County Judges want respect, but not enough to hold their employees to the law by Rexworth E.F. Washington

I grew up in this community and attended K-12 schools in South Bend, public schools at that. We were taught with a level of fervor about civics that seems lost today, and one of those lessons was that the laws were for everyone. We were taught to point out corruption and bad actors and that this mattered because it protected everyone. However, doing so in today’s world seemingly only rains down anger from those in our County Courthouse seats of power who demand respect but disrespect ‘we, the people’ by not following processes and laws nor requiring their staffs to do the same. 

Our public buildings are, well, ours! This means they belong to the people. It’s pretty simple. There’s historic and hagiographic art inside the buildings, there are forms and people we must interact with to interact with our governments and you know, we have the right to be in our public spaces built with our monies for the people by the people. 

Our local judges, to be fair other judges have done similar, have made it a ‘court rule’ that to enter the courthouses you have to give up your rights as a U.S. Citizen (unless you’re an attorney, that seems crazy that those who can become judges are exempt from rules made by judges?) and submit to a search and seizure even though you’re not expected of having committed a crime to enter our public buildings in St. Joseph County to conduct business with the courts or their staff. I understand that at times there can be compelling public interests that demand this level of security – but day to day operations in the courts cannot be one of them. We have laws that protect judges from violence already, so our local judges should not be able to just make rules for our buildings that we allow them to occupy that are different just because judges are in them – what are they afraid of that requires us to set our rights aside? Is it that their employees are so unhappy and dour that they’re worried someone will come in to harm them? (We already have laws forbidding this and harsh punishments for the same, so this can’t be it or if it is – let’s retrain them to be public facing like the Bureau of Motor Vehicles did with their employees – it can be done, we have a template). Further, these same local judges have made it a policy (not a law, you’ll remember that judges don’t get to make laws and certainly not for our public buildings) that you can’t have your phones inside buildings where there are courtrooms, with the odd exemption of the County City Building where you just can’t have your phone in the courtroom. 

Now why is it that the judges in St. Joseph County get to park underground, so they can never see protestors, get to make decades long policies without community review, and just thumb their noses at the actual legislative process? Why can’t they go to their buddies in the legislature, many of whom are lawyers themselves and thus part of the same guild or clique and get a law passed if they want a law that says to seek justice you must submit to search and then also the seizure of your phones as well as some light harassment in most cases by local cops who don’t understand or know the U.S. Constitution (not in all cases, but in most cases). Right there, they show us that they don’t want our respect, they want our fear and compliance – they are stealing authority from the people that is supposed to happen through the legislative process. This is wrong! Hey, where’s the ACLU to end this nonsense (too busy, I'm sure) – it’s these small power grabs that are most dangerous and our local courts, they’re grabbing power, make no mistake and they are petty and self-righteous in how they do it – and hell hath no fury like a judge who doesn’t know how to work their own phones, should you argue that you should have yours in court for any reason. 

Earlier this year, an officer told me that if I took my phone in and presented evidence from it - it then would have to be confiscated because it was then part of the evidence because the evidence was on the phone. I explained that if I presented testimony using my vocal cords they didn’t take those or from my brain that they didn’t take that – and that likewise, the evidence isn’t stored ‘on my phone’, but my phone was a device to play evidence from in this instance where I was acting as my own attorney. The cops disagreed, and somehow, they’re the arbiters of the court policy (not the law) on this? Wowza! That’s just stupid. It is a blatant misunderstanding of how devices work – and given that the courts will not provide means to play digital evidence nor is the court system set-up to take digital files for audio or video in many courtrooms, then wow – and wow – it’s hard to defend yourself in 2024 when the court still lives in 1954. Why can’t they humble themselves and get some technological training and devices that receive documents? It’s kind of embarrassing – going to court shouldn’t be like going to your grandparent’s house and having to ‘fix the internet’ which in most cases means giving them the right remote control for their television again! 

Yet, the court staff and those who work in the buildings on a daily basis (several times a day) actually break STATE law, and this goes unpunished and unquestioned. If our Judges and the law enforcement officers would enforce the State law posted on all of the doors, maybe we could begin to respect the courts locally and the police locally a bit more. Decades worth of federal Surgeons General have told us that smoking can kill and cause all kinds of problems, so people followed the legal process and got a state law banning smoking in certain public spaces – you don’t have to like the law, but you have to note that people, citizens, went about the process of getting a law made (they didn’t just make a policy that they enforced with no actual legal authority, but through dictums – they got a law passed and signed – there was a process!) Given some very basic research, it seems that no Surgeons General of our nation have yet come forth and suggested that my cell phone can kill people (sure, there are things that one can do on their phone that might get people killed, but we have laws against those things already too). 

With regularity, you can stand outside the courthouse and watch workers take their breaks and thumb their butts, cigarette butts, that is, at the State law – right in front of the signs. We even provide places for them to dispose of their cigarettes closer than the law would allow. I’m not saying all laws are equally important, but I am saying laws are important, and judges who allow policy to pose as law for years are grabbing power that is not theirs to be had, making these people dangerous. Just ask my teachers from Maple Lane or Jefferson or Edison or Adams… they’ll all tell you the same: if we don’t enforce the laws and we allow non-legislative entities to make up policies and pretend that they’re laws, we give away our liberties and our democracy decays, falters, and crumbles. 

This election season, down the ballot – make sure to vote to NOT retain any of our local judges and do this every election season until they get the message that they work for the people and they are not overlords of the people. Get a law passed through the process – and stop asking your grandkids to fix the internet, too.  

Photos are attached and used with the permission of the photographer: