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Justice Meets Grace at the Bench · Just Stories

0:05
Kristine Osterday: You know, one of the things that I hear on a regular basis is that, you know, "Well,
0:09
Kristine Osterday: Judge, but for the alcohol, but for the methamphetamine,
0:12
Kristine Osterday: this never would've happened."
0:14
Kristine Osterday: But I don't buy that. You know, you’re not perfect, I’m not perfect.
0:19
Kristine Osterday: There’s no way that I can hold you to the standard of perfection,
0:23
Kristine Osterday: but what I do expect: work through it.
0:26
Kristine Osterday: I can work with you, but don’t lie about it.
0:28
Kristine Osterday: I think that extending grace and mercy for people who screw up is important because
0:36
Kristine Osterday: we all screw up, and we all deserve that benefit.
0:49
Rob Brenneman: We live in a messy world where relationships can go south,
0:53
Rob Brenneman: and people hurt each other, sometimes violently.
0:56
Rob Brenneman: The criminal justice system is supposed to address that harm,
0:59
Rob Brenneman: but what happens inside the mind and heart of the person handing down the sentences?
1:05
Rob Brenneman: Our guest today is Judge Kristine Osterday of Elkhart County's Superior Court.
1:10
Rob Brenneman: She has a fascinating path to the bench and a bold perspective on faith, vocation,
1:16
Rob Brenneman: and the limits of justice itself.
1:18
Rob Brenneman: Welcome to Just Stories, Judge Osterday.
1:20
Kristine Osterday: Thank you for having me.
1:22
Rob Brenneman: I understand you didn't always intend to practice law, much less become a judge.
1:28
Rob Brenneman: Tell me about the first time you considered what it might be like to be a judge.
1:33
Kristine Osterday: Well, that probably happened soon before I became a judge.
1:38
Kristine Osterday: I didn't think I was going to be a lawyer, let alone a judge.
1:41
Kristine Osterday: I grew up in this area and grew up in a blue-collar family.
1:46
Kristine Osterday: Nobody in my family had gone to college.
1:48
Kristine Osterday: I just thought, if you work hard, you will get by and be able to support yourself.
1:54
Kristine Osterday: I've always been kind of a pain in the rear end,
1:57
Kristine Osterday: so people thought maybe I should be a good lawyer.
2:00
Kristine Osterday: You know, like to argue with people.
2:03
Kristine Osterday: Um, joking aside, though, I think about my grandmother a lot, and she certainly,
2:09
Kristine Osterday: had a difficult life. Um, at one point
2:14
Kristine Osterday: in time, my grandfather was in prison.
2:17
Kristine Osterday: You know, what she endured and all that she'd gone through.
2:21
Kristine Osterday: She was such a strong woman of faith, a wonderful woman who, you know,
2:26
Kristine Osterday: I definitely wanted to do right by and do good things.
2:29
Rob Brenneman: What made you first think about law, practicing law?
2:34
Rob Brenneman: Where did that come from?
2:35
Kristine Osterday: I wish I could tell you. It's almost like a blur.
2:40
Kristine Osterday: I didn't go to college right away.
2:43
Kristine Osterday: I had several jobs. I worked in the community and, you know, I thought, "Well,
2:48
Kristine Osterday: criminal justice seems awfully interesting."
2:50
Rob Brenneman: Mm-hmm.
2:51
Kristine Osterday: So I enrolled at IUSB, became a criminal justice major.
2:55
Kristine Osterday: I had wonderful professors, and many of the professors that I had at IUSB were those
3:01
Kristine Osterday: that were working in the field that they were teaching.
3:04
Kristine Osterday: So, I had, I remember police officers, probation officers, several judges.
3:09
Kristine Osterday: I had a federal judge, a state court judge, and it was just very intriguing to me.
3:15
Kristine Osterday: I knew I wanted to help people, and I knew I found, you know,
3:19
Kristine Osterday: the whole criminal aspect just really interesting from a sociological,
3:23
Kristine Osterday: psychological perspective and how it all works, like how groups think,
3:28
Kristine Osterday: how individuals think, and what can I do to help in that instance.
3:32
Kristine Osterday: And so I started thinking, "Well, you know, maybe I wanna be a police officer."
3:35
Rob Brenneman: Mm-hmm. You sound like some of my students.
3:38
Kristine Osterday: (laugh) When I, the professors that I had that, you know, the police officers and,
3:43
Kristine Osterday: you know, talking about some of the specifics, and I thought,
3:47
Kristine Osterday: and I know this is very selfish, but I,
3:49
Kristine Osterday: what am I gonna do when somebody throws up in the back of my car?
3:53
Kristine Osterday: I don't wanna deal with that.
3:55
Kristine Osterday: (laugh) And, you know, I, and I know it's silly, but I thought, "Okay,
3:59
Kristine Osterday: I'm not sure how well I would handle that and how effective I would be."
4:03
Kristine Osterday: And then I started thinking, "Okay, maybe a probation officer."
4:08
Kristine Osterday: And I, again, it's, it's just such a blur.
4:11
Kristine Osterday: I feel like next thing I know I was applying to law school, and I was in law school.
4:15
Kristine Osterday: And I mean, I can only, you know, again, because of my faith,
4:19
Kristine Osterday: just God was leading me, and I was smart enough not to get in His way,
4:24
Kristine Osterday: just let it happen. After I had gone to school and started practicing law,
4:29
Kristine Osterday: and I started off as a prosecuting attorney in Elkhart County, and it was great.
4:34
Kristine Osterday: I loved it. It was a great experience.
4:38
Kristine Osterday: However, being an advocate on one side can be really challenging when you see the
4:44
Kristine Osterday: other side, how you might want to be able to take an approach that takes into
4:51
Kristine Osterday: consideration both. But the difficulty when you're an advocate on one side limits
4:57
Kristine Osterday: what you can do to try to fully remedy the situation.
5:01
Kristine Osterday: So I think it was probably towards the end of my career as a deputy prosecuting
5:07
Kristine Osterday: attorney that I started thinking about, well,
5:08
Kristine Osterday: what if I had the ability to take all of these things into consideration and try to
5:14
Kristine Osterday: come up with a more global approach,
5:17
Kristine Osterday: a holistic approach to the problem that I'm seeing in front of me?
5:22
Rob Brenneman: So you felt in your work as a prosecutor, you were tied to one party,
5:28
Rob Brenneman: and that hemmed you in and kept you from being able to think about all the options
5:35
Rob Brenneman: that could be on the table?
5:36
Kristine Osterday: Absolutely.
5:44
Rob Brenneman: We live in Indiana, northern Indiana.
5:47
Rob Brenneman: Is there anything unique about this state or this county that might come as a
5:53
Rob Brenneman: surprise to listeners who aren't from this area?
5:56
Kristine Osterday: I do think that you have to qualify by saying northern Indiana,
5:59
Kristine Osterday: because I do think that
6:01
Rob Brenneman: Say more about that ...
6:02
Kristine Osterday: I think that we're unique statewide.
6:05
Kristine Osterday: We have a large Amish population.
6:08
Kristine Osterday: We also have a large Hispanic population.
6:11
Kristine Osterday: Um, we have pockets of urban population,
6:17
Kristine Osterday: rural population, and very different dynamics within some of those communities.
6:23
Kristine Osterday: And I think that we are definitely unique in that area.
6:28
Kristine Osterday: I've also seen, because of our RV industry,
6:31
Kristine Osterday: the fact that people make money based upon how fast they work, how much production,
6:36
Kristine Osterday: the piece rate they turn out, that that maybe lends to some of the substance use
6:42
Kristine Osterday: issues that we see.
6:43
Rob Brenneman: I never thought of it like that, but you're, you're onto something, I think.
6:47
Kristine Osterday: I did not come up with this idea
6:49
Rob Brenneman: No.
6:49
Kristine Osterday: I'm just saying, those of us who
6:52
Rob Brenneman: Yeah ...
6:52
Kristine Osterday: Who are in the system, it's not new to us.
6:55
Rob Brenneman: Yeah. For manufacturing,
6:57
Rob Brenneman: we often think of union jobs and a steady, very programmed rate of work.
7:05
Rob Brenneman: Um, that's not how things are arranged here.
7:09
Kristine Osterday: Certainly. And with that also in mind, you know, you have periods of boom,
7:14
Kristine Osterday: and periods of bust. You know, you look back to 2008.
7:17
Kristine Osterday: We were the epicenter of, you know, the recession.
7:21
Kristine Osterday: It was, it was scary. It was scary to be here.
7:23
Kristine Osterday: Well, and then you also have to factor into that, that we are on the 80/90 corridor,
7:27
Kristine Osterday: so we are on the direct route between Detroit and Chicago,
7:32
Kristine Osterday: and so a lot of substances are trafficked through our area.
7:36
Rob Brenneman: I hadn't thought of that.
7:37
Rob Brenneman: That makes sense. We're, we are the crossroads of the country
7:40
Kristine Osterday: (laugh) For better or worse.
7:42
Rob Brenneman: For better and worse. You take most or all of the domestic cases in the county.
7:49
Rob Brenneman: Um, tell me how that-- why?
7:50
Rob Brenneman: Why are you taking those cases?
7:53
Rob Brenneman: How did that come to be?
7:54
Kristine Osterday: Elkhart County has a filing order.
7:57
Kristine Osterday: So that determines which type of cases go to which courts.
8:02
Kristine Osterday: And when I first became the judge of Elkhart Superior Court Number One,
8:06
Kristine Osterday: all of the felony domestic battery cases were assigned to that court,
8:10
Kristine Osterday: along with other cases. And what,
8:15
Kristine Osterday: what I was seeing with those types of cases,
8:16
Kristine Osterday: that there were a lot of patterns and similarities and nuances to those cases.
8:21
Kristine Osterday: And when Elkhart
8:26
Kristine Osterday: County Courts decided that we were going to go into divisions, because prior to,
8:30
Kristine Osterday: I think it was 2024, most courts handled a little bit of everything.
8:36
Kristine Osterday: We were courts of general jurisdiction.
8:38
Kristine Osterday: And we started to realize that over time,
8:40
Kristine Osterday: a lot of us had begun to specialize in types of cases,
8:44
Kristine Osterday: and that was one of the specialties of my court.
8:47
Kristine Osterday: So it was determined that then all of the misdemeanor domestic batteries as well as
8:52
Kristine Osterday: the felony domestic batteries would be filed in my court.
8:55
Kristine Osterday: It's not for the faint of heart.
8:58
Kristine Osterday: But I mean, take this for what it's worth, I love it.
9:02
Kristine Osterday: I'm very passionate about overseeing that population.
9:05
Kristine Osterday: I consider it to be a great responsibility.
9:08
Rob Brenneman: How can you love that work?
9:10
Kristine Osterday: So I have a sticky note on my bench that says,
9:14
Kristine Osterday: "For every person who comes before you, even those with whom we disagree,
9:19
Kristine Osterday: is a person for whom Christ died."
9:21
Kristine Osterday: And it doesn't matter what they've done, doesn't matter what they say,
9:26
Kristine Osterday: and I've seen people who've done some terrible things and say some terrible things,
9:31
Kristine Osterday: but everybody's a person for whom Christ has died.
9:34
Kristine Osterday: And I think, you know, you have to take the approach that, you know,
9:40
Kristine Osterday: we're all flawed and fallen human individuals.
9:45
Kristine Osterday: And, I do the best that I can to try to usher somebody through their situation,
9:51
Kristine Osterday: take the appropriate action when I have the discretion to take that appropriate
9:57
Kristine Osterday: action. But I... We're all in the same boat.
10:00
Kristine Osterday: We're all flawed, fallen, sinful human beings.
10:04
Kristine Osterday: And again, I just consider this to be a great responsibility that I've been given to
10:10
Kristine Osterday: do the best that I can to hear somebody, see somebody,
10:13
Kristine Osterday: and try to do the best with the circumstances that are before me.
10:19
Rob Brenneman: Can you give me an example of a case where you had to keep that front and center,
10:25
Rob Brenneman: that sense that this is a person for whom Christ has died,
10:30
Rob Brenneman: at a time where that was a really important thing to keep at the forefront.
10:35
Kristine Osterday: I would say probably, especially with the people that are before me with
10:40
Kristine Osterday: particularly violent offenses, where they are looking at potentially going to prison
10:47
Kristine Osterday: for the rest of their lives.
10:48
Kristine Osterday: So certainly it's something that I do the best that I can to impress upon that
10:53
Kristine Osterday: person, anybody around me that, you know,
10:56
Kristine Osterday: simply because you are going to prison for this amount of time,
10:59
Kristine Osterday: like I don't want that person to lose hope.
11:02
Kristine Osterday: I don't want them to just be thrown away,and you know, neglected.
11:07
Kristine Osterday: It's just... I mean, I can't even imagine the prospect of, you know,
11:10
Kristine Osterday: being sentenced to, you know, decades long in prison where you maybe are never going
11:15
Kristine Osterday: to be able to get out in your lifetime.
11:17
Kristine Osterday: But, you know, again, that being said, you know, I pray that,
11:20
Kristine Osterday: that they still hear the gospel,
11:22
Kristine Osterday: that they still have the opportunity to receive that, that very important, you know,
11:28
Kristine Osterday: ministering that they need to have while they're in prison.
11:31
Kristine Osterday: And it's certainly not something that I take lightly,
11:35
Kristine Osterday: but it's also something that I don't hesitate to do if the parameters are there and
11:39
Kristine Osterday: I believe that it's what's best for the community.
11:42
Rob Brenneman: Can you describe a difficult case, obviously without names or anything like that?
11:48
Rob Brenneman: It's not what we're interested in, but a case that left you wondering,
11:51
Rob Brenneman: at least for a time, what was really the right judgment or sentence in that case?
11:58
Kristine Osterday: Most of the cases that come before me, actually, are resolved by plea agreement.
12:02
Kristine Osterday: So the difficulty for me is, do I accept the plea agreement or do I reject the plea
12:07
Kristine Osterday: agreement? And I remembered fairly early on after becoming a judge,
12:13
Kristine Osterday: where I was presented with a plea agreement,
12:16
Kristine Osterday: and it called for a lengthy prison sentence for a very horrific act.
12:21
Kristine Osterday: It was a husband and wife, and I thought that the plea agreement was pretty lenient
12:26
Kristine Osterday: based upon what I was seeing.
12:27
Kristine Osterday: And I asked questions about, "Okay, help me understand this.
12:32
Kristine Osterday: You know, why is this plea agreement so low?"
12:35
Kristine Osterday: And after I got the information, I just wasn't satisfied that it was appropriate,
12:39
Kristine Osterday: so I rejected the plea agreement.
12:41
Kristine Osterday: So then it went to trial.
12:43
Kristine Osterday: And as I was hearing the facts come out,
12:44
Kristine Osterday: the facts were actually worse than what they had originally been presented,
12:49
Kristine Osterday: and I just thought, "Oh my gosh, you know,
12:52
Kristine Osterday: what happens if there's not a conviction now?"
12:56
Kristine Osterday: And, and that's one extreme.
12:58
Kristine Osterday: On the other hand, I've had situations where I accept a plea agreement where I
13:03
Kristine Osterday: think, you know, this seems to be a little bit harsh,
13:06
Kristine Osterday: and is this the right thing to do?
13:08
Kristine Osterday: So you have those dilemmas on both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between.
13:14
Kristine Osterday: It's... I would say that there are many cases where it can be difficult.
13:18
Rob Brenneman: And you don't always control the outcome,
13:21
Rob Brenneman: not just in the sense of whether if it's a jury case and then it could, you know,
13:26
Rob Brenneman: get a conviction or not, but also you don't control the pleas that are brought
13:31
Rob Brenneman: before you. And so you have to make a judgment as to whether or not this is a good
13:36
Rob Brenneman: enough plea. Is that what you mean?
13:37
Kristine Osterday: Certainly. Yeah.
13:38
Rob Brenneman: Okay.
13:38
Kristine Osterday: I don't, I don't control pleas whatsoever.
13:41
Kristine Osterday: In fact, the rules prohibit that I'm involved in, in plea negotiations.
13:47
Kristine Osterday: So I have very limited information to try to make an informed decision of whether or
13:52
Kristine Osterday: not the plea agreement that I have is appropriate,
13:56
Kristine Osterday: and it's usually the word of the attorneys.
13:59
Kristine Osterday: I trust the attorneys that appear in front of me,
14:01
Kristine Osterday: but I often feel that I'm in the dark,
14:04
Kristine Osterday: and it can be really difficult to make an informed decision.
14:07
Rob Brenneman: Has there ever been a time or a situation that you doubted your legal profession or
14:13
Rob Brenneman: the justice system? And if, … can you describe any time or feeling like that?
14:18
Kristine Osterday: That's a loaded question.
14:20
Kristine Osterday: (Laughs) I mean, the simple answer is yes.
14:25
Kristine Osterday: You know, we are all flawed, imperfect human beings.
14:30
Kristine Osterday: I think in many ways, most of us are trying to do the best that we can with what we
14:34
Kristine Osterday: have. I think that there are a lot of matters that can and should be addressed
14:38
Kristine Osterday: outside of the justice system.
14:40
Kristine Osterday: Um, but because there is no other either resource or group stepping up,
14:46
Kristine Osterday: we are kind of the, central repository for the unwanted,
14:51
Kristine Osterday: and a lot of mental health and health issues in general, um,
14:55
Kristine Osterday: substance use disorders, where people don't have the support systems,
15:01
Kristine Osterday: don't have the treatment that they need and they deserve, and they end up in jail.
15:08
Kristine Osterday: That's really, I think, probably the biggest area that makes me question the whole
15:13
Kristine Osterday: system.
15:23
Rob Brenneman: So within the movement to protect people from domestic violence or what we sometimes
15:29
Rob Brenneman: called intimate partner violence, IPV,
15:32
Rob Brenneman: there are voices arguing that the criminal justice system should be more involved,
15:38
Rob Brenneman: taking a more active role in arresting and prosecuting violators,
15:43
Rob Brenneman: and those who believe that the justice system should be less involved,
15:48
Rob Brenneman: in part because survivors sometimes don't want to be put into the position of having
15:54
Rob Brenneman: to terminate a relationship or send a, a loved one to, to prison.
15:58
Rob Brenneman: Where do you come out on this?
16:01
Rob Brenneman: And do you ever encounter survivors in a complicated relationship to the law?
16:06
Kristine Osterday: Very often.
16:07
Rob Brenneman: Mm.
16:07
Kristine Osterday: It is a complicated situation for everybody involved,
16:12
Kristine Osterday: especially the survivor of the intimate partner violence.
16:15
Kristine Osterday: I'm not sure that I necessarily have an opinion one way or the other whether the
16:19
Kristine Osterday: criminal justice system should be more involved or less involved.
16:23
Kristine Osterday: I think it's important to listen to survivors and try to help them navigate what
16:29
Kristine Osterday: they feel is best for them to thrive, to be safe,
16:33
Kristine Osterday: and also for their children to be safe.
16:36
Kristine Osterday: But I'm also aware of the fact,
16:37
Kristine Osterday: based upon the letters that I receive on a daily basis,
16:41
Kristine Osterday: that there's just so much manipulation involved with intimate partner violence.
16:45
Kristine Osterday: I can give you an example.
16:47
Kristine Osterday: So I had a trial a few months ago,
16:50
Kristine Osterday: and the survivor of the violence was no longer together with the defendant,
16:55
Kristine Osterday: and she had given to the prosecution a letter that the defendant had sent her from
17:00
Kristine Osterday: the jail that was written out, supposed to be from her saying, you know,
17:04
Kristine Osterday: "I want all this dismissed."
17:06
Kristine Osterday: And her job was to sign it and just send it in to me so that I would see this,
17:11
Kristine Osterday: that it was like a dictation of, "Here's, here's what you're saying.
17:15
Kristine Osterday: You just need to sign it and send it in."
17:17
Kristine Osterday: I often tell people that I am less concerned when I have a survivor come in,
17:24
Kristine Osterday: either into court at sentencing or writing me a letter saying, "Look,
17:28
Kristine Osterday: I know this happened. I know it was bad, but, you know, here's some of the reasons."
17:34
Kristine Osterday: And I understand that maybe, you know, it's not going to justify it,
17:37
Kristine Osterday: but I'm actually less concerned in those situations than the majority of the
17:41
Kristine Osterday: situations where I have what I believe to be survivors,
17:45
Kristine Osterday: who will write me a letter or come into court and say, "It never happened.
17:50
Kristine Osterday: The police lied. I lied. I was off my medication.
17:55
Kristine Osterday: I was drunk. I was high, but it never happened."
17:58
Kristine Osterday: And
18:00
Kristine Osterday: that is, I mean, red flags are going off,
18:03
Kristine Osterday: and I'm just so concerned for that person and what's going on.
18:08
Kristine Osterday: So as far as more involved, less involved, um,
18:11
Kristine Osterday: I think we can't lose sight of the children in those situations.
18:16
Kristine Osterday: We're learning more and more about the physiological results of these children being
18:21
Kristine Osterday: subjected to violence on a regular basis.
18:25
Kristine Osterday: It actually affects their brain development.
18:28
Kristine Osterday: They're hyper alert. It just creates so many issues for these families,
18:34
Kristine Osterday: and I think that's a lot of why we can't ignore it.
18:38
Kristine Osterday: I think there's a place for the system.
18:40
Kristine Osterday: I think we need to be involved.
18:42
Kristine Osterday: You know, maybe thinking about how we do things a little bit differently is not a
18:45
Kristine Osterday: bad thing, and I think that collectively,
18:48
Kristine Osterday: maybe we could come up with some better ideas of how to help survivors.
18:52
Kristine Osterday: But I think I'm more concerned by staying less involved.
19:05
Rob Brenneman: Advocates for restorative justice, including Christians,
19:09
Rob Brenneman: contend that because crime hurts, justice should heal.
19:13
Rob Brenneman: In other words, justice should be about more than applying state-mandated sentencing
19:19
Rob Brenneman: guidelines to convicted offenders.
19:22
Rob Brenneman: I'm sure that's not a new thought for you.
19:26
Rob Brenneman: Is there any room for a judge to hand down sentences that heal,
19:29
Rob Brenneman: or is that simply outside your realm?
19:33
Kristine Osterday: Well, what are you trying to heal?
19:35
Kristine Osterday: Are you trying to heal the individual?
19:37
Kristine Osterday: Are you trying to heal the relationship?
19:39
Kristine Osterday: And trust me, I understand the concept of restorative justice,
19:43
Kristine Osterday: and I think that it's critical.
19:45
Kristine Osterday: I think that we need to have those opportunities in the community.
19:50
Kristine Osterday: But what I think is different about intimate partner violence is that that
19:54
Kristine Osterday: particular individual who's the perpetrator of the intimate partner violence needs
20:00
Kristine Osterday: services, needs interventions,
20:03
Kristine Osterday: and there needs to be that protection built around that person,
20:09
Kristine Osterday: and in particular the survivor,
20:11
Kristine Osterday: to ensure that maybe a little bit more of an equal balance of power because until I
20:18
Kristine Osterday: think those services are rendered and there is some change in the perpetrator,
20:24
Kristine Osterday: you have such an imbalance of power and control that I don't think that that's a
20:31
Kristine Osterday: place yet for the restoration to take place.
20:34
Kristine Osterday: Does that make sense?
20:35
Rob Brenneman: Accountability first-
20:36
Kristine Osterday: Absolutely ...
20:37
Rob Brenneman: … and then talk about repairing harm or
20:39
Kristine Osterday: Well, I mean, accountability is part of it, but I think interventions,
20:44
Kristine Osterday: at least the way that I see it, are a little different than the accountability.
20:49
Kristine Osterday: I mean, the way that I look at accountability is there needs to be some punitive
20:54
Kristine Osterday: aspect perhaps, but I'm not even talking about that necessarily.
20:58
Kristine Osterday: I'm talking about,
21:01
Kristine Osterday: you know, interventions, whether it's medication management, whether it's, you know,
21:04
Kristine Osterday: psychological, um, behavioral, whatever that might be.
21:10
Kristine Osterday: Whatever that individual needs to try to determine, you know,
21:15
Kristine Osterday: why is there this imbalance.
21:16
Rob Brenneman: That sounds like... in some ways, that sounds like healing or repairing harm, um,
21:22
Rob Brenneman: especially if there are addictions or habits or customs that are underlying the
21:29
Rob Brenneman: harm.
21:29
Kristine Osterday: Perhaps. But, you know, one of the things that I hear on a regular basis is that,
21:35
Kristine Osterday: you know, "Well, Judge, but for the alcohol,
21:38
Kristine Osterday: but for the methamphetamine this never would have happened."
21:42
Kristine Osterday: Perfectly lovely individuals otherwise, but oops, you add alcohol and they become,
21:48
Kristine Osterday: it's like Jekyll and Hyde.
21:49
Kristine Osterday: I just, I don't buy that.
21:51
Rob Brenneman: Mm-hmm.
21:51
Kristine Osterday: I, I think perhaps for some people that may be true,
21:56
Kristine Osterday: but I think what the research shows is that it lowers the inhibitions to do what
22:01
Kristine Osterday: somebody maybe is inclined to do anyway.
22:04
Kristine Osterday: So, uh, the whole point is getting at the root.
22:07
Kristine Osterday: What is- what is the root that's causing some of this?
22:09
Kristine Osterday: I mean, you know, as believers, I mean, the root is sin.
22:13
Rob Brenneman: But that's not a remedy
22:14
Kristine Osterday: But it's not a…
22:15
Rob Brenneman: -that you can give as a judge, right?
22:17
Kristine Osterday: Exactly.
22:17
Rob Brenneman: So what do you do?
22:19
Kristine Osterday: Oh, yeah, I mean, I... One of the things that I have done over the years,
22:24
Kristine Osterday: and I'm grateful to have had buy-in from the attorneys,
22:28
Kristine Osterday: is that most of the plea agreements that originally would be submitted to the court
22:33
Kristine Osterday: would dictate, like, every single aspect of their case.
22:38
Kristine Osterday: Probation, what kind of programs they were going to do.
22:41
Kristine Osterday: It just didn't make sense to me.
22:43
Kristine Osterday: I'm not a, you know, a certified whatever, um, any type of therapist.
22:48
Kristine Osterday: Like, I have no business assessing and doing...
22:51
Kristine Osterday: Like, ordering this person to particular programming.
22:53
Rob Brenneman: Mm-hmm.
22:54
Kristine Osterday: And neither do you. And the attorneys, after a while,
22:56
Kristine Osterday: started becoming receptive to it because also we had some huge changes with our
23:01
Kristine Osterday: probation department. So, you know, I, I think the individuals who, um,
23:05
Kristine Osterday: have been involved in our probation department,
23:08
Kristine Osterday: also our community corrections departments,
23:10
Kristine Osterday: where they're doing case management plans,
23:12
Kristine Osterday: they're meeting with people and trying to tailor their programming to meet their
23:17
Kristine Osterday: particular needs. Just trying to be a lot smarter and more tailoring the needs for
23:22
Kristine Osterday: our individuals.
23:22
Rob Brenneman: Yeah, let's talk about faith communities in relationship to domestic violence and
23:28
Rob Brenneman: abuse. Have you seen examples of people afraid to come forward because of what their
23:37
Rob Brenneman: faith community might say or think?
23:39
Kristine Osterday: But I know that a lot of faith-based organizations, the default is, well,
23:44
Kristine Osterday: let's try to keep this couple together.
23:47
Rob Brenneman: Yeah. Let's- save the relationship.
23:48
Kristine Osterday: Save the relationship.
23:49
Rob Brenneman: We don't want divorce.
23:50
Kristine Osterday: Exactly. Yes! I did get invited one time to a guest speaker in LaGrange County who
23:56
Kristine Osterday: was speaking to mostly an Amish–
23:58
Rob Brenneman: Mm-hmm
23:59
Kristine Osterday: –that was the audience that was intended,
24:03
Kristine Osterday: and he was very clear about the church harming survivors, by their approach,
24:10
Kristine Osterday: by again, this idea that the focus is on you have to save the relationship,
24:15
Kristine Osterday: you have to save the marriage.
24:16
Rob Brenneman: Mm-hmm.
24:16
Kristine Osterday: And kind of either ignoring or not seeing some of the other issues.
24:22
Rob Brenneman: Choosing not to see or encouraging people not to report–
24:26
Kristine Osterday: Exactly …
24:26
Rob Brenneman: – in some ways because that's a violation of a larger, or,
24:30
Rob Brenneman: or what is thought to be a larger good, um,
24:33
Rob Brenneman: preserving a relationship or preserving a family.
24:37
Kristine Osterday: Yes.
24:37
Rob Brenneman: And I would wager that's not just a problem within the Amish community.
24:42
Kristine Osterday: It is not.
24:43
Rob Brenneman: Given what you've seen, are Christian faith communities doing what they need to be
24:48
Rob Brenneman: doing to reduce domestic violence and intimate partner violence or,
24:53
Rob Brenneman: or do we have our heads in the sand?
24:55
Kristine Osterday: I would say that they have their heads in the sand.
24:58
Rob Brenneman: Mm. How do you know?
25:01
Kristine Osterday: I mean, I can only speak anecdotally.
25:03
Kristine Osterday: I don't know how most churches are generally.
25:07
Kristine Osterday: I feel that I'm regularly telling people in court,
25:10
Kristine Osterday: "I'm really glad to hear that you're going through marriage counseling at your
25:13
Kristine Osterday: church. That's great, maybe."
25:15
Kristine Osterday: You know? but however, um, you're the one
25:21
Kristine Osterday: who's in front of me, and you're the one who's going to do the programming,
25:25
Kristine Osterday: not her or him, you, and if you don't do it, then we are going to have a problem.
25:32
Rob Brenneman: (laugh) okay. So I read in a brand-new report that came out from, um,
25:37
Rob Brenneman: the FBI's Uniform Crime Report looking at the last five years of data on domestic
25:44
Rob Brenneman: violence, and they report that 31% of all aggravated assaults were domestic in
25:52
Rob Brenneman: nature. That's a huge proportion of the aggravated assaults happening in this
25:57
Rob Brenneman: country. If you had a magic wand,
25:59
Rob Brenneman: something that you could do to try to bring that down...
26:03
Rob Brenneman: oh and by the way, that proportion went up slightly over the past five years.
26:07
Rob Brenneman: If you could do anything, you had the money or the political power and will to bring
26:14
Rob Brenneman: it to happen, what would you do?
26:17
Kristine Osterday: Boy, I mean, a lot of it's going to be money because the money's going to fund the
26:23
Kristine Osterday: centers, the therapists, the just the all-around wrap,
26:28
Kristine Osterday: wraparound support where somebody truly felt that they had somebody that they could
26:33
Kristine Osterday: go to and really get help.
26:35
Kristine Osterday: You know, we have shelters, and they're wonderful,
26:37
Kristine Osterday: and we're so grateful to have them, but again, it's...
26:40
Kristine Osterday: there's such a stigma attached to that, and it's also temporary,
26:46
Kristine Osterday: and it's kinda depressing.
26:48
Kristine Osterday: But a lot of that, too, comes down to your family.
26:52
Kristine Osterday: If you're getting pushback from your family about, you know, either, "I told you so,
26:56
Kristine Osterday: I told you not to do this," or, um, you know, "Why are you leaving?"
26:59
Kristine Osterday: You know, "What are you gonna do to your family?"
27:01
Kristine Osterday: I mean, more realistically, money to support a truly,
27:06
Kristine Osterday: a true safe space for somebody that they truly feel that they are safe,
27:10
Kristine Osterday: and they have some reassurance of that.
27:14
Kristine Osterday: I would also say that people don't know what they don't know, and I think,
27:19
Kristine Osterday: especially, women have been conditioned to not trust their intuition and their gut.
27:27
Kristine Osterday: I think that well-meaning people sometimes make them feel as though they're
27:32
Kristine Osterday: overreacting. They are misreading a situation, and it puts them
27:40
Kristine Osterday: in danger. I've seen it many times.
27:44
Rob Brenneman: There are people who believe that the US judicial system should look more overtly
27:50
Rob Brenneman: Judeo-Christian. For example, some want the courts to display the Ten Commandments
27:55
Rob Brenneman: publicly. Others think that there should be prayer in court.
28:00
Rob Brenneman: And others think that such displays are dishonest, distracting,
28:05
Rob Brenneman: or in violation of the religious clause of the First Amendment.
28:09
Rob Brenneman: Where do you come out on this question?
28:11
Kristine Osterday: First of all, I love this question.
28:13
Kristine Osterday: I think it's awesome. I think the people who want the Ten Commandments in court are
28:17
Kristine Osterday: the ones to let those people know, uh, that the law is applied to them.
28:23
Kristine Osterday: Anybody who loves the law, they love it because they think it applies to those
28:28
Kristine Osterday: people, not them.
28:29
Rob Brenneman: (Laugh)
28:29
Kristine Osterday: And I'm, I'm trying to be respectful here.
28:33
Kristine Osterday: As a Christian, I believe that God, you know, the Ten Commandments, was for good.
28:39
Kristine Osterday: But I also know there is no way that I cannot uphold,
28:44
Kristine Osterday: like there's no way that I can uphold that.
28:46
Kristine Osterday: Just like the law that's written by our legislature, I mean, granted,
28:50
Kristine Osterday: I don't think that I, you know, can break that law, you know, by thought, word,
28:54
Kristine Osterday: and deed, but I, I, have a little bit of a lead foot.
28:58
Rob Brenneman: (laugh).
28:59
Kristine Osterday: … I'm sure that there are things that I do that maybe I don't know about where I'm
29:02
Kristine Osterday: breaking the law. Again, I think the reason that people push that is it's like a
29:07
Kristine Osterday: superiority thing.
29:08
Rob Brenneman: They imagine that, that those laws really, they're abiding by them,
29:13
Rob Brenneman: and they are going to put other people in their place.
29:16
Kristine Osterday: You said it much better than I did.
29:18
Kristine Osterday: But, absolutely. I think that there's a place for the Ten Commandments.
29:22
Kristine Osterday: I don't think it's displayed in the courthouse unless, you know,
29:25
Kristine Osterday: if you wanna have other historical things, that's fine, but what's the point?
29:29
Kristine Osterday: Why are you wanting to display it?
29:31
Kristine Osterday: Again, you know, try to air your own superiority and how inferior everybody is to
29:36
Kristine Osterday: you? I don't like it. At all.
29:38
Rob Brenneman: Okay. So related to this question,
29:41
Rob Brenneman: does your faith shape the way you approach the bench,
29:44
Rob Brenneman: or do you try to keep the two separate?
29:46
Kristine Osterday: No, I, I think that it does absolutely approach the way or affect the way that I
29:50
Kristine Osterday: approach the bench. You know, grace and mercy I think are at the forefront of how I
29:56
Kristine Osterday: think about things. The people in front of me may not always feel that way,
30:02
Kristine Osterday: but that's kinda where I start, you know, erring on the side of grace and mercy.
30:06
Kristine Osterday: Um, I mean, I still remember about when I started practicing and some of the judges
30:12
Kristine Osterday: that I would appear in front of and,you know,
30:15
Kristine Osterday: like practically wagging their finger or actually, you know,
30:18
Kristine Osterday: maybe literally wagging their finger at defendants and, you know,
30:20
Kristine Osterday: talking about like, you know, "You better not mess up," like,
30:23
Kristine Osterday: "I better not ever see you again," and just the damning feel of that.
30:28
Rob Brenneman: Mm
30:29
Kristine Osterday: And the way that I approach things,
30:33
Kristine Osterday: and there needs to be accountability,
30:35
Kristine Osterday: and trying to figure out what that accountability looks like is different in every
30:40
Kristine Osterday: situation. And what I often tell people is that, you know, you're not perfect.
30:45
Kristine Osterday: I'm not perfect. There's no, like there's no way that I can hold you to the standard
30:50
Kristine Osterday: of perfection, but what I do expect is that you're
30:55
Kristine Osterday: going to, you know, do X, Y, Z or whatever that is, but you're going to own up to,
30:59
Kristine Osterday: like make a mistake, you, you know, you test positive on a drug screen, admit it.
31:05
Kristine Osterday: Go get the assessment. Work through it.
31:07
Kristine Osterday: I can work with you. But don't lie about it.
31:10
Rob Brenneman: Mm-hmm.
31:10
Kristine Osterday: So I think that extending grace and mercy for people who screw up is important
31:18
Kristine Osterday: because we all screw up, and we all deserve that benefit.
31:24
Rob Brenneman: Is there anything that you'd like to discuss?
31:27
Kristine Osterday: I would just say that, again, the justice system is necessary.
31:32
Kristine Osterday: I believe that it's necessary, but I also believe that it's a work in progress,
31:36
Kristine Osterday: and that the justice system is only one component of how to handle these very
31:43
Kristine Osterday: complex situations and, you know, topics that we're talking about.
31:48
Kristine Osterday: When I've had the opportunity to talk about intimate partner violence,
31:51
Kristine Osterday: I talk about how it's not just a criminal justice issue.
31:54
Kristine Osterday: It's a community issue. But I think it's also important that we collaborate,
32:01
Kristine Osterday: and we're all in our silos, and we're all handling different aspects of some of
32:08
Kristine Osterday: these issues. I think that within the justice system,
32:12
Kristine Osterday: we have insight that we can offer our community partners to assist us because I
32:21
Kristine Osterday: think ideally, the goal would be to try to prevent people from coming to the system
32:27
Kristine Osterday: in the first place or providing that support for them when they come out of the
32:31
Kristine Osterday: system. You know, again, when I talk about the judge who is like,
32:35
Kristine Osterday: “I never wanna see you again”.
32:37
Kristine Osterday: You're banned from society?
32:39
Kristine Osterday: Like, what, what does that mean?
32:41
Kristine Osterday: And I find myself telling people, "Okay, I don't wanna see you in here again.
32:45
Kristine Osterday: I wanna see you when I'm at the grocery store.
32:47
Kristine Osterday: I wanna see you when I'm at the park.
32:49
Kristine Osterday: I wanna see you at the library with your kids."
32:51
Kristine Osterday: That so many, It's like they've been cast out of society,
32:53
Kristine Osterday: and they live in the shadows.
32:55
Kristine Osterday: And at one point, at what point are we going to try to bring them back into the
32:59
Kristine Osterday: fold, either again or for the first time?
33:03
Kristine Osterday: So, it's going to take all of us,
33:06
Kristine Osterday: and I think we get a lot of grief in the criminal justice system about,
33:12
Kristine Osterday: why are you doing this, and why aren't you doing that?
33:14
Kristine Osterday: And some of it is totally fair,
33:16
Kristine Osterday: and none of us are immune from that type of criticism.
33:21
Kristine Osterday: But, you know, we're kind of the last end on the line.
33:25
Kristine Osterday: We need people in the community to help us to support us because without that,
33:34
Kristine Osterday: we're, we’re Sisyphus, pushing that rock up the hill and, you know,
33:38
Kristine Osterday: getting run over by it.
33:40
Rob Brenneman: Well.
33:48
Rob Brenneman: Thank you, Judge Osterday.
33:49
Rob Brenneman: I appreciate the work that you're doing,
33:51
Rob Brenneman: the service you're doing for this community,
33:54
Rob Brenneman: and I know that it can't always be uplifting and yet is deeply necessary.
34:01
Rob Brenneman: Um, thanks for that work, and thanks for coming into our studio today.
34:05
Kristine Osterday: Thank you for having me.
34:08
Rob Brenneman: Just Stories is a collaboration of the Religion, Justice,
34:12
Rob Brenneman: and Society Department and the Communications Department and at Goshen College in
34:15
Rob Brenneman: Goshen, Indiana, with funding from the Lilly Endowment.
34:19
Rob Brenneman: I'm your host today, Rob Brenneman.
34:22
Rob Brenneman: Today’s guest is the Honorable Kristine Osterday of Elkhart
34:28
Rob Brenneman: County Superior Court. Next time on Just Stories,
34:31
Rob Brenneman: an early architect of the restorative justice movement in the US on what justice
34:36
Rob Brenneman: really means. Stay tuned.
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