First Cases-The Emperor Club
I have been fortunate in my professional life. I had always wanted to be a lawyer. And I got to be one. A lawyer in full. Started at the bottom. Ended at the top. I also counted myself fortunate to learn the art of politics. I moved in circles with Governors, Congressmen, Senators, state legislators as well as countless local office holders. Some were stupid, some were frauds, the great majority though, were intelligent, dedicated, and worthy of the positions they held.
I grew up in Farmersville. After graduating from Exeter Union High School, and spending a year at College of Sequoias, I left Tulare County for military service as the Viet Nam war was raging. After spending four years at bases in Texas, the Far East, The Philippines, South Korea, and then a winter at an Air Defense Command base in North Dakota, I pocketed my discharge papers, returned home, got a job, married my sweetheart, and, with the help of the G.I. Bill, went back to school.
First college, then law school at night. Holding down a full- time job during the day, going to law school at night while supporting a young family was hard. But we made it. Received my law degree, passing the Bar Exam, and landed a job as a brand-new associate for an established attorney in Visalia.
Now I was a real lawyer and about to try my very first real case.
If all the travel and travails had taught me anything, it was that life is indeed full of irony.
On that big day, standing before a judge, outfitted in the obligatory blue pinstripe suit, yellow power tie prominent, shoes all shined, where do I find myself?
Announcing “Ready for the Defense, Your Honor, “in the same little Justice Court directly across the street from Exeter High School I had passed hundreds of times, dragging main in my ’55 Chevy. And the case? Assault and battery charges generated from a bar room brawl at the Emperor Club. That same old run-down bar, I passed every morning as I drove into town on my way to High School.
Irony indeed.
“Of all things,” I thought to myself, “This is what I strived and sacrificed for all those years?”
Well, in a way it was. It would be the first of hundreds of jury trials I would conduct over a 30 plus year legal career, encompassing every kind of charge imaginable. From petty thefts to burglaries, from child molestation to rape, from vandalism to arson, from assault to murder. All tried before a jury. All tried to verdict. A handful as a defense attorney. The great majority as a prosecutor.
But on that day, I hadn’t gotten on with the District Attorney’s office yet. Like most new attorneys, I had signed up to take court appointments to represent defendants in which the public defender had to conflict out of representing an accused. Which happened anytime multiple defendants were charged with crimes arising out of the same factual scenario. The compensation for court appointments was minimal. But it was something. Kept us from starving. As an attorney fresh out of law school and working for a sole practitioner who was never going to invest in an unproven and green associate, I had to find a way to supplement my income. Taking court appointments was the traditional way.
There were four defendants on trial that day. Hence, four attorneys. One of the other lawyers was a young guy from Porterville. Pretty much in the same boat as me. It was his first trial too, though he worked for a firm founded by his father and older brother and so wasn’t as desperate for a check as me. The lead attorney if you will, was a deputy public defender who while experienced, had a reputation of being an obstreperous ass. We soon learned it was an apt description. The fourth lawyer, Joe L., was an elderly gentlemen in a wheel chair, crippled, eaten up with cancer, he had so many physical ailments and mental lapses I wondered if he would last to the end of the trial.
The Justice court was presided over by Freddie McKenzie. She was a local woman who had once been the clerk of the court. She too went to law school at night, secured her law degree, came back home, and was elected judge.
Exeter, Woodlake, Lindsay, Dinuba, even Pixley at one time had Justice Courts. Justice Courts had jurisdiction over traffic offenses, low level misdemeanors, preliminary proceeding on felonies short of trail, civil cases below a certain monetary value and Small Claims. Municipal Courts in Visalia, Tulare, and Porterville had similar jurisdictions but served a wider population base. These courts were effectively community courts. The Judges were elected from the population the courts served and were accessible to the local community.
Justice Courts don’t exist anymore. Neither do Municipal Courts. And we are worse for it.
State Legislation eliminated the community courts in a “Court Consolidation” movement in the 1980s. I felt at the time and still feel, local communities lost out. It is ever so when local control is ceded to centralized government authority whether it is in Sacramento or Washington. The promises are many. And soon forgotten. Pious expressions of concern for the autonomy of local citizens are inevitably short-lived. Rules and regulations are promulgated in faraway places by nameless bureaucrats with little regard for the needs of a local community.
It was no different for the Courts.
As feared, the local courts were soon closed down. To get access to justice system one had to drive to the county seat or major city. The judges now were better paid for sure, but remote, unapproachable, and soon largely unknown to the people of the community. Even the court funding was taken from the local Board of Supervisors and moved to the state. And, as one who worked the corridors of government for decades, I can say unequivocally that in government where the funding goes, the loyalty goes.
Judges concern for the welfare of average citizens, as well as the safety of local communities of which the judges were a part, with rare exceptions, became a thing of the past. They could go home every night to their gated communities or their acreage in the country and worry little about the need for order in the lives of the people they no longer associated with or knew. Their rulings began to reflect their new grandeur, their limitless self-regard, the views of an elite class, out of touch with the people they were supposed to serve. Most citizens don’t know that fourteen judicial positions are up for election this very term. And most won’t even know the positions are elective because the legislature hid that fact from the public by taking their names off ballot unless someone files to run against them.
But before all that, Judge Mackenzie like most justice court and municipal court judges was a popular figure and respected in town. She was part of the community. Exeter was her town, its citizens her people. She was ably supported by her Marshall, an elected official himself, who attended to the security of the court and handled the service of all legal papers in the city and surrounding communities.
They were both respected figures in the community.
The trial in a way resembled the bar room brawl which was the genesis of the case. Having grown up in Farmersville, I was familiar with dives like the Emperor Club, the nature of its patrons and how quickly a bump, an insult, just loud careless talk could lead to a fight and the fight to a donnybrook.
The deputy public defender by dent of personality managed to quickly offend everyone including the Judge. She found it necessary to frequently take aspirin for the headache his shouting was causing her. Mr. Joe L., even though I questioned, at times, if he understood where he was exactly, had the rapt attention of the jury every time he spoke or had his attendant push his wheelchair near them. He was old, crippled, but a lawyer nevertheless and I could see the jury respected him. They listened closely to everything he said, obviously making every attempt to discern the meaning of every word he uttered. I would remember that experience about jury members in the future. It was a handy principle to know to what they pay attention, the deference they give to such a person when it comes time to evaluate not just the cold evidence, but the appearance of things in court, including my clients. To discern who was telling them the truth.
In this case a drunk had paid an inappropriate complement to a woman, a remark he thought was gallant, but which her husband took as vulgar. A quick exchange of threats and curses, then someone landed a haymaker, someone else busted a beer bottle to the back of a head and in the words of Johnny Cash the fighting was on, “in the mud, the blood, and the beer.” I never could get it straight just who my client hit and with what but given my trial strategy it mattered little.
My approach was to keep a low profile, be a nice young man, be courteous and helpful to Joe L. I even hustled to help him with his chair. I eschewed appearing to insult anyone and asked just enough questions of the officers to make them seemed understandably confused over who did what. Because given the pandemonium, I argued to the jury, how could they be sure? I was at pains to make sure the jury had no cause to believe my client was as bad as the public defender’s client. The other rookie attorney soon adopted the same strategy. And we, without any discussion at all, colluded to direct all blame at the public defender’s client, who because of the nasty actions of his attorney, the jury was all too willing to believe.
As I was to learn, a jury always want someone to blame. And the public defender’s client was the perfect foil. There was testimony about drunkenness, testimony about cussedness, insults about one’s mother, wife, dog. And testimony about being slugged in the mouth and having a beer bottle busted over the back of the head until the cops arrived, did some busting of their own and hauled everyone to the county jail. There was lots of testimony, but no clear assignment of individualized fault. All the better for my client.
After much thunder and little lighting, the verdict was in. Joe’s client was not guilty. Mine was not guilty too. My buddy’s client was convicted of simple disturbing the peace (he was the one after all who uttered the witticism to the woman. And the public defender’s client went down on ADW, Assault with a Deadly Weapon. All in all, justice was done. Well, after a fashion.
Judge McKenzie knew everyone involved, either from previous appearances in her court or from around the town. She knew them and their families. She meted out the sentences and they were appropriate. A month in jail for one, a weekend on work release for the other.
I got my bill submitted to the county before I went home that night and thought about how I was going to get on at the D.A.’s office. I might be a lawyer now, but I still needed to feed my kids. And defending clients for participation in barroom brawls at the Emperor Club wasn’t going to get it done.
The photograph is of the building which once housed the Exeter Justice Court. It is now a community museum and art gallery.
Courthouse Tales is published Sundays.
For more writings by Phil Cline visit philcline.com
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