LAW: Judge Sunshine S. Sykes serves justice from all aspects of the cultural spectrum.
By Caroline Iglesias, Staff Writer
As of June 3, 2014, the Superior Court of Riverside County welcomed its first Native American Judge: Judge Sykes. In 2014, she competed in the primary against Michael J. Harrington and won, with 68.81 percent of the votes. At the age of 39, Sykes has a number of accomplishments under her belt.
Sykes is of Navajo descent; she was born in Arizona and belongs to the Coyote Pass Clan. Sykes recalls growing up and seeing the hardships her mother faced navigating her career as a single mother. “I was probably nine or ten years old when I started to think about being a lawyer and advocating for people’s rights,” Sykes said. She saw the injustices her mother experienced from being Native American woman and a single mother; she knew from then on that she was going to change this for her people. She wanted to make the world a better place for all Native Americans, as well as other minorities, and become a lawyer to fight injustice.
After high school, Sykes furthered her education at Stanford University, where she majored in English with a Creative Writing Emphasis and also received an undergraduate Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree. After she graduated in 1997 with Honors, Sykes decided to take a year off to work as an intern at California Indian Legal Services in Oakland, CA. Then, in 1999, Sykes readjourned her studies at Stanford Law School, where she earned her Juris Doctor Degree. During her time as a law student, Sykes clerked at California Indian Legal Services in Oakland. She also worked in California and DNA Peoples Legal Services in Tuba City, Arizona, where she focused on the issue of Federal Indian Law.
After law school, Sykes became a contract attorney at the Juvenile Defense Panel in 2003. In 2005, she became a deputy counsel at the Riverside County Office of County Counsel, and she continues to work there today. Sykes is a proud mother of four girls; her oldest daughter, Shundeen Martinez (11), is currently a high academic achiever at Poly High School. “[She] has always supported me in school and inspires me to reach my personal goals as she did,” Martinez said.
Judge Sykes’ term expires in 2021. From then on, we shall see what she will make of her career. “I majored in literature in hopes of becoming a writer one day and illustrating novels, and who knows; that can still happen,” Sykes said. Only the future will tell what great things may come from Judge Sykes.