January 29, 2007
St. John’s University School of Law was honored to welcome
Judith S. Kaye, well-known for her many insightful and innovative
accomplishments as Chief Judge of the State of New York, as guest
and speaker at its Inaugural Hon. Joseph W. Bellacosa Distinguished
Jurist-in-Residence Program. In her address, Chief Judge
Kaye, a long-time colleague and friend of the Hon. Joseph
Bellacosa, former Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals as well
as former Dean of St. John’s University School of Law, explores the
problem of over-incarceration in the American criminal justice
system. Explaining that society often leaves at the
courthouse door what are largely “problems of poverty, and the
absence and failure of community supports to reach people in need,”
Chief Judge Kaye stresses the importance of finding intelligent,
genuine alternatives to incarceration to resolve those issues, and
describes New York State’s progress towards finding such
alternative solutions in the form of “problem-solving”
courts. Under the supervision of New York’s drug or mental
health courts, for example, addicted or mentally ill defendants
have the opportunity to complete treatment programs rather than
prison sentences, and they are helped to reconnect to the
community, usually graduating from the programs only when employed
or enrolled in school. In her address, Chief Judge Kaye
provides anecdotal evidence of the success of New York’s
problem-solving courts in the stories of their graduates who are
employed for the first time in their lives, who have developed
valuable skills and reestablished relationships with estranged
family members, and who possess a renewed sense of
self-worth. One such graduate recognizes that her drug
addiction and her lack of a support system were responsible for
changing her from “a law-abiding, productive member of society,
into a desperate, deviant criminal.” This graduate credits
the drug court for the fact that she is alive today and able to
care for her children because, in her own words, the court “fosters
human motivation and the will to change, and provides a framework
within which that change can take place.” To Chief Justice
Kaye, successes such as these that show that New York’s
problem-solving courts are truly “delivering justice.”