When Christy Craig started working at the public defender’s office in Clark County, Nevada, in 1998, she didn’t plan to ever run for judge. “I knew that was my gig,” Craig said. “I couldn’t have been happier to be there.” Since then, Craig has represented thousands of defendants and scored landmark wins in suits against the State on issues of correctional mental health and cash bail. 

But soon Craig will be leaving the public defender’s office to become a judge on the Eighth Judicial District Court, the criminal and civil court of Clark County, which includes the Las Vegas metro area. 

It was a colleague who gave her the idea to seek election last January. “I was sitting in my office and I was complaining about the bench,” Craig said. Suddenly Belinda Harris, a public defender who had already announced her candidacy for a judgeship, shouted from her office: “Well, shut up and run!” 

So Craig entered the race and won on Nov. 3—alongside Harris and five other public defenders.

These seven public defenders, all women, many women of color, are now set to become judges in January. Harris is heading to the North Las Vegas Justice Court; the others were elected to the Eighth Judicial District Court, despite many being significantly outraised by their opponents. 

The results will alter Clark County’s political landscape, strengthening the hand of those who want to change practices that fuel mass incarceration. Several of the public defenders described their candidacies as an effort to “balance” the courts, as judgeships in Clark County have historically been dominated by former prosecutors, as is often the case nationwide. 

Organizers interested in criminal justice reform pushed similar efforts to “flip the bench” this year in other parts of the country, including New Orleans and Hamilton County (Cincinnati), Ohio, where public defenders and others with experience representing marginalized people successfully sought judicial seats.

“I hope that it means that we are able to make the system more fair,” said public defender and judge-elect Erika Ballou, who was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders. “I understand that a lot of times people who are in the system have done something wrong, but that shouldn’t ruin their life. It shouldn’t define everything.”

Judges have immense power over defendants’ lives and over the direction of the criminal legal system as a whole. From setting bail amounts to meting out sentences, judges make the choices that either maintain the status quo or chart alternatives to locking people up.

But judges depend on collaboration with prosecutors, and the public defenders are already facing backlash before even taking the bench. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, who in the past has resisted reform proposals to end cash bail and the death penalty, called for Nevada to move to replace judicial elections with appointments in late November. Wolfson raised the issue in direct response to the public defenders winning judicial elections. 

Still, local advocates hope that the elections will be part of a growing momentum for criminal justice reform that has been building in Nevada.

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Over the last two years, Nevada has seen numerous changes to its criminal legal system. In 2019, the state legislature passed laws shortening sentences for many nonviolent offenses, increasing access to diversion programs, re-enfranchising formerly incarcerated individuals, providing monetary compensation for the wrongly incarcerated, and banning private prisons. In September 2019, Craig was part of a team that brought Valdez-Jimenez v. Eighth Judicial District Court before the Nevada Supreme Court. The court’s decision in April of this year flipped cash bail on its head, placing the burden on prosecutors to prove that a defendant should be held on bail, rather than asking defendants to prove that they should be released. 

The Valdez-Jimenez ruling “basically says that the standard way of doing cash bail in Nevada for decades is blatantly unconstitutional,” said Alec Karakatsanis, executive director of Civil Rights Corps, which worked with the public defender’s office on the case. “If the state wants to jail someone prior to trial because it believes that the person poses some kind of a danger, they actually have to put on evidence in a rigorous legal proceeding.”

Yet the discretion of individual judges remains extremely important. “Even under those standards, judges can just say, ‘I’m looking at the evidence and I find that the person is a danger to the community,’ and they can just repeat those words without genuinely exercising real thought,” Karakatsanis added.

Newly elected judge Belinda Harris said she plans to treat the Valdez-Jimenez standards seriously, though she added she would set bail if she deemed it absolutely necessary. “I don’t think that people’s freedoms should be tied to whether they can make bail or not,” Harris said. 

Harris was elected judge of the Justice Court of North Las Vegas, where the initial stages of a criminal proceeding take place, including the decision on whether to set bail in the vast majority of criminal cases. That decision will be fully within Harris’s discretion.

Harris was also the first Black judge elected without first being appointed in North Las Vegas, which has a large Black population compared to the rest of Clark County. “I think there’s something to be said that most of the clients that are being serviced look like me,” Harris said. “We’re diversifying the bench.” Most of the public defenders recently elected as judges—Harris, Ballou, Monica Trujillo, Jasmin Lilly-Spells, and Dee Butler—are women of color, a historically underrepresented group on the Nevada bench.

Ballou said that she hopes the newly elected judges will be able to move the Clark County justice system toward a rehabilitative model of criminal justice. That could entail finding alternatives to incarceration.

“Maybe we’ll be able to get people the help they need rather than sending them to prison, which just warehouses them, and doesn’t help them in any way to come out and not do this again,” she said. “Do they need drug help? Is it unresolved trauma? Can we give people some mental health counseling? Can we do something so that this cycle does not continue? That’s what I hope.”

Scott Coffee, a public defender, emphasized that beyond specific policy changes, the new judges’ experience as public defenders could translate into more compassion in court proceedings. “Because a lot of these new candidates have dealt with people accused of crimes one on one, they know they’re human beings,” he said. 

“They understand the difficulties,” Coffee added. “It’s easy for me to get to the courthouse, but if you’re homeless, living eight miles from the courthouse, making an 8 o’clock court appearance isn’t always the easiest thing to do.” 

“The biggest change that you’ll see come to the bench is that there’s going to be more empathy for the struggles that people face, particularly when they’re poor,” Coffee said.

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Without big fundraising hauls, the candidates relied on grassroots organizing to educate and turn out voters. Organizations working in communities affected by poverty and the criminal legal system played a significant role in pushing the public defenders to victory. 

Most of the candidates were outraised by their opponents several times over. Special Public Defender Monica Trujillo was victorious despite raising only $77,000 to her opponent’s more than $400,000, including $75,000 of his own money, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Craig was outraised by more than a factor of 25, raising only $14,000 to her opponent’s $360,000. Ballou raised no money at all. One of the candidates did receive significant outside help; Carli Kierny was supported by radio ads paid for by a PAC largely funded by megadonors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, which mostly supported conservative-leaning candidates.

The candidates attributed their victories in the face of such fundraising gaps to their longtime presence in the communities they serve. “I’ve been doing things in the community for the 17 years that I’ve lived here,” Ballou said, noting her work with organizations including community theaters and Planned Parenthood. “I know a lot of people, people know who I am.”

Harris also said that her roots and longtime presence in North Las Vegas were helpful. “It was really a grassroots, community effort,” she said of her campaign. “I’m down on the ground, you know? I’m at the cookout, I’m at the neighborhood barbecue.”

Harris said she received support from her clients at the public defender’s office. “There would be times that I would meet a new client, and they’d say ‘You’re running for judge, my whole family is gonna vote for you!’” 

The candidates also benefited from the work of local grassroots organizations such as Mi Familia Vota Nevada and the anti-incarceration network Mass Liberation Nevada. MLN mobilized dozens of volunteers for phone banks and canvasses that reached thousands of voters, held video forums to educate voters and introduce them to the judicial candidates, and organized with incarcerated individuals to get them to encourage family members to vote. 

Leslie Turner, an MLN organizer and formerly incarcerated person, said the group’s efforts were particularly important because of the effect that the criminal legal system has on the group’s core constituency. 

“We have a higher chance of actually being in court in front of some of these judges, so it’s important that we’re putting people on the bench that understand our perspective, understand why we’re saying Black Lives Matter … and all of the factors that come into play when somebody might end up in the courtroom,” Turner said.

Much of MLN’s organizing centered on reaching out to formerly incarcerated people. In 2019, Nevada adopted a law restoring the voting rights of tens of thousands of people with felony convictions; all citizens who are not in prison can now vote. 

“That garnered a whole new base of voters,” said Jagada Chambers, an organizing fellow with MLN who is formerly incarcerated.

Many formerly incarcerated people were initially unaware that they had become able to vote, making grassroots outreach—some of which stalled under the COVID-19 pandemic—essential. 

“I literally had to pull out the bill, the paperwork, and go over it, and be like ‘You actually can vote, for real,’” Turner said. “It was really empowering.”

The fact that many of the candidates were participants or legal observers at Black Lives Matter protests over the summer was helpful in mobilizing volunteers. A frequent recruitment pitch was that “these are the same lawyers that are out in the streets supporting us and this movement, so we need to support them,” Turner said. 

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Since the Nov. 3 elections, DA Wolfson has taken issue with the incoming wave of judges.

“In past elections, there was a greater correlation between how much effort a candidate put into the campaign and the result—a more direct relationship between efforts and results of fundraising and who won,” Wolfson said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He also raised doubts about some of the winning candidates’ qualifications.

Some public defenders criticized Wolfson’s comments. “That guy lives in a totally different world than 90 percent of our community,” said public defender John Piro. “It’s a crowd that’s not taking time to recognize that there’s systemic issues here with both poverty and racism that have affected our system.”

Wolfson’s office did not respond to multiple requests for further comment.

Fifteen political organizations also signed on to a statement from Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice (NACJ) denouncing Wolfson’s comments, including the Clark County Democratic Party, the Las Vegas NAACP, Mi Familia Vota Nevada, and the Las Vegas Democratic Socialists of America. The letter claimed that Wolfson’s commentary “ignores the greater value in a democracy of earned community reputations over access to finances,” and also, “denies the extensive professional qualifications of our newly elected judges.”

NACJ president Sarah Hawkins told The Appeal: Political Report that Wolfson’s remarks on fundraising “devalue members of historically marginalized communities, who cannot contribute financially to campaigns, who only have their votes.” 

“He didn’t complain [about electing judges] when prosecutors with law enforcement endorsements repeatedly ascended the bench over the past decade,” Hawkins added.

But Harris was unperturbed by Wolfson’s comments. “I just don’t pay him any mind, because as a judge, I’m just gonna look at what’s before me, and not his thoughts or opinions,” Harris said. “I ran my race. I had some DA colleagues … tell me I was gonna lose, but here I am.”

The post How Public Defenders Rocked Las Vegas Judge Elections appeared first on Bolts.

In New Orleans, two public defenders were elected to become judges, marking a significant opportunity for criminal justice reform.

On Nov. 3, Angel Harris upset incumbent Franz Zibilich to win a seat as a judge on Orleans Criminal District Court. No judge on the criminal court has lost a bid for re-election in over 40 years.

Nandi Campbell also won a seat on the criminal court, beating her opponent, Lionel Burns, in a landslide.

In a victory speech, Harris said her win shows that voters believe “it is time to reimagine our criminal court system. We aren’t going to stand by and allow our communities to be treated with disrespect.”

Harris and Campbell were part of a slate of seven current and former public defenders running for judicial offices across the criminal, municipal, and juvenile courts in Orleans Parish. Their platforms included challenging the cash bail system and seeking alternatives to incarceration in a state often called the “incarceration capital” of the United States. 

Though five of the candidates lost their races, their campaigns—and the victories of Harris and Campbell—are remarkable because, across the country, there’s a lack of judges with experience representing marginalized communities. In federal and state courts, judges are far more likely to have worked as prosecutors than public defenders. 

In an October interview with The Appeal: Political Report, Harris talked about the challenge she faced.

“I am absolutely going up against the political machine,” Harris said. “I’m talking about bucking a system, so, of course, the establishment folks aren’t going to jump on board with me.” 

Money was a key struggle for first-time candidates like Harris. As of their September filings, Zibilich had over $150,000 in campaign funds. Harris had under $14,000. Zibilich was endorsed by powerful local political groups like the Black Organization for Leadership Development (BOLD) and the Algiers Political Action Committee (APAC), which have endorsed and supported establishment figures within the criminal justice system.

Harris’s resume includes working as a public defender in both Orleans and Calcasieu parishes, a staff attorney with the Capital Punishment Project at the ACLU, and an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. (Harris also used to work for The Justice Collaborative, of which The Appeal is a project.)

Like others who made up the public defender slate of judicial candidates, Harris ran on a platform critiquing the cash bail system and advocating for criminal justice reform. 

Zibilich, who has served as a criminal court judge for nearly nine years, touted his efficiency in addressing the cases in his docket. Though Zibilich has earned awards for efficiency, he has been accused of disproportionately favoring prosecution at the expense of defendants. Zibilich has also faced criticism for comments he made during a 2016 sexual battery case. After a jury acquitted a 35-year-old man of rape but convicted him of stalking and illegally entering the home of a former girlfriend, Zibilich said he was considering vacating the conviction entirely because he thought the victim had sent “mixed messages” to the defendant.

Unlike some of the other progressive public defender candidates, Campbell managed to earn the endorsements of powerful political organizations like BOLD, the Community Organization of Urban Politics, and Voters Organized to Educate (VOTE), some of which endorsed candidates running against the other public defender candidates. 

Campbell joined the Orleans Public Defenders office in 2008 and, the following year, she launched her own firm and worked as counsel with a leading criminal defense firm. She is an associate professor at Tulane Law School while still working as a contract public defender. 

Burns, who has been both a prosecutor and a criminal defense attorney, previously ran for district attorney in 2014 against incumbent Leon Cannizzaro, but was disqualified.

These elections could serve to transform the local criminal legal system because judges exercise considerable discretion. In earlier elections this year, New Orleans advocates put the spotlight on judges’ roles in overseeing evictions. Advocates emphasize that there are many other ways a different type of judge could challenge the status quo in New Orleans. Judges could be more aggressive in challenging evidence presented by police officers, or in holding prosecutors accountable if they fail to disclose favorable evidence to the defense team, as they are constitutionally required to do. Judges could also choose not to impose high bail amounts or long sentences.

NOLA Defenders for Equal Justice, a group of former and current public defenders, came together earlier this year to advocate for the progressive slate of judge candidates. Jared Miller, a member of the group and a staff attorney at Orleans Public Defenders, told the Political Report in October that “people accused of crime who are Black or brown are people who the [criminal legal] system treats with a lot less humanity. … But these candidates have the experience of knowing these clients at a personal level.”

“To have these candidates who stand for our values come together and try to make change is really uplifting,” Miller said.

The post Two New Orleans Public Defenders Elected Judge in a Push to “Flip the Bench” appeared first on Bolts.

In July, during a three-day period when candidates for elected office in Orleans Parish had to file their paperwork, court clerk Arthur Morrell set up a Facebook Live video feed in his office.

As each candidate ambled in, masked and holding documents, Morrell greeted them, “Hello, you are on Facebook Live, can you please introduce yourself?”

Familiar faces appeared, like an incumbent judge who was filing for re-election and an ambitious New Orleans City Council member who was running to be district attorney.

But then, a series of unexpected candidate hopefuls showed up: seven current and former public defenders who were seeking election as judges, including Derwyn Bunton, chief of the Orleans Public Defenders. 

Jared Miller, a staff attorney at Orleans Public Defenders, told The Appeal: Political Report that some of his colleagues were stationed at the courthouse to watch the filings and send text updates to a group of other public defenders.

“There was huge excitement about what was going on,” Miller said.

Their candidacies stood out because, across the country, there’s a startling lack of judges with experience representing marginalized communities. In federal and state courts, judges are far more likely to have worked as prosecutors than public defenders. Graham Bosworth told the Political Report that in Orleans Parish’s last regular judicial election six years ago, he was the only person with experience as a public defender who ran for a seat at the courthouse. 

Bosworth is running again this year, along with Bunton, Teneé Felix, Angel Harris, Meg Garvey, Steve Singer, and Nandi Campbell. Most have worked at the Orleans Parish defender’s office, while others have contracted as legal aid attorneys for indigent defendants. 

NOLA Defenders for Equal Justice, a group of former and current public defenders, including Miller, has formed to advocate for this slate of candidates, who are running for criminal, juvenile, and municipal courts. 

They say that electing judges with legal aid experience and progressive platforms could transform the city’s legal system, for instance by diminishing the reliance on cash bail. 

Judges exercise considerable discretion. In earlier elections this year, New Orleans advocates put the spotlight on their role in overseeing evictions. Advocates stress that there are many other ways a different type of judge could challenge the status quo in New Orleans. Judges could be more aggressive in challenging evidence presented by police officers, or in holding prosecutors accountable if they fail to disclose favorable evidence to the defense team, as they are constitutionally required to do. Judges could also choose not to impose high bail amounts or long sentences.

“Being a good judge is more than just knowing the law,” said Bosworth, who is running to be a criminal court judge. “It’s being willing to step in and do what is right when the system fails. And that’s where you’re not just calling balls and strikes, you are making sure that due process and equal protection actually occur.” 

This slate of candidates represents the latest success in the renaissance of the Orleans Public Defenders office. 

Before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a robust public defenders office didn’t exist in New Orleans. There was only the Orleans Indigent Defenders program, started in the 1970s. It was chronically underfunded and did not have any full-time attorneys on staff. In the wake of Katrina, the program effectively collapsed. 

Judge Calvin Johnson, who was the first elected African American judge in the Orleans criminal court and chief judge at that time, enlisted attorneys to shape a new public defender’s office with the influx of recovery money coming into the city. They recruited recent graduates of top law schools across the country to join the office. 

Bunton, the chief public defender since 2009, told the Political Report he was inspired to run by watching younger attorneys he had mentored take the plunge.

“I was looking around and I’m like, how are they more courageous than me?” he said. “[Public defenders] come from a different pedigree than what we’re used to on the bench. Most of the [judges] come from prosecutorial backgrounds or law enforcement backgrounds.” Bunton is running to be a criminal court judge and is facing off against Rhonda Goode-Douglas, a trial attorney and former prosecutor.

Bunton said there are a handful of things that he can do as a judge to use the sensibility he honed as a public defender and enact procedural reforms. If elected, he wants to incorporate technology into the courtroom and make its workings more transparent. He also plans to schedule his dockets with consideration for the plaintiffs and defendants who may not be able to easily take time off work to be present for their case. 

Bunton and the other candidates have been particularly critical of the cash bail system. 

Bosworth told the Political Report that “there are far more effective ways to ensure people appear in court that don’t create disparities based on economic means.” His opponent, Kimya Holmes, a staff attorney for the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana, told Nola.com that the cash bail system shouldn’t be overhauled, it just needs “tweaking.”

Louisiana’s pretrial detention rates are the highest in the country. Studies show that money bail can reinforce social inequities as it forces low-income people to choose between taking on debt to get out of jail or staying locked up and risk losing their work and housing. 

Judges can use alternative pretrial services to compel court appearances like check-in calls and texts, as well as arranging for transportation. The City Council has passed an ordinance disallowing bail on most municipal charges. But Louisiana law mandates that a judge sets money bail for every charge a person faces. And judges have wide discretion over the amount; one New Orleans judge, Harry Cantrell, routinely set bond amounts so high—effectively trapping poor people in jail—that a federal court ruled his practices unconstitutional.

The bail system funds judges, sheriffs, prosecutors, and public defenders in New Orleans, while enriching bail bond agents who post bail for people who can’t afford it while charging exorbitant fees. In 2015, 97 percent of the people who posted bond in the Criminal District Court of Orleans Parish did so through a bail bond agent.

Agents like Blair Boutte wield political influence by helping recruit candidates for local campaigns, racking up financial contributions, and wrangling endorsements. Some say Boutte uses aggressive tactics against rivals. 

Angel Harris has come up against this opposition in her race against incumbent Franz Zibilich for a criminal court judgeship. She is the only public defender candidate running against an incumbent in criminal court. (Harris used to work for The Justice Collaborative, of which The Appeal is a project.)

“I am absolutely going up against the political machine,” Harris said. “I’m talking about bucking a system, so, of course, the establishment folks aren’t going to jump on board with me.” 

Money is a key struggle for first-time candidates like Harris. As of their September filings, Zibilich has over $150,000 in campaign funds. Harris has under $14,000.

“But to even start pushing back on how we are doing things and talking about bond and talking about bail reform and pointing out racial disparities, people are like, ‘Oh no,’” Harris said. “Voters need to really recognize the power that they have in this moment. … I want people to know that they have the power to determine who’s going to be sitting on that bench.” 

NOLA Defenders for Equal Justice has helped raise the profile of local judicial elections through social media and candidate forums that have tied into broader public conversations around criminal justice reform.

“These systems have operated over many decades to make sure that Black lives don’t matter,” Miller of Orleans Public Defenders said. “People accused of crime who are Black or brown are people who the system treats with a lot less humanity. … But these candidates have the experience of knowing these clients at a personal level.”

 Miller said this experience is what shapes the values that public defenders share.

“The thing about being a public defender is that it is a very hard job in which you’re dealing with a lot of pain and misery and trauma, to be honest, and you don’t often win,” Miller said. “To have these candidates who stand for our values come together and try to make change is really uplifting.”

He hopes that if the public defender candidates are elected, they will not only exercise meaningful discretion with individual cases in their own courtrooms, but also become role models and leaders in criminal justice reform citywide. 

Bunton agrees that judges can be powerfully influential.   

“There’s a lot of things that judges can do, there’s a lot of momentum they can create,” Bunton said. “Every big Supreme Court case we’ve ever had started with the little ol’ judge making a call.”

The post New Orleans Public Defenders Are Mobilizing to “Flip the Bench” appeared first on Bolts.