THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 30, 1995 TAG: 9507260044
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY & DAVE ADDIS
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
DAVE SAYS:
We're seeing a lot of courtrooms on TV these days, Kerry. The O.J. trial has been on the air longer than a lot of network sitcoms, not to mention the Menendez brothers and the adventures of Hugh Grant.
With all the attention on domestic affairs and the judicial system, I can't figure out why a judge in Cincinnati tried to get away with a couple of the loopiest decisions ever to bounce off the end of a gavel.
Did he think nobody was watching?
It seems that Judge Albert Mestemaker, a city-court judge in a Cincinnati suburb, wants to end domestic violence by having the warring couples kiss and make up. Or go to jail.
Judge Mestemaker had a 25-year-old guy in his court who pleaded on a domestic-violence charge. The punk got probation, counseling, and a $100 fine. Then the learned justice ordered him to marry the girlfriend he'd been beating up.
Oh, swell. Just what the lady needs. Now she gets a violent husband instead of a violent boyfriend. The thug gets legal standing in her life and, probably, access to half her worldly goods should their blissful union hit the rocks.
Which seems perilously likely given the start they're off to.
This isn't Judge Mestemaker's first go-round as matchmaker. He'd pinned a similar sentence on a woman found guilty of pounding on her boyfriend. Get hitched or do three months. Rings or handcuffs, the judge told 'em. Your choice.
Having lived in Ohio, I know they pick judges differently up there. Here in Virginia, the party that controls the statehouse simply hands black robes to one of its faithful when a judgeship comes open.
This often results in reasonable people running the courts, because the party knows they'll be held responsible if the judge flips a wig on the bench. Like Judge Mestemaker.
In Ohio, they actually elect judges, which means you're guaranteed to get a party hack who's also a craven, card-carrying politician. The result of all this democracy is guys like Judge Mestemaker attempting to foist weird forms of frontier justice on an unsuspecting public. Such as treating wife-beating like a fraternity prank.
Life tends to balance out, though, Kerry. Ohio also has a no-fault divorce law, which gives all these Mestemaker couples a perfect argument: ``Hey, the judge made us do it. Weren't no fault of ours.''
KERRY SAYS:
Do me a favor, Dave, leave Hugh Grant out of all this.
Cynics like me are wondering if Hugh's divine encounter wasn't all a giant publicity stunt anyway, given the smashing success of his just-released film.
And another thing - if you'd stuck around town instead of jetting off on yet another vacation, you would have heard that wacky Judge Wapner, oops, Mestemaker, changed his mind after feminists like you objected to his forcing the creep to marry his girlfriend.
I agree with you, Dave. What in the world was this robed wonder smoking when he issued the order? The assailant ought to be jailed, banned from seeing this lady or forcibly given a drug to bring down his testosterone levels. But marriage? I think not.
The only positive outcome I could see from this decision would be in the area of legal precedent. If this matrimonial order was found to be legal, all women involved with men who refuse to commit might haul their beaux to court and force them to the altar.
Given the choice of white lace or time in the pokey most guys would decide getting hitched ain't so bad. Along with a band of gold most men get a housekeeper, cook, baby sitter and gal Friday. Not a bad deal.
I've always said that what I really need is a wife.
But I digress.
I am wondering what goes on in the heads of judges who use the judicial system to impose their morals on others. I've heard of judges ordering people to attend church or religion-infused AA meetings as part of their punishment.
And one of the most heartbreaking decisions to ever mar the American legal system made by the Illinois Supreme Court - supposedly a tad above your elected local hack judges - last summer ordered 3-year-old Baby Richard away from the only family he'd ever known to live with his sperm-father.
At the risk of lawyer-bashing (which in my case would be akin to biting the hand that feeds me) I wonder if you're asking the right question, Dave, when you compare elected judges to appointed judges.
How about normal people versus megalomaniacs? How about the radical notion of non-lawyers on the bench?
Heck, I'm nearly normal and everybody says I look good in black.
I never would have sent sobbing Baby Richard to live with a stranger. And what right-thinking American would look at a guy who uses his girlfriend as a punching bag and order him to marry her?
Tell me what sensible person would let a trial like O.J.'s drag on for seven months while America's soap operas languish without an audience?
Maybe if judges spent more time with regular folks and less time preening for the cameras the American judicial system wouldn't be such darn good entertainment. by CNB