PIA: For Justice and For Understanding
Judge Maria Oesterreicher is the first female circuit court judge of Carroll County. She was elected into her position in the Carroll County Circuit Court on Election Day in 2018. But since 1851, when the circuit courts of Maryland were first established, Carroll County has never appointed a woman to its highest bench.
In Maryland, circuit court judges can be appointed by the governor at the advice of a judicial nomination commission, or if they aren’t appointed, they can challenge the appointee in an election. Judge Oesterreicher chose the second path; she challenged the governor’s appointee, a male candidate, and won the election to become the first female judge of the Carroll County Circuit Court. In these circuit court elections, the appointee has the upper hand: they have the governor’s endorsement and the backing of an extensive review process. Despite this, the people of Carroll County believed that Maria Oesterreicher was qualified and worthy to serve a hefty 15-year term to judge some of the most high-stakes cases in Maryland.
But neither the judicial nomination commission nor the governor believed, for over 170 years, that a woman could serve in Carroll County’s highest court.
After this discovery, I wanted to gain a greater understanding of the other possible disparities that exist throughout Maryland’s circuit court system and the systemic issues that enabled these disparities. Our information request under the Public Information Act revealed a number of things:
Our governors believe that diversity strengthens justice. Every single executive order in our PIA collection— from O’ Malley to Moore— contain the same words that establish the judicial nomination commissions:
“The appointment of persons to the judiciary from a diversity of backgrounds enhances the quality of justice dispensed by the State’s courts…”
There are several counties with wide disparities between the demographics of their population and the demographics of their courts. In these instances, minorities are consistently underrepresented in the judicial process.
15 out of the 24 counties in Maryland have all-white judiciaries on their circuit courts. Diversity is still a rarity in most parts of Maryland.
All of the chairs of the Carroll County Circuit Court judicial nomination commissions from 2007 to now have had a male chair.
Female judicial candidates are consistently nominated by the judicial nomination commissions, but are never appointed. Several of these candidates have been nominated multiple times, but again, have never been appointed.
Maryland has the widest racial disparities in its prisons compared to any other state. Achieving true justice starts beyond the judicial system— in the systemic barriers to healthcare, education, transportation, and opportunity— but it doesn’t end there. With a greater understanding of the disparities in our judiciary, the Student Justice Alliance hopes to open the conversation and pursue a more holistic understanding of the causes of the racial disparities in our prisons. In the next few months, we’ll pursue interviews with experts, judicial candidates, and nomination commission members to contextualize the findings of our PIA.
See the documents here:
