Yolanda Echols-MitchellEchols-Mitchell has right ideas
Rob Philyaw was the controversial appointment to the Juvenile Court judgeship and has served in that position for just over a year. While his politics are too conservative for our liking, he seems to have made a fair start in Juvenile Court, just not quite fair enough to receive our endorsement. Instead, we give that to 20-year attorney and former Hamilton County child abuse prosecutor and magistrate Yolanda Echols Mitchell.
Philyaw has moved pretty fast in his first year — implementing Hamilton County’s first juvenile drug court and a youth peer court. He also has participated in the city’s Violence Reduction Initiative and recently released a report from a first-ever local truancy task force.
All that said, we don’t think some of those actions were wise. Nor do we believe he was, when he became juvenile judge, as qualified for the job as his current challenger.
Philyaw now is the incumbent with a year’s experience in Juvenile Court under his belt. His efforts to learn the court and to commission reports from task forces are impressive. While the most recent truancy task force found very predictable problems (a school system so dysfunctional that it can’t accurately count truancy cases), at least someone has finally taken charge and made the bold step of documenting our community flaws.
But Echols Mitchell shoots what we think is a very valid hole in one of Philyaw’s programs — Youth Peer Court.