Creativity in the Courtroom
Join Kassi Kincaid in a dynamic conversation with Edna Staudt, former Justice of the Peace for Williamson County! Explore Judge Staudt’s unexpected career in the courtroom and discover how she leveraged creativity to make a significant impact.
Transcript:
Kassi Kincaid (00:00):
Welcome to The Edge of Creativity Podcast. I'm your host, Kassi Kincaid, and joined with me today is Judge Edna Staudt. Recently retired from the judicial bench of the Williamson County Texas Justice Court after 28 years of service, founder of Teen Court, certified mediator, and ordained minister, Judge Staudt, thank you so much for being here today.
Judge Edna Staudt (00:25):
Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you.
Kassi Kincaid (00:27):
I am so excited to have you on today's podcast. We have gone back so far. I was in your teen court. And I'm so excited to talk about the judicial system, all your experience, and how that relates to creativity and impact. So let's jump right into it today. Can you share with our listeners where your judicial journey began and how it led to where you are today?
Judge Edna Staudt (00:55):
I think that's a very interesting question to even tell me or ask me where does my professional journey begin when it comes to the judiciary. The judiciary journey for me was actually very short. I had no intention of being a judge. That was not my goal, that was not my intention. I actually got involved in the judiciary because of my involvement in wanting to keep our America safe and free with people with liberty and godly government. And I began to see in our nation a tremendous move away from Godly government people that did not govern according to biblical principles. It was affected me personally in some of the areas of my life and my daughter's life. And I was just, we need good people in office. We want good government, we need godly people in office, if we want godly government, people that are committed to Godly government, people that are committed to the Lord that have that worldview that God comes first.
(01:53):
And so back in 1980 is when I realized that the only thing that was going to happen to get godly government into office was to help put them there. So I began on my life really. It was a God inspired and God ordained thing for me to be involved in the system of putting good people in government. And so that's what I was doing for years. I would help those people that I thought were candidates that would govern in a godly way, whether they be judges or city council or school board, and just helping those people I felt like would govern godly. And around 1993, there was not a candidate for this particular position of Justice of the Peace in Williamson County that I could vote for. And I'm thinking I wouldn't want any of those in government. I had experienced the office of Justice of the Peace in some areas with my family, and I knew that they dealt with families that the Justice of the Peace deals with thousands of people in a year's time as opposed to courts that only deal with the bigger cases we're called the People's Court.
(02:53):
And so we dealt with teenagers and juveniles. We dealt with adults, we dealt with evictions, we dealt with death inquest. That was an area that we served as coroners. And so it was a wide variety of things that you do, but basically you're dealing with a lot of people and I felt like that compassion and justice go together. So my husband and I talked about it and he said, well, we can't find anybody run you run. I said, well, I'll pray about it. So I did. And I had been working in the pro-life community with several different organizations in the area, had done some lobbying, had worked with the pregnancy resource centers. I had worked with some of the school districts in trying to get a better curriculum than what was being exposed at times. And so I did run and I won. And so my judicial journey actually started in 1993.
(03:51):
My husband said, you need to run for this office. And it proved to be a very rewarding thing to do so, but sometimes God has a way of telling you to do something and you didn't. I laugh sometimes when he tells me you're going to run for office. I went, really? You have a real sense of humor Lord. But I did and I'm very grateful for that. So I think a lot of people, if they would just listen to the Lord speak to them, they would find out God's got something for them that they might have planned, but he knows what he's doing.
Kassi Kincaid (04:21):
Absolutely. So can you describe just a little bit more, you talked kind of your job was a wide array of all kinds of different things because a lot of the time people think justice of the peace. Oh, you marry people. Right. What was that like dealing with all those different cases?
Judge Edna Staudt (04:43):
It is very varied. Very few people understand the wide scope of the Justice of the Peace. We have a civil court and a criminal court. In our criminal court, we deal with class C misdemeanors, which is the smaller or the less serious of all the offenses, but it's still offenses speeding all your traffic, passing, no passing school zone. So you deal with all the traffic offenses and then you deal with assault, you deal with criminal mischief and whether it be juveniles or adults. So you deal with all those offenses. And a lot of people come to the court thinking that I just need to pay my ticket. And a lot of 'em learned that they can argue the ticket. So we have trials have a trial by jury or trial by judge. It's six person jury. So we do trials in the criminal realm.
(05:31):
We also dealt with truancy while it was criminal, it's now civil, but we also dealt to a tremendous degree with the truancy charges that we had at one time. They were in the higher courts, they pushed 'em down to the lower courts. So we started dealing with juveniles in the truancy court, which has opened up a tremendous avenue of social services and things that we needed to do. But we also had a criminal side as far as we did the warrants, we were magistrates. And so when the officers, whether it was the police department or whether it was the sheriff's department or the Department of Public Safety, if they needed a warrant, they would come to my office because it was the closest to their offices and they would ask me to sign a warrant on someone that needed to be arrested. So we also signed warrants and we magistrate at the jail.
(06:18):
If someone was being jailed, we could go over there and magistrate them. That's something that the justices could also do. In addition to their criminal side, we also dealt with the civil side of small claims. So if you had a claim against someone that was, now it's under $20,000, at the time I started, it was like $3,500. If you had a claim against somebody for that amount of money or no more than that, then you could come to small claims court. You wouldn't have to have an attorney. It was an informal court and basically I would mediate or try to come to resolve of the two cases because very seldom would you ever have an attorney on those situations. And I saw cases over the offense that both neighbors agreed to pay for and then one of them said no, or the dog that did damage to your property or the child that ran into your car with her tricycle or the animal that you bought, whether it be an ostrich or a horse or a dog, that when you bought it, you didn't get what you thought you paid for.
(07:16):
Or maybe you have a veterinary bill that you're not paying or maybe a dentist bill you're not paying. The variety of small claims cases were very interesting in what people thought that they should sue over. And so I enjoyed small claims. I saw a lot of resolve on things that could have got worse, that they were resolved at this level. Hopefully everybody felt like they got their time to give their story and their time to speak. All claims was interesting. But we did administrative hearings, which was those people who drive dangerously the state would petition their driver's license to be taken. So we could take driver's license if we felt like they needed to be either suspended or revoked. Another thing that we did that was interesting is administrative hearings on search and seizure on animals or the dangerous dog. If you have a dangerous dog, if you have a dog that's being mistreated.
(08:12):
Many times we have come across a place where ambulance had been either mistreated or neglected or both, and the officers would take custody of those things and then we had to decide who the owner was. Or if you got your car towed and you felt like it was towed illegally, that would come to our court. So there's a wide area of administrative things that came. Peace bonds was another one that came to my go. So you never knew when someone walked up to the window what you were going to deal with. But one of the interesting things that we dealt with to a great degree was the truancy and the juvenile hearings, and that's where I started creating programs. But the last thing that we did that I want to talk about is being a coroner, people don't really understand that in a county where you do not have a medical examiner, then you have the justice of the peace.
(09:00):
And by constitution, we were given that responsibility by the Texas constitution early on in the 1800's to be the one to officiate over a death to determine whether or not it was an accidental death or a suicide or a homicide, or maybe it could not be determined. Whatever. We decided it was our responsibility to certify that death as one of those areas. And that meant that whenever someone died unexpectedly in our county, then the justice of the peace would be called and we could or could not go to the scene. Most of the time we do because it's more efficient and decide work with the police officers or the deputies or whoever's on whatever law enforcement is there, and between their investigation and mine, then we would determine what the cause of death was and what the manner of the death was. And there you get thrown into all kinds of situations.
(09:55):
A lot of people die without being in the hospital. And even some of those that die in the hospital were there because of an accident or because of a suicide attempt or because of some other things that may not have died naturally. And in our county and our hospitals in the ERs, when they die in the ER they very seldom ever will certify death. They'll call the justice of the peace. So we deal with all the hospitals when it comes to those deaths. They ask us to get involved to make sure that this death was not the result of something other than a natural thing. And so that's a big part. You deal with the funeral homes, you deal with the families, you deal with the law enforcement, you deal with the doctors or you deal with the medical, the autopsy provider, the justice of the peace orders an autopsy if we don't know for sure what happened.
(10:42):
And whenever you have a homicide, you usually order an autopsy so that you can confirm how this happened and what happened. And so that takes up a tremendous amount of time. And over the years I was doing close to 30 on my shift in a week. And it's just that bad still today it's a lot. And you do, you're on a call and then when you get off your shift of on call, which at this time it's seven days out of the month every month, four of us, then you go back to the bench and you do all the rest of the things. So it's a very, very time consuming, very busy job, but it's very rewarding because in lots of areas you feel like you're there serving, which that's what public service is serving.
Kassi Kincaid (11:29):
That is so interesting to see all the different sides of it. Oh my word. Most people think that you just sit on the bench all day every day and for court cases and everything, but the job is very in the field. And I mean, when you're talking about that, I was almost thinking of the mystery shows, right? They're trying to figure out who dies and then the detectives and everything. But that's really interesting that if whatever county doesn't have a
Judge Edna Staudt (12:01):
Medical examiner, most all of them do not. Only your large cities like Houston and Dallas, El Paso and Austin, they have a county medical examiner and it's a large operation with a lot of pathologists and labs and things in order to determine how someone died. But all the rest of your 254 counties, most of 'em do not have a medical examiner. We contract with a medical examiner in our area. We don't have to contract with 'em, we just use their services. And so if I ordered an autopsy, I'd either use Travis County and we had a local provider come in and the last several years that was doing a good job and we used their facility as well. But yeah, it was a lot. But
Kassi Kincaid (12:46):
I don't know how you did it, Judge Staudt.
Judge Edna Staudt (12:48):
That's how I tell everybody is that nobody knows the extent that we are on call a lot, even when we're not on call for that seven day shift, that's ours 24/7. We take the whole county when we do that, we take the whole county for seven full days, 24 hours a day, and you don't get a lot of sleep. You don't really get a lot of sleep. But it wasn't not quite as heavy when I first started, but it just got heavier as every year went by because of the number of people in our county. But it's good to be there. It was a storm of ministry for me. The people that were left behind after that death we're always needing love and compassion. And I was glad to be there just to be there, just to let them know I was there for them, pray with them if they wanted me to.
(13:38):
And somehow also follow up with them. A lot of 'em would follow up with me on questions about the death or some of 'em would call just to visit a little bit because I was there. And so there was a great amount of ministry that went forth with the death inquest because that's when people are in need and that's when you can really be there for them, which someone needs to be there for them. And officers have a role and they have to keep their eyes focused on what they're doing. And a lot of them, God bless 'em, they were very compassionate and very sensitive to the needs of those. And then the victim services was created, which we would call volunteers in the community to come out and be with them. A lot of times you had a child that needed to be taken somewhere because there was no adult there and their grandmother, aunt, or somebody was in another city. And so we'd make arrangements to get those two together. And a lot of times that would happen. Of course, you always had a house that you had to deal with on if you had to make sure it was locked up and secure. Sometimes you had hostilities among people because they weren't happy with what's going on and how it was being handled. So it was very interesting, but it's very sad always when someone passes away and it's very sad when it's uncalled for. There's enough traffic accident when someone dies.
Kassi Kincaid (14:58):
Absolutely. So shifting gears just a little bit, I'd love to focus our attention specifically on the creativity part of your career. And you already mentioned that you've seen a lot of different things. Can you share well, and I'm sure people don't think about creativity in the judicial system, right? Can you unpack that a little bit for us?
Judge Edna Staudt (15:23):
I think that's something to me is when I first got elected, it was like, okay, Lord, okay, now I'm in this judicial position and I want to serve you and I want to glorify you. So how am I going to use a courtroom for your glory when I'm taking things from people? I take their money. If they have a fine, I take their house. If they have not paid their rent, they didn't mention earlier that I do evictions. And so if you don't pay your rent or if you violate your lease, then I'm going to tell you you have to leave. So I'm taking their residence. Of course it's not my fault, it's theirs, but still, if a driver's license here, you take their driver's license. How am I going to find glory to God and these situations with these people? So I prayed over my courtroom regularly all the time and off my staff.
(16:10):
And the Lord showed me early on some great creative ways to minister to people. And one of the first ones was with the mentoring program, the students that came before my court, whether they be traffic or an assault or truancy, what I saw with a lot of, especially the truant students, was depression, anger, isolation, loneliness, because a truancy is a sign of something else. And we found out that usually if I would've assigned a mentor to them, then they could help work through or help the child discover what it was that they needed to do or to think in order to accomplish. And so I developed a mentoring program. One of the first programs I had developed, I asked a friend of mine, I said, I had a young man in my court. He needs somebody. He doesn't have a dad. His mother works two or three jobs.
(16:58):
She's never there and he's lonely and he just needs some male companionship, godly companionship. And so he agreed to mentor him, and he just met with him once a week at a mutually agreed upon time and place. The parent had to bring him there and the parent had to pick him up. And it changed this child's life. It made all the difference in the world. He had someone to listen to him, some one of a male figure that talked to him about manly things and he ended up graduating and doing great, but he just was lonely. He needs somebody to talk to him. So we've dealt with that part program started the second year. I was in office practically first year, and we've had hundreds if not thousands of kids go through that program. And mentors too, and kids have graduated from high school. That was one of the goals. Of course, we need you to get back into class and to get your education.
(17:52):
And a lot of times it was a resolve of family issues with the parent realizing that they had some help. A lot of times they got a little bit more understanding of what the needs were and what needed to be done. So we saw a lot of reconciliations between family and we saw kids getting their education. We saw getting them a desire to live and move forward. It's nothing sadder than asking a child, what do you want to do and when you graduate? He said, I'm not going to graduate. I won't live that long or I don't want to live that long. I don't care. I don't want to live anyway. When students say those things to you, you want to do something, you don't just walk away. And so the mentoring program was great because it got somebody in their life immediately just to be there for them to listen.
(18:34):
They're not their teacher, they're not their counselor, they're not their probation officer, their system mentor. It was a great program and it still goes on today. I'm really excited about that program. And the other thing I saw on students was I thought it was kind of depressing to have all these kids that were not motivated, that didn't want to do anything. They didn't know what they wanted to do, insecure. I thought the mentoring program really helps with that as much as possible. I never had enough mentors, but those that we could, I said, but there's some good kids out there too, and I want to help the ones that are motivated, not that the others aren't good, it's just I wanted kids that were motivated and wanted to do something with their lives. And so I thought the teen court would be a great program.
(19:15):
So I created it this second year also. And that was a program where I could teach life skills. I could teach a love of our government, love of our country, love of God, I could teach them the judiciary and why we have the judiciary that we do, why we have the laws that we do. And so that was a great program that I created too. And it still goes on today where we teach kids the actual roles. You were there, I was there. And so you were one of the judges at one time. And we teach all the in as much as we can in the short amount of time that we have. And students have said that it's the best program they had that has helped them college that never could have got up and spoke in college if it hadn't been for teen court, making them get up and argue a case before a jury.
(20:01):
So those skills were just invaluable. And these students have all, a lot of 'em have graduated and they've gone on to do great things, whether it's in their home as being a tremendous homemaker. One of my girls is not a homemaker. She has several properties that she manages in addition to having four or five kids. And then I have the one that those that are attorneys that have one young lady aspiring to be in a president of the United States. There's so many that are aspiring and succeeding in whatever they're doing because they have the confidence in what they're doing. They know that they can do what they want to do if they put the right effort to it and do it with the right motives. And they've learned a lot about people in this job too. The students have learned justice versus mercy. They've learned that people need a second chance that the defendants that they dealt with, because they dealt with real cases, the students that was found guilty of criminal mischief could go to teen court and the teen court would set their sentence.
(21:02):
And then that way the teen, the students in teen court learned a lot of things that were going on and they themselves had to deal with it. Do we do hard? Do we do harsh? What happened? How did it happen? And where should we go in this sentencing level here? And it's very interesting when they saw the student that was really repentant and realized what they did was wrong and determined not to do that again, they were lenient on them. And when they have a student that was hard that might have said they were sorry, but they didn't feel like they meant it and didn't really show any respect to anybody in the courtroom, then they tended to be a little harsher. They felt like they needed to learn, this is not the thing to do. We don't want you to do this anymore. And that works in the justice system too.
(21:45):
Sometimes you have to be harsh in order to get someone to realize, don't do this again. This can only get worse, so don't do it. And if you're lenient, there's a time for mercy is what I'm trying to say. And there's a time for justice. And some of the times that I have given mercy to a student or to a parent or someone, they usually just break down and cry because they don't expect it. They don't expect that because, but sometimes it's deserving. God gives us mercy and sometimes we get justice and just following his leading to know, which. One of the most interesting things was community service hours. Because students and parents alike, sometimes they need community service hours in order to either pay a fine or it's ordered. And with young people, you order the community service done because they don't have the money anyway.
(22:37):
But with adults, sometimes they cannot pay the fine. So it can be converted to community service hours. And so I always had a large repertoire of organizations, there has to be a nonprofit. It's everything from the food bank to Goodwill to the churches, to the funeral homes that had, not the funeral homes, but the cemeteries that need people to mow their yard because a lot of those are nonprofit. And so there's all different ways to meet that community service. But I also, I had talked with those people that were provided those services, and I said, when someone comes in here, especially a juvenile, they have compassion for people. If they didn't, they wouldn't be doing the particular ministry they're doing. They have a heart for the people that need food. They have a heart for the people that need a job. They have a heart for the people that need something in their life.
(23:27):
And so when those volunteers went in there, even though it was community service for them, they were treated with respect and with kindness, and they found out that serving was very satisfying. And a lot of them, after they did their community service, they would go back and volunteer because they experience what it's like to give of yourself. And they found that when you give of yourself, it comes back to you. And so when they gave their service, then they were served back and they found out that they could love the people around 'em and they were loved back. And it was really rewarding to see that happen, especially in areas where it was really needed. Had a child that was very much in need of some motherly love. And so I said, you're going to go to this particular organization because I know a little grandmother that works out there. So I call that little grandmother, and I said, when he comes in and does his community service, he needs you to listen to him and just love on him. And it made all the difference in the world. And that child, she not only saw that child go through high school, graduate and succeed in his life, but she also saw the family, the mother and the grandmother of that young man totally change. And it's amazing what love will do.
Kassi Kincaid (24:44):
It truly is. It truly is. And I love how you have in your career, and still to this day, you are associate judge and serving as mediator and a minister. So although you're not on the bench anymore, your journey and your service, the community still continues. And I love how throughout your whole career you took creativity in those aspects with the kids. How are you going to determine sentencing? All those things and how you seen that make an impact in the community? That's just so profound.
Judge Edna Staudt (25:20):
I learned a long time ago that anywhere you are, no matter what your profession is or what your job is, what you're doing, if you want to use that for the glory of God, you can. It's just a matter of being obedient, just a matter of being creative and saying, God, show me what I can do. I had a saying one time, I don't know if I created myself or I heard it, but challenges in your life are the seeds of success for tomorrow. I just feel like every time you're challenged, somehow you're going to find out that that's going to meet a result in the success because you're going to take the challenge, you're going to work with it. You're going to pray, Lord, what do I do? Just like in what I had did, how do I turn a judicial bench office into something that's good for people, that there was nothing more rewarding than for a defendant who lost in a case to look at me and go, thank you.
(26:09):
I just ruled against you. But I listened and I heard, and he felt like he was treated with respect, and he had an opportunity to put his case on if he didn't do a good enough job, and I didn't agree with him or whatever, but that was always rewarding when they would do that. It didn't always happen. I liked it when it did happen, but I always think that if we look honestly about what we want to do in our life, who do we want to please, then He'll help us find a way to do that. And it can be just as simple as being nice to your neighbor and reaching out to them when they need it. I think we should love our neighbors. That's what we're commanded to do. And sometimes that's what God wants us to do.
Kassi Kincaid (26:52):
Absolutely. It can be as simple as, I think sometimes people make it more complicated, or I'm not at this profession or this profession. And it can be boiled down to even just how you live your life. Just wrapping up today, Judge Staudt, this has been such an awesome time with you today. What would be one final thought you'd like to leave our listeners today?
Judge Edna Staudt (27:14):
I believe that if you persevere in what you want, if you're really working for truth and for love, you'll find a satisfaction in life.
Kassi Kincaid (27:22):
Thank you so much, Judge Staudt. And it's been such an honor to be part of your teen court as a teenager and to now reconnect with you in this way and to hear more about your journey of creativity and impact. So thank you for being here today.
Judge Edna Staudt (27:36):
Oh, you're welcome. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much.
Kassi Kincaid (27:40):
Thanks for joining us for this episode on The Edge of Creativity Podcast. Be sure to follow so you don't miss any of our upcoming conversations. We'll see you next time.
