And Now for Something Completely Different

***DISCLAIMER: If you were bothered by the library post, and/or feel that this blog should be limited to scathing dismissals of bad professors and over-eager 1L's, you might want to skip this one. Or, in the alternative, you could proceed straight to the comments and begin flaming.

I knew it the minute I walked into his courtroom. I could spot his type a mile away. He had “softie” written all over him, from the top of his neatly combed hair to the tips of his polished shoes. The amicable chatter of the prosecutors and the defense lawyers, the ease of the stenographers and secretaries, and the relaxed stance of the bailiff all said that this was not the courtroom of a man who inspired fear in those he judged.

I’d come to California, the state with the harshest criminal laws on the books, in hopes of seeing the law in action. I wanted to watch the judge bang his gavel and solemnly intone the words “life without parole.” Instead, I’d ended up in the courtroom of a bleeding-heart-liberal federal magistrate. The longer I stayed, the more I realized that this was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He progressed through his calendar quickly, signing an order here, issuing instructions to a lawyer there. The matters were routine: a Rule 20 case that was stalled until the prosecutor in Nebraska got his act together and hammered out a plea statement, a guilty plea and sentencing of time already served for a defendant wanted by INS, and a pedophile who’d gotten caught looking at child pornography at work.

Then came the case I’d been waiting for. It concerned a defendant, waiting for trial, who had violated the terms of his supervised release and was now in danger of being removed from his halfway house and placed in jail. The man was clearly a career criminal, facing some significant time in the slammer. He’d violated the terms of his release before: testing positive for drug use, breaking the rules of the halfway house, and returning after curfew. The judge had told him the last time he was on his last chance. This was it.

I harbored hopes, as the judge looked down at the defendant and began to discuss the particulars of the case. In his deep and sonorous voice, he explained the gravity of the situation. The need to draw a line. The trust the defendant had violated, and how deeply disturbed the judge felt at this betrayal. Here, I thought, was the judge’s chance to prove his mettle. To show, to the defendant, the courtroom, and the world at large, that he was made of sterner stuff than your average liberal California Judge.

Instead, after listening to a cursory explanation by the pre-trial officer and a stumbling, halting explanation by the defendant, the judge decided to let him stay at the halfway house. My shock must have shown on my face, because the judge’s next words were that the defendant was on “his last half-chance”.

Oh, the judge tried to explain his reasoning. That particular prosecutor was always out for blood. The pre-trial services officer wasn’t recommending removal. The halfway house hadn’t treated the matter as warranting anything more than a verbal warning. I didn’t buy it. I’d gone into the courtroom wanting carnage. Instead, I got velvet and roses.

The judge’s calendar was over for the day, and I was in dire need of a restroom. The proceedings I’d watched had made me sick to my stomach. Was this the way California treated career criminals? Putting them in halfway houses, offering them drug rehab and job training? No wonder the country had such a crime problem. I resolved to check out the situation in the state court. Surely, justice couldn’t be uniformly bad. There had to be a judge somewhere in the state who believed in wielding the rod of justice.