Chapter One–Bubba (Part Two)

Although there are some unique aspects to being a judge, for the most part, being a judge is like any other human endeavor. As we all know, there are certain unpleasant aspects of a new job that they don’t tell you about until you are already committed and can’t easily back out. Being a judge is no different in that regard.

The last day of our week long new judges’ school, we spent several very informative, if not relaxing hours, discussing security. This portion of the school started off a video made by the United States Marshal’s Service, which cited the statistics of actual overt acts of violence (not just threats) made against judges and/or their immediate families. As I recall, the video which had been made a few years before, showed that over a half dozen incidents occurred each year.  This was quite sobering.

Since that time, I’ve adjusted to the risk and my daughter has grown up and moved out on her own, so our risk posture is somewhat lower than it was when I was first elected.

A sharp eyed reader might wonder what I have to worry about, since I’m a probate judge. Well it is true that non-family, civil judges face less physical risk of harm than those judges who hear family law or criminal cases. But, what makes my job riskier than that of other civil judges are the fifty to seventy five mental health cases that pass through my court each week. Fortunately for me, most of the cases never come to final hearing for any one of a number of good reasons. But lots of unhappy, unstable people have seen my name and probably don’t have warm memories of our time together.

Every time that we have what is euphemistically called an “incident” with one of the mental health patients, I appreciate having a good bailiff even more than I usually do.

I tried to delineate the complicated relationship between judge and bailiff through out Good Will Win in the End. As several judges and bailiffs have pointed out to me, if someone were to successfully circumvent security by bring a firearm into the courtroom, odds favor the bad guy going after my bailiff first and then me second. This makes my bailiff my decoy and makes me his backup. Things like this tend to make the relationship between judge and bailiff more complex than standard employer-employee relationships, since very few employees may have to take a bullet meant for their employer. As I’ve said before, I’m glad that I have a good bailiff.