THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407030160
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 136 lines
Traffic Judge R. Stanley Hudgins demanded decorum in court.
For 12 hot summers, he refused to hear anyone wearing shorts; he just sent them home. He forbade gum-chewing. He berated men in tank tops, spectators who whispered and defendants who forgot to call him sir.
``It's a matter of respect for the court and the system,'' the 72-year-old judge said.
On Thursday, Hudgins' last day as a judge, the system bit back.
Lawyers in sandals and garishly striped bathing suits, with jackets and ties, lined up before the judge's bench to make motions.
Women friends sat near the prosecutor's table, blowing gum bubbles and wearing shorts. They sang ``Amazing Grace'' after the last case.
Pals passed around Hudgins' photo album, and sniggered, and told stories about Hudgins in loud whispers.
For the occasion, Hudgins wore an eye-catching green-and-gold robe in honor of his alma mater, the College of William and Mary. He borrowed the choir robe from a friend. His two traditional black robes hung in his chambers.
Between cases the white-haired judge tried desperately to keep order - sometimes half-heartedly, sometimes seriously. Lawyers couldn't tell which.
``You can't talk in my courtroom!'' Hudgins barked at a police officer whispering nearby with a defendant. ``If you want to talk, get out of my courtroom.''
But even for the unflappable Hudgins, it was too much. At one point, he turned his big swivel chair away from the spectators and broke up laughing. He accepted a pack of bubble gum from friends.
``I hope,'' he told a friend, ``it pops all over your face.''
Hudgins doesn't want to leave. He makes that clear to anyone who asks.
``I'm not really that anxious to retire,'' Hudgins says. ``I enjoy the work. I don't play golf and I don't play tennis. All I do is work around the house, and you can't do that seven days a week.''
For 12 years, Hudgins held court - literally - in General District Court. Most of those years, he sat in the old Colonial-style courthouse near North Landing Road.
It suited him. Hudgins was an old-style judge in an old-style courtroom.
But for the past year, Hudgins sat in the new, painfully bright, white-walled courthouse up the road. His small frame seemed lost behind the big bench.
Through it all, Hudgins stayed in Traffic Court. He could have moved.
Other district judges in Virginia Beach rotate among traffic, civil and criminal courts. But petty crooks and small-time squabbles never interested Hudgins.
``I do not like to listen to a bunch of neighbors arguing over, `You stepped on my flower bed,' '' Hudgins says.
``That's what so much of the civil cases are.''
Besides, Hudgins says, ``Traffic Court never gets boring. Every once in a while you get a real good one.''
There was the time, for example, a man was pulled over driving 50 mph on an expressway with the driver's door wide open. He was trying to urinate out the door.
And there was the time an 18-year-old girl was weaving all over the road.
The trooper said she and her boyfriend were ``necking.'' The teenager denied it.
``Your honor!'' she said. ``We were not necking! I was smoking a cigarette and ash dropped between my legs. My boyfriend was trying to put it out.''
Hudgins will miss moments like these, but retire he must. State law says no judge past age 70 can be reappointed.
And so Friday, the morning after his last day, Hudgins drove to his Kitty Hawk summer home. It is lonely there without his wife, who died four years ago, but it is also familiar and comforting.
Another comfort in the weeks ahead is the assurance of continued work. Despite his retirement, Hudgins is still eligible to be a substitute judge.
He already has signed up for one date in July, and will take many more in coming weeks.
Hudgins loves the irony.
``It's amazing,'' he says, smiling, ``that I can't be reappointed after I'm 70, but I can sit as a substitute judge anywhere in the state, every day of the week.''
Life according to R. Stanley Hudgins is simple.
First, everyone is ``young man'' or ``young lady'' or ``son.'' No exceptions. A 48-year-old woman gets the same treatment as a 17-year-old girl.
Second, no break for gender. ``You thought you were going to the beach, young lady?'' he asks a girl in short shorts. ``I have no objection to looking at ladies' legs, but not in the courtroom.''
Third, watch your language.
For almost every defendant, Hudgins has advice. He seldom misses a chance. Thursday, with 350 cases on the docket, was typical.
On shorts: ``Son, you're old enough to know better than to come to court like that.''
On shorts, again: (To a woman walking away from the bench wearing a culotte that looked like a skirt.) ``Those look like shorts. . . . She pulled one over on me.''
On tank tops: ``May I suggest next time you come to court you come properly attired?''
On respect: ``I'm old enough to be your father, son, and I expect a `Yes, sir' and a `No, sir.' ''
On drunken driving: ``You can ride right many times in a taxi cab for $550.'' (The fine for drunken driving is $250, plus $300 for a drunken-driving program.)
On the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel: ``That's the most dangerous place in the world to speed. There's no emergency land and no median strip.''
On HOV lanes: ``You know what irritates me? When I'm stuck in traffic and someone goes flying by me on the shoulder. That's exactly what you did, except you didn't use the emergency lane, you used the HOV lane.''
On speeding past a marked police car: ``It's like you're turning around and saying, `Nyah, nyah, nyah, you can't get me.' ''
On a driver doing 65 on the expressway: ``I'll give the defendant the benefit of the doubt. If you'd been going 1 mile less, it'd be 9 miles over and you wouldn't have gotten the ticket.''
The final minutes of Stanley Hudgins' term were near.
The hilarity was building. Decorum flew out the window. No one was listening. Everyone blew bubbles. Defendants didn't know if they would get a hearing or a free pass.
It ended abruptly.
The final case arrived - a 19-year-old who'd registered 0.14 on a breath test.
His attorney, John Hooker, a lawyer-in-shorts, tried to take advantage of the happy mood with a reduced plea. He offered a guilty plea to reckless driving, instead of drunken driving, and suggested a $250 fine.
Hudgins' face dropped; his tone turned icy. ``I beg your pardon,'' he said.
The laughing stopped. Had someone suggested a fine in Judge Hudgins' courtroom? Unforgivable.
``I accept your plea of guilty to reckless driving,'' Hudgins told the teen, ``and I fine you $500. See the cashier.''
The hilarity began anew, and friends crowded the bench. Hudgins smiled.
``Thank you all for coming,'' he said, ``even in shorts.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
CHARLIE MEADS/Staff
Traffic Judge R. Stanley Hudgins dons a green robe in honor of his
alma mater, the College of William and Mary, on his last day.
by CNB