2 candidates vie for San Mateo County judge position: San Mateo County Deputy District Attorney Brian Donnellan and Santa Clara Chief Deputy District Attorney Jay Boyarsky

The competitive race for the position has been prompted by the retirement of Judge Susan Greenberg. 

Boyarsky, who made an unsuccessful bid for a judge seat in Santa Clara County two years prior, said his own identity as a Jewish man and the story of his father, who fought in World War II and helped to liberate concentration camp survivors, embedded within him a passion for justice. His clerkship with former federal Judge William Ingram gave a tangible path for that passion, he said, paving the way for decades of public service overseeing the Santa Clara DA’s Office as well as prior work at a private firm. 

“The reason I want to be a judge stems from these core values I have, and my identity and my upbringing,” Boyarsky said. 

Donnellan, who immigrated from Ireland to the United States at 6 months old with his mother, emphasized both his time in the U.S. Army, work in the airline industry, and years of prosecutorial experience as a testament to his understanding of people with a diversity of backgrounds, which he said would be integral to the position. 

“One of the key things for a judge generally and a criminal trial judge, is the ability to talk to people from all walks of life and understand where they come from. Some of that goes to where they live, but also just their different backgrounds,” he said. “As a trial lawyer, I have literally had juries with grave diggers and PhDs at Google.” 

In particular, Donnellan said, he had a grasp on the complexities of San Mateo County’s diversity, an experience he said his opponent did not share. 

“I’ve prosecuted cases on the coast. I understand that culture. I understand that San Francisco is not San Mateo, which is not Menlo Park,” he said.“They’re distinct communities, and having an understanding of where the people come from and the history of the county, caring deeply about where we are, really does matter.” 

Boyarsky pushed back against the idea that his residency in neighboring Santa Clara County precluded him in any way from doing the job, pointing to his longstanding knowledge of the legal community in the two jurisdictions that often cross county lines. 

“I don’t think that there’s a South San Mateo dialect and a Palo Alto dialect that separates our cultures,” he said. “The question that voters should be asking is, who’s got the best qualifications to serve as a judge in San Mateo. And I think that’s me.” 

As a supervisor and a leader at the Santa Clara DA’s Office, Boyarsky said he’s seen firsthand and worked within the various pendulum swings the criminal justice system has taken over the years. While he’s supportive of many of the reforms California courts have made over the years to address systemic issues of mental health and drug addiction, he’s also cautious of potential abuses to those systems. 

“I think that we need to make sure we’re sending the right people to prison, and we need to have proper accountability when people violate community norms and hold them accountable,” he said. 

Like his opponent, Donnellan also emphasized a moderate approach when it came to the duties of a judge and said it was important to weigh each case on its individual merits. 

“I don’t know that I approach it from either extreme. I think I’m a person who has always tried to get the facts of the particular case,” he said. “I’m someone who believes in holding people accountable, but I’m someone who has to take into account everything that’s going on.”