May 16, 2024
Judges with visual impairment are not a new or even a recent development. Visual impairment assistive equipment has continued to improve over time.
An early example of a visually impaired judge was Judge Louis Corbin, who was appointed to the Fourth Circuit in Duval County, Florida in 1972 after working eight years as an attorney. Judge Corbin spoke many times of his advantage of being a blind judge in that he was able to avoid distraction by appearances and attempts to influence and distract him in “Judge Blind, Not Justice” (Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian, 1/9/1974), as cited by Doran Dorfman.
Associate Circuit Judge Nicholas Pomaro of Cook County, Illinois served on the bench for 34 years. Annie Mann cites that in 1984 the Chicago Tribune wrote that while adjudicating a murder trial, a lawyer challenged Judge Pomaro’s ability to review a videotaped confession given to the police and asked Judge Pomaro to recuse himself “because he would not be able to see the defendant’s expression.” Judge Pomaro refused and was upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court. A 1984 New York Times piece also stated “that most lawyers are ‘scared to death’ when they learn he is blind because they do not know what to expect.”
Another example is Judge Peter O’Donoghue, a justice of the Queens County Supreme Court, Civil Term in the 11th Judicial District of New York since 2002. His judicial career included 15 years in the Medical Malpractice Part, where he handled more than 300 medical malpractice cases each year. According to a National Arbitration and Mediation press release, “Judge O’Donoghue was known for the time he gave listening to the sides of both plaintiffs and defense and understanding the varied nuances of each case showing compassion while fairly evaluating the matter to resolution.” He retired from the bench on October 1, 2023.
While assistive equipment, such as magnification devices, existed in the 1970s to aid visually impaired judges, what is available today makes work easier. Some of this rapidly developing technology includes screen-reading and voice-recognition software.
Screen readers are “software programs that allow blind or visually impaired users to read the text that is displayed on the computer screen with a speech synthesizer or braille display. A screen reader is the interface between the computer’s operating system, its applications, and the user," according to the American Federation for the Blind.
One of the growing advances in assistive technology is voice-recognition software, which benefits people with physical disabilities who cannot use a mouse and keyboard. People can use voice-to-text technology to write by speaking out loud, as well as to browse webpages or write emails, states AudioEye.
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