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Part
One: Justice Deborah Dowling
Justice
Deborah Dowling is one of the judges of the New York State
Supreme Court. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New
York. It may seem funny but when she was younger, all she
knew was that she wanted to graduate from high school and
then work at an office with her own desk. “It may
seem like a low expectation, but I didn’t know what
I wanted to do, I just knew that I wanted to work in an
office atmosphere.”
Justice Dowling has been serving as a Supreme Court Judge
since 1997. I have known her for only a couple of years
now, but I’ve gotten the chance to see the great job
she does on many occasions. I’ve watched trials and
seen the entire court process with her at the wheel and
it can be an incredible thing. As a mentor, she is as good
as it gets-just ask her current law clerk, Ms. Robin Kelly
Sheares. Justice Dowling also spends some of her time mentoring
students in the Thurgood Marshall Academy at George W. Wingate
High School for Moot Court and Mock Trial competitions when
school is in session.
Justice Dowling truly had no intentions on becoming a judge
and it wasn’t until she became a lawyer that she even
gave it a thought. “I represented people in landlord-tenant
hearings, and the thing I observed was that you had to hope
that you were sent to a particular judge in order to receive
justice. I always felt that it shouldn’t depend on
the judge but that every judge that you were in front of
you should have an equal opportunity to be heard and to
present your case. That really inspired me to apply for
the position as a housing court judge because I knew that
I would listen to every body and give everybody an opportunity
to be heard. I always said that if in fact I were given
an opportunity to be appointed as housing court judge that
I would go over every agreement to make sure that every
tenant understood what his or her rights were.”
Justice Dowling has held a position as a judge in three
different courts, housing, civil and the New York Supreme
Court. To be a black woman and to become a judge in the
80‘s may seem like it was a task in of itself and
so much to overcome, but Justice Dowling didn’t really
seem to see it that way. “The only thing I had to
overcome were my own fears of not being able to achieve.
I knew that I had to apply myself, work diligently and a
lot of times when I would rather have been doing other things
I didn’t. You have to sacrifice now in order to achieve
later. That and the opinion of other people that I couldn’t
do it were the only real things I had to overcome.”
In order to become a judge there is a process that Justice
Dowling and all other judges had to go through. First of
all you have to graduate from high school, college and then
law school. Next you have to pass the New York State Bar
Examination. You must be admitted to practice law for more
than five years for housing court judge, and for civil court
judge more than ten years. “For Civil Court Judge
and Supreme Court Judge I had to run a campaign, had to
get signatures so I could appear on a ballot so that people
could vote for me. Particularly when I ran for Civil Court
Judge I had to have a primary thereafter I was placed on
a ballot in November and the citizens of the County of Kings
had an opportunity to choose whether to vote for me or not.
Thank God they chose to vote for me. The Supreme Court is
by Judicial Convention, your name appears on a ballot in
November and the people of the County of Kings and Staten
Island have the opportunity to vote. I was elected in 1996
so I started sitting as Supreme Court judge on January 1st
1997.”
As a judge, there are certain duties that must be done;
because Justice Dowling sits on the criminal side of her
job entails deciding whatever motions come to her, selecting
the jury to try the case and sentencing, among other things.
On the Civil side other judges select your jury so by the
time the case comes to you the jury has already been selected.
She presides over cases that are felonies, which are cases
that hold a penalty of more than one year in jail.
The Supreme Court of the land-the one in Washington holds
the ultimate decision in their cases, but the decisions
by the Supreme Court of New York are far from final. Once
a case is tried if the person is convicted they have the
right to take an appeal to the Appellate Division, which
is the next level of the court. From the Appellate division
the ultimate court of power in New York is the Court of
Appeals of the State of New York. The Supreme Court of the
State of New York State is the first trial level.
As I said before, I’ve sat through a real trial and
it is so different from what you see on T.V. Justice Dowling
agrees. “On television criminal cases are tried in
one hour, that never happens in real life. People get lulled
in a state of complicity that everything moves really quick
like clockwork. It’s not. Anyone who has observed
a trial knows that witnesses are not as eloquent as they
are on television, whether it’s Law and Order or any
other legal program, and the way the cases are solved is
certainly not how they are on television.”
There are many shocking things that happen in a courtroom.
You see it on the news all the time. Justice Dowling says
that she believes that the most shocking things she has
seen is the “nature of brutality, there’s been
some where the behavior of attorneys have been shocking
also, they are supposed to act in a professional manner
but they don’t always do so.”
Supreme Court Justices in New York State are elected to
a fourteen-year term. Civil Court Judges are selected to
a term year term and housing court judges are selected to
five year terms. The next time Judge Dowling is expected
to run is in 2010, “If the people of the County of
Kings feel that I am doing a good job, I will seek reelection
and I guess they will let me know if they choose to vote
for me.”
JUSTICE DOWLING ON TAKING IT TO A HIGHER POSITION: “If
given the opportunity I think everyone should always have
their hopes and desires geared to achieving the most that
they can in their life. Sitting on the Court of Appeals
is always something to aspire to and I think every sitting
judge aspires to achieve the most that he or she can achieve.”
We would like to congratulate Justice Dowling on all her
accomplishments and would like to wish her much more success
in the future.
Part
Two: Robin Kelly Sheares>>>
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