Judge Stacy Boulware Eurie: SCBA's Judge of the Year is a Tireless Advocate for Change in the Judicial System

JUDGE STACY BOULWARE EURIE:

SCBA'S JUDGE OF THE YEAR IS A TIRELESS ADVOCATE FOR CHANGE IN THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM By Judge Christopher Krueger

Judge Christopher Krueger sits in Department 54 of the Sacramento County Superior Court.

It was an all-too-common scene in juvenile court. A 17 year-old foster girl who had recently had a baby sat before the judge with tears in her eyes, trying not to cry.

When Judge Stacy Boulware Eurie asked her what was wrong, the girl indicated that she was overwhelmed by the proceedings. A dependency court judge had previously ordered her to attend parenting classes. Now Boulware Eurie was poised to impose a juvenile justice sentence for a crime the girl had committed. The multiplicity of requirements between the two court’s orders simply overwhelmed the girl.

“Judge Boulware Eurie said, ‘I will work with that other judge and we will work it out so you can do this one step at a time,’” recalled Michelle Callejas, Director of the Sacramento County Child, Family and Adult Services Department.

Callejas cited the judge’s efforts that day years ago as typical of the kind of problem-solving approach Boulware Eurie employed in the Sacramento County Juvenile Court, where she served as Presiding Judge from 2010 through 2018. “She was compassionate and empathetic and [still] held a firm line.”

Boulware Eurie, who is being honored as the SCBA’s 2020 Judge of the Year, has drawn praise from many quarters of our legal community as a skillful judge, a mentor to youth, lawyers and even fellow judges, and as a reformer seeking to improve our judicial system.

“She is one of the most talented judges I’ve ever worked with or appeared in front of,” said Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert. “Her passion

for this work, particularly when it involves youth in the justice system or at risk of becoming involved in the justice system, is remarkable.”

“She does a lot of work in different communities in terms of encouraging people, most especially young people, to make their lives better,” now deceased Sacramento Superior Court Judge James Long (Ret.) once said. “I think she’s an exceptional judicial talent.”

“Judge Boulware Eurie is respected, and admired by her colleagues for her dedication to our mission, and for her integrity and hardwork. She is a role model who puts her heart into her work,” Judge Steven Gevercer said.

A Peripatetic Childhood

Boulware Eurie was born on a naval base in Maine, where her father, Ralph Boulware, was assigned to serve for the U.S. Air Force. After he left the military, the family moved to Atlanta for a short stint before settling in Plano, Texas.

Boulware Eurie, her sister and her parents spent most of her first grade through ninth grade years in Plano, except for a 10-month stretch in 1979 when the family moved to Teheran, Iran. The family move occurred when her father was assigned by his employer, Electronic Data Systems (EDS), to work on a new social security system for the Iranian government. The family was forced to abruptly depart when the Iranian Revolution broke out and hostages were taken at the U.S. Embassy.

Although the Boulwares were fortunate not to become “guests of the Ayatollah,” two EDS employees were taken hostage. Ralph Boulware returned to Iran after safeguarding his family as part of a rescue team organized by EDS owner Ross Perot. The story is recounted in On Wings of Eagles, a book by Ken Follett.

Except for that time in Iran, Boulware Eurie remembers an ideal childhood with many friends and lots of soccer. “My parents were very hardworking and very involved in my life and my sister’s life,” she said. “We lived in a neighborhood where the kids and parents felt safe. It was, ‘Go out and play and come home before dark.’”

In the middle of ninth grade, the family moved to Agoura Hills, California, where she attended high school.

The Road To the Bench

Boulware Eurie has no immediate family in the legal profession. A distant great-great cousin, the late Harold P. Boulware, served as Chief Counsel of the South Carolina

Hon. Stacy Boulware Eurie honored for work with trafficked youth at 2016 Reception hosted by The California Endowment.

NAACP and handled the South Carolina case, Briggs v. Elliott, which was one of four cases incorporated into Brown v. Board of Education (1954) 347 U.S. 483, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case striking down the separate-but-equal doctrine as a violation of equal protection.

Boulware Eurie keeps a famous picture in her chambers of Harold Boulware, Thurgood Marshall and Spotswood W. Robinson III conferring at the Supreme Court before the oral arguments in Brown. She said it reminds her of the burdens faced by youth of color seeking an education back then and the importance of education to today’s youth.

Boulware Eurie, who never met Harold Boulware, credits the Black Pre-Law Society at UCLA for inspiring her interest in the law. By the time she graduated from UC Davis’ King Hall School of Law in 1995, Boulware Eurie envisioned both a legal career and an eventual judicial career. “I always had a five-year plan to gain experiences and skills as a lawyer and a ten-year plan to be a judge,” she recalls.

Boulware Eurie spent her first four years of practice at Rothschild, Wishek & Sands, where she represented criminal defendants in state court proceedings and credential educators before the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. She enjoyed the firm, but left in 2000 to join the California Attorney Gener-

2014 UCD King Hall Swearing In Ceremony - (L to R) UC Davis School of Law Dean Kevin Johnson, Hon. Troy Nunley, Hon. Stacy Boulware Eurie and former King Hall Alumni President Gage Dungy.

al’s Office in order to get civil litigation experience.

At the Attorney General’s Office, Boulware Eurie began as a deputy handling employment litigation. Within a few years she became a “confidential employee,” a deputy assigned to give advice to the Department of Justice in its investigations of its own internal employment matters. She later served as a Supervising Deputy Attorney General in the Employment, Regulation and Administration Section and as Senior Assistant Attorney General over the Government Law Section.

Boulware Eurie’s supervisors at the Attorney General’s Office recall that her legal talent was immediately obvious.

“I was her co-counsel in her first jury trial,” said Jacob Appelsmith, now Director of the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. “She was brilliant, and when we interviewed the jurors after the verdict, they were astonished to learn she had not tried many cases before. Even though I knew she hadn’t, I felt astonished myself. She was clearly a natural.”

Judge Pamela Smith-Steward, who as Chief of the Civil Division of the AG’s Office hired Boulware Eurie, said, “She was a star attorney during her time at the Department of Justice. She has continued that tradition of excellence during her time on the bench. She is highly intelligent, very wise and unfailingly kind and respectful to everyone she interacts with. I am honored to call her my friend and very proud of her accomplishments.”

Deputy Attorney General Noreen Skelly said Boulware Eurie was also generous with her time and talents. “She was very collegial. If you needed to bounce a strategic approach off someone while working up a case, she always had time for you.”

Judge Stephen Acquisto, a former colleague in the Attorney General’s Office said, “Judge Boulware Eurie exhibits every quality you could want in a judge. She’s smart, fair, eloquent, poised, patient, and kind. She is one of the most professional, hard-working, and talented people I’ve ever worked with. And she serves our community with dignity and honor.”

Advocate for Youth

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Boulware Eurie to the bench in 2007. In 2010, she became Presiding Judge of the Juvenile Court.

As a juvenile court judge, Boulware Eurie led an overhaul of the county’s approach to youth who “cross over” from the dependency system into the juvenile justice system. Like the teenage girl described at the beginning of this article, many kids who find themselves in the foster care system because of the lack of parental supervision later become part of the juvenile justice system when they break the law.

The project required the bringing together of representatives of the court, Sacramento County Probation, Child Protective Services, Behavioral Health Services, and the Sacramento Office of Education. The parties attended a program at the Georgetown University Center for Juvenile Justice Reform in 2014 that led to a memorandum of understanding among the agencies. It also led to creation of a court docket dedicated to serving actual or suspected Commercially Sexually Exploited Children, a screening tool used to identify those children, environmental and program improvements for youth in secure custody, and the implementation of a Crossover Youth Practice Model.

Callejas, the Sacramento County Director of Child, Family and Adult Services, recalls that getting the various agencies to cooperate was not an easy task for Boulware Eurie.

“As we were launching our cross-systems efforts, she proactively addressed systems essentially pointing fingers at other systems about responsibility for serving our kids – no shock but we tended to work in our own silos which often led to children and families falling through the cracks. She stated, ‘These are not your children, my children or their children – these are our children, and we will work together to better serve them, with joint responsibility and joint accountability.’ That was all she needed to say – no one ever questioned it and we all committed to that philosophy – and our children and youth are better off because of it.”

Chief Probation Officer Lee Seale agrees that Boulware Eurie’s leadership was vital to making change occur. “Judge Boulware Eurie deserves recognition for her leadership, compassion and vision. In our work to

gether, she has helped to transform Sacramento County’s juvenile justice system into one where youth and families are better supported with treatment and services. The impact of Judge Boulware Eurie’s work is still felt today.”

Judge Boulware Eurie is also involved with numerous initiatives to help youth both locally and at the statewide level. She serves on the executive committee of Operation Protect and Defend and as a member of the Chief Justice’s Power of Democracy Steering Committee. She is the chair of the Keeping Kids in School and Out of Court Steering Committee and a member of the California Child Welfare Council. She is a former member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network Advisory Board.

“Judge Boulware Eurie is committed to improving resources and programs to address the needs of sexually exploited children and atrisk youth,” said SCBA President Shanāe Buffington. “She is passionate about remedying the pipeline that funnel youth out of school onto a path toward prison. I commend Judge Boulware Eurie’s dedication to child advocacy, and her continued efforts to tackle issues faced by youth in the juvenile justice system.”

Boulware Eurie believes her involvement with helping youth is integral to doing her duty as a judge.

“Although my husband Kyle and I do not have any children of our own, I am inspired, motivated and determined to do all I can in my role as a judicial officer to lift up some of the most vulnerable court users, our youth. Particularly through my service on the juvenile court bench, I learned about the opportunity and, frankly, the obligation to get off the bench and into the community to better understand what our youth and their families are navigating. We must be humble in our service and to be accessible, to be present and to be involved in a variety of ways without any expectation other than to constantly learn has made

2016 WestCoast Children’s Clinic Forum on Child Sex Trafficking - (L to R) Holly Joshi, Alameda District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, Hon. Stacy Boulware Eurie, Malika Saada Saar and Minh Dang.

me a better judge all around. Being involved in different bodies and organizations has aided my efforts to work with other stakeholders to improve every system I serve in from a place of knowledge and humility.”

A Mentor to Others

In addition to those efforts at systemic change, Boulware Eurie is praised by her current and former colleagues as a mentor to others.

Judge Shama Mesiwala said, “Of the many things I respect about Judge Boulware Eurie, at the top is her willingness to effectively mentor law student and lawyers without fanfare or recognition. Some have been lawyers I’ve encountered later in their careers, and they credit their success to Judge Boulware Eurie’s frank but caring advice, emphasizing the need for excellence, respect of all parties and the court, and meaningful community service. Indeed, I have been the beneficiary of her guidance, as an up-and-coming lawyer, commissioner, and judge. I vividly remember her stopping by my chambers daily when I was a commissioner and she was the Presiding Judge of the Juvenile Division. She taught me the skills a new judicial officer needed to know: how to effectively manage a calendar, how to hold efficient and fair hearings, and how to step back when things became a little too heated. She is the richly deserving recipient of the SCBA 2020 Judge of the Year!”

Judge Kenneth Mennemeier likewise commented that Boulware Eurie was greatly helpful to him when he was assigned, as a new judge, to juvenile court.

“For me, Stacy has been a mentor. She has always made herself available to answer questions. More than once I turned to her on weekends, and she always took my calls.

“Stacy has also been a role model. She leads by example. As Presiding Judge of the Juvenile Court, she had many responsibilities, both in and out of the courtroom. Notwithstanding the many demands on her time, Stacy still finds time to engage with the larger Sacramento community, whether through Bar functions such as Inn of Court or through youth-oriented educational programs such as Operation Protect and Defend. By her example, Stacy inspires others to expand their thinking about how they too can serve the community.”

“I am so very proud to be her colleague.”

So am I. Congratulations to Stacy Boulware Eurie, 2020 SCBA Judge of the Year!