Lawmakers return to familiar issues

There has been a lot of talk lately about judges here in Terrebonne Parish, what with a long-standing jurist, Timothy Ellender, fixing to retire and a lot of questions about whether this event should make it easier to create a district from which a minority judge – or one favored by minority people – to be elected.

That question, which has been kicked around the legislature and down the street and over for a long time now will most likely no longer be answered by local voices. A federal judge in Baton Rouge will make that decision, and if whichever way it goes the appeals will be heard in even farther away places, and so there isn’t a whole lot of point in discussing it now.

That a young man who happens to be black and has compiled a long history of public service as a prosecutor, Juan Pickett, may well become the 32nd Judicial District’s newest judge – while the suit is being reviewed – is a curious irony but not much more than that.

The real point about local judges should be that we probably don’t appreciate them quite enough for the work they do.

Yes, a judge can be seen as the mean guy or gal in the robes, sitting up there on the bench like they are some kind of king. And that really is how it all started, the king in some place deciding arguments for people in order to keep the peace, because they couldn’t decide for themselves.

This happened in the king’s court, and we are not talking Mardi Gras. You can go online and look up what are called the Kings cases, from England, and find out how the king decided if somebody’s sheep got stolen or illegally claimed, or if someone’s arrow ended up accidentally killing somebody’s kid. So in a sense not much different from what they still make decisions on today.

Monday I was in court, watching a judge named John R. Walker. Most people know him as Johnny.

He was presiding over a particularly serious matter, involving Chad Louviere, the deputy who killed a woman in a bank 18 years ago almost, while holding other women hostage and committing other crimes.

The murder victim’s name is Pamela Duplantis, and I mention that here because I promised her parents I would never write about her without mentioning her name, so that she won’t be forgotten.

So all day Monday Judge Walker was listening to testimony in this attempt Louviere is making for a new trial, and it is way to early to tell how this will go. It was not too early to tell that the judge was obviously working on intellectual overdrive. Sitting there in his tiny courtroom, Judge Walker listened as testimony was taken from witnesses. He read a whole long legal brief to help decide a question on whether certain things were relevant to even be considered in this case, which is something like an appeal.

But what is so impressive is the way he and the other judges have the confidence to read these things, to listen to people speak, and to somehow ferret truth out of a lot of mish-mosh.

It’s easy for me to sit here and think about how much I would like to have that power, to decide who speaks and who doesn’t, to decide whether the bad guy is bad enough that I should let what’s already been decided take its course and let him take a needle in the arm.

But spending a day watching Judge Walker work I have to admit that when pressed, I would rather leave the tough decisions like that to somebody else.

I have seen Judge Walker, like the other judges, with this attentive look on their faces as they try to separate facts and try to do what they know in their hearts is right. You can actually see the thought process going on there.

And so after spending a day in court I am just wondering now how much time we take to thank these people, who make the decisions we really don’t want to be making ourselves. I wonder what it is like for them to try to sleep when they know they have made a decision that is very, very tough,

Politics and other unpleasantness decides all kinds of elections, including the judicial ones. But I am thinking if you have nothing better to do, drop into a courtroom and pretend it’s television. Watch what the judge does. Think about if you could do better. And then, if you are like me, you’ll probably want to say thank you for a job well done.