Democratic Party leaders in the Brooklyn borough of New York City hosted the 2024 Supreme Court Judicial Candidate Forum, where judicial candidates introduced themselves and answered questions from the audience.
A hodgepodge of sitting civil and acting Supreme Court judges are vying to fill seven available Kings County Supreme Court seats.
“We know just how important judges are both on the federal and local level,” Brooklyn Democratic District Leader Josue Pierre said at the start of the recent meeting.
“A lot of folks in our communities very often don’t get to meet the judge until something happens. We at the Shirley Chisholm Democratic Club, as well as our fellow district leaders and elected officials, want to be clear to the community that judges are civil servants as well.”
The audience attending the virtual forum moderated by Pierre reached a size of nearly 100 during the two-hour meeting.
Party leaders are expecting a higher voter turnout in November because of the entry of Vice President Kamala Harris as a presidential candidate.
“Usually, when it’s a non-presidential year, some people are not really motivated to vote. But because it is a presidential year and we are a Democratic club and we’re supporting Kamala Harris, there’s a little bit more hype and probably a lot more people will be coming out to vote,” Brooklyn Democratic Party leader Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn told The Epoch Times.
Hermelyn is the 42nd District assemblymember representing East Flatbush, Flatbush, Ditmas Park, and Midwood in Brooklyn.
Representatives from the Brooklyn Republican Party didn’t respond by press time to requests for comment.
“Many of these judges who are sitting on the bench have become judges through many different means, whether it was through the mayor, the governor, through a committee, or through elections, and that is the most democratic way of getting a selection of diverse candidates to represent the community,” Hermelyn said.
Some of the judicial candidates are running for reelection, while others are seeking to elevate to the Supreme Court from civil court seats, such as Judges Lisa Lewis, Inga O’Neale, Jill Epstein, and Keisha Alleyne.
Alleyne, whose term as a New York City Civil Court Kings County judge ends in 2038, reasoned that she is already doing Supreme Court work.
“The Supreme Court is very much backed up,” Alleyne said. “I’m handling jury trials and jury motions. When we talk about service to our community, it’s about the bigger impact and serving in a greater way. That’s the reason I’m looking to go further and into a different seat.”
Lewis said that if she is elected to the Supreme Court, she will advocate for uniformity. She began serving Brooklyn’s Second Municipal Court District in 2022.
“I want to ensure that judges keep track of cases,” Lewis told The Epoch Times. “In the Supreme Court, the case stays with a single judge. So there is some sense of uniformity and consistency, but that’s not the case in civil court. So, I really want to bring that to civil court.”
Christopher Robles was appointed to the bench by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2017 as a criminal court judge. The former Puerto Rican Bar Association board member was an attorney in private practice at the time he was tapped for the position.
When asked about bail reform and cashless bail, Robles said he is one of the lower bail-setting judges.
“You have to examine a whole set of factors as to who can have bail set, but it’s a case-by-case determination,” Robles added. “I follow the law. I’ve certainly set bail in cases where it was appropriate and also didn’t set bail when it wasn’t appropriate.”
Acting Supreme Court Judge Adam Perlmutter, also a de Blasio-era appointee, is campaigning to be an elected Supreme Court judge.
The resident of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, previously a criminal defense attorney, is a restorative justice advocate who favors alternatives to incarceration for defendants who need treatment or who have other factors driving their criminality.
“I’ve done a lot of work on prisoner health issues, prisoner rights, and prisoner protections. So certainly solitary confinement is a concern that we should all have because, since the founding of our republic, solitary confinement is seen as a form of torture and I think it remains so to this day,” Perlmutter said.
Community members, judicial delegates, and club members listened in on the conference, along with politicians such as state Sen. Kevin Parker, representing the 21st District, state Sen. Roxanne Persaud, representing the 19th District, Assemblymember Nikki Lucas, representing the 60th District, and 46th District City Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse.
The forum was hosted by the Shirley Chisholm Democratic Club in partnership with Lew Fidler Democrats, Real Action Democrats, the People First Democratic Club, and The Thomas Jefferson Club.
Elections are on Nov. 5.
