East Texas justice

A better day for me today. Child Protective Services went away happy the other night, and I'm making headway on plans for both mission work in Cambodia, and business and mission work on St. Kitts. So how about a funny lawyer story?

My first pro bono case ever, when I was working in San Antonio, involved a familial kidnapping. The children in question, two little girls, had gone to visit their aunt for two weeks during summer vacation, after which the aunt refused to return them to her brother, their father, claiming that she could give them a better home than he could. We do a lot of crazy stuff in Texas, but we don't usually take kids from their parents just because they're poor. Thankfully, since I'd only been out of law school for a couple of years, it was a slam-dunk case. The aunt didn't have standing and the Court she'd filed in didn't even have jurisdiction. Easy dismissal, so I drove to East Texas, where the case was scheduled.

I walked into the cutest little courthouse ever, only to realize that, while I was there by myself, the girls' aunt had invited practically her entire church congregation. No problem, though, the law was on my side, and so I stood up and explained to the judge why he needed to dismiss the case; the Court lacked jurisdiction, the plaintiff lacked standing, and the pleadings were false on their face. The judge asked us both into his chambers. Uh-oh....

I will never forget this speech as long as I live. You'll have to imagine the swamp-side accent.

"Now, little lady,I do not want you to feel like you are being hometowned, but I have known this gentleman here my entire life. He is a former federal judge, former federal prosecutor, and I have no reason to believe that anything he tells me is anything other than the God's honest truth."

Needless to say, I was not reassured, which was good intuition on my part, because he proceeded to completely dismiss the entire Texas Family Code, and order a trial date. Thank God for my brilliant law professors, because I had other tools in my toolbox, and ultimately had the case moved to Houston, where it was subsequently dismissed. The girls were returned to their father, but I will never forget that judge, and the lesson he taught me. Justice may be blind, but it's also sometimes dumb.

I wonder what that judge is doing now....