(upbeat music)
- My name is Mark Nordenberg
and it is my privilege
to welcome you to this special program
that is part of a
Governing in Crisis series,
cosponsored by the
University of Pittsburgh's,
Institute of Politics
and its Dick Thornburgh Forum
for Law and Public Policy.
For 30 years, the Institute has
provided a nonpartisan forum
for the consideration of issues
of importance to the region.
The Dick Thornburgh Forum building
on Governor Thornburgh's
own inspiring example
has made good governance
practices a priority.
It is a real honor to
have the chance to speak
with The Honorable Kim Berkeley Clark,
the President Judge
of the Fifth Judicial
District of Pennsylvania.
A district that encompasses
Allegheny County,
and of course includes Pittsburgh.
Judge Clark is a graduate
of Duquesne University's School of Law,
And earlier in her career
spent 16 years as a prosecutor
handling more than 150 jury trials,
including prosecutions for homicide,
sexual assault, and child abuse.
She was appointed to the bench
following a merit selection process
by then Governor Tom Ridge in 1999.
She was elected to a
full term that same year
and since has been retained twice.
President Judge Clark's record
of service on the judiciary
has been nothing short of extraordinary.
The lists of her many
important forms of recognition
and of the first she has achieved
are far too numerous to discuss,
but let me quickly offer some examples.
She is the first African American
to serve as President Judge
of our Court of Common Pleas.
Before that she was the
first African American
to lead a division of our court
as Administrative Judge
of its Family Division.
She also was the first sitting judge
and the first African American woman
to serve as President
of the Allegheny County Bar Association.
She has been honored as a
Champion of Hope and Healing,
a Woman of Influence, a Black
History and Diversity Hero,
a Friend of Adoption, a
Drum Major of Justice,
a Friend of Children,
and a Woman of Legacy.
She also has been honored
for her community advocacy
and for her overall leadership.
In 2017 at a dinner hosted
by Chief Justice John Roberts
of the United States Supreme Court,
Judge Clark received an
award named after another
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice,
the William H. Rehnquist
Award for Judicial Excellence.
This is the highest honor
bestowed upon a state court judge
by the National Center for State Courts.
In presenting the award,
the President of that organization
described Judge Clark as
a person who leads by example,
who is committed to helping families,
and whose work has dramatically
improved the lives,
not only of those who have
entered her courtroom,
but of 1000's of other families.
President Judge Clark,
a key to your receipt
of the Rehnquist Award
and many of your other
well-deserved honors
is the record that you
built in leading efforts
to improve Allegheny County's
juvenile justice system.
At the heart of those successes
are your determined efforts
to create what you have called
a trauma-informed courthouse.
What does that mean?
- Thank you, Mark and thank
you for the introduction.
So a trauma-informed courthouse
goes sort of hand in hand
with the concepts of procedural justice,
but it does take into account
that often the reasons that
persons are in courtrooms,
in courthouses, involved
in court proceedings
are very personal.
Particularly in the Family
Division where I sit,
when you think about the reasons
that people come to the Family Division,
they're coming because their
marriage is dissolving,
which is very traumatic and personal.
They're fighting for
custody of their children.
They're seeking an order
for protection from abuse.
They're fighting over child support.
On the juvenile side,
Children, Youth, and Families
has become involved in their lives
and maybe the children have been removed
and placed in foster care,
which is traumatic for both the children
and both the parents.
Some of those children
have been victims of abuse.
Most of them are victims of neglect.
We terminate parental
rights in our division.
Children have been charged with crimes
and victims of crimes
come into our courthouse.
So it's very traumatic.
And then coupled with the reasons that,
the presenting reason
that someone is in court,
many of the people that
enter our courthouses
have histories filled
with traumatic events
that affects their
ability to function well
in the court setting to convey
their stories to the court,
and to understand what the process is.
And it shapes
their opinions as to whether
the system has been fair.
So when we look at that,
when we look at how
procedural justice works,
we know that procedural justice
is about transparency and openness.
It's about fairness.
It's about impartiality.
And I think most importantly,
it's about having a voice,
people coming into the
courthouses need to believe
they have a voice.
And I've coupled that with choices also.
Sometimes we can give people choices
as to what the outcome
could be in their cases.
And studies have shown
and data has shown that
when courts operate
under procedural justice,
when people, when they perceive
that the system is fair,
when they believe that they've
had a voice and been heard,
and when they understand
what has happened -
the judge has explained to
them what has happened -
they are more likely to
comply with orders of court,
there are more likely to be
success for outcomes in cases
because they're more invested
in it- they understand it.
And sometimes it's not
about the ultimate result,
it's about how you get
there - the process.
And so there's a lot of things
that have to be taken into account.
One's background. Things
like cultural competence,
understanding the history
and ethnicity and traditions
and rituals of families and cultures,
how that plays a part in
how they live their lives
and how they make their decisions.
Using evidence-based tools such
as motivational interviewing
to get to sort of the truth,
to get the information that a judge needs
to make an informed decision in the case.
And making sure that everyone
that comes into the courtroom
is treated with dignity and respect.
There should never be any
exception to that rule.
- Well, so even in a large
and complex court system,
or maybe particularly in a
large and complex court system,
you can never lose sight of the individual
and you can never act without
extending dignity and respect.
- That's correct.
- And the system you lead
is large and complex.
You've got close to 50
independently elected
Commonplace Judges who are
spread across four divisions.
You've got approximately the same number
of independently elected
District Magistrate Judges
who are scattered geographically
throughout the county.
You've got a growing number
of specialized courts.
You've got other functions like
adult and juvenile probation
and a range of pretrial processes.
When all are said and done
you've got 1300 employees,
managing such a system
would be challenging
under the best of circumstances.
But the last few months have been anything
but the best of circumstances.
You had to deal with COVID-19,
that resulted, I know in a 28 page order
bearing your signature,
regarding good health practices
and the use of advanced
communications technology
to conduct proceedings remotely
when that was possible.
How did all that go?
Not only from the perspective of those
who are professionals within the court,
but from the perspective of those
who had business before the court.
- So surprisingly it has gone very well.
I said at the outset, we
should expect the worst
and then everything will be okay
because anything that's
better than the worst
we're doing fine.
I would just say this.
So this was a huge collaborative effort.
One of the things that I think
is certainly a blessing to me
is I have four excellent
Administrative Judges
who administrate the four divisions
and I have an outstanding
District Court Administrator
and administrative team which includes,
of course the District Court
Administrator, our IT person,
and the Deputy Administrator
who oversees the Magisterial
District Judges courts.
So it was a very good process,
I think that we had coming together.
We initially asked,
my Court Administrator and I worked on
sort of the general things
that would be court wide,
but we asked the Administrative Judges
and the division administrators
to kind of flesh out
what they wanted to happen
with their divisions
and the best way to do it.
Our administrator for the
MDJs did the same thing,
and then we kind of put it
all together and tweaked it.
We talked about it.
It takes a long time to do it,
because there's a lot
of going back and forth.
But it worked pretty well.
And so once we got the
first one under our belt,
as we made amendments and changed things
the process was a little bit easier.
But there's just a lot of
details that have to go into it.
And if you go on the website,
you can see that there
have been amendments
because there's one little thing
that somebody had a question about.
So we needed to issue a clarifying order
to make sure that it
was clear what we meant.
So initially, of course,
the courts were closed.
They were not open to the public.
With the exception of
we did keep Municipal Court open
so that people could come in and file
for protection from abuse.
Because that's sort of a walk in thing,
there was no way
that we could just have
that totally remotely.
Part of it was remote.
The hearing part was remote,
but we had a process where
someone could come in.
We chose the Municipal Courts Building
because it was the
safest place to have it.
It would be the safest place for staff
because they would be behind glass
and they would not have to
have any physical contact
with any person coming in.
And we also used that building
for the Housing Court emergency.
So people could walk in
and deal with the Housing
Court emergencies.
The judges, Judge Mulligan heard
the temporary PFA hearings.
And Judge Hertzberg heard
the housing court hearings.
They were at home on a Polycom system
and were able to conduct
the hearings that way.
I think we were very
fortunate in our county
and sometimes you don't
realize what you have
until you see what
other people don't have.
One of the things that we have is our own
IT department and IT system,
and many of the other
courts across Pennsylvania
are tied into their county's IT system.
And we have a very talented IT team
who can do so many things.
It's just amazing.
And so they were able in short order
to get employees working at home
in preparation for the judicial emergency,
we had people bring in
their laptops and iPads
so that we could load things on them.
But for people that needed to work at home
that didn't have them, we
gave them the equipment
they needed to do that.
We made sure people had Wi-fi and hotspots
and the things that they needed.
And we are now pretty much hearing,
well, the Family Division
is hearing pretty much
everything remotely.
Civil Division is hearing most things.
Criminal Court is hearing some things,
it's more of a hybrid there.
And Orphans' Court as well.
Initially everything was remotely,
but we have returned some things.
We have reopened court
facilities to the public,
but we still are trying to
hear as many things at home
to reduce the numbers of people
in the courthouses and court facilities.
- There is another
dimension of the pandemic
that you and your team
needed to deal with.
And that was appropriately protecting
the people who are incarcerated
in the county jail.
Some of them have not been
convicted of anything.
Those who have been convicted
are serving short sentences.
Many of them would, well,
I shouldn't say many,
we'll let that come from your answer,
but at least some of them would be
of low risk to the community if released,
but high risk at contracting COVID-19
if kept in the close
confines of the county jail.
So how did you, you and
your team deal with that?
- So I will have to say this was
probably one of the best
examples of collaboration
that I've ever dealt with.
And people that know me for many years,
sort of my mantra has
been "Collaboration Rocks"
because none of us can
do things by ourselves.
I mean, it's just impossible.
And when you're in a system,
you are dependent upon
other people to help you.
I get to do my work
because somebody has done
a lot of things in advance
of the court hearing to make that happen.
Scheduling, filing things,
making sure that we have
legal pads and pens,
all of those things are in place
before I ever take the bench.
And so someone has made this happen.
So this was a collaborative effort
with the Allegheny County
Jail, the County Executive,
the District Attorney, the
Public Defender and the Court.
And so we decided that we needed to get
as many people out of the jail
that could safely be released
to the community in some form or fashion.
We wanted to make sure that
the community was safe.
There's a huge obligation by the court
and certainly by the
District Attorney's office
to ensure that the community is safe.
But we wanted to also ensure
that the citizens- our citizens
- that are temporarily
residing in the county jail
are also safe.
And the safest way to do that
was to reduce the population.
It's a big jail.
I think it is the largest
single county jail
or prison in Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia probably has more prisoners,
but they have more than one facility.
We have one facility and it's very large.
So the first thing we did
was the jail provided us
with a list of those inmates
that they felt were most
vulnerable or most at risk,
should they contract COVID-19,
those that had pre-existing
medical conditions
or because of age or otherwise
would put them at high risk.
So we started with that group
to see who in that group
we could let out.
And then once we went through that group,
we also then went with,
looked at those who were low
or moderate risk to re-offend
those that were,
look that had,
were in for sort of minor charges.
We tackled those lists
and then we moved to
those who might be in detained
for a probation violation.
And those had to really be
handled by the individual judges
on their cases.
But we had a good team of people,
the Criminal Division
Administrator Tom McCaffrey,
and the Administrator for
Pretrial Services, Janice Dean,
they worked very hard
along with their staff.
It was almost a 24/7
operation around the clock
to try to get the information
so that we could let people out.
The Public Defender's
office filed many motions
to have bail reduced.
Every day Judge Manning
heard the bail hearings.
And so people were released
through that mechanism as well.
We also made it possible for
people to turn themselves in,
on bench warrants,
without physically
coming to the courthouse.
They take walk-ins when the
courthouse is open every day,
but since we weren't allowing people in,
we had telephone mechanisms,
so they could be
interviewed over the phone
and warrants could be cleared.
Those people wouldn't be arrested
and put back into the jail.
But between March 18th and May 29th,
the court issued 1073 orders
to release defendants
from the county jail.
There were actually
others that were released,
ones that were released
because they had already,
they had served their sentence.
They were not released by court order,
but because their sentence had expired.
And then there are some
folks in the county jail
that are being detained
by other jurisdictions
and may have left there because
those detainers were lifted
or they were transported back
to wherever county or state
they needed to go.
There are some federal
prisoners in the county jail
over whom we have no
jurisdiction or supervision.
I can't say for sure whether
any of those had been released,
but the court issued more than 1000 orders
to release inmates from the jail.
And the most interesting part is that
there hasn't been a serious uptick
in a violent offenses or re-arrest.
Sadly, I think there have been
a couple of overdose deaths
for people that had addiction issues.
But, we were able to
keep the community safe
and that was the important thing.
- What was interesting
that the American Civil
Liberties Union filed for relief
under the special King's Bench Powers
of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court,
contending that county jails
were a source of high risk
for not just those who were inside,
but for the general public,
because if the spread went to staff,
from staff it would go
into the general community.
And Allegheny County was the only system
that was singled out as
having a systemic program
for dealing with this
dimension of the pandemic.
So you must have been proud about that.
And when the ACLU sought this
relief, you had released 500.
So you essentially doubled that.
- Yes.
- I do wanna go back and
underscore one point you have made
because of preserving public
safety is so important,
in what you're saying is
the tracking the experiences
with these 1000 detainees
in the county jail who were released,
there were no significant problems
with people committing
violent crimes after release.
- That's correct.
That's correct.
- One factor that may have contributed
to your team's successes was the fact that
you already were looking at the population
of the Allegheny County Jail.
America has become known as
the "Incarceration Nation"
with 5% of the population
and 25% of the prisoner population.
And we now know that the approach
of lock them up and throw away the key
hasn't worked very well
in terms of the safety
of the community or
fairness to the individuals.
And you have said that you think
the experience in reducing
the jail's population
as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic
will provide a better foundation
for dealing with the jail
population generally over time.
What do you mean by that?
- I think so.
We were sort of in crisis
mode and we were able to,
I think release more than
1000 inmates from the jail
without major incident.
So why was that?
And what can we learn from what we did
to keep doing it in the future?
So I would say that maybe
some of these defendants
should not have been in the
jail in the first place.
Maybe some of them were still
struggling over the issues
of cash bail which is still legal,
but keeps people in jail
that probably should be out
and could be out, but for
a small amount of money.
Lessons to be learned from
detaining probationers
for technical violations,
or even if they have another arrest,
if it's sort of not a serious offense,
should they be detained?
There's sort of a longterm
effect that people don't think
about necessarily with incarceration.
So, I mean, I've heard
statements, colleagues
in other states and
across the Pennsylvania,
we're all struggling with this issue of
who is in and who was out.
The disproportionality of minorities
and poor people in jail
as opposed to others,
we're struggling with those.
But I've heard comments along the way that
"Well, people get detained,
but some of them they're
only there three or four days
and that's no big deal."
That might not be a big deal
for me or for you, Mark, if
we got arrested and we
had to spend the weekend
or even five days or a week in jail.
We'd probably still have our jobs,
unless it was some offense
that was so horrible
that we were fired on
the spot from our jobs.
But we will have a place to live.
We have income, we have bank accounts,
we have supports and families and spouses.
So we could probably
survive four or five days
or even seven days or longer in jail.
But many of the people that I see
in the Family Court on the dependency side
they're struggling in many,
many ways because of poverty.
And we don't talk a lot about poverty.
But really when you look
at disproportionality
in juvenile justice, criminal
justice and child welfare,
poverty is actually the
biggest common denominator.
And then minorities. Virtually
everyone that I see almost is poor.
And many are really struggling
with just the basic things.
Keeping food on the table,
and sometimes there's this decision,
you have so many dollars a month
and so are you gonna pay your rent
or are you gonna buy
food for your children?
So this month I may have decided
to buy food for my children.
And I may go back and
forth with my landlord.
I'm always sort of teetering on the edge
of him putting me out, evicting me.
And now I get arrested for something.
Maybe I'm guilty, maybe I'm not guilty
because everyone who gets
arrested is not guilty.
We know that.
But it doesn't matter,
I'm in jail because I
can't make bail or and,
maybe I have been under supervision before
and now there's a detainer.
So I'm in jail.
And my landlord, my
community hears I'm in jail.
So the landlord says "I'm done."
She's always teetering on
the edge of eviction anyway,
I'm just gonna go and change the locks
and take all her stuff.
So I've lost my house.
Children, Youth, and Families has come
and they've taken my children
because I'm in jail and
I can't parent them.
So I've lost my children.
And then maybe my job is sort of,
maybe I'm working under the table
or maybe I'm working at
a small local restaurant
or something, a private business,
and they're not gonna keep me.
I've missed four days.
I've missed five days.
I can't call them and tell them,
I'm scared to call them
and tell them where I am,
I don't want my employer
to know I'm in jail.
I don't want my coworkers to know that.
So I'm just not showing up for work.
And now I've lost my job.
So even when I get
released four days later,
I have no home to go to,
I have to fight to get my children back,
I have no income,
I've lost all my possessions.
And so what is the cost
to society for that?
I'm not a violent person.
I'm not gonna hurt anyone,
but now you're paying for my
children to be in foster care
and for all of their needs, I
may have to go into a shelter,
I may decide I can't deal with this,
so I'm just gonna go get high
or re-offend or whatever.
And so the cost is greater to society
by having me in even four or five days
and I've lost everything.
And I don't think we think about that.
- Allegheny County has been awarded
a MacArthur Foundation
Safety and Justice Grant.
What does that mean?
- We're working with the
Criminal Division to try to,
one of the goals is to
reduce the population
of the county jail.
And sort of the irony in
this pandemic situation
is that we've met and exceeded
that goal, in short order,
by virtue of a pandemic
and a judicial emergency.
But there's other things
that they're looking at,
sort of the timely processing of cases
and reducing continuances,
a sort of a more efficient
way and a better way
to get cases through the court system.
Sometimes, people think
the wheels of justice turn awfully slowly
and sometimes they do.
And it certainly seems
that way to many people.
So MacArthur looked at Allegheny County
who has had a pretty good
reputation nationally.
And it has decided to
give us some grant money
to work with our county.
So one of the things that I know
that they have decided
to work on in that is
to kind of reduce some of
the continuances and the time
is to combine
the formal arraignment
and pretrial conference.
They haven't done that yet
because of the pandemic.
And they're just getting back physically
into the courthouses,
but that is the plan to kind of reduce
those numbers of days.
So I'm looking forward
to seeing what happens.
Interestingly, there were
a number of procedures.
Judge Rangos, who's the
administrative judge
in Criminal Division,
has put into place for
this kind of coming back
to the courthouse period,
because a lot of the
criminal cases got continued
Because we were not able
to do trials of any kind
without being in the courthouse.
And so now that we're back in
they have the ability
to do non jury trials
and they have started doing guilty pleas
through advanced
communications technology.
But not all cases in criminal
court can be heard that way.
And we still have to keep the
numbers of people entering
the courthouses down.
So one of the things that she did
was she issued an order
for the district attorneys
and the defense attorneys
to have sort of their own
pre-hearing or sort of meeting
to confer about the case
to make sure that they
are actually ready to go
on that date.
So cases that have to be
continued won't be continued
on the date of the trial.
And it won't be the same thing
where everybody just
kind of shows up at 8:30
or nine o'clock in the
courtroom and then they talk-
especially for the
lawyers in general trial.
So this is actually a much more,
I think, efficient way of hearing those,
kind of preparing in
advance of the trial date
as to how the case is
gonna go and they're ready.
And I understand that it's
gotten really rave reviews
from the attorneys because it
frees up their time actually.
Because when they go to court,
they're ready to do their cases.
There's none of this waiting around time.
So we'll see what happens.
So I think there are a lot of things that,
other lessons that we will learn
and a lot of some things
that we'll be keeping from
what we were doing during
this judicial emergency.
- And of course, we're lucky here too,
because we have a local
Foundation community
that has been generous in
supporting work in this area,
including in particular
the Heinz Endowments
and the Buhl Foundation.
For the past several weeks,
ever since the tragic
killing of George Floyd
by a Minneapolis police officer,
we have seen slogans
like "Defund the Police."
You have a special vantage point
because you worked with
the police for 16 years
as a prosecutor.
You've had a special observation point
with respect to policing,
and, now more than two decades as a judge.
And you are a prominent member
of the African American
community here in Pittsburgh.
How have your experiences left you
in terms of your feelings about the police
and the need for reform of
some policing practices?
- So I would say this,
first and foremost, I mean,
I would say most police officers
are working as police officers
and really want to protect
and serve their communities.
And I have the highest regard for them.
Unfortunately, there are some
that are on police forces
here in Allegheny County,
across Pennsylvania and the United States
that shouldn't be police officers.
I think that there's a lot of training
that can happen for police
in terms of things like implicit bias
and cultural competence,
tools to help them deescalate with words
other than using force or threat of force
in order to get people to de-escalate.
I think that there needs
to be more accountability
for when police do things wrong.
In other words, there's
strong police unions.
And certainly
as a woman from Allegheny County
who grew up in a city,
in a county where unions
made life better for many people
in terms of better wages and
better working conditions.
I certainly support that.
But I think sometimes when we step back
and we don't hold ourselves accountable
for our wrong actions, then
others around us lose faith.
So when police
do wrong, we have to
hold them accountable.
I think it's complicated because
the way certain laws are written,
the use of force instructions
that maybe juries are given
sort of prevent that.
But when you look at the
number of assaults that happen
and then the number of arrests actually,
or charges that are filed in
comparison, it's very low.
Then when you look at the
conviction rate of officers
who have been charged, it's extremely low.
And it's very disheartening
to the community.
But I think a couple of
things, I mean, obviously,
I don't think the police
should be defunded
in terms of that we shouldn't
have a police force.
I believe that it is necessary
for an orderly society
to have a well-trained
and competent police force
to protect us.
But we shouldn't use the police
to do things that other people should do.
So we need mental health
services and mental health beds
so that when someone is
in a mental health crisis
and they are a danger to themselves
or others in the present moment,
there needs to be a place
where they can go quickly.
There need to be numbers
where family members,
the community can call and say,
this person is obviously
in a mental health crisis.
Where trained professionals come out
and handle that situation
without really involving the police.
There needs to be a lot of training
just in the communication
tactics with police.
In myself, I don't particularly
respond well to yelling.
It's just not what I think is good for me.
And so that whole issue
of dignity and respect,
it works even in policing, I've seen it.
I've seen situations
where, in our courthouse
where deputy sheriffs were
able to diffuse a situation
without any incident
and keep everybody safe,
just with their words.
Their appropriate, respectful words
to the person who was
struggling and flailing
and causing a disturbance. It does work.
You'd have to be trained to do it.
Some people might have sort of
that innate ability to do it,
but most people have to learn to do it.
It's something that you can
be trained on and learn.
And I think there needs
to be sort of a dialogue
between police and the community.
Somebody needs to kind of facilitate that.
So I would say that
as a person of color,
as an African American,
my experiences historically
in my community with my
family are very different.
My experiences with police,
or at least my perception
of the fairness of police
is very different.
Irrespective of the fact
that I worked very closely
with police officers for 16 years
and respected most of the
ones that I worked with
and many of them, I consider
close friends to this day.
But when I went to college at
Tennessee State in Nashville,
before I went, my parents gave me,
what I call the Emmett Till speech,
which every black parent gives their child
who is going South for the first time
to put things in perspective
about how you need to behave.
How you might be perceived,
and what to do if you are
encountered by police.
Because it's not the same perception
that the police are there to help you
if you are a black person
or even if they are,
you will be perceived.
Your actions will be
judged very differently
because you are a person of color.
And that's the reality
with which pretty much all
black people live to this day.
I know that there is a lot
of sort of discussion about,
well, we're still holding
people responsible
for what happened hundreds of years ago
with regards to slavery.
Slaves have been freed,
but even in my lifetime,
we really weren't.
I mean, once slavery was abolished,
then there were Jim Crow laws,
which stayed in effect
for a very long time
until there was a Civil Rights Act
and things like that. That
happened during my lifetime.
And I don't really think that I'm that old
that we should discount it.
It's still here.
Interestingly enough,
when we look at sort of
the whole climate now with
elections and voter suppression
the Voting Rights Act is
up for reauthorization.
And I've been thinking a lot about that
in these past few weeks.
What's gonna happen if
it's not reauthorized?
What does that mean for people of color
in their right to exercise their vote?
I'm not sure.
But it's of concern to me.
- Well, it's of concern to a lot of people
and the concerns that have really driven
some of the work that you're doing,
some of the work we're doing
together include policing.
But really are an attempt to
deal with racial disparities
wherever they exist in the
criminal justice system.
And of course, we know they don't stop
and start with the criminal
justice system either.
That even if there is a
special opportunity right now
to focus on policing
and focus on the criminal
justice system overall,
we know there are
disparities in education,
and in healthcare, and in
economic opportunities.
So there is a lot of work yet to be done.
And maybe the solution
rests on the foundation
of what we discussed before.
And that is treating everyone
with dignity and respect
and assigning a worth to them
that is equivalent to the
worth of every other person.
When you were formally installed
as the President Judge,
one of your colleagues, Judge Kim Eaton,
who now heads the Family Division
and who once was my student,
said that because of your efforts
the juvenile justice
system in Allegheny County
was now considered to
be the gold standard.
That's a well deserved,
but it's gotta be a heartening comment.
And as we look at the
criminal justice system
in Allegheny County, we know
there has been progress.
There is a foundation to build on.
But I think we also recognize
that there is a distance to travel.
So, I wanna thank you for
everything you have contributed
to the health and strength
of our region already.
I want wish you the best
as you move forward in your
still relatively new
position as President Judge
to tackle some of the problems
that continue to exist.
And obviously I wanna
thank you for taking time
to be with us today, to
discuss these issues.
- Thanks for inviting me
and I look forward to continued
collaboration with you
and with others, Mark.
Thank you.
- Thank you.
