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ALAN GENTGES FOR ASSOC DISTRICT JUDGE · One on One With a Professional

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  Speaker 1: Boy, is it.
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  Speaker 2: And we have a candidate for associate district judge. He's
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  already a judge, but a municipal judge. Alan Jentzis, how
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  are you doing?
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  Speaker 1: I'm great, Tom. Did I get that right? You did.
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  You got it right. One in a row. Put it
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  on the scoreboard. Good job, man. All righty.
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  Speaker 2: So, Alan, you've been a lawyer, you've been a city counselor,
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  and now a municipal judge.
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  Speaker 1: So you've got quite the resume. I've been around, practiced
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  law for 41 years. That's a good start. Can't believe it.
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  And was on council for three terms, and then I've
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  been the Bartlesville City Judge for the last five years.
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  And love that job, but I want to continue to
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  serve the community, and I think I can do good
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  at the other position.
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  Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little bit the difference between
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  the municipal judge and the associate district judge responsibilities and
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  jurisdictions and everything.
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  Speaker 1: Else like that? I certainly can. Of course, municipal judges
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  have jurisdiction that would be limited to or I have
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  a jurisdiction limited to the city of Bartlesville, and we
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  enforce the ordinances of Bartlesville. That would include mostly misdemeanors
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  and traffic, somebody has a problem with a dog, some trespass, larceny,
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  every once in a while an assault, but most of
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  those go to county. If you are an associate district judge,
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  then within a county, which in this instance it will
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  be Washington County, then you... would have a court of
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  general jurisdiction, which means that any of the laws of
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  the state of Oklahoma, you're there to make decisions on.
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  So it would be a bigger geographic jurisdiction in that
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  we're in all of Washington County, but it would also
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  be a larger set of laws because it doesn't just
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  deal with criminal, it would deal with all the others,
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  state planning or domestic, adoptions, and just a whole array
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  of anything that's covered under the state law.
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  Speaker 2: How has being a municipal judge prepared you for this
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  new office?
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  Speaker 1: Well, of course, the city of Bartlesville is a city
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  of 38,000 people, so it's a real city. And we
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  see anywhere from 40 to 60, sometimes a lot more,
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  sometimes less, Folks at every hearing or at every setting
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  that we have, we hold court twice a week, except
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  on the third and first weeks of the month, then
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  we hold it three times a week. So we hold
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  court ten times a month, and we estimate that we've
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  seen over 20,000 cases in the last five years. So
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  it's a lot. And then, of course.
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  My 40 years of practice, and I've had a broad
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  range of practice and a lot of jury trials. I
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  can't count how many judges I've been before, dozens and dozens,
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  of course, both state and federal. So that's helped me
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  prepare also. And with the city of Bartlesville, it's about
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  73% of the population of Washington County So we've already
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  had jurisdiction, as far as city matters, over about 73%
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  of the population of Washington County. Now, once we expand it, then,
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  as I said, the legal jurisdiction will be much broader,
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  but it fits into the practice that I always had.
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  I always carried a big load. So I think that
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  the volume and the locality has made it, You know,
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  a really good training bed as far as being an
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  associate district judge. And, you know, I'm ready to go
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  if I get elected. We get sworn in on January 11th,
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  and we'll be ready to get the ground running. And
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  I look forward to that service if voters choose me.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking with Alan Jensis, who's running for associate district judge. And,
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  you know, being a municipal judge, being an attorney, you
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  get to see things differently.
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  Speaker 1: Through different lenses, different viewpoints. How has that helped you? Well,
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  when you sit on the bench, you're not an advocate.
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  You are a judge. That's right. And so, of course,
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  perspective changes somewhat. And what you're always going for, of course,
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  you want to have judicial independence, integrity, and impartiality. I
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  think we have absolutely done that and not people sometimes
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  when they come to me, when you're arraigned, you get
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  to plead guilty, not guilty, or no contest. And if
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  you plead not guilty, then we have a trial. And
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  we actually have trials. And sometimes they don't think, they say, well,
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  you work for the city, so you're going to be
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  partial to the city. And no, I'm independent, and I
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  make decisions, and sometimes the cases go against the city,
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  sometimes we dismiss the cases, depending on what the facts
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  are in the law, applying the the rule of law
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  to those facts. Completely different perspective. It also gives you
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  some leeway as to how you handle cases. When I
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  first became a judge, I thought, okay, what am I
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  trying to accomplish here? Am I just going to sit
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  here and, okay, Tom gets a speeding ticket, so Tom,
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  come up here and plead, well, I find you guilty
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  and here, pay your fine. Well, that would work in
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  some instances. Sure. And we do that quite a bit.
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  But I also want Tom to be able to tell
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  me what has happened so they know that we want
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  to know what the facts are in your case and
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  what you believe your rights are and what you believe happened.
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  And so everyone who comes before me, we make sure
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  that happens. The other thing I thought about was that
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  we want to make sure we're doing justice. And that
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  takes a little more thought and judgment than just saying,
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  all right, you're going to be fined in every case.
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  And we want to make sure that we're keeping the
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  city safe, even though these are minor matters generally. You know,
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  some young person who's zipping around town all the time,
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  it puts the rest of us in danger. So we
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  have to do the kind of thing as much as
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  we can to make sure that that's not going to
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  be happening in the future. It could happen in other
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  instances too. And then I'd like to see you get
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  back in compliance with the law And that works well
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  also as an associate district judge in that you want
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  to make sure that people, if we can, it actually
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  benefits the community. Get them back in compliance with the law.
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  And then the other thing that I started thinking about,
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  this may be the only time somebody ever gets to
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  be before a judge, even though it's somewhat of a
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  more minor kind of infraction. And we want them to
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  know that the judiciary... is a separate branch of government
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  that will listen to what you have to say and
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  make a fair decision. And I think that we've been
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  successful in that. And all of those things, I think,
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  that go into whenever you have to sit on the
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  bench at a more general jurisdiction. I've been a jury
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  member twice.
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  Speaker 2: So all of you folks who've been grousing about it twice.
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  But it changed my perspective on how that all works.
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  Speaker 1: And if folks have never sat on a jury... And you.
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  Speaker 2: Might be well advised to go through with that and
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  try not to find an excuse because you're going to
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  find out that what you see on TV and how
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  it plays out in real life, two different stories. And
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  for anybody who thinks that, you know, being a judge
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  works like it does on TV, different story altogether.
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  Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, my wife kind of likes those kind
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  of shows.
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  Speaker 2: Sure.
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  Speaker 1: They're quite popular. So every once in a while we'll
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  watch a court show, and it's really not what you see.
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  Everything happens quickly, and there's always some suspense and those
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  kind of things. Generally it doesn't. And juries, as far
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  as I've tried a lot of jury trials, and in
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  certain courts you can actually talk to the jury afterwards
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  if they're willing to speak with you. And what I've
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  seen is that they're very deliberate in what they do.
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  It's not like, OK, we're just going to do this
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  willy nilly. They work very hard. And even when they've
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  the rare time that they told me, no, that I
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  wasn't going to win. They probably did the right thing.
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  And same thing with judges. You want to make sure that.
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  you're getting all the facts. In fact, when I got
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  on the bench, I asked some judges who I respected,
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  you know, what kind of advice would you give me?
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  And without almost any exception, they all said, well, make
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  sure you listen to the whole thing before you make
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  a decision, which seems simple, but it's true, because someone
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  can come into your courtroom and make an outstanding argument,
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  and it'll be interesting to see what happens here, but
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  you have to listen to everything, and and that way
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  justice can be served. So, yeah, it's completely different than
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  in most instances. Now, everybody says, well, have you ever
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  seen where it happened kind of like it does in court?
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  And I say, well, they always think this is weird,
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  but the truth of the matter is my cousin Vinny
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  and how the truth came across through the trial itself
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  and the trial process, and that everybody started out with
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  a certain opinion, but then once the actual evidence came
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  into play, then everyone came to another opinion, which was probably,
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  which seemed to do justice. And That's what you have
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  to do. You know, whenever the officers say this person
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  was doing this, then when you hear all the other evidence,
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  then you might think, well, yes, but this is a defense,
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  and therefore they would be not guilty in that situation. So, yeah,
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  it's completely different. The other thing that we have been
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  able to do is when that one goal I have
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  is getting them back into... compliance with the law. I
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  guess it was last year, all the time runs together,
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  but one of the councilmen put together the homeless task force.
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  And we had a situation in town where there was
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  a growing population of homeless. A lot of questions out
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  there about who they were and, you know, are they
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  being bussed in? And I think we answered most of
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  those questions that, no, those are probably, most of them
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  are people who actually lived here for a long time
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  and and then they became homeless for various reasons. And
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  so I would see these folks and folks like them
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  come in, and they would have a drug or alcohol problem,
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  or they would have a mental health problem, and all
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  of them had economic problems. And through the Homeless Task
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  Force and some of the new laws that I helped write,
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  we've been able to provide additional help to those folks
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  so that we not only, okay, we're going to find
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  this person who has no money anyway, we actually get
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  them off that track and on another track. And if
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  I've failed at anything as a judge, it's to have
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  kept better records of how many people that we have
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  seen come in with a destroyed life and get back
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  on track. Through the agencies in town, all the helping agencies,
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  as well as the mental health and drug and alcohol
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  rehabilitation agencies in town, it is... It is remarkable that
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  just a little bit of a change on how we
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  approach it has changed their lives, which changes all of
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  our lives, because they're not out panhandling or sleeping in
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  somebody's yard. They're being productive. That's right. They become productive citizens,
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  which is a good thing. And so we've done that.
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  Another thing that we've tried to do, I see a
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  lot of people who will come in, and for they
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  get confused as to, okay, I didn't do this or whatever,
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  and I get my license suspended. And once you get
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  your license suspended, you can't drive. If you do, then
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  you go to jail. Because in Bartlesville, if you don't
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  have your driver's license has gotten suspended and the officers
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  pull you over, nine times out of ten, you're going
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  to jail. And that'll impact your family, impact your work,
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  and many times... These folks didn't know they got suspended. Now,
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  we send out notices, and so sometimes I'm a little skeptical, well,
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  did you know or not, but regardless. So we try,
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  and my clerk helps a lot with this, we help
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  them navigate to get their license back. And many times
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  I'll hold their case, pass it until we get their
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  license back with the agreement. They can't be driving it.
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  And then they get their license back. It's like a
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  happy day. And they come in, and we had a
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  man come in yesterday, 15 years, didn't have a driver's license.
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  Took him about four months to get one, has a
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  driver's license, is working, doing all the productive things we
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  want to see citizens do. And that has been something
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  that has really been a great thing in our court. Now,
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  I know that in the district court, they do have, like,
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  drug and alcohol court and mental health court and some
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  of these other additional courts that have been developed. And
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  depending on what I'm assigned to, but I would continue
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  to do that if I'm asked to. Alan, where can
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  people find out more about you? Do you have a website?
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  Do you have social pages or anything? What we do
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  is we're on Facebook, and it's Gents for Judge 2026.
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  And it's all one word. And we're posting stuff all
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  the time. You also... Now, this is unusual, but I
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  also give out my home phone number. It's actually my
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  cell number, 918-704-2246. Believe it or not, I answer the phone.
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  If you'd like to meet, I'd be more than glad
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  to come to the house or we'll talk. I do
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  that every day. And, of course, if you've been in court,
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  you know exactly what you'd be getting with me. And
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  I hope you've had an experience that you know that
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  your judge, your municipal judge, your city judge has been
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  working for you.
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  Speaker 2: Alan Jensis for?
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  Speaker 1: Associate District Judge of Washington County.
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  Speaker 2: Very good. And I want to thank you for coming
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  in and explaining things.
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  Speaker 1: Appreciate you having me, Tom. All right, folks.
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  Speaker 2: You've been watching and listening to our Community Connection right
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  here on K1.