GUILDERLAND — Denise Randall, a Democrat who has been a town justice in Guilderland since 2005, said that the most important principle in her courtroom is treating everyone with respect, dignity, and patience and ensuring that everyone gets a fair trial and an impartial judge.

There are three judges in Guilderland, she said, and they serve in rotation. Each is on 24 hours a day, every third week. During her week, she is responsible for all arraignments, all preliminary hearings, the Monday and Thursday regular court nights, “and anything else that comes up during that week.”

She noted that the Guilderland judges are called by a number of different law-enforcement agencies besides the Guilderland Police, including the State Police, the University at Albany Police, and the Department of Environmental Conservation.

On their “so-called ‘off-weeks,’” Randall said, judges try to schedule all of their trials and suppression hearings; it is during those weeks, too, that they do research and draft opinions and do “all the other behind-the-scenes stuff that you don’t see on Monday and Thursday.”

Her philosophy is that “the courtroom has to be an incredibly respectful place.” She understands that a lot of people are in court for the first time and are nervous and are unsure what is going to happen. “And we treat them with tremendous respect. And, of course, in the case of criminal defendants, we presume they’re not guilty; we presume they’re innocent.”

Recusal, she said, is required only in certain cases, in which a judge cannot be impartial, or in which presiding over a case would give the appearance of partiality. In a local court, a judge is bound to know some people who come into court. “We can’t recuse ourselves just because we happen to know someone or be acquainted with someone.”

Randall has recused herself, or offered to recuse herself, in certain cases. The first step, she said, is always to disclose the issue; she gave as an example, “This person is my neighbor of 25 years.” In certain cases, there might be a remittal process, in which the final decision is left to the parties on both sides of the case.

Basically, she said, everyone is very careful about this issue, which could affect people’s faith in the system. “It’s all about respecting the system and making sure people understand that we really are impartial. Everybody really is treated the same, whether you know the judge or not.”

She treats every case individually, regardless of whether it’s a first-time or a repeat offender, she said. “There are no foregone conclusions. Everybody gets all of the Constitutional protections that we’re all entitled to, which is the presumption of innocence, and every case is handled on a case-by-case basis.”

Every defendant, she said, is entitled to a fair trial and an impartial judge, “and they are entitled to that every time.” If she ever thought she could not provide that, she would recuse herself.

About alternative sentencing, Randall said that all the local courts are always looking for any tool to use to divert someone out of the criminal justice system, or into a substance abuse program, “anything that will help them, if that’s possible.”

She is a strong believer, in appropriate instances, in alternative sentencing. “If you have a kid, for example,” she said, “who’s in a relatively minor infraction — a violation, say — and otherwise appears to be a pretty good kid, sometimes assigning them to community service is the very best way to reattach them to the community.”

Often, she said, the letter that has been written by someone at the Ronald McDonald House or another charitable organization “is so glowing it almost brings tears to your eyes. And the kid will say, ‘Yeah, I still work there on weekends,’” even though they’ve already fulfilled their community-service obligation.

In that case, she said, “My guess is that that that kid’s not going to shoplift anything, or do whatever it was they were charged with. They’ve reattached to the community. They’ve kind of found their place in the community, and they’re contributing. So community service can be a very useful tool, with the right person.“

She said she was not allowed to comment on any specific case, but that judges are always looking for ways to get people into treatment programs.

One program she likes to use is the sheriff’s work-alternative program, she said. They’ll work with people from the sheriff’s office, on a certain number of weekends, for example, on community projects like the Holiday Lights in the Park, she said.

Kids will sometimes come back to her and say proudly, “‘Please come down, I did the — whatever — I did the reindeer.’” Sometimes an alternative sentence can “grab them before they got too far down that negative path,” said Randall.

Very often, Randall said, she may have a defendant for whom she thinks the underlying issue is substance abuse, and what she will do is try to get him or her into a program, and put off dealing with the criminal issue. “I just keep adjourning that, and they have to keep coming back to me, showing me they’re making progress with whatever substance abuse or addiction issue they have. And only then, I might have them come back every three weeks initially, then every six weeks. And then this could go on for quite a while. But once they’ve got that under control, then we’ll talk about whatever criminal issue brought them into court.” That is a good way to get people into treatment programs, she said.

With plea bargaining, she has sometimes said that a deal isn’t strict enough, or is too strict. “Every case has to be judged independently,” she said.

Randall said she could not discuss any particular domestic-violence case, but emphasized, “I take domestic violence cases with the utmost urgency.” When she gets a call from the Guilderland Police and is told that it involves domestic violence, “I literally stand up from my desk and get in my car and go straight to court. I don’t waste a second.”

Why? Because those cases deserve that kind of attention, she said, and can be very urgent. In some cases, “It may be that an order of protection needs to be issued, and needs to be issued now.”

In addition to serving as a town justice, Randall is a partner in the firm she runs with her husband, the Randall Law Firm on Western Avenue in Guilderland, a general practice that does a lot of estate planning, real property, and business law. Randall teaches one course, in either business law or estate planning, at The College of Saint Rose every semester. The Randalls have two grown children, a son and a daughter.

Asked her age, Denise Randall said that she is “a very youthful 66.”