Courthouse ka-ching
By G. Romero Wendorf
EDINBURG – After the story I published last month (June 24th) about Hidalgo County Court-at-Law #6 Judge Albert Garcia and whether or not he’s taking advantage of the courthouse marriage process by unfairly padding his own pocket – a charge he denied in that story – I got word through a courthouse source that the story stirred up a hornet’s nest because some of Garcia’s colleagues weren’t happy with some of the comments he made during his interview with me.
Not sure exactly which comments.
Maybe this quote:
“I'm here. I'm the only one, and you can ask around to all the attorneys, anybody…I'm the only one that's here Monday through Friday from 8 to 5. If you come in on Friday, you'll find that it's me. Maybe one or two other judges that are here on Fridays.”
If I had to guess, some of the judges are mad not because Garcia’s spouting a lie, but because he’s telling the truth. If they want to take time away from the bench and go play golf on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, even though there’s an estimated 13,000 misdemeanor cases pending in this county, whose business is it? What business does the public have knowing that?
And if the two-martini lunch takes an extra hour – bartender can we have another round? – why is it the public’s right to be privy to such info? Bambi is, after all, a terrific dance.
Not that Garcia accused any of his colleagues of imbibing during the lunch hour, or hanging at strip clubs or golfing during the work week, but that’s been the slam, right or wrong, against so many Hidalgo County judges for years – too few of them work a full 40-hour week.
After the June 24th column ran, I got a call from Fern McClaugherty, who’s a member of the OWLS (Objective Watchers of the Legal System or Old White Ladies Society, depending on which side of the fence you’re on), who told me that courthouse weddings have been a problem for as long as she could remember.
The OWLS was originally founded in the 1970s by two women – Nancy Shary and Virginia Townsend.
Shary, along with Townsend, didn’t feel that county officials were actually attending to the needs of their constituents (I’m shocked). And if a spotlight could be shown on their activities, they might shape up.
A case in the late-70s helped hammer home that point. Two Hidalgo County nurses had filed bad-practices complaints against the county health director. The county’s response? Fire the two nurses. The two women and the nurses picketed outside the county courthouse, forcing the county’s hand. An investigation later absolved the nurses of any wrongdoing.
Shary and Townsend eventually got around to forming a real grassroots organization, came up with a name – the OWLS – and started attracting followers, both Anglo and Hispanic alike, women and men.
They became a thorn in the side of some politicians over the years; the same guys who came up with the Old White Ladies distinction, but if anything, that just spurred the women on even more. Some public officials soon learned that these weren’t the sort of women of whom you wanted to create enemies.
By the way, before I get to the crux of this column – judges making money off weddings – I heard that Virginia Townsend suffered some minor strokes last week, and we here at The Advance News wish her well. I haven’t always agreed with her about everything, and we’ve had a few squabbles, but I admire her tenacity and willingness to pursue wrongdoing even as she moves well into her 80s. She’s no quitter, that’s for sure.
But back to the wedding bell$$ story and Fern McClaugherty. She calls me and says she read my column, and she says, “You know, that’s been going on for years.”
Judges pocketing money off of weddings. A hundred bucks a pop, and they get to keep all the money even though they’re performing the weddings on public property (their own courtrooms, that really belong to the people if you want to get right down to it).
Every year, we’d get the records of how many weddings the various judges were performing. More than several were making more than a hundred thousand dollars a year just performing weddings. And instead of being in court where they belonged, they’d have their bailiffs down by the elevator, all of them trolling for marriages.
“Been going on for years,” McClaugherty tells me. “When they used to have the commissioners court meetings right across the street from the courthouse, we’d go over there during the breaks and see all of the bailiffs sitting on a bench right by the elevator. And when one couple came out with a marriage certificate, one bailiff would hop up and grab them, and the rest of the bailiffs would simply scoot up, moving their bottoms along the bench. Like taxi cabs moving up in line at an airport.”
No.
“Yeah, and I have all the records to back it up. Every year, we’d get the records of how many weddings the various judges were performing. More than several were making more than a hundred thousand dollars a year just performing weddings. And instead of being in court where they belonged, they’d have their bailiffs down by the elevator, all of them trolling for marriages.”
McClaugherty offers to hand me the records.
“Love to see them,” I tell her. “And we’re talking court-at-law judges as well as state district court judges?” I ask her.
“If I remember right, almost all of them were doing it at one time or another. And you want to know what was really fun?”
What?
“I’d take my camera with me and take a photo of all the bailiffs sitting there, and then I’d watch them all scatter once I started clicking the shutter. It was hilarious.”
So now, I’ll wait for her to provide me with the printed records, year by year, going back to at least the early 2000s, and see which judges were really making the dough. Pulling down a hundred grand on the side when money was money.
Getting back to Judge Albert Garcia, if some of his fellow judges are hassling him for the interview he did with me last month, as some of my courthouse sources tell me, the question is why? Did he exaggerate his quotes? Did he misspeak? Or did he break the judges’ unspoken rule of silence among the brethren?
In other words, what happens in the courthouse, stays in the courthouse? At least as far as marriages are concerned, for which the judges are paid, on average, a hundred dollars a pop.
Either Garcia’s right, and his critics are wrong; or vice versa. And then again, some of them just may not like him pointing out their foibles.
What I have to do now is find a way to see exactly how many hours each judge is working. How many are actually working a 40-hour workweek? Because with an estimated 13,000 misdemeanor cases hanging in the dockets, according to DA Ricardo Rodriguez, one would think each judge would at least be working a full 40-hour work week. Forget golf. Forget weddings. Work the damn criminal and civil cases.
Someone will phone me with a suggestion. How do we tell which judges are really pulling their weight, and which ones aren’t?
If you have any ideas, please give me a call: 821-2569.