No discrimination found in N.J. town’s court scheduling, judiciary finds
Judge Jason Witcher is shown being sworn in as Salem City municipal court judge in this 2010 photo.An investigation by the state judiciary into claims that Latino defendants appearing in a Cumberland County municipal court were discriminated against when it came to scheduling of their cases is not supported by the facts, according to a report released Thursday.from the bench on Dec.
The investigation also found no evidence of written or unwritten scheduling policies in Millville that discriminate against Latino defendants. Those that were not scheduled in accordance with Supreme Court guidelines did not disproportionately involve Latino defendants or those requiring interpreting services, the report stated.
The judiciary investigation determined, however, that in-person sessions did have a “slightly higher” percentage of defendants with Hispanic/Latino-sounding surnames than virtual sessions, but that multiple factors could explain this, beginning with the initial court dates assigned by police issuing citations.
Additional reforms are planned specifically for municipal courts where Witcher presides, in Millville, Bridgeton, Penns Grove and the combined Pennsville/Carneys Point court. In those courts, all initial appearances will be held virtually for now, the report states. State lawmakers in the New Jersey Legislative Latino and Black caucuses issued a statement Thursday evening saying the report offered “some sense of assurance,” but that the planned policy changes raise the additional question of why the language access issues hadn’t been addressed previously.“I won’t comment on the framing of the relevant legal issue or methodology used. Whether I agree or disagree really isn’t that important,” he said in a statement Thursday afternoon.
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