A judge who knocked ‘em out of the park

ROBERT GARDNER

I forgot to look, but I’m presuming that we passed the initiative

seeking to clean up the books by eliminating the term “municipal

court” since we no longer have such things.

They have gone the way of the old Justice of the Peace courts,

which we jettisoned in 1954 in the name of judicial reform. The

Justice of the Peace courts were usually manned by laymen, which was

the reason given for getting rid of them. We needed a court system

manned entirely by lawyers.

Well, my experience was that a justice of the peace could run a

very efficient court. C.C. “Gavvy” Cravath, Justice of the Peace of

Laguna Beach Township, was a perfect example of this. He came to the

bench not from an Ivy League law school but from organized baseball.

He was baseball’s first home run king, his record broken by none

other than Babe Ruth.

Gavvy was a player of original tactics. One day he was caught

between first and second base. The first and second basemen were

tossing the ball back and forth as they closed in on Gavvy. Just as

he was about to be tagged out, Gavvy jumped up, grabbed the ball and

tossed it into the stands, after which he trotted home. A new

baseball rule was immediately passed outlawing such a practice, and

that was as much experience with rulings that Gavvy had before

becoming a JP.

Gavvy was fair, honest and firm, with a well-honed sense of right

and wrong -- good qualities for a judge whether layman or lawyer.

However, it must be admitted that he had a lofty disdain for some of

the more delicate niceties of the law.

One day, I was sitting in his office when a man rushed in, one of

the more obnoxious people in Laguna Beach. I will call him Mr. Jones.

Mr. Jones: “Judge Cravath, I want to file a criminal complaint

against Mr. Smith.”

Gavvy (not looking up): “Charging Mr. Smith with what?”

Mr. Jones: “Disturbing the peace.”

Gavvy (still not looking up): “Why?”

Mr. Jones: “Because he called me a son of a [expletive].”

Gavvy: (head still down): “You are.”

End of prospective lawsuit.

Another time, he had the police bring in Pete, the town drunk.

“Pete,” he said, you’re going up to Santa Ana to jail for a while to

dry up.”

Pete, no stranger to court proceedings, said, “But, Gavvy, I ain’t

even been arraigned yet.”

“Now look here, Pete,” Gavvy said as he scribbled on a piece of

paper. “I know you were drunk, you know you were drunk, and we aren’t

going to waste any of the taxpayers’ money on this. You’re going to

county jail.” He handed Pete the piece of paper. “This is your

commitment. It says right here that you were arraigned, advised of

your constitutional rights, pleaded guilty to being drunk in public

and were committed to the county jail for seven days. Any argument?”

Pete looked glumly at Gavvy, then took the paper and went off to

jail, and that was justice, Gavvy Cravath style.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge.

His column runs Tuesdays.