Get me to the church and the court at the same time

ROBERT GARDNER

There was a period when I was in church five days a week. This would

have come as some surprise to my mother, who was always bothered by

my lack of church attendance.

The reason for my being in church was a reaction to Orange

County’s growth. No, I wasn’t praying for all those people to go back

to Omaha or wherever they came from. Rather, I was holding court.

The beautiful old court house, now granted historic status, was

erected when Orange County was primarily agricultural with a small

population, and it only contained four courtrooms. Those four

courtrooms were sufficient for many years, but then all those people

from Omaha arrived, and the four courtrooms could no longer handle

the increased volume.

The time was not ripe for a new court house, but a solution was

found. From the late 1940s until the new Orange County Courthouse was

built in the late ‘60s, most of us Superior Court judges tried our

cases in old church buildings scattered around downtown Santa Ana.

It worked out beautifully. The church buildings lent themselves to

easy conversion to courtrooms, and because nobody was paying taxes on

them anyway, nothing was being taken off the tax rolls.

Admittedly, there were drawbacks. Those old church buildings were

short of soundproofing, so when anyone flushed a toilet anywhere in

the building, all proceedings in court stopped until the roar died

down. I guess parishioners had been trained not to go to the toilet

while the minister was delivering his sermon.

There was also the issue of location. The converted churches were

scattered around downtown, which meant some walking, but this didn’t

strike me as particularly inefficient, at least not any more

inefficient than the present system in the current courthouse.

Between the hike from the parking lot and the queues in front of the

elevators, it can take people longer to get to where they have to go

today than it used to take to get from the Methodist Church building

to the Assembly of God building three blocks away, and at least in

those days, there was an element of fun involved.

We had lawyers, litigants and jurors traipsing all over downtown

Santa Ana in search of the former church that was now the courtroom

to which they had been assigned. It was good exercise and done in a

kind of festive mood that took the edge off some of the acrimony

inherent in litigation. It’s hard to stay mad at your opponent when

you are both engaged in a treasure hunt for a courtroom in which to

vent your spite. We misplaced a few people, but never lost anyone

permanently that I can remember.

There were a few soreheads who complained about a loss of dignity

for the court. Poppycock! In Samoa, we wore judicial robes on Palagi

(white man) days and sandals, lava lavas, and pandanus pod beads on

Samoan days, and I never detected any difference in the dignity of

the court.

From the standpoint of the judges, it was pretty nifty to sit in a

remodeled church complete with stained glass windows, fancy carved

pews and a bench where the pulpit used to be -- and quite easy to

feel like you were dispensing a little divine justice.

So, if the county finds itself short of courtrooms and doesn’t

want to take advantage of my earlier suggestion of staggering hours,

county leaders might consider churches.

If they do, I have one suggestion: If the Crystal Cathedral is up

for sale, pass it up. People get a little testy when they lose

lawsuits, and the temptation to throw a brick might be too strong.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge.

His column runs Tuesdays.