A Judge’s Tale: A Trailblazer Fights for Her Place on the Bench by Janet Kintner, EXCERPT

A Judge’s Tale: A Trailblazer Fights for Her Place on the Bench by Janet Kintner

For fans of The Good Wife and Suits, the true story of a passionately principled young female judge in the man’s world of the ’60s and ’70s who is forced to defend her judgeship against two male challengers in a grueling election—while pregnant with her second child.

Janet Kintner could have ended up just another victim of the system. After a traumatic childhood, and being sexually assaulted as a young woman, the odds were not in her favor—but instead of letting these experiences destroy her, she used them as fuel in pursuit of her dreams. By twenty-four, she was a newly minted lawyer determined to secure justice for everyone, regardless of their gender, race, religion, or income.

In 1968, the District Attorney’s office told Kintner, “We will not hire a woman lawyer.” Men dominated the legal system. Undaunted, she established herself as a lawyer who represented low-income people and, eventually, as a high-profile prosecutor specializing in consumer fraud. San Diego lawyers elected her the third woman ever to the County Bar Association Board of Directors. In her private practice, she continued to help everyone she could, often pro bono.

In 1976, when Kintner was thirty-one and pregnant, Governor Jerry Brown appointed her the third female judge in history in San Diego—a move that didn’t sit well with some men in her field. Two years later, two men challenged Kintner, a mother pregnant with her second baby, in the nastiest judicial election of the year. In the coming months, Kintner struggled to balance her time between her children, working full-time in a stressful job, and campaigning. She didn’t want to let other women, present and future, down. But was San Diego ready to elect a female judge?

EXCERPT

(Note: this excerpt has been edited slightly from the original)

Terror in the Night

Late that night lying alone in my bed in my inexpensive studio apartment, I suddenly realized who that intruder was two nights before. Catching my breath, I called Detective Trenton. 

 “I know who my attacker is. He lives in this building.”

 “I thought you’d remember him eventually.” I described him and where he lived.

I was petrified at the thought of the man who broke into my apartment and sexually attacked me. It was dark but I had seen his outline including the short curly hair and heard his distinctive voice and accent, like I told the police that night. I never really met him, but I now realized I had seen and heard him at the pool which was surrounded by our small apartment building. Now that I knew this was the man, I felt I had to move out of the building right away. I nearly panicked. I was twenty-two in 1966 and I wasn’t sure how to handle this.

The next morning I rushed to see my apartment manager, “I must move. I can’t stay here after that man broke in. So I can’t give you thirty days’ notice. I need to get out of here now!” I wanted him to agree because, otherwise, I couldn’t afford to move. I couldn’t bear to live in the same apartment building with my attacker.

 “You have to give me thirty days’ notice. That’s in the contract.”

 “You saw the way he broke the screen to get in. There’s no stopping him. He molested me in the middle of the night. He could come back any time. I’m too scared to stay here.” I was adamant; he eventually relented. Fortunately, I found another apartment right away. 

Ron, a sturdy, young lawyer in my office who had befriended me said, “I have a car. Do you want me to help you move?” I really appreciated that, not just for the help moving, but also because I was afraid that I would run into my molester. While we were moving my clothes, bathroom supplies, and food, I tried to stay near Ron. But at one point, I was alone carrying my clothes out to his car, and my attacker came up to me, looking furious.

He angrily screamed, “You know you got me into a lot of trouble!”

I stopped breathing. He looked like he was going to hit me. I saw Ron about fifty feet away.

 I desperately called loudly, “Ron, I need you!”

Ron strode over, talked to the man, and kept him from following me. I was relieved to be out of that apartment. Part of me wished I could just sit down and cry and have someone take care of me. That wasn’t going to happen. I had to take care of myself. I sucked it up and unpacked alone in my new place. I don’t remember crying. I hardly ever cried. But I did get angry.

 Detective Trenton said, “The man is divorced. He recently moved here from out of town and works for the phone company, installing phones in people’s homes.” Oh no. I was immediately worried for the women in those homes. “There’s something else about him that makes me think he’s our man, but I can’t get into that. We need more evidence. I’m trying to get him to confess, but I haven’t had any luck so far. My boss wants us to do a voice lineup where you pick out the voice of the burglar.”  So, I went to the police station. When I was dealing with the police in Phoenix that summer, every officer I saw and dealt with was a man. I felt like I was in a man’s world.

 I was in a separate room with one officer, and I couldn’t see anyone. I just heard the different male voices. “I think you’re beautiful. I want to touch you.” The same words the intruder spoke when I woke up while he was molesting me. They had at least five men saying it; number four was the voice I thought was him, and number two was somebody who sounded like he was trying to imitate his voice and accent. When I heard the intruder’s voice again, it was like a sharp weapon was forced into my gut. And when I heard those same words, it felt like the weapon was twisted. I didn’t want to relive that night, but there was no way to avoid it. I looked at the officer in the room, fighting off fear. “Are you sure he can’t see me?”

 “I’m sure.”

I wanted to be really careful, so I said, “I’d like to hear Numbers two and four again just to be sure.” They repeated it, and I picked out number four, the intruder. I felt wonderfully relieved and satisfied; I had done my duty. Now they could prosecute this dangerous man, put him in jail, and make sure he never did this horrid thing to anybody else.

But Trenton said to me, “Because you asked those two to repeat it before you identified him, my superior said it was weak, and we have to let him go.”

What? Who made up this rule? That didn’t seem right to me. “Why didn’t you tell me beforehand if I asked anyone to repeat, it wouldn’t count?” I was shaking like a leaf in the wind. I felt like a total failure.

After a while, I was able to accept this by telling myself that I should rely on the police to make that decision. Perhaps I was too personally involved to be the one to decide if he should be prosecuted.

 “I believe he’s the one,” Trenton said, “and the good news is he will not be going into people’s homes anymore for the phone company.”

 “That’s good,” I said, truly relieved.

“This may not be that bad for you. It can be very unpleasant to testify as the victim in a sex offense crime like this.”

That made me wonder. It was 1966, and that’s how it was then. When I talked to the staff at the law firm where I worked, I heard similar things.

Ron said, “Having to testify in a trial with charges like this could be very unpleasant. So at least you’re spared that.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The defense lawyer often tries to blame it on the victim and says you’re a loose woman, or you caused him to do it, and you liked it. And when it’s sex-involved, it can get pretty nasty.”

Tom, another lawyer standing nearby, agreed. “They can ask about all of your entire sexual history, like any man you ever had sex with.”

“That sounds like victimizing women all over again,” I said.

“And they can force you to be examined by a psychiatrist and use that against you to attack your credibility.”

 Tom said, “There is a jury instruction in many states, even in California, which is supposed to be progressive, that says charges of sex offenses are easily made and difficult to disprove, so you should look at the victim’s testimony with caution.”

 “Right,” Ron said. “In effect, that’s saying the victim can easily be making this up and it’s hard for an innocent defendant to disprove, so be suspicious of the victim. There is no instruction like that for any other crime—not burglary, violence, theft, or robbery. Just for sex offenses.”

 “Just sex offenses where the victim is almost always a woman. Wow, that sounds terrible. I guess maybe I should be grateful,” I said.

 But it seemed horribly wrong to me that we had a system of justice where a woman should be grateful they are not prosecuting a man who broke into her home and sexually assaulted her. Who created such a system? Oh, that’s right. In 1966, it was a system created by and run almost entirely by men. By allowing men to dominate an institution like the courts—and the whole criminal justice system—we ended up with rules that unfairly favored men, usually the defendants, over the female victims in sex cases.

As I mulled it over in my mind, I repeatedly questioned why the system did not prosecute this man I was convinced was guilty of the crime. The fact that the intruder was free worried me constantly. I was afraid he would come find me. I looked around cautiously as I left our office building. When I left my apartment and walked across the street to get groceries, I looked in all directions to see if he was there. I tried to look in the cars driving by to see if he was in one of them. Could that be him in that white Chevy passing by slowly? 

I called my mother 130 miles away a few days later and, with a mother’s intuition, she asked, “Are you sure you’re alright?”  

I didn’t want to worry her. I insisted, “I’m fine.” 

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JANET KINTNER grew up as a small child in Fairborn, Ohio, then moved to Tucson, Arizona. She was an early female trial lawyer in the 1960s and 1970s in San Diego. At 31 years of age and while pregnant, she was appointed a judge, only the third woman in San Diego to receive that honor. She supported new legal organizations dedicated to promoting equality for women. Kintner taught judges all over the U.S. and Canada. Now she is devoting herself to writing, as well as being the mother of three grown children and four “perfect” grandchildren. A JUDGE’S TALE is her first book.  She lives with her second husband, a Canadian, part-time in Victoria, Canada, but mostly in San Diego, California. Learn more at Janet Kintner – Home and Facebook – Janet Kintner Author

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