The Judge Makers

And it meant ponying up to the real power brokers in our judicial elections — consultants. Their main job is to tell candidates which ward leaders should get their money. The best of them is a lifelong political insider named John Sabatina, who is 62 years old and calls himself The Kid.
 
The Kid, who might be the most powerful political player you’ve never heard of in Philadelphia, took on Erdos as a client.
 
Today, $550,000 later, Judge Mike Erdos presides over courtroom 1104 in City Hall. Meanwhile, The Kid is lining up candidates for the next election.
 

IF YOU’VE BEEN paying much attention to headlines lately, you know that the issue of judges — their competence, temperaments, qualifications — has been in the air. When police officer Patrick McDonald was gunned down in September, for example, details quickly emerged about the lenient way in which a Philadelphia jurist, now-retired Common Pleas Judge Lynn B. Hamlin, had handled an earlier robbery and aggravated assault case against McDonald’s killer, Daniel Giddings. At that trial, an assistant D.A. had begged for the maximum sentence — up to 45 years — for Giddings, who had a rap sheet of violent crime that went back to age 10. “I have never seen an individual who presents a higher risk of re-offending,” the assistant D.A. said. Nevertheless, Hamlin gave Giddings the minimum — just six to 12 years.
 
A few days after Officer McDonald’s murder, Municipal Court Judge Jacquelyn Frazier-Lyde — boxer Joe Frazier’s daughter — made her own headlines when she reduced felony charges against a 19-year-old defendant, who had allegedly punched a police officer, to two misdemeanors. The assistant D.A. in that case had pleaded for the felony charge: “Your Honor, it’s open season on police.” Frazier-Lyde reportedly responded, “It’s open season on all of us, and we don’t got guns and vests.” She was referring, apparently, to the advantage cops have, compared to life in our toughest neighborhoods.
 
These are the most recent examples of what prosecutors say has long been a liberal, pro-defendant bias on the Philadelphia bench, and has spurred the Fraternal Order of Police to sit in courtrooms recently, monitoring judicial conduct. But it’s not just judges’ political leanings that raise eyebrows. Talk to lawyers in the city and you’ll hear tale after tale of judicial incompetence, or horrendous comportment in the courtroom, or judges who are literally unable to control themselves.
 
There is, for example, a certain judge on Municipal Court who habitually has bowel problems while adjudicating, soiling the robe that is then passed on to other judges — we’ll let the poor fellow remain nameless. There is Common Pleas Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes, whose unique courtroom demeanor, in the opinion of longtime West Chester-based defense lawyer Sam Stretton, creates a strange atmosphere. As Hughes begins her court sessions, instead of solemnly having everyone rise, she comes onto the bench like a cheerleader:
 
“Good morning, jurors!”
 
“Good morning, Your Honor.”
 
“That’s not loud enough. Louder, jurors!”

“Good morning, Your Honor!”