How judges can show respect | Victoria Pratt
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 November 2017
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In halls of justice around the world, how can we ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect? A pioneering judge in New Jersey, Victoria Pratt shares her principles of "procedural justice" -- four simple, thoughtful steps that redefined the everyday business of her courtroom in Newark, changing lives along the way. "When the court behaves differently, naturally people respond differently," Pratt says. "We want people to enter our halls of justice ... and know that justice will be served there."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This TED Talk features Judge Victoria Pratt recorded live at TEDNYC 2017. |
| 0:08.7 | Judge, I want to tell you something. I want to tell you something. I've been watching you. |
| 0:14.6 | And you're not two-faced it. You treat everybody the same. That was said to me by a transgender prostitute, |
| 0:22.6 | who before I had gotten on the bench, had fired her public defender, |
| 0:26.6 | insulted the court officer, and yelled at the person sitting next to her, |
| 0:31.6 | I don't know what you're looking at. |
| 0:33.6 | I look better than the girl you're with. |
| 0:36.6 | She said this to me |
| 0:38.9 | after I said her male name |
| 0:41.2 | low enough so that it could be picked up |
| 0:43.2 | by the record. But I |
| 0:45.2 | said her female name loud enough |
| 0:47.1 | so that she could walk down the aisle |
| 0:48.9 | towards counsel's table with dignity. |
| 0:52.0 | This is procedural |
| 0:53.3 | justice, also known as procedural fairness, at its best. |
| 0:57.0 | You see, I am the daughter of an African-American garbage man, |
| 1:01.0 | who was born in Harlem and spent his summers in the segregated South. |
| 1:05.0 | I do that to make sure you're still paying attention. |
| 1:10.0 | I'm the daughter of a Dominican beautician who came to I do that to make sure you're still paying attention. |
| 1:14.4 | I'm the daughter of a Dominican beautician who came to this country for a better life for her unborn children. |
| 1:18.3 | My parents taught me you treat everyone you meet with dignity and respect |
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