New York.- Dominican-born judge Diccia Pineda-Kirwan is the only woman and of Latino background of the six competitors for the New York State Supreme Court bench in tomorrow’s elections in the United States.

The candidates are for State Supreme Court from Queens, which constitutes the State’s 11th Judicial District, whose voters must choose three of six candidates running for a 14-year term on the bench.

News source Queens Courier reports that because it’s considered unseemly for a judicial nominee to actually campaign, "most voters have probably never even heard of these candidates." In alphabetical order:

Robert Beltrani has been a member of the New York State Bar since 1989; for the past 10 years, he has volunteered time to serve as an arbitrator for the Civil Court. Beltrani has also served as an Administrative Law Judge for both the New York State Division of Parole and the New York City Department of Finance. He is running on both the Republican and Conservative lines.

John Casey is also running on the Republican and Conservative lines. He began as a child welfare social worker. He graduated from NYU in 1985 and became a state Parole Officer while he went to St. John’s University Law School at night. After he was admitted to the bar, he was promoted to Administrative Law Judge, hearing parole revocation cases. Casey also does pro bono (free) legal work in Brooklyn.

Joseph Kasper is a trial attorney and general law practitioner who has lived in Ozone Park for 51 of his 53 years. A graduate of St. John’s Law School, he served as a legal assistant to the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and was a Special District Attorney in Manhattan. He is running as a Republican.

Daniel Lewis, running as a Democrat, is currently a Queens County Supreme Court Judge and graduated of the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1970. Lewis was an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan and Attorney-in-Charge for Harlem offices of both the District Attorney and state Attorney General. Since 1992, he has served as a Criminal Court Judge in Queens.

Diccia Pineda-Kirwan, also running as a Democrat, was assistant counsel to the Borough President’s office. Her first judicial job was as court attorney to Civil Court Judge Orin Kitzes. She was principal law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William Glover from 1999 to 2002. Pineda-Kirwan is a member of the Latino Lawyer Association and Women’s Bar Association of Queens.

Pineda-Kirwan was born in the town Baitoa, Santiago Province, from where she emigrated together with her family in the early 1960s, and has lived in Queens ever since.