N.J. municipal court discriminated against Latino defendants, AG alleges in complaint
N.J. municipal court discriminated against Latino defendants, AG alleges in complaint
By Matt Gray | For NJ.com
The complaint filed by the office’s Division on Civil Rights alleges that, between June and December of last year, Millville court officials required litigants “who were or were perceived to be Spanish-speaking” to appear at in-person court hearings instead of being allowed to attend virtually, according to the complaint.
This practice “denied those litigants equal access to virtual court proceedings,” and violated the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, the state alleges.
The investigation was launched after Millville Municipal Court Judge Jason Witcher publicly alleged this discrimination was occurring in his court. Witcher said he sought to end the practice, but that his concerns were ignored.
A state judiciary investigation found no evidence of discrimination in the scheduling of cases, but found a slightly higher percentage of Millville cases involving Latino defendants were scheduled for in-person sessions when an interpreter was available.
Under state law, interpreters are provided for all in-person and virtual court hearings.
The judiciary’s report, which was issued in February, included statewide reforms intended to ensure all defendants are aware of available interpreting services and can choose virtual court hearings when appropriate.
In Millville, defendants with Hispanic surnames were almost twice as likely as defendants with non-Hispanic surnames to be scheduled for an in-person court appearance, the new complaint states. The alleged discrimination harmed these defendants by requiring them to take additional time off work, spend money on travel and arrange child care, the state argues.
“New Jersey’s laws forbid discrimination on the basis of national origin,” Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said in a statement. “That anyone in the City of Millville had to face discrimination from any public entity is disappointing, disheartening, and unacceptable.
“Such practices only serve to erode the public’s trust. New Jersey is committed to eliminating discrimination, no matter where it occurs.”
Millville officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the complaint.
Raymond Compari, Millville’s city administrator, said officials could not comment on the pending litigation.
The state judiciary had no comment on the complaint Tuesday.
Beginning in June of last year, the Millville court began conducting in-person court sessions on Mondays and virtual court sessions on Wednesdays, according to the complaint. The court scheduled a Spanish-language interpreter on two of the Monday in-person sessions each month. While interpretation services were also available for virtual sessions, the service was rarely used for Spanish speakers, the complaint states.
To illustrate the point, the department noted that even though in-person interpreters were only available for 25% of the Millville courts hearings in any format between June 13 and Dec. 31, 2022, the in-person interpreter provided services to 95% of those litigants who needed Spanish translation services in court appearances during that period.
The virtual hearing interpreting services, therefore, provided Spanish interpreting support for around 5% of litigants who needed this assistance.
The Division on Civil Rights reviewed more than 14,000 emails and attachments from Millville court staff and interviewed numerous witnesses, several of whom were not interviewed in the judiciary’s investigation, the complaint states.
The judiciary’s own investigation of the bias claim “did not meaningfully address whether Millville engaged in scheduling practices that discriminated on the basis of national origin by treating Hispanic or Latinx/e defendants differently from other litigants,” according to the complaint.
The judiciary noted only that “in-person sessions did in fact have a slightly higher percentage of defendants with Hispanic/Latino-sounding surnames than virtual sessions,” the complaint states, adding that the civil rights probe took a deeper look.
“The allegations set forth in this complaint, which are based on a much larger dataset of court appearances, expert data analysis, numerous interviews, and DCR’s review of thousands of emails, tell a different story …” the Division on Civil Rights states in its filing.
The division seeks an end to the alleged discriminatory practices, a requirement that Millville court officials submit to training and three years of monitoring by the division and that those affected be awarded compensatory damages for out-of-pocket expenses, humiliation and emotional distress caused by the conduct, the complaint states.
The Division on Civil Rights confirmed in February that it launched its own investigation into Witcher’s claims of discrimination in Millville municipal court and whether “any person or entity has engaged in unlawful retaliation in response to those allegations.”
Witcher alleged he faced retaliation for raising the issue, but that matter was not addressed in Tuesday’s filing or the statement issued by the Attorney General’s Office.
Witcher filed a lawsuit in June claiming he was retaliated against by court officials for alleging bias in the Millville court. He claimed he was threatened with removal from the bench and that the state judiciary refused to make accommodations for a medical condition that required him to occasionally preside over virtual court sessions remotely. Judges are required to appear from the bench in their courtrooms for in-person and virtual sessions.
Witcher resigned from the bench Aug. 1, saying he feared further retaliation and worried he would suffer additional medical issues because of stress.
Puerto Rican Action Committee of Southern New Jersey President Jose Sanchez Sr. and CEO Ralph Padilla issued a joint statement Tuesday afternoon praising the findings released by the civil rights division.
“The statement released from the N.J. Attorney General’s Office just confirms what we have alleged since we were made aware of these acts of discrimination,” they said. “These findings should cause reform on how municipal court employees are trained and follow strict guidelines that ensure that all members of the community have equal access to services in municipal courts throughout New Jersey.”
Sanchez and Padilla also praised Witcher for first raising the issue.
“We commend Judge Witcher for everything that he’s been put through when all he ever did was to point out an injustice. Independent investigations should be the norm in these types of investigations.”
Others called the court filing a major milestone for confronting discrimination in New Jersey.
“I’m so elated that the Division on Civil Rights took this seriously,” said Cuqui Rivera, criminal justice reform chairwoman for the state Latino Action Network. “There is really no place for racist municipal courts anywhere in this world … it’s a major step.”
She praised the attorney general and Division on Civil Rights Director Sundeep Iyer for their work on the case.
Rivera believes the problem isn’t limited to Millville’s municipal court and that a broader look at local court practices is needed.
“We also need to increase diversity in the judiciary,” she said. “Imagine if Judge Witcher was not there and he didn’t have the courage to stand up, to his own detriment.”
The Latino Action Network’s Legislative Assembly created a new award earlier this year — The Power of Courage — specifically to recognize Witcher for his work on this issue, Rivera noted.