James M. Redwine

National Judicial College

Suffer The Little Children

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In the JPeg Osage Ranch Bunkhouse. Photo by Peg Redwine

Some of you know and remember I recently was sent via the National Judicial College to work with judges in the country of Georgia that is located where the border of the Old Spice Trail used to be. Peg and I had an interesting and fulfilling time there and whether we taught the Georgian people anything worthwhile, we learned a great deal. One very happy and useful thing we learned was Georgians celebrate two Christmases.

Because about half of the country dates the birth of Jesus using the Julian calendar, December 25th is Christmas for them. The other half recognizes the Gregorian calendar for the Nativity so they celebrate Christmas on January 07. The calendar established by Julius Caesar was gradually abandoned in most countries in favor of the calendar adopted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. Many, but not most, Christian churches still use the Julian date of December 25 for Christmas. Regardless, whatever one finds in the heavens (wise men indeed), it results in what every child dreams of, two Christmas mornings. As for me, as a family court judge and one-time family law attorney, I see two Christmases as a potential blessing. I suggest parents who cannot seem to put their children’s interests ahead of their own might be able to use both Christmas days.

Each of the various Christian sects may define Christmas and how it is celebrated a little differently.  But hope, love, joy and generosity are a part of every church’s Christmas doctrine. And because Christmas is rooted in the story of Jesus’ birth, children have always been the main focus for most people.  We might decry the commercialism of Christmas, but we recognize this is supposed to be the most special time for every child of every family. However, one thing that is more certain than the arrival of credit card bills in January is the special acrimony that raises its ugly head in court in the weeks leading up to Christmas; Advent, where is thy joy?

There is something about the season that should bring out the best in loving parents that can sometimes bring out the worst.  One sad statistic that Domestic Relations Courts can foretell with unerring accuracy is a sharp rise in divorced parents fighting over where and how their children will spend the Christmas holidays. One parent may want the children to spend every second of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with that parent and that parent’s family.  Another parent may want to control whether some new significant other can even be in the same house with the children.  Perhaps a parent will want to remove the children from the state for the entire holiday.  Parents may try to control every aspect of the other parent’s lifestyle when the children are with the ex-spouse.  Believe me, we have not skimmed the curdled milk off the top of the many permutations of how parents set out to ruin their children’s Christmas.

Of course, in most situations, if both parents simply applied their Christian principles to the sharing of their children, these destructive behaviors would disappear.  Unfortunately, there are some truly bad parents from whom children must be protected.  Fortunately, they are extremely rare.  For most situations, children are happier, healthier and more successful when both of their parents and both extended families are there to give love and support.

The Dutch philosopher, Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677), posited that each human does, and should, strive to advance their own interests.  When the interests of two people collide, both people will achieve more of their desires if they compromise.  Spinoza believed that this pattern of competing self-interests is the basis of civilization. Instead of denying our own desires, we should recognize that we are more likely to achieve what we want if we assert our desires while accommodating others.

In Sunday School or when our parents were explaining why we could not have everything our own way, this was called The Golden Rule.  If you want justice, you should do justice.  If you want all of the toys, you must realize so do your siblings.  More importantly, you should learn that if you and your siblings fight over who should get one hundred percent of a toy, the toy may be destroyed by your fighting.

According to Spinoza and virtually every rational human since we began forming groups of humans, this is how societies are built and prosper.  Of course, societies and families collapse when people do not compromise and refuse to acknowledge the desires and needs of others. In other words, self-interest is not a bad thing.  It helps motivate us to advance as individuals and groups as long as we accommodate the self-interests of others.

So when parents of minor children no longer live together, it can make their children miserable, especially during Christmas, if one or both of their parents or members of the extended families demand to control one hundred percent of the children’s lives. Most states have addressed these issues by promulgating Parenting Time Guidelines.  These guidelines can be helpful as an ultimate fallback position, but the children can still be torn, confused, frustrated and angry.  The best guideline remains The Golden Rule.  If the parents would put themselves in the place of their children or the other parent or the other parent’s family, the one size fits all guidelines would not come into play.

As a family court judge who has from time to time seen the destructiveness caused by pride, jealousy, hurt feelings and stubbornness in domestic relations cases, I respectfully suggest that both parents are always happier if their children are happy. And my experience has been that children have a much happier Christmas if the people they love most, their parents, put the children’s interests first. Perhaps if we just all start using the Georgian Christmas dates both parents could be happy. On the other hand, maybe then they would just have another time to fight about.

There is no need to cut the children in half.  Recognition that one’s own self-interest will be advanced by accommodating the self-interest of others is all that is required. And, perhaps a quick reference to Matthew, Ch 18., vs. 1-5 might be of help before any discussion is held as to how the Christmas holidays should be arranged concerning the children. Merry Christmas!

Other Countries Heard From

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Photo by Peg Redwine

President Kennedy gave his inaugural address January 20, 1961 when I was a senior in high school. He was concerned about the Soviet Union’s 1957 Sputnik achievement and challenged American youth to respond. That September I entered Oklahoma State University and boldly majored in physics. By June 1962 I had learned how to smoke but not learned anything that would raise concerns in Russia. I changed my major to English and then in June 1963 decided to “ask what I could do for my country” without the headaches of college level studies. I became a 1960’s Okie and headed for California. On the way I took my first foray out of the United States to Nogales, Mexico.

My friend and fellow OSU dropout, Ed Kelso, and I drove his 1954 Mercury down to the Mexican border and were waved through without so much as a question, much less a visa. We stopped at the first bar we came to and ran into my old high school classmate Jim Reed and a few other guys from Pawhuska, Oklahoma who were there on a similar journey of cultural discovery. What I noted from my brief sojourn was my high school Spanish was sufficient as long as we had U.S. Dollars. I also received my first faint awareness of how lucky I was to have been born north of the border.

Another foreign country experience was when as a member of the National Judicial College faculty I was sent for two weeks (December 1999-January 2000) to Ukraine to teach Ukrainian judges. I liked the Ukrainian people but found their lives to be quite difficult. The judges told me they frequently did not receive their small monthly salaries and the Ukrainian government often failed to provide them and their families with promised individual family housing. Also, police corruption was in full view on the streets of Kiev and workers who were supposed to help repair such public assets as the fountain in “Freedom Square” did about as much work as I did at Oklahoma State. As the old Soviet saying went, “The government pretended to pay them and they pretended to work.” I left Ukraine with a greater appreciation of what our Founders sacrificed for us.

Then in 2003 the National Judicial College sent me to Russia for a week to teach Russian judges about jury trials. The old Soviet Union abolished jury trials after the 1917 Revolution and Russia was just reinstituting them into their legal system. Peg was able to be with me on that trip and we, once again, found the Russian judges to be friendly and gracious but the Russian culture caused us great chagrin. A good cup of coffee was truly a foreign concept, but the consumption of alcohol was quite prevalent. The idea of innocent unless proven guilty was belied by the defendants being housed in metal and plastic cages in the courtroom. And when a defendant on trial for murder was marched into the courtroom by four AK47 carrying uniformed guards right in front of the jury, my American sense of justice was assaulted. It was good to get back to my Indiana courtroom with its guarantees of equal justice. Russia was interesting, but the United States was good to come home to.

Most recently (June 2022-February 2023) Peg and I completed a six-month judicial teaching mission sponsored by the American Bar Association, the East-West Management Institute and the United States Agency for International Development. I was sent to the country of Georgia that until 1991 had been part of the old Soviet Union. My duties were to make friends, observe, work with and give suggestions to Georgian judges based upon my more than forty years of experience as an American judge.

We had a wonderful experience with the Georgian judges and our newly-made Georgian friends. They could not have treated us any better. Everyone we met was positive about our involvement and open to suggestions. We would gladly return to Georgia whenever invited. Of course, we did note substantial differences between the Georgian culture and America’s. Georgia is bordered on the north by Russia and on the south by Turkey. Twenty percent of Georgia is militarily occupied by Russia; that is a constant worry for the Georgian people. Peg and I thought how different our lives in America are. Our northern border is Canada which we visited in 2018 and is about as good a neighbor as any country could have. And our southern border is Mexico that appears to want to join us.

What this 2023 Fourth of July birthday party has helped us to reflect upon is, no matter how much CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and many in government service complain about America and malign it, many of the alternatives are pretty scary. After seeing how some of the rest of the world has to live, I find the ’ole USA absolutely marvelous. America has faults and foibles, but as Francis Scott Key wrote, it is really wonderful, “That our flag is still there.”

Photo by Peg Redwine

End of Tour

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Photo by Peg Redwine

If you happen to be one of the true followers of “Gavel Gamut”, that is, one who started with me in 1990 and still hopes to glean something of interest from it, let me say, Gentle Reader, you are 33 years older and still hopeful. Now, whether that means you are any wiser, well, only you can decide. As for me, since I started this column only because I was asked to do so by my good friend, Jim Kohlmeyer, who had just bought The New Harmony Times newspaper and was looking for filler, I certainly feel the passing of the time. About 1,000 of these burnt offerings have been sacrificed on the altar of public opinion since 1990. At a calculation of approximately between 500 and 1,000 words per column, that means, if you have been a binge reader, you have digested about one million of my words; you have my sincere sympathy. Perhaps a therapist might help.

I personally know of only a few living persons who from the beginning have inexplicably clung to the hope for “something of value” from “Gavel Gamut”. Those persons shall remain anonymous to preserve their reputations and perhaps stave off mental commitment petitions.

Over the years I have delved into subjects from the serendipitous to the scatological and the topical to the long-forgotten. I have eulogized some heroes and castigated some villains. Frequently I have followed the Friends TV show formula and written about nothing. Through it all, no one seemed to take note, whether to cheer or jeer. I remain gratified by the benign neglect.

Now, today’s column falls into that realm of nostalgia where I have sometimes wandered such as when sadness, personal or political, took control of my pen. You see, Gentle Reader, Peg, who has often been unfairly abused in this column, and I are nearing the end of our 6 month mission to the country of Georgia. We are homesick, but already sense the missing of our new Georgian friends and the many enriching experiences we have enjoyed with them.

Should you be one of those “Gavel Gamut” followers who regularly whiles away your down time with this column you may recall that I was contacted by the President of the National Judicial College last spring about working with the Georgian judiciary for the American Bar Association, the United States Agency for International Development and the East-West Management Institute. Peg and I said yes then and are now two weeks from completing our mission here. Our general rules of engagement were to observe Georgian judges in court and, if asked, offer any relevant information about how America’s judicial experience might help enhance Georgian judicial independence and court access.

We have found the Georgian judges and their court staffs to be hard working, friendly and open to positive suggestions. We have averaged approximately one formal presentation a week and observed many daily court hearings. It has been a true learning experience for us and, I hope, of value to our Georgian colleagues. At least they have had the graciousness to tell us it has.

Georgia is a beautiful country of four million friendly people who are justly proud of their 8,000 year old culture that includes the claimed origin of wine and wonderfully complex and interesting cuisines. We have gained both friends and pounds in carrying out the social aspects of our tour.

As with all the peoples Peg and I have had the pleasure to work with through my membership on the faculty of the National Judicial College, the Georgian people all speak highly of their friendship with America. They appreciate the generosity of Americans and look to us for leadership in international relations. It has been gratifying to us to work with Palestinians, Ukrainians, Russians and Georgians who have opened their hearts to us and our beloved country. It will be sweet to get home, but bittersweet to leave.

Georgian Wine Regions. Photo by Peg Redwine

When Mercy Seasons Justice

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Photo by Peg Redwine

For the past two weeks as a member of the National Judicial College’s faculty I have helped to present an online continuing education course to judges from several states. A significant portion of the course involved an examination of America’s penal system.

In general, the continuum of criminal justice runs from Deuteronomy, 10:21, to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Act 4, scene 1. Deuteronomy provides:

“Thine eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

But Shakespeare’s Portia pleads with Shylock to show mercy:

“The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

….

It is an attribute to God Himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God’s when mercy seasons justice.”

Gentle Reader, you have already discerned the Devil is in the vast distance of details between these two extremes. How should we as judges of our fellow humans devise and apply a sentence that is just for the individual in court and society in general?

The State of Indiana’s Constitution provides a foundational mandate for judges when it comes to designing and imposing sentences that both follow the law and are just; just to the defendant, to any victims and to the general public. Article I, section 18 demands that as to Indiana’s legal system:

“The penal code shall be founded on the principles of reformation, and not on vindictive justice.”

For judges to be “Strict Constructionists” and conservative followers of the Indiana charter, vengeance may play no role while reformation must be the goal. One of my fellow National Judicial College faculty mates was Judge Timothy Brauer from Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Constitution provides:

“The courts of justice of the State shall be open to every person, and speedy and certain remedy afforded for every wrong and for every injury to person, property or reputation, and right and justice shall be administered without sale, denial, delay or prejudice.”

Article II, Bill of Rights,

Section II-6.

As a member in good standing of both the Indiana and Oklahoma Bars, I am bound by the Constitutions of both states. Oklahoma’s reference to justice not being for sale reminds of Socrates’ admonition to his judges in the Athenian Senate:

“A judge’s duty is not to make a present of justice, but to give judgment; and judges are sworn to judge according to the laws, and not according to their own good or pleasure.”

Plato’s Apology of Socrates.

The wisdom of basing a system of justice on mercy instead of vengeance has been recognized for thousands of years. Jesus knew society prospered when the Golden Rule and not rule by gold was the standard. And WWII war correspondent Ernie Pyle reminded all of us, especially judges:

“When you have lived with the unnatural mass cruelty that mankind is capable of inflicting on itself, you find yourself dispossessed of the faculty for blaming one poor man for the triviality of his faults.”

As judges should learn, all they have to do to do their duty in imposing sentences is to strictly follow the applicable law which includes the divine judicial quality of not straining at mercy.

Photo by Peg Redwine

President Wilson Was Right

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President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points set forth a vision of a WWI peace treaty based not on total victory for any one country but a permanent peace for all countries founded on generous terms of self-determination and economic recovery. Germany sued for peace thinking it would be treated fairly, but mainly France and Great Britain joined by several other countries demanded Draconian subjugation of Germany including ruinous reparations. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 was a testament to vengeance, not peace. It also led directly to WWII.

If there is no war like a civil war for hatred and carnage, there is no dispute like a conflict between neighbors for animosity. Ukraine and Russia have had a common but transitioning border for many years. Millions of people in both countries can speak both Ukrainian and Russian. The two cultures are deeply intertwined even though there have been several border conflicts between the countries. Much as next door neighbors may fall out over property line disagreements countries with a common border may fall victim to the old axiom, “Good fences make good neighbors.” In like manner, when there is a breach in the “fence”, repairing good relations may require a generosity of spirit on both sides and perhaps on the part of third parties seeking to become involved.

My good friend, Judge D. Neil Harris of Mississippi, serves on the faculty of the National Judicial College. He teaches other judges about courthouse security. Judge Harris has found that the type of court cases that are most likely to result in outbreaks of courtroom violence are property line disputes. He advises judges to be particularly alert when disputes between neighbors must be resolved in court. There is something visceral about such personal matters that makes forgiveness more difficult. As the world found to its chagrin after Versailles and WWI, even when wise people know that “Blessed are the peacemakers”, stiff necks are often the approach when neighbors must negotiate.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he has been negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin for two years and is eager to negotiate a cessation of the current hostilities if Putin agrees. The rest of the world should allow Ukraine and Russia autonomy for their efforts to achieve a permanent peace. Such countries as the United States, Poland, China or Belarus may confuse their own agendas with those of Ukraine and Russia and, just as at Versailles in 1919, peace may be only temporary when the neighbors make up under false pretenses or when pressured to do so by outside forces. Perhaps the rest of the world should bite its collective tongues as Ukraine and Russia, hopefully, apply Wilson’s Fourteen Point type wisdom that was so tragically ignored at the catastrophic ending of WWI.

To Your Health (VÁSHE ZDARÓVYE)

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At Coffee Bean, Moscow, 2003, picture taken by Peg Redwine

Whomever President Biden nominates to the U.S. Supreme Court, apparently Ketanji Brown Jackson, if confirmed by the Senate, will serve for life. If you have read Gavel Gamut recently you may recall I have called for a ten-year term limit for all federal judges. Although our federal judges are not of the same ilk as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, his twenty-two years in office with the opportunity to run for another six-year term in 2024 might help illustrate why term limits are worth considering.

Russia’s Constitution gives Putin much more autonomous power than our President or any of our nine Supreme Court justices. However, as almost all things in life, political power is a matter of degree. The photograph that Peg took of me reading a Russian newspaper in a Moscow coffee shop in 2003 contains a headline showing, in English, that Putin was announcing his intention to run for re-election. He was first elected president in 1999.

From our cave man days we have recognized that power corrupts and that the more and the longer a person has power the more he or she is tempted to abuse it. Putin has abused his immense power by invading Ukraine. Of course, he asserts his actions are required by the allegedly genocidal Ukrainian officials who are supposedly suppressing Ukrainian citizens, many of whom are culturally connected to Russia. Stalin and Hitler would have been proud of such an analysis; their terms of office should have been limited to zero.

When the National Judicial College sent me to Russia in 2003 to teach Russian judges how we in America conduct jury trials, Peg and I spent a few days in Moscow and a little less than a week in Volgograd, the old Stalingrad. We met and enjoyed many Russian citizens and often reflected on how lucky we were to have been born in America. We saw groups of unemployed young men wandering aimlessly along Tverskaya Street, Moscow’s main thoroughfare, carrying multiple bottles of beer and wine in their arms. When we attended the seminar in Volgograd, alcohol was more prevalent than educational materials and American rock and roll music was more popular than questions about how to afford civil rights via jury trials. The Russians appeared to be eager to escape the harsh realities of the Russian economy. Perhaps that is Putin’s true motivation, to take the minds of everyday Russian citizens off their harsh existence.

How ironic it is that Russia has invaded Ukraine when the lives of the Ukrainians are as drear as those of the Russians. Peg and I have often noted that nobody who was sober did much smiling in either country. Perhaps the Russian government is wanting to reprise its former use of the fertile fields of Ukraine in the feeding of the Russian populace. Once Ukraine was Russia’s bread basket. Now it barely feeds itself. But Russia may hold out hope for greener pastures anyway.

Many pundits are opining that Putin’s real goal is to be the new tsar of a reconstituted Soviet Union. Maybe so, but if he wants to win the hearts and minds of the Ukrainian people, and perhaps those in Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Moldova and even those of his own Russian citizens, he ought to refer to the Bible’s Book of Isaiah, Chapter 2, verse 4 and beat the Russian swords into plowshares. What the Ukrainians need, and the Russians too, is not more armaments but more economic development, not more soldiers but more farmers and store clerks.

That is an approach that the NATO countries should consider. For the trillions of dollars in soon to be lost military “aid” from America, Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain and others so willingly lavished upon Ukraine, we could “sanction” Putin with economic benefits to Ukraine and other at-risk countries on Russia’s borders. Yes, such an approach might make those countries more ripe for conquest but, if we use the same type of diplomacy we so successfully applied in the Marshall Plan, we might win friends instead of guaranteeing ourselves a nuclear powered enemy with terrible resolve. Perhaps we should ♫ study war no more ♫ and encourage Putin to do the same with honey, not vinegar. After all, the vast amount of vinegar we are wasting our precious assets on is just being used to make everyone involved more bitter.