Editor's note: This version corrects the spelling of the first name of Ines Nieves and her title.

Hartford — Some people don't see Supreme Court Justice Richard A. Robinson, who is poised to become the first African-American to serve as Connecticut's chief justice, as a distinguished looking 60-year-old man.

To them, he looks like a shoplifting suspect.

"When I'm in a store, I'm consciously making sure I don't do anything that would lead a store employee to believe I am stealing," Robinson said in a 2016 Diversity Week address to Judicial Branch employees.

During the same speech, he shared that his great-great-grandparents were slaves and that, as a child, he was once called "Little Black Sambo," a reference to a character from an 1899 children's book that came to have a racist connotation for black children. He said while growing up, his mother pleaded with him to remember Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Mississippi boy who was lynched for offending a white woman, because Robinson had a habit of challenging things that were unjust.

Much has changed in his lifetime but just a few years ago Robinson said he was stopped by a store employee while buying camping supplies in a Litchfield County store. A clerk had assured him it was OK to pick up an insect repellent/Tiki torch on his way out of the store after Robinson noticed one he was paying for was defective, but he was confronted at the door.

"It's important to tell those stories," he said during a phone interview Friday. "The pushback is always, 'Things are better now than they were years ago. Why are you complaining?'"

During his confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee on April 23, Robinson responded easily and affirmatively when state Reps. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, and Minnie Gonzalez, D-Hartford, asked what he would do about members of the African-American and Latino communities who don't feel they're treated fairly in the court system.

He told them he has been working on diversity and equity issues with a team of Judicial Branch employees for years, and should he be confirmed as Chief Justice by the House and Senate, the buck would stop with him, "and you can hold me to it."

"If people feel they're not being treated fairly, especially with this branch of government, it's a major problem," he said during the phone interview. "The reason the Judicial Branch has so much power is because people believe it's fair. If a group of people or a culture believe they're not being treated fairly, it's a problem."

Robinson served as president of the Stamford NAACP and chairman of the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities before he was nominated to the bench in 2000. Since 2010, he has chaired the Judicial Branch's Advisory Committee on Cultural Competency. The branch had conducted focus groups as it developed a strategic plan and learned that people felt the quality of justice that people received was different based on gender, age, disability or mental health issues. The committee under Robinson's leadership has honed its internal training program and taken it on the road to other state agencies, contractors and colleges.

Seeking greater cultural competency

On Friday afternoon, Robinson invited members of the Cultural Competency Committee to join him for a phone interview with a reporter about the committee's work. They spoke of how they identify themselves culturally —  among them were an American man of Jamaican descent, a white Irish Catholic woman and a female immigrant from Colombia — and how they've learned to look inside themselves for biases and work on understanding where others are coming from.

The committee work is voluntary and done in addition to members' normal workload, so people have to have the "fire in the belly" to participate, Robinson said.

The branch tries to reach out to people as soon as they walk through the courthouse doors. Ines Nieves, chief judicial marshal for administration in Hartford, said language charts are placed just inside the entry for those who aren't fluent in English, and some of the marshals are able to help the Spanish-speaking public.

"If we don't show them some type of understanding, they may feel we're judging them," Nieves said.

The branch provides interpreters and services for the hearing impaired and has taken steps to help those who can't afford an attorney but don't qualify for public defender services. Sometimes, being culturally competent is simply a matter of telling someone about one's background.

Zarin Kapur, a program manager in the Support Enforcement Division and an immigrant from India, said people sometimes ask why she speaks English so well. She said she explains to them that it's her first language and is widely spoken in her country, which was controlled by the British for a century.

"Educating people rather than being offended is what's important," she said.

During last year's Diversity Week program, the Cultural Competency Committee took staff to a Sikh temple, a mosque and a Christian church to expose them to different cultures. They conducted 22 workshops in a week for 525 participants.

"We (the Judicial Branch) provide a service," said committee member Troy Brown, manager of the Court Support Services Division's training academy and multicultural affairs unit. "In every other industry that provides services, they always try to do what's in the best interest of the people who come in front of them. If I'm running Coca-Cola and want to sell the product in other countries, I'm going to do some research on those cultures."

The members use exercises to tease out implicit biases, which are attitudes and beliefs people are unaware they harbor. Robinson said a person in authority, such as a judge or probation officer, might assume someone who doesn't look them in the eye isn't telling the truth. But in some cultures, looking someone in the eye, especially a person of authority, isn't good. Knowing that could make a difference as a judge listens to a defendant explain during a bail argument why he is likely to come to court appearances if released. He cited research that has shown that the amount of bail impacts how much time a person will serve.

Committee member Alison Chandler, who works in the External Affairs Division, said it has been helpful for representatives from different offices within the Judicial Branch to talk about the conflicts that arise and how they are dealt with so that solutions can be translated into the population at large.

Meghan Korn, a juvenile probation officer, said it's important to understand a client's culture to help them change their behaviors. She had one client who wouldn't speak with her because Korn is a woman and the client had a preconceived notion of what a probation officer should look like.

"If you don't take their culture into account while engaging with them, they won't want to talk with you," Korn said. "They may be less motivated to change."

'A difficult subject to talk about'

Associate Attorney General Antoria Howard said Robinson and Justice Maria Araujo Kahn provided training to about 100 lawyers and support staff at the state Attorney General's office. There was a diverse group of people in the room for both sessions, and nobody was made to feel uncomfortable.

"Diversity is a difficult subject to talk about," said Howard, who is African-American. "It made us look at ourselves no matter what color we are. They weren't pointing fingers at anyone."

Robinson said the cultural competency work involves "a lot of patience, a lot of listening and a lot of training." Humor helps, and food seems to be a unifying topic. During one of his speeches, he told of racial incidents that came up while on a vacation with his wife and close friends in New Orleans but also described the beignets, chicory coffee, Jambalaya and other local foods they savored.

While hearing cases and writing opinions, Robinson applies the scholarly language of the law. But when talking diversity and human relations, he uses plain language.

"We've learned over time that we have to reach everybody, including people who are resistant to it," he said. "We've come to the conclusion where we can have our 'ouch' and 'oops' moments. If I say something that bothers you, you have the right to say, 'That was an ouch.'"

k.florin@theday.com