James M. Redwine

Rodney Fetcher

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Many of you have read JUDGE LYNCH!, the historical novel Peg and I wrote about the lynchings of four Black men on the campus of the Posey County, Indiana courthouse in 1878. And several of you even participated in the making of our short movie about the murders. That was our first effort at movie making and probably yours too.

To those of you who volunteered to endure the cold, rain and tedium of my directorial debut, thank you! Please do not forget the compensation you received; wasn’t Shawnna Rigsby’s bar-b-cue good? You might be interested in some of the behind scenes manipulation I engaged in to get my friends to commit suicide, get shot, get chased by night riders on horseback and to even get lynched.

For example, early on I called our sons’s one-time boxing teammate and our good friend, Danny Thomas, and said, “Danny, I need some Black men to shoot and lynch on camera.Would you, your family and friends care to do that?” Danny did not hesitate. Then there was our neighbor, Chuck Minnette, who was minding his own business when I told him he surely must feel depressed and possibly even suicidal. Chuck thought I was kidding until we filmed his suicide scene. The scene involved Chuck firing a pistol with a blank cartridge near his head while my wife, Peg, laid on her back on the floor puffing on a cigar and blowing the smoke up toward Chuck’s face.

Chris Greathouse was called upon to have his neck broken by Danny Thomas and several “soiled doves” played their parts with such enthusiasm I will leave them unnamed. Jerry King generously offered his amazing Pioneer Village for several scenes and Jerry and his wife, Marsha, even donned their costumes of General and Mrs. Hovey. Dan Funk, whose father was a minister, played his preacher part convincingly. Dr. Bill Etherton and his wife, Judy, attended Dan’s frontier church and Dr. Bill along with Nurse Bonnie Minnette attended to “injured” patients.  Through it all the only person who actually knew anything about video cameras, Rodney Fetcher, managed to get the whole nineteen minute movie filmed and, along with Peg, edited. My eldest brother, C.E. Redwine, is a professional musician and he wrote and performed a marvelous score for the film. There were numerous other budding Academy Award winners who contributed time, talent, tips and immense patience; I appreciate you all!

Now, Gentle Reader, you may have noticed that I had little to do with the finished product. But let me suggest the same is often true in other movies where those who get the acclaim may not be those who do the real work. In my defense I just wish to state, “Hey, I wrote the book!”

Anyway, our little movie does tell the horrific story of murdered African Americans by the powerful white community of Posey County, Indiana in 1878 and brings to light the long hidden tragedy. I am proud of our effort and will always treasure the experience. However, it is not JUDGE LYNCH! that is the impetuous for this week’s column but Peg’s and my attempt to research the making of a full-length movie about the infamous Osage Reign of Terror that occurred in Osage County, Oklahoma where I was born.

Author David Grann has written an excellent exposé of the murders of numerous Native Americans of the Osage tribe in Osage County, Oklahoma in the 1920’s and ’30’s. Peg and I were at our cabin in Osage County when the casting call came out for extras for the Martin Scorsese directed film that will star Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. While growing up in Pawhuska, the county seat, I often heard whispered rumors of these crimes. Kudos to Grann, Scorsese, DiCaprio and De Niro for having the courage to lift the veil from this great evil.

In preparation for this column Peg and I did go to the Osage County Fairgrounds on Sunday, November 10, 2019 for the advertised casting call for movie extras. Our purpose was to gain information about the making of the movie that we could include in this column. We were met by several extremely polite and pleasant people who were not authorized to answer our questions but they did suggest we might want to experience the casting call process from the inside by filling out applications ourselves. We did so and had an interesting and fun time. Of course, the staff at the door, the numerous tables and chairs, the clear directional signs and the four enclaves of people photographing, taking prospective extras’ measurements and interviewing the hundreds of hopeful locals was just a little different than the process I used for getting actors for JUDGE LYNCH!. My method was pretty much, “You are my friend. I need you to lynch someone (or be lynched), shoot someone (or be shot) or stand out in the cold rain and try to fathom my directions.”

In my opinion Peg is a possible Barbara Stanwyck double and after a beer or two I can find a remarkable resemblance between myself and Robert Redford. Of course, we both have movie experience. herefore, we are excited and waiting by the phone to be discovered. Hey, it happened to Norma Jeane Mortenson didn’t it? And while you may not know it, before Gone With The Wind, Clark Gable worked as an oilfield roustabout in Barnsdall, Osage County, Oklahoma which is the nearest town to our cabin. Can you say kismet? Further, since I am an experienced fellow director, maybe Marty will want another perspective for a scene or two. Next week we may dig a little deeper into the film noir that has Osage County, Oklahoma buzzing.

Ah, I Remember It Well

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August 25th. Ah, I now remember it well, thanks to Peg who sweetly asked me over our first cup of coffee, “Jim, isn’t this just a beautiful morning?” I looked up from the trial transcript I was proofreading and grunted, “Yeah”. Things went downhill from there.

As Peg had interrupted my work I assumed she would be pleased to get me some more coffee; so I held up my cup and said as politely as Oliver Twist, “More”.

Her response threw me off: “It’s in the coffee pot. Why don’t you see if you can pour your own while I concentrate on making the bed, emptying the dishwasher, feeding the cat, sweeping the floor and pulling the weeds in the garden? By the way, Happy Anniversary!”

I went into crisis-recovery mode. “Are you sure, I thought it was the 25th.”

“Today IS the 25th and you should already know that since I made a point of telling you yesterday on August 24th that I was planning your favorite dinner for today. Of course, you had your head stuck in that transcript then and merely mumbled something like ‘Okay’”.

Thinking at warp speed I said, “Oh what a grand wedding it was on such a gorgeous day.”

 “We got married in a thunderstorm! You kept telling me ‘It never rains on August 25th so we can have the wedding outside’. But our family and guests had to dodge lightning bolts and huge raindrops!”

 “Well, at least our D.J. stayed dry.”

  “Our D.J. was Rodney Fetcher and he had to set up in the tool shed so he wouldn’t get electrocuted!”

 “Yeah, he did a great job. Remember, we did our first dance to Here Comes the Sun by George Harrison.”

 “It wasToday by Randy Sparks of the New Christy Minstrels.”

 “Anyway, you looked great in that blue dress.”

“It was coral to match your tux. Which, by the way, you managed to spill our champagne toast on.”

I decided to take an old friend’s advice for situations such as this, “When in a hole the first thing is to stop digging.”

“Okay, what do you want to do to celebrate this happy occasion? Dinner at the Red Geranium? A quiet glass of wine out by the fire pit? Whatever sounds good to you will be fine with me.”

“I would have appreciated it if you had simply remembered that we did, in fact, get married.”

“I do remember and it was, I mean is, wonderful. It was just that it snuck up on me. Would a movie help?”

“No movie, no Red Geranium, no wine by the fire. How about just a card or at least some flowers?”

Oh, Gentle Reader, I don’t know about you but all I can hear going on in my head is the duet by Hermione Gingold and Maurice Chevalier from the musical Gigi. Perhaps Peg will allow me up from the canvas if I bring home a box of chocolates with the Lerner and Loewe lyrics taped to them:

“The dazzling moon,
There was none that night.
The month was June
It was [August};
That’s right …”

 

Well, you get the idea. I’m just glad we have only one anniversary per year because the chill in the air at JPeg Ranch is not conducive to my getting my work done and anything else is completely out of the question.

All God’s Judges Got Robes

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Each fall for the past several years I have helped teach an Internet course on continuing education to judges. The National Judicial College located in Reno, Nevada organizes the six-week curriculum and selects members of the NJC faculty to teach judges from across America and even some foreign countries. Each weekly segment is led by one faculty member who is assisted by five others. My assigned area is Court Management. The course is supervised by two full-time staff members of the college who operate the complexities of the technology required by the participation of judges by computer and telephone from numerous far-flung locations. Joseph Sawyer and Danielle Harris of the NJC are in charge of the course and tasked with the “cat-herding” job of running both those judges who take the classes and we judges who teach it.

When I think about continuing education for judges I get an image of mothers from New York to Hawaii sending off their little judges dressed in black robes and equipped with new gavels embossed with the admonition: “Don’t Hit Anyone”. Before I was an attorney and had to deal with judges and before I became a judge and had to deal with other judges I never gave a thought as to how judges learn to be judges. Until reality struck me, I just assumed judges knew what they were doing the moment they began to decide the fates of those who were brought to court by law and life. Oh, if that were so!

However, since that is definitely not so, we need places to teach judges how to judge the same as we need to teach electricians not to touch a hot 220 line. The National Judicial College where judges who have already made numerous errors can teach other judges how to avoid them is one such place. The NJC states its mission as “Pursuing education | innovation | advancing justice with the support of individuals and organizations dedicated to preserving and improving the rule of law”.

In the teaching of Court Management I suggest a judge first think about what purposes she/he wants their court to accomplish; what is the desired mission? If a pioneer were going from St. Louis to Colorado he might paint a slogan (mission statement) on his wagon, “Pike’s Peak or Bust!”. He really does not plan to live on Pike’s Peak but the mantra can help him stay focused when a wagon wheel comes off in Kansas.

About thirty years ago members of my staff gave a great deal of thought to our purposes as a court. We were not unhappy with the court’s direction back then but we wondered if there were better ways to manage the Posey Circuit Court. So my long-time Court Reporter, Katrina Mann, my Chief Probation Officer, Rodney Fetcher, another long-time Court Reporter, Kristie Hoffman, another long-time Probation Officer, Mark Funkhouser, my then Court Administrator, Sam Blankenship, and I brainstormed for weeks about what our goals should be and how we could accomplish them.

Short-term, mid-range and long-term elements of planning, strategy, operation, record keeping and innovation were considered. We sought and received important input from the attorneys and other office holders. What we concluded we wanted the Posey Circuit Court to do was to help make Posey County, Indiana a better place to live by helping to resolve instead of exacerbating problems between and among our citizens who needed the court’s services.

We slowly and incrementally instituted a system of resolving conflicts in which the most important actors are the people who are in conflict; say a divorcing couple with children. Our Mission Statement guides us but it is only a guide, not an immutable law. For now I will set forth the Mission Statement then in future columns discuss the “Devil in the Details” of how we actually strive to attain our goals. 

Mission Statement of the Posey Circuit Court

The mission of the Posey Circuit Court is to help create a community in which individuals, families, and entities are encouraged and facilitated to resolve legal problems among themselves and to provide a forum in which legal issues that are not privately disposed of are fairly and efficiently decided according to applicable law in an atmosphere of mutual respect and positive innovation.

Over the years there has been a great deal of tweaking of our approach as new staff members have supported the main goals of conflict resolution and helping Posey County citizens repair their relationships. You are already aware this is a work in progress. Perhaps next week we can begin to flesh out the bones of our theory.

Have Gun (Class) – Will Travel

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If your life is so bereft of excitement you have actually read this column the past week or so, you may recall I have been helping teach an Internet class for the National Judicial College. Judges from across our great land tune in, sign on and discuss subjects from the currently hot areas of Children in Need of Services to Court Management. This week’s topic was Court Security and the lead faculty member was my good friend from Mississippi, Judge D. Neil Harris.

During the class judges participated via computer and telephone as we delved into many facets of how our courts should be protecting those who use and those who operate them. Gentle Reader, you may not be surprised to hear that it is not just the Judge of the Posey Circuit Court whose decisions are occasionally at odds with the thoughts of those whose lives are affected by them. It turns out that practically every person everywhere thinks she or he could have arrived at a better legal conclusion than the ones delivered by judges. Sometimes these court participants or their supporters get upset.

While there were many opinions and suggestions by the judicial faculty and the judges who were students as to how best to ensure those who must use our courts and those who are privileged to operate them can do so in a calm, reasonable and safe environment, the area of most varied positions concerned the role of firearms.

On a personal note, for the first thirty-five years of my tenure on the Bench, Posey County courts simply relied on the good will of all involved or more accurately, good luck. But in 2016 our sheriff, Greg Oeth, sought necessary additional deputies. The County Council and County Commissioners acceded to his well-documented requests as required by the rulings of the Indiana Supreme Court and provided officers who are available in court. Thank you on behalf of the public who must use the courts and the court staff who work there.

However, extra court security personnel was not the most examined topic in the Internet course. As I mentioned above, it was how or when or if judges and their court staffs should help provide their own security by carrying guns.

This column is not a column about the Second Amendment. The theory of firearm ownership, possession and use is for the legislative and executive branches. The judicial branch’s role is to decide cases that are brought to court. What we in the Internet course were trying to determine was not whether guns should be available to judges and their staffs but whether any guns that are legally available should be carried by judges and their staffs.

Gentle Reader, if you have made it this far I have good news for you. What I plan to do is relate two anecdotes then quit. I hope they illustrate what was the consensus of the judges in the course.

First, let’s delve into the meaning of an instructional video I did in 2014 for a course I taught for the Municipal Court Judges of Missouri. Court Security was part of my lectures.

To make the video I commandeered friends such as Chuck Minnette, Marty Crispino, Greg Oeth, Tom Latham, Jason Simmons and Rodney Fetcher. Jason wore his camouflage fatigues and brought his AR15 with him to the courthouse. He ran into the courthouse at about 10:00 a.m. on a workday, brandished his AR15 and yelled, “Where’s the Judge?” The only reaction from those in the courthouse that day was to point towards the courtroom. One lady walked right by Jason and instead of being alarmed or sounding an alarm simply asked, “Where’s the Clerk’s Office?” In 2014 Posey County’s court security was a little lax.

The second example comes from yesterday as Peg and I were talking to an Osage County, Oklahoma Sheriff’s Deputy who is also a certified instructor on gun safety and court security. His business card is a play on the television series Have Gun – Will Travel that starred Richard Boone as Paladin, a gunman for hire. Paladin’s card read, “Have Gun – Will Travel”. Paul Didlake, the Osage County Deputy, has the following card: “Have Gun Class – Will Travel”.

Paul told Peg and me about a recent Oklahoma case where a woman who had a gun license and carried a pistol in her purse was raped and murdered. She had left her purse in her car.

Paul told us his mantra for personal security is: “The best kind of gun to have is the one you actually carry.”

Sir Rodney of Wadesville

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That’s what we at the Posey Circuit Court call our Chief Probation Officer, Rodney Fetcher. Rodney started with the court in October 1988. Rodney is the true and perfect Factotum. He can do and is willing to do any needed task at the court. His official duties are to oversee our Posey County Probation Department with its total of six probation officers who counsel probationers, prepare pre-sentencing reports for the judges and administer drug-tests. Rodney is also responsible for administering the intra and interstate probationer transfer functions for Posey County. In the real world of small, rural courts Rodney prepares budgets and reports, he installs and fixes court computers and video and audio technology. He makes movies and moves furniture. He rearranges offices and helps with juries. The list is endless. Suffice it to say the courts of Posey County would not function nearly as well if Rodney did not function as well as he does.

In his role as Chief Probation Officer Rodney’s main duty is to supervises those who supervise people placed on probation by Posey County’s judges. But Rodney does have a life beyond the courts. He has one son and two grandchildren. He has been a sports official for thirty-four years. From tee ball to semi-professional football Rodney serves as a referee and umpire for the sports of football, baseball, basketball and softball. Just last month he umpired the National Softball Association’s Girls Class B World Series which was held in Evansville, Indiana. Rodney also serves as a member of the Posey County Correction Board and was the Director of the Posey County Group Home for Boys for many years.

Rodney is one of those unusual people who remembers virtually every probationer he has ever supervised. He calls them by their first names and takes a real interest in their success. From restitution to drug testing to work crews, from counseling to back-sliding, Rodney’s unique character aids Posey County’s citizens who have fallen short to get back on their feet. Of course, he and his fellow probation officers do not save everyone. However, in our small county everyone they do save makes a significant improvement in the lives of the probationers and their victims while our whole county is safer and happier due to Rodney and his department’s efforts.