Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407100055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
" Lady, you're a walking arsenal, he told her.
It's not the sort of thing any judge would say. But then, this was Judge Edward S. Kidd.
This was Judge Kidd lecturing a man who got fired for drinking on the job and later showed up at work, drunk again and causing a scene:
"Nobody likes a drunk. Especially when they're slobbering all over the place."
This was Judge Kidd ordering an abusive boyfriend to stay away from his ex-girlfriend's house:
"I don't care if the Pope invites you; DON'T GO!"
This was Judge Kidd watching a group of feuding neighbors leave his courtroom after yet another petty dispute over who was trespassing on whose front yard, and who called whom a dirty name:
"Ya'll come back, now. You hear?"
When Kidd retires this week after 16 years on the bench, Roanoke will lose a well-liked judge who brought his own style of justice tempered with humor to General District Court.
"Judge Kidd has been the epitome of what a General District Court judge should be," Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell said.
"He has a lot of common sense and a great ability to work with people from all walks of life. He is truly a people person, and he will be sorely missed."
In Kidd's line of work, it would be easy to get burned out on society.
Every morning when he walks into criminal court, Kidd faces a room full of accused shoplifters, prostitutes, pimps, murderers, drug dealers, drunks, thieves and other walking examples of moral decay - all hoping for a break.
In the same room are angry victims and hardened police officers, who usually have something entirely different in mind.
"There's a fine line between laughing and crying," Kidd said in a recent interview.
"I think it's a whole lot better to laugh than it is to cry. In that vein, I've tried to find some humor. There is a great deal of humor in the courts."
The trick, Kidd said, is not to laugh at people, but to get them to laugh with you.
Kidd's style is especially suited for General District Court, a high-volume court where he can break the tension or boredom with an earthy lecture sprinkled with a few "ain'ts."
"In any courtroom that we open, you've got all the ingredients for unhappiness," Kidd said. "It's like 100 people all going to the dentist at one time.
"It's not the most pleasant experience, but it's something that has to be done."
Strange as it may sound, Kidd admits liking every defendant he meets - even the ones he sends to jail.
"Where in the world can you go in your life and meet 50 people a day, five days a week?" he asked. "I suspect every day of my life for the past 16 years, I've met 50 people that I didn't know yesterday."
Public Defender Ray Leven said Kidd always seems genuinely concerned about the person in front of him, even when dozens more are waiting in a crowded courtroom.
"He always seems to be very interested in the individual," Leven said.
But at the same time, Kidd tries not to get too personally involved.
"I don't like to remember cases. I pride myself on that," Kidd said. "I don't want to go home and eat my cases with my family; I don't want to dream my cases."
Sometimes Kidd will encounter a friendly face on the street, but can't quite place it.
"They surprise me when they tell me we met in court," he said. "I would have much rather have met them in church."
Kidd's years on the bench have taught him lessons about human nature.
"It's an interesting phenomenon that you very rarely if ever try an assault case involving deaf-mutes," he said. "Most physical assaults occur after people have run out of words to call each other."
As Kidd works through his daily docket with a running commentary on each case, it's not unusual for spectators in the courtroom to start to snicker. Sometimes even the lawyers struggle to keep a straight face.
But when Kidd imposes his sentence, the laughing stops.
"A lot of people remember Judge Kidd for his humor, but when the hammer needs to come down, he's not afraid to drop it," Caldwell said. "He can be very, very tough when he needs to be."
Even though Kidd's last day on the job will be Friday, he plans to continue to hear cases occasionally as a substitute judge.
And he has no shortage of hobbies to keep him busy - working on his farm in Roanoke County, tinkering with his wood-working tools and getting caught up on his artwork.
Kidd has traveled across Virginia to work on his watercolor paintings of the state's historic courthouses, and he hopes to find time in retirement to complete his collection.
Asked how he wanted to be remembered by the people who were in his courtroom, Kidd had only one hope:
"I hope they would say that he was fair," he said. "They may cuss me, and say that old SOB was fair. But if they do that, I couldn't ask for anything more."
by CNB