SALEM — Essex County Superior Court Judge Salim Tabit spoke to a Salem High School criminal justice class about his occasionally difficult, but invariably rewarding experiences serving as a judge during a visit Friday morning to their classroom.
Tabit was invited to Salem High teacher Lori Marenda’s criminal justice class as a part of Massachusetts’ Judicial Outreach Month, an annual initiative when judges engage with communities across the state about their work in the judicial branch and the importance of impartial and independent judiciaries to a functioning democracy.
“I love to reach out, especially to young people who might be thinking about a career in criminal justice or anything related to that,” Tabit said.
“You always need good people in every walk of life and career profession, but I think it’s especially important that people in varying communities have people who represent them who are familiar with those communities. The system comes to a grinding halt otherwise.”
Tabit, who was appointed by Gov. Charlie Baker in 2017, is a first-generation American whose two immigrant parents came to the U.S. in the early 1960s following their political exile from Cuba. It was that family history that initially motivated Tabit to take an interest in political science and the law.
“When you come from countries that are undemocratic and totalitarian, you become interested — at least I did — in the rule of law, our Constitution, and everything that goes along with that,” he said. “That interested me because I thought that, even though our system is not perfect by any means, it still gives an opportunity for citizens to decide cases and facts, and not the government or a single judge.
“We have jury cases in my court, and they don’t always get it right, but I’d rather take my chances with 12 people who understand their obligation to listen to the evidence and to render a verdict based just on that,” he said.
Asked what some of the hardest aspects of his job are, Tabit explained that sentencing people can be difficult both in civil and criminal cases due to the stakes that individuals have invested in their cases.
“I would say that the hardest cases are those in which people did something recklessly that caused an unintended consequence, such as someone speeding who didn’t see someone crossing the road and killed them,” he said. “Those are very hard because the people who commit those offenses are not necessarily bad people, they may have just made an error and did not intend the consequence. And that’s really hard, because you have to sentence people who may not have a record.”
In the past year, Tabit said he’s seen more vehicular homicide and vehicular manslaughter cases than any of his prior seven years in the courtroom.
The class also asked Tabit how he is able to keep personal bias out of his decision-making to deliver fair verdicts.
“I don’t think that you can rule based on empathy, and you certainly shouldn’t make decisions based on biases,” he said. “Unfortunately, we all have biases, and what you have to do is, as best you can, acknowledge to yourself that you might have an unconscious bias. You can ground yourself by just focusing on the facts and the laws, and then doing what the job requires. And if you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be doing the job.”
Students asked Tabit if he receives criticisms for his decisions, and how he deals with that pushback.
“Unfortunately, you’re always making decisions which typically will leave someone unhappy,” Tabit said. “So lawyers might be critical of your decision, and the public may be critical because they may not necessarily know what the law requires.
“I knew what I was getting into when I took this job. I knew I would have to make mistakes, I knew I’d be criticized, and I knew that I’d be overturned on appeal for mistakes I’ve made,” he said. “It comes with the territory.”
Tabit emphasized the importance of the next generation of lawyers, judges, and others involved with the law to come from a wide range of diverse communities, backgrounds, and thoughts.
“We don’t have a monarch or a theocratic government, we rely on the consent of the people that govern us, so we need to have faith in our institutions,” he said.
“So the more people that are involved, the more likely it is that people from all walks of life are going to find these institutions legitimate.”
Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202