Presenter:
To all of you, our distinguished guests Welcome. This is the third talk of the 2006 version of the 26 th Annual Arizona Historical Foundation's Barry M. Goldwater Lecture Series. Whew!  

[laughter]  

Presenter:
Our director, Jack August, is fulfilling a commitment up in Page is off today. I am C. Kimball Rose, the President of the Foundation's Board of Directors. The great introduction that Jack has been giving, I'm skipping over.

[laughter]

Presenter:
Today's event is taking place because of the combined involvement of 8, formerly known as KAET, KJAZ, ASU, where we're housed, the ASU Foundation, our partners in new endeavors, and The Kerr Cultural Center staff. And on behalf of the board, I thank all of you for making this event really possible. Special thanks from the board goes to our highly talented and professional staff, Jack August, __________________, ________________, ___________ and _________________. We thank all of them.

Judge Robert C. Broomfield graduated from Pennsylvania State in 1955. After completion of his undergraduate studies there and during his attendance at the University of Arizona College of Law, he served in the _______and the Arizona National Guard along with Senator Barry Goldwater. In 1962, he joined the Phoenix law firm of ______________ not to be confused with ____________ and in 1971, he was appointed to the Arizona Superior Court in Maricopa County where he served first as the presiding juvenile judge in '72 through '74. The Arizona Supreme Court appointed him presiding judge of Maricopa County in 1974, immediately after his juvenile appointment. Judge Broomfield quickly exhibited his prowess as an innovator in the efficient administration of justice in Maricopa County leading our Superior Court to national recognition and envy. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan, having distinguished himself with the appointment to the Supreme Court of Sandra Day O'Connor, scored some more points by the appointment of Robert Broomfield as United States District Court Judge for the District of Arizona. Those on the bench were saddened to see their leadership pass to the federal court. However, they also were extremely happy for him and proud to have been led by him. _________ at the federal level, Bob carried on the innovatie judicial administration, and in just 9 years became Chief Justice of the District of Arizona. In 1999, Bob _________________. His talk is entitled “The Judiciary – It's the Glue.” Ladies and gentleman, with pride and with great pleasure, I present the outstanding ____________ Supreme Court and Federal Court ________, Federal Judge Robert C. Broomfield.

[applause]

Judge Robert C. Broomfield:
Thanks, Kim this is what? A four or five part program about judges, so, I thought perhaps it would be useful to start out with a story about a judge the definition of a judge. Now, this is a true story. It happened back in Massachusetts when they used to have a system like we used to have. If you were tried in the Justice of the Peace Court and you wanted to appeal, you had an appeal which was called de novo, that's just Latin meaning we did it all over again. It's not a real appeal. So, it seems that this judge, back in Massachusetts had this case, well, he went out on the bench, tried the case, found the defendant guilty and sentenced him right on the spot. He no sooner gets back in his chambers and the defense lawyer comes running around and he says, “Judge, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna tell my client? We got 60 days in the court below and you just gave him six months! What am I gonna tell my client?” The judge said, “Tell him the judge is an S.O.B.” He said, “I've already told him that, what do I do now?”

[laughter]

Broomfield:
there are other definitions of judges too, I'm sure. My topic is the “The Judiciary – It's the Glue.” And I'll eventually get to that. But some other things first. Arizona 's been nice to me. It gave me my wife, the most important person in the world to me it gave me my law degree, three children. I got to fly fighters out at Luke Air Force Base. The U of A experience was really unique some of you have gone to the U of A, may even remember if you hair my color, a place called Polo Village . We were really fortunate ‘cause most of people had – you lived in a half of a _____ hut. We lived in the half of a ____ hut that was on a dead end and it was right on the polo field, but, we had the biggest front yard in all of Tucson .

[laughter]

Broomfield:
It was really wonderful for us. A lot of people don't have such good memories. After law school, I came to Ari – Phoenix and clerked for Judge Jack D.H. Hayes. Now, Jack was a giant of a man, both physically and judicially. He became the chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court about which I'll comment later. He was the head of what we call the Hayes Mafia. The Hayes Mafia were a bunch of lawyers who had had a connection with Jack one way or another in a variety of fashions who eventually became judges. I'm not sure there is any other person who had such a record of people who eventually became judges. One day while sitting – I went in to practice law. One day I was sitting in my office and one of my senior partners his name was C.A. Carson, he was a man of few words. He came in and he said, “You want to be a judge?” And I was taken aback, never having thought that that would be the case. Well, it turned out that the Governor had a a committee that he looked to and that committee somehow had gotten my name. How and why I'm not sure. After recovering from the surprise, that evening I talked with my wife about it and initially said no. Later on there was a another vacancy and I reconsidered, said yes, and succeeded Ross Jones, a delightful man who served his community well. Back then, as the the way the court was organized all – the judges who were on it heard civil cases, criminal cases and domestic relations cases. There were only two specialized divisions in the court, probate and mental health, one judge; and juvenile, one judge. Let me tell you one thing about my first trial. I had developed a habit on the rocker, back and forth, and rock in the chair and this was one of the early trials, I'm just a young guy and I guess I was rocking too much. And the chair started to go over backwards, so I plant my feet underneath the bench and stop from going over backwards and there's this huge loud noise. And all the people in the courtroom, the jurors, everybody else, looks right up at front. So, I went looking around like that. They, to this day they never knew it was me.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
Now perhaps I was influenced by something that happened at the very same trial there was a a man, who can remain nameless, although I do recall his name vividly, he said during th – they answer questions on a sheet that I pass out and he said he was married and he had 32 children. And I didn't say anything, although I was tempted. And then later on, during the course of the impanelment, he raised his hand like this and I said, “Mr. (fill in the blank), ” And he – “Did you have a question?” And he said, “No, I'm just tired.” I couldn't resist saying, “Anybody who has 32 children has a right to be tired.”

[laughter]

Broomfield:
I've tried to avoid those sort of comments over the course of time, but I haven't been too successful, I might tell you.

I'd like to talk to you about two dates: November 8, 1960 and November 5, 1974. Before 1960, the Arizona court system was a collection of judges, some excellent, some good and some perhaps less so, but effectively there was no system. Each judge did his or her own thing. In 1960, Mo Udall, before he was a congressman, and several others put a – got a ballot proposition that would change the court system in Arizona . It was called the Modern Courts Amendment. It passed. And that was a Constitutional amendment that revolutionized the Arizona court system and made it structurally modern at that time and I believe it still remains, with one exception. The amendment created a single Superior Court. Before that, it had been one court in each county. The Maricopa County Superior Court, the Yavapai County Superior Court, people still call it by that name, but it's not correct. There's a single court. The Superior Court is a statewide court. Now, the judges get their office by virtue of individual counties, but the court itself is a statewide court. It provided the authority for the legislature to create an intermediate Court of Appeals which hadn't existed before. And they did that, four years later. And most important of all, it made the Supreme Court of Arizona through its chief justice, the administrator of the entire court system, including Justice of the Peace courts and city courts throughout the entire state. It also created the office of presiding judge. To put it in some context, before the Modern Courts Amendment, if you had a court with 10 judges, you actually had 10 courts with one judge each. After the Modern Courts Amendment, it was one court with 10 judges. Now, you may think that that's a a minor point, but it really was a revolutionary change in the Arizona court system. And it eventually, and I say eventually advisedly, it changed the system because that change didn't occur immediately. The Supreme Court continued to rotate its chief justices for one year terms. Well, as a chief justice for one year, you can't get much done. But they kept doing that. Until Jack Hayes, who was then on the Supreme Court, broke that custom and he became, through his leadership and the esteem with which his colleagues on the court held for him, a chief justice for three years. And that really changed things. Again, that may seem like a small thing to you, but it really was a fundamental change in the Arizona court system and allowed things to happen that I think exist to this very day then, came a another major event in my life.

Broomfield:
In 1974, another Constitutional initiative passed the people. And it created a merit selection, retention type of system for Supreme Court justices, Court of Appeals judges and Superior Court judges in Pima and Maricopa County . The ones with – that had most of the judges. Those judges would then be selected based upon their merit, not on politics. No more handing out of nail files with a judge's name on it at some shopping center. No more gavels shaped as guns up on huge billboards on North Central Avenue . Selection of judges based on their merits. The father of this effort was then president of the State Bar of Arizona, Bill Browing from Tucson . He's one of my colleagues on the federal court presently. Bill and others got that effort put on the ballot and it passed. In my view, those two events the effort by Mo Udall in 1960 and the effort by Bill Browning in 1974 created one of the best general jurisdiction state court systems in the entire land. If you don't know how it used to be, and many other states have different systems, you will take for granted the quality of the court system that you all have in this state. You shouldn't.

Broomfield:
Another small event occurred in 1974 which really affected my life in Kim alluded to it. I had been serving after that first year or so, on the on the bench when I almost fell over and I had the guy with 32 kids, they sent me to the juvenile court and I had been sitting there and was happy as a clam. And I was – we were taking a vacation up on the east fork of the White River and I went back er got up early one morning to go back to Phoenix to participate in with the Board of Supervisors, in the Juvenile Court's budget. Well, after that was over, I went home ‘cause my wife said she wanted me to pick up something. I did. The phone rang. It was the Chief Justice, Jack Hayes. He was also a man of few words. He said, “I want to appoint you the presiding judge of the Superior Court, okay?” And I said I had the temerity to suggest that, could I talk with my wife about it. Jack said, “That's fine, but just call me back first thing tomorrow morning.” So, I drive back up to East Fork. I get there and my wife and I talk half the night and I finally decided that I'd do it. Called – went in drove into White River the next morning and said, “ Yes.” That was a major turning point in my life for me, so on July 1, 1974, I became the court's presiding judge. Now, since the Modern Courts Amendment in 1960, no presiding judge, one exception I'll tell you about, had served more than one year. Sort of just like the chief justice. So there really wasn't a whole lot of innovation that was going on with that. Supreme Court, chief justice one year and a presiding judge in each of the respective counties for one year. And the Supreme Court made the appointment and they rotated it once a year among the more senior judges on the court. And that time that time they had about 25 judges on the court. Well, about the same time that Jack Hayes was appointed chief justice, Don Frogue had been the presiding judge. And Don served for over, I think, 2 ½ years; and Jack for 3. Things began to happen. The system began to change and it was Don Frogue that I replaced. Had he stayed on, I'm sure the court would have done far better than it did, but I was there for the next 11 years. Parenthetically I make note that the Supreme Court at that time, or near that time, created a time limit for their own chief justices. They now had 5 year terms. And they didn't do it necessarily on a rotational basis. And they did the same thing for the presiding judge throughout the various counties in the state and it was 5 years also, so you see, Kim, you only had a 5 year term, ‘cause he was one because of me. They weren't gonna repeat that same mistake and let somebody stay that long!

[laughter]

Broomfield:
An outgrowth of this merit selection retention system created another problem for me. In the Superior Court, the lawyers, the parties can ask to have the judge they get assigned to their case changed once. One freebie. And it turned out that, they call that a Notice of Change of Judge. I quickly found out that two judges on the court were getting most of the notices and so the result was those judges calendars went way down pretty quickly and all the other judges got their cases. And I thought that was unfair. So, I changed it and so the nber of notices that came in were the same nber of notices that went back out. The result was that these two judges had their cases being traded back and forth. Well, I no sooner did that and a delegation of lawyers chaired by the president of the Maricopa County Bar Association came in to me and said, “Hey judge, you know, with the change you've made, we just keep getting Judge X and Judge Y, and you know, we're not sure that's the best way to run the system and you know, they can't hear our cases as well.” And I said, “You really don't care if you have a quality court, as long as you can have 4 or 5 really outstanding judges and you can engineer your cases to those judges, you don't need to have a court of 30 or 40 or 50 judges who are all outstanding.” They said if they became more active in the retention process, would I change it? And I said, “You become more active and I'll change that rule.” They did. I did. And the quality of the court in my view has never been better. Today you have one of the best trial court systems any place in the land. Unless you know how these other courts operate in other parts of the country, you can't truly appreciate it. But you have an outstanding trial court here.

Broomfield:
In the mid 1970's, another event was occurring. Most courts across the land, the big ones, had a terrible delay problem and some of them were 6, 7, 8 years before cases would go to trial. We didn't have that severe problem, but we did have a problem. I said, maybe we ought to try to do something about it. An outfit called the National Center for State Courts, the name is self-explanatory, they serve and help other courts throughout the land, approached our court. Would we do something – try to do something about it? And we said, “Well, we'll try.” Back then we were about the 8 th or the 9 th largest trial court in the land and I think, today, it's probably even larger than that. Maybe the 4 th or 5 th largest, I don't know. The problem was on the civil side, so we decided that we would try to do something. This National Center for State Courts had coined a phrase called the “Local Legal Culture.” Every community had one. The local legal culture in most communities was that the lawyers controlled the calendars, not the judges. Now, that's really important. Lawyers, in effect, would say the judges wouldn't care about the case until the lawyers came in. Both of them said, “Hey judge, we're ready to try the case.” The judge would set it for trial and they'd try the case. It could be 2 years or 3 years or 5 years, whatever it might be. It even happened on the criminal side. Now, can you imagine this? The prosecutor on one side has control over the calendar and a defendant who's in custody can be made to stay in custody simply because the prosecutor is the one who controls the calendar. This process was designed to try to change that. Judges would take control of the calendar. So I went to four judges and asked if they would participate in the pilot project to do this. One was named Charles Hardy, he's a federal judge now retired from the court. Another was Mel McDonald, later to be the United States Attorney for Arizona , Jerry Strick, a good friend of mine and Kim's and another person named Sandra Day O'Connor. Those four people were gonna present this program. Now, I won't tell you all how the program worked, it's too long and too boring, but we're going to start out by bringing in a bunch of lawyers on some of the cases that we had. I was going to go on the bench and explain the process in front of these other four judges. So, we're in Mel McDonald's chambers at 1:30 in the afternoon, we're going to do it at 1:30, and his law clerk came in and said, “We've got a nightmare out there.” We had asked too many lawyers to come and it turned out that all the seats in the spectator's section were full, the entire well of the courtroom was full with lawyers standing up and only half the lawyers that we had called could get in the courtroom. The other half were out in the hallway. What are we going to do? Bless her heart, Sandra O'Connor said, “Let's go do it.” And we did. I went out on the bench, explained the program. The four of them were seated in the front, just like that, robes and all, looking up at this mass of lawyers out there. We got then I repeated it again for the group that had been out in the hallway and I thought, “Disaster! It's never going to work.” But ironically, the lawyers saw how serious we were. They saw how it would help their clients and themselves and they supported it in a big way. That's very important that the lawyers did. As a result, the lawyers even get a name gave it a name. They called it Fast Track. We had a classy name. The Civil Delay Reduction Project, you know. But the lawyers called it Fast Track. And they even got to the point where the lawyers would come to me and say, “How can I get my case in Fast Track?” So after a year or so, we began to transition into with the other judges on the civil side, until we got all the judges in the civil department on, then criminal, then domestic relations. Now, that really had a substantial effect in Maricopa County . And really, it had an effect across the whole land. Those four words that Sandra O'Connor uttered may have changed the entire way large courts in the country operate. Think about it. If she hadn't said that, and we hadn't gone out, we would have failed. We were the first court. If we had failed, I can tell you, none of those other large courts across the land would have done it. It may still be how it used to be with the lawyers controlling the calendar including the prosecutor, keeping the guy in custody. It was a fundamental change that occurred and I believe Sandra had a major part to play in it.

Broomfield:
Over time, it became apparent that the court would grow too big to remain in one location down town with its current three buildings. So we talked to the Board of Supervisors about creating regional courts. I've been aware how they did that in other large cities. L.A. was an example, when they created branch courts. They usually went to one little town, another little town. Add a judge here, two there, a nightmare situation. We suggested and the board agreed with it, that we ought to have four or five regional centers throughout the court throughout the county. My understanding is, four of those centers are essentially built and operating with 10-15-20 judges each with maybe another fifth one to go and that ought to serve the court efficiently for a long period of time.

Broomfield:
Now, let me switch gears over to the federal side. In 1985, Barry Goldwater suggested my name to President Reagan and who you found out gave the appointment to me, but there was a delay. Senator Jesse Helms was having a problem with President Reagan about some ambassador some place and so he he held up 50 judges and ambassadors for about a month, but finally, Jesse and the President resolved their differences and and I got appointed along with 50 other people. I showed up on August 12, 1985 at 9:00 o'clock in the morning. I was to be sworn in at 4:00 o'clock that afternoon. I figured if they were going to pay me for the day, I ought to show up. Well, I had the first clean desk I'd ever had in my career. It never was clean after that. And soon after that, the chief judge of the court, Richard Bilby from Tucson , came in and he congratulated me and then he said, “Okay.” He'd apparently heard a case in Tucson the preceding Friday, had the lawyers come back on Monday morning to consider further things in the case. It was a huge case. He said to me, he said, “Come on out on the bench with me.” And I said, “Richard ” I didn't say Richard. I call him Richard now. I probably said, “Hey Judge ”

[laughter]

Broomfield:
He said, “Come and sit on the bench with me.” So, I said, “I can't do that. I haven't even been sworn in and, you know, should I do that.” And Richard said, “That's not a problem. Come on out with me. We won't even wear robes.” So we both go out there and I sit in the chair and he does his thing and hour and hour goes by and I'm doing nothing, just drinking it all in and we take a lunch break, go back in the afternoon and we still go on. Well, about 3:30, I begin to wonder, am I gonna get sworn in or not? And Bilby knew this because he was supposed to preside at this ceremony, but he finally end up this case and, by the way, this case had a phalanx of lawyers, for the plaintiff, 85 defendants, almost that many lawyers. They filled up not only the well of the courtroom, but the spectator section. The damages were alleged to be a billion dollars. This is back in 1985. And I'm just sitting there, you know, probably rocking away and

[laughter]

Broomfield:
And he ends the case right then with a surprise. He announces, and I didn't know this, that he's assigning the case to me.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
Suddenly I'm not rocking anymore.

[laughter]

Borromfield:
And if you think I was surprised, you should have seen the looks on all those lawyers out there. It was a prelude to a moment that occurred half an hour later when Sandra swore me in as a district judge. The other half of the Arizona Arizona duo on the United States Supreme Court also affected my life. Chief Justice Rehnquist, when he became the chief in 1986 changed things. He created a committee dealing with courthouses. There never had been one because there had been very few new federal courthouses. A few in the 60's and 70's, but most of them were those post office court houses like exist in Prescott today, throughout the country, built in the Depression days. So, I was on this committee again, probably rocking away on a chair, happy as a clam until a tragic event occurred. Judge Robert Vance from Alabama , a circuit judge, who chaired the committee, was assassinated by a racist. And Chief Justice Rehnquist asked that I assign the committee and that was some ride that I had over the next six years. He finally let me go, but two years later asked me to sit on the judiciary's budget committee and eventually chairing its economy subcommittee, so here I am now at the present time trying to look for ways for the federal courts to economize so we can pay for all those courthouses that we built back when I was on the other committee.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
It's it was interesting to me when I was before the Senate on one occasion, one of the senators was asked to – this was dealing with budget stuff, he was asking questions about the cost of federal courtrooms and those high ceilings, you know, that courts have and I remember we were in a beautiful hearing room in the United States Senate. It had ceilings of about 25 or 30 feet. I simply looked up. All the other senators laughed and I didn't have to answer the question.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
By the way, there are no courthouses that have 25 and 30 foot ceilings in them. Let me tell you about a few of the trials I've had on the federal side. There are too many cases, too little time, but here's a smattering of them. Earth First, they are the folks that, you know, spike nails and other things in trees to prevent the trees from being logged by loggers, foresters and the like. They referred to their activities as monkey-wrenching. And I had this trial up in Prescott , it lasted two months. It seems that these defendant had defendants had downed a telephone poles to a mine up there and then they attacked the chair lift on at the Snow Bowl out of Flagstaff. They went up one evening carrying acetylene and oxygen on their backs, two of them did, and they they cut the pylon at the bottom leaving just a little bit left over, hiked all the way to the top of the lift, did the same thing to the top. Little did they know that on those two pylons there was an inner pylon and when it was turned on the next morning, but for that, that ski lift would have collapsed. They were caught trying to knock down one of the towers to the Central Arizona Project, one of those huge, hongus things you see, as practice for trying to do the same thing to towers that went into and out of the Palo Verde Nuclear Station. They had also scoped two other nuclear stations, one in California and one in Denver , to do the same thing. That was their plan. Actually, they were going to try to down these lines to six nuclear plants throughout the country one of the defendants at her sentencing sang to me. She sang for 5 minutes. She had a beautiful voice. She didn't realize some of the words she was using, but she said at one point referring to the authorities, fight them with your spirit, lives and guile. I quoted her a few minutes later and it hadn't helped her sentencing, but as I say, she did have a good voice.

Broomfield:
One of the defense lawyers in the case, by the way, they all plead two months into trial, and he had been saying that he'd never lost a jury trial ...well, I don't know whether pleading guilty to a a lesser charge saved his reputation, but I do know that he had a co-counsel and he sent his co-counsel in for the change of plea hearing. He didn't show up.

Broomfield:
Another of the more provocative cases that I had, an interesting one and the longest I've ever had, one involved the chairman of an Indian tribe here in Arizona and 10 of his followers. There were actually two 32 defendants on the case. We went to trial with 11 of them. The others either plead guilty or were dismissed for one reason or another. It's called the riot trial. The chairman was seeking, by violent means, to be restored to his tribal office which he had been removed from by the tribal counsel. And by the way, the Tribal Supreme Court had upheld the tribal counsel. So, there was this conspiracy. What was unusual about the case was that this entire riot, two hours long, was captured on TV, videotape. And it was played to the jury during that trial. Ironically, two of the chairman's followers were killed during that riot and many others were seriously injured. The as the most serious offender, he received the largest sentence and the ultimate irony is, he was pardoned, none of the other ones were, and served less time than the other defendants in the case that he had importuned to be a part of the conspiracy. I thought that was unfair.

Broomfield:
In other civil case I had, there was a witness named Pocahontas and Pocahontas regaled us all with how he made wine in prison and and announced that he was one of the most popular folks there. And he probably was.

Broomfield:
Another unusual case I had was a prisoner civil rights case in which the plaintiff, while testifying, realized he hadn't taken his medication. So, you know, there is always a glass of water up on by the witness stand. So, he takes his medication. A little while later we realized that it was the evidence in the case.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
I told the jury that I had to dismiss the case because the defendant ate his own evidence.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
Who needs soap operas when you have this every day!

[laughter]

Broomfield:
The most distressing case I ever had, however, was in in the 35 years I've been on the bench, was when a trial lawyer from another city, large city in the west, tried to bait me, much like the lawyers in the Chicago Seven trial in the, what? 60's or 70's, had tried to bait Judge Hoffman in that trial. Now, having known what happened to him in that trial, I realized what this lawyer was trying to do to me. I bit my tongue an awful lot during the course of that trial, but didn't take the bait and her client is still serving 45 years. He was the nber one assistant to the head of of the Colbian drug cartel.

Broomfield:
You will recall I told you earlier about how I prevented myself from falling over backwards on the bench, well another thing happened to me in the federal court a few years back. I used, like I have here, a lavalier mike, and it's got batteries and so, I look down and check it and when the little red light comes on, I change the battery. Well, I saw the red light come on so I decided I'm going to change the battery. I take it out and nobody else can see this happening. I'm pretty discrete about this. And so they look over in the waste can and there's nothing there. So I say, well, I better do something to avoid that ‘cause I knew if I dropped it in there, big sound, everybody would look up at me again. So instead, I discretely lean over to drop it in and I kept going chair and all!

[laughter]

Broomfield:
Not to be non-plussed about this whole thing, I'm down on the floor waving my hand, “I'm okay! I'm okay!” And I get back up and back in the chair and the only thing that gave it all away was the huge red face I'm sure I had at the time.

Broomfield:
One of the saddest cases that I had was a point shaving case involving two local basketball players, each of whom would have probably made the NBA. To be sure, one of them clearly was an outstanding player. It's sad not just because these two players destroyed potentially brilliant careers, but an unsuspecting and blameless coach lost his job and I thought that was unfair.

Broomfield:
The last case I'll mention to you was about a prosecutor, who I won't tell you his name, you'd know him right away. He had gotten a gift from his niece. And they were a pair of socks and he wore them to court that day because he was going to take her out to a show that evening. Well, it seems that when you clang the socks together, they played a tune.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
And so here we are in court, and he must have not realized, but he put his feet together like that and Jingle Bells was played.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
To make matters worse, he couldn't turn it off.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
He had to play the whole thing. So that's what happened to me, that one time. Over time, people have helped me in my career, but no one has helped me more than my wife who has been my sounding board through all these years, and my support. I wish she were here today. She's serving on jury duty in the Superior Court.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
Really! So my son, Bob, is here someplace to take her place. I might also tell you that yesterday afternoon my secretary told me – I knew that she was over on jury duty herself, and she said, oh, I'll be back around 1:30, they're doing strikes and she never showed up the rest of the day, so I think I have my wife and my secretary both on jury duty while I'm out here talking to you.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
Now, I told you I – my talk was “The Judiciary – It's the Glue.” It's been said that President Thomas Jefferson thought that if we were lucky, our Constitution would last 25 years. Well, it's obviously been well over 200 and with little likelihood that that Constitution won't last indefinitely. Why is that? Because our system of government, unlike many if not most other systems, most countries don't have a judiciary which is co-equal to the other branches of government. An independent judiciary in the real sense, as is ours, because our judiciary, both in the state and federal systems, is separate, independent and co-equal and is treated as such by others and by the public. It is the glue that will hold that Constitution together. John Marshall ofttimes called the great chief justice wrote in an historic case that the judiciary had the power of review. That is, to review the acts of Congress for constitutionality many societies, the legislative body itself makes that determination. In others, totalitarian systems, nobody makes it the dictator makes that decision. Had the decision by the great chief justice gone the other way, perhaps our judiciary would have been – or excuse me, our society would have been like others on this globe. Because it went that way, our Constitution has lasted for over 218 years as we sit here today. So, the judiciary, state of federal, is that glue which holds that Constitution together. The last thing I'll close with is my simple judicial philosophy. It's what I told those folks who were present when I was sworn as as a Superior Court judge and again as a United States District judge, the most important case I will ever try is the one I'm trying at the moment. Thank you all very much, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

[applause]

Yes sir?

Question:
You spoke about a case in which you thought that a pardon was granted inappropriately, not specifically that case, but would you speak about your view of pardons in general and why they happen because I think it always, at least on the federal level at the end of almost every Presidential term or office, there are pardons that are highly questionable, regardless of party affiliation. It seems to always happen and could you comment on that?

Broomfield:
Why sure, the pardons, as you know, are not in the judicial branch. They are done by the executive on the federal level by the President, on the state level by the Governor. I believe in the pardon system. On occasion, things happen where that sentence should somehow be modified. It shouldn't happen very often. But it's appropriate and and I support the process. I never make a comment and I've been asked by the pardon attorney, and there is a person called a pardon attorney, on the federal level each state does it a little bit different and he makes a presentation. He presents it to the President. So, I support it. It was just in the particular case that I alluded to you about and I will tell you that I was approached by the United States Attorney and said well, I don't make a comment, but I did note that there were other people who were less culpable than this particular individual and if you were going to pardon this one individual, that perhaps they ought to consider one or two or three of the more serious offenders so that they didn't have to serve more time. That didn't happen in this particular case, but pardons are appropriate. In certain circstances. Not every one, I would necessarily agree with. And you're right, sometimes it comes at the end of a term and that's just, I suppose, what happens in the the political process. There's a question up here. Yes?

Question:
First Judge, I want to thank you for the State of Arizona community for _________

[applause]

Question:
Sir, my question is, did you ever think with the – in Arizona Justice of Peace are not properly trained on the ___________? Who orders that and that stuff __________?

Broomfield:
Well, you noticed, if you were listening, that I said our system was modernized with one exception. That was the exception I was alluding to.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
I tried any nber of people have tried, Sandra tried. And it hasn't occurred. I think there should be a change, but at the same time, I think over time, it is changing. Most of the city courts, not all of them, are limited jurisdiction courts and most of them have law trained judges. Many of the Justices of the Peace are law trained. And it may be that the way that's going to be -- happen is through evolution and over time we'll have more people who are law trained. Because in some respects, what it does is prevent the legislature from giving greater more expansive jurisdiction to the limited jurisdiction courts because at some point, you're going to be having non-law trained judges passing upon some pretty sophisticated and complicated questions. And as long as you don't have that, the justification for increasing the jurisdiction of those courts disappears and as a result the Superior Court, the general jurisdiction trial court will just get bigger and bigger and bigger. There was a gentleman back here in the mix ________? Yes sir?

Question :
[inaudible]

Broomfield:
Well what what are we to make of the trial of Sadaam Hussein? It's a different society in the first place. And I think we're only seeing snippets of it. As a matter of fact, yesterday, there was a fellow on TV reporting from Iraq, he's – No, I know what it was, he was being interviewed, on Channel 8. He was called the alternative ambassador to the U.N. I don't know what the word alternative means in that context, but he was commenting that what's being reported are the things that are happening when Sadaam Hussein is raising cain in the courtroom and that the rest of the time we're not seeing it or even hearing about it and in fact, evidence is apparently being taken. But, what I see is obviously, not very good and it's an example of why our system in my view is so much better than any others. Now our system clearly is not the best. There was a major trial that occurred in the country to the west of us where I things were not handled well at all .

[laughter]

And I think it's up the judge to be in control of the courtroom to ensure that the serious business that goes on is conducted in a serious fashion. The public is entitled to that. Yes sir?

Question:
How do you feel about tort reform as it relates to capping [inaudible]?

Broomfield:
Well, I'd be reluctant to comment on whether there should be a cap of an award. I think that's a legislative matter. I do believe, however, that some of the jurisdiction of the federal court should be curtailed. Now, it may come as a surprise to you, we are, in the federal court, a limited jurisdiction court. The state trial court, the general jurisdiction court, is the court where most of the business of the people across this entire land is occurring occurs. Federal court is really a small court when one considers it. We have some concurrent jurisdiction with state courts and one is in diversity cases, certain kinds of cases if there's diversity of jur – citizenship, then you can be in the federal court or in the state court. I'm not sure in this day and age that we ought to have that kind of a system. So in that view, because I think it's really related to the structure of the court system, I can comment and do. I'd be somewhat reluctant to comment on the other question because I do think that's a legislative prerogative. It's a political question and I think people who have strong views and feelings should let the legislators know.

Question:
[inaudible]

Good.

Question:
[inaudible]

Broomfield:
Well, I'm not sure you mean funding sources to get the matter on the ballot or whether once passed, there were funding sources, once passed. I I don't think it did back then and it still is now well, I shouldn't say that. There was one change that came from that the courts were back then, county courts and there truly was a Maricopa County Superior Court. It was funded by the county and all the – the judge's salary, all the court staff and everything else. I think that changed with the Modern Courts Amendment. So, today, half of the judge's salary is paid for by the legislature. The other half by the Board of Supervisors. There have been efforts along the way to have the legislature pay for the entirety of the court system they have not passed. Any others? Yes? Gentleman in the second row?

Question::
Judge, I'm curious what your thought is as you __________. Is there, in your opinion weakening respect for the legislature to impose mandatory minim sentences _____________?

Broomfield:
Well, this may sound inconsistent with the question I had for you over here. I'm not reluctant to comment on that because it does deal with the structure of the court system, the sentencing process. I think mandatory minims are unfortunate particularly on the federal side with the kind of sentencing system we have. We have what we call sentencing guidelines and although they were held unconstitutional years ago by the United States Supreme Court, the remedy they created was to, in effect, keep the same system, but make it truly advisory. As a practical matter, it was advisory before that. Now, it's just a little bit more so. And those sentencing guidelines in some respects are really quite strict. When you so, you don't need mandatory minims when you have a sentencing structure like that. If you didn't have that, then I can understand why legislative bodies would have mandatory minims. But so often, mandatory minims are in reaction to a particular sentence by a particular judge in some location one time and so suddenly, we have to change that by making everybody perceived to be similarly situated treated the same way. The way to do that, in my view, is with the sentencing change of the entire sentencing structure like they have done on the federal side. And I might also indicate in to some lesser degree in Arizona and in many other states. There was another question. Yes sir?

Question:
Judge, I've lived in Arizona for 14 years and I've been smoned to jury duty at least four times, maybe ____________. My question is, I've never served on a jury. Never got to that point. So, my question is, is being a college professor with a beard

[laughter]

Question:
one side or the other is not – never going to ______ or is my ________ out of the ordinary?

Well, if you think I'm going to comment upon you and your beard...

[laughter]

Broomfield:
I'll tell you this, I have served on jury duty. I've been called many times. And I only got in that box one time, but I actually did serve. And I hope that you do get selected. It's a wonderful experience. Serious and

[laughter]

but it's really good. There's a guy in this room, _____ where's Jim? He's hiding.

Question:: ______?

Mo, yeah. Where's Jim?

Right back here.

Broomfield:
There's Jim. He was on the Superior Court with me when I was on jury duty one time and I'm sure it was him and him alone that kept me off the jury in that particular case.

[laughter]

Broomfield:
And he has the nerve to come here today and sit

[laughter]

Question:
So you can't recommend that I cut my beard off before I answer the next smons?

Broomfield:
Listen, I've seen people dressed in all manner of garb and looking in a variety of ways and I haven't figured out yet why some lawyers want one person and don't want another. Keep up the good work, though, you may make it.

[laughter]

Anybody else? Thank you.

[applause]