‘Worse than ever’: Could Philly judges remove Sheriff Rochelle Bilal from office?
If the sheriff doesn't fix the security problem in court buildings, she could be held in contempt. One former judge floated the idea of placing the Sheriff's Office in receivership.
By filing a court order demanding Sheriff Rochelle Bilal immediately address the security crisis in Philadelphia courthouses, city judges took a public step toward reforming a dysfunctional office that no one in City Hall has wanted to touch.
The Administrative Governing Board of the First Judicial District, a panel of six judges that oversees Philadelphia court operations, wrote in its order Monday that “systemic failures” in Bilal’s office have created an “imminent threat to the safety and health” of everyone in city courthouses.
The Inquirer previously reported that assaults, threats, and other security incidents inside court buildings have nearly tripled on Bilal’s watch — they’re now being reported, on average, at a rate of six per month. The shortage of sheriff’s deputies has also led to criminal proceedings being delayed or postponed because no one is available to transport inmates from holding cells to courtrooms.
The judges, who said they tried “numerous” times to get Bilal to resolve the failures “to no avail,” gave the sheriff 90 days from the date of the order to fix the problem. She must file a detailed plan of action within 30 days.
But what happens next? What if the security problem ― which has been getting worse each year — cannot be fixed in three months?
Common Pleas Court President Judge Nina Wright Padilla and Municipal Court President Judge T. Francis Shields declined through a court spokesperson to comment on their court order, which was also signed by four administrative judges.
Former Philadelphia judges, however, say Bilal could face serious consequences if she fails to act, including steep fines — or worse.
“If she digs in her heels and says, ‘You get what you get,’ I wouldn’t want to predict what happens,” said Benjamin Lerner, a retired Common Pleas judge who presided over homicide cases until 2019. “If the sheriff and the [courts] are at war with each other, that’s bad news all around.”
» READ MORE: Philly judges, feeling unsafe, order Sheriff Rochelle Bilal to fix ‘systemic failures’ in courthouse security
In Dauphin County this year, county judges ordered an elected court clerk to clean up a bureaucratic mess that unfolded during her tenure, leading to backlogs of critical court paperwork. The clerk resigned a day before contempt hearings stemming from that order, prompting the state Supreme Court to declare a “judicial emergency” and order the installation of a successor.
Lerner said that while the state constitution gives courts power over sheriff’s offices, the judges’ order in Philadelphia would be a test of “just how far the courts will be able to go if they don’t get a satisfactory response.” In theory, the judiciary could hold Bilal in contempt for not meeting the terms of the order in 90 days, leading to fines and even jail time.
Gene D. Cohen, who retired in 2019 after serving two terms as a Philadelphia Common Pleas judge, said the order could potentially be the first step toward removing Bilal from office, if she cannot meet the deadline and is held in contempt.
“It may lead to [Philadelphia judges] going to the [state] Supreme Court to essentially put the office in a kind of receivership,” Cohen said.
However, Lerner said it is more likely that his former colleagues will seek to broker a deal with Bilal to bolster security quickly, rather than engage in a protracted standoff. He likened the current crisis to a similar deputy shortage that gripped the court system in the 1980s.
“Defendants in custody … have to be transported to and from court by a sheriff. If you can’t get a sheriff when you need to do that, everyone is just waiting, and that’s intolerable,” Lerner said. “That used to be common, and then I saw how much better it got. But now it’s regressed to being as bad as it’s ever been.”
Cohen experienced those past security issues when he was on the bench, but said “this particular Sheriff’s Office is worse than ever.”
“The department is rife with patronage and incompetent and untrained people,” he said.
Some judges are considering private guards
One sitting Philadelphia judge, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about court operations, said some judges have floated the idea of hiring private security at the courthouse as a last resort.
The judge said the Sheriff’s Office needs to do a better job of not just recruiting deputies, but more effectively deploying the personnel it has. Bilal has used deputies to staff community events and other nonessential duties.
“They say they don’t have the bodies, but you have to look at why they don’t have the bodies,” the judge said. “It might have something to do with management.”
Cohen agreed: “It’s a lack of professionalism at the top.”
Bilal and her spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment this week on Monday’s court order. Nor did Mayor Cherelle L. Parker or City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who received a letter from a court administrator explaining the judges’ action.
Andrew McGinley, vice president of external affairs at the Committee of Seventy good-government group, said, at the very least, judges could pry loose some information from the Sheriff’s Office, which has not been subject to that sort of oversight.
Since Bilal took office in 2020, the office has faced accusations of misappropriated funds and has experienced ongoing problems with property auctions, in addition to the breakdown of security in courthouses.
“The court has the ability to obtain records and get actual evidence on the record so people can see exactly what is happening in the office,” McGinley said.
The Sheriff’s Office has not publicly commented on the deputy shortage since September, in response to an Inquirer story exposing the problem. The office posted a statement on its website dismissing the article as “fearmongering.” It said it had been struggling to recruit deputies, like other law enforcement agencies around the country, but improvements were on the way.
“Considering these challenges, we are in the process of making it a more seamless process which will be announced,” the statement said.
No announcement followed. The website’s news section since then has consisted solely of links to YouTube videos of Bilal’s podcast.
Renewed effort to abolish the office?
The Committee of Seventy has for years been calling on City Council to initiate the process of amending the city’s Home Rule Charter to eliminate the Sheriff’s Office as an independently elected office and transfer its responsibilities to other city departments.
Lerner and Cohen said that is the best long-term solution.
Northampton County eliminated all its elected “row offices,” including the sheriff, through the 1978 adoption of a new home rule charter. The positions have been appointed since 1980.
Similar legislative efforts to effectively abolish Philadelphia’s elected Sheriff’s Office have been tried repeatedly over the past century, but all have failed.
» READ MORE: With each new sheriff, same old problems
“Obviously, the Democratic Party in Philadelphia hasn’t been particularly interested in losing a high-patronage, high-visibility political position,” Lerner said.
Even as the city’s criminal justice system is struggling to operate, and new complaints mount about problems with sheriff’s sales, Bilal and her staff have largely escaped any serious scrutiny from City Council.
“I just want to thank you for your hard work and your dedication and working in partnership with members of Council and the city of Philadelphia,” Johnson, the Council president, told Bilal during a budget hearing this spring.
Cohen said the new court order could create momentum for real change. Maybe.
“In Philadelphia, it takes political will to do this,” he said. “It takes political will to punch a hole in the political protections that surround the department itself.”