Episode Transcript
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Judge Timothy Batten, now retired.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Welcome to the Code Red studio.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Thank you. It's good to be here.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: How do you like to be referred to your honor? Seems appropriate.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: What is Tim is fine or judge, or just whatever.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: I'll call you Judge, if that's okay.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: I feel like you're part of the family because your brother is a part of our congregation.
And you've given me the privilege of sitting in on one of your court cases.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: My son was trying to figure out what was next for him. We came up to Atlanta and sat through one of the cases, and my instinct, I wondered how you would feel about this.
My first thought when we were watching you deliberate was you seemed to be a very unjudgmental judge.
And I don't know if that's intentional or if it's because you've just seen a lot through the years.
But the gentleman. I don't remember the case, exactly what he was accused of.
But you were very much a gentleman toward him, and I think that brought the best out of him as well. Even though he had done some things he probably regretted.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Right. Well, that.
I'm glad to hear that. I would like that to be. To have been the case all the years I was on the bench, because every person who comes before me. This is what a lot of people don't understand.
Everybody who comes in there as a criminal defendant has got a story.
And every one of them who walks in there is made in the image of the living God.
And I'm glad I got mercy. Now, that doesn't mean we just throw away the books and don't worry about punishment, because to have an ordered society, we have to do that.
But it's important to treat everybody with dignity and respect.
And I think if we're going to commit ourselves to the one who judges justly, we should do what we hope will be done for us.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Do you find that the defendant is surprised by that?
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes they are. You know, I think the best part of my job.
Many judges will tell you that the hardest part of the job is sentencing. And in federal court, we don't have parole. So if I sentence you to 20 years, you're going to prison for 20 years. There is no board you appeal to.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: So it's a very weighty process.
It's a hard thing to do. But it came to be, for me, pretty early in the process, one of my favorite parts of the job, in the sense that no other part of the job gave me such an opportunity to speak into the lives of broken people.
You'd be surprised how many times people would ask me, please forgive me. And of course, I can't forgive them. I'm not God. I can't do that. But I know the One who is.
And I would do everything I could to convey to people in that situation that they are loved, they're made in the image of God, and life is worth living. And I know that I got through to a number of people. I've gotten. Now, I didn't always. Let me make it clear. Sometimes they were just bad situations and no good was going to come out of them, and the person was just not repentant and was angry and bitter. But in most situations, these people have a story.
And if you read about their background, the probation officer prepares a very detailed report about a person's employment history, family history, education, criminal history, the crime itself.
You're going to say, but for the grace of God, there go I. And that was very much a thing for me. I was fortunate enough to get a few letters from people I had sentenced who were thankful and said that their lives had been changed for the good, and they appreciated me believing in them so. And of course. And I didn't judge them all perfectly. I mean, you know, in fact, over the years, I think I got a little softer in my judging. Not too much, but a little bit.
Which begs the question, well, did you get it wrong the first few years? You know, and it's a very weighty process, and you just have to ask for the help of the Almighty God.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Well, it's not AI. It's human.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: AI will never replace judges.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Well, and it shouldn't. I would hope not. I would want to answer to a man, and I would want to. Or a woman. I would want a real human being making.
It's human decisions that get us in these situations, and it's a humanizing process, at least in your courtroom I found out to be the case.
Let me give a little bit of the background of where you've been for the. The past two decades, really. And then I want to go back in time considerably to what really took you from pursuing engineering, it looked like, toward law.
Honorable Timothy C. Batten, Sr. Served nearly two decades as a U.S. district Judge for the Northern District of Georgia, the largest federal court in the state. He served as the Chief Judge from 21 until his retirement in 25.
He was nominated to the bench by George W. Bush, President September 28, 2005, on the recommendation of U.S. senator Saxby Chambliss and was confirmed by the Senate March 6, 2006. Does all that sound accurate?
[00:06:00] Speaker B: That's right, I believe.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: All right.
Early on, would you have envisioned this being your path?
[00:06:09] Speaker B: No.
It is a really difficult thing, frankly, to get a federal judgeship.
I was born and raised in Atlanta. I had three older brothers, grew up in a suburb called Sandy Springs. And I went to Georgia Tech undergrad. But I knew when I went to college that I wanted to be a lawyer. In fact, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer from the time I was about eight or nine years old.
It just was in my blood. I didn't have a family member. My grandfather was a lawyer, but otherwise, no, nobody in my family was a lawyer. But I knew it's what I wanted to do. So I went to Georgia Tech because I got some good advice.
Law schools are looking for people with diverse backgrounds. I'm not talking about race and ethnicity and that type of thing, but just academic. And they get a thousand political science majors, history majors, sociology majors. They really love it when they get somebody with a STEM background or even close to it. And although I majored in industrial management, I did it at a STEM school and so I was fortunate to have done that. So I went to graduated from Tech in 1981. Then I graduated from law school in 1984.
And I went to work at what was then considered a small to medium sized law firm. Had 15 lawyers, which nowadays would definitely be considered a small law firm. But at the time it was a medium sized firm and it was a general commercial practice, which means that we did just about everything. We didn't do much criminal work, but we did just about everything else for small and medium and some large businesses. So I worked there for 22 years.
After I had been a lawyer for a few years, I really thought how much I would enjoy being a judge.
It just seemed to fit right up my alley. My spiritual gift are prophecy and teaching.
And I just had a heart's desire for it. The problem is you don't just go apply for the job.
You don't have an opportunity to take the job unless one of the judges on the bench steps down and retires or passes away because it's a lifetime appointment. So you don't know when an opportunity is going to come up.
An opportunity came up in2023 and I threw my hat in the rain for that. And I was interviewed by the people who were leading that and I did not get it that time. But two years later, a judge named Willis Hunt retired and I interviewed for his spot. And there was aand traditionally the senators from the state where there's a vacancy, they actually are the ones who pretty much choose the judge.
And then that person goes to the White House to interview with the White House counsel and the Attorney General and then the President makes the selection. And over the years it's been usually the senators will pick one person, maybe two, but in my case they picked five. And that's kind of the trend.
The presidents now are wanting more candidates to choose from. They don't want just one. But in my and so in my case, the there were five of us went up to Washington in 2005, interviewed there, had a challenging interview. The White House counsel was no slouch.
He asked me why I thought I should be a federal judge, which obviously was the first question anybody would ask.
And I gave him three good reasons about my experience and my interests and my qualifications.
And then I threw in for good measure. I said, plus I'm of the same judicial philosophy as President Bush.
I am a strict constructionist of the Constitution. He looked at me and said, well, if you're such a big fan of strict constructionism, why do so many law professors and judges disagree with you? And it was 40 minutes of that.
It was a difficult interview.
When it was over, I was exhausted. But I made it home.
And about six weeks later, in June of 2005, I got a phone call from the White House and was told that the President had picked me.
But I was told I couldn't tell anybody because they weren't goinghe was not going to nominate me formally until I passed an FBI background check.
So I underwent that, which took four months. And the interesting thing about that is when the President of the United States says, you're going to be a federal judge and you can't tell anybody, it's kind of hard to keep that a secret. So I didn't completely not tell anyone, but it wasn't real public. But then in September of 05, after the background check went through, he nominated me and the Senate unanimously confirmed me in February of 2006. And I went on the bench on April 3rd.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: When you say a strict constructionalist, does that mean that you are interpreting the law based upon the original intent?
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Yes, it mean the original intent and the original words, okay, what the words say, not what we imagine might be meant today because the Constitution is a supposed living document.
All of the left wing rights that have been created in the late 20th century and since then, gay marriage, abortion, death penalty, you name it, they came From a carve out by non street constructionist judges and justices who frankly invented rights that are not in the Constitution. Now, everybody likes rights, but the problem with rights, that means every time there's a new right, right, that's a limitation on what government can do. And so if we declare that people have a right to terminate their pregnancies, that means government can't regulate that, the government can't step down. So you've got five members of the Supreme Court out of nine who are lawyers, okay, You've got a committee of nine lawyers, and they decide what rights exist. It's not right. And it's gotten us in a lot of trouble.
We've moved very far away from what this country was started in terms of its convictions and beliefs.
And I did want, I knew President Bush had that philosophy and I wanted to make clear I do too.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Right. When you probably in history, broadly, I read history, but then I try to zero in. As a young man growing up in the south, you know, the Civil War had a big impact on all of us.
And so probably within 10 years, give or take of the time of the war, is where I specialize in history. Okay. So that issue, the intent of the framers of the Constitution, the founders of our nation, came into play because of the slavery issue.
They chose the words they chose intentionally and they left the word slavery out. They referred to it in other terms.
And so one would argue that they did not want to see a nation that had slavery ongoing, and another would argue that they had slaves themselves. So that was one of the big debates during the time of the Civil War. I'm curious, in order to, to recognize the intent of the authors, the framers, to what degree do you have to study those people? Do you have to get in their minds and read the other writings that surrounded the framing of the Constitution?
[00:13:51] Speaker B: Well, I think you do have to dig and find out what their mindsets were. What was the cultural feeling at the moment, what was the settled perception on these issues. But what I liked about the end of school slavery is it was accomplished the right way through an amendment to the Constitution. The 13th Amendment bans slavery and the 14th Amendment is the equal protection clause. And that if you want to have a right to an abortion, or if you want a right to a gay marriage, put it in the Constitution and then we'll recognize it as such. But to have people infer from broad general phrases such as no one will be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, to infer a right of an Abortion in that, in my view, is preposterous.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: Right, I agree.
You know, as a pastor, much of our work is similar in that we're getting back to what did Paul mean or what did Moses mean when he wrote these words down? And you have to understand a little bit of the context they were living in and writing in as they're interpreting, you know, what they intended for sure.
One of the things I noticed firsthand as we were talking in your office that day is that you had a fairly diverse staff, so you probably were not known as a raging Democrat when you were appointed to that office.
You were there because you did agree with a Republican president to some degree.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: But you still, you surrounded yourself with people that were pretty diverse in their backgrounds. What was your thinking behind that?
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Well, you know, at first I thought, I want to give young men and women a chance to clerk for a federal judge and kind of get an inside look at the federal judiciary. And I'd like to share that opportunity with believers, which I most certainly did. But it didn't take me too long to think, you know what? I really don't want to have an echo chamber. We all feel the same way.
And I came to learn how the conservative position is so misrepresented to people. Their perspective of what it is is so different from the reality. So I would. I enjoyed hiring young Democrats. I hired some gay people, lesbian people, people of different races.
I enjoyed doing that. And we had some great banner. And these were wonderful, wonderful, brilliant people. And candidly, they were very smart.
And on both sides, there's some unfair portrayals of what the other side believes. Exactly. And so when you've got a guy who's 28 years old and he's twice as smart as I am, but he doesn't know as much because he's new at it, you're having some really good conversations about these things. We really believe.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Did you see any changes in perspective?
[00:16:43] Speaker B: The biggest change I saw, which was absolute, was I just sensed, and it was expressly affirmed to me that I changed some perspectives as to what a conservative looks like.
And I definitely would like to feel that I was a compassionate conservative. You mentioned the way I handled sentencings.
You know, but handling sense sentence things with humility is kind of easy. I mean, because again, you read where these people come from, and they're so broken.
They are so broken. It's not hard to be compassionate to people like that. And if you're not, you know something's wrong with you. If it's not, if sentencing People to prison for decades is not a difficult thing for you to do. You don't need to be a federal date district judge.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: Do you find from your peers and other judges that you've interacted with? Is that a common perspective?
[00:17:40] Speaker B: Oh, I think so, yeah. I retired last May, and we had a retirement ceremony and I had a little speech and I made the point that on more than one occasion I sentenced somebody. And because of really tough sentencing laws, frankly, passed mostly by Republicans that I did not agree with because of the mandatory minimums in many of the cases.
And I'm a law and order person. I mean, you know, I'm not a liberal at all, but some of the punishments just didn't fit the crimes. But nevertheless, my hands were bound. I was constrained. I had to sentence a man one time to 35 years. That was the minimum. And all he was was a mule and a drug operation.
Hispanic man. It was heartbreaking. And when it was over, I actually went off the bench, went down to where he was, shook his hand and told him I'd pray for him. And I wrote him a letter after that, and I went back to my chambers, went in the bathroom and wept.
And yes, I do think other judges are like that. I mean, I don't know if there's such crybabies like me, but I know that we would talk about the challenges of sentencing, and everybody's sensitive to it.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: How much discretion did you have when it came down to sentencing? Or were you ever able to say, maybe let's take a different approach to this case? Rather than the crime that you're sentencing or that you're accusing, Were you able to reformat or to reframe? How much discretion does the judge have in those cases?
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Well, the judge generally in federal court has very broad discretion.
There are sentencing guidelines that the United States Sentencing Commission has imposed, but they are not binding on the court. The Supreme Court said in 2005 that to the extent those guidelines are binding, they violate the Supreme Court separation of powers because they don't let judges be judges and sentence what they think is appropriate.
So the guidelines are a good start and a big help.
You don't feel like you're just.
Because we obviously don't want a judge in Atlanta to be sentencing somebody to three times as much time in prison as a judge in Dallas, Texas, who's got an identical, basically defendant. The idea we would like you to uniformity, but I would have to.
I'd have to say there was a lot of discretion except in the mandatory minimums and There aren't too many of those that, yes, you could really try to depart and work with people and hopefully make a difference. And, you know, I know that sometimes I did that successfully, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out one day that if I got hoodwinked and I didn't do it successfully a couple times, you know, I'm not sure. But again, every time I sentenced and it was interesting, when I got the job, I had several of my conservative friends, you know, that's just great. You need to go really stick it to the criminals. And it didn't take me long to develop an attitude of, well, you know, that's not what happened to me.
They didn't stick it to me. You know, my savior paid my price. So, full in blood, when did you
[00:21:01] Speaker A: come to that realization?
[00:21:03] Speaker B: When I was a whopping 5 years old.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Tell me about it.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Well, I grew up in a family. My parents, like I said, had three older brothers, no sisters. And my parents became Christians in 1955.
I was born in 60, and in 1965, my mom led me to Christ.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: We have one judge in our congregation currently, and she's fantastic. I've learned a lot from her, been able to pick her brain as well. We have a great number of law enforcement officers, and I have found that people who are engaged in law enforcement can be some of the most jaded people. It's not always the case, but they're frequently lied to. And it's just presumed that the person that they've pulled over or that they're engaging in a conflict with is lying to them most of the time because
[00:21:56] Speaker B: they've had that experience so many times, coupled with the fact that they have such a dangerous job.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Right.
How are you able to not be that kind of person, not be a jaded, mistrusting, presuming the worst about people after all you've seen?
[00:22:15] Speaker B: Well, I think. I think what happens is you come to see that although you have two sides, the government, the United States attorney, and then the defendant's attorney, and they're all really good lawyers in federal court. And so they do the best job possible, generally of maximizing their client's perspective and making it compelling.
And in that process, thanks to the good lawyering they do, sometimes you see some cracks in the system and you see that this isn't as bad as it first sounded. There were several times I went on the bench and we would get a. We would have a sentencing memorandum, a brief submitted by each side as to what they're saying, the sentence should be.
And I would read the government sentencing memorandum and you're just thinking, this guy is just the worst, has no hope, there's no excuse.
And then you go out on the court, on the bench, and you get testimony of witnesses that confirm without any dispute by the government that it's a little more complicated than that. That's how you change. You don't. Assuming you go in with a hard attitude, hopefully you'll soften when you realize there. I can't remember the exact verse, but Proverbs says something about somebody says something and it seems right until you cross examine or, or talk to the other side. I don't remember the chapter first.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: He doesn't matter.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: But I'll tell you, that's the truth. You got to hear both sides of the story.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I've found in counseling, when a husband or wife comes in and tells me how horrible their mate is, you listen to them, you hear them out, you try to be empathetic, and then they want you to kind of rule on that.
So what do you think ought to happen? And it's like, well, I think we need to talk to her.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: That's right. That's what I know ought to happen.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: And nothing. We can't make any progress until they're in the room. We hear both sides of this because there are, that's just the nature of reality. There are shades of grace sometimes and there are two sides to the story. And finding out what actually the truth is is difficult sometimes.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: You know, I'm really glad that God said vengeance is mine. I don't want that to be mine. People asked me for forgiveness, like I told you.
And also the thought that as an institution, the judiciary should be in the business of punishing people. And that is one of the obvious purposes of incarceration, is just punishment.
But aren't you glad that God hasn't put on your shoulders the responsibility to obtain vengeance?
[00:24:43] Speaker A: There are times it is way too
[00:24:45] Speaker B: hard, way too complicated.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: It is, it is. And there are times when I wish I could forget my sin, you know, and I look back at it and I remember it and I think and I say it. Many sins that I think sometimes I wish I could just forget it and move on. And then there's times when I think I'm really glad that I don't because it does keep you humble. It keeps you when you're dealing with someone. I think it always is good to remember, like you said earlier, but for the grace of God, there go I, I thought before I was a teenager I think I was still in high school because I was going back to my hometown, but I'd been out and I always had a high tolerance for alcohol, but I drank a lot that night. I was coming home, I was driving home, it was pouring down rain. And I remember on a four lane road, it hit me, oh, you're drinking and driving.
It's a dangerous night to drive, period.
You could run it, you could kill somebody, you could kill yourself.
And I got home safely that night, but I've never forgotten it because now when someone makes that decision and it's wrong, it's horrible, but it does help you to look at them as. I didn't get caught.
I could have. I could have killed somebody, you know. And when someone actually does make that decision and they suffer the consequences for.
Helps you to look at it a little differently when you realize some. One of our attorneys. We've got an unusual number of attorneys in our congregation.
Prior to this, I don't think I've ever had an attorney in our congregation at First Baptist Fernandina. There's 15 or 20.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: And it's every type of law that they practice.
And you'll probably know the book. I don't remember exactly the name of it, but one of our attorneys gave me a book that said something to the effect of every day you, you commit so many federal crimes.
Does that ring a bell at all?
[00:26:40] Speaker B: No, it doesn't, but I believe it.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: I'll try to find it before Sunday and get you a copy of it.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: I would say in response to that, you can't drive home from here today without violating several of the rules of the road that are codified in the Florida statutes.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: So that being true, we're all guilty. That being true, we are all guilty. And that being true, if somebody wants to get you, if a prosecuting attorney wants to put somebody in jail, they can probably do it.
Do you ever see that? Do you ever see vindictive attorneys or people that are just.
Maybe the person is not vehemently guilty of a heinous crime, but they're going to be prosecuted as if they were because somebody's got a bone to pick?
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Honestly, you don't see much of that in federal court because the lawyers are too good. And interestingly, the relationships among the federal lawyers, the prosecutors and the defenders are really good, generally because they work with each other all the time. It's in the civil realm where you've got thousands of lawyers, 20,000 lawyers in Atlanta, and they never see each other again. So they don't have no real motivation to be polite and professional and accommodating and courteous. They don't. They don't have that as much. Now, I did see it a little bit, and invariably what it resulted from, it wasn't that the prosecutor was so angry at the defendant. It was the prosecutor had not had a pleasant experience with the defendant's lawyer, and the attitude was, I'm going to make him pay.
And you did see that some, and you had to rein that in.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: I've said jokingly, I have a spiritual gift of eavesdropping. And I remember sitting, I was listening, having coffee in Huntsville, Alabama, one day, and the best I could put together, it was a lawyer wanting to be hired by a client. And he said, well, you know, explain to me why you're any better than the others. And he said, well, you know, a good judge, a good attorney knows the law, and a great attorney knows the judge.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: You've heard it before. Groucho Marx, right?
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Is that who his original was?
And so he made the statement. They both laughed. And I thought, man, that relational capital does make a difference.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: It does. You know, when I took the bench, I was unknown in Atlanta because I worked, as I said, in that firm I was with for 22 years in downtown Atlanta.
And I had a reputation among lawyers, but I was not involved in bar activities.
I had six kids, and they all played soccer and they all did something basketball, and they needed me on Saturday morning. It was not.
And I was often told, if you ever want to be a judge, get involved in politics so that the people who make the decision will know you.
Well, I just couldn't do that because I. And also get involved in bar activities. I was involved in one significant bar activity, and I think that did help me.
But the notion that relationships don't have anything to do with it is crazy. I mean, in every aspect in becoming a judge, in being a judge and meeting out justice and who the lawyers are, the relationships are so important. And I think when I came on the bench, because I did not do much criminal work and especially much criminal work in federal court, the criminal defense bar was terrified of me. They saw this young guy who I was 45, who was appointed by George W. Bush, and they figured, they just assumed he's going to be really difficult, he's going to be hard on criminals, and I just wasn't.
And you kind of get a feel for how people perceive of. You know, Atlanta's a big city in a lot of ways, but the legal community is a Small club, you know.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Right. You mentioned you had six kids.
You have, some of you. I looked through your case histories and noticed that you had some that were affiliated with organized crime, and that seems very dangerous. Did it ever get dangerous? Was there ever an attempt at retribution or anything like that that you were aware of?
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Yes, it is dangerous. My wife is really glad that I don't get death threats anymore.
I did not get lot of death threats, but I got some. I ruled in one of the Trump 2020 election cases. One of those 41 cases across the country was mine, and I ruled against President Trump's position and dismissed the case.
And I cannot remember what the number was, but within 24 hours, I had received 600 phone calls. And for the next two weeks, I had to have 24, 7 protection by the marshals because people called in and threatened my family, threatened me.
It was scary, and it's. And I really am very troubled by the recent rise in violence against federal judges.
I think that because we live in an increasingly depraved society, it's only going to get worse.
And it's. It is scary. That's a part of the job that. That nobody likes.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Oh, it is, yeah. And that's the other side of it, being human. I think humanity is made in the image of God. We're image bearers, but we're also deeply broken, incapable of great evil.
How were you able to kind of shield your kids from the ugly things that might be said?
[00:32:14] Speaker B: Well, there were. Well, I just didn't let them know.
But my kids, by the last time I had those kind of threats, which was about five or about five years ago, my kids were old enough then to get it. I mean, I couldn't really hide it from them. The marshals were sitting at our house.
They've got people out front, at the front, on the street, and, you know, there's no pretending they're not here to protect me.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: You may or may not be able to answer this. The U.S. marshals, when that sort of thing happens, they're the ones that are called in. Why are they the ones that are responsible rather than local law enforcement or state police?
[00:32:53] Speaker B: Because the United States Marshals, which were formed in 1789, were formed primarily to take care of, to guard prisoners, federal prisoners, and to protect the federal judges. Those are their two primary missions.
They work a lot in coordination with state and local governments.
To be sure they will work together. They often lead fugitive task forces that are coupled with state law enforcement officers. But that's why they are the ones who protect us. And they're a first class operation. I have a lot of confidence in them. They can only do so much because there's only so many and only so much money to provide.
But I'm glad that nothing ever came of the threats I got. And I'll be honest with you.
Yeah, I sentenced some people and it was very unpleasant. And from the nobody's going to look at you and say, I'm going to kill you.
You know, that's another crime. You're going to get indicted, you're going to spend five extra years in prison for saying that. So people are smart enough generally to not say things like that, but you can tell by the look looks on their faces that you're the person they mostly don't like. In most cases, the prisoners mostly don't like the prosecutors more than the judge because their, their lawyer is working with the prosecutor for weeks or months as we get up to the, either the trial date or the sentencing date. And so they're hearing what the government's position is, which is coming from the prosecutor.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: And so if they get angry at somebody, that's usually, usually who they get angry at, but not always. We've had a couple assassinations in the past few years of not federal judges, but close family members, a son of a federal judge in New Jersey and the husband and mother of a federal judge in Chicago.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Did you ever feel the weight of pressure?
And we'll talk more in depth about 2020, but when you're dealing with people in organized crime, when you're dealing with, when you're dealing with trafficking cases, that sort of thing, was there ever that insinuation that, you know, we really hope you'll lean one way or else. Was there ever anything like that?
[00:35:07] Speaker B: No, nothing that close to me.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: Okay, thank God. Well, 2020 will go down in history as you know, a defining moment in our nation. Probably more than any of us recognize this close to it.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:35:19] Speaker A: But it, it's, you know, we saw it in church, we saw it as pastors.
So many things happened in 2020 that defined who we are today and kind of set us on a different, a different trajectory.
You were in a pivotal moment, a pivotal case there. You had Sidney Powell brought the case to dismiss.
Unpack the case for me a little bit. She was wanting to dismiss the vote count, the election results.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: Yes, she wasand what they were protesting as much as anything was the machines.
And they said the machines were not reliable and that they had been hacked. And I mean, those are incredibly serious allegations.
And, you know, I knew people who voted for Trump and were very much in favor of Trump, and they just. A lot of people just said, there's no way we lost this election. It had to be rigged. There had to be a mistake. But there never was any proof of it. And in my case, Sidney Powell and another lawyer from Atlanta attached to their complaint hundreds of pages of documents, many of them in Spanish, talking about Venezuela, Venezuelan voting machines that had nothing to do with anything.
And normally in federal court, you get lawyers who are a lot more compliant with the rules. You don't just throw what you can up against the wall and see what sticks. That's not how it works. If you do that, you get disciplined. You can get disbarred. So most lawyers don't do that. These lawyers didn't care what they alleged. They would say anything. And so we had to spend countless hours pouring through these documents and say, do they say any of the things that the plaintiffs say they say? And the answer was clearly no. I would have much preferred for Donald Trump to win the election over Joe Biden in 2020, but I was.
I think the best compliment I got as a judge was from one of my former law professors who was very liberal, brilliant man, taught me constitutional law. I love the guy. He's just a great guy.
And after that case, he wrote me a letter and said, I know we didn't agree on much politically and judicially, but I always knew that you would follow the rule of law.
That was a tremendous compliment. And I did follow the rule of law, and I did dismiss the case, and it was the right thing to do.
So it was weighty, to be sure, because everybody was watching. I mean, it was on the news every day.
So I was glad when it was over.
[00:38:04] Speaker A: I bet. I bet I went back and I listened to your decision on that case and what you said from the bench after it. And a big part of the ruling, correct me if I'm wrong, was that they had the opportunity, they could have raised these allegations earlier.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Yes. And they didn't do Dominion voting machines. They allegedly had problems, and they. And whatever problems, if any, existed, they had knowledge of long before the voting day. And you can't wait till the election and then lose and then say, oh, we object to the way the election was conducted if the grounds for the objection were known before the election was had.
That's just fundamental fairness, just how life works. You can't do that.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: That was probably the strongest argument I think, that I heard. Sure.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: And it's a common Sense argument. It's not even so much a legal argument. I mean, the judges apply in this instance, common sense to say something like that. But it's not some complicated legal doctrine that was established by Congress 50 years ago or anything like that. You can't do that. You can't wait and lose and then complain.
[00:39:12] Speaker A: Right.
Is defining a foul after the game is over, it's more than calling a foul. It's saying, well, let's talk about what a foul is.
Rewriting the rule book a little bit.
Is there a possibility, and I'm not sure how much you can speak to this.
Is there a possibility? As we've had the incursion in Venezuela, I wondered when that was happening. If you remember, the lady from the Trump administration came and seized some of the ballots or some of the machines at right around the time when the Venezuelan incursion happened.
Is there a possibility that that could ever be proven, that that was a misaligned election or that there was a mistake there?
[00:39:56] Speaker B: I don't think so at all. I mean, it was so heavily scrutinized.
There was so much scrutiny. The only people that believe there was a conspiracy were the people who basically live by the motto, if there's no evidence, it must be a conspiracy because we can't find it. And we rely on proof. We rely on evidence, not hunch, not arguments, not preferences. But what evidence is there? And there was none. I mean, can you imagine the degree of scrutiny that was given in all 41 of these cases? And Republicans and Democratic judges reach the exact same conclusion every time. I mean, I'll say this about the 2020 case. It wasn't my hardest case.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:40:39] Speaker B: To be sure, it was not like a close case. And I really had to pray about it and weigh it and really make sure I was doing my very best. It didn't fit in that category.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: When you look at this is going to be a hard gear shift.
As I'm looking at your. Your resume, as I'm looking at your bio, music has been a big part of your life.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: Right.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: When did that begin? You're a piano player. What genre do you play and how did that serve you along the way?
[00:41:11] Speaker B: Well, my mother was very musical. She had a band and they played at wedding receptions and, like at country clubs. At dinner, when they have the dinner and dances on Saturday night, she did that.
And all three of my brothers, she tried with the piano. And it didn't click for any of them, but it did click for me. And so music was a part of my life. From the time I was five growing up, I took lessons.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: Were you classically trained?
[00:41:40] Speaker B: No. I did play some classical music. I played Rachmaninoff's 18th variation and a little. Some Bach where she met safely Graze a touch of it. But I wasn't classically trained and I. And by the time I got to be about 12, I wanted to play Elton John and I wanted to play Honky Cat and as much stuff by Elton John in Chicago as I could
[00:42:03] Speaker A: get, which is not simple stuff either.
Those can be complicated.
[00:42:07] Speaker B: Well, it's not enough's third Concerto either, Piano Concerto, but yeah, it takes a little bit of rhythm and a little bit bit of ability to move.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: I learned Blueberry Heel. That's about as far as I got. Mary had a little Lamb. Blueberry Heel were my only two piano. I was a guitar player.
But there was. It uses a different part of your brain and a different part of your soul. And there's something about music that does keep you a little bit more centered.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: I agree. I think music is one of the very greatest gifts God gave us. He didn't have to give us music.
And I'm so excited about. I was telling. This is funny. I was talking to my daughter and wife the other day down here and I said one of the. There are two things I'm looking forward to. This will sound crazy, but I'm looking forward to in the hereafter.
One is I think they're going to have hilarious comedy shows. I think they'll have these clean comedy shows and they'll always end with a way to give God the glory.
And then the other thing, of course, is the music. I mean, you've listened to Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. It's pretty much perfect music. Whatever your version of perfect music is, it's going to be played in heaven.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: That would be great.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: And it will be. And imagine music written by angels and performed by angels. I mean, it's so much to look forward to.
[00:43:26] Speaker A: Well, everything we read in scripture prior to the fall was set to meter, rhythm, tempo, and it rhymed everything. Bone of my bone, flesh in my flesh is a good example. And so there are theologians that would suppose that perhaps that was our language, was the language of music and song prior to the fall.
And then the greatest, whether it's the Psalms or Song of Solomon, whatever it is, it's some beautiful. I would love to go back and hear what those things sounded like set to music.
And you can find some of it where they've tried to find relics and piece it back together.
But it's going to be an amazing thing to hear how we don't lose our culture or our norms when we go to heaven, but they're magnified.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: It's just better.
[00:44:15] Speaker A: Everything we're going to hear, you're going to hear. It's not going to all be Southern gospel, you know, you're going to hear the best hypocrite music you've ever imagined.
All of the best of the best.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: Well, it's going to be like God, which is perfect. God is perfect. He's not just great, he's not just effective, he's not just so good in so many ways. He never makes a mistake. And this music will be just.
I don't think we could hear it today. Our senses are too dulled.
If they played it, we would hear it, love it, but wouldn't fully get it. But we'll get it one day.
[00:44:55] Speaker A: That's true.
You've made a shift now that you've retired from the bench. You're moving into more of a mediation type work. Tell us about that. What exactly is that work and how does it serve the community?
[00:45:09] Speaker B: Well, I work with a company called jams, which stands for Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services. And I am an arbitrator and a mediator. We are. Those two things are each known commonly as examples of adr, alternative dispute resolution, which means something besides litigation.
Litigation is very expensive. It's very protracted, and it's very, very unpredictable. And it also takes a pound of flesh of everybody in it in most cases.
So many decades ago, somebody came up with the idea of, if we've got good lawyers on both sides and people who are acting in good faith, why don't we try to resolve these disputes in a better way? And there's two ways again. One is mediation, one is arbitration. The difference is in arbitration, I'm the judge and the jury and my dispute decision is final. And generally speaking, it's not appealable. So it's much quicker. And I get to focus just on that case. I don't have 250 civil cases like I did when I was a judge.
And so it goes very quickly compared to regular litigation mediation. I don't decide anything. I put the two sides in different rooms and then I meet with one side and hear what their story is. And of course, we actually do some work before the mediation, but I read their positions and then I try to work with them together and rely on my 42 years experience now as a judge and a lawyer to try to help them reach A fair resolution. I don't decide anything, but more often than not, I've been successful in getting the parties to a place of agreement. The interesting thing for me in the mediation was world has been two things, actually.
One is mediators aren't really supposed to decide anything. They're not supposed to say, well, this is what ought to happen, you know.
But it's hard to not say that when you have so much experience and you're convinced you know how the case is going to go because you've seen these cases so many times before. So you have to be kind of careful about that. And the other thing I have to be careful about is these generally are not believers and I'm not the pastor.
And as much as I would love for there to be reconciliation, not just resolution of the case, but a place where the people hug each other at the end, which I've actually succeeded in getting that to happen a few times.
And that's been important to me. But I have to remember, you know, in some respects, you're in the mission field by doing this, but you ain't their pastor. It's not their job. Your job is to try to settle the lawsuit. Your job is not to have a Matthew. What is it? Matthew 19. Process for confronting somebody, then bringing somebody else in and trying to get them to see they're wrong and reconcile. So I have to sometimes bite my tongue when I feel pretty strongly that one side is in the wrong.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: Is there a carve out in case law or in our law of the land that allows for this, that says if you make a judgment in an arbitration that the legal system is going to support that? How is that?
[00:48:34] Speaker B: Yeah, well, there's two. The mediation is often voluntary, actually, sometimes a judge will order it, but no one can make you settle at mediation. But if you come to mediation in good faith and you're with a person who you're confident, you can tell pretty quickly this person knows what they're talking about. They've got a lot of experience, you're going to listen to them and you may go from real far apart and get pretty close or hopefully settle the case that day. And of course, the law loves that. The judge loves that. That's one case off his docket.
Arbitration, on the other hand, judges like that too, for the very same reason, and even more so in the sense that arbitrations end with a decision by the arbitrator, me, and the case is over. Now, how do cases get to arbitration? The main way they get to arbitration is by having mandatory arbitration clauses in the parties contracts. So the parties work together, but they have an agreement that says if we have a dispute, we agree that we're going to waive the right to a jury trial, we're going to waive the right to litigation, and we're going to have a certified arbitrator handle the dispute. And so when they sign up for that, and often people don't know they sign up for that, they don't read the paperwork, they sign it and then they find out I can't sue them, I've got to go through arbitration. But. But again, arbitration's overall a good deal. It's a lot faster and a lot cheaper.
[00:50:00] Speaker A: Right. If they come in, if they're working with jams, is that typically in the contract who they're going to work with?
[00:50:06] Speaker B: That's a new thing that's been coming, Zach, Is that where we are trying? We're the largest dispute resolution firm in the world and we like to have the JAMS neutral. It's what they call an arbitrator or a mediator is called a neutral. We like it when we have a mandatory arbitration or mediation provision that specifically calls for hiring a JAMS neutral. And that is increasingly becoming the case. AAA does the same thing. American Arbitration Association.
[00:50:34] Speaker A: And you have a certain number of arbiters, judges.
[00:50:37] Speaker B: Yes, a panel.
[00:50:38] Speaker A: Okay. So if a jury's being pulled and there's certain theories and reasons why some, somebody might strike someone from a jury or whatever, when it comes down to choosing the arbiter, do the attorneys have any power there?
[00:50:56] Speaker B: Yes, there's a list that's provided to the lawyers of people who are able to serve as arbitrators in the case and they will strike the ones they don't want. And the one who's left, the one who gets the least strikes is the one who's going to be the arbitrator neutral.
[00:51:14] Speaker A: You know, I think through when we're doing an episode like this and we have a very diverse group of people that have been on this program, I think you're probably 54, 55 episodes somewhere in there. So these people are from all different walks of life.
And reading the comments and engaging with the community is interesting to me.
And sometimes it's just, oh, wow, I didn't know anything about this part of our community and I'm learning a lot.
But a lot of times it will be the people who are researching to decide.
I could imagine we'll have some people watching this, watching this episode, listening to you to decide if you would be a good arbiter for their case.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: Let me give you my phone number.
[00:52:01] Speaker A: Maybe we can get some business. I know you're probably. There's probably a big need for business right now, but you've probably got more cases than you can shake a stick at. If I had to imagine. But I would say from my interactions with you and from previously and today, you're the type person that if I, God forbid, were in that situation as a person, my fate had to be decided or my future had to be decided.
Your demeanor and your approach is who I would hope to.
[00:52:33] Speaker B: Well, that's a great compliment. Thank you very much.
[00:52:36] Speaker A: Well, I hope so.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: It's a very kind and generous thing to say. Thank you.
[00:52:40] Speaker A: Young people, the other group that's watching this, or people trying to decide about their future, what would you say to a young man, young lady, who's trying to discern their future with law and
[00:52:51] Speaker B: if they're thinking about law school?
Couple thoughts. One, I generally think that unless you really want it in your heart, it's not something you should do. It's not something somebody should do because they think they'll make a lot of money or even they think it's prestigious or whatever, it's really something you have to feel like. I've got a heart's desire for that.
If you have that heart's desire, you need to pursue it. And don't be dissuaded or discouraged by people who say we have too many lawyers because, let me tell you, we don't have enough good lawyers. We don't have too many good lawyers, and we don't have too many, many Christian lawyers because. And where I think, honestly, one of the things I'm most proud of in my life, looking back now, is that I learned how to work within the system as a believer.
And a lot of times believers are discouraged from going into the business world. You don't see a whole lot of young people working on Wall street.
And a lot of the reason for that is the people are understandably intimidated by Wall street and the notorious reputation it has for chewing people up and spitting them out. That makes sense. You probably want to avoid that.
But I'm an advocate of putting Christians in the real world and putting them in a place that is dark and bland and really needs light and life and salt.
It can be tremendous, tremendously rewarding, much more than just getting a paycheck, because as a lawyer, you're given the huge responsibility and privilege of representing someone typically in the hardest time of their lives, where something really bad happened to them, or they made a big mistake and they're trying to minimize the damage. And so they desperately need someone who's good and loyal and knows what they're doing to help you out. And having a believer in that position can make a huge difference. I had a mediation not too long ago where it was essentially a business dispute between two men who had a very successful business, but then they had a falling out.
Well, one of them was really trying to get. He was the plaintiff and he wanted to get $8 million.
And I had to explain to him that his case was not worth $8 million.
And somehow the fact that he was a man of faith came up, which to me opened the door for me to say, I too, am a person of faith. And I can tell you the best thing you could do right now is take a reasonable settlement, forgive the person who you feel has wronged you, and move on. That's what you're commanded to do, frankly, and just as importantly, I know you'll be a whole lot happier if you let go of this.
And in that particular case, I was able to persuade this man and we really hit it off. It was a really pleasurable thing. In other cases, you try to tell somebody something like that and they look at you like you're crazy.
[00:55:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I can see that. You know, and we have a lot of what I would call middle aged young men in Florida, 50s, middle aged.
But we have a lot of guys, give or take 10 years from my life, that are getting serious about their faith for the first time. Maybe their kids are at a certain age and they're really on fire for the Lord and they presume.
And also we have a large military community, the Navy community here. And so. So some people retired early and now they're looking what's next. And so their first instinct is, oh, man, I love church. I love ministry. I love the Bible, love Jesus. I must need to go do ministry stuff. And there's part of me that goes, please don't do that.
Please get back in the real world and represent where I can't.
I'm limited in my scope with what we do. And there are people that when I walk into the room, there's a different gear they get in. You're talking to a pastor.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:57:00] Speaker A: We need Christians in every walk of life, but specifically in the civic world that have grounding in the text, grounding in the scripture, but will represent the salt and light you're talking about.
[00:57:13] Speaker B: We need a lawyer who can play hardball and yet Be a believer. Right, because sometimes hardball is the right thing to do.
[00:57:22] Speaker A: Explain that.
[00:57:23] Speaker B: Well, sometimes you've got a person on the other side who's, who has, has put your client in a very difficult situation and they're not reasonable, they're not amenable to a reasonable resolution. They just want blood.
And sometimes you have to just surrender, but usually not. Usually you've got some good perspectives yourself that need to be put forward and you really would like to have a lawyer who understands all of that. And a lot of believers, you know, from my background, are kind of milquetoast when it comes to the real world and when it comes to hard knocks of business. But I've got a daughter who works for an international big Atlanta law firm, the only child who's a lawyer.
And she's going to come up against that. She's going to be in client meetings where the people aren't so nice and the people don't care any about doing what's quote unquote right. And that's going to be a challenge for her to be salt and light. You've got to be both.
[00:58:25] Speaker A: And I would be interested in hearing your perspective on. As I said, we've got a lot of attorneys in our church and some of those attorneys are bulldogs. I mean, they really go after it.
And I presume, because I don't know their world, but I presume sometimes they'll build a case as if it's a mountain when really the case might be something between a mountain and a molehill. They'll ask for the moon and hope they get the clouds or something.
Ethically, from a Christian perspective, how do you reconcile that?
And beyond attorney situations, you know, when we look at, I think probably the most recent things we've seen in the news is where the President is saying some extremely hard language toward his opponent in Iran.
And you know, as a Christian, we read some things he said on Easter and we cringe, you know. And so to what degree is there an ethical framework that we can kind of over threaten, oversell, knowing at the end of the day that's not where it's going to land?
[00:59:41] Speaker B: Well, we have to have integrity. We have to be what Paul called instruments of righteousness.
And I felt, I think that what that means as a believer practicing law is that you can't do what all the lawyers around you tend to do because they think that will get you the biggest settlement. That's just not ethical to me.
Of course, on the other hand, the system is designed where it's not really the lawyer's job to decide what's a just settlement. The thinking is each side gets a good lawyer and they both present their best case. And then a judge, judge or a jury provides the resolution.
But it's much more complicated than that. And I think a Christian lawyer has a burden that a non Christian lawyer is not familiar with. And that is a burden to be just. I mean, simply to be just. I don't think you take advantage of people who have stepped in it and messed up and are vulnerable. You don't do that. You don't take advantage of the them.
You are reasonable.
Now, again, sometimes it's gray. It's hard to. Where does my opinion of what this case is supposed to be about intersect with what the opinion of the lawyers around me is? And how much do I push from my perspective versus what I know the legal community would push for? And it requires prayer in every case
[01:01:01] Speaker A: and a lot of wisdom, you know, because I do.
[01:01:04] Speaker B: You want wisdom? Wisdom. I'll give it to you.
[01:01:07] Speaker A: I think about like Solomon when he had the blank check from the Lord and he asked for wisdom, God gave it to him. Well, the first thing he had to decide on was a legal case, you know, between two prostitutes.
How that came before the King of Israel, I don't know. I wonder that many times. How did this particular case.
[01:01:26] Speaker B: Well, God wanted it to occur before the King of Israel so that a lesson could be taught. And that's why there was no stopping it from coming before the King of Israel.
[01:01:34] Speaker A: Well, and you know his judgment. He called for the sword.
[01:01:37] Speaker B: Right.
[01:01:38] Speaker A: Do you think it would be speculation for either one of us, but I've wondered before if he ever intended to use that sword. I don't tend to think he would have.
[01:01:48] Speaker B: I don't think so. I don't think so.
It would have. To me, it strikes me that, you know, Solomon really messed up his life by the end. And people, how could a guy with so much wisdom end so terribly? Well, because the power of sin is so strong, and this is early in his career. I think he would have been wise enough. I just don't see him doing something so shockingly callous.
[01:02:12] Speaker A: No, I totally agree.
[01:02:13] Speaker B: I don't think him shooting a baby is what he really would have done, but it sure was a great bluff.
[01:02:19] Speaker A: It was a bluff and it gave clarity. It gave distinct clarity in the moment. And that was what God used to prove his wisdom.
So I try to leave room whether we're talking about an attorney who's asking for the moon when they know they're not going to get the moon or that's not the virtue of the case. You know, I try to leave room for those bluffs occasionally that in the courtroom, in the world in war, there may be. May be a time where it's appropriate, for the sake of clarity, to let it be known that you're willing to go to the mats over it or whatever it is, even if you don't feel as strongly as you're communicating.
[01:03:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And here's a challenge for a lawyer, young lawyer specialist. You have a case where, you know, the consensus is that it's worth X, but the consensus also says that if you go before this jury, it's just known as a matter of the study of the legal art, that you're much more likely to get X if you ask for 2x or 3x. Should that lawyer ask for 2x or 3x? I'm here to answer that question with, I don't know.
It's going to be a case by case basis. And the good thing is the Lord doesn't leave you hanging.
I often felt in my life, not just in that context, but a lot of times when I'm looking for wisdom, I know which way to rule or what way to decide what to do. Like in my own family, sometimes the Lord doesn't say, and maybe it's a cop out, but I tend to interpret his not saying as him saying whichever you want to do.
[01:03:54] Speaker A: There's a lot of times that's the case that's hard for people to accept.
I think when my kids were young and they would say, dad, do I get the red Popsicle or the blue Popsicle? I don't care. You pick one. You know, there are cases like that, and I appreciate anybody in a position of leadership or judgment that first of all will bring it back to the Lord and say, this is a difficult. This is not clear. If it were clear, I wouldn't need to do this. But it is unclear what is the right path forward and lean on that wisdom.
[01:04:29] Speaker B: Well, I had a practice as a judge that when I would put my robe on in my chambers and then go to the anteroom, before I would step into the courtroom, I would say a brief prayer, maybe after having prayed a lot, but always before I would go on the bench asking the Lord to give me wisdom. And I wanted to do justice, whatever justice looked like.
[01:04:49] Speaker A: Well, it will be done one day.
[01:04:51] Speaker B: It will.
[01:04:52] Speaker A: I appreciate what you said earlier that, you know, early on you wonder sometimes if you had too much or enough of empathy and that sort of thing. But one day nobody gets away with anything. Ultimately every sin will be judged either in Christ or by the sinner.
Only sinners are cast into hell. Ultimately it's not sin, it's sinners and nobody gets away with anything.
And and because of that there's no need to be a hypocrite about it. We can be honest about our faults and failings and move forward toward a healthier life because we know one, Christ has absorbed our wrath and 2 if someone today is not giving their life to him, not trusting him as savior.
It's like Groucho said earlier, you know it's one thing to know the law but it's a better thing to know the judge.
[01:05:59] Speaker B: That's right.
[01:06:00] Speaker A: And so thank you for joining us today Judge.
[01:06:02] Speaker B: You're welcome. I have so enjoyed it. It's a privilege to be on your show which I think is a great show.
[01:06:07] Speaker A: Well thank you very much than.
