Walsh picks defense attorney with ‘humble beginnings’ as Syracuse’s newest judge (2024)

Syracuse, N.Y. — Mayor Ben Walsh will appoint Erica Clarke, a Syracuse defense attorney, to fill a vacant judge seat in the Syracuse City Court.

Clarke, 40, will replace Rory McMahon, who won a State Supreme Court seat in November’s election. She’ll start in the new position next month and will be one of nine judges in city court.

Walsh said Clarke brings a balance of work experience and life experience that both qualify her for the job and will make her a good judge.

“She’ll be the first to tell you she comes from humble beginnings and has struggled throughout her life,” he said. “A lot of people who come before her court, she’ll be able to relate to.”

Clarke, who has a law degree from Florida Coastal School of Law, worked as a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office for about seven years starting in 2011. She started in the municipal division under Alison Fineberg, then moved in 2013 to the vehicular felony bureau, which handles DWI cases.

In 2017, she took a job with the city’s law department. She left in 2019 to open a private practice as a defense attorney. That’s been one of the most rewarding experiences of her career, she said in an interview Wednesday.

Clarke lives in Eastwood with her husband. She has a 21-year-old son who is a senior at Syracuse University and a Say Yes scholar.

She grew up in Syracuse and went to Fowler High School before earning a GED. She moved around lots as a child, living with various family members and her mother, who had her at just 15 years old.

“It’s been a struggle,” she said. “It was a lot of financial and emotional strain not coming from a family with connections or wealth.”

Clarke herself was a teenage mother as well -- her son was born when she was 18. She put herself through college and law school while also raising her son.

Overcoming those struggles, she said, has made her a good lawyer and will make her a good judge. It’s important to her that she comes from the same place as many of the people who will appear before her.

She will be able to look at everyone who comes into her courtroom as a human being first, she said.

“I don’t think that anybody is irredeemable,” she said. “That’s a really important quality in a judge.”

Clarke, by her own admission, is not much for etiquette or decorum. She speaks bluntly and treats everyone the same. She describes herself as not perfect and not proper and says “what you see is what you get.”

Clarke will have to run to keep the seat in an election next November. She’s a Democrat and will seek that party’s endorsem*nt in the coming months. She’s never run for public office before.

The judge job pays around $190,000 and, if elected, Clarke would serve a 10-year term.

Walsh chose Clarke from among six applicants for the open seat. One of those applicants was sitting judge Ted Limpert, who has been on the bench 10 years.

Earlier this month, a group of more than 140 trial lawyers in Syracuse signed a letter to Walsh asking him to appoint Limpert to the vacant seat. Limpert lost in a primary and general election to Shadia Tadros and Felicia Pitts Davis, who both won election to judge positions in November.

Walsh said that by all accounts, Limpert has been a good judge, and Walsh believes he would continue to be a good judge. But, he said, he was uneasy appointing someone who had just lost an election.

“There was something that just didn’t feel right to me about going against the will of the people in making that selection,” Walsh said. “For that reason combined with all the compelling reasons I shared about Erica, that’s what led to my decision.”