Local judicial positions
Constituents of Tompkins County and the City of Ithaca will be voting on key positions in the judicial system Nov. 5. The Tompkins County court judge, the Ithaca City court judge and the Tompkins County district attorney are the judicial seats on the ballot for 2024.
Tompkins County Court judge
Maura Kennedy-Smith will be running unopposed within the Democratic and Working Families Party on the Tompkins County ballot. If elected, Kennedy-Smith will be the only female judge to serve the court in over 30 years and will serve a 10-year term. She would serve alongside two other judges, Joseph Cassidy and Scott A. Miller, and will be replacing Judge John Rowley, who retired in March after serving on the county bench since 2001.
Kennedy-Smith said she is committed to community welfare and social justice within the county court system. Kennedy-Smith said that when she began practicing law, she dealt with cases that involved people facing poverty, which she said has given her valuable insight.
“I think working with that population of clients really gave me an understanding of the struggles that a lot of the people we have in court face,” Kennedy-Smith said. “Transportation is not easy to come by [in rural areas] if you don’t have any money. So I try to bring that background to my decision-making on the bench.”
Kennedy-Smith has a background as a public interest lawyer and has served as the town justice for five years in the Town of Lansing and has 10 years of experience as principal court attorney in the Tompkins County Court.
Kennedy-Smith said she is focused on compassion toward the people whose cases she will be hearing. She said while looking at a case, she not only considers the legal implications, but the individual behind the case as well.
“You also have to consider the community, like, ‘Does that person have a family? Are they the only source of support for a family?’” Kennedy-Smith said. “Obviously, you have to weigh the consequences of whatever actions they took that led to a conviction. But you have to weigh those other things too.”
Ithaca City Court judge
Incumbent Rick Wallace is running unopposed as the Ithaca City Court judge and is running on both the Democratic ticket as well as the Working Families ticket. Wallace did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Wallace has been on the bench as the Ithaca City Court judge since 2015, which has a 10-year term limit. Prior to his election, he served as a partner at the Ithaca law firm Guttman and Wallace. He has also served as a volunteer board member of Tompkins County’s Offender Aid Restoration and was a former president of the Tompkins County Bar Association.
After graduating with a law degree from McGill Law School in Quebec, Wallace moved back to Ithaca where he was born and raised.
During his last campaign in 2014, Wallace ran on the premises of treatment court and developed a plan to reinvigorate the public service in the City of Ithaca. Treatment court allows citizens to seek treatment for substance abuse with court supervision rather than jail time.
“We emphasize addiction as a medical issue, not a moral shortcoming,” Wallace said in the article. “I constantly remind participants that they are not bad people trying to become good; they are unwell people trying to get better.”
Wallace said in a Tompkins Weekly opinion article that up until 2024, he exclusively presided over misdemeanor cases handled by the Ithaca Community Treatment Court. Starting this year he began to preside over a combined court that now includes ICTC and the county’s felony drug treatment court.
“I was a believer in treatment courts as a lawyer, when I saw them work wonders for my clients,” Wallace said in the article. “I never understood the nuances of how they worked until I had the privilege of presiding over one. The process is quite remarkable.”
Tompkins County district attorney
Incumbent Matthew Van Houten, Tompkins County district attorney, is running unopposed for another four–year term on the premises of restorative justice. Van Houten has been the county DA since 2016 and if reelected, this will be his third term.
The responsibilities of a DA include prosecuting all violations of New York state law within the county. There is a wide range of violations a DA handles like felonies, misdemeanors and traffic violations.
The DA Office’s mission statement is to uphold inclusivity in the courtroom and maintain the county’s values of integrity, accountability, community and respect.
Van Houten said he believes the county’s justice system is a model for the country because of its holistic approach toward prosecuting and the county’s low jail population.
“Our jail population is one of the lowest in the country per capita because we take it very seriously when we are advocating for someone to go to jail,” Van Houten said. “We do that as a very last resort, because it’s never a solution. It doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t heal anyone. It’s just a last resort that sometimes is necessary but should not be used lightly.”
Van Houten said one of the ways he plans to achieve his goal of progressive and holistic prosecuting is by looking at the bigger picture.
“[My office is] thinking of new ways [to prosecute], not just accepting the system and the status quo as the right way to do things, trying to think outside the box of how to resolve a case with accountability and closure,” Van Houten said. “But also not imposing arbitrary standards on someone, giving people a chance to learn from their mistakes and to not be stigmatized for the rest of their lives by a criminal conviction.”