Renegade for Justice by Stephen Saltonstall

Author:Stephen Saltonstall [Michael Meltsner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2022-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

13

Getting Rid of a Bad Judge

In 1983, a year after I started practicing law in Bennington, Republican Governor Richard Snelling appointed fellow party member Arthur J. O’Dea Jr. of Arlington, Vermont, as a Bennington County judge. Art had been effective as a trial lawyer. But some lawyers are temperamentally unsuited to the bench. As soon as they have judicial power over others, their personalities become rude and authoritarian, and their judgment and legal rulings unpredictable, even tyrannical.

Sadly, such was the case with Arthur O’Dea. No lawyer I knew wanted to appear before him. He was moody, and without warning he would lash out with abusive and threatening dressings-down of lawyers and litigants, especially women and low-income people.

All the trial lawyers I knew had war stories about their appearances before Judge O’Dea. I had a civil jury trial, a commercial dispute involving several defendants and their various lawyers, with a single plaintiff, who was represented by Jeremy Dworkin of South Londonderry. Judge O’Dea’s demeanor toward Jeremy was disdainful and sarcastic. He insisted on calling Jeremy “Mr. Dorkin” during the proceedings, apparently his way of telegraphing to the assembled, including the jury, that he considered him a “dork.”

Jeremy was the only Jew in the room. My Jewish wife has conferred on me the title of Honorary Member of the Tribe, based on my marriage to her and my acceptance into a welcoming Bosinoff family fold, including her parents and her aunts, uncles, cousins, and especially her immigrant grandparents, who found refuge in America after escaping an antisemitic pogrom in what is now Belarus. Perhaps I was being overly sensitive or even a mite paranoid, but this repeated “Dorkin” business set off a tocsin in my head.

In a Rutland divorce case where the issue of custody was contested, Judge O’Dea appointed me as guardian ad litem for the child, to advocate for her best interests. Jane Adams Esq. of Pownal, a farmer as well as a lawyer (not unusual in Vermont), represented one of the parents. I liked Jane a lot. She was an outspoken, brassy overweight feminist whose mere presence in the courtroom seemed to offend Judge O’Dea, probably because of her politics and her appearance; her gestalt, which I found equally brave and charming, brought out Judge O’Dea’s worst proclivities.

At a pretrial conference I attended, one of the agenda items was to discuss the ramifications of a psychological evaluation of the child that had just been filed. The psychologist’s report recommended that the court place custody with the parent whom Jane Adams did not represent.

Judge O’Dea made it clear that a trial would be a waste of his valuable time given the content of the evaluation, and he indicated that he had already decided to follow the custodial arrangement recommended therein. Jane Adams stood up and objected, telling the judge that there was another side to the story and that her client was prepared to present compelling evidence that would prove that the psychologist was wrong. Judge O’Dea angrily ordered Jane to stop talking and sit down, and then he bellowed, “Ms.

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