Judges and Judiciary
Jul. 25, 2002
Stickler for Details, From Fair Trials To Good Manners
SAN JOSE - Judge Erica Yew has found a cure for the jury duty blues. It's an incantation of sorts, a blend of the Sixth Amendment, a dash of U.S. history and a small dose of Supreme Court citations.
It's an incantation of sorts, a blend of the Sixth Amendment, a dash of U.S. history and a small dose of Supreme Court citations.
When prospective jurors gather in her courtroom, Yew reads an excerpt of the amendment concerning a defendant's rights to an impartial jury.
She reminds them that American colonists' demand for trials by jury was one of the reasons for their split with the British Empire.
She tells jurors about a Supreme Court decision, Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1879), that found that excluding black men from jury duty was unconstitutional.
And she adds a description of the high court's more recent decision in Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522 (1975), which overturned a Florida court's exclusion of women from jury duty on the theory that females were better suited to homemaking than to deciding facts at issue in trials.
"I tell them, not only is serving as a juror your duty - it's your right," Yew said.
A prosecutor who practices before Yew says the speech works.
"I still feel inspired by that speech, and I hear it every single time she gives it," said Santa Clara County deputy district attorney Laura Aizpuru-Sutton.
The speech is one of many special touches that Yew, Santa Clara County's first Asian-American female judge, has added to her courtroom since being appointed to handle misdemeanors last fall.
Other touches include a rare politesse. Yew unfailingly replies "you're welcome" to even the most cursory or gruff "thank you" from attorneys in her courtroom. She also feeds her staff and jurors coffee, doughnuts and candy.
Lawyers say Yew's courtroom is one of the most pleasant in the Santa Clara Superior Court. They say Yew, 42, whose background is in insurance defense and business litigation, has been a quick study in criminal law. But what truly distinguishes her from other judges, they say, is her attention to detail.
In People v. Lynch, CC120890, for example, a police officer stopped Barry Lynch for a routine traffic violation. The officer found a gun in Lynch's car but didn't write up the incident until days afterward.
The original report was misfiled, however, and when the officer wrote a second report from memory 30 days later, he cited Lynch for carrying a concealed and loaded weapon.
In a March trial, Yew presumed Aizpuru-Sutton and Lynch's lawyer, Donald Kilmer, had access to the same file she did, which contained both the officer's original report and the second copy.
Initially, Yew expected Kilmer to ask the officer to verify the facts in his second report, which contained both gun charges, and then demonstrate his client's innocence by asking the officer about his first report, which contained just one gun infraction.
"When the questioning didn't go a certain way, I thought '[Kilmer] may not know there's a second report,'" Yew recalled. "My intuition told me I should call the attorneys to the bench."
Upon further review, Yew learned the attorneys had only the second report. Confronted with the first report, the police officer realized he had made a mistake in the second report by adding the concealed weapon charge, and he apologized.
Yew dismissed the charge of transporting a concealed weapon. Because of the error, she also dropped the other count, transporting a loaded weapon.
"If she hadn't been astute enough to bring [the discrepancy] to everyone's attention, a miscarriage of justice might have happened," Aizpuru-Sutton said.
In People v. Moreno, CC114348, Jessie Otero Moreno was charged with vandalism after he allegedly broke two storefront windows in San Jose.
During trial in April, Yew noticed that Moreno showed disdain for a police officer testifying in his case. Yew made her observation known to Moreno's lawyer, Santa Clara County Deputy Public Defender Paul Chang.
Yew told Chang that Moreno should keep his emotions in check to avoid falling into disfavor with the jury.
"I don't know that every judge would have noticed," Chang said. "She's very sharp and on top of everything. Even though it's a misdemeanor trial she's taking it very seriously."
Chang said Yew has been tough on defendants who haven't shown up for pretrial court dates or interviews with the public defender's office, or with those who are late returning to court after lunch breaks.
"She notices," he said, adding that he tells his clients, "Don't forget to show up - she'll remember."
In Moreno's case, the jury hung. Chang told Moreno that a retrial would turn up new facts in the case and would be more difficult to win. Deciding he didn't want a retrial, Moreno pleaded guilty. Yew sentenced him to one year of court probation, a $235 fine and reimbursement to the store owner for the damaged windows.
In court, Chang said, Yew seems to be constantly, if subtly, scrutinizing the credibility of witness to steer a trial to the most equitable outcome.
"It's my job to make sure that the defendant gets a fair trial," Yew said. "If [the defendant] is engaging in activities that might prejudice the case, then I think that he and his attorney need to know. Most misdemeanor defendants aren't sophisticated criminals - they don't know that the jury is watching them constantly. They don't know that their conduct could be held against them."
Yew said her effort to ensure a fair trial is rooted in her own experience as a member of a minority group. About 25 percent of San Jose's population is Asian, and Yew said her appointment is an important step toward Santa Clara County's bench reflecting its demographics.
Sing Tao, the Bay Area's Chinese-language daily newspaper, apparently agreed with that sentiment when it cited Yew's appointment as one of the top 10 events of 2001.
Yew joked that she doubted whether she belonged on a list that included events of a higher magnitude. Nevertheless, she described later in an e-mail how it feels to have jurors and defendants treat her with the same respect routinely afforded her white, male counterparts.
"This is something, as a small, Asian-American woman, I have never experienced before joining the bench," she wrote.
"Since defendants and even jurors usually feel like outsiders to the legal system, I can really understand their perspective from a place that white, male members of the majority might not be able to get."
Yew's parents met in Hong Kong and then emigrated to the United States. Her father is a retired engineer and Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and her mother is a day care provider and does volunteer work.
Yew is divorced, has no children, and is involved in various community service programs. She is most proud of her work for Child Advocates, a national program through which adult volunteers become mentors and friends to children in foster care.
Yew said her commitment to Child Advocates has increased her understanding of children and informed how she handled her first jury trial in December, People v. Vargas, CC104607.
In that case, a jury found John Raymond Vargas, 72, guilty of three counts of annoying and molesting children at Washington and Almaden elementary schools in San Jose, where he worked as a teacher's aide.
Yew sentenced Vargas to 60 days in jail. She required him to register with the state as a sex offender, barred him from working in any environment where children are present and required him to submit to intensive probation, which differs from court probation in that Vargas must check in regularly with a probation officer.
Yew's sentence was "thoughtful and encompassing," Aizpuru-Sutton said. "Short of locking him up [permanently], it is the greatest protection she could give to these kids in the community."
Vargas' lawyer, Jamie Harmon, of Harmon & Associates in San Jose, served as a Santa Clara county deputy district attorney from 1986 to 1999. Harmon said Yew exercised tight control over the proceedings, giving her little leeway to make her arguments.
"She was very clear that it was not going to be my way, it was going to be her way," Harmon said. "There were going to be no mistakes because she was going to see to it that there were no mistakes."
Attorney Steve Defilippis, of San Jose's Picone & Defilippis, has appealed the conviction on Vargas' behalf, making it the first and, to date, only one of Yew's cases to be appealed.
Erica Robin Yew
Judge, Santa Clara Superior Court
Career Highlights:
Appointed to the superior court by Gov. Gray Davis, 2001; partner, McManus Faulkner & Morgan, 1999-2001; associate, 1985-93 and partner, 1993-99, Robinson and Wood; California State Bar Wiley W. Manuel Award for Pro Bono Legal Services, 1991; Santa Clara County Bar Association Pro Bono Attorney of the Year, 1990.
Law School: Hastings College of the Law, 1985
Age: 42
Recent cases handled by Yew and the lawyers involved:
• People v. Lynch, CC120890
Prosecution: Laura Aizpuru-Sutton, Santa Clara County deputy district attorney
Defense: Donald Kilmer, private practice
• People v. Sanchez, CC127537
Prosecution: Laura Aizpuru-Sutton, Santa Clara County deputy district attorney
Defense: Beth Kendall, Santa Clara County deputy public defender
• People v. Delgado, CC083048
Prosecution: Laura Aizpuru-Sutton, Santa Clara County deputy district attorney
Defense: Paul Chang, Santa Clara County deputy public defender
• People v. Moreno, CC114348
Prosecution: Laura Aizpuru-Sutton, Santa Clara County deputy district attorney
Defense: Paul Chang, Santa Clara County deputy public defender
• People v. Ponce, CC125402
Prosecution:Laura Aizpuru-Sutton, Santa Clara County deputy district attorney Defense: Benjamin Galloway, Santa Clara County deputy public defender
Joel Rosenblatt
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