Articles

JUDICIAL PROFILE: JUSTICE SHERI STRUHL ROMAN

By

MICHAEL GOLDSMITH

Acting Supreme Court Justice Sheri Struhl Roman will bring with her many years of experience in the real world as well as the criminal justice system when she ascends to the Supreme Court at the beginning of the next term.

Justice Roman was born and raised in Little Neck, Queens. She came of age in the tumultuous 1960's, a time in which women's rights and opportunities, now taken for granted, were gained through perseverance and often won only after litigation.

While an undergraduate student at SUNY Buffalo, the future Justice Roman was told that no women were permitted to enter the pre-law program, but was accepted into the program under her masculine sounding first name, "Sheriden." Justice Roman still remembers a distinguished professor demanding to know how she got in.

Justice Roman was very active as an undergraduate. At that time, many students who protested nuclear research on campus were represented by the future A.D.A. before the Student Council. Justice Roman was to become a member of the Council, and eventually became head of the Judiciary Committee, before graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Cum Laude with a degree in Political Science in 1969. All this was accomplished in only three years.

Justice Roman then set her sights on attending a law school in the Washington, D.C. area. However, this was not so simple in 1969. One D.C. law school revoked an offer of full scholarship when they found out that "Sheriden" really answered to "Sheri". Justice Roman received her legal education at Georgetown University. Justice Roman recalls a criminal law course in which the final grade depended on class participation. The professor would call on students by tapping them on the shoulder. After two or three months, the handful of women in the class noticed that they were never called to recite. When this was brought to the professor's attention, he told Justice Roman that "It would be improper for a male professor to touch the shoulder of a female student." Eventually, a compromise was arranged whereby women were allowed to raise their hands every other Monday. Looking back on it now, Justice Roman says it "takes her breath away" to see that woman students presently comprise over 40% of the law students at Georgetown.

Justice Roman says that these experiences gave her "compassion for other groups suffering from discrimination" because she was at the "receiving end of it" herself. Justice Roman said that she is "very anxious that women today don't accept the same kind of abuses."

Justice Roman had her first trial through a clinical program at Georgetown. There was a massive demonstration against the fighting in the far east, and 11 members of Viet Nam Veterans Against The War were arrested for allegedly blocking access to the Lincoln Memorial (which ironically is located very near the current site of the Viet Nam War Memorial). Justice Roman subpoenaed the grounds keeper of the Lincoln Memorial who brought a log book showing that the same number of people visited the Memorial during the protest as would normally visit. The defendants were acquitted.

Immediately after graduating law school in 1972, Justice Roman began her career in criminal law as an Assistant District Attorney in the Bronx. She started in the Appeals Bureau, but soon found herself in the Homicide Bureau, trying cases and visiting murder scenes. In 1975, the young A.D.A. earned her LLM at NYU in Criminal Justice. By 1976, she was the Deputy Chief of the Homicide Bureau. In 1979, A.D.A. Roman was promoted to Chief of the Major Office Bureau, where she screened and evaluated all violent felony arrests in the county to determine which cases were to be prosecuted at what level. From April, 1984 to May, 1985, she was the Chief of the Litigation Training Bureau, and was responsible for creating and administering trial advocacy training programs for the 300 A.D.A.'s in the Bronx.

From May 1985 to the present, Judge Roman has served as a Judge of the Criminal Court of the City of New York, where she spent many years presiding over the calendar part AP IV, dealing with special victim cases (abused children and domestic violence) as well as youthful offenders. She often conducted trials, pretrial hearings, and handled all motion practice. For the last two and one half years, Justice Roman has been an acting Supreme Court Justice in the Criminal Term for Queens County, sitting in at Narcotics Part APN/N60, Felony Part AP6/W50 and Felony Trial Part K-10, where she presided over three felony jury trials over a five week period. Justice Roman's goal is to be the best judge she can be, saying, "I want everyone that they were treated with dignity, that their issues were aired, and they leave feeling that they had their day in court."

Justice Roman's professional history, impressive as it is, does not tell her whole story. She has been married to her husband Ernan for 15 years. They have two children, Elias, age 11, and Helaina, age 7, who like to come to court with their mother on weekends.

Justice Roman maintains that her time off the bench is "family time." A briefcase filled with motions has to wait until the children are asleep. Mr. Roman is a marketing consultant and an author, who speaks at many international conferences. Recent family trips include Hong Kong, Bangkok and Sydney, where the children snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef. Both children are accomplished skiers as well as snorklers. Acknowledging that "it is very hard to balance work and family," Justice Roman said that she would not be able to accomplish all that she has without the help and support of her husband.

Justice Roman's proudest accomplishment is her finding a balance between family and career, "which is a never ending fight for career women."