“Enough said…” Those were the Judge’s words. What did they mean? Was the Presiding Judge threatening to fire the Commissioner? How could that be possible? She was doing her job. She had always done her job, and she usually did it better than anyone expected. Damnit.
She was using the same resources to handle an increased volume of cases. No matter how many people she acquitted, her court was still generating an increase in income because of the increased caseload — and that was true no matter how many times she acquitted drivers who had been given bum tickets.
Maybe those drivers might somehow support her someday – probably not. For the driver, Traffic Court was a one-time deal, incidental to their everyday life.
But for the peace officers who sat in court and learned that their word was not good enough, it was a blow to the Self. A darn Traffic Commissioner — who was she to degrade the men and women who put their lives on the line every day they showed up for work?
Didn’t they know who she really was? Didn’t they realize what she had given up by coming to Santa Barbara? Okay, that makes no difference. But there wasn’t a single lawyer in this city with a better education.
There might be one, possibly two, people in Santa Barbara who could understand the issues in the cases she handled in San Francisco — cases involving billions. If she had stayed in San Francisco, her annual compensation would have been 10 times what she was making now. Didn’t they know how fortunate they were to have her?
Actually, no.
What did she get? Well, Steve and the two children for starters. And the opportunity to support Steve and his dream. Without her and the kids, Steve would have had only himself to care for. He could have taken his sabbatical. He’s relying on her to take care of herself and the two children for the next year.
She serves at the pleasure of the Superior Court and the leader of that court was not pleased. One day, out of the blue, you could make the right decision and it inspires hatred, and it could be hatred not from the scumbags, but from the good and decent.
You could be hated by those you wanted to protect and serve.
Did the Presiding Judge say, “At least you have a husband with a job?” No, she definitely did not say that. But she was probably thinking it.
My big friend, Carol. Oh, come to Santa Barbara; you’ll love it here. And then I’ll fire you and let’s see you get a job! A failed Traffic Commissioner who has been in the community for nearly four years and hasn’t met a single lawyer who she thinks of as a friend.
The Commissioner catches herself. Carol doesn’t want to hurt me. No one, with the possible exception of a few dozen cops, has anything against me. And that’s because I don’t do things that hurt people. I grew up with a golden retriever. I don’t have a mean bone in my body.
Carol isn’t worried about my job. She’s worried about her own. Face it, if the police department’s endorsement comes at the cost of firing me, I’m gone. Does that mean I’m gone already? What about Steve and the sabbatical and his book? When do I tell him?
Should I go back and ask Carol, Am I already gone?
To be fired would be humiliating and to ask Carol if I’m going to be fired would be even more humiliating. And what difference would it make? She might say Yes or No or Maybe or Not Yet. So what? At most I would have an opportunity to change my ways.
I could find people guilty of a traffic offense even though I didn’t think the charge had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt – and it was my job, my sworn duty, to make that determination to the best of my ability. If I were willing to yield, could I save my job?
What would be the cost? I’d encounter my reflection even when nowhere near a mirror and think, there she is: The “A” student who could not maintain her integrity in traffic court!
Is that worse than: The “A” student who couldn’t keep a job as Traffic Court Commissioner, who couldn’t feed her children and whose house was sold in foreclosure.
She thought about how nice it was to be a judicial officer and entitled to a small bathroom she shared with only one other commissioner, because when she started to barf, it wasn’t really in public. She had never done that, but she was just realizing it wasn’t a matter of choice.
She was barfing now. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t barfing in public, but she wasn’t in her own house. The building was public so how could this toilet be private? Maybe she should go out in her little courtroom and puke from the bench.
Could she be fired for that? Maybe not. She could be fired for being a judge who followed the law, but not for being a judge who got sick while doing her job.
When she was done in the bathroom, she couldn’t think of anything to do about the stink. She went to her desk and sat in the Herman Miller chair that came with her so-called job. There were twelve contested cases on the afternoon docket. Five of them matched her template for quota cases.
What did she know about a quota? Did it matter? None of it was evidence in a particular case. None of that data had been subject to cross-examination. And what about those visits to the scenes of the traffic crimes. She was allowing ex parte information to affect her decision.
I’m a vigilante, she thought. No, I’m worse than a vigilante: I’m a judicial-vigilante. No wonder Carol wants to fire me. I’ve gone off-the-reservation. Oh great, “off-the-reservation.” It wasn’t an expression she had never uttered aloud. Surely it is a racist thing to think.
My latent racism is expressing itself. Am I a racist-judicial-vigilante? No! I’m a maverick. Wait, a maverick is an unbranded cow. I read that somewhere. Cow as in female? Is it sexist to say someone’s a maverick? Am I sexist, too?
The first case of the afternoon was in progress. The ticket was written on the thirtieth of the month. She didn’t need a diagram to visualize the location. Instead of hearing the actual testimony of the officer and the driver she heard:
“And then he violated Vehicle Code bla, bla, bla.” A completely different voice asked the officer to confirm that the violation occurred on Figueroa Street or Arrellaga Street or Micheltorena Street or Salsipuedes Street or Yanonali Street or … The defendant proved with a flourish that the officer doesn’t know how the spell Quarantina Street on which the offense, the alleged offense, occurred.
The Commissioner thinks, So what? How does that impair his credibility?
The driver says it means the officer is not very conscientious, not detail oriented. This is his job, why can’t he spell the name of every street in the city he his protecting?
The Commissioner thinks: The driver might be making a point. Carol invited me to lunch on my first day on the job, but I declined. I had to go to the Auto Club to get a map of the city so I could learn to spell the name of every street in town.
I gave Steve a list of the names I couldn’t spell on the first attempt. Then I read the list back to Steve and asked him to correct my pronunciation.
Now the defendant was saying, “I did not violate Section bla, bla, bla, and I know because I would never do such a thing. I’ve been driving for a hundred years and have never been given a ticket, bla, bla, bla.”
Wait, the Commissioner thinks. Quarantina. The police officer can’t spell Quarantina. That’s not a hard one and this guy has testified before. Was it about a violation, an alleged violation, on Quarantina? I’m going to ask. Oh, he doesn’t recall. Bull. ‘Guilty’ or ‘not guilty.’
In opposition to the police testimony the defendant has said, in effect, ‘not me,’ ‘not guilty,’ AND the police officer couldn’t spell the name of the street on which the alleged violation occurred at two o’clock in the afternoon on the last day of the month. The defendant’s been obnoxious.
An acquittal will infuriate this officer.
Can’t keep a job; can’t keep integrity. Is that a true dilemma?
The Commissioner was in a professional world of her own. Hers was the lowest in the hierarchy of judicial officers, and lawyers rarely appeared in her court unless they were representing themselves, their spouse, or a child.
They tended to resent the need to appear, the need to wait their turn, and usually the outcome, which prioritized the testimony of the peace officer over the testimony of the defendant.
With only a rare exception, the lawyers who appeared in traffic court were defendants participating in the first and only trial of their career. They thought about the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of proof and reckoned:
My direct testimony versus the cop. I’m not going to commit perjury over a traffic ticket. It’s my word against his. How can that not create reasonable doubt?
Real trial lawyers relive the cases they lose, questing for what could have been done differently to produce a different outcome, for the rest of their lives. A lawyer whose only trial litigates his own traffic ticket, and who is lucky enough to prevail, spends the rest of his life in search of an epitaph that adequately celebrates the wit and skill that made his acquittal possible.
If the same person is convicted of a traffic offense, he is not like the trial lawyer who wants to know what he did wrong – or what he could have done differently to produce a different result.
No, the traffic ticket-loser-lawyer obsesses over how to get even with the ignorant, stupid, inattentive, unappreciative, and probably corrupt Traffic Commissioner.
commissioner who does the job in a way that pleases the Superior Court judges for whom he works is bulletproof against civilian complaints.
She was used to being bulletproof. She planned a life of purpose on the assumption that she’d continue to be bulletproof. But now her professional invulnerability required her to convict based on self-serving assumptions while ignoring the exculpatory evidence of which she was aware.
— Brian Burke is a certified family law specialist practicing family law and mediation in Santa Barbara. A researcher and educator in the field of divorce and family conflicts, he also is the creator of the Legal Road Map™. Click here for more information, call 805.965.2888 or e-mail brian@burkefamilylaw.com. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.