Columns

This column will be described as un-American.  I expect accusations of being a communist, and anticipate other unprintable attacks.
So be it…

This column will be described as un-American.  I expect accusations of being a communist, and anticipate other unprintable attacks.

So be it…

Now that the football season is well underway, did you know:

Seven football players in their teens died just in August directly or indirectly from football injuries.

The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research has reported that there were 16 deaths of young football players in 2023.

The reaction in the country?  None.  Where are the headlines? Where is the outrage?  How can we accept such a death toll in favor of Friday Night Lights and Saturday and Sunday games?

It is inexplicably and condemnable that we continue to cheer enthusiastically what can only be described as “organized mayhem” on a field.

Don’t take my word for it.  The legendary Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi, observed when someone described football as a contact sport: “Football isn’t a contact sport.  It is a hitting sport.  Dancing is a contact sport.”  Then he added: “Football is a sport for madmen.”

At least Lombardi was candid about the sport.  No, “All sports have risks.  Players learn sportsmanship.  Learn to be a team player.”  I am sure you have heard it all.

Or consider the following from Bob Costas, the former NBC sports announcer now working for Turner Sports. Costas, who I consider the most intellectual and articulate of sports analysts, has characterized football as “inherently violent and unsafe” and “unacceptably brutal.”   

Notice the adjective “unacceptably.” We have not only accepted the unacceptable but we have embraced it enthusiastically.

When, on occasion, I watch a game with my grandchildren, I continually wonder how players get up from the turf following each play after receiving bone-crushing tackles from 300-plus-pound behemoths who bench press 400-500 pounds without breathing hard.

Much is written about making the sport safer by reducing injuries with improved helmets and other equipment, and better training.

But you can’t make the game safe when 22 men -- 11 on a side -- hurl and smash their bodies at each other, sometimes at full speed.  You cannot expect a player, running through the line made up of a ton of muscle, to escape serious consequences, if not immediately, then later in life.

It can never be “safe” when these muscle men are trained to hit opponents as hard as possible to stop a runner or clear a path for their own offensive backfield.

It can’t be made safer, not when one of the major objectives of the game is to cause players to fumble by hammering them as hard as possible, and make him think twice about the next time he has the ball.  From little league to the majors, players are taught to hit and hit harder.

There are special drills that teach players how to inflict “punishment”, and the Internet posts, with admiration, the hardest hits in football history.  They are listed as “must see.”

When a player delivers an especially pulverizing tackle, he often stands above his “victim,” pounding his chest while he receives high-fives from teammates, congratulations from coaches and fans go wild.

Violence is an integral part -- I am tempted to say the primary component -- of the game.  It is the major attraction.  

In January 2023, the country briefly reflected on the dangers of the game when Damar Hamlin, a safety for the Buffalo Bills, suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed during a game. Fortunately, he recovered.

But public concern quickly abated with a quick, uninterrupted return to business-as-usual.

Ultimately, of course, it is a matter of money.  Football is a multi-billion-dollar businesses.

The University of Michigan, for example, earns $75 million from its football program.  It is the third most profitable program in college football.

Jim Harbaugh, U-M’s former football coach, earned a whopping $7.5 million annually while his boss, the U-M president, received an annual salary of just under $1 million.  That tells us whom the university values more.

They exploit the bodies of talented athletes to fill their coffers and increase salaries.  And winning football games does that.

The pros are rewarded with million-dollar contracts and high school players are wooed with generous scholarships.  Of course, the adoration of fans is also an aphrodisiac for the ego.

In many cases, university coaches “bend,” if not break, recruiting rules to attract the best football talent that will assure a winning season -- and greater profits. That’s like getting approval for a patent in industry.

As I wrote in a previous column on this subject, for those who deny that violence is the attraction, I have a recommendation for making the game safe.  

Under my plan you can still enjoy all of football’s athleticism -- the passing, running, catching, kicking, etc. -- but the serious injuries now suffered by players would be dramatically reduced, if not eliminated.

Make it touch football.  When my wife read this column in draft form, she asked: “Are you really going to go public with this?  Think of the family.”  Then I saw her make sure the front door was locked.

In recent years, five states have introduced legislation to ban youth tackle football.  None is expected to pass given intense political pressure from special interest groups.

OK, I am a sour-puss, a kill-joy, a Neanderthal, if not a communist.  

So, let’s talk to the parents of those who died playing football and/or to players, active or retired, who are suffering from dementia, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE, a neurodegenerative brain disease), or are dealing with a variety of serious spinal injuries, mangled knees or are drug addicts given constant use of pain killers.

A friend who knew a very famous retired professional quarterback told me the former player slept strapped on a board at a 45-degree angle, to deal with the unrelenting pain.

I met a man while undergoing rehabilitation myself for some back problems, who could barely walk. Why? He told me he was a retired linebacker for the Green Bay Packers.

Given the reaction I expect, I am wearing sunglasses, a wig, and a fake nose and mustache.


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Berl Falbaum is a long-time political journalist and author of several books.

Election season is upon us. Political signs are on the lawns. Billboards and media ads are everywhere. Candidates crisscross the country making their appeals and attacking each other.

JJ Conway
J.J. Conway Law

Election season is upon us. Political signs are on the lawns. Billboards and media ads are everywhere. Candidates crisscross the country making their appeals and attacking each other. This year, like all election years, has seen ideas tossed out to the public for consideration. Paid medical leave. Paid childcare benefits. IVF treatments at no cost.

If any of these campaign ideas were to come into legal existence, how will it happen? Well, a good place to look is the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, or ERISA.

When ERISA is cited in legal briefs and opinions, it is often followed by the words “as amended.” This is a kind of unique wording among benefits practitioners since other cited statutes often don’t reference their amendments. Those two words – as amended – cover a lot of ground. In fact, the amendments to the ERISA statute are seemingly outpacing its original provisions.

ERISA was enacted to protect pensions. As a statute that federalized the law of benefits for the private sector, it followed that ERISA’s regulatory reach would eventually cover all benefit plan offerings, healthcare, disability, life insurance, and the like. With that framework in place, amendments to the act could follow and the law’s reach could be expanded.

As an example of this, ERISA served as the foundational statute allowing for the implementation of COBRA benefits to be provided. The word “COBRA” has nothing to do with healthcare coverage. The law, itself, was a budget act, i.e., the Consolidated Omnibus Budget and Reconciliation Act of 1986. But the continuation of health coverage and the penalties that were used to enforce that right appeared as an amendment to the ERISA statute. The national reach of the law was such that during

the Reagan Administration, COBRA could be enacted to cover group health plans and prevent the loss of health insurance following a job loss. Failing to follow COBRA subjected employers to penalties that were enforced under ERISA’s Section 502(c), 29 U.S.C. 1132(c).  Such COBRA penalties were to be established by the U.S. Department of Labor and would rise over time consistent with the Consumer Price Index.

Similarly, the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 - which itself did not create a private right of action for those it was meant to help - was made enforceable through another amendment to ERISA. When the law was updated and revised in 2008 to set forth greater protections for substance abuse treatment, among other things, ERISA was amended, again, through the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act – which is perhaps the most dramatic amendment to ERISA’s statutory provisions since the passage of the law itself– again omitted a private right of action but allowed for its enforcement through ERISA’s statutory provisions. The ACA also transformed the offering of healthcare benefits to employees from being a discretionary act by an employer to one that was mandatory for employers of a certain size.

These changes to the law began as campaign promises. Often, they were promises made over several campaigns (think President Bill Clinton and healthcare reform in 1992 to its passage in 2010 under President Barak Obama). In 1986, President Reagan signed one of the largest compromise budgets of all time. It established COBRA protections, but it continued a number of tax policy changes that his administration had campaigned on in 1984.

What lies ahead? It is anyone’s guess. ERISA provides a ready-made federal platform for all sorts of changes like paid child leave, paid daycare benefits, educational reimbursements, and sabbatical income benefits. The voting public seems comfortable with certain of these ideas being made a part of their federal rights, and, as such, they are comfortable with more amendments yet to come.

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John Joseph (J.J.) Conway is an employee benefits and ERISA attorney and litigator and founder of J.J. Conway Law in Royal Oak.

As we approach the November 5 election, I thought it would be useful to provide a summary of what leading politicians think of Donald Trump.

As we approach the November 5 election, I thought it would be useful to provide a summary of what leading politicians think of Donald Trump.

Oh, I mean Republican officials; there is not a Democrat in sight in the list below. Call it a public service.

These are characterizations from people who worked for him and knew him best.

Reader discretion advised for Trumpites. To use the language of warnings on TV, you may find the comments disturbing.

Here goes.

--J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate: He was a “never-Trump guy,” “I never liked him,” and exclaimed, “My God, what an idiot.”  He called Trump “America’s Hitler” and in 2016, Vance described Trump as “a terrible candidate,” “a cynical a_____ like Nixon” and “cultural heroin.”

--Trump’s Former Vice President Mike Pence: He cannot in “good conscience” endorse Trump.

--Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump for the 2024 presidential nomination: Nominating Trump for president would be like committing suicide for the country.
Trump is “unhinged,” “unsafe to be president,” and “unqualified to be president of the United States.”  

--House Speaker Mike Johnson in 2015: “The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.”

--In 2017, Trump’s then Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson: He called his boss a “f_____ moron” in a Pentagon meeting.

--Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis: Trump was “the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who
would make a mockery of our Constitution.”

--Trump’s former chief of staff, Marine General John Kelly: Trump was the “most flawed person I ever met in my life. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, though it’s more pathetic than anything else.”

--Florida Senator Marco Rubio in 2016: “You all have friends who are thinking about voting for Donald Trump [but] friends do not let friends vote for a con artist.”

--Texas Senator Ted Cruz: Trump is a “sniveling coward,” “utterly immoral,” a “serial philanderer” and “pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies.”

--South Carolina Senator Lindsey O. Graham: Trump is a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” and he told Trump to “go to Hell.”

--Former Texas Governor Rick Perry in 2016: “...Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded.”

--GOP Presidents George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, did not endorse Trump in 2016, nor did Utah Senator Mitt Romney, the GOP nominee for president in 2012.

--Utah’s Senior Senator Mike Lee, after the Access Hollywood tape became public: “I wouldn’t hire that person, wouldn’t want to be associated with that person. And, I certainly don’t think I’d be comfortable hiring that person to be the leader of the free world.” Then, in another statement, he admitted, Trump “scares me to death.”

--North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who was a presidential candidate briefly this year: He wouldn’t even do business with Trump.

--Kristi Noem, South Dakota governor, who was considered a possible Trump running mate: She said in 2016, “[Trump is] not my candidate.”

--New York Representative Elise Stefanik, also mentioned as a possible Trump running mate: Trump was a “whack job.”

--Kari Lake, unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate in Arizona and current senatorial candidate:  She depicted Trump, “as not my president.”

--South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace after the January 6 insurrection: “I hold him accountable for the events that transpired in the attack on our Capitol....”

--New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu: He repeatedly criticized Trump, stating Trump brought doom to the GOP and faced “numerous investigations and continues to peddle the conspiracy theory that he won the 2020 election.”

--Former White House Counsel Ty Cobb: “Trump is an empty soul. He doesn’t stand for anything but pure ambition. There is no principle at all.”

--Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy regarding Trump’s responsibility for the January 6 insurrection: “I’ve been very clear to the president --- he bears responsibilities for his words and actions. No ifs, ands or buts.”

--Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, discussing the January 6 insurrection with associates: “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of ____ for us,” according to a book, ‘This Will Not Pass.’ As to Trump’s guilt, McConnell has said, “If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.”

In addition, all of Trump’s highest-ranking officials in the White House told him he lost the 2020 election, and they testified to that fact at the January 6 Select Committee’s hearings.  His attorney general, Bill Barr, called Trump’s claims of winning “bu______.”

In apparent agreement with Barr’s conclusion, Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, “accepted” Barr’s assessment that there was no evidence of sufficient fraud in the 2020 election that could have overturned the results.

Of course, that’s just a summary. There is more, much more.

Okay, to be fair and address the other side:  At the GOP convention numerous speakers, including some of the above, hailed the former president, but the one that electrified the audience came from Hulk Hogan.

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Berl Falbaum is a long-time political journalist and author of several books.

There is much concern over whether the upcoming presidential election will be “rigged” against one candidate, or another.

There is much concern over whether the upcoming presidential election will be “rigged” against one candidate, or another.  Based on Michigan election law, MCL 168.1-168.992 and my 16 years working as an election inspector, here is how you can have a meaningful sense of whether or not the election was, or could have been, “rigged,” such that your candidate might have been wrongly deprived of victory.

Elections are run by the clerks of cities and townships across Michigan. As such, the results for statewide elections, such as the presidential election, are the sum of the results from the 1,521 jurisdictions that run the elections. This diffused management makes it extremely difficult to engage in any large-scale “rigging.”

Crucially, the clerks who run the elections hire “election inspectors” to do the actual work of putting on the elections. Most of these election inspectors live in the city or township where the election is occurring. That is, the folks you see working the polls and who help you vote are your neighbors, typically civic-minded residents who simply want to help self-government function. 
Each election inspector takes an oath to uphold the U.S. and Michigan Constitutions and perform their duties according to the Michigan election law. MCL 168.680. In this way, elections are similar to juries: conducted by regular folks who, in a quiet yet remarkable way, contribute to the success of what Abraham Lincoln called our “experiment in democracy.”

Very importantly, state law requires that the clerks hire individuals from both of the major parties, and have them working together to complete every single task involved in the election. MCL 168.674. As such, there are mutual “foxes watching the chicken coop,” in real time, throughout the entire election process. So, while the election in which you voted could have been “rigged,” that would mean that multiple members of your party working at the precinct or absent voter count board let the other party engage in some level of election fraud. This is improbable at best. In reality, in order to be sure their respective candidates are treated fairly, the two major parties have conjured a way in which bipartisanship creates an election process with a high degree of integrity

Moreover, every aspect of the electoral process is open to the public. This applies to the testing of the tabulators, review of the lists of voters, the voting process at the precincts and absent voter count boards, and the review of the election results as they are tabulated and then accumulated by the local clerk. Because of this transparency, it would be very difficult to engage in large-scale fraud.  If it did occur, it was because your candidate or party failed to observe and keep an eye on the very public election process. If your party was “on the job,” you can feel confident that the election was not “rigged.”

Other mechanics of the actual voting process impact whether or not the election was “rigged.”  As noted above, the tabulators are all tested in public ahead of the election to be sure they have no programming glitches that might improperly allocate the voted ballots. They are then sealed until the morning of the election, when election inspectors unseal them. The tabulators are not connected to the internet; they are “stand alone,” so that they cannot be manipulated from afar.

There are strict controls on the actual ballots. Every ballot is numbered, and they are all accounted for throughout the entire election process. All the ballots used must match the number of voters, as well as the numbers in the tabulators. All of the ballots and other election materials are sealed at the end of the day, again by election inspectors of different political parties, to maintain the integrity of the ballots and the other election materials. The ballots are retained after the election in case of a recount or other irregularities that need to be investigated. Because of the bipartisan oversight of the ballots, “rigging” of the voted ballots is almost impossible.

Finally, the actual voters. To register to vote, an applicant must be a U.S. citizen and a resident of the city or township in which they seek to register, and must provide information to the clerk that is checked by the state for accuracy. The application to register to vote must contain a signature. To obtain an absent voter ballot, the signature of the applicant must match the signature of the registered voter. While conceivably not fool-proof, it would be very difficult to engineer any kind of large-scale fraud in the absent voter process. And to vote at the polls in person, the applicant must present photographic identification or swear that they have such identification. Again, it would be very difficult to engage in large-scale fraud in the in-person voting process
In truth, the two major parties have enacted comprehensive legislation governing how elections in Michigan are conducted, and have designed a system that is transparent, with built-in protections that create a system with a high degree of accuracy and integrity. If election fraud does in fact occur, it is in the best interests of everyone to know about it and determine how to move forward, particularly given that election results could be adjusted based on the discovery of real fraud. But without presenting actual evidence, claims that an election was “rigged” are no more than gossip; an insult to the thousands of election inspectors who work to deliver election results in which all valid votes are counted; damage the legitimacy of every candidate on the ballot; and undermine our shared system of self-government.

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Scott E. Munzel is Of Counsel to Dever Eby Issa, PLLC in Ann Arbor. He practices municipal law and real estate law, and related litigation. He has worked as an election inspector for the City of Ann Arbor since 2008, both at the precinct polls and at absent voter count boards.   

At about 6:35 p.m. (EDT) on September 20, 2024, the State of South Carolina plunged an IV into the veins of Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, known as Freddie Owens, and injected the deadly drug pentobarbital into his veins. Within minutes he was dead.

At about 6:35 p.m. (EDT) on September 20, 2024, the State of South Carolina plunged an IV into the veins of Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, known as Freddie Owens, and injected the deadly drug pentobarbital into his veins. Within minutes he was dead.

Four days later, the State of Missouri injected five grams of the same drug into the bloodstream of Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams. He was dead in minutes as well.

Owens, 46, and Williams, 55, had three other things in common: Both had been convicted of murder, both might very well have been innocent, and, in both cases, the appellate powers to be, including the U.S. Supreme Court, rejected pleas to stay the executions to permit investigations into new evidence.

Thus, works our “justice” system.

Let’s look at Owens first.

Owens was convicted of killing a Speedway gas station clerk, Irene Graves, a 41-year-old single mother of three, during a string of robberies by two masked men on Halloween night in 1997. Owens, then only 19, allegedly fired a single shot to Graves’s head, killing her because she couldn’t open the safe. The two robbers escaped with $37.29 from the cash register.

Prosecutors had no forensic evidence implicating Owens and surveillance footage showed two masked men but they were not identifiable. The only evidence against Owens came from Owens’ accomplice and co-defendant, Steven Golden, who testified that Owens fired the fatal shot.

Not revealed to the jury during the trial was that Golden had a secret deal with prosecutors that he would not face the death penalty if he testified against Owens.

But two days before the execution, Golden made public a signed affidavit in which he said that Owens was innocent. He wrote:

“I’m coming forward now because I know Freddie’s execution date is September 20 and I don’t want Freddie to be executed for something he didn’t do. This has weighed heavily on my mind and I want to have a clear conscience.”  

Golden added that Owens was not even in the store at the time of the murder/robbery.

Golden said he was high when police questioned him and was pressured to point the finger at Owens.

“I substituted [Owens] for the person who was really with me,” Golden said, concealing the identity of the real murderer because he feared his associates “might kill me.” He still did not want to name the shooter out of fear of retaliation.

The governor, Henry McMaster, prosecutors and appeals courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court (with Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissenting), rejected last minute appeals to save his life, stating that despite new evidence, they were all convinced other evidence proved Owens guilty.  They stated there was “nothing exceptional” -- the legal standard to approve a stay of execution -- about his case.

Now, to Williams.

Williams was convicted of killing Felicia Gayle, a former reporter for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on August 11, 1998.

Citing problems with jury selection (possible racism), ineffective defense representation, DNA which did not match forensic evidence, the St. Louis prosecutor --- please read “prosecutor” --- called for overturning the conviction.  That office was joined by relatives of the victim as well as jurors who found Williams guilty.  All called for giving Williams a life sentence so further investigations could be conducted.

Again, like in the Owens case, the U.S. Supreme Court, a few hours before the execution, denied Williams’ appeal.  This time Sotomayor was joined in her dissent by Elena Kagan and Kentanji Brown Jackson.

Here is the major point:

What possible negative consequences could result if the courts had issued stays and permitted investigations to continue in these cases?

At the worst, the executions would be delayed by a few months and, at best, innocent lives might have been spared.  

(I am not arguing the case for or against capital punishment, although, in the interest of full disclosure, I am opposed to it.)

These cases remind me of the institutional obstinacy of the legal profession in another injustice which I worked on intensely.

I wrote a book about Alton Logan, an African-American Chicago man, who did 26-½ years in prison for a murder he did not commit. After finding Logan guilty, the 12-member jury had to consider the death penalty but its vote had to be unanimous. It voted 10-2 to put Logan to death. Two votes saved him from death row.

The issue: Four attorneys knew from the start that Logan was innocent because their client committed the murder. He confessed to them.  

Not wanting to violate the “ethical” code of lawyer-client confidentiality, the attorneys wrote an affidavit that Logan was innocent, locked it in a strong box for more than 26 years, but came forward after their client died in prison where he was serving time for two other murders. After several court hearings, all charges against Logan were dropped and he was released.

In a sense, Logan was “lucky.” Another man, Lee Wayne Hunt, in North Carolina, was imprisoned under similar circumstances -- for a double murder he did not commit. When the real murderer died, his lawyer voluntarily went to court and testified that Hunt was innocent. Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Jack A. Thompson not only would not accept the testimony but reported the attorney to the bar for violating lawyer-client confidentiality.

I called Judge Thompson several times to interview him, but he did not return my phone calls. I understood that perfectly. Under the circumstances, I would not have talked to me either.

I was just starting the process of writing a book on Hunt when his lawyers contacted me with the news that he had died in prison after serving 30 years. Justice!

I find the callous reasoning on this issue unconscionable. We can’t let an innocent person knowingly -- the key word being “knowingly” -- rot in prison when the guilty party has been identified. It is bad enough to make mistakes and cause unbelievable and condemnable injustices -- and these numbers are in the thousands. I was told by experts during my research on the book that between 10,000 and 30,000 innocent people were serving prison sentences. Or consider: At least 200 people sentenced to death since 1973 were later exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

I started a one-person campaign to change the legal ethic on this issue. Over several years, I contacted bar associations, legal committees, judges, legal grievance committees, even the Michigan Supreme Court which, I was told, debated my petition “robustly” but decided to do nothing. The justices are obviously comfortable with letting the innocent languish in prison.

My point is that the code can be changed -- and changed very easily -- without compromising lawyer-client confidentiality. Logan and I make recommendations in the book which would eliminate the risks of letting the guilty go free without punishing the innocent.

Now, I understand the symbolism of having Lady Justice with a blindfold. But perhaps we ought to remove it to let her see what the hell is going on in our so-called justice system.

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Berl Falbaum is a long-time political journalist and author of several books, including “Justice Failed: How ‘Legal Ethics’ Kept Me in Prison for 26 Years.”

We all have multiple opportunities each day to either engage in a conflict, or to turn the moment of tension into an opportunity to collaborate.  Recently, Judge Timothy Connors of the Washtenaw County Circuit Court and I were reviewing the space the courthouse is setting aside as a sanctum for the jade plant and Irish shamrock plant Judge Connors is dedicating to the space. 

We all have multiple opportunities each day to either engage in a conflict, or to turn the moment of tension into an opportunity to collaborate.  Recently, Judge Timothy Connors of the Washtenaw County Circuit Court and I were reviewing the space the courthouse is setting aside as a sanctum for the jade plant and Irish shamrock plant Judge Connors is dedicating to the space. 

As we reviewed the space, and the Narcan display that currently occupies it, a young man approached us.  He was angry and offended.  He had been listening to us, and believed he heard Judge Connors say that the court should eliminate the Narcan display.  In a belligerent tone, George W. told us how important the Narcan display was. Firstly, because George’s life had been saved a couple of weeks prior through the use of Narcan. Secondly, because the Narcan display is on the second floor, where Judge Carol Kuhnke holds Drug Court, and the participants in Drug Court are the people in the courthouse most likely to need Narcan.  So, its proximity to the Drug Court is important. Having delivered his message, and the pain imbedded in it, George walked a short distance away.

After three invitations from Judge Connors to engage in a conversation, George finally walked back over. Initially, George was unwilling to engage in conversation. George insisted he had said his piece and didn’t want to talk to us. His contempt was evident, and he felt something vital to him had been disrespected.  George’s attitude invited conflict.  

As Judge Connors drew George back into a conversation, he began with an apology and gently asked George to explain to him what the Narcan display meant to him. George’s explanation included his mistaken belief that Judge Connors was suggesting the display be eliminated from the building, rather than the true discussion, which was whether the display could be moved a few feet. Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, Judge Connors saw the link between the life-saving value of the Narcan, and the intent in creating a sanctum, which is life-affirming. He invited George to collaborate with him on a joint display that could encompass both George’s passion for having the Narcan on the second floor in plain view, and Judge Connors’ desire to provide a space for reflection and renewal at the courthouse. Reflection and renewal is a befitting legacy for the judge who brought Peacekeeping to our courthouse.  

George teared up as his anger subsided and he returned to a calm state of mind where he was able to tap into his creativity and make suggestions about how to craft a solution that satisfied the individual needs through a joint goal. With some discussion, they arrived at a plan, shook hands on it, and a tearful George walked away.

This interaction was packed with powerful lessons:  the heat we can ignite over a misunderstanding.  The tools that transform a loaded situation into an opportunity for deeper understanding and mutual respect. The value of a heartfelt apology.  How to invite someone to participate in a solution.  And, the healing value of walking in the other person’s shoes.  George went from feeling marginalized to feeling that his perspective had been understood and incorporated into the solution he helped devise.  His heart was much lighter.  And Judge Connors felt that the sanctum he is creating has even more meaning because of the inclusion of the Narcan display and what it represents.

As we go through our day, we all encounter chaotic situations and moments of discord.  The question to ask ourselves is:  am I going to continue the chaos, or am I going to transform the chaos into calm?  Chaos is an invitation to engage our creativity to find a way to lower the other person’s defenses.  

With lowered defenses, the other person can also engage their creativity to come up with a resolution that restores calm.  It took several attempts with George before he was willing to lower his defenses, and Judge Connors kept offering pathways to calm until George heard one he found acceptable.  With both of their creative minds engaged, a solution was reached that ended up giving the space even more meaning than the original intent.  The moment took about 10 minutes; the lessons are now part of the permanent space.  

You are all invited to visit the sanctum when it is established.  It will be in the main lobby of the second floor of the courthouse.

 The Irish shamrock represents spiritual growth and renewal.  The jade plant represents resilience.  You are invited to take a small cutting from it if you wish to propagate your own jade or Irish shamrock plant.

Teresa Killeen is the judicial attorney for Hon. Julia B. Owdziej of the Washtenaw County Trial Court.  She is a graduate of the UM Law School, and serves as the editor for the Washtenaw County Bar Association’s bimonthly legal publication.  She can be reached at killeent@washtenaw.org or at 734-222-6921.