The Empathy of Tough Guys
I get my first double espresso every day in a shop a block from the county courthouse. The local lawyers and judges stop in regularly, and stop to chat with the owner, who's an affable fellow. Next door to him is the posh clothing store in town, where the same lawyers and judges go to be fitted for their suits. The salesmen there are also coffee-shop customers, and thanks to that triangulation, the guy who works the coffee machine, who never sets foot in the courthouse, knows more about the business there than anyone. He's the kind of outside contact you just love to have if you're a reporter.
The other day, he and I got to talking about a crusty old judge who had just been in the place before I stopped in. Before he was a judge he used to be a prosecuting attorney -- he had the job of trying to prove every suspect was guilty and trying to put every criminal away for as long as possible.
Yet my coffeeshop owner told me how utterly humane the guy was on the bench. He told me a story he had heard from someone else. One year, late in the day on Christmas Eve, this judge got a Christmas card from a woman just bawling him out up and down because he had sentenced her son and the son was going to sit in jail over the holiday. The judge already had one arm in his coat. But when he read that, he looked up the man's case, and found out that he had in fact ordered the convict paroled, but for some reason the order had not been followed up. So he got on the phone, found the warden, and he didn't leave his chambers till he knew that young man was on his way home to his family.
There's nothing of the bleeding heart in that. It's compassion rooted in fairness, in a strong sense of right and wrong. Another story I heard that day was how a client who was behind on his child support came before this judge and pleaded that he was lacking money. The judge and the man in front of him were from the same background, the same social class. You might expect an instinctive sympathy. Instead, the judge sized up the man by his clothes, piece by piece, jacket, tie, shoes, estimating (accurately) the value of each article. Then he cut the guy no slack.
I've seen a number of DAs become judges, too, in my time covering Chester County. And even if they were tough as nails as prosecutors, they tend to be among the most "empathic" on the bench. I don't mean they just automatically give a suspect a break, or bought every sob story tossed up to them. Far from it. But they knew how to size up a criminal. They knew that there are different ways to be "guilty." And they could sniff out which criminals could, and would, make the most of a break, even when nobody else can see that.
The other day, he and I got to talking about a crusty old judge who had just been in the place before I stopped in. Before he was a judge he used to be a prosecuting attorney -- he had the job of trying to prove every suspect was guilty and trying to put every criminal away for as long as possible.
Yet my coffeeshop owner told me how utterly humane the guy was on the bench. He told me a story he had heard from someone else. One year, late in the day on Christmas Eve, this judge got a Christmas card from a woman just bawling him out up and down because he had sentenced her son and the son was going to sit in jail over the holiday. The judge already had one arm in his coat. But when he read that, he looked up the man's case, and found out that he had in fact ordered the convict paroled, but for some reason the order had not been followed up. So he got on the phone, found the warden, and he didn't leave his chambers till he knew that young man was on his way home to his family.
There's nothing of the bleeding heart in that. It's compassion rooted in fairness, in a strong sense of right and wrong. Another story I heard that day was how a client who was behind on his child support came before this judge and pleaded that he was lacking money. The judge and the man in front of him were from the same background, the same social class. You might expect an instinctive sympathy. Instead, the judge sized up the man by his clothes, piece by piece, jacket, tie, shoes, estimating (accurately) the value of each article. Then he cut the guy no slack.
I've seen a number of DAs become judges, too, in my time covering Chester County. And even if they were tough as nails as prosecutors, they tend to be among the most "empathic" on the bench. I don't mean they just automatically give a suspect a break, or bought every sob story tossed up to them. Far from it. But they knew how to size up a criminal. They knew that there are different ways to be "guilty." And they could sniff out which criminals could, and would, make the most of a break, even when nobody else can see that.
