There are 52 superior court judges serving San Francisco. They are elected. Yet most voters have never heard of them. The judiciary shouldn’t be a mysterious Star Chamber. If you care about courtroom outcomes, it’s important to know who the judges are.

When a 94-year-old woman was stabbed on the sidewalk outside her Lower Nob Hill home, local media in San Francisco named the victim and the suspect — but curiously never named a central figure in the story: Superior Court Judge Richard Darwin. This is a disservice to the public.

The brazen and violent attack of a young woman in San Francisco and a judge’s refusal to hold the suspect in custody became a highly publicized case that poses some important questions: How many crime victims without a Twitter account suffer in silence? How do we know which judges care more about the rights of the accused than the victim? And is there anything we can do to get better judges?

To scores of city residents, Shirin Oloumi is known reverentially as the Queen of Car Break-ins. No, it’s not because she smashes car windows and swipes backpacks with abandon. It’s because she prosecutes the guys who do.

Smashed glass on curbs and sidewalks is the new normal in San Francisco with tens of thousands of car break-ins reported annually. Our criminal justice system needs the right incentives for offenders to change their behavior. Lawbreakers need to know they will be held accountable if they violate the terms of probation. And judges need to know citizens are watching. Read our full OpEd published in the San Francisco Chronicle.