Behind the Robe

by Barbara Sattler

  Well, that was a non-answer, Lourdes thought.

  “Mr. Johnson, do you wish to say anything?”

  Johnson stands. He’s tall, wiry with blonde scraggily hair, tattoos. His orange prison jumpsuit is too small. The probation report says he’s 22, but he looks closer to 30.

  “Your Honor, I been doing good. Passed my GED first try. Only got one write-up and it was for being late to chow. I went to every class I could get in. Did fourteen. My lawyer has the certificates. I’m clean. I tried to go to rehab, but they won’t take me cause I got this case hanging over me. Please, Your Honor, don’t give me no more time. I know I can stay clean.”

  Lourdes has no doubt what to do. “It is the order of the court that Mr. Johnson be given the mitigated sentence of .75 years to be served concurrently with his previous case. It is the intention of the court that he will serve no additional time. Mr. Johnson, I wish you the best. I urge you to continue to try to get rehab in prison or if not, when you get out. I wish I could order you to get rehab in prison, but I don’t have that power. Best of luck to you.’’

  The deputy handcuffs Johnson and leads him out the back of the courtroom to the holding cell. He’ll be taken back to the jail, and when a bus leaves for prison, he’ll return there to serve out his sentence.

  “Court is adjourned.”

  Relief curses through her body. She’s made it through day one. Only one faux pas and she won’t do that again. She always thought of court in terms of the state versus the defense. Prosecutors versus PD’s. But now she has to worry about court reporters, clerks, sheriff’s deputies and spectators, and family and friends of both sides who sit in the gallery.

  She hasn’t mentioned her biggest fear to a soul, that no one would listen to her. She had imagined lawyers laughing at her, reminding her she had only been a judge for a day, talking while she ruled, contradicting her. None of that had happened. After one day she realizes it won’t. The bench, the robe, a bailiff, all give her legitimacy.

  She’s a judge.

  TEN

  Lourdes wakes abruptly. A noise? Is something wrong? Carlos, usually a light sleeper, is out cold. She hears it again. Realizes it’s her phone. 2:15 a.m. Who would call this time of night? Did something happen to her parents, her brother?

  “Is this Judge Vel-a-squez?” A voice she’s never heard butchering her name.

  “Yes, this is Judge Velasquez,” pronouncing it slowly.

  “Sorry about your name, Your Honor. This is Sergeant James Ryan, along with Officer Steve Rivera, both members of the Joint Narcotics Task Force. Are you able to hear a warrant request?”

  A warrant request? Now? What am I supposed to do? I don’t know the procedure. But I can’t say no.

  “Yes, Sergeant.” Lourdes feels anxious and hopes she can wing it.

  “Sorry to wake you. Hold a minute and I’ll set up the tape recorder. When I come back on the phone, swear me in and I’ll begin.”

  Lourdes walks into the kitchen, turns on the light, and pulls on a sweatshirt Carlos had left on a chair. She wishes she had time to make some coffee or call Beverly.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Sergeant Ryan, do you promise the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

  “I do.”

  She grabs a small pad of paper, a pen and starts jotting notes. Ryan talks fast. They want to search the home of Manny Machado, a ‘known drug dealer.’ Ryan recites his prior record. Nothing in the last year. Forty-eight hours earlier, after midnight, a half hour apart, two cars each with a young driver had come to the ‘dealer’s’ residence and stayed for only a few minutes. A co-defendant from his most recent drug conviction had visited his home yesterday. They suspect they’ll find drugs, drug paraphernalia, drug ledgers, and money.

  Abruptly, Sergeant Ryan finishes, “Your Honor, do you find probable cause?”

  Oh god. I have to decide now. I don’t have any law books here. I don’t have any time to look up cases. She thinks back to law school. In Mapp v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled that if a search is illegal all the evidence seized would be excluded. The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. Anything found as a result of a bad search was out. The dealer would walk free.

  “Sergeant, I need a moment to review my notes. How old is the defendant?”

  “He’s 23.”

  What to do? They have nothing. You can’t search someone’s house because he has a prior record. Because he has received a visit from a co-defendant in a year-old case. Two young men stopped by late. Young people do that. And that was two days ago. No mention of suspicious packages. And that was two days ago. She shivers. The sweatshirt isn’t enough.

  She takes a breath. Weigh the pros and cons. The cops want to go into your home, invade your privacy in the middle of the night. If she says yes, they can search everywhere, wherever drugs, a ledger, or money could be hidden. Every nook and cranny of the home. No, this won’t cut it. If she grants the warrant, an appellate court will throw it out. Did they call her because she’s new and might say yes?

  “Sergeant Ryan, I don’t find probable cause.”

  For a moment, silence. Then Ryan says, “Good night, Your Honor. Thanks for your time.” Lourdes thinks she hears bitch.

  Lourdes doesn’t know if she can go back to sleep. She makes a cup of decaf tea and mulls over the phone call. She’s not sure she made the right decision. The last two decisions she’s made have favored the defense. The sentencing of Mr. Johnson and this warrant call. Is she still too much of a defense lawyer? Is she looking at the evidence from the eyes of a PD or a ‘neutral’ party? What if the word gets around, “Judge Velasquez is biased against the prosecution?” The PD’s will like her, but the prosecutors will start refusing to let her hear their cases. Maybe she’s overthinking this and she should do what she thinks is right and forget the rest.

  She’s glad Carlos didn’t wake up. Now that he’s been hired at Raytheon he needs his sleep. Lourdes is torn about the job, glad he has one, fearful a security guard position is below him. Not the salary, but lack of challenge. As soon as he began working, his behavior changed for the better. But not entirely. He still has nightmares. He still has to face the door in public places. Still has flare-ups of anger, but not directed at her.

  Lourdes decides to try and sleep. She leaves the tea untouched and gets into bed.

  Her mind churns. She thinks about work. So far so good. Both her JAA and law clerk/bailiff seem to be good hires. The three of them quickly learned to work as a team. If something has to get done, they pitch in and do it, whether it fits their job description or not. That’s how it worked at the PD. She did a lot of her own typing.

  Lourdes has dinner plans tomorrow night—no, technically tonight—with Beverly Arnold, the judge she admired at New Judges School. They’ve hit it off despite their age difference. Lourdes is thirty-seven and Beverly is, well, she’s a lot older. Lourdes guesses maybe early sixties. She’d never ask. Beverly has a wicked sense of humor, doesn’t mind answering Lourdes’ questions or giving advice about anything from who to ask if you want a better desk chair to whether a rumor about a colleague is likely true.

  Lourdes must have drifted back to sleep. The next thing she’s aware of is Carlos in the shower. It’s time to get up.

  Lourdes waits for Carlos to finish and then showers. She’s about to dry her hair when Carlos walks in.

  “Did you get a call late last night?”

  “Yeah, search warrant.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I denied it. They didn’t have probable cause.”

  “What kind of case?”

  “Drugs. Thought this guy was dealing.”

  “One of us?”

  “That had nothing to do with my decision.”

  “Well, was he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go
od for you, babe.”

  “Carlos, believe me they didn’t have enough evidence. I’d have done the same no matter what the person was.”

  Carlos said nothing further. She couldn’t believe he saw life that way. He didn’t used to be like this. She tried to put the conversation out of her mind.

  Lourdes is glad it’s Friday, a quiet day. She spends her time getting ready for next week’s DUI trial. Should be easy. She’s tried at least twenty-five as a defense lawyer. She shows Becca the jury instructions she’s prepared. Soon she’ll expect Becca to prepare the preliminary set.

  The following week is the family law hearing she dreads. She’s read the family court rules and applicable statutes, but needs to read some cases. Find out how judges ruled in similar situations. ‘Best interest of the child’ is the standard, but she needs to get a better feel for what it means. A lot of what she needs to know is unwritten. You learn from experience which she doesn’t have.

  Like Lourdes, Beverly loves to eat, but unlike Lourdes, she has the girth to go with her passion. Tonight they’re going to Beverly’s son’s new restaurant, The Drunken Chicken, for chicken and waffles. Lourdes never heard of chicken and waffles together, not a typical Mexican dish, but she’s always up to try something new.

  The restaurant’s crowded. They sit at a small table near the front where they can watch the foot traffic on 4th Avenue. Beverly orders waffles and chicken and Lourdes follows suit. Beverly proudly shows her the soda machine where you can make flavored Cokes: lemon, cherry, vanilla. Says the drinks remind her of an old-fashioned soda fountain where she and her family went when she was a child. Lourdes has never had a flavored Coke before, but will again. She’ll eat or drink anything that has vanilla in it.

  Food ordered, they get down to it. “I need to warn you. Many of our colleagues are lazy prima donnas. When they don’t have anything on their calendar they go home, play golf.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Don’t they get in trouble?”

  “You’re in charge of yourself. Supposed to have pride in your job. It makes me really angry. I don’t want you to be like them.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m used to working long hours.” Lourdes can’t imagine leaving early. At the PD she worked 60 hour weeks. They are always behind. Clients in jail need to see you, motions need to be written, letters to the prosecutor to-ask—no to beg—for a better plea bargain.

  “Their laziness is why a few of us get stuck doing all the unassigned stuff like warrants, protective orders, empaneling grand juries and taking grand jury returns,” Beverly says, “course a monkey could take returns.”

  Lourdes isn’t sure what she means by taking grand jury returns. She makes a mental note to ask her secretary, who is a former court clerk. Doesn’t want to appear totally stupid. Lourdes had wanted to discuss her warrant experience with Beverly, but didn’t know how to bring it up. Now she had her opening.

  “I got my first warrant call last night. I was totally not ready to deal with it. I should’ve realized I’d get called for warrants, but somehow I didn’t.”

  “You probably got a memo about it with all the other information. Most of it’s horseshit, but look at the warrant memo. The police are supposed go in alphabetical order. With a last name like Arnold, I get called a lot. Some of our colleagues don’t take their calls. Have their JAAs say they’re busy. And worse, when they get a call in the middle of the night, some judges get pissed off and take it out on the cop or turn their phones off. Like cops should only work days.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “ As I said you can do pretty much what you want. Your integrity is supposed to keep you doing your share of the work.” Beverly smiles as a waiter brings an appetizer, fried green beans.

  “I don’t remember ordering this,” Lourdes says.

  “Ben always brings me something extra when I’m with someone who hasn’t eaten here before. Like I need fattening up.” She pats her stomach. “I’ve had cops tell me they’ve called 10 or 11 judges with no luck. When they find a judge who’s willing to listen, they tend to call that person again and again. They’ll probably call you often since you answered the phone.”

  “I’m not sure. I denied the warrant.”

  “Good for you. If they didn’t have probable cause you have no choice.”

  “It was two guys from the city drug task force. The guy they were watching had a record of drug crimes. All the evidence they had was stale and totally circumstantial. I thought maybe they called me because it was weak, and they thought someone new would grant it.”

  “I never heard them doing that before. They usually go in alphabetical order and they were probably just up to the V’s. On the other hand, I’ve heard some rumors about the city drug task force. When I first took the bench cops weren’t as educated as they are now. Lots of times I didn’t find PC. They used to want to search the car of every Latino coming from Mexico. The probable cause was the person appeared nervous when stopped. Who isn’t? Now it’s rare to turn them down. They’ve learned the law.”

  Lourdes and Beverly are silent for a few moments as they eat. She can’t wait to bring Molly here. Maybe she shouldn’t. All this craft beer might be too much temptation. Shouldn’t she trust Molly? They can’t spend their whole lives avoiding places that serve alcohol.

  She turns her thoughts to what Beverly has told her. She’s getting a different view of her new colleagues. She wants to know who the lazy ones are, but she doesn’t want Beverly to think she’s a gossip.

  ”What about the presiding judge? Do I need to worry about him?”

  “Why?”

  “He’s making me do that custody hearing, and …”

  “And what?”

  “I told you how he acted toward me in his office.”

  “I doubt if Ford will mess with your assignments. Usually he’s so lazy he lets the head of each bench deal with it. Judge Jacobs is head of criminal so you’ll have no problem there.”

  There is silence for a few moments. “As for his personal habits, he’s a pig, but the consensus is he’s harmless. I’ve never heard of him touching or threatening anyone. Just avoid him. You could also send a memo to Jacobs about what happened. He’ll understand and he won’t say anything to Presiding Judge Ford. Since I’ve been around we only had one PJ who had any balls.”

  “PJ?”

  “Presiding Judge.”

  “Can’t believe I didn’t figure that out. Finish your story.”

  “I’m talking many years ago. Shortly after I started. I’ve seen some PJs who punish you if you get on their bad side. Make sure you get a bench assignment you don’t want, that kind of thing. Except for Judge Riley. God rest his soul.”

  A young good-looking man with a wide smile and lengthy beard comes over to the table. “Hey, Mom,” he smiles at Beverly and says to Lourdes, “you probably guessed, I’m her son, Ben. Nice to meet you.” He shakes her hand. “Was everything okay? Sorry I can’t stay and talk. We’re short-handed.” He gives his mom a big hug and walks off.

  “He’s adorable,” Lourdes says. “Tell me more about Judge Riley.”

  “I was very fond of him. He was kind, fair. He’d go to bat for you if you were right, no matter what anyone else thought. But he hated shirkers. He wanted everyone there till 5 p.m. and there was hell to pay if he found out you left early. He’d always say, ‘Come see me if you’re bored. I’ll find you something to do.’ The judges today are mostly wimps. Only care about not getting reversed and positive judicial reviews.”

  “I never thought the judges bothered to read them.”

  “Judges read them. Most take them seriously since the results go public. It can be pretty humiliating. My first review someone wrote, ‘There are 10,000 lawyers in Pima County. Nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety-nine would do a better job.’”

  “Oh, that’s horrible. Weren’t you upset?”


  “I was until I talked to some of the other judges. Everyone gets horrible comments,”

  “You have the compassion of a dead cockroach,”

  “Did you learn the law from watching television?” and

  “Stop talking so much about yourself, you’re not that interesting.”

  “Those are harsh.”

  “When you’re a judge you piss people off and you should. You’re not on the bench to make friends or excuse unprepared lawyers. You have to make hard decisions.”

  Lourdes wonders if she’s made a terrible mistake. Bev is smart and confident. What would people say about her? Lourdes’ cell rings. She plans on letting it go to voice mail until she sees the screen.

  “Mom?”

  “It’s Papa. He’s in the emergency room. I think he had a stroke.”

  ELEVEN

  The dreaded day has arrived. Lourdes has to deal with Judge Fischer’s custody case. She hopes she’s ready, but she can’t stop worrying about her dad. She stayed at the hospital till around midnight, and exhausted as she was, she couldn’t sleep. On a good day she couldn’t do this. And today? She took a class in family law, but since then she’s paid no attention to the subject except when a few friends discussed their divorces.

  The plaintiff, Judge Fischer, has filed a petition to take his two daughters out of public school and send them to Jewish school. His wife, Charlotte Perkins-Fischer, a psychologist, wants the kids to remain in public school.

  Lourdes presides over this case by default. The judge who handled the original divorce has retired. All the other Pima County judges have recused themselves because they know Judge Fischer. He practiced civil law in Tucson until he became a judge in Cochise County, the nearest county to the South. She’s not sure that’s the real reason. She’s already presided over a couple hearings on preliminary matters, such as scheduling, but Fischer has a hard time remembering he’s a litigant, not the judge. He interrupts, tries to set rules, and doesn’t listen to hers. You can only have one judge per courtroom.