And Liberty and Justice for All

Kandice Whitaker hosts the "Bail Yourself Out Happy Hour" podcast, focusing on personal and career growth. She interviews Judge Erika Tindell, a state trial judge in Connecticut, discussing the importance of diversity in public positions, particularly among judges. They highlight the underrepresentation of Black judges, noting that only 130 out of 1,097 U.S. District Court judges are Black. Judge Tindell shares her journey to becoming a judge, emphasizing the need for procedural justice and the importance of public engagement in the legal system. They also discuss the high cost of legal services and the need for more accessible resources for those unable to afford attorneys.

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Transcript

0:00  
Kandice, welcome to the bail yourself out Happy Hour Podcast, where each week we'll help you navigate the corporate jungle. Here's your host, Kandice Whitaker,

0:12  
welcome to the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast, friends. Here we focus on personal growth, career growth and entrepreneurship, our family, who are your virtual coworkers, are dedicated to providing you with the tools and insights to turn your dreams into reality and help you get your money up. In each episode, we'll explore strategies rooted in my framework, the bail method of resilience, designed to guide you in conquering challenges and thrive. I'm your host, Kandice Whitaker, and at the age of 21 I was a determined young mother of two who wanted to ensure my best possible life and defy the odds. So I took steps towards achieving the life I desire. I got my master's degree. Then I was a sought after consultant, which led me to starting my own company. I have a passion for helping people live their life to the fullest through resilience, using the bail yourself out approach. So I'm happy you're here. Kick off your shoes and relax your feet. Fill up your favorite drink, because the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast is about to start now. Hey, y'all, Hey, welcome to the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast. This is your girl, Kandice, with a K and I am chilling today in the lounge with my friend judge Erica Tyndall, who is a state trial judge in the state of Connecticut. Welcome her to the lounge. Hey, I'm the only one that's allowed to call her etiologist. So you know that's true. What do you want the world to know about you, friend? What

1:49  
do I want the world to know about me? I want the world to know that I on a professional level, I take my job very seriously, and I understand that I work for the public. Connecticut taxpayers pay me to uphold the law, and that's what I go to work to do each and every day. So I do my level best to do that and make sure that the experience that people have in Connecticut trial courts is one that I believe we should be having

2:21  
love that it is very seldom to hear a person who is in a public position like you are say those type of things and actually be authentic. I know you so I can say it's authentic, just for our listeners who are joining us today. The reason I felt like the conversation with Erica, who's a judge, is so important today, is because really know, if y'all know how many judges are black, because if we're really going to affect change in this country, we need to be represented in all areas. You know, that's what I think. I'm not rule of the world, but, you know, we're 13% of the population, so we need to be 13% everywhere. We need lawyers. We need doctors. We need everything we do everything. We need teachers. Yes, all

3:10  
of these opinions are my personal opinions alone, not of the Connecticut judicial branch, official, you know, line. These are all. This is just Eric on a personal level, based on what I've observed. So on a personal level, raising my children, I have two daughters, I really strive to make sure that they saw that in our lives, all of their health care professionals were black. I sought it out black hair health care professionals because I thought from a child's perspective, that was important. So the dentist, the pediatrician, the podiatrist, the gynecologist. I drive halfway across the

3:46  
state for same Yes, because it's hard to find them. It is,

3:50  
but I agree with you on the point that we I agree about diversity, except I have a slightly different take on diversity. I because as we know we we are replete with examples of people who look like us, who are not doing things that are in our best interests. So I am. I often point out to people that it's really important that there's diversity of perspective. In other words, the people, particularly those in public positions. Need to have a diversity of perspective. You need to be in front of judges, police officers, you know, commissioners, government officials that understand the narratives of those that are coming in front of them. Understanding that narrative is is critical. I don't care what color you are, if we if we don't have people that understand the narrative of those that we're serving, that diversity is lost, even though optically it may look diverse, that diversity of perspective, I think, is critical.

4:50  
So for all the people who went to school in the ghetto like me, I love y'all this what he just said, All skin folk ate kinfolk. Yes, what grandma used to say. Shout out to Clarence Thomas, I said, what I said, and Kandice Owens, but anyway, so I digress. Focus, focus. Um, so before our conversation today, right? I did a little bit of research, and because I wanted to know the demographics of judges that are in the United States, right? And so although I mentioned black people, the season diaspora is where my focus is, I care about that in every single aspect of American society. Because if we're going to be a melting pot like we say. We strive to be right. You're right. We do need to have diversity and thought so. I pulled a quick and dirty Google search of statistics and from ABA legal profile.com right? These statistics are as of 2023 so about a year old US District Court judges, right? There are 1097 of them, and 750 or men, 347 or women. So definitely not half it's not 5050, 825. Are white. 130 are black. 83 Hispanic, 34 Asian American, four Native American, and then 21 identify as mixed race, ethnicity or other. So that's on the federal level. Like it gets really like as you go up, what kind of the exception of the Supreme Court? Supreme Court's a little different when you get to the US Court of Appeals, 299 judges. 202 are men. That's wild. Most of them, yeah. 97 are women. 229 are white. 31 are black, 20 are Hispanic, 16 Asian, and then three identify as mixed race. So although we are making strides in the right direction, we definitely have some room for improvement. And so we're talking to the next generation, and that's what our conversation is going to be about. Today, I want to hear Erica about your journey to become a judge. I think a lot of times when people hear judge, they're like, how do I get there? How do you do that? Did you start out always wanting to be a

7:23  
judge? Yes, I was going to say I'm unique in that. I would imagine it's quite rare for a child, especially a female, black child, to at age eight or so, decide when I grow up I'm going to be a Supreme Court justice, I'm going to be a judge. That's what I want to do. So I some of my colleagues on the state bench and those, I just want to point out also that you, and I think you mentioned this, those numbers that you mentioned, are on the federal level. I'm on the state trial level. So each state obviously has its own court system, and it has trial court level, appellate court level. Most states have three levels, just like we do in the federal system. Connecticut is no exception to that. We have the trial court level, which I serve on, and the Connecticut appellate court and then the Connecticut Supreme Court. There are a couple of states out west that might only have two levels, maybe in any event. So it's, it's unusual, I think, for children to think about being a judge. A lot of times you'll get kids that say they want to be lawyers. But I was always that kid on the playground that mediated disputes. I was also that would create a game and include everybody on the playground, whoever showed up that day. And of course, we're talking about days when we were on playgrounds, right? But I would create a game, and every single person on the playground had a role, and when something came up, when something went left, I was the one that mediated the consensus, that allowed us to keep going. There were no fights, there were no I was bossy and believed I had a good sense of right and wrong, and so this career path was going to be one that I thought would suit my personality. Well. I grew up with a single mother abroad. My mother worked for Department of Defense, and so I grew up in Western Europe. I traveled a lot. My mother didn't believe in she thought television was bad for children, so I wasn't allowed to watch television growing up, and

9:26  
then you didn't even see Phil banks.

9:30  
Understand that when I came to the United States to visit, which we did often, I absorbed as much American TV as I possibly could. But my mother believed it was, it was bad for you, and I, you know, I think back to that now we're marketed. Wasn't exactly wrong so much. Yeah, she was ahead of her time. My mother was way ahead of her time. My mother also was very vigilant and serious about what we put inside and all on our bodies. So. So for example, I wasn't some you know, I wasn't allowed to wear anything other than cotton against my body, which, you know, now, it's something wrong about that. No, wrong about that, no. So that sort of gives you a hint. So I had to read, right? Because I and play on the playground. I wasn't allowed. I didn't sit and watch television. I was allowed to go to movies, but every Saturday, I went to the library and got a stack of books and read all those books that week, and then the next Saturday, I went back and got another stack of books, and I traveled a lot. So that broadens your horizons, right there you need to know is in a book, something written by somebody. And as you know, you and I were chatting prior to beginning today. Anybody can write a book now, but there's period the information is out there is my point. So whatever I wanted to learn about, whatever I got interested in, my mother supported. So in addition to being sort of a book worm, I rode horses and played volleyball and ran track and did gymnastics, and so I was an active, curious person. And the last sort of thing, I think that was really important, that sort of formed how I got to where I am, is that my mother taught me that my job was to leave the planet a better place than how you found it. So that was literally our responsibility as humans. Whatever you did, you didn't have to be a judge. You could be a janitor. Lots of ways to do that, yeah, lots of ways to do that. But your job was, whatever it was that you were contributing, you were supposed to make the world a better place. And I, and that's how I operate,

11:40  
that resonates with me, that resonates with me a lot, because I definitely feel the same way. I feel like we all have an assignment that we're supposed to fulfill to make the world a better place, and we can't all do the same thing, right? And that goes back to the diversity of thought and diversity of experiences,

11:59  
absolutely, like any profession, they're sort of requirements that you have to do. You need an undergraduate degree in anything. Honestly, to go to law school, some people think you have to do political science or English or, you know, be good at debate. But honestly, your undergraduate degree can be in chemistry or basket weaving or whatever it is because law school is really where you are trained and taught to analyze. You know, you receive news differently. Once you're trained in law school, you just see things differently, everything from these, you know, legal angles of, is there a lawsuit there? Who's liable? What's you know, that's how you're sort of trained to think. So. I got an undergraduate degree in economics and Spanish double major.

12:46  
Oh, you were econ major. I was an econ major for like, a whole semester. I see we learned something.

12:54  
That's right and and let me just say, I'm not going to mention the school I went to, but let's just say that my goal was to go to the most prestigious undergraduate college I could get into. When I told you where I went to school, I wanted you to clutch your pearls. That was the goal. For those of you out there that are thinking about college or entering college. That is the stupidest reason to go to college. But to my credit, to my credit, at that time, there were no Supreme Court justices that didn't go to the elite colleges, Harvard, Princeton there. Right to my credit now and and honestly, if I'm not mistaken, Donald Trump changed that.

13:36  
He's Wharton. He went to Wharton. No, no, no,

13:39  
I know, but I'm talking about he nominated judges that didn't go to the elite schools. I'm I could be wrong about that. I'm pretty sure that Donald Trump is the first president to do that. We can check that. We need to fact check that, because I'm not, do

13:52  
we really want to give him credit for anything good? Well, then there's that,

13:56  
there's that, there's that

13:59  
so and then I went that wasn't necessarily good, because the people that he nominated have been doing some ridiculousness and wreaking havoc throughout the United States.

14:08  
Understood, but my point is, but at a certain point, no one that got to that court didn't go to one of the elite Ivy League schools. None of them and I again, fact check me on that, because I'm not, I could be wrong about that, but I don't believe before his administration, that happened, and I don't, you know what they do once they get there, is a different thing. I'm talking about, what letters are behind their name, where they got those? Oh, I

14:34  
get it. I get it. So we're just talking about colleges right now. That's right, you know, you triggered me. I was triggered.

14:42  
You're triggered. Do not trigger the podcast host. So

14:46  
political junkies, so there's that.

14:50  
And then I went to law school in New York and moved immediately to Miami to be a prosecutor. Law school is the worst. Yes, I am not one of those people you'll talk to that loved I literally hated every second, every second. It was awful. It was just it was awful and stupid. Was

15:10  
it the school or was it like the hazing? It was cool. It

15:14  
was the hazing. It was, you know, here's 822 pages to read, and I might call on you tomorrow, but I might not, but you better be. I mean, it was just awful. Then you gotta take a bar exam. So, but I had a goal in mind, right? I wanted to be a judge. You gotta gotta thug it out. I

15:31  
gotta do this. Who much is given? Much is required, fam. Um, so

15:35  
immediately after law school, I moved to Miami to be a prosecutor, which was a really good experience.

15:41  
Why? Every time you say that, I keep saying bienvenido Miami in my head.

15:47  
And you know, that was an interesting it's funny you say that. It was an interesting choice for me because I'm originally from Massachusetts. I grew up abroad, and I went to undergraduate in Pennsylvania. I went to law school in New York, and I had never set my foot in Miami. I'd been to Florida, but I'd never been to Miami, but that sounded glamorous. We'll go to Miami. That Spanish degree really helped, but that Spanish degree really helped. So everyone thought I was Dominican, of course.

16:17  
So you, you're nice with it if they thought you was Dominican. Oh, okay, I swear. Hey,

16:23  
I studied. I spent a year in Spain, studying abroad, got married in Spain. So yeah, Miami was a great experience, because it was the number three prosecutor's office in the country, behind LA and Manhattan, da, you know, everyone wanted to say, La, yeah, LA, there were the competition to get a prosecutor slot. I think there were like 1000 applicants for for one slot. So it's pretty competitive, because you get all this experience. You get a lot of trial experience. Being a prosecutor anywhere doesn't have to be Miami or one of the big Prosecutors Offices in the country, but that was, was excellent experience, and I did that for four years. When I left, I was chief of litigation, so I supervised all of the county court states attorneys that were prosecuting domestic violence. I specialized. I didn't say this earlier, I specialized in domestic violence prosecution. We had special courts set up just for domestic violence cases, so the judges, public defenders, prosecutors, were all trained, and that's so that's what I did. I came to Connecticut, I had to take another bar exam. Was very unhappy about that, but you have reciprocity. Not only that, you I hadn't practiced long enough to wave in, like, pay a fee and have a lawyer, right and just wave in, so I had to take the bar exam again, and so I'm licensed in Florida and Connecticut. And I came to Connecticut, I worked for Yale University for a while at the law school, and then started my non sort of prosecutorial legal career at New Haven, legal assistance. So I was assisting clients who were unable to afford attorneys with domestic violence and family related issues, because that was my specialty. It was under a special VAWA grant, Violence Against Women Act grant that was signed into law in 1994 by President Bill Clinton, and so that grant funded my position as a lawyer at Legal Aid, and I did that for a decade. That was good work, and then I there were some budget cuts and a recession, and so I had to leave legal aid because they at the time, I was a deputy director, and the office was unionized. That's an odd thing that you don't usually have that in law, like unionized lawyers, yeah, yeah, it's a that's, that's a different podcast. But I was magic, so I was, I was the deputy director and but we did whatever the attorneys did. So they voted to take a 20% pay cut to save the last hired attorney. And so we were all going to take a 20% pay cut. And I was like, you can miss me with that bullshit.

19:17  
No, wait, no, I don't I need my 20% friends. That's a lot. That is a whole lot. Let me ask you this, yeah, considering everything that you went through on your journey through law school on your way, the first stop was becoming a prosecutor in Miami, which I actually think is kind of dope. You know, I'm getting Miami Vice vibes Erica. Then when you were helping women who were getting busts upside their head, domestic violence victims. I mean, really, were you at that point where you say to yourself, everything I did to get here was worth it, and if it wasn't, that's fine too, because I think sometimes it takes a minute to get to that.

19:59  
Yeah, I think back then my prosecutorial self would have said yes, I felt I felt that in and I feel now like it was worth it. You know, people don't realize how impactful, influential certain public servants are. As a prosecutor, yes, every day that I do and went into the office, my decisions impacted people's lives, and not just the criminal defendant who's charged with some crime, but their families, their children, yes, their livelihoods. It's really quite a I don't want to call it a burden. It is a burden, but it is quite a responsibility. Responsibility. Yeah, it's really a responsibility. And I, you know, I took that very seriously. What I do matters, right? How I assess cases. There were cases that I refused to prosecute. I took them to my supervisor and said, I, you know, I have to sleep at night. I will not be prosecuting this case. Now, let me be clear, somebody did, but not me. I get that somebody did, but not me, just where I thought the police were unfair or I thought, you know, and I was always a person who charged what I believed I could prove and what I believe the person deserved to be charged with. I was also not a prosecutor who would offer a higher plea, you know, offer some very high plea deal and negotiate down from that I gave you as a defense attorney or the public defender, what I believed was fair under the circumstances, based on the evidence I had, based on my assessment of the case. You take it or leave it, we can go to trial, but this is, you know, but you understand what I'm saying by negotiating, I didn't negotiate. Try to be fair. Yeah, and come down and, you know?

21:44  
I mean, that's the part that people kind of lawyers, have that reputation of being slippery, of being less than honest, because of strategies like that that aren't exactly they're not illegal, but they're not but what

21:57  
are we doing here? Why am I doing why am I saying, Okay, I'm going to charge you with second degree murder, as opposed to, you know, involuntary manslaughter. When I Why would I do that? Am I just, you know, the job is not to ruin people's lives. The job is not to make things worse. And remember, in the back of my head, I'm leaving the world a better place. Everything I do matters, every email, every phone call, every interaction, should be, in my opinion, an example of what we hope the world to be. So when you came to me as a prosecutor, I particularly know in plea negotiations, I would listen, what are the, you know, mitigating factors? Why is it that you want me to consider not charging this or offering this plea deal? And I would consider, and I developed a reputation for that, for being fair. Many of my public defender colleagues would say, you know, Erica come over from the dark side and and defend. But for some reason, I couldn't see myself doing that. I thought it was important to have, quite frankly, someone like me on the other side.

22:55  
I have two questions to that, because I'm thinking about it right, and I'm not thinking about this in terms of lawyers, per se, but I know how people are, right. So my first thought was, you know, some people, if you give them a little power, they start tripping. Do you feel like a certain amount of that is a power trip? Absolutely,

23:14  
absolutely. I worked with a person who was independently wealthy, and when we would be in the office preparing for 8am arraignments, and it started to get late, this person would say, if I have to be here until, you know, 11 o'clock, somebody's going to jail, just that sort of attitude is disturbing, because it is. This is not about the reason why we're here until 11 o'clock or midnight preparing is because it's Miami, and there are a lot of cases right job part job security in in big metropolitan areas, but that's just not what the job is about. It. It shouldn't matter how late you were up preparing the case, what kind of mood you're in that day which side of the bed you woke up on whether and we're all human, but I personally believe that we have literally a responsibility to make sure that we are separating our ego from the work that we are expected to do.

24:14  
That takes being an actual adult, then there's that, but then the second part of it is just knowing the demographic makeup of Miami. I'm not from Miami, but I know there's a lot of Hispanics, there's a lot of Cubans, there's a lot of West Indians. You got Jamaicans, you got Haitians. Like, it's quite a melting pot down there. And you know, unfortunately, you do have people who have, you know, innate biases, and so when they see people who don't look like them, it's hard to humanize folks who have been them. People, yeah, that whole time, others, yeah, others, people, it's hard to humanize. And so, you know, I'm of the personal belief, and we could talk more about this after the break, but believe the DA has more. Power to the president these local elections you need to really pay attention to, and that was a good place to take a break. We'll be back. Join our community of virtual coworkers on bail yourself out. Pod.com

25:16  
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25:31  
You're listening to Kandice Whitaker on the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast. Hey, y'all Hey, welcome back to the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast, friends, and today I'm chilling with my homegirl judge, Erica Tindall. I gotta tell y'all a really funny story. So at the beginning of the pod, I told you I'm the only person allowed to call her e so now that y'all know Erica a little bit, you know, she grew up all over the place, and although Erica is black and knows a whole lot about the culture, she said to me, you're the first person to call me e I said, Erica. I could tell you didn't grow up around a lot of

26:05  
black people. Yeah, no, I didn't. That's exactly. If you have a name that

26:09  
starts with the E, A, T, A, J, you're getting called by your letter like it's cool, right?

26:18  
So in case your audience members don't already know. You know, if I ever had a black card, it gets snatched from me regularly because of stuff like that. But that's all right, okay.

26:27  
No, you know I'm okay. I'm a safe space. I teach people how to play spades. That's how safe I am that I judgmentally, I'm safe. I've taught black folks how to play space. Oh, I've done it more than once, given tutorials. Yes, now that doesn't preclude me from tapping that ass once you know how to play but I will teach you.

26:52  
Got it

26:53  
so before we went to break we really quickly dipped on a very important topic and like so the reason, I think, as a person who is concerned and mindful about the state of black people, the seasoned diaspora within the United States, I understand the importance of the DA, your local da, and how much influence that has on what happens to people in any given area. You know, in the news, we see case after case of person shot by the police. Police kicked in the wrong door and shot somebody who was watching TV in their house, right case after case. And who is it that is responsible for what happens in those types of cases, locally, it is the DA and so that's why I wanted to bring this topic out to the forefront, so we can have a conversation. Instead of being like, why won't these people act right? I feel like it is equally important for us to have the conversations about, okay, how do we move into our place so we have diversity of thought, as you mentioned earlier. So we have people who empathize with the position of those who were just sitting in their house, minding their business and got their dog kicked in because it was the wrong address.

28:13  
But I have some thoughts about that. I mean, and you sort of mentioned it a little bit like, instead of saying, you know, why won't these people do right? We also have a responsibility to hold them accountable. And here's what I mean by that, who becomes a judge matters, who that person is. Who becomes a police officer matters. Who is putting out your fires matters. Who is teaching your children matters. And so we have to carve out space. And it's it's easy to say, if you're not in survival mode, right, if you're not like busting your home, working two and three jobs, holding things together, just trying to keep your family together, trying to stay above water. But we have to become engaged and involved in what is happening. There are lots of public spaces where we never go as a public because we don't care, we don't know, we're not interested. But you know, courts, for example, are open. You can come and observe in court, and that's why I say it's easy to say when you have the luxury of, you know, stopping, you know, not going to work and coming to observe. Most of us, we don't have what are we doing like we hurry for people for privilege, right? But what I'm saying is, you know, there are police commissions with public members. There are mayoral decisions that get made on a local level, that have public hearings, public comment and in spaces where you can, where you're able to, you can write letters and emails, attend meetings, often there is a period of public input, and people you know this, certain people understand the importance of that and do it. Or sometimes, if we have. Some issue, then we're all over it, right? But when things are going well, do we say this was a really good policy in my local community? It helped, you know, whatever it is, bring green space and slow down the traffic, whatever those local issues, quality of life issues are, I think we have to find ways to be more engaged as a public because we often talk about, you know, the government, the government, well, the government, in theory, is supposed to be driven by us. It's not, but I'm clear about that. It is not. But there are things we can actually do, because it's frustrating, isn't it, to sit around and complain about the things we see or point out the things we see or be aware of them, and I sometimes sense just as a feeling of helplessness about what actually to do about it. You know, feed on the ground, me as a part of, you know, my family. You know, what can I really do to have an impact on that? And it's one of the things we can do. We can be more engaged in what our public officials are doing. We are paying them to serve us. They need to be held accountable. They need to be held accountable. So let me just give you an example. Courts, for example, for the most part, we as citizens don't go to court unless we have to right. Nobody's trying to be in court unless you're getting divorced or have a car accident or get a ticket or right. For the most part, we don't engage in courts. We don't know what happens there. We might read about the people and say, Oh, my goodness, this happened. But you can literally, literally, on your lunch hour, go in or or whatever, on your break and go and sit and watch. You can watch a judge sentence, someone watch a they're open courts, and we don't engage in them generally, unless we have to. That's one of the things I would change if I were a public school teacher, my students, of course, with parent permission, about 10 years old, 12 years old, we would go to court and sit and watch and ask questions, because it's a way of getting if we get our young people involved, they'll, you know, they'll remember that when they're older, like, oh, I went to court. We just don't engage much. We allow it to be this thing that operates sort of separate from us, and it doesn't have to be that way. We can have some impact on those systems, and we can hold people accountable.

32:17  
Have some thoughts about that, and I have two kind of different thoughts. What are the things that you said early on in your comments that was pivotal for me? As you said, if you're not in survival mode, yes, I don't think we talk about that enough, because in the community, in the season diaspora, let's really be honest. As a person who's a history nerd, right for many of us, the first generation born with our rights intact, right, right? We were born after 1965 so you know, we are the generation that went to college, or maybe went to trade school and maybe doing a little better than our parents, meaning that we have a bit more freedom. But I think for a lot of us, when you come out of survival mode, there is this reckoning of, like, What the hell am I supposed to do? Now, think it takes a minute. I think it takes a minute because, you know, survival mode is chaotic, and it takes a minute to really get your head around like, Okay, wait a minute, I'm okay. Everything's okay. Yeah. Now what?

33:25  
When I say survival mode, I mean people who are working two and two jobs, even if it's one job, but, you know, they're working and they have children to care for, and they gotta figure out transportation. They gotta figure out how to feed these children. They gotta figure out how to feed themselves. Maybe you know that job they're doing is just a job. It's not a career. It's not something they wake up excited to go to every day. But I gotta do this because, because I have to do this right. Most Americans just have a job. They just need to get paid so they can, you know, eat, put a roof over their heads. A much smaller number have careers where they wake up and love what they do, they're excited to go to work, to do what they do, and deal with the people they have to deal with. For some people, that's that's the battle right there. Every day is like this battle. They're fighting this war, and that's real.

34:16  
Of us are familiar with that. I think survival mode is more prevalent than not.

34:23  
Yeah, poor Americans, and we are dealing with anxiety and depression, and, you know, one in five Americans is an alcoholic, and there's probably a very good reason for that. There's a lot to drink about so period, there's a lot to drink about so having to deal with all those things, if you have children, if you have a partner, if you don't have a partner, if you I mean just all of these things that life throws at us, you are lucky. You are blessed and fortunate. If you're not in a position just to have to deal with that to get through your day every day. So I don't want to invalidate those. People like, Oh yeah, it's easy for her to say she's a judge. She can, you know, engage, engage. I can't engage. I'm trying to, like, get home, get food on the table, figure out how to do this. I'm not discounting that at all. What I am saying is there are small things that each and every one of us can do to be engaged in government, with courts, with law enforcement, as opposed to simply correctly identifying the inequities, correctly identifying the problems and wall away. I

35:31  
agree. I agree, and I believe that it starts with voting, just voting consistently.

35:36  
There's some controversy about that. I think people are starting to say, you know, we have been raised with the idea that it's, you know, you have to vote, and it's our civic duty, and at a minimum, we should do that. I heard someone running for a local office here in Connecticut, black man, who said, you know, each year we're voting, we're voting democratic. We're voting for Democrats. And what have they done for us? They talk about, you know, racism and this so, you know, we voted for them. Where are we? So I'm starting to hear conversations about, do we need to unlearn some of the things that we've learned? What would happen if nobody voted? If people said, I, you know, pick choosing the lesser two evils is always choosing evil. How about you? Better serve us. I'm just putting that out there is a conversation I've been hearing and having lately, but I'm I'm with you. That was one of the things that we write. You vote, you get out, you know about what the candidates are about, you understand the policies, and you make a decision,

36:31  
hey, I'm going to come out strong, because there's a lot of reasons why I think that's dumb.

36:37  
I love it. Tolerate dumb, right?

36:39  
Just because you don't like the choices doesn't mean you don't make a choice, right? You apply whatever intellect you have, and you make the best choice based on the choices you have, but then you work simultaneously for next time so we can have a better option. Yeah, stop tapping yourself out and oversimplifying complicated situations. That's how you know it's dumb when you oversimplify things that are multifaceted problems. Yeah, that's oversimplification. No, I'm going off now, alright, I'm

37:12  
with you. I'm I'm of that same that was the thing. You vote, you vote, you vote, you vote. As a matter of fact, before I was a judge, I was the chairwoman of the Board of Pardons and Paroles in Connecticut, and there was a reporter once that called my executive director to say, Oh, the chairwoman isn't registered to vote. Excuse me, so she didn't do her research. I'm an unaffiliated voter. I'm not independent, I'm not Democrat, I'm not Republican, I'm unaffiliated, and that's on purpose, because it's bad enough, I'm already a judge. First of all, black woman, right? There's that that was calculated on my part because of, you know, the identity politics game that we play in this country. I'm conscious of, okay, when you see me coming, you already think you know something about me, right? That's how that works. That's true. And so the one you know, one of the few things I have control over is I can at least take that box away so I get bombarded, right? Because unaffiliated, they, they're like, Oh, come on, right. Listen to us do this. But yeah. So anyway, my executive director said, you know, you haven't done your research. Of course, she votes. But I point that out to say that that you know how you said, you know, one of the ways is to vote. That's like one of the first things we can do, one of the easiest things, right? That's a once

38:26  
a year commitment, honestly, maybe twice depending on the year. I believe the two party system is not what we need right? Early in the country, we had more options. Shout out to the wigs. I'm history nerd, but you know, we're not there yet. I don't know what it looks like to get there. I'm not a political strategist by any means, but I do agree with the sentiment of we've gotten a lot of promises from Democrats, some of which have not been realized, but that's a whole different podcast in and of itself. Yeah. So I want to ask you something while we're on this vein related to kind of the state of reforms in the legal and the judicial system. What changes or reforms do you hope to see in the judicial system, and how have you personally worked towards them. So

39:21  
I see, at least in my State of Connecticut, a real push, and this was spearheaded by our now retiring black Chief Justice, Richard Robinson, who just recently retired first black chief justice here in the state, efforts on sort of two veins, one Diversity, Equity and Inclusion projects, but also what we call procedural justice, procedural fairness. And what I mean by that is the way that people experience court. If you have to appear in court because you sue, sued someone because. As you've been arrested because you're being sued because you have some a family case, how you experience the process it matters. Is really important, right? So what I see in my courts, and I am now on a specialized docket, it is the regional family trial docket. So I'm in Middletown, Connecticut, and I get referrals from presiding judges and family divisions across the state, all the districts of the most controversial, complicated family cases, divorce, custody, you know, property distribution and marital cases, those all come to me as referrals from presiding judges, and I take them and try them. I'm all I do is try cases, so they have to come to me trial ready. One of the criticisms of the legal system, besides what we see on the criminal side, is about family courts. There's a lot of controversy about decisions judges make in family courts. Family Court trial judges are presented with cases in which someone's divorcing someone else or someone suing someone else for custody or visitation rights or child support or legal separation, and the law in family, in Connecticut and in all 50 states is highly discretionary on the part of the judge. So there are so many places where you could present the very same divorce case to 10 different family judges, and you could get 10 different answers, and the reason 11 right? The reason why is because I have discretion. The law says I have to make custody and parenting decisions based on what's in the best interest of the child, but that's relative as hell. But that depends what Judge Erica Kendall thinks, or what Judge Kandice Whitaker thinks, or what Judge John Doe thinks, or what right so what I think is in the best interest of a child may not be what you think is the best interest of the child. So what I'm saying is this, is that a lot of the criticism, for example, about family courts, is valid because the public is asking the government to make decisions that the government has no business making. Period. Say that again. So let me get this straight. You're divorcing him. He's all kinds of heinous and terrible. There's all kinds of vitriol. The kids are all left up. You're gonna come to me a complete stranger. You don't know anything about me. You might think you know something about me, but you don't know anything about me. You don't know what my values are, my religious beliefs, whether you don't know anything about me, and I bring all of that to my decision making, right to my legal analysis, to my viewing of what you present to me as evidence. And there's this much to know about your family, and I'm going to hear just this much, and you want me to make a decision it's going to impact you and your children and your money and your property for the rest of your lives. Why would you do that? Why would you have me make that decision

43:05  
honestly? Erica, I really feel like that is the inherent flaw in our judicial system. We put too much stock into people who are inherently flawed, and I don't say that judges are more flawed than anybody else. Like everybody is inherently flawed, right? You come to the table with your own biases, your own background, your own way of how things should be, that's right, and that's subjective, and these sorts of things should not be subjective, in my humble opinion,

43:37  
yeah. So a couple of things. Number one, who's who the judge is matters. And I guess person is so the vetting process for who I am and how I got there, and how I operate, and what my work ethic is, and you know, all of that matters. So I should be vetted very carefully, because the decisions I make, where your children spend their time, how they spend their time. Who gets the house? Who gets the motorcycle, who gets the this property, who? You know, when you think about that, the decisions that I'm making, imagine in COVID, I had parents who disagreed about some parents were more vigilant about COVID. Some people said it was made up, and Bill Gates is trying to put chips at everybody. And right now, I gotta make a decision for these children, because the parents can't do it.

44:24  
Thank you, Val.

44:25  
You see what I'm saying, what the criticisms, many of which are valid, many are not valid. Many are I didn't get what I want. So this sucks, right? Some of it's that that's also human nature. But what I'm saying is, you asked me about reforms, yes, mainly law in particular. I think if we're going to decide that we don't like the system the way it is, it's to fill in the blank, corrupt, subjective judges have too much power. Whatever it is, whatever the criticism is, understand that we have set up a system. Um, asking complete and total strangers who are representative of the government to make decisions that they probably should not be making. And we might want to rethink that. That's number one. Um, we talked a little bit about diversity of perspective. So um, in Connecticut, I have to say, I think that the state courts are pretty diverse in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, area, legal field. So we're, in other words, many times judges are former prosecutors or former, you know, Assistant Attorney Generals or work for the government in some form. That's also, we're also trying to diversify that in Connecticut, in addition to governors appointing a more diverse group, socioeconomic, race, ethnicity, practice, field, age, we have had judges in the last decade that are geriatric Millennials all the way up to, you know, Baby Boomer, Boomer. So there's quite a bit of diversity in that geriatric

46:06  
millennial hurts, because that is I, I am she that hurt? It stung a little, but you

46:12  
know who I'm talking about, right? But in addition to, and that doesn't have anything to do with the Chief Justice, he doesn't choose judges. The governor has to appoint them. There's a whole process for that, by which Connecticut, I think, tried to avoid some of the more ugly political, you know, running for office as a judge, which is insanity, in my opinion. But in addition to

46:31  
Maryland, they're on the ballot. I voted for judges. I'm like, I don't know. Y'all, yeah,

46:36  
yeah. But also, the Chief Justice put into place and put money behind this idea. We have an entire office and a staff that develops trainings about every topic you can imagine, ableism, LGBTQIA, race, poverty. We have trainings on poverty, which is mean,

46:57  
that's important. People ignore that, but that is probably the most Yes, pervasive type of difference.

47:05  
So yes, but not only was there funding behind these judicial branch policies of we are going to develop trainings. Staff is going to be trained as well as judges every you know, in the pre bench orientation, which is like judge school, when you become when you're nominated by the governor, confirmed by our general assembly, you go through a period of time where you are trained. I'm one of the trainers on Diversity Awareness and sexual harassment training. I do it with a colleague, and so how we are vetted as judges is important. Who gets on the bench and what training they have. So once you get someone who will be a good judge, you make sure they have the tools they need to be a good judge. And also, there has been a real effort to make sure that all staff, not just judges, clerks, Assistant clerks, marshals, everyone who works in the court system, has this training. And so I think Connecticut has worked really hard to reach the ideal of how people experience the judicial branch. Means that they can bring their legal problems to the branch to can file a lawsuit, it will be dealt with expeditiously, fairly, equitably. And so there are things in place to try to do that. What I see is that people need help. Everybody can't afford an attorney, facts and because

48:27  
y'all, hi, ex, really, really, lawyers are ridiculously high

48:32  
in Connecticut, just in family cases, I see lawyers charging anywhere from I've seen lawyers charge 200 an hour. That's rare, and that's on the much lower end, all the way up to 950 an hour. Can you imagine that you have some legal problem? You cannot navigate the system by yourself, and you have to pay somebody 500 bucks an hour every time they think about your case in the shower. You are getting billed for 15 minutes. It's a lot. So the system shouldn't be

49:02  
why they have Slim Shady This is why they have the Slim Shady reputation. This is exactly why. Yep, I'm very, very, very grateful, very grateful that my ex husband and I, we were in Connecticut, although I didn't know you at the time, I'll say that when we decided to get a divorce. We were able to just have a mediator pay the $300 and get divorced. I was like, I'm not fighting you over a couch. Like, if you want the couch freaking take it. And I'm very grateful that we were able to do that, because I also have friends who have spent $100,000 to get divorced. Like, what the hell it's $100 to get married and will cost you your whole body to get divorced. That's also to put a hit out on you. But, I mean, I'm just saying that's

49:52  
a different show. Yeah, I think it is, without judging people's choices, right? You want to fight him or her for each. And everything that you know that's none of my business. However, I'm

50:03  
judging you. Like, is it worth the couch? I'll get you one from IKEA. Like, stop, but

50:07  
understand that I have a job, because there are people like that. So you

50:11  
know what my father says, What shit is shit? Go buy more shit. Like, what's the problem?

50:18  
But some people the stories I could tell you about what people fight over and how much money they've spent to I mean, people who, at one point had to love each other, they produced all these children and built this life, and now they literally couldn't agree that today is Saturday and we'll spend $1.3 million to prove that it isn't. It's craziness, but none of my business, my job, is law. What I am saying too, though, is that I think so many people, particularly in this time of Google and Google Scholar and AI, they just need information. Then they could choose, am I going to try to do this on my own, or am I going to hire an attorney? So we have court service centers now. They can't give you legal advice, but they can let you use the computer. They can give you resources. They can show you where to go. A lot of people can do whatever it is that they have, you know, housing issues or contract issues or small claims or family cases. They could do it on their own if they had the resources. But

51:15  
wait a second, let me teach you some free game for people who are listening. It is good to be broke, but smart. So she just peeped you to some free legal services. But if you need some advice, what you do is you book a consultation with a lawyer who gives free consultations.

51:32  
And most of them do, most of them do, right, yep, and write down your questions ahead of time, because you only have an hour, right? The most important things you go in there absolutely. That's excellent advice. And I tell people, you know, sometimes I wonder when people come in front of me and they're like, you know, and I say, Sir, you're here by yourself. Are you representing yourself? Yes, you understand that I have to hold you to the same rules, even though you're not a lawyer, and even though you're here by yourself, you know, there's a way we do this. And walks you understand that? Yes, Your Honor, I can't afford it. I'm always saying to myself, if you have $500 just $500 there is not a lawyer in Connecticut anyway, that if you say, Listen, if you write out your questions, here's what I want to do. There is not a lawyer that won't say, Okay, I'll meet with you for two hours. We can go over how to do that. But you know what I mean? People think

52:19  
there's an intimidation factor. I think there's an intimidation factor. There it is. I mean, it's like, I would equate like a lawyer to like a plumber. If you gotta call a plumber, this junk is going to be high. It's the same thing. So it's like, Okay, let me see what I can do, right? Because if I go to Home Depot and talk to the guy in the aisle, but at least you know, if it's a plumber, we have a strategy for it, because we don't normally regular people for not involved in the judicial system in any way. Most people don't have a strategy for what they should do. You know when the once or twice in their life they need to deal with the judicial system? I think that's the area of opportunity. Maybe you know yes for learning or information for the public. Okay, I have a question. I'm going to totally change the subject, because we like to do fun stuff too, every once in a while, because I want to get your opinion on somewhat of a it's not a legal matter, but some people might think it could be that's kind of trending on social media, with all the things you see related to paternity, like paternity court. And since you deal with families, I know this is an issue. You probably deal with quite a bit. A lot of people say, especially on social media is trending. They feel like babies at birth, all of them should be given DNA tests right then. And people are like, how do we get that started? We need to get that started. Like you see that there's some people who are they're social media advocates, but if there's just conversations, well, what do you think about that? And if somebody wanted to do that, how would they get that started? So

53:50  
in Connecticut, you at the birth of a child sign of acknowledgement of paternity. It's not a DNA test, but the Father, the person who didn't give birth. I don't know how it works in same sex couples, but the person who didn't give birth signs, and it's a sworn statement, signs an acknowledgement of paternity, which legally binds you. You are now saying, I will be under Connecticut law, legally responsible for this child until age 18. Then the DNA wouldn't matter in that case, and then the DNA wouldn't matter. And there's a law about how, after a certain amount of time, you're bound to that. But think what you're talking about that's trending is, you know, we need to know at birth, whose child, right? This is the mother, Yes, father. My blood by blood. I don't know why you couldn't just do that anyway, like, why you would need I don't you could do that on your own, get a DNA test right then and there, right like,

54:45  
well, for people like you know me, who, when I gave birth to my children, I was in a stable relationship that man over there with the dimples, all these babies with the dimples, he knew they was his right. That wasn't an issue. But there are. Some people who have other complicating circumstances, and so thus you're

55:06  
so you're so diplomatic. So here's the thing, here's what I think. I think if you are a man who is in a relationship with a woman, and that woman has a child, and you are concerned about the paternity of the child, you get your DNA test when the kid is born. They're not that expensive, and if you under certain circumstances, they could be free, and you just get it done. I don't know that we need to mandate that. Mandate it, yeah, I'm just not sure we need what for what? And think about to some privacy issues once you consent to that DNA test, what you know? Are we concerned about where that DNA is going, where it's held, where it's you know, you gotta think beyond just, I'm just trying to make sure this is, this is my seed, this is my child part. But I, you know, I'm not sure we need a law for that. I'm not sure see

55:53  
why you're saying that. I mean, and I'm glad I brought that up with you, because before this conversation, my thought process has been, you know, if you know who the father is, then what's the problem, right? I wouldn't have mattered with a DNA test, you know, but, um, when you bring up privacy, when you bring up having that information out there something I didn't think about, but I'm also not a lawyer, and that, you know, that is a consideration. But you know, I think the other root of that issue is, friends. This is a public service announcement. Friend is not judgmental. I'm just saying, Stop smashing people who are marginal. If you got to worry about a DNA test, I love you, though. But I said what? I said, like, if you can't trust your partner to that level, then, um, we need to make some other life choices. Then there's that. So, you know, yes, I think this a good place to take a break. We'll be back. Y'all

56:42  
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57:03  
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57:22  
All right, y'all, this has been an amazing episode with my girl judge, Erica Tyndall, so, y'all, she's a judge, so she ain't on social media. You know, normally I'll be like, keep up with her on social she she ain't got no socials for you to keep up with her. That's it. So you can continue to follow us at bail yourself out pod, wherever you are, and you know what? She was very kind. She said, if you have questions or whatever, based on anything we talked about in this pod, you can email us. So our email address is info at bail yourself out pod.com, alright. You want to say goodbye to the people, our friends in the lounge. Bye,

58:00  
people. Thanks for joining us today. I hope you find ways to engage with the court system and hold us accountable. You see, see something, say something. But thanks for joining us. This was great. Kandice, I always love talking to you,

58:14  
and I love talking to you friends and to everybody who's listening in the lounge. Thank you for listening. I love you, and I mean it peace. Wasn't that a great interview? Hold up before you grab your hat and head out, make sure you make your way to facebook and join the bail yourself out pod Facebook group. That's where you'll find your virtual co workers, luxuriating and chatting. Thank you so much for listening, and if you enjoy the show. Please leave a review. That's how we keep the lights on. If you're on social media, follow your girl, Kandice, with a K Whitaker. And you know what I'd love to hear from you with that I love you, and I mean it, because there are people who hate in the world for no reason. I choose to love for no reason. I believe that the great Martin Luther King Jr said hate is too great a burden to bear, so I choose to love peace y'all you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai