MILLVILLE DISCRIMATION AGAINST LATINOS BECOMES STATEWIDE BATTLE AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT
A discrimination muddle in a local N.J. court | Editorial
By South Jersey Times Editorial Board
Different state agencies, representing two different branches of state government, have come to starkly different conclusions about alleged bias against Latino defendants in a Cumberland County municipal court.
After months of complaining internally, former Millville municipal judge Jason Witcher went public last winter with his claims that court personnel were systematically denying defendants with Hispanic-sounding surnames the opportunity to “attend” court hearings virtually. Witcher suspected they were being required to show up in person far more than other defendants, because of possible difficulty in scheduling Spanish-speaking interpreters for the online sessions.
The response at the time to Wichter from higher county and state levels of the court system was to leave the judge twisting slowly in the wind, which probably cost him his job. Officials at the multi-county vicinage (court district) and the state Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) — representing state government’s judicial branch — challenged Witcher at every turn, but eventually agreed to investigate the judge’s discrimination claims.
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The AOC found no evidence of discrimination in case scheduling, even though a slightly higher percentage of Millville Municipal Court cases involving Latino defendants ended up appearing in person. The AOC issued a minor directive noting that the interpreters must be available for the virtual hearings. All through the investigatory period, Witcher was portrayed as insubordinate and even found himself suspended from the bench for a time.
In April, Witcher announced that he was resigning, not only in Millville, but other municipalities where he held municipal judgeships. The judge’s comments about relinquishing his posts sounded both defeated and defiant at the same time: “Courage is costly and over the past few months I have paid a heavy personal price for standing on my principles.”
Witcher walked away from what seemed like a negotiated settlement under a cloud. His exit left unresolved questions of potential bias in local courts.
But, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, as they say. This past week state Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights — representing state government’s executive branch — filed a lawsuit against the City of Millville, alleging exactly the same patterns and practices that AOC’s investigation found had NOT occurred. The city, the new complaint states, “has unlawfully discriminated against litigants on the basis of national origin in violation” of the state’s Law on Civil Rights.
The complaint went as far as stating that the Division of Civil Rights investigation “corroborated Judge Witcher’s allegation” that the presumed Spanish-speaking litigants were disproportionally diverted from online hearings, “deny(ing) these litigants equal access to virtual court proceedings.”
The civil rights division stated all along that it would conduct its own look into the Millville scheduling issues, regardless of the court administrators’ conclusion. By extension, the current situation equates to Gov. Phil Murphy and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner calling each other liars.
That’s not a good place for citizens to be. It’s an even worse place for Witcher, caught in limbo between being perceived as a heroic whistleblower and as someone who turns minor procedural lapses into major discriminatory incidents. If the state civil rights division’s claims are accurate, the AOC owes him an apology, if not a pot of money for ruining his career.
The City of Millville, the actual defendant in the civil rights complaint, appears to be playing the separation-of-powers card, too. In an informal response to the complaint, the city’s attorney states that its municipal court employees answer to the AOC, not the city government.
Again, this is unsettling as regards the integrity of the courts. Right now, justice system leaders give the impression that they are following not the courts’ Language Access Plan, but the plots of novels written respectively by Joseph Heller and Franz Kafka, “Catch22,” and “The Trial.”
A third branch of state government, the Legislature, has not yet become embroiled in this mess, but it might have to, if the executive and the judicial branches keep fighting over what constitutes discrimination.