How to sit more Blacks on juries has been a perennial issue in Niagara County Court.
Now it's becoming a campaign issue for two judicial candidates competing in primaries in the Democratic, Republican, Conservative and Working Families parties, each of whom come with vastly different résumés.
The county courts are in Lockport, while most of the county's Black population is in Niagara Falls.
It's not unusual to see a Black defendant tried by an all-white jury, as Falls residents, especially minorities, often don't respond to jury summonses.
Michael E. Benedict, a former defense attorney running for county judge, said if he's elected, he will work on moving trials that involved Niagara Falls crimes to Niagara Falls.
"You have to look at the case and say, 'Where are the witnesses coming from? Where are the investigations coming from?' If it's more convenient for everybody to do this in Niagara Falls, the judge certainly has the ability to go into that location," Benedict said Monday.
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John J. Ottaviano, also running for the post, said he would confer with Niagara County Judge Caroline A. Wojtaszek and State Supreme Court Justice Paula Feroleto, the administrative judge for Western New York.
"What I would do if I were elected is observe the situation and then if, in fact that question presented itself as an issue, I would then contact Judge Wojtaszek and Judge Feroleto and see how that could be addressed," Ottaviano said.
In 2018, The Buffalo News reported Blacks are underrepresented in jury pools in almost every county in New York State.
Benedict, a Lockport Democrat who was an assistant Niagara County public defender from 2007 to 2016, said he had Black clients decide to plead guilty instead of going to trial when confronted with an almost all-white jury panel.
"They say, 'Where's the jury of my peers?' " Benedict said. "They make different decisions based on what they're seeing and what they're facing, and that's not the way the justice system should be handled. They have to have confidence in the system and that's one way that we have to rectify that."
"We need to reach out to minorities and convince them that it's their civic duty to go and serve on those panels," said Ottaviano, a Lockport Republican.
Ignoring a jury summons is a misdemeanor.
Attorneys and court officials have said the main reasons for the lack of minorities on Niagara County juries include poor availability of public transportation from Niagara Falls to Lockport and people missing their summonses because they have moved.
Ottaviano, an attorney for 35 years, was City of Lockport corporation counsel for 25 years. Since 2017, he's been first assistant county attorney.
Although most of his career has been in municipal law, Ottaviano said he's spent a lot of time in courtrooms, practicing law at every level from town courts to the Court of Appeals, and in the federal courts, too.
In law school at Western Michigan University, Ottaviano won the Raymond Burr Award, named after the actor who played defense attorney Perry Mason, for his work in criminal law courses. As a young attorney working for the county, he prosecuted crimes in Family Court.
He said he's worked in Surrogate's Court during his whole career, and presiding at that court, which handles wills and estates, is part of a county judge's job. After two years, county judges also become acting State Supreme Court justices and take civil cases, too.
Ottaviano said his experience as city attorney, responding to sometimes hostile questions from the public or politicians at meetings, gave him the experience he would need to handle a courtroom.
"You can't be intimidated," Ottaviano said. "I'm very well experienced in maintaining order."
Besides his time as a public defender, Benedict, who lost the election for judge last year to Wojtaszek, was confidential law clerk to County Judge Sara Sheldon for four years.
"The workload handled by the county court judge is primarily going to be on the criminal side," Benedict said. "It's not that I don't have experience in those other courts, but I think it's a matter of educating the people in terms of what the judge is primarily going to be handling."
Benedict, an attorney for 16 years since graduating from University at Buffalo Law School, was deputy corporation counsel to Ottaviano from 2012 to 2014, prosecuting local cases in Lockport City Court.
The Niagara County Bar Association rated Benedict "well qualified" and Ottaviano "qualified."
