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By B John Burns
May 7, 2010
I was no more than six or seven years old and living in Massachusetts when an uncle sat me down and told me a story:
“Sister Janice was teaching her second-grade class. She began asking her pupils what they wanted to be when they grew up. Not surprisingly, most of the kids’ aspirations matched the career paths of their parents.
“‘Paulie, what do you want to be when you grow up?’
“‘I’m going to be a pharmacist.’
“‘And Mikey, what are you going to be?’
“‘I’m going to be a mail man.’
“Sister Janice then turned her attention to Sandy, a quiet girl who was seven going on twenty.
“‘And Sandy, what do you want to do when you grow up?’
“Sandy looked Sister Janice in the eye, and spit out her answer.
“‘A prostitute.’
“Hearing that, Sister Janice turned beet red and passed out cold, collapsing on the floor like a downed redwood. Sister Cornelius, the principal, and a half dozen other penquins rushed in to revive her. It was probably ten minutes before she was back. Her eyes flickered open, and then focused on Sandy, who was standing right at her side.
“‘Sandy, what did you tell me you were going to be when you grow up?’
“‘A prostitute,’ Sandy repeated defiantly.
“‘Oh, glory be,’ Sister Janice bellowed cheerfully. ‘I thought you said you were going to be a PROTESTANT!!’”
That was my uncle’s story, and that was the world I started out my life in. I kind of understood the joke. I had heard about something called Protestants, but I wasn’t exactly sure what they were. Every Saturday morning in Catechism, which I attended with all my peers, there was instruction about Protestants. You should be nice to them. You should be nice to everybody. But don’t get too close to them, because they’re not going to Heaven. I accepted that, especially because, growing up where I grew up, there were no Protestants.
All of that stuff stopped a year later, when we moved to Iowa, and I filed it away and forgot about it.
Then, a quarter century later, I entered what we like to call The Profession, and it all came back to me. I had heard wrong what my uncle and the Catechism teachers had told me, I concluded, or had simply remembered it wrong. Those molding influences were talking about PROSECUTORS. THAT makes sense. Of course Sister Janice is going to pass out cold when she hears that one of her little darlings is going to do THAT when she grows up. And, as upsetting as it may be to a few of us who have some wild fetish and end up dating and even marrying prosecutors, you really SHOULDN’T get too close to them, because they’re NOT going to Heaven.
I had it all figured out.
Now, another quarter century has passed and I’m confused again. The lessons of my early childhood may be about prosecutors, or they may be about Protestants, or they may be about both. I don’t know.
What got me thinking about this were two things. First, I read an interesting observation earlier in the week that, with Justice Stevens’ retirement from the Supreme Court, the Court, for the first time in its history, will have no Protestant justices (unless President Obama appoints a Protestant to the seat). Six of the remaining justices are Catholic, and two are Jewish.
What also interests me about that, as they always do, are the comments posted on the internet by the brain trust who join the “conversation” after a news story is posted. One of them smugly mocked the math used by the writer of the story. “If you include Justice Stevens,” the writer calculated, “that comes to ten. There are only nine justices on the Supreme Court.” I pondered that one for about fifteen minutes. Another comment suggested that the religious balance on the Court was the product of all the years of having Republican presidents. That also baffled me. I don’t recall any Republican presidents who were Catholic or Jewish. All the Supreme Court appointees of our one Catholic president have since passed on to their eternal reward.
The other thing that helped dredge up those formative memories was Mary Tabor. I know a lot of you were expecting me to say bad things last Wednesday (my birthday, by the way – Thanks to everyone for remembering) when Governor Culver appointed Mary Tabor to fill retiring Judge Robert Mahan’s seat on the Iowa Court of Appeals. And it didn’t happen. I’m sure if you did a word search of my blog going back to its inception, you’ll find a few “humorous” comments about Mary Tabor. But that’s my nature.
Mary Tabor is a prosecutor.
Truth be told, I was actually pleased to see Mary, or at least someone in her position, earn a seat on an appellate court. Mary joined the criminal appeals division of the Iowa Attorney General in 1993, a few months before I left the Appellate Defender. She has been the chief of the division since 1999.
Having been on the other side of the aisle from AG lawyers for about nine years, my impression of the office is that they are fair, congenial, intelligent and respectful. I can’t say they don’t take some bonehead positions from time to time, but that’s THEIR nature. They’re prosecutors.
It’s right for the Governor to appoint someone in her position to an appellate court. A seat on the appellate bench is a nice reward for a career trial judge, but appellate practice is a whole different species of animal. Mary Tabor has 17 years of appellate practice. She understands the process and the role of an appellate judge.
“Wouldn’t it be better,” you ask, “ if we’re going to move an appellate attorney on to the bench, to name a defense attorney rather than a PROSECUTOR?”
I’m not sure. We’ve seen what happens to some defense attorneys when they put on the black robes (I’m not naming any names). On the other hand, I can think of a number of former prosecutors who became very fair and progressive judges. Ray Fenton. Denver Dillard. Dick Schlegel. You just never know what a person is going to turn into when you put the HON in front of their name.
I’ve actually gotten to know Mary Tabor a little in recent years. We are both members of the Blackstone Inn of Court in Des Moines. I know her. I’m nice to her. But we’re not TOO close.
My catechism teacher would approve.
Not Sister Janice.
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