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Phila. elects 10 Dems to bench - including 4 'not recommended'

Philadelphia voters elected 10 new judges Tuesday and reelected 18 more in yes-or-no retention votes, paying little attention to negative recommendations on four candidates from the Philadelphia Bar Association.

New Common Pleas Court judge Sierra Thomas Street and new Municipal Court judge Henry Lewandowski are both Democrats and both were rated as 'not recommended' by the Philadelphia Bar Association.
New Common Pleas Court judge Sierra Thomas Street and new Municipal Court judge Henry Lewandowski are both Democrats and both were rated as 'not recommended' by the Philadelphia Bar Association.Read more

Philadelphia voters elected 10 new judges Tuesday and reelected 18 more in yes-or-no retention votes, paying little attention to negative recommendations on four candidates from the Philadelphia Bar Association.

All of the new judges were running as Democrats, the key to electoral success amid Tuesday's light voting in a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by better than 6-1.

The city's new Common Pleas Court judges will be Anne Marie Coyle, Timika Lane, Joe Fernandes, Daniel D. McCaffery, Giovanni Campbell, Sierra Thomas Street, and J. Scott O'Keefe.

All but O'Keefe won Democratic nominations in May's primary. O'Keefe was added to the Democratic ballot by party leaders after a sitting judge declared over the summer that he would not seek retention.

The results spell at least a temporary end to the judicial career of Common Pleas Court Judge Kenneth J. Powell Jr., 65, who had won court appointments from Gov. Corbett as well as his Democratic predecessor, Ed Rendell, but failed in several attempts to win a Democratic judicial nomination.

Running as a Republican, Powell trailed far behind the nearest Democrat, Sierra Street, the former daughter-in-law of former Mayor John F. Street, in unofficial returns.

Street, 39, a Temple Law School graduate with experience in private practice, the public defender's office, and a nonprofit housing and social-service agency, was rated "not recommended" by a Bar Association panel. The screening panel does not disclose its reasoning when it makes such findings.

The rating may have cost her a few thousand votes, but did not begin to jeopardize her victory.

The new Municipal Court judges are Martin Coleman, Henry Lewandowski, and Fran Shields, all elected as Democrats without opposition, after no candidates sought Republican nominations.

Lewandowski, a lawyer for the city electricians union, had also been rated "not recommended" by the Bar Association, along with two Municipal Court judges, Jacquelyn Frazier Lyde and Joseph J. O'Neill, running for reelection to new six-year terms.

While Lyde and O'Neill ran slightly behind their colleagues, all of the judges seeking retention - 14 in Common Pleas Court, four in Municipal Court - won new terms by ratios as high as 3-1.

By a ratio of nearly 2-1, city voters also approved $94.7 million in bonds for new capital spending on street paving, park and recreation facilities, computer system upgrades, and police station renovations, among other projects.

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