♪ tonight on "tran01 newsroom." special judge ladoris cordell talks about her years on the bench and the insight she has gained with problems in our criminal justice system. plus, the omicron surge and its impact in local hospitals. another contentious recall election. the packers play the 49ers on sunday. we analyzed this week's stories with our panelists. >> many of us have played with legos, have you seen what these artists can do with the past two bricks? coming to you from kqed

headquarters in san francisco, this friday january 21st, 2022. hello and welcome to the show. i am priya david clemens and this is kqed newsroom. earlier this week, california logged its 7 million case of the coronavirus, adding 1 million cases in just one week. still, there are signs that the omicron surge is starting to descend from its peak as test positivity rates drop from a high of 23% last week, down to 20% this week. hospitals are still scrambling and death rates are still nearly double what they were a month ago in california. joining me now to talk about this is marin county public health officer, dr. matt willis. thank you for joining us. you said this week the case rate is declining steadily in marin county. tell us what you are seeing. >> we are seeing our cases speak really in the first week of january. our high single day was january 4th. we had almost 700 cases on that day. for context, that is about

seven times the highest number of cases we have seen and the delta search that happened in august. since then, we have seen steady declines in cases now for the past 10 days, fewer and fewer cases each day. we are about 280 cases now on average today. >> so, dr. willis, from what you are seeing, is this trend holding true across the state? >> there are some areas that are exceptions to this, overall, the state is seeing a decline in cases, consistent with what we are seeing in other parts of the world where omicron hits earlier, the uk, new york, boston, decreases in cases. that is what we are seeing in the state as a rule by and large me but there are some exceptions. even in moran, we have some cases where cases are continuing to increase. >> are those typically among unvaccinated communities or communities with a lower vaccination rate? >> that is right. we see a strong correlation both at the inner individual level and community level. places where vaccination rates

are lower are more hard it. we are seeing an continue increasing cases in those groups. more importantly, for those that end up in the hospital and those passing away, we are starting to see a slight uptick in our death rate as well. it is, unfortunately, among those people who are unvaccinated, or fully vaccinated, but have not gotten your booster yet, and have those factors or more severe outcomes, especially chronic age or more severe medical conditions. >> is this declining case rate indicate to you we could see a return to normal at some point soon, meaning life without masks and other restrictions? >> well yes, that is the hope, right. everything is driven by the case rates, the characteristics of the variant we are encountering right now. it seems that omicron is releasing its grasp jointly gently. right now, we are still seeing 280 new cases a day. this is, by no means, over. we are seeing improvement. it

is too early to let down our guard. if i have any concerns about sharing this as good news , is that people might misunderstand this as, the coast is clear and we can go back to normal now. we really need to stay vigilant for the next few weeks, at least that omicron is not the common cold. we are seeing people coming into the hospitals, especialy people not vaccinated. our infrastructure, hospitals, healthcare, schools are still under stress in the workforce. more importantly, we don't know the long-term consequences of omicron infection in terms of long covid are not yet well described. these are all important reasons why we need to continue to do things to prevent infections, at least for the next few weeks. >> what would it take for you to say, you are not worried anymore? >> i don't know i am ever going to be able to say that. it has been two years. this virus has demonstrated it mutates very quickly. new

variants, new characteristics, we have now had multiple waves. globally, we will expect there will be others, unfortunately. we have gone through alpha, delta, omicron, we will have new variants. i think most experts recognize that is likely . i think we will still need to remain vigilant, but i think we can remain confident we have the tools now. we have learned a lot about this virus. we have learned how to adapt. vaccines are an incredible effective tool for us. we know how to make the best use of them, especially in the bay area. we have a highly vaccinated community. >> thank you so much, marin county public health officer, dr. matt willis, we appreciate your time. >> you are welcome, thank you. we turn now to a california judge who shattered glass ceilings which she became the first african american email judge in northern california. judge ladoris cordell is

calling out america's criminal justice system for racial and ethnic bias, which study after study has also revealed. she says, the courts regularly punish people of color more severely than white people and she has plenty of ideas on how to fix injustices of the system. cordell, now retired, shares her insights in her recent book , "her owner, my life on the bench." she joins us now from palo alto. tell us what was it like being the first, and then one of very few black judges in the region. >> at the time i went on the bench, in the early 19 80s, i was the first black female judge in all of northern california. think about that, just 1982. today, there is this plethora of judges of color and women on these tv shows, the court shows. there are also many more. at the time that i came on, there were very few people that looks like me and very few women. the concern i had, and still

have, because we need to do more, is that representation on the bench is so important. and i mean a diversity of representation. when you have people from different backgrounds coming in, the decisions they make me i believe, are more informed and when we see people in our courtrooms that look like us, the people that are in the cornrows feel like they have a stake in the system, they can maybe even aspire to hold positions like this. diversity and representation is tremendously important in our legal system, as well as any other system in this country. >> your book title starts with what works. let's talk about that for a minute. what is the good stuff that you love in our justice system? >> we have the best legal system in the world because it is based upon these wonderful principles. the principles of, we are all created equal, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. everyone has a right to a speedy jury trial, a right

against self-incrimination, a right to due process. these principles were promulgated by property white males who did not contemplate, however, that these principles would apply to women, to poor people, and to people of color. the problem in the legal system has been with the implementation of these principles. what we have is an unequal, unjust, and unfair implementation. that is where the work comes in. >> so you think the basic tenets of our legal system work , but the implementation leads to the next element in your title, what is broken? let's talk about that and let's specifically talk about racism in the system and how you saw it over your years. >> anyone who doesn't believe that racism is not baked into the system can just first of all look at the numbers. we can look at the numbers of people who are incarcerated, prosecuted, and to be more

people of color, black and brown people. there are a lot of reasons for that. what i do is focus in the book on some of those reasons and propose in a chapter called "the fix" a way to deal with it. one example where racism is just blaringin our legal system is with peremptory challenges. peremptory challenges allow each side in a case to excuse potential jurors for any reason or no reason at all, as long as they have not done so because of a person's race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. each side in a case gets a defined number of challenges. the u.s. supreme court has said challenges are okay, but they can be racially motivated. however, thurgood marshall called peremptory challenge the greatest embarrassment in our criminal justice system. he said that because any decision from the u.s. supreme court called batson versus

kentucky, and i talk about it in the book, the court has said, with a peremptory challenge is questioned, the person who did the challenge has to give a race neutral explanation for removing the juror, but then it is up to the judge to determine if that explanation is plausible. more than 30 years after batson , trial judges continue to accept superficial, and in my view, outright ridiculous race neutral excuses, usually from prosecutors for their preemptory challenges. thurgood marshall, once again said, any prosecutor can easily assert facially neutral regions for striking a juror and trial courts are any good to second- guess those reasons. >> judge cordell, you talk in the book how racism used to be the elephant in the courtroom. could you give us an example of that from your own life, from what you have seen?

>> sure. so, when i was on the bench, and really, this has gone on until recently, nobody talks about it. indeed, i write about in the book when i was in a judges meeting and brought up the subject when we were deciding that we wanted to do a search to find someone to be a commissioner on the court and commissioners do the work of the court, but are appointed by judges. when i brought up the subject, let us make the search one where we reach out to people of color and really make sure we can have a more diverse bench, i was just dumped on. people got real upset. my fellow colleagues, not all of them, but a large number of, and said, the fact that you are bringing it up is just racist. no, not at all. that has all changed today. because of black lives matter movement, especially since the murder of george floyd, it is no longer the elephant in the courtroom. not only should we

talk about it, but judges, especially, have to do something about it. >> let's go to a national story. in november, a jury acquitted kyle rittenhouse, who shot two people during a riot in kenosha, wisconsin. generally, people seem to accept the situation is fair because it followed the laws of the state. do you agree the verdict was the right one? >> i have a real problem. it is not so much the verdict, again, there are certain laws in a state that are different from say the laws here in california, with regard to self- defense and arming one's self. what i have a problem with was the conduct of the judge. i have a chapter in my book called "better judges." had i written this book a little later, i would have included the judge in the kyle rittenhouse case in that chapter. his behavior, both nonverbal and verbal behavior, gave a message to the jurors that he sided with kyle rittenhouse, his rulings were such that he

was just angry and yelling at prosecutors and very kind to defense attorneys. that is just problematic. judges should never, ever do that. we should be the neutral ones being fair to both sides. i don't think that happened in the case. >> i think that brings us to this final section in your book title about how to change some of the problems in our system. for example, what can people do when they see judges behaving in ways that they think are not appropriate? >> so, in the chapter "the fix" i have 10 recommendations about how to make this legal system work that appeared in the answer to your question, priya, there is a recommendation about what we should do about judges , about the disciplining of judges and letting people know that they have the right to speak up and make complaints against judges. i describe the whole system. there are just a variety of ways in which we can change it and make the system better. one

of them, as i mentioned earlier about preemptory challenges, california is leading the country and getting it right. in september 2020, our governor signed a racial justice act that was proposed by assemblyman askari. that law is geared toward getting the racism out of our criminal legal system and really, specifically calls out judges and say, when you hear, for example, race neutral answers, given in challenges or peremptory challenges, it is on you, judges. don't just rubberstamp it. dig deep. if you need to hold special hearings to determine exactlywhat is the motivation for prosecutors getting rid of, for example, jurors of color. we are making some headway and california is leading the nation. >> you have several more ideas in the book. i recommend people pick it up if they want to hear those. for example, one problem we see is jurors are paid only $50 per

day after serving one court cases after the first day. in the interest of time, we only have another 30 seconds or so left. you also talk about the importance of public intervention, public outcry. could you just share with us an example recently about how you have seen that play out. >> the most recent one is the case of brittany spears. for 13 plus years, there is hearings about her conservative ship held in secret, the public did not know. once the public got access and we saw what was happening in the courtroom, everything flipped. the judge did a 180 and the conservatorship ended here nothing changed in that conservatorship for the judge to change the ruling, other than with transparency we are able to hold those that participate in these proceedings accountable. because of that, the change came in the conservatorship for britney spears. that is a glaring example of how our courts need to be transparent and open to the public. judge ladoris hazzard

cordell, thank you for speaking with us tonight. despite the good news that covid cases are declining, the impact of the pandemic continues to be felt as they were everywhere. governor gavin newsom and lawmakers are looking to increase work is covid vaccine mandates and even remove the personal belief exemption. joining us now to discuss this week's stories, our kqed politics and reporter guy maserati. hi, got. and kqed morning radio news anchor , brian watt. welcome, brian. >> hello. an so, guy, that thought with you. tell us how the legislator and government are responding to the ongoing pandemic and how it has come up in the state assembly race. >> largely to this point, california's response to the pandemic has been driven by governor gavin newsom, whether it was delicious debated in last year's recall campaign, the billions he's proposing in this year's budget for tests and mask. as we know from

schoolhouse rock, it will take legislative actions to make more to change. i think to your point, we are starting to see the legislator make some moves, there was a working group convened this week of of family members to look at vaccine rules. one of those members, state senator scott weiner from san francisco, introduced a bill today who eventually let kids 12 and up get vaccinated without parental consent. i think really the big question is, is the legislator going to take on this personal belief exemption that allows some kids to get out of taking covid vaccines? this came up in the legislator over measles a few years ago and things got really ugly. i think likely, there will be protests at the capitol, potentially disruptive if this comes up again. i think for democrats, it is not a total slamdunk issue. it sounds, from a debate i moderated for state assembly race here in california for last week, only one move with say, i guarantee i will work to get rid of a personal belief

exemption for covid vaccines. it will, i think, be a controversial issue if and when it comes up in the legislator. >> also interesting, as we move toward the virus becoming endemic, the governor just spoke about it this week, brian, you spoke with an er doctor this week about the personal tool of patients throwing up in the hospital úwi are unvaccinated. what you think it is like for most healthcare professionals marks >> there is an enormous sense of burnout. first of all, the er doctor i spoke to this week actually has quit. loved this work that she had been doing for almost 20 years. 3 got through the first year to 18 months of the pandemic with a real sense of purpose, but there is this sense that since the vaccination has been available to all adults, and as it slowly became more available to younger people, it has gotten

harder and harder for the healthcare workers on the front line to just keep showing up without feeling a little bit defeated. this er doctor i spoke to said had essentially lost an unhealthy amount of weight working so hard in an unhealthy amount of sleep. just decided it was okay for her to walk away. it had a lot to do with treating people who had chosen not to get the vaccine. those are the people who are showing up to the hospitals now who need hospitalization and this has been tough. speaking to a nurse at some point in the last couple of weeks and a respiratory therapist. these kinds of folks, these workers are in a position where they have got to work extra hours or they are leaving colleagues in a lurch. this has gotten hard and overwhelming for a lot of people. >> things for that inside, brian. guy, nationally, it looks like

democrats may lose the house in the midterm elections. that is impacting who is running for congress here in california. what are some of the interesting races you are watching? >> it really is impacting for a lot of sitting members of congress, we saw this week congressman jerry mcnerney, he is representing contra costa county since 2007, decided not to run again in november for a nice term. i think you are seeing it for members all across the country. democrats who feel like we might lose the house. if you are living in california, you want to be flying across the country every week to serve in the minority. to answer your question, i think it will be in the same places we have seen in california, central valley, orange county, that has not changed from 2018 or 2020. what really has changed is states like texas, other battlegrounds, have continued on a path, especially republican-controlled

legislators, of gerrymandering, making sure there is fewer and fewer competitive seats. california might be one of the last battleground left in the nation. i think that is not only good for politics watchers like you and me, also for residents in places like garden grove, santa maria, bakersfield, who really will see contests on the ballot in november with a real vigorous change of ideas. >> guys, very briefly, you've been watching local politics. we can do the show this week without talking about early voting having been done. interestingly, some noncitizens can vote on this valid. how is this possible? >> this is a policy put in place by san francisco voters. they approved and in 2016 and hit it has been extended. given parents and guardians the opportunity to vote in school elections. we are seeing a high watermark this year, not a huge number, but 86 as of last week registered to vote in this recall election here and i think largely, that is probably attributable to the fact that this recall has invigorated so

many parents both for and against to get involved and yes, ultimately vote. another big story this week was the volcano that erupted near tonga, which sent the two he warnings a slightly higher waves to us here in california. you have been speaking with tongans about how they are working to send help home your >> yeah. i think that the key in this moment for tongans in the bay area, who honestly have had to come to the aid of their country before, send relief home . this time, they have to be supersmart about it. a lot of that has to do with covid-19. tonga has mainly kept that virus out of its country, essentially by keeping people out, by not letting outsiders into tonga. i think they might have had one case really since the pandemic. that makes getting relief efforts into tonga very hard. i spoke to the executive director of a tongan

organization based in san mateo. she said, they are thinking really, really carefully about how to get the supplies, trying to be really, really smart. water is a key priority, drinking water especially because ash covered so much in tonga, also the seas flooded into the drinking water wells that they had in tonga. so, this is a top priority. they are being smart. there is also a company based in the port of oakland that is sending two ships with supplies here they are used to shipping to tonga. this takes weeks. one of the ships leaves friday, another leaves february 5th. they are gathering up water, perishable supplies, and n95 masks. >> we will see how those supplies go. guy, vice president kamala harris was in california today to talk about federal funding for fighting wildfires. what can you tell us about this federal funding? >> the vice president spoke today in san bernardino, really

highlighting investments that were a part of the bipartisan infrastructure built that the president signed last year. this was really about helping california and other places recover after wildfires, whether that is repairing infrastructure, cleaning up debris, i think the administration clearly has ambitions beyond that to deal with the climate change making these fires much worse. it just remains to be seen how much appetite there is in the u.s. senate to make those kinds of investments going forward. ryan, in the last 30 seconds we have here, the san francisco 49ers play their biggest game in a couple of years this saturday and will face the packers, a favorite to win. what is your prediction mark does it end this weekend or do they have a shot to win the super bowl? >> i am awful at predicting anything, especially when it comes to football. úi will say 49ers, they have to be the absolute worst team to prepare to play against. they have had a very volatile season at the quarterback

position, and really across the board. they have found a way to get this far into the playoffs, given the season that dave had, winning their first two games, losing the next four, up and down, all the way to scratching into the playoffs, beating dallas, a huge poll for the 49ers in the wildcard game. this far has meant a lot to the old-school niners fans that have been following the team for a long time. brian white and guy marzorati with kqed, thanks for your time. >> you are welcome . this week's look at something beautiful is the art of the brick. the exhibit features 70 sculptures made from more than 1 million lego bricks by artist nathan's away a. ♪ ♪

>> you can learn more at art of

the brick.com. that is the end of our show tonight. thank you as always for joining us. if you want to get a look behind the scenes, please join us online too. kqed is on twitter, facebook, and you can email us at k in our@tran03. we will see you back here next friday night. have a great weekend, everybody. ♪ ♪

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