Her Honor by LaDoris Hazzard Cordell

 

In 1982, Governor Jerry Brown named LaDoris Hazzard Cordell to be a judge on the Municipal Bench.  Cordell remembers her first ever case.  It was a small claims case and the participants were both African American women as was she.  The case concerned a claim of nonpayment for service by the plaintiff and the defendant claimed that the service, braids, was done sloppily and didn't deserve payment.  Judge Cordell had the women come forward and she checked the integrity of the braids herself.  Finding them lacking, she awarded the plaintiff a reduced amount and both women left satisfied. 

In 1988, Judge Cordell won election to the Superior Court and served there until 2001, rotating through a variety of assignments.  She discusses such topics as juvenile cases, marriage, divorce, custody, adoption and name changes.  She discusses juries and their decisions,  The judicial election process is discussed along with judicial misconduct and disagreements with rulings, which sometimes rise to the level of attempts to recall judges.  She discusses her time with rulings on mental cases, usually middle-aged women petitioning against involuntary confinement, or being forced into shock treatments or drugs with massive side effects.  Cordell talks about the three strike rule, it's disportionate effect on minority defendants and the whole plea bargain process which allows the courts to get through their huge caseload but often means innocent people plead guilty.  Cordell ends the book with suggestions on how the judicial system can be reformed.

I listened to this book and the narrator was Cordell herself.  Her voice was the voice one would think of as a judge's; dispassionate, calm and logical.  One of Cordell's main points was the effect that her appointment as a minority woman had on the defendants who were amazed to see her there and given hope that someone like them was overseeing the process.  The cases she uses throughout are fascinating and the reader will gain more understanding of the judicial process than they had starting out.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers, those interested in legal procedures and those interested in the story of a strong African American woman.