Amid a significant uptick in violence and questions about the success of recent criminal justice reforms, city Democrats are prepared to select two judicial candidates who will be on the front lines.

While Rochester City Court, like town courts, handles misdemeanors, the courtroom is often the entry point for offenders whose lives can take very different directions thereafter.

"Where else is that job more important than in City Court, the gateway to the criminal justice system?" said lawyer Van Henri White, one of four candidates for two City Court judgeships in the Democratic primary.

Along with White, the candidates are: current City Court Judge LaToya Lee, who was appointed by Mayor Malik Evans to a vacancy this year; Assistant Public Defender Jacquelyn Grippe; and Assistant District Attorney Constance Patterson.

"If we can turn around behaviors in our lower court, we have the possibility of keeping them out of our higher courts," said Lee, who was appointed to City Court in February.

With the heavy Democratic majority in the city, the winners of the primary will be significant favorites in November.

Lee is a former public defender who, before the judicial appointment, was a law clerk to two City Court judges.

"As a law clerk, it gave me a front row seat as to what goes into the process," said Lee, 39. There, she said, she saw the daily inner workings of the courtroom and drafted legal opinions for judges to consider.

Lee admits that, when young, she was likely not a student who would be pegged for law school and the bench. A former resident of Fight Village and other low-income city communities — she said she witnessed drug deals and homicide victims — Lee said, "When I came out of high school, I was a knucklehead with bad grades."

But she buckled down, first in community college and then Hilbert College. She applied herself in ways she had not before, and the law became more appealing as a career. She pursued that route and in 2013 graduated from Western Michigan University's Thomas M. Cooley Law School.

In a career that took her from the nonprofit Empire Justice System to the Public Defender's Office then the role as judicial law clerk, Lee said she often could not imagine herself on the bench. Too often, she said, she suffered from "imposter syndrome," questioning whether she belonged.

Ultimately, she said, she realized with the encouragement and support of others, including judges, that she had the right character, temperament, and knowledge for a judgeship. "It was like, 'Wow, sometimes people see things in you that you don't see in yourself,' " she said.

Earlier this year she put her name before a committee formed by Evans for the judgeship, and was selected.

"I didn't know Mayor Evans from a can of paint," Lee said. "I didn't meet him until after that."

As a judge, Lee said, she finds she has more power to try to redirect people than in her past roles. While a defense lawyer, she could, for instance, recommend that a defendant choose treatment over community service, but in the end went with the wishes of the client, she said.

Now, when substance abuse or mental health treatment is needed as part of a sentence, she can make sure it is used, Lee said. 

"I'm not putting the easy options on the table," Lee said. "I want to make sure treatment is the priority."

For more information, visit keepjudgelee.com.

White, 60, has sought the City Court and County Court bench before, but this time, he said, he finds he is having different conversations with city residents.

White, the former head of the city school board, said in the past he was often confronted with questions about the City School District — more so than questions about what he would do as a judge if elected. Similarly, he said, he would often be asked about schools on radio segments he did on WDKX about legal issues.

"Slowly but steadily the conversation on DKX turned exclusively to school board stuff," said White. Now, he said, he is getting more questions about crime while campaigning in the city.

"That's an uncomfortable subject I'm comfortable talking about," said White, who was chosen in 1994 by then-mayor Bill Johnson as the administration's anti-violence czar. Over the next few years, the city saw a decrease in violence after what then were record homicide numbers.

Some programs White helped initiate — Pathways to Peace and Rochester Teen Court, a diversion program —still exist.

Before joining Johnson's administration, White had been a prosecutor in the DA's Office. He has since worked as a defense lawyer and has taken on civil rights cases, including allegations of police abuse.

"It’s a 30-year career where I have confronted literally every issue one could be challenged with in court, not only as a defense attorney but as a prosecutor and as a civil rights attorney," White said.

If elected, White would be the only Black man on the City Court bench. Asked if that fact mattered, White said he thinks City Court defendants — many who are young Black men — benefit by seeing Black men in leadership roles.

A graduate of the State University at Albany, White received his law degree from Georgetown University while working at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington D.C. 

White also sees treatment as a crucial option for City Court judges, and said he thinks even more could be done. He said he would propose that the lobby of City Court be occasionally used for job fairs, college and education fairs, and blood pressure and health screening. Those services could be there for men and women leaving the court, he said.

"All that is reflective of that sometimes what's in the law books will not be enough to address the significant problems that we have and we have to be creative," White said.

For more information, visit vanwhiteforrcc.com.

A prosecutor in the District Attorney Office's major felonies bureau, Patterson said the trends she is seeing with increasing crime are a key impetus for her decision to seek the judgeship.

"What really pushed me to run for City Court judge were seeing a lot of young adults coming into the criminal justice system right now," Patterson said. "City Court has a huge impact on that — trying to put people on the right path to success."

Having joined the DA's office in 2017, Patterson, 31, has appeared in courts of all levels, from City Court and town court to the courts — County Court and State Supreme — that handle more serious and violent offenses. There are fewer options other than prison for judges in felony-level courts, she said.

"City Court judges, I think, have an obligation and a responsibility to our community to step in and try to help" with individuals convicted of crimes, she said.

Too often, she said, she sees defendants in felony-level courts whom she saw earlier in City Court.

"We need to answer, 'How did we get here and what could have been done back then,'" Patterson said.

A graduate of Clemson University and Emerson University School of Law, Patterson interned at the Georgia Innocence Project, which investigated possible wrongful convictions, and the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office.

Before joining the DA's Office, she was a visiting fellow at the National Association of Attorney’s General, where she developed education materials for state attorneys general on issues including civil rights and public contracting.

Patterson, too, said she sees treatment as a vital part of City Court, a place, she said, where defendants can "be given a second chance." There are already services linked with the court, but always the possibility of more, Patterson said.

"We have to bring in our community resources and even faith-based resources," she said. "Mentorships, mothers, fathers — we have to get people connected with those services and resources and then follow it through the pendency of their cases."

For more information, visit connie4judge.com.

A lawyer in the county Public Defender's Office since 2013, Grippe, 37, is now assigned to the office's violent felony bureau, where, as a senior public defender, she represents men and women accused of serious crimes, including homicides.

Before turning her career path toward law, her background was "very much that of an advocate, a community advocate, a grass-roots organizer," said Grippe, a graduate of Antioch College and Maxwell School of Syracuse University, where she received a Masters in International Relations.

Grippe, who also worked as a midwife, joined a nonprofit organization in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. There, working for the Common Ground nonprofit after she graduated from Antioch, she tried to ensure the rights of displaced residents were honored and that they could find ways to return home.

Often, Grippe said, she saw forces at work that did not respect the residents whose lives had been upended and devastated, including efforts to monetize the neighborhoods ravaged by the flood. Most of the individuals who suffered were people of color. 

"I think that that was that moment for me in New Orleans — really seeing the inequities that existed, seeing wat was happening to the criminal justice system down there, seeing people being forced out of their housing," she said.

"It was the belly of the beast — the systemic racism that existed."

Grippe had considered the law as a career, and what she saw post-Katrina helped solidify her plans. She graduated from the Syracuse University School of Law in 2012.

"I knew I wanted to be a public defender, and that was it," said Grippe.

Grippe said racial and ethnic diversity is crucial for judgeships and "there is a different kind of diversity also needed."

"We need more public defenders on the bench," she said. Public defenders are particularly attuned to the struggles and needs of poor people, Grippe said. 

While there are now several former public defenders as judges, but they are still a small minority, "that certainly doesn't cure us of the generations where this hasn't been true," she said.

Grippe said she has seen firsthand the power judges have to help individuals whose troubles have led to crimes. "You have this autonomy, your decision-making that is unique," she said.

For more information, visit votegrippe.com.

Contact Gary Craig at gcraig@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at gcraig1.