A leaked, secret survey reveals what Philly attorneys think about judges up for election

It’s a local tradition as predictable as slow-rolling through a South Philly stop sign or cursing Schuylkill Expressway traffic: Each election season, the Philadelphia Bar Association publishes its carefully considered opinion of the sitting judges up for reelection — then, the voters ignore it and send every incumbent back to the bench.

That’s because, since 1969, judicial retention elections have been yes-or-no votes for each judge rather than head-to-head competition. In that time, only one Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge has ever been denied another term — and he was already facing removal for misconduct in a high-profile case. He “had to work damn hard to lose that election,” retired Common Pleas judge Benjamin Lerner said.

In September, the bar’s Commission on Judicial Selection and Retention issued its advice for the Nov. 4 election, recommending 13 out of the 18 judges seeking reelection to Philadelphia’s Common Pleas and Municipal Courts. Other than noting that three of the five “not recommended” judges had not participated in the review process, the bar — as is typically the case — released no further information about its decisions.

But this year, The Inquirer obtained the confidential survey responses the association collected from hundreds of lawyers. The attorneys — who practice in Philadelphia’s criminal, civil, and family courts — provided the bar with detailed feedback under the cover of anonymity about the sitting judges. They also answered yes-or-no questions about their confidence in each judge’s integrity, legal ability, temperament, diligence, attentiveness, and general qualification for the job.

The Inquirer followed up on the issues raised in the survey by interviewing lawyers and judges, watching weeks of court hearings, and reviewing a decade of Superior Court decisions.

The survey results and The Inquirer’s examination offer voters a rare window into how members of Philadelphia’s legal community view the performance of the judges up for retention next month. It has been at least 40 years since such inside information was made available to the public.

The survey responses show that, overall, lawyers have confidence in the integrity of the bench, a profound turnaround from an era of chronic judicial corruption scandals that continued well into this century.

The judges earning the bar association’s recommendation include several on Common Pleas Court with near-unanimous support: Family Court Judges Walter Olszewski, Ourania Papademetriou, and Christopher Mallios; and Judge Ann Butchart, who handles civil cases.

Olszewski is a “wonderful, caring, intelligent jurist,” one lawyer wrote. “A true public servant.”

The majority of the judges received the bar’s recommendation despite feedback that was mixed, though generally positive.

The most polarizing was Judge Tracy Brandeis-Roman, who has faced blistering appeals from the district attorney’s office accusing her of a pro-defendant bias. Two-thirds of lawyers surveyed said Brandeis-Roman is qualified, and some referred to her as a “fair and compassionate” jurist. But others called her biased and “ill-informed on the law.”

Brandeis-Roman declined to comment.

The judges who received the harshest criticism — and whom the bar ultimately declined to recommend — were faulted for their demeanor, disciplinary histories, or disregard for legal procedures.

“She was cruel and condescending to my client,” a lawyer wrote of Common Pleas Court Judge Lyris F. Younge, who faced parent protests in 2018 and was later sanctioned by the state Court of Judicial Discipline.

“Incapable, even after all of the years of being on the bench, of making an appropriate decision expeditiously,” another said of Common Pleas Court Judge Frank Palumbo.

Younge and Palumbo did not respond to requests for comment.

Marc Zucker, who chairs the bar’s Commission on Judicial Selection and Retention, said the anonymous survey has no bearing on the final recommendations. Instead, he described it as a jumping-off point for an extensive process in which more than 100 volunteer investigators interview candidates, other judges, and lawyers. They also scrutinize judges’ written opinions, social media posts, and financial disclosures.

“We don’t take any criticism at face value,” Zucker said. “We try and look behind it, and hear multiple voices addressing each of those matters.”

That information is kept private, he said, to encourage candor.

The bar’s work does seem to have an influence on voters in competitive primaries. In May, only candidates it recommended won primaries for Common Pleas Court judge.

Retention elections can be confusing for voters and are low-profile by design because sitting judges are limited in how they can campaign, said Lauren Cristella, executive director of the good-government group Committee of Seventy and a Judicial Commission member.

But the stakes are high. Local judges “make decisions that have a huge impact on our communities,” Cristella said. “Everyone knows someone who’s had a custody hearing, or had to appear in traffic court. People have all kinds of reasons to be before a judge.”

Here is what voters should know about some of the more notable judges up for retention on Nov. 4:

When Palumbo first ran for judge in 1999, he was best known as the son of a famous Philly power broker and nightclub owner. The bar association declined to recommend him, but Palumbo drew the top ballot position and cruised to victory. Since then, he has been reelected twice without the bar’s support.

This year, survey participants complained that Palumbo is erratic and indecisive. One lawyer wrote that getting through a daily list of cases “is an immense struggle for him.” Another claimed he “purposefully blows up negotiated pleas in his room so he does not have to take them.”

The Superior Court has overturned about one-quarter of cases it decided on appeal from Palumbo’s courtroom over the last decade, well above the statewide average of 13%.

Most days, Palumbo is assigned a modest docket that consists of probation violations.

A reporter sat in Palumbo’s courtroom on five occasions in August and September. By the time he arrived around 10:30 a.m., most matters had already been resolved by agreement.

One day, the prosecutor and the public defender informed Palumbo that, in his absence, they had agreed on the outcome of every single case: In minutes, Palumbo’s work on the bench was done.

But when the lawyers in the matters before him did not reach a complete agreement, as was the case on Aug. 27, Palumbo launched into circuitous legal questioning that stymied what might have been a routine proceeding.

On that day, Palumbo took the bench at 10:40 a.m. and asked, “Is everything worked out?”

The lawyers told him there was just one outstanding matter: A man on probation had agreed to plead guilty in a gun case, and they wanted Palumbo to order a presentence investigation and schedule a sentencing for a future date. Instead, Palumbo questioned why the case was in his courtroom, offered to transfer it to another judge, and then aborted the proceeding, saying he could not accept the plea without the man’s probation file in hand.

After the prosecutor complained, Palumbo offered, twice more, to transfer the case elsewhere. “I can just move it to the trial room,” he said.

Generally speaking, lawyers on both sides find it difficult to navigate judges who unilaterally delay or derail proceedings, said Dana Bazelon, a former Philadelphia defense lawyer and policy director for the district attorney’s office, who is now a fellow at the Quattrone Center of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

“There are judges who really struggle to make decisions who are currently sitting — and that is as basic a tenet of the job as there is,” she said. “You can’t really do the job if you can’t make decisions.”

After a jury returned a guilty verdict against Stephen Jones in a child sexual assault case this May, the victim’s family felt a moment’s relief. Then Brandeis-Roman handed down her sentence.

Rather than the lengthy prison term the prosecutor sought, the judge released the ailing, 80-year-old defendant on short-term house arrest and probation.

The victim’s family was furious.

The outcome was not unusual for Brandeis-Roman. Philadelphia’s district attorney’s office has appealed more than two dozen of her rulings, arguing that her sentences are too lenient and that her decisions have a pro-defendant bias. It’s a notable trend given that the office, under D.A. Larry Krasner, is considered one of the most progressive in the country.

The Superior Court has so far decided 17 of those cases appealed by prosecutors. Sixteen of them were overturned, including a guilty jury verdict Brandeis-Roman had tossed out despite what the Superior Court called “uncontradicted and overwhelming” video evidence tying the defendant to a shooting.

Krasner’s office is appealing another Brandeis-Roman decision to vacate a jury’s guilty verdict in a sexual assault trial.

At what was supposed to be the sentencing hearing for that case, the judge instead threw out the verdict, saying that the evidence did not support the jury’s finding and that the defendant might not have known the victim was incapacitated. The prosecutor’s appeal argued that Brandeis-Roman usurped the role of the jury, took a “thoroughly slanted view,” and disregarded testimony that the woman had been so drunk that her friends had to clean up her vomit and put her to bed.

Marian Braccia, a Temple University law professor and former Philadelphia prosecutor, said it is rare to see a judge overrule a jury in that manner and requires a finding that no reasonable jury could have reached that verdict.

For that to happen repeatedly, she said, “really undermines the reliability of the whole system.”

The lawyers responding to the bar’s survey who praised Brandeis-Roman cited her diligence, compassion, and unyielding commitment to justice.

“Constantly bullied by the [district attorney’s office] and yet still has the self-respect and respect for fairness to be kind and stand up to them. Holds everyone to the same standard,” one lawyer wrote.

Setting aside the prosecution’s appeals, the appellate court has affirmed more than 90% of her rulings.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, continue to file motions urging Brandeis-Roman to reconsider what they say are light sentences.

In one September case, she sentenced Eladio Vega — a 33-year-old man convicted of beating a pregnant woman, causing her to miscarry and breaking her jaw — to a brief jail term, followed by probation and drug treatment.

The prosecutor had requested five to 10 years in prison for Vega, given previous convictions for domestic incidents that included breaking his mother’s wrist. But Brandeis-Roman, noting that Vega had survived child abuse and mental illness, said state prison “would absolutely be adding to the trauma.”

She acknowledged that her decision went against state guidelines: “On paper,” she said, giving him a lighter sentence “doesn’t make sense.”

In 2018, parents took to the streets calling for action against Younge.

Then a relatively new Family Court judge hearing child-welfare cases, Younge had come to the bench with deep expertise in child welfare, having worked as a lawyer for the City of Philadelphia and an executive in the Philadelphia Department of Human Services.

But, among other complaints, the protesting parents said Younge had shut them out of proceedings. One mother who became ill during a hearing stepped out of the room, and Younge would not allow her to return, terminating her parental rights in her absence.

The Superior Court reversed a spate of the judge’s decisions, finding Younge abused her discretion in throwing a grandmother in jail and handcuffing a mother while her kids were removed.

One appellate decision cited “example after example of overreaching, failing to be fair and impartial, evidence of a fixed presumptive idea of what took place, and a failure to provide due process to the two parents involved. … The punishment effectuated by [Younge] was, at best, neglectful and, at worst, designed to affect the bond between Parents and [child] so that termination would be the natural outcome of the proceedings.”

The Court of Judicial Discipline in 2021 suspended Younge for six months, placing her on judicial probation and banning her from Family Court for the duration of her term.

Instead of child-welfare matters, Younge is now hearing civil cases. Over her tenure, the Superior Court has overturned about 27% of the cases appealed from her courtroom, double the statewide average.

Younge did not participate in the bar’s process or respond to requests for comment from The Inquirer.

In the survey, most lawyers brought up concerns with her record in Family Court. Those who had been in her civil courtroom gave mixed feedback.

“Those patterns and practices are still present in her civil courtrooms,” one lawyer wrote. “No party, on either side, gets a fair trial.”

Presiding mostly over post-conviction reviews in criminal court, DiClaudio inherited a docket that included cases pending for a decade or longer, and he said he prided himself on his hard work and efficiency in clearing that backlog. He has noted that his record includes overturning roughly 50 homicide convictions.

Lawyers surveyed about DiClaudio were divided, with many criticizing his courtroom demeanor even as they said he “knows the law and gets to the right conclusions.” The Superior Court has overturned his rulings in only about 7% of cases.

But DiClaudio’s decade on the bench has been marked by controversy, including three cases the Judicial Conduct Board brought against him.

In the first case, from 2019, the board said DiClaudio ignored court orders related to a lawsuit over unpaid membership dues he owed to a sports club. DiClaudio was given a two-week suspension and placed on judicial probation until 2026.

This year, the board argued that DiClaudio had improperly used his office to promote his wife’s cheesesteak shop and “traded on and abused the prestige of his office for the personal and economic benefit of himself and others.”

While a final decision on that case was pending, fellow Common Pleas Court Judge Zachary Shaffer alleged that DiClaudio tried to influence his sentencing decision in a gun case by showing Shaffer a piece of paper with the name of a defendant and saying, “I’ve heard you might do the right thing anyway.”

Court supervisors placed DiClaudio on administrative leave, and the Judicial Conduct Board pushed for his suspension without pay on the grounds that his continued employment as a judge would “erode public confidence in the judiciary.”

DiClaudio stipulated to various missteps in the 2019 case related to the club debt, but he has denied any wrongdoing in the two pending cases. DiClaudio denied trying to influence Shaffer, and his lawyer insisted that he had not sought to sway the judge but had happened to mention the defendant in passing when Shaffer stopped by his chambers to buy a T-shirt from the cheesesteak shop.

Grey, a Family Court judge overseeing child-welfare cases, has drawn harsh criticism from the lawyers participating in the bar’s survey and from Superior Court judges reviewing his decisions.

A former criminal-defense lawyer, Grey was recommended by the bar when he first ran for judge in 2015.

Some survey respondents praised him for his commitment to families. But lawyers also raised concerns about his temperament, saying he yells at litigants and interrupts testimony.

“Judge Grey’s judicial performance is highly dependent on his mood, which varies widely from day to day,” one lawyer wrote. “He is also frequently aggressively impatient with attorneys, social workers and adult parties. Great with kids.”

An Inquirer review of Superior Court decisions found Grey had the highest reversal rate of any judge in Family Court’s juvenile division. In several opinions, appellate judges said Grey returned children home to dangerous situations — in one case going so far as to say they were “appalled” by Grey’s decision.

In an interview, Grey acknowledged some errors but said in most cases, his decisions were properly grounded in the available evidence and the law.

As for occasionally yelling, he said it’s warranted.

“I’ve yelled at attorneys for not knowing what’s going on or being prepared,” he said.

Grey said that allowing himself to become emotionally involved is crucial to building connections, and that it is incumbent on him to get involved in asking questions and guiding testimony so that he has all the information he needs to decide cases.

Frazier-Lyde is the only Municipal Court candidate up for retention whom the bar declined to recommend.

It’s unlikely to affect her chances at the polls. In the last election cycle, she won by the largest margin of any Municipal Court judge.

The former champion boxer — and daughter of a Philly legend, Smokin’ Joe Frazier — is often responsible for reviewing defendants’ bail terms and handling preliminary hearings, including in domestic violence cases.

Frazier-Lyde, in an interview, said she is proud of her work on the bench and in the community, and she said she felt blindsided by the bar’s failure to recommend her. She noted the association’s magazine praised her in a feature in its spring 2025 issue as “kind, empathetic and outwardly focused.”

“I have public interest and public welfare at the forefront of how I look at everything,” Frazier-Lyde said, adding that she had heard no complaints from the legal community or her supervisors, who in recent months have asked her to handle a double caseload.

But lawyers who responded to the survey said Frazier-Lyde often ignores procedural rules, such as when she questions witnesses after both sides have rested.

She disagreed with that assessment. “I follow the law. I know the law,” she said.

Survey respondents also questioned her handling of domestic violence cases, reporting that she had ordered victims and their alleged abusers into couples counseling. Frazier-Lyde said she does not order anyone into counseling but does seek expert evaluations to determine whether counseling is warranted.

She also frequently imposes mutual stay-away orders on both defendants and complainants — even extending that to unspecified “friends, family, and associates” on both sides, advising that any violation could result in criminal charges.

Frazier-Lyde said it’s her job to do all she can to keep everyone safe before trial, and such orders help achieve that.

Bazelon, the Penn Law fellow, said it can become impossible to prosecute domestic violence cases if judges see their role as mediating an interpersonal conflict rather than assessing the evidence in an alleged crime.

“Many people see domestic violence as not real crime,” she said. “But when judges bring that to the bench, it means they’re not taking victims seriously enough, and it has the potential to put people in danger.

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

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the terms of Eladio Vega’s sentence.