Right here in Virginia one particular potential judge was recently voted down. I don’t know what thoughts lay behind the no votes, some I may agree with, others I would vigorously oppose.
I’m going to tell you a story. A story that involves a judge with the wisdom of Solomon, here in Virginia. If all potential judges were as wise as this man, whose name I cannot remember, electing judges would be the simplest task given to our general assembly. I just don’t know how you would test for it.
After the May 2002 flood that destroyed Hurley, VA where I was living at the time, some holler folks, (who should have remained holler folks), took advantage of government relocation services to move a government double-wide to the lot next door to me. I was down on the main road.
They brought their 20-something son and his fighting roosters with them.
I was doing some remodeling on the house and had the ceiling of the carport removed in several places to make attic access easier.
After finding his chickens in my attic several times I asked the kid to keep them in his yard. One day, while working from home, my beagles started raising a ruckus. Checking on them I found the backyard infested by 6 roosters. I got my shotgun. In a minute there were 6 dead roosters lined up on my carport.
Soon after that a Chevy S-10 Blazer, sporting the dark brown livery of the Buchanan County Sheriff’s office, came across the bridge and pulled into my driveway. A very polite, slightly balding Deputy, got out, smiled, extended his hand and asked. “Mr. Foley, what happened here?”
After the handshake, my mind racing I handed him my hunting license and said, “I was hunting chickens, there’s no season on chickens is there, Deputy?”
He looked a bit perplexed and scratched behind his ear. “No, I guess not,” he responded as he handed my license back. Then he remarked on the weather, got back in his Buchanan County Sheriff’s Department issued vehicle, waved and drove back across the bridge.
A few days later there was a summons for a civil trial rubber-banded to my doorknob. Yep, the neighbor’s kid had sued me.
Court day. The judge dutifully asked me if I had killed the kid’s chickens. “Yes sir, your honor.”
The judge’s next question, “And how many chickens did you kill?”
“Six, your honor.”
He then asked the neighbor’s kid, “What were these chickens worth son.”
“Twelve hundred dollars each sir,” the neighbor’s kid replied.
“Twelve hundred dollars?” The judge echoed his answer and then asked, “Why would any chicken be worth twelve hundred dollars? Were they award-winning show chickens? Did they perform some sort of circus tricks?”
“They were a special fighting breed, sir,” the neighbor’s kid replied. “I raise fighting roosters.”
The judge didn’t respond. He shook his head, took up his pen, and called his clerk over. He handed her one of those little yellow sticky notes and she left through that door on the left that all courtrooms have.
The kid and I stood quietly, one on each side of the courtroom. The judge sat at his bench regally, stroking his neat black goatee. The clerk came back a few minutes later.
The judge took the small slip of paper from his clerk, read it, and cleared his throat. “Right now Food City is selling roasting chickens for a buck fifty a pound. Since Mr. Foley has admitted killing six roosters, at a buck fifty a pound I figure he owes you about twenty bucks. Now, stupid kid, you do know that raising and selling gamecocks in Virginia is against the law, right?”
“Yes, your honor. I do now.”
He actually called him ‘stupid kid’.
“Mr. Foley, is this judgment satisfactory to you?”
“Yes your honor, it is now.” I replied as I opened my wallet.
