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The Government Mule #7 - Judge LaFortune · The Government Mule

0:01
SPEAKER_02: You're listening to the Government Mule Podcast, a production of the Tulsa County Clerk's Office in Oklahoma.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: So, welcome to the latest edition of the Government Mule Podcast.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm honored today to have a guest who is a friend of mine, a mentor, a former boss, and one of our fantastic district judges for the Tulsa district of the state court system, the Honorable William D.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: LaFortune.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: Judge, welcome.
0:32
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Michael.
0:33
SPEAKER_02: Glad to be here.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: So just as a little bit of background for folks that may not know this, so I got hired by Bill when he was mayor of Tulsa back in 2002.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: And it was really my first real job in local government.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: I had I had worked at OU and Norman.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: I came back, volunteered on his campaign.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: And we try not to talk too much about politics in this podcast, but really Bill gave me my start actually in local government.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: And I I credit Bill with helping me um really find a love for public service and local government.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: And so um I just want to start this off by saying that I will never forget uh I was actually talking to our friend Tom Warren yesterday at another event, and um I told him that I promised him I would start this off by saying one of my first memories of working on Bill's mayor's campaign was um him giving a speech, and we all memorized the stump speech, and it started with Bill's granddad, Joe LaFortune, came to town with nothing but the shirt on his back.
1:39
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
1:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:40
SPEAKER_03: We had that down path.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: So um you know, most people who live here in Tulsa know the LaFortune name, they know about LaFortune Park, they know a lot of a fair amount of your family's history, but maybe just for the sake of talking about public service and I mean, we call this the government mule podcast.
1:59
SPEAKER_02: You're a great example of a government mule because you put so much time and many years um of your life into public service.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: Give us a little bit of you don't have to give us the stump speech, but maybe tell us kind of what you used to tell people um when you were talking about your family's history of public service here.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: Right.
2:15
SPEAKER_03: Well, I think that is the the whole uh key to it.
2:18
SPEAKER_03: Started really with my granddad.
2:19
SPEAKER_03: His name is J.
2:20
SPEAKER_03: A.
2:20
SPEAKER_03: LaFortune, and the park is named after him.
2:22
SPEAKER_03: But um, you know, we did have that stump speech, but it was it was true, too.
2:27
SPEAKER_03: You know, he did come to Tulsa early 1900s with nothing but this shirt on.
2:31
SPEAKER_03: He was born into a family in South Bend, Indiana, uh across the street from what was then Notre Dame.
2:36
SPEAKER_03: It still is Notre Dame, but it was not much at that time in you know 1898, 1901.
2:41
SPEAKER_03: Um he went to World War I, um uh was in the Air Force, and um he didn't go overseas, but he was here uh working planes and things like that.
2:50
SPEAKER_03: So when the war was over, he married and he heard about Tulsa.
2:54
SPEAKER_03: Heard Tulsa was a place a young man could come and make a living, a good living.
3:00
SPEAKER_03: And uh so he packed up and moved to Tulsa.
3:02
SPEAKER_03: You know, it wouldn't have been uh 1910s, something like that, late 1910s.
3:08
SPEAKER_03: But um when he got here, all he did he didn't know anyone, didn't have any contacts.
3:13
SPEAKER_03: Uh, but he would start at the top of every high-rise then building in Tulsa, and there were some um at that time.
3:22
SPEAKER_03: Well, I guess there were some, but the story was he would start at the top and knock on every door of every office, down every floor, asking for a job.
3:31
SPEAKER_03: So he finally got a job.
3:32
SPEAKER_03: And and the story really of public service for me is he had four children, and they had uh my dad being one of them, his name was Jay Buddy LaFortune was um he never got in politics, he was smart, and but he loved uh the park system.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: We have a community center named after him, yeah.
3:49
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
3:49
SPEAKER_03: And I appreciate uh you all, the county officers, doing that.
3:52
SPEAKER_03: Um he had 30 years as chairman of the Tulsa County Park Board.
3:56
SPEAKER_03: Uh just his love.
3:57
SPEAKER_03: He was loved golf, he loved park, and um probably saw that as his legacy too.
4:03
SPEAKER_03: Um but with those four kids, they had 21 grandkids for JA.
4:09
SPEAKER_03: And so I was one of the twenty-one.
4:12
SPEAKER_03: But as a little boy, um I saw what he was doing.
4:16
SPEAKER_03: I mean, he would take all twenty-one of us, literally, out to LaFortune Park to take photos.
4:21
SPEAKER_03: And back in the early 1960s, I know everyone watching is gonna believe this, but I mean it's a fact.
4:29
SPEAKER_03: A fact is a fact.
4:31
SPEAKER_03: He had a place out in Colorado Springs in the summer.
4:35
SPEAKER_03: Well, Colorado Springs also has Cheyenne Mountain.
4:38
SPEAKER_03: Cheyenne Mountain has NORAD.
4:41
SPEAKER_03: NORAD is our North American defense system for missiles.
4:45
SPEAKER_03: Um it's buried in the mountain there.
4:47
SPEAKER_03: Everybody knows it.
4:48
SPEAKER_03: It's not some sort of secret.
4:49
SPEAKER_03: But he became friends, of course, with the local generals.
4:55
SPEAKER_03: Again, this is late 50s, early 60s.
4:57
SPEAKER_03: I was born in 57, so I was we would go out there in the summer just for a week or so at a time, and and so I would see this going on as it what five, six-year-old, seven-year-old?
5:07
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, he became they actually donated a missile to La Fortune Park.
5:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh, cool.
5:13
SPEAKER_03: And it was put out in front of where now is the golf shop.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:16
SPEAKER_03: And it was sat there.
5:17
SPEAKER_03: And I remember he got us all out there and took a picture from the missile in all our best clothes one Sunday.
5:22
SPEAKER_03: But uh it's gone, long gone since then.
5:25
SPEAKER_03: It's a little history of fact.
5:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:27
SPEAKER_03: Could be in some county warehouse.
5:29
SPEAKER_02: It might be on our asset warehouse or our asset list.
5:31
SPEAKER_02: I'll have to look and see.
5:32
SPEAKER_03: They'd have to have disposed of it somehow.
5:34
SPEAKER_03: But anyway, so the but the public service was that land was never uh LaFortune land.
5:40
SPEAKER_03: That was county land.
5:41
SPEAKER_03: Uh LaFortune Park was county land, and when he donated the money uh to build the park and the golf course, uh it was they had cattle running on it, I think.
5:51
SPEAKER_03: They had farming on it.
5:52
SPEAKER_02: It was the Tulsa County poor farm.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:55
SPEAKER_02: That's what it was.
5:56
SPEAKER_03: So really people that were down on their luck.
5:58
SPEAKER_03: They had a place to go and all and a good place to to live.
6:02
SPEAKER_03: Uh there was I remember as a kid, uh a big red two or three-story building, and that's where they lived.
6:08
SPEAKER_03: And then they would work the farm.
6:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
6:10
SPEAKER_03: And uh that was the way it worked.
6:12
SPEAKER_03: But that was again, that would have been the late fifties, very early sixties, because I think the donation he made to the the county was 57, 1957, and I think maybe it was finished by 61, the whole thing.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:25
SPEAKER_03: I'm guessing at the dates.
6:26
SPEAKER_03: The only reason I even know that is that the Tulsa World years ago, and maybe it was a Tulsa Tribune, they used to have a little thing called Tulsa Trivia.
6:34
SPEAKER_03: When I was mayor, somewhere between 02 and 06, I picked when the Tribune may have still been around, I th well, maybe they weren't.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: But I picked it up.
6:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they were gone by then.
6:43
SPEAKER_03: But some paper, Mr.
6:45
SPEAKER_03: When the World, had a Tulsa little tiny paragraph, and it said, On this day in 1957, the year I was born, Jay Hill Fortune donated such such money to Tulse County for the park.
6:55
SPEAKER_03: So that's the first time I had ever seen that.
6:57
SPEAKER_03: So um, I mean, obviously he was very proud of it.
7:00
SPEAKER_03: But that that kind of what happened was he's a rags my granddad was a rags to riches story.
7:07
SPEAKER_03: There's a book written about it.
7:08
SPEAKER_03: A classic Rags to Riches American story.
7:12
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you couldn't get any better.
7:14
SPEAKER_03: A guy with nothing.
7:15
SPEAKER_03: He gets he works hard through work ethic, through being gregarious and friendly to people, and having a great attitude towards people and towards life, and a hard work ethic.
7:25
SPEAKER_03: And get what happens he gets a job with the Warren family, Warren Petroleum, he becomes vice president.
7:32
SPEAKER_03: He um when he's offered a raise, he says, No, I'll take stock instead of a raise.
7:37
SPEAKER_03: And guess what?
7:38
SPEAKER_03: You know, Gulf Oil came in, bought out Warren, he made his money.
7:41
SPEAKER_03: What did he do with it?
7:42
SPEAKER_03: Well, he took care of his family, but he also gave back to everyone that helped him along the way.
7:49
SPEAKER_03: And so, and I knew that as a little boy growing up.
7:51
SPEAKER_03: He gave back to Notre Dame.
7:53
SPEAKER_03: He became the first chairman of the board, layperson chairman of the board at Notre Dame, became great friends of Father Hesberg, rest in peace, and Father Joyce, rest in peace at Notre Dame, uh, gave back to mainly Catholic institutions here in town, and then of course the park, Elsa County Park, T.
8:09
SPEAKER_03: U.
8:09
SPEAKER_03: He donated a dorm over there.
8:12
SPEAKER_03: It's still there, LaFortune Dorm.
8:13
SPEAKER_03: I may get as a little boy, being dragged out to the groundbreaking for the LaFortune Dorm at TU.
8:20
SPEAKER_03: But um, so I'm very proud of that legacy.
8:22
SPEAKER_03: But that was kind of what I grew up, and then on the other side, as I got older, uh, my uncle Bob, Robert LaFortune, um, was street commissioner, then he ran for mayor, um, and was really just a beloved mayor while I was in high school.
8:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:37
SPEAKER_03: So I had that example.
8:40
SPEAKER_03: And so um just public my dad with TU and with the park, my uncle with the mayor, my granddad with all of his charitable uh activities.
8:50
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I don't think as a I was fourth of five kids, but I don't think I could have seen anything else but public service around me growing up.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: Agree.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: Huge legacy.
9:01
SPEAKER_02: Uh I mean, Bob, Bob LaFortune, one of the most revered people in probably Tulsa history.
9:07
SPEAKER_03: Um just passed away a couple years ago.
9:09
SPEAKER_03: Just passed away.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: Bless his heart.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: Um and was active until the very end.
9:14
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
9:15
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, but as far as your path to public service goes, you really cued in probably more so on law, law enforcement, judicial issues.
9:25
SPEAKER_02: We we talked about this before um about uh well there were several several years ago, um I'd had a conversation with you.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: We we had an opening on the county commission, and I think Karen Keith and I had picked up the phone and called and said, Hey Bill, you know, would you be interested in running for county commissioner?
9:43
SPEAKER_02: I think you kind of thought about it a little bit and and then decided not to.
9:49
SPEAKER_02: Years later we we talked after you became the district judge, and you kinda mentioned to me this this really was like your your favorite step in public service.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: So of all the um a lot of people may or may not know.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you you did a term as mayor and I was super fortunate to be on that staff and we did some really incredible things um led by you in Tulsa.
10:14
SPEAKER_02: But before that you had been the DA.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: Before that, you had been a G an AG, assistant AG, a special judge before that too, I think, and now district judge.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: Um give us some highlights of some of those things you've gotten to do over the years and and maybe talk about.
10:32
SPEAKER_02: I I know it's hard to maybe pick a favorite, but if you had a favorite step in the progression, what might it be?
10:39
SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, it started really in law school with um my third year.
10:43
SPEAKER_03: I got a legal internship with David Moss, the the then um and beloved David Moss, who rest in peace as well, um, who was a longtime DA.
10:53
SPEAKER_03: He gave me a uh spring job my third year, and that really got my interest in uh public service in that type of a capacity as an assistant DA or uh somebody in the courthouse.
11:06
SPEAKER_03: And that that really was the beginning of my love for the courthouse.
11:09
SPEAKER_03: So from there, uh, you know, I graduated law school.
11:12
SPEAKER_03: I worked at Telex Computer Products for a couple years as a contract administrator right out of law school.
11:17
SPEAKER_03: They were booming.
11:18
SPEAKER_03: Um then uh my real break was with uh the Attorney General's office in 1987.
11:24
SPEAKER_03: I got a job as an assistant A.
11:26
SPEAKER_03: G, but it was in Oklahoma City, and I lived in Tulsa, and I had a brand new baby girl.
11:30
SPEAKER_03: And the wife who didn't want to move to Oklahoma City.
11:33
SPEAKER_03: And so I commuted.
11:34
SPEAKER_03: Commuted for almost two years, and then we had another baby girl.
11:37
SPEAKER_03: And so uh David Moss called one day and said, You'd like to come back to Tulsa and stop driving?
11:43
SPEAKER_03: The speed limit was 55 back then on the term five.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: That's pretty slow.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: It was rough.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: A long drive.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: It was rough.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: So you always drove 55.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:52
SPEAKER_03: Something like that.
11:53
SPEAKER_03: So anyway, uh definitely within the law, within the parameters.
11:58
SPEAKER_03: But that was my real break in the state capitol.
12:00
SPEAKER_03: Robert Henry was the AG.
12:02
SPEAKER_03: Um uh got to meet so many people then uh that um were lawyers as well.
12:09
SPEAKER_03: So that was a great opportunity.
12:10
SPEAKER_03: I came back as an assistant DA.
12:13
SPEAKER_03: Um and then about two years later, Robert Henry called and said, How would you like to open up the Attorney General's office in Tulsa?
12:20
SPEAKER_03: Which I promised you you could do years ago, but now I can do it.
12:24
SPEAKER_03: Would you want to do it still?
12:25
SPEAKER_03: And I said, Yeah, absolutely.
12:26
SPEAKER_03: I waited a long time for that opportunity.
12:29
SPEAKER_03: So I took it and we opened it.
12:30
SPEAKER_03: It was just myself and an assistant, uh, administrative assistant, and uh it now has multiple attorneys, multiple investigators, and and multi-county grand jury unit and the whole thing, which I also started uh when I was with the AG's office.
12:44
SPEAKER_03: I started the whole multi-county um petition and um uh convening of it uh in conjunction with Robert Henry.
12:52
SPEAKER_03: So that was kind of something that in my past and nobody really knows that I did, but I did, and that's why we have the multi-county grand jury today as a as a tool for law enforcement.
13:01
SPEAKER_03: So from there I came back to DA's office and and AG's office, opened that up.
13:05
SPEAKER_03: We did three years there, and uh there was an opening for a special judge.
13:10
SPEAKER_03: So I took it.
13:11
SPEAKER_03: I applied, and I got it.
13:14
SPEAKER_03: Uh thank you, Lord.
13:15
SPEAKER_03: But I got that job and I loved it.
13:17
SPEAKER_03: I was doing preliminary hearings for a year, year or so, and um um then um the DA job came open because we had the horrible tragedy of David Moss having a heart attack on Thanksgiving weekend in 1995.
13:32
SPEAKER_03: So um I did apply for DA.
13:34
SPEAKER_03: Governor Keating was the governor, Frank Keating, and he appointed me as DA.
13:38
SPEAKER_03: And I did that for almost three years.
13:40
SPEAKER_03: Got a great offer, Norman Wilgamuth, to be a partner, taking over Charles Norman, the zoning's ours business.
13:45
SPEAKER_03: Hard to pass up for a young lawyer uh with kids, and a third kid by then, and a boy.
13:52
SPEAKER_03: And um it was just a great opportunity for the family financially, so I took it.
13:58
SPEAKER_03: Uh, did that for three or four years, but that old political bug hit me.
14:02
SPEAKER_03: Susan Savage announced she wasn't gonna run again after ten years, and it was an opening.
14:06
SPEAKER_03: She did a year out, so it opened up that office for a year for anybody that wanted to put their name in, to put their name in.
14:14
SPEAKER_03: I got encouraged to do it, and I did it, and we started running, and Michael got involved.
14:19
SPEAKER_03: We had a really fun campaign the first time.
14:21
SPEAKER_03: We really did.
14:22
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we we worked hard and we canvassed everything.
14:26
SPEAKER_03: We we just had a lot of good time, we were very successful with it, and and uh I really, you know, it mayor is a tough job.
14:34
SPEAKER_03: Because in Tulsa, you're the chief executive and you're also the city manager.
14:40
SPEAKER_03: Well, you're the chief executive and you're also the economic head.
14:44
SPEAKER_03: So you're you're the guy in seeing Oklahoma City, all Mayor Holt has to do is worry about bringing in new business, get a new arena for the MBA team, all those kind of efforts.
14:54
SPEAKER_03: He's not managing the uh public works, the police department, the uh fire department.
15:00
SPEAKER_02: The day-to-day operations of the city.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: He's just not doing it.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:02
SPEAKER_03: So we have a different form of government, and it's a tough job for any mayor, but I was honored to have it, honored to have you and my staff.
15:10
SPEAKER_03: We had a great staff, and we did do a lot of great things.
15:14
SPEAKER_03: So after that was over in 2006, I just went back to practicing law and uh for many years, actually.
15:21
SPEAKER_03: Um and then there was an opening for district judge.
15:24
SPEAKER_03: And you asked me originally, the original question was, what's your favorite job?
15:28
SPEAKER_03: It was always being a judge.
15:30
SPEAKER_03: I love being a judge.
15:31
SPEAKER_03: Maybe because from from a big family, I'm used to arguments.
15:34
SPEAKER_03: Like they I don't mind hearing arguments all day.
15:36
SPEAKER_03: You can be the arbiter.
15:37
SPEAKER_03: Right, right, right.
15:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I really love people.
15:41
SPEAKER_03: Uh I love being a trial judge.
15:43
SPEAKER_03: That's why I haven't never applied for a an appellate job, which I could have done last several years, but I haven't.
15:48
SPEAKER_03: I love jury trials.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: I love seeing our citizens, and uh, it's just a great job.
15:53
SPEAKER_03: And it's got re-elected, thank you, Lord, and citizens for that.
15:58
SPEAKER_03: So uh I'm looking forward to that another four years, and then we'll see where I'm at at that time.
16:03
SPEAKER_03: But it's just a great job.
16:05
SPEAKER_03: I love the um the citizens when they come in for as jurors.
16:08
SPEAKER_03: Um I've had great feedback from I run into them.
16:11
SPEAKER_03: What's great about being a district judge, or any judge really, is you know, we live in this town and it's it's the smallest big city in America, as you know.
16:20
SPEAKER_03: And uh I'll be at a grocery store and my khaki shorts on a Saturday and a t-shirt and sandals, maybe, and here comes somebody tapping me on the back of my shoulder saying, Hi, uh, I was a juror in one of your cases.
16:33
SPEAKER_03: Oh, really?
16:34
SPEAKER_03: You know, but and it happens a lot.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: It happens a lot.
16:37
SPEAKER_03: So um like at I work out at the health zone, and there's a lady that walks the track, and I saw her for weeks walking the track.
16:44
SPEAKER_03: And she stopped me one day and said, I just want to introduce myself.
16:47
SPEAKER_03: I was a juror in one of your cases.
16:49
SPEAKER_03: Nice to meet you.
16:50
SPEAKER_03: No, she's a friend, you know, that I see at the hell zone.
16:52
SPEAKER_03: So that's really being a judge is a great job.
16:55
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
16:56
SPEAKER_03: It's by far my favorite job.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: So a lot of people probably don't really understand.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we even folks that are kind of close to the judicial system, like I'm not that close, but just right across the street and and I've um been a reserve police officer and now sheriff's deputy for quite a few years.
17:15
SPEAKER_02: So I mean, I have some contact with the legal system, but a lot of people don't really know what really does a judge do.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yes, you conduct jury trials and and you you preside over those proceedings, but um maybe give us a snapshot of what um the average person might not know about what a judge actually does.
17:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, one of the first things I I I would say right off the bat is is then I'll tell you what they do, but is the caseload in state court is extremely heavy.
17:48
SPEAKER_03: So um we have six civil judges and each one of us has around seven hundred plus pending cases.
17:57
SPEAKER_03: Each one of us does on any given day.
17:59
SPEAKER_03: Now we're not handling 700 cases in a day, but that's a pretty heavy caseload.
18:04
SPEAKER_03: So what a judge does in Tulsa County District Court kind of depends on what docket they have.
18:10
SPEAKER_03: So the first four years I had as a district judge, I had a full-time felony criminal docket.
18:15
SPEAKER_03: And so for example, on a Monday morning, I would have 120 cases to call, just to call, just to dispose of that day.
18:23
SPEAKER_03: That's that kind of load you have in criminal.
18:25
SPEAKER_03: So the criminal felony judges are handling murders and every other kind of felony, and they take pleas, a lot of pleas, right?
18:34
SPEAKER_03: A lot of plea bargains.
18:36
SPEAKER_03: Because I mean the DA files 11,000 or whatever they file a year cases.
18:41
SPEAKER_03: And how many criminal judges do we have?
18:43
SPEAKER_03: Well, we only have like four full-time felony judges.
18:46
SPEAKER_03: So they're handling all those cases through pleas or trials.
18:51
SPEAKER_03: Now we have 13, we have about 13 district judges and about 13 special judges.
18:57
SPEAKER_03: The special judges are hired by us.
18:59
SPEAKER_03: So we have openings, then we have applications, we interviews, we hire somebody.
19:04
SPEAKER_03: They serve at the pleasure of us.
19:06
SPEAKER_03: Now we're elected, so all of us are in the same cycle.
19:10
SPEAKER_03: Every four years, the same cycle as the governor and the state office, because we're state officers.
19:14
SPEAKER_03: Right.
19:15
SPEAKER_03: You're a county officer, we're state officers.
19:17
SPEAKER_03: Right.
19:18
SPEAKER_03: And that's just for the DA's office and the judges or state officers.
19:22
SPEAKER_03: The public defenders are county and um other everything, but everything else is county.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: You know, county clerk, uh, the county court clerk, Don Newberry.
19:33
SPEAKER_03: So special judges, they're really the ones in the real trenches.
19:38
SPEAKER_03: They're doing the protective order dockets, they're doing arraignments, setting bonds, which is a heavy docket.
19:45
SPEAKER_03: They're doing um preliminary hearings.
19:47
SPEAKER_03: So every felony case has to go through the preliminary hearing docket before it goes up to a district judge like me.
19:55
SPEAKER_03: Um guardianships, uh all those things where the citizens really are coming down to the courthouse and needing relief on something.
20:05
SPEAKER_03: Special judges handle most of those.
20:07
SPEAKER_03: The districts are doing because there's a limit in jurisdiction.
20:11
SPEAKER_03: The special judges can only do so many things.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Right.
20:14
SPEAKER_03: Like they can't handle a case over$10,000 at issue.
20:18
SPEAKER_03: We have to do that.
20:19
SPEAKER_03: Um they have full jurisdiction in divorce.
20:22
SPEAKER_03: That's another area special judges are primarily in.
20:25
SPEAKER_03: We have a district that is the chief of that division, but most of them are special judges.
20:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:31
SPEAKER_03: And that's its own animal.
20:34
SPEAKER_03: I mean, um, like I'm chief of the civil division this year.
20:37
SPEAKER_03: That doesn't entail a whole lot, except that I've got to make sure my special judges.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: There's a civil special judge, the mental health special judge, the small claim.
20:46
SPEAKER_03: Now, here's another example.
20:47
SPEAKER_03: One of the hotter issues in in the city the last several years is is the FED docket.
20:52
SPEAKER_03: You know, the the the um small claims, forceful, you know, the people getting landlords moving people out of their homes.
21:00
SPEAKER_03: And so those are we moved those out to the juvenile court building a few years back during COVID.
21:05
SPEAKER_03: They're still out there.
21:07
SPEAKER_03: It's a really great resource out there.
21:08
SPEAKER_03: We have um the judge, of course, that handles them, but we also they have a lot of resources out there.
21:13
SPEAKER_03: You know, Tulsa County Bar has an office, Legal Aid has an office, Still She Rises has an office.
21:19
SPEAKER_03: And because of you all, the county officers, allowing us to be there at all, we're able to have more space.
21:26
SPEAKER_03: We didn't have any space in the courthouse to have all those agencies to provide services to the wraparound services.
21:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:32
SPEAKER_03: And there's a wraparound deal across the street there, too.
21:34
SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
21:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:35
unknown: Cool.
21:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:36
SPEAKER_03: So that's kind of the division how we divide it up.
21:38
SPEAKER_03: There's a presiding judge right now, it's David Guten.
21:41
SPEAKER_03: I was a presiding judge.
21:42
SPEAKER_03: I was lucky enough to be a presiding judge during COVID, not.
21:46
SPEAKER_02: But we we got to work together a fair amount during that in trying to uh tackle some of the issues that we were having to deal with um during the pandemic situation.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: Um You know, you mentioned a couple times mental health judges and and I plan on um bringing in Judge Nightingale and Erica Jeffords some point because they're been great um I think they're a great resource.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: But maybe talk a little bit about and give a little snapshot of how great of a mental health and specialty courts program we have here in Tulsa.
22:21
SPEAKER_03: It's really interesting.
22:22
SPEAKER_03: Uh great question.
22:24
SPEAKER_03: Um back in 19, I was a special judge from 1993 to 1995, late 95.
22:31
SPEAKER_03: And um when I was in preliminary hearings and arraignments as a special judge, um Judge Brad Griffith, uh, who was a colleague down there with me at the time, um the drug court idea came up.
22:44
SPEAKER_03: And we started the drug court way back then, and that was the first alternative court.
22:49
SPEAKER_03: Um so really drug court's been around quite a while.
22:52
SPEAKER_03: He took it on and he did a great job with it and really got it going to where it meant something.
22:58
SPEAKER_03: You know, there was a lot of um not angst, but a lot of discussion about how it would work.
23:04
SPEAKER_03: You know, would did the DA like it?
23:05
SPEAKER_03: Did the DA uh would the DA have to sign off on it?
23:08
SPEAKER_03: And originally that was the way it was and still is to some degree.
23:13
SPEAKER_03: But over the years, drug court continued.
23:17
SPEAKER_03: A DU a DUI court developed, and uh mental health court developed, and a veterans court developed.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
23:27
SPEAKER_03: And so now we have all these alternative courts presided over by one special judge and one district judge, Rebecca Nightingale.
23:37
SPEAKER_03: And she's handled it for many years now.
23:39
SPEAKER_03: And she's retiring, so somebody else is gonna have to take that over.
23:42
SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of judges will want to do that because it's such a great community.
23:47
SPEAKER_03: You really get to see people change their lives and transform their lives.
23:51
SPEAKER_03: And you know, when they have those graduation ceremonies, drug court's not easy.
23:55
SPEAKER_03: You know, I I hope I want the citizens to know nobody's getting just like a slap on the wrist.
24:00
SPEAKER_03: If you if you want to avoid prison and to go to drug court in lieu of prison, or even women in recovery, you'll hear women in recovery.
24:10
SPEAKER_03: Those are agencies in lieu of prison.
24:13
SPEAKER_03: So you've probably got a record already, you're headed to prison on your new charge, you got this opportunity, drug court extremely hard.
24:22
SPEAKER_03: They're monitored, drug tested, ankle monitored, watched, have to be on time all the I mean, they have a lot of obligations to get to graduation.
24:35
SPEAKER_03: Same for all the other alternative courts.
24:37
SPEAKER_03: So it's not like a pass, it is a rigorous program that works, and it's so difficult that a lot of people do drop out of it.
24:47
SPEAKER_03: And they just say, I'd just rather go to prison.
24:49
SPEAKER_03: That's that hard.
24:50
SPEAKER_03: But it's it just changes lives.
24:53
SPEAKER_03: And um, anyone that ever has an opportunity to go to a graduation ceremony, I bet you have, um, it's just so uplifting.
25:00
SPEAKER_03: Because what you see is a person that had a drug or alcohol issue severe, and now they've worked out of it.
25:07
SPEAKER_03: And guess what?
25:08
SPEAKER_03: When they had lost their spouse and kids, mother, father, at the graduation ceremony, you see all those people there.
25:17
SPEAKER_03: Same with women recovery.
25:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:19
SPEAKER_03: And um, it's just uplifting because now they're reunited with their kids and their family.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we've actually talked a little bit about this on this podcast before, I think when I was um talking with our county treasurer, John Fothergill, about the county's budget.
25:33
SPEAKER_02: So a lot of people don't know or recognize that the the difference.
25:37
SPEAKER_02: You talked about this earlier.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: You all are a state agency.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: Um the county is charged with providing space for the judicial system here, and we certainly have a partnership, but um the county doesn't tell the judges what to do, and the judges don't tell the county what to do, not all the time anyway.
25:54
SPEAKER_03: And um there's some interesting discussion sometimes.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: But uh one thing that a lot of people don't recognize is Tulsa County has put quite a bit of money into investing into the alternative courts program here.
26:09
SPEAKER_02: And one of the many reasons why, I mean, number one, I would say just what you talked about, um, seeing people improve their lives, get back on track, be good, productive, tax-paying citizens again is certainly um a driver for us at the county.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: But also, it has a positive impact on our criminal justice system and the jail load.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: You know, we have a 2,000-bed jail, which you're very familiar with.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: Um and the more people we can keep out of that jail, the better.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: And one of the better ways we can do that is getting people on these alternative programs, um, especially if they don't have, you know, a history of violent crime or major crimes against other people.
26:51
SPEAKER_02: Um and if we can keep them out of jail and the prison system, it's a good thing for the county, it's a good thing for the state, good thing for everybody involved.
26:58
SPEAKER_03: So Absolutely.
26:59
SPEAKER_03: You know, one of the things too, unfortunately, I don't think there's a lot of drug treatment, you know, in DOC Department of Corrections when they're in prison.
27:06
SPEAKER_03: So they're really going to go there and just get out without any kind of treatment or or uh rehabilitation and probably go right back to what they were doing.
27:14
SPEAKER_03: So that's another issue why it's so much more beneficial.
27:17
SPEAKER_03: And again, I'm not um I'm not one of these guys that's soft on crime at all.
27:22
SPEAKER_03: I think most people would say that I'm I'm pretty pretty tough on violent criminals.
27:27
SPEAKER_03: And um but these people are uh generally what I've seen in them is they're only sitting there because of alcohol or drugs.
27:35
SPEAKER_03: That's why they're sitting there.
27:36
SPEAKER_03: And with women, it's usually the guys getting them in trouble.
27:39
SPEAKER_03: You know, and you don't see women with violent crime hardly ever.
27:42
SPEAKER_03: What you what you see is drug offenses or maybe they were in a burglary, you know, a burglary situation or that kind of a thing.
27:50
SPEAKER_03: Uh but that's where you can really do the lot of a lot of good.
27:54
SPEAKER_03: A lot of good.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: What do you see in the next five years as things like artificial intelligence and other things start to impact the community and really all of our jobs?
28:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's gonna affect my job as county clerk, but just societal changes.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: What do you see kind of happening from the judicial system and and the legal side of things over the next several years?
28:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:17
SPEAKER_03: No, I mean I think AI is uh affecting so many uh aspects of a society all across the board right now, and everybody's scurrying around trying to figure it out um where it's headed and what's gonna happen.
28:28
SPEAKER_03: Um, has it hit the courts?
28:31
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
28:32
SPEAKER_03: Um and how are we grapping we're grappling with it right now.
28:35
SPEAKER_03: I mean, even our Oklahoma Supreme Court just did an order a couple of weeks ago that basically said, don't worry about it, just keep doing your job.
28:43
SPEAKER_03: But we, as judges here, have talked about it a lot.
28:47
SPEAKER_03: I mean, some federal judges have put in place orders that um you have to identify if you used it.
28:53
SPEAKER_03: And um I think that's a fair thing to say.
28:55
SPEAKER_03: Like if you're gonna use it, at least put in your brief or your motion that you're filing with the court that this includes AI-generated citations.
29:04
SPEAKER_03: Because what we're finding is um AI will generate citations of authority on a certain legal issue in a brief that's given to a judge.
29:15
SPEAKER_03: The judge looks at the citation and finds out it's not even related to that case.
29:19
SPEAKER_03: So you've got to be really careful with it.
29:21
SPEAKER_03: So we're grappling with how to deal with it, what to do with it.
29:25
SPEAKER_03: Um where we're seeing a lot of it is in s in you know, in criminal cases, if you're indigent, you get a public defender.
29:32
SPEAKER_03: Civil cases, we don't have that uh ability.
29:36
SPEAKER_03: So pro and then people um if I want to represent myself, if I wasn't a lawyer, if I was not a non-lawyer, I can represent myself and sue somebody or defend my case.
29:45
SPEAKER_03: That's called pro se.
29:47
SPEAKER_03: And we have a lot of pro se cases.
29:49
SPEAKER_03: So that's where we're seeing the AI.
29:51
SPEAKER_03: They're using AI to produce these briefs.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: And so uh it's easier than going to the law library and digging up that stuff on your own if you can just ask the question.
30:01
SPEAKER_03: So it's a big issue right now with the courts, and we're I don't have a definitive answer on what we're gonna do with it yet.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: Um let's shift gears a bit.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: So you talked when we first started and talking about public service, mentioned your family.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: You have a remarkable direct family that I got to know back in the campaign days of the mayor's office.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: In fact, um I think my second or third day volunteering on your campaign, your I I've actually told this story in a public forum before too.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: This is this is funny because um in 2001 and two, during the mayoral campaign, we had um a group of and I I became one of these drivers, one of Bill's drivers.
30:50
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, not long after your cousin G.T.
30:54
SPEAKER_02: Bynum was elected and started serving as mayor, someone called and asked me if I would introduce GT at a some sort of thing.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, well, sure, GT and our friends, I've known him since we were campaigning together for Bill back in the day.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: And so I stood up and I introduced GT and I said, you know, the way I got to know GT is that uh we were both Bill's drivers.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: And the way I even got plugged into that is that the regular driver on the day that I was in the campaign office stuffing envelopes called in and couldn't make it.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: You had a really busy schedule that day, and you really needed someone to help kind of propel you along.
31:33
SPEAKER_02: And so it one cold day I showed up.
31:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I needed some sort of dress clothes.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: I didn't even have dress clothes with me.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: I think I went home and put on a polo shirt or something, and and I someone gave me your address.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: I showed up to your house and I'm waiting in the driveway.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I don't think we'd even met before.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh really?
31:52
SPEAKER_02: And so I knock on your door, and I think maybe Kathy answered the door, and I said, Hi, my name is Michael Willis.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: Tom and the campaign team to sent me over to pick up Bill and take him on his route today, and she's like, Okay, and Kathy was, of course, very nice.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: But then you came out and had a great day.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: And we kind of became friends after that day.
32:16
SPEAKER_02: But through that, I got to know your family.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: And there was actually one time I think that I went over and ended up picking up either either Olivia or Billy.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: And you had a dog in crisis, and I think I had to take him to the vet or something.
32:32
SPEAKER_02: But you probably became good friends with your family.
32:34
SPEAKER_02: But talk about your family.
32:35
SPEAKER_02: Long, long way to get around that.
32:37
SPEAKER_03: No, no, it's uh that's funny because you know, in 01, I'm trying to think what the ages would have been, you know, um Billy would have been the girls were, I think, when I ran the first time, they were um ninth grade, and then Billy would have been um more like a sixth grader maybe or something like that.
32:54
SPEAKER_03: So he was really act he was very active at our cafe at the time too, if you remember.
32:59
SPEAKER_03: But um no, we were blessed with uh, like I said, when I was uh we got married in 86 and I'm sorry, 82.
33:06
SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry, sorry, Kathy.
33:08
SPEAKER_03: 82, and then our first child was born in 86.
33:12
SPEAKER_03: About the time I got that first job.
33:14
SPEAKER_03: So when I started commuting, Kathy was home alone with this baby taken care of, and I was going back and forth, back and forth.
33:19
SPEAKER_03: And like I said, within 13 months we had a second girl, Olivia, who your daughter's named.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: Yes, my daughter's named Olivia.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: That's a great name.
33:27
SPEAKER_03: Back then, in 2000, what was that?
33:30
SPEAKER_03: She was born in January 21st.
33:38
SPEAKER_03: Billy was 10, 192, Jackie's 11, 396, 12188.
33:44
SPEAKER_03: Got it.
33:44
SPEAKER_03: So that's pretty good.
33:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:46
SPEAKER_03: January 21st, and I put you on the spot, so I was worried that I wouldn't come through here on the air, you know.
33:52
SPEAKER_03: For Livy wouldn't like this, you'll probably see this podcast.
33:55
SPEAKER_03: No, it's uh so um Livy was born just 13 months later.
33:59
SPEAKER_03: So we had these two little girls, and then um we really were settled with the two little girls.
34:03
SPEAKER_03: We thought that was gonna be the the way Kathy always wanted a boy.
34:07
SPEAKER_03: She was one of two girls in her family, so she never been around a little boy growing up.
34:11
SPEAKER_03: Always wanted a little boy, and um, this is a great story, actually.
34:14
SPEAKER_03: So if Livy's born in 88 and we're now confined to the fact, in fact, we don't even have a room for a third kid in our house.
34:21
SPEAKER_03: Um we're confined to the two girls and we're happy with the two girls.
34:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:26
SPEAKER_03: I came home one day, though, out of the blue, and I found a little baseball cap on our bed.
34:33
SPEAKER_03: That Kathy had left, my wife, Kathy.
34:36
SPEAKER_03: What did that mean?
34:37
SPEAKER_03: A little baseball boy.
34:39
SPEAKER_03: We were gonna have a boy.
34:41
SPEAKER_03: And that was Billy.
34:42
SPEAKER_03: So um that was how I found out about him.
34:44
SPEAKER_03: But Billy is now um Jackie is our oldest, is in Denver.
34:48
SPEAKER_03: She works in the art the park system there, the city parks.
34:52
SPEAKER_03: And then um Olivia's a federal probation worker in Anchorage, Alaska.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I follow her on the on the socials.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:59
SPEAKER_02: There you go.
34:59
SPEAKER_03: And Billy is um a lawyer with DLA Pipe around San Diego doing mergers and acquisitions.
35:04
SPEAKER_03: And had our first grandbaby.
35:06
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
35:06
SPEAKER_03: My legacy.
35:07
SPEAKER_03: It's William David LaFortune III, but they call him Trip.
35:10
SPEAKER_03: Nice.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: Trippy, T R I P P and you all go visit them when you can?
35:14
SPEAKER_02: As much as I can afford to in California.
35:17
unknown: Yeah.
35:17
SPEAKER_03: I didn't do it a lot of it, and all of a sudden I've kind of looked at my bank accounts last year.
35:21
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, oh my gosh.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe since Billy's making the big bucks, maybe have him stop coming back this way.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: We'd love to have him move back this way eventually.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: They're great kids.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: Uh, appreciate it for asking them.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:34
SPEAKER_02: Um Well, what else do you have?
35:36
SPEAKER_02: Anything you want to talk about today?
35:38
SPEAKER_03: Well, not really.
35:38
SPEAKER_03: I mean, things are um uh at the courthouse, uh things are rocking along.
35:42
SPEAKER_03: It's summertime, so you know we we don't have any jury trials again until September.
35:47
SPEAKER_03: Um again, those are limited by the amount of money that w the state has and how many jury, you know, jury trials we pay jurors, obviously they don't get paid a lot, but they get paid.
35:55
SPEAKER_03: So it costs us a certain amount of money.
35:57
SPEAKER_03: I think that's an interesting thing.
35:58
SPEAKER_03: Jurors and jury duty is always an issue.
36:02
SPEAKER_03: So if you get a summons for jury duty and you have a conflict, all you have to do is call the court administrator.
36:08
SPEAKER_03: Now you're not going to get out of it, but you'll get a deferment to a date that you can come down and do it.
36:14
SPEAKER_03: So it's you know, the if people think they can get out of it, they really can't unless there's some, I guess, medical issue probably.
36:22
SPEAKER_03: Seniors, certain seniors can they can get out, but they just still need to call the court administrator saying, you know, I'm a certain age and I I don't want to.
36:30
SPEAKER_03: But what I find with seniors is they do want to serve.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: You know.
36:35
SPEAKER_03: Most people want to serve.
36:37
SPEAKER_03: And we send out about 700 something like that summons for jury a jury week.
36:44
SPEAKER_03: How many people actually come down and obey the summons?
36:49
SPEAKER_03: I'll let you guess.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: On average, I would say maybe close to half.
36:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, something like that.
36:57
SPEAKER_03: 300.
36:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: And I'll tell you what, every every time, you know, if I have to do the other 400 get bench warrants issued for them?
37:04
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: They could.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: They could.
37:07
SPEAKER_02: They don't.
37:07
SPEAKER_03: They could.
37:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:08
SPEAKER_03: I no well, the mail thing too.
37:10
SPEAKER_03: It's not, they're not being served personally.
37:11
SPEAKER_03: A lot of legal uh gymnastics, I think, to do that.
37:14
SPEAKER_03: But um I always tell them the ones that come in mind.
37:17
SPEAKER_03: So if I have, it depends what kind of case I have.
37:20
SPEAKER_03: If it's a heavy duty case, I might call 45 people in the court.
37:23
SPEAKER_03: If I have a uh a car wreck case, I might call 25 people in.
37:28
SPEAKER_03: Either way, first thing I tell them is, you're the good ones.
37:32
SPEAKER_03: I tell them exactly what I just said.
37:34
SPEAKER_03: We send out 700, we get half.
37:36
SPEAKER_03: You're the half.
37:38
SPEAKER_03: You're the ones that are the good ones.
37:40
SPEAKER_03: You care.
37:41
SPEAKER_03: You care about because without you, we don't have a system.
37:44
SPEAKER_03: We don't have a system.
37:46
SPEAKER_03: And we do have, whatever way you want to criticize it, go ahead.
37:49
SPEAKER_03: It's still the best judicial system in the world.
37:53
SPEAKER_03: All you gotta do is look around.
37:55
SPEAKER_03: And and we're not controlled by, you know, we make our decisions independently.
37:59
SPEAKER_03: I tell them that too.
38:00
SPEAKER_03: And any of these conspiracy theorists and all this about this or this or that, and we're all in no, I've been doing this a long time.
38:08
SPEAKER_03: No one's ever told me how to decide a case.
38:11
unknown: Right.
38:12
SPEAKER_03: Or or pressured me.
38:15
SPEAKER_03: Never.
38:16
SPEAKER_03: So there's no kind of we do everyone works hard, they got heavy caseloads, they do their own thing.
38:23
SPEAKER_03: We do talk to each other about issues, maybe, but not a lot.
38:27
SPEAKER_03: We have a meeting once every couple of months, but that's how how we work.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: You know, you mentioned um ruling on cases and and juries, and this is probably also a common misconception or something people don't know how it works, and I really don't know all that much either, but um you know you preside over plenty of jury cases in a year, but you also preside over plenty of cases that don't necessarily have juries, right?
38:54
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
38:55
SPEAKER_02: And so when it comes to if you're on the criminal side, and I know you're not doing that today, but when you were on the criminal docket, how does it work um with regard to sentencing?
39:06
SPEAKER_02: If a when does a jury make a sentence?
39:09
SPEAKER_02: When does a judge weigh in on that sentence?
39:12
SPEAKER_02: I know there are parameters out there, a lot of people may not know that, but kind of talk to us just a little bit about that before we get wrapped up.
39:18
SPEAKER_03: It's a great question.
39:19
SPEAKER_03: Uh in Oklahoma, our juries sentence.
39:23
SPEAKER_03: Uh they recommend f formally it's called recommending a sentence.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: It's the jury's recommendation.
39:29
SPEAKER_03: So in Okla in you know, in Tulsa in Oklahoma, a jury's gonna hear say it's a robbery with a dangerous weapon.
39:38
SPEAKER_03: Trial.
39:40
SPEAKER_03: Jury hears it, they um deliberate, they're given instructions by the judge about what the range of punishment is if they find the defendant guilty.
39:51
SPEAKER_03: So they know what the range is.
39:53
SPEAKER_03: And um, if they find him guilty, they're gonna pick a number and they're gonna come out with the verdict form and say, guilty, and we recommend punishment at ten years.
40:05
SPEAKER_03: Now, then the judge gets it.
40:07
SPEAKER_03: Now it's in the judge's hand to sentence the defendant.
40:12
SPEAKER_03: Now, there is something called a pre-sentence investigation.
40:14
SPEAKER_03: Certain violent crimes are gonna get a pre-sentence investigation, so they'll set sent sentencing that must always set off.
40:20
SPEAKER_03: There's some judges that want to do it right there, that day, right there, in front of the jury.
40:24
SPEAKER_03: I don't do that.
40:25
SPEAKER_03: I've always passed sentencing off, either for a PSI or just to pass it off a little while to get you know everything in order properly rather than rushing it at the end of a trial and possibly making a mistake.
40:37
SPEAKER_03: I just don't do that that way.
40:39
SPEAKER_03: So when it comes time for sentencing, what authority do I have?
40:43
SPEAKER_03: Do I have an authority to overrule the jury?
40:46
SPEAKER_03: No.
40:47
SPEAKER_03: I basically have to follow that recommendation.
40:51
SPEAKER_03: I do have one um bit of authority.
40:55
SPEAKER_03: I can suspend part of it.
40:59
SPEAKER_03: Um so it's hardly ever done.
41:02
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I don't ever want to um invade the province of a jury.
41:08
SPEAKER_03: Um I did have a rape case once where um and uh go on all the facts, but it was really young guys that uh just man, it was a lot of bad, bad choices by by everybody involved.
41:22
SPEAKER_03: We had a trial.
41:24
SPEAKER_03: Jury came back.
41:26
SPEAKER_03: And in Oklahoma, rape still carries life without parole.
41:30
SPEAKER_03: It's still an option.
41:32
SPEAKER_03: I gave it to him.
41:34
SPEAKER_03: And what did I do with that?
41:36
SPEAKER_03: Well, I immediately started getting letters from all the family members about these boys.
41:41
SPEAKER_03: You know, you you just um this is outrageous.
41:45
SPEAKER_03: I mean, the yes, what they did was horrible and wrong.
41:49
SPEAKER_03: But they've never had any of the history and they're 18 years old.
41:55
SPEAKER_03: Um So I thought about all that, and we had our sentencing hearing, and the DA was saying, you can't change a judge.
42:03
SPEAKER_03: You can't do anything different.
42:05
SPEAKER_03: I was like, I don't know.
42:07
SPEAKER_03: I might.
42:08
SPEAKER_03: I think I I'm not sure.
42:09
SPEAKER_03: I think I if I wanted to, but I haven't heard what everybody has to say yet.
42:13
SPEAKER_03: So we had our hearing.
42:15
SPEAKER_03: I heard all the the the ants and of the boys and everybody come up and talk about it.
42:19
SPEAKER_03: So I ended up going ahead and giving them life instead of life without parole.
42:25
SPEAKER_03: That was the only variation I think I've ever done on sentencing because it was such a unique uh situation.
42:31
SPEAKER_03: And if I had time to give patrol facts, you'd understand why.
42:34
SPEAKER_03: But um the DA did not appeal it.
42:36
SPEAKER_03: You know, he said I didn't have the authority to do it, but apparently I did because they didn't appeal it.
42:40
SPEAKER_02: But life with parole comes with what's that, a 20-year-old.
42:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's uh set at 45.
42:47
SPEAKER_03: So if you get a life sentence, um we advise the juries that that means 45 years.
42:55
SPEAKER_03: That they're eligible for parole.
42:57
SPEAKER_03: There's a real miscommun uh misunderstanding out there.
43:01
SPEAKER_03: It's not that they get out in 45 years, it's that they're eligible for parole, they might get out within 45 years.
43:09
SPEAKER_03: If they're not, they will serve the entire life sentence.
43:14
unknown: Yeah.
43:15
SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
43:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it really is.
43:16
SPEAKER_03: And that's um, you know, back in when I was a DA, I got 32,000 year verdicts on rape guys that I personally prosecuted.
43:24
SPEAKER_03: How did I get 32,000 years?
43:25
SPEAKER_03: You can't do that anymore.
43:27
SPEAKER_03: Back then, if a if a felon is a record holder?
43:30
SPEAKER_03: You used to be the record holder.
43:32
SPEAKER_03: Oh, absolutely.
43:32
SPEAKER_03: There'll never be another 32,000 years.
43:34
SPEAKER_03: When I was DA, I personally prosecuted a horrible rape case against two guys, and I got 32,000 years total.
43:42
SPEAKER_03: But back then, if a felon had two or more prior felonies, so they're walking around the streets, they had there are felons, they've had two prior convictions, they go rob somebody.
43:53
SPEAKER_03: Now they got a new charge.
43:55
SPEAKER_03: The new charge, under the old rules, if you're convicted, the jury can sentence you to no less than 20, which opened the whole the whole range up the thousands.
44:08
SPEAKER_03: And juries that were not happy with the defendant, like in my own.
44:13
SPEAKER_03: Back on the years.
44:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:14
SPEAKER_03: For example, I mean, I think they gave him 1,500 years just on one count of Grand Larcy in that case.
44:19
SPEAKER_03: So they're not happy.
44:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're not.
44:20
SPEAKER_03: It was a horrible case, though.
44:22
SPEAKER_03: And then the victim in that case, she's written a book.
44:24
SPEAKER_03: Her name's Penny Stuckey, she wouldn't mind me saying.
44:27
SPEAKER_03: She's written a book about her whole ordeal.
44:29
SPEAKER_03: She basically was uh rammed off the road here in Tulsa and kidnapped, and horrible things happened after that.
44:36
SPEAKER_03: This is like pre-DNA.
44:38
SPEAKER_03: She was such a great witness um that she convinced that jury of of all those things that happened to her uh just by her own testimony.
44:45
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
44:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:47
SPEAKER_02: That'd be interesting.
44:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:48
SPEAKER_02: Penny Stucky.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: Penny Stucky.
44:50
SPEAKER_03: And she wrote a book.
44:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
44:51
SPEAKER_03: I want to get it.
44:52
SPEAKER_03: I haven't gotten it.
44:54
SPEAKER_03: She said about me.
44:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:55
SPEAKER_03: Because I was her prosecutor.
44:56
SPEAKER_03: Me and Brett Swab.
44:57
SPEAKER_03: Brett Swab and I did it together.
44:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:59
SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
45:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
45:00
SPEAKER_02: Well, we should probably wrap this thing up.
45:02
SPEAKER_02: We've gone almost 45 minutes now.
45:04
SPEAKER_02: Well, I've enjoyed it.
45:05
SPEAKER_02: And let's do this again one of these.
45:07
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
45:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: We'll uh reconnect.
45:09
SPEAKER_02: We'll reconnect and maybe talk about some other.
45:13
SPEAKER_02: So um wrapping up, just to recap, we've had the Honorable uh William D.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: LaFortune, Bill LaFortune, um district judge for the Tulsa District Court.
45:23
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm Michael Willis, your Tulsa County Clerk.
45:26
SPEAKER_02: This is the Government Mule Podcast, and we'll be back to you with another episode coming up real soon, I'm sure.
45:33
SPEAKER_02: Thanks very much for listening, and thanks again to Judge LaFortune.
45:37
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.