Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
All this national news about Supreme Court judges has me thinking about the judges who make day-to-day differences in our lives, namely, the lower court judges who live and die among us.
As a journalist, I’ve known many judges through the years, and have bittersweet memories of one district judge in particular. I came to know him quite well as a reporter in Conway, Ark.
His name was Watson Villines, a young man in his 30s who took the higher standards of his job quite seriously. He followed the law in his courtroom, but he also sought to ensure justice.
One example:
It was in the wake of Rodney King’s brutal beating that a group of loud and angry Black people had gathered outside a local restaurant, a hang-out for young African Americans in town, when police pulled into the parking lot determined to break up the crowd.
During a verbal confrontation that ensued, one young college student — I think he was 19 at the time — protested the officers’ presence, saying something like, “You gonna Rodney King us?” Police cuffed him and put him in the back of a squad car as they attempted to break up the crowd, but the long-and-lanky kid managed to break free and take off running.
A manhunt ensued and a rookie cop found him hiding in a nearby shed.
There were two versions of what happened next. The officer said when he entered the shed, the suspect jumped at him, so he fired his service weapon and shot him.
The suspect said he inadvertently startled the officer as he attempted to surrender in the shed, and the officer fired in a moment of panic.
The result was a months-long hospital stay for the suspect as he fought to survive the shooting, followed by felony charges of escape and assaulting a police officer.
Based on testimony, I half-expected the college student’s acquittal as the jury deliberated the case.
Instead, the jury came back with a guilty-on-all-counts verdict.
Now this teenager was facing 3 to 5 years in prison, as I recall. I remember thinking the punishment didn’t fit the crime. I was convinced the verdict was not delivering justice.
Apparently, Judge Villines saw it that way too, because he accepted the verdict and promptly dismissed the jury, declaring that — as the law allowed him to do — he would determine the sentence.
He gave the kid probation.
As far as I’m concerned, justice is what a good judge delivers. The court could easily have followed the law and thrown that young man in prison for years, but Villines saw the wrongness in doing that, and corrected the situation as best he could.
• • •
Just a few days before his 39th birthday, Watson Villines killed himself.
The evidence was clear that, during one night in May 1995, he pocketed a handgun and told his wife he was going for a walk. He went to a secluded area and fired a single bullet into his head.
I don’t know if that speaks to his “temperament” as a judge, but it certainly speaks to the stress he was under. Perhaps even more poignantly, it also speaks to the frailty of the human condition.
And still, I wonder, how many people found justice in his courtroom — or at least a second chance.
Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at: