type of uneven concentration applies to female trial judges as well.
Of the 93 statewide, more than one-third are sandwiched in just three counties - Essex, 16, Hudson, 10, and Middlesex, nine.
But 93 are three more than this time last year, and one county, Hunterdon, which had no female judges a year ago, now has one.
However, there still are no women on the bench in Cape May, Salem and Sussex. Like Hunterdon, Cumberland and Ocean each have one female jurist.
Nearly 40 percent or eight of the 21 courthouses have two or fewer women on the bench.
Groups impatient
The message from the women’s and minority groups is that whatever the governor’s goals, matching candidates with openings means a full-court press on the governor’s office, senators and sometimes county bar groups, both by prospective judges and their supporters.
“They have to work the system,” said Kirsten Scheurer Branigan, president of the New Jersey Women Lawyers Association.
While the senatorial courtesy system - with any home-county senator effectively having veto power over any nominee - is a predictable issue, Branigan noted that getting the support of local and county bars can be a problem too, “because they’ve got a lot of men lined up.”
As for the counties where there are few or zero female judges, she said, “We’re focused on all the counties. We now have the woman-power to take them on.”
While praising the modest progress Corzine has made in diversifying the bench, minority lawyer groups still are hoping he can make more progress in some non-urban areas.
“We’d like to see African-American judges in every county,” said Geraldine Reed Brown, president of the Garden State Bar Association.
Camacho, the Hispanic Bar president, said the organization has given Corzine a list of Hispanic attorneys qualified for the bench, and “we are anxiously waiting to see” if he will support them.
