Transcripts For CSPAN2 Judge Victoria Pratt The Power Of Dig

I am a member of the Library Board of trustees and went to introduce a couple ofhe people that i dont see them you have nto stay tuned we are proud to be the first stop. [applause] there is a lot to unpack in the book title. The power of the then you can see the dignity of every human being who comes into her courtroom to carry the transformative innovation she champions and her court became a solution to the inequities and indignities but i think of chore pratt as an instrument of grace into her courtroom she is a medium for delivery and through human regeneration. But at the center of innovation but how where will judge press and looking to transform the criminal Justice System into a space of problemsolvingfo and resources also serving as the Senior Management consultant in the private and public sector. Hi baby. A graduate of new york university, years of us will to be the school of international and Public Affairs i have to correct something which was said i am not a match for richer but it truly is a testament to this community and the space that it exists. This is one ofs the first places we stopped off in so i want to tell you about about twoa people starting with our moderator then moving on to her we want to know about asus you professor is from the department of justice at Montclair University i want to talk to ever so briefly about how i met and i mean they for dinner they should do know about your that is a venture those were early 2007 she was then the attorney at it was clear a person who had drive and this will just be just but i remember she was one of the first people. That was the first time i actuallyly met or, forces history and i would drive down park. Every morning we would see a relatively but why did she walk so fast . [laughter] so i met her for the first time i thought wait a minute that is the person. So victoria has been walking fast ever since. I would then come to know her asic and then waiting for those on the team to buy into what she was doing. She broke and then the rest of the courthouse as she rose to thee role that she is chief judge in the Municipal Court. Thank you. [applause] good evening thank you for coming near and far. I feel like be can have a whole protest in here. [laughter] thank you. Also thank you to jason to be here to have a conversation about the bucket thank you for hosting and this is home to me one is especially great is that i use the library that i remember one young manan who was babysitting his nephew and when i said what you do with your nephew every day . He said we play video games. If you know me the top of my head came off and when he came back to theno court initially he was very annoyed i would take him to someplace he does not know where it is located. He is showing me that is that i have a problem now. [laughter] s im grateful to the library. First of all congratulations on the book launch. This is incredible. Also very provocative work this is definitely going to shape conversations around temporary Justice Reform the best book not only reforms that you can feel the passion and that something have to say is ever present so thank you for sharing that passion so thank you for that you have done and continue to do. So now going around the legal system in the courts what compelled you to write this book . That is an interesting question to jethro came in one day and said i you are taking notes and journaling this and i said dontto i look busy enough . That i was a judge sitting in the system that incarcerates black and brown bodies before they have a chance to shine in the world and sitting in a Justice System that snares the mentally illll the poor and the marginalized and then disproportionately punishes them for being those things. I was sitting in the system that putak our children to make one mistake particularly in urban spaces. And one of the things that makes me move is when i get angry i did become a judge because i felt the system always are mostly did the right thing that because i committed myself that everyone that comes before me will get justice that is a commitment i made to myself and that at the municipal level you have such an opportunity to help people shift most people ac core at the municipal level but it is in that space through the criminal Justice System to create major disruptions in peoples lives and then you can change the trajectory of a persons life. You talk about the court rooms and your ted talk was phenomenal i think Chapter Three entitled icu. You write true justice is curious about the information before us andbo that requires us to see what is obvious and what is not so obvious but also what is there a not so apparent but so that is how justice should process so tell me your perspective. Its interesting you pick the icu chapter as well because the idea that people come before us they carry everything that has happenedou to them. All of the trauma the family needs, evictions and they are hungry and we have to look at a complaint as a judge into make a decision that will impact the persons entire life based upon a few minutes of something that happened. Sometimes is not even accurate depiction of the story. Often times when they said this happened so the idea of treating people with dignity, my mother was a beautician down the street and its amazing when you become your parents after telling yourself your whole life that you will not do that and then i found myself channeling her. But then there was this amazing woman who had love and kindness to give to say she was a beautician who used haircare as anau opportunity to heal people. She had a beauty parlor and would feed the homeless. She had all these adopted children and would go into hospitals and visit people who were hivpositive and in the eighties people were discarded. My mom and work a full day then go visit them. To see them as people and it was very important my brother and i learned to see people as entire things to hand family and the story. Sometimes when youre sitting in a Municipal Court they want you to move the calendar. Youre looking at cases and checking boxes and hoping if they can read it but maybe not caring if they can read it or not. Now you are not looking up there is a jurisdiction that tells people not to look at the defendant when they are given in the negative ruling if you hold them to bail and i think about how disrespectful that is to the person receiving actions. First of all they dont trust the system because they think the judge is doing the dirty they cannot even look me in the eye. Promised if i cannot look them in the eye then a needed to rethink the ruling. Because in their something with me thatsy not comfortable with it than they are not getting justice. Sometimes we make the offender the victim because we have a system that has the satiated desire to punish disproportionately now thinking about how the judge and the system has victimized them. So this idea treating people with dignity and respect and maybe i was on the bench for a year. And i was asked do you do that naturally . En i was embarrassed because i wasnt sure what it was. I said as long as nobody is asking then i will keep doing it you if they ask i will keep doing it. He told me this thing called procedural justice. I was practicing this not even realizing it was something there was evidence and research about. The idea that if people perceive and understand and they believe they are treated with dignity and respect it increases trust in the Justice System. Not only that then it gets them to obey the law. System as a legitimate authority. To rule against them. Literally. They said people we submit to governance to todays an election to the mayors power over us to the City Councils Government Authority over us and to make rules that were subject to because we to see them as legitimate authorities that was not happening and it and it doesnt happen often times so judges give people or i like to say, you know, you smash them out with these hearts sentences and then they go right back to jail because pretty much what youve done is illegitimate to them. So this idea of creating this this idea of looking at people is really significant because were dealing with populations that nobody asks them what they think nobody sees them. It was challenging when im got moved to this court because it was the arraignment court. So it was the people who like i picked up on bench warrants. They had been running on the streets for days trying to get high. So instead of they were drugstick instead of going to the hospital they ended up at green street jail, and so you would see them and theyd be filthy or theyd be having auditory hallucinations and then youre dealing with these folks and it just it made you feel terrible because here you were they come in youd revise their time payment a fine. They got that when you gave it to them. You knew they couldnt pay and so they go through this cycle of injustice right this Conveyor Belt of injustice that youre participating in and the system forces judges to participate in the hallucination, you know, sir. How much are you going to pay me . Oh judge. Im gonna pay you a hundred dollars a month when i get my check. Well if he had a check, he probably wouldnt be living on the streets. Or my favorite was one day the prosecutor wanted to impose a 80 fine and 33 dollars court costs and i was like manny prosecutor. Did you notice that hes wearing one shoe. Right one shoe if he had five dollars, maybe hed go get another shoe. But here the court is engaged in this thing that were going to impose finds that we know that were not going to get and then we punish him by when he doesnt pay the hundred dollars. Now i got to issue a bench warrant. And then he gets picked up and in a couple of months people get arrested multiple times on fines. An open charges, i think one of the numbers i saw the prison policy say that in a year people. Before they even get convicted 10. 6 million admissions at the low level of people just churning through the Municipal Court. And if we keep our heads down and just keep looking at the paper. Yeah, we can do that and not be affected by it, but thats not justice. Thats not justice. So this idea of looking and seeing people it also gives the judge an opportunity to make decisions about what it is. Theyre seeing when im when im on the bench, you know, i the whole courtroom is my living room. So i need to know whats happening and i think one of the things that i got why i got really good at it is because i engaged the entire courtroom. So at the end of my session i would say tell me what i missed and i have my officer the officers here was our judge you missed that he was intimidating her you missed that he was talking to. Himself, and it got to the point that before i even got on the bench. The clerk would say oh this person you might need to see them first or the officer would say i put their file up top because you might need to get them out of the courtroom or this persons has another appointment. But this idea that the entire system everyone who touches them needs to see them and needs to be asking themselves questions about why is this person . Responding in this way, which is a whole nother way of seeing them. You know, i am talk about a young man in the book who comes to court and hes just his behavior is odd, and hes looking at the officers both ways and im the i believe that hes about to be done with the program because he had already gotten into. Trouble with me and mr. Drogo whos here begins to read this horrible report of all the stuff. He hasnt done that. Ive already given him multiple times to do but the entire time shes talking instead of him trying to interrupt her. Or plead his case. Hes just looking at the officers. Hes looking at the officers and hes putting his hands in his pocket and taking his hands and im just like wow, this is not how somebody behaves when theyre about to get in trouble when she stops speaking now. Im looking at him and what im expecting to hear is check it judge. Check it. Let me tell you what really happened, right . And instead what i hear is just shoot me just shoot me just kill me and he literally lunges for the officers. He had come to court for suicide by police. And just sitting there thinking what could be so horrible. That you would come to court so somebody could kill you literally lunge for the officers. Guns now because the officers were in a courtroom where they understood that their roles were peace officers. I mean lifted him off the ground and took him in the back. But thats why you need to see people because what hes frequently told officers. Was that everything for the past two weeks had been going so bad for him . That he just wanted to end it. He just wanted his life to end now in a place where people are not looking and not sensitive to this. It could have ended differently, you know, the officers could have responded to his aggression with more aggression. But theres a whole life and its a life. With a lot of trauma that you need to understand folks who come through the criminal Justice System. So seeing them and seeing whats not there because of again. I was just like wow, this is not whatever. However hes responding is not normal. To and i dont mean normal. Like he schizophrenic but not normal in terms of what is customary when these things happen. Whats customary when this young man has been in court before me and that sometimes a person what can look like disorderly behavior is just some stuff thats going on that we need to resolve before that day. We didnt i didnt care anything about the case that was in front of me. We needed to resolve what was happening to this young man so he could stay alive. Yeah, i think the marriage and together of your personal biography with that of procedural justice is quite fascinating and i think it connects to a quote from chapter 6 to david palins case. You wrote quote the failure to infuse a procedural justice approach. Its a policing will continue to produce terrible outcomes throughout the Justice System. Yes as was the case for david and and we later learn in this chapter that david was a law student he had been arrested by Transit Police on a disorderly persons ticket. But again this connection, you know from personal biography to understanding decline before you you all know that for instance. He wrote his eyes right when you when you called his name and something happened for you there. What was the procedural justice takeaway . Know he got sent to my court because now we had this Newark Community Solutions Program that provided you with alternatives to sentence defenses defendants to jail so we could do other things we could get counseling and because newark is this huge college town we needed to figure out why College Students. I had never had a law student in my courtroom at all. So i was thinking what could he have possibly done other than the drunk outside . And even the complaint as it was written just said disorderly and im like, theres no allegations here something strange happened and when he got up and rolled his eyes at me. I was like, this is an extension of what happened out in the streets, and now youre mad at me so i kind of laughed because i was like, oh nobody told him. Im just pratt dont play but you know, well get through this. But it was just i didnt respond to that idea that i knew whatever his First Contact with the police was was horrible. And in newark, you have 26 Law Enforcement officer all agencies writing summonses complaints and tickets. So if youre in newark the chances and i mean live park their car here work here come and shop here the chances of you engaging with Law Enforcement is great and then different bodies of Law Enforcement. So youre looking at new Jersey Transit Rutgers Police as this county police the prosecutors Investigators Office the newark police, new Jersey Transit conrail has a police force, you know all of these places, so that he came before me and he was really upset but he was this law student. So a part of his sentence was to write an essay at the time. I did not know the extent of what it was that happened to mr. Polanese. And so he read his essay how good decisions and bad decisions might impact my life. And his case was dismissed he was sent off. The one day i was at the law school, and this nicely dressed young man comes up to me and its like i dont know if you remember me. And he is now at that time a prosecutor. Right because processing him on that ticket would have created an issue for him. And it just said disorderly persons. But i dont know what that means because that could mean anything and it could mean you just spoke you you spoke back when the offices spoke to you. Then i see him so like im like wow, this is amazing and i said to him you got a Second Chance when you see somebody who deserves a Second Chance you give it to him if you see somebody whos supposed to be under the jail you give them that too. But if somebody is salvageable, you know, you give them exactly what you got. I interviewed him for the book. And he says i never disclosed what really happened to me. He was at the city subway. And his friend decided they couldnt he couldnt wait and he started urinating on the place. New Jersey Transit officer comes and starts saying all kinds of obscenities to him. What does the Young Law Office of the young law student do he does what he learned in the first year criminal procedure and criminal law he told the officer you dont have to speak to him that way. I mean, you know if he needs a ticket give it to him. He gets slammed to the ground. He gets slammed to the ground by this officer officer puts his knee in his back arrests him for speaking. Literally. He was arrested for speaking. And what is so crazy about this is that he never disclosed this even as he went through the process. He had a public defender. He never disclosed this so there was the shame a