Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Though I had been with the Court three-and-a-half years, this was my first day as Judge. It was my first day without Judge Oliver across the way to answer my every question, or correct any wayward decision. Though I had campaigned with a pledge that I had all the necessary qualifications and experience, I suddenly wasn't sure any of those things I had said were actually true. Did I have what it took to do this job? What if I stumbled right from the beginning and never recovered? I vowed just to be myself, and trust the qualities that had gotten me this far.
Right out of the gate, I had a final sentencing of a mother who had three times prevented the children's father from seeing them. The last time happened right after she had been sentenced by Judge Oliver, who announced he was sending her to jail. The mother was put in handcuffs and escorted by the sheriff's deputy on their way out of the courtroom when the mother relented, and promised she would make good if she were given one more chance. She had never been in trouble before, and though the evidence did not prove it, the mother still believed the father had inappropriately touched the youngest daughter. The Judge, understandably, allowed her the chance to make good on her promise. And so the mother was freed. This all happened on Thursday, December 22, 2016, only a week before Judge Oliver retired. He set a review date of January 3, 2017 to make sure the mother had complied.
The mother still did not send the children with their father. So she obviously lied to Judge Oliver.
WWJD? What Would the Judge Do? I did what he would have done.
And off she went.
So much for the misconception that working in the Court is far less stressful than representing clients.
The Thanksgiving tradition started in 1975, when a bunch of guys in
the neighborhood gathered at Schenck Elementary School in Franklin to play football. We were 15
years old, sophomores at Franklin High School, all of us in perfect shape. The guys quit playing
sometime around 2005, but that's about the time Chloe started playing -- she was 10 at the time. And
so we have continued the tradition ever since, with a lot of her friends and their dads, only now we play
at Wade Field in Springboro.
Saturday, November 4, 2017.
