In case after case, a Philly judge’s behavior and decisions came under fire

The mother was in crisis, threatening to kill her young daughter and herself.

She told a Philadelphia Department of Human Services worker that her children did not deserve to be on this planet — then she lunged at her visitor, who had to flee the woman’s home. Police arrived to find the woman hallucinating, telling them she couldn’t see because her eyes were coming out of her head.

It was only the latest sign of danger. She had been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital after choking one of her family members, and she had a history of punching and kicking her son, who went to live with his father. Under a temporary emergency court order, DHS removed the girl from her mother’s care and recommended she go to live with her father.

But the final say fell to Philadelphia Family Court Judge Daine A. Grey Jr. — who, without hearing evidence that the mother’s mental health issues were under control, abruptly ordered the 4-year-old girl returned to her care.

That May 2024 decision was one of 16 rulings Grey made that Pennsylvania’s Superior Court would later overturn, according to an Inquirer examination of his decade on the bench.

Now, as Grey seeks another 10-year term in the Nov. 4 judicial elections, his record has drawn scrutiny from the legal community and sharp criticism from the higher court for his handling of a position that brings with it enormous power over families’ lives.

The Superior Court rulings reversing or vacating Grey’s decisions — some of which took issue with his courtroom conduct and flawed decision-making that left kids in unsafe situations — account for about one in six cases decided on appeal from his courtroom. That’s the highest rate of any judge currently handling a similar docket in Philadelphia’s Family Court.

In one reversal, the Superior Court judges wrote they were “appalled” that Grey returned a vulnerable infant to a mother accused of severe neglect. Grey, “without any basis in law, arbitrarily and capriciously excluded relevant evidence, interrupted DHS’s witnesses’ testimony, unnecessarily [postponed] the proceedings, then refused to listen to further testimony,” the Superior Court wrote in that January 2025 opinion.

In two other cases, the higher court overturned Grey’s conclusions that rare genetic disorders might explain infants’ broken bones, ignoring the opinions of medical experts who attributed the injuries to child abuse.

The court also overruled Grey’s decision to return the girl to the mother who had been in a mental health crisis.

Grey, in an interview, said his decision in that case was rooted in the evidence provided to him by DHS, which was only about the father.

“There was nothing presented with regard to mom,” he said. “It seems as though the Superior Court had more information than I did.”

But the appeals court opinion said that the mother’s issues were detailed in DHS’s petition to Grey and that it was Grey’s responsibility to conduct a “comprehensive and searching review” of all safety concerns before making his decision.

Grey, a former criminal-defense lawyer, was first elected to the bench in 2015 with the Democratic Party endorsement and the recommendation of the Philadelphia Bar Association. Ahead of this year’s election, the organization has recommended that voters deny him a new 10-year term.

Grey’s first term has been spent hearing child-welfare cases in Family Court, an arrangement intended to avoid a conflict of interest because his wife was Philadelphia’s chief public defender when he took office.

Family Court cases tend to be complex and emotionally charged, with judges sometimes forced to choose among imperfect options while dealing with parents who, as one lawyer put it, “took every wrong turn to end up here.” And child-welfare proceedings are confidential, making it difficult for the public to analyze the crucial role judges play in making what can be life-changing decisions for families.

To better evaluate Grey’s record, The Inquirer reviewed a decade of Superior Court decisions and interviewed nearly 20 lawyers, child-welfare caseworkers, and caregivers who have handled cases in his courtroom. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity because they said they wanted to avoid consequences for themselves or their clients.

The lawyers and caseworkers said Grey’s harsh language, unpredictable moods, and abrupt rulings make their work even harder in a courtroom served by Community Umbrella Agency (CUA) 5, the city’s worst-performing child-welfare agency, according to the most recent CUA scorecards.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia's CUA system is overburdened and understaffed

“He’s very erratic in the courtroom,” said Gabriel Li, secretary-treasurer of AFSCME Local 2187, the union representing DHS workers.

Li and others interviewed described Grey’s courtroom as “intense,” “traumatic,” and “almost abusive,” and said he had berated social workers, lawyers, and families. Several mentioned that Grey frequently cuts off testimony with his own objections from the bench and has reduced parents and professionals alike to tears.

Grey acknowledged that he has made errors in a few cases but said the reversals are a fraction of the hundreds of cases he’s decided. In roughly 80 appeals, the Superior Court affirmed his rulings and found his decisions evidence-based, legally sound, thorough, and well-reasoned.

“The cases in between matter,” he said. “You can’t get a real flavor of what’s going on if you don’t know what’s happening in between.”

Three lawyers who spoke with The Inquirer defended Grey, calling him the rare Family Court judge who is considered “parent friendly” — a welcome change in a city that has removed children from their homes at one of the highest rates in the nation.

“Parent friendly means that for Black men he is welcoming. He applauds their capabilities,” said attorney Karen Deanna Williams, who practices in Family Court. “Will he put both feet in your ass? Sure. Do you deserve it, more likely than not? Yup.”

Williams credited Grey for his independence, regardless of what the Superior Court might say.

“He still does what he thinks is right,” she said. “He’s not going to be cowed by being overturned.”

Still, the only Family Court judge with a higher rate of cases overturned in the last decade is Lyris Younge, who earned notoriety in 2018 when parents protested and shared harrowing accounts of being handcuffed, shut out of court, or denied the opportunity to be heard. The state judicial oversight body, the Court of Judicial Discipline, sanctioned Younge in July 2021 for misusing her authority — suspending her for six months, putting her on long-term probation, and barring her from Family Court for the duration of her term.

Younge, who now handles civil cases, is also on the ballot for reelection this November and is not recommended by the Philadelphia bar.

Younge did not respond to requests for comment.

Despite the bar’s lack of support, both Grey and Younge are likely to be retained. Judicial retention elections are decided by a yes-or-no vote for each candidate, rather than a head-to-head competition. It’s a format designed to shield the office from partisan political interference, but it almost guarantees that an incumbent — even one with a troubled record — will prevail.

Only one Philadelphia judge has lost retention since that system was first put in place in 1969, and that came amid an effort to remove him over his misconduct in a high-profile case.

Cathleen Palm, of the advocacy organization Center for Children’s Justice, said the public rarely considers the power judges wield in deciding whether families are kept apart, or whether children have been abused.

“We don’t really understand, nor do we get to see or evaluate the degree to which decisions are made by judges that, to a reasonable person, would seem unreasonable,” she said. “A retention election is the closest thing we have to a checkup on a judge, and it’s not a very good checkup.”

Of the thousands of cases that pass through Philadelphia’s Family Court, the roughly 1,300 child dependency cases filed each year are reliably among the most difficult.

Grey is one of about 10 judges assigned to deal with the city’s most vulnerable children, weighing allegations of abuse or neglect and making potentially life-or-death custody decisions. A single case can involve numerous parties with competing interests and perspectives — including parents, child advocates, court-appointed legal guardians, DHS, and the city’s contracted CUA caseworkers.

It’s a fraught dynamic that can test the patience of even a seasoned judge. But those who spoke with The Inquirer described a particularly dire situation arising from the potent combination of Grey’s temperament and the city’s most-understaffed child-welfare contractor, CUA 5, which is assigned to Grey’s courtroom

Liberty Bruce, a former child-welfare caseworker for CUA 5, said she dreaded testifying in Grey’s courtroom, where she had seen even supervisors break down in tears. She said she was so alarmed by what she saw — in court, in CUA 5, and in Philadelphia’s child-welfare system as a whole — that she quit.

“It was so mismanaged, there was really no way to do my job,” Bruce said.

A CUA 5 caseworker, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak with the media, said mornings in Grey’s courtroom start with whispered updates about the judge’s mood. He described “walking on eggshells” and recounted one instance when he called in sick because he failed to secure a referral for a child and was overwhelmed with anxiety about facing the judge’s ire.

“I was still learning and it was a very difficult case,” he said. “I was so petrified he was going to make it a big deal that I literally felt sick.”

He said some coworkers have gone to work for other agencies, where they have half as many clients and don’t have to appear in Grey’s courtroom.

Kyanna Hunter, regional CUA director for the nonprofit Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha, which runs CUA 5, declined requests for comment.

Grey said he doesn’t raise his voice often, but sometimes an emotional response is warranted.

“I’ve yelled at social workers for not doing their job and not knowing what’s going on. I’ve yelled at attorneys for not knowing what’s going on or being prepared or making a recommendation for their client, when it’s clear that something has to be done. I’ve yelled at parents for not doing what they need to do to properly parent,” he said. “I’ve tried to connect with people.”

He said he has a positive relationship with most CUA workers and could recall only one instance when a lawyer cried in his courtroom.

“I hear horrible cases,” he said. “I’ve cried with my parents, and I’ve cried with my kids. I’ve cried with my social workers. I have learned that I had to open myself up emotionally in order to connect with people.”

Grey said the criticism that he interrupts testimony, cuts off cross-examination, and makes decisions before considering all the facts is misplaced.

“I had no desire to be an activist judge when I was first elected, but coming to dependency court, I realized that unlike criminal court sometimes the judge has to be more involved to get to the bottom of the story,” he said. “Sometimes it helps to be an activist in a case so you’ll know what’s going on — or you’ll miss it.”

In at least one case, Grey acknowledged in an opinion that he had erred and violated a prospective adoptive parent’s rights when he imposed a stay-away order barring contact with the child without holding a hearing.

Bruce said those snap decisions could lead to a case being closed without addressing the issues that caused DHS to intervene in the first place.

One case that particularly troubled her involved a 7-month-old baby found to have three broken bones in different stages of healing. Bruce and a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia pediatrician testified the injuries likely indicated abuse. Grey, however, rejected the CHOP doctor as an expert in child abuse medicine and ruled that the injuries could be the result of co-sleeping or an undiagnosed genetic bone-fragility condition.

“That decision was baffling,” Bruce said. “It was unheard of. I had never seen anything like that before.”

The Superior Court later overturned Grey’s decision, finding his conclusions “unreasonable.”

It was the second case in two years in which the higher court found that Grey improperly credited a theory suggesting an infant’s broken bones were due to an undiagnosed genetic condition — a theory put forward by one expert but decried by CHOP doctors as outlandish — while discounting evidence the higher court said “overwhelmingly points to abuse.”

Grey said he followed the evidence and expert testimony in each case.

Edelina Schuman, a court-appointed lawyer assigned to appear exclusively before Grey and one other Family Court judge, described an array of concerns about her time in Grey’s courtroom — from the judge’s mercurial moods to decisions she said caused serious harm to her clients.

She said that even when his rulings have appeared parent friendly — such as limiting the evidence he would consider — they have led to precedent-setting Superior Court decisions that ultimately worked against families.

“Because of the rulings he made,” she said, “that made it even worse law for parents because it said everything under the sun is relevant for an adjudication. That wasn’t the standard before.”

Schuman has been openly at odds with Grey since a 2023 hearing in which the judge tried to jail her client and threatened to hold Schuman in contempt and derail her career.

Grey had appointed Schuman to represent Aria Griffin, who had been serving as a caregiver for her nephew. Griffin clashed with a CUA 5 caseworker who removed the boy after alleging domestic violence and mental health issues in Griffin’s home.

Griffin said that, when the boy called home, she made him a promise: “I’m going to court. I’m going to fight for you.”

But outside Grey’s courtroom in late 2022, Griffin and the caseworker again argued, and the caseworker accused Griffin of charging at her and taking a swing, an allegation Griffin denied. Amid the fracas, the teen ran away.

Grey appeared to blame Griffin and the teen’s mother for the boy’s escape and sought to hold both in contempt. He first sentenced the mother to 30 days in jail and later held a hearing to determine Griffin’s fate.

Schuman asked Grey to recuse himself. “Your Honor has already shown a predisposition, based on the prior hearings, to fine my client and to incarcerate her, and that is not due process or justice,” Schuman said, according to the April 2023 hearing transcript.

Grey denied the request.

Schuman then argued that Grey was conflating Pennsylvania’s criminal and civil contempt laws and disregarding the due process guarantees in each. If he intended to pursue a criminal charge against her client, Schuman asked him to remove her from the case and appoint someone who specializes in criminal defense.

“Are you telling the Court you’re refusing to go forward?” Grey asked, according to the transcript. If so, he said, she would also be charged with contempt.

He warned that her decision could negatively affect her career.

“That’s [going] to have a different kind of implications on your ability to practice in this building. And I will make sure I do everything, if that’s what you’re doing,” Grey said.

Schuman said the transcript does not capture the extent of Grey’s anger. “He was screaming the entire time,” she said, adding that a court employee “came over to try to calm him down because she was afraid he would have a heart attack.”

Grey later appointed Griffin a new lawyer before sentencing her to seven consecutive weekends in jail. After the first weekend, Grey waived the rest of Griffin’s sentence. But she was too fearful to return to court to fight for her nephew, she said.

The Superior Court later ruled that Grey had “disregarded [Griffin’s] due process rights” in proceedings “at odds with well-settled law.”

The court, while critical of Griffin’s alleged conduct, said Grey’s conclusions were not justified.

“To the extent the trial court is attempting to suggest that the attempted assault was a ruse to allow [Griffin’s nephew] to escape,” the court added, “nothing in the record supports that belated hypothesis.”

The higher court also rebuked Grey for his treatment of Schuman, noting that she had been correct when she said Grey could not legally jail Griffin for contempt.

“When [Schuman] pointed out the same legal difficulties highlighted in this memorandum, the trial court threatened [her] with criminal contempt,” the court wrote.

Grey did file a contempt charge against Schuman but later withdrew it, court records show.

But she said he has followed through on his warning of other implications for her career.

“He has not assigned a single case to me” since then, Schuman said.

An Inquirer review of city financial records confirmed that her court compensation fell by more than 60% over the last year.

She still practices in Grey’s courtroom, but only when she receives cases from the court-administration’s rotation, she said.

Schuman said she feels it is important to speak out because the stakes in these cases are so high.

She cited a case in which she was appointed to represent two children, ages 7 and 9. Their mother was accused of punching her son and obstructing the DHS investigation by refusing to disclose her address and threatening her children that they could be harmed if they spoke with caseworkers.

When Grey heard the matter in 2024, he ruled that the 10-month-old abuse allegation was no longer relevant.

This year, the Superior Court reversed that decision and ordered a new hearing, where all relevant evidence of alleged abuse and neglect would be considered.

But by then, Schuman said, the children were “in the wind. The family was no longer able to be found by DHS.”

Staff writers Dylan Purcell and Chris A. Williams contributed to this article.