Board recommends suspension of Allegheny County judge for alleged racial comments
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The Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board on Wednesday referred charges against Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Mark V. Tranquilli to the state Court of Judicial Discipline and recommended that he be suspended.
The allegations against him include six counts of judicial misconduct, including that he engaged in “racial or other harassment,” brought disrepute to the court and failed to promote public confidence in the court.
The claims are related to four cases over which he presided and allege violations of both the Code of Judicial Conduct, as well as the state Constitution.
“The allegations contained within the board complaint undermine both public confidence in the judiciary and its reputation,” the board wrote in a petition asking for his suspension. “If Judge Tranquilli is permitted to continue exercising judicial duties during the pendency of the board complaint, the public’s confidence in the judiciary will continue to erode.”
A spokeswoman for Tranquilli and his attorneys said the judge was not available on Wednesday and that the attorneys had no comment.
Tranquilli was first elected to the bench in 2013. He has been on administrative duties since early February — a short time after attorneys heard him refer to a Black juror as “Aunt Jemima.”
Following a jury trial in a drug case, Tranquilli became upset at a not-guilty verdict. When the prosecutor and defense attorney were in chambers with Tranquilli after the case had concluded, the judge criticized the prosecutor for allowing “Aunt Jemima” on the jury, a complaint to the board said.
The young woman, who was Juror No. 4, wore a hair wrap. Tranquilli also indicated to the attorneys that he believed her “baby daddy” probably sold heroin, and her bias led to the not-guilty verdict.
After the complaint became public, additional allegations were made about Tranquilli’s temperament on the bench, including by an attorney who heard him use Ebonics in speaking to parents engaged in a custody case before him.
Those allegations are included in the board’s complaint.
Last week, several local advocacy groups led an online protest demanding transparency in the board’s investigation and demanding Tranquilli’s resignation.
Because he is an elected official — judges serve 10-year terms and then seek retention — the only way for him to be removed from office is through impeachment or the Court of Judicial Discipline.
Under the process used by the court, the case is expected to move to a public trial, where the board must prove the charges by clear and convincing evidence.
After the case is heard, and if convinced of the charges, the court has a range of possible sanctions, from censure up to removal.
Since 2014, there have been 22 cases filed by the Judicial Conduct Board at the Court of Judicial Discipline against judges and magisterial district judges.
In the 18-page complaint filed against Tranquilli Wednesday, Deputy Counsel James P. Kleman Jr. laid out the claims. They include that he violated the Code of Judicial Conduct of promoting confidence in the judiciary: by showing bias, prejudice and harassment; in his decorum, demeanor and communication with jurors; in failure to comply with the law relative to his use of “racial and other harassment;” and by bringing disrepute to the court.
The first case outlined in the complaint was a custody conciliation from August 2015.
During that proceeding, the complaint said, Tranquilli made several comments.
Among them: “That he did not care about the [couple’s] children;” “that his only concern was his own three children;” “that he was merely passing time in the family division until his eventual reassignment to criminal division;” “that he was more of a ‘slice and dice’ guy, than a ‘brain surgeon;’” “that he was a ‘butcher,’” and that “he would ‘split [the couple’s] baby in half like Solomon and sleep like a baby that night.’”
The complaint then moved on to the January drug trial.
After being visibly affected by the verdict in the case against Lamar Rice, Tranquilli summoned Assistant District Attorney Ted Dutkowski and defense attorney Joseph Otte to his chambers, the complaint said.
There, he questioned the prosecutor about jurors he allowed to be seated on the jury, it continued.
Tranquilli called Juror No. 11 a “knucklehead,” and told the attorneys that when he spoke to the jurors after the conclusion of the case, that juror told the rest of the panel “they had to acquit the defendant because the police did not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion to search the defendant,” the complaint said.
Then Tranquilli questioned Dutkowski about Juror No. 12, who was the mother of a public defender.
“’Don’t you know she’s going to go to Sunday dinner with her daughter who will tell her about all of the people being wrongly charged and having their rights violated?’”
Then Tranquilli moved on to Juror No. 4, the complaint said.
“’You weren’t out of strikes when you decided to put Aunt Jemima on the jury,’” it continued. “Judge Tranquilli then proceeded to describe his view of Juror No. 4’s physical demeanor and facial expressions during trial.”
Tranquilli also told Dutkowski, he “’knew darn well that when she goes home to her baby daddy, he’s probably slinging heroin too.’”
The complaint then moves on to another case — a sentencing hearing in October 2018, in which he said to a woman relative to a defendant’s family situation, “‘Are you familiar with the phrase, if you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas?… So now you have laid down twice with dogs, but you have woken up with two lovely children, probably two lovely children I’m betting you were probably not planning. And for the cost of three shiny quarters in any bathroom in any rest stop in Pennsylvania, you probably could have gone a different direction.’”
In the last case referenced, Tranquilli told a defendant at a sentencing in March 2019, that if he violated his probation, he would “’cast [the defendant] down among the Sodomites … in state prison.’”
Among the claims in the complaint, the board alleges that Tranquilli failed to promote public confidence in the judiciary and avoid impropriety or the appearance of it.
It also alleges that his comments or conduct in each of the cases “manifested bias or prejudice, or engaged in harassment in the performance of his judicial duties.”
In each of the cases, the board wrote that Tranquilli “failed to conduct himself in a patient, dignified and courteous manner.”
The violation of the law referenced by the board refers to the Code of Judicial Conduct and the state judicial system’s Policy on Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunity.
His conduct, the board wrote, constitutes “racial and other harassment.”
The board wrote that Tranquilli “engaged in conduct that was so extreme that it brought the judicial office itself into disrepute.”
Bruce Antkowiak, who teaches law and chairs the criminology department at Saint Vincent College, said that that common thread through all of the allegations against Tranquilli is the notion of the loss of public confidence in the judiciary.
“The court’s authority comes from the acceptance by the people the courts are doing an important and necessary job and doing it in a way that represents an equitable effort to be even-handed with everyone who comes into it — and not predetermined prejudice or bias against a certain group of people,” he said.
The Court of Judicial Discipline is loathe to remove properly elected officials, Antkowiak said.
“If they find all of these things to be true, you have to ask the question: Is there a way a judge adjudicated responsible for all of these actions can continue on the bench?”
Frank Walker II, a Black criminal defense attorney who has appeared before Tranquilli, thinks Tranquilli ought to be permanently removed from the bench.
“The greatest concern for any judge is judicial temperament,” Walker said. “Can you be someone who is even-keeled throughout every proceeding no matter what it is?”
After reading the board’s complaint, and appearing before Tranquilli, Walker said it is clear to him Tranquilli has issues.
“For people who practice, your whole disposition changes when you walk into certain courtrooms because you don’t know what to expect,” he said. “It seems to be the show is all about them, and it shouldn’t be.”
Nicola Henry-Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh Black Lawyers Alliance, which formed in response to the allegations against Tranquilli in February, said that as attorneys, they believe in due process.
But if the charges against Tranquilli are proved before the Court of Judicial Discipline, she said, then he should be removed.
Anything short of removal, she said, calls the entire system into question.
“In this particular situation, and in this particular time — when we have people being killed because of the color of their skin and all kinds of systemic bias — how could we have that level of faith there is going to fairness, justice and equality?”
In the meantime, Henry-Taylor said, the group believes Tranquilli ought to be suspended without pay.
The decision whether to suspend Tranquilli — with or without pay — will come from the Court of Judicial Discipline.