Editorial: Tranquilli and the scales of justice
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The law is more than letters on a page. It isn’t just a static thing that exists flatly in tiny print in thick books.
The law is a tool — a mechanism for weighing and measuring people in a way that has nothing to do with pounds or inches. And that is why it is so often represented by the simplest expression of that tool: a scale.
A scale balances a vessel on either side. With careful attention to both weights, the two sides are brought level.
But what makes the tool work isn’t the plates that bear the weight. It’s the fulcrum that shows when one side is out of balance.
In a courtroom, those vessels are easy to identify. Prosecution or plaintiff on one side, defense on the other. The fulcrum in the middle, the pivot that makes the mechanism work, is the judge.
That is why Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Mark Tranquilli has been barred from hearing cases by President Judge Kim Berkley Clark, following a complaint from defense attorney Joe Otte.
While the orders don’t mention referral to the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board, the Allegheny County Bar Association has called for that body to investigate after questions of racial bias.
Otte reported that Tranquilli was “visibly upset” by a not guilty verdict in a drug possession case. The incident led to tossing the verdict slip at a clerk and, in a conversation in chambers with Otte and prosecutor Ted Dutkowski, making disparaging remarks about one black juror, calling her “Aunt Jemima” and suggesting her “baby daddy” was a drug dealer.
Nothing about that is acceptable, and it would be in Tranquilli’s best interest to have the Judicial Conduct Board pick up the challenge from Tim Stevens of the Black Political Empowerment Project, and “move quickly and swiftly” to investigate.
The law is precarious, hanging on the thread of the idea of a judge’s fairness to everyone in the courtroom. Defendant or victim, witness or juror, lawyer or clerk — none of them should wonder how they will be treated by virtue of skin color.
The law also exists to rise above trial by public opinion. Tranquilli deserves an impartial legal judgment, just like anyone else balancing on the scales of justice.