Judge Leonard P. Edwards retires with respect and admiration of peers, clients
By Eliza Ridgeway, Town Crier Staff Writer
 Los Altos Hills resident Judge Leonard P. Edwards speaks with a client in Drug Dependency Treatment Court. |
Pass the metal detectors of the Superior Courthouse on Terraine Street in San Jose and you will see hallways filled with women and children. In dependency court, which determines whether children will reunite with parents from whom they have been removed, women make up the majority of clients.
On the second floor in Department 67, Judge Leonard P. Edwards presides over Dependency Drug Treatment Court, which hears cases in which children have been removed from a parent or parents due to issues involving drug abuse. A powerhouse in the Santa Clara County Superior Court of California, this Los Altos Hills resident has been repeatedly acknowledged for his astute leadership and policy-making in reforming juvenile courts nationwide. An animated speaker who is often published, Edwards has used his position as an innovative and popular judge to forward county programs including Court Appointed Special Advocates (Child Advocates), Family Finding, the Santa Clara County Domestic Violence Council and drug treatment court.
A participant has to apply to Edwards’ drug court - it is a rigorous process, and clients need determination to succeed in the program.
It is also a program with high demand - approximately 70 percent of child dependency cases involve substance abuse.
On May 4, his birthday, Edwards will retire his glossy black robes and at 65, turn to advocacy work and, teaching as a consulting judge for the county. Edwards’ new career will begin promptly on May 5, as he heads off to a conference speaking date. Department 67 will live on under the aegis of Edwards’ precedent-setting guidance.
Edwards has often been the only male in the courtroom during his career; predominantly female specialists, social workers, counselors and clients fill the other seats. His interactions with clients are striking. Speaking to one new applicant for the court, he discussed the meaning of the word ambivalent (new to her), and the ways that it described her feelings about taking on so much work. The participatory requirements of drug court take at least as much time as a part-time job, with group meetings, therapy, court dates and more.
He asked each client, “Do you have any treatment issues you want to discuss?” and as often as not, successes are enumerated as well as setbacks. A dream job achieved, a driving permit earned, housing lined up. Edwards offered an old couch of his to one young client with a new apartment and, when she convinced him it wouldn’t fit in her car, he gave her directions to the nearest Goodwill.
When the second client of one afternoon session walked to the table, Judge Edwards said, “When you stood up and walked here, I almost didn’t recognize you. You have poise.” He asked her if she was ready to graduate from the program on May 3 and with a bright smile she gushed, “Oh, yeah.” Chuckles came from around the table.
Department 67 hears a lot of laughter, as well as the subtler sounds of sympathy and concern. The hearings are interactive, with conversations between the parent in trouble and the team of social services workers and lawyers.
In the back, women, reunited with their children, joggled babies and watched toddlers while waiting for their turn. A case of picture books and stuffed animals amused and comforted the children. Along the walls, fuzzy baby animals and inspirational messages soften the effect of the standard-issue courtroom.
There are very hard moments in the room, as well. When a very young woman sat down, her body taut and carefully controlled, Edwards said, “You have a sad look on your face.” She responded, “I’ve been going through a lot of trials in my life. I had a miscarriage. It’s OK.” His response was strong and full of concern: “No, it’s not OK.” Later in the conversation, he told her, “We all worry about you! Did you know that?”
Many of these women were recently children themselves and already struggle to be good mothers. At least 60 percent have domestic violence in their recent history in addition to drug abuse.
A woman, pink-faced and teary-eyed, told Edwards her husband wasn’t participating in a rehabilitation program. When she admitted she had spoken with him on the phone despite a no-contact order, a hiss of concern came from some of the social services workers.
“That’s what love is all about - you’re hoping for different results,” Edwards said to her. “There are a lot of young mothers whose partners have broken their hearts by not taking this program seriously.” But, he told her, “You’re going to have a network of people you rely on.”
Ask Edwards’ co-workers and clients to describe him, and they struggle to define greatness: work that lives on, after he has left; the power to touch people that no one else would have reached; vision, and the drive to manifest it.
“He’s the man,” Gloria Chavez said simply. A success story from drug court, Chavez became clean and sober and reunited with her children. She now works for the court system as an adviser to women graduating from the program.
“He’s very respectful and that’s genuine,” domestic abuse consultant Nancy Marshall said. “(The clients) get that he’s genuine, and what he says has a profound impact on them.”
Edwards has had a profound impact on his peers in the judiciary, and often guests from other courts line the back of his courtroom to observe drug court’s innovative methodology.
“We’re a teaching court,” Edwards said. “They’re going to go back and they’ll ignite.”
In his retirement, he plans to work half time in the courts as a “Judge in Residence,” advocating for improvement of the juvenile court system in California.
“I’m a teacher at heart, and I have a lot of expertise in areas related to children and families,” he said. “Because there are so few of us (juvenile court judges), I get called on.”
Making juvenile courta community priority
Two years ago, he helped found the Joint Response Project, which united law enforcement and social services, two groups that historically had difficulty collaborating. San Jose police in the field are now guaranteed a response from a social worker within 30 minutes of placing a call about a child. Such consultations can reduce the number of children unnecessarily entering the system and foster care. The project is scheduled to expand to Mountain View this month and Los Altos this summer, Edwards said.
Another Edwards project is the “Green Book,” a pilot project of policy recommendations and best practices he helped to compile. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Justice have funded projects based on the Green Book in six counties, including Santa Clara.
“The council started with no money and no resources, with everybody getting up at 7:30 a.m. to meet because the issue was important to us,” Edwards said. “Leadership is making people believe things are happening, things are changing.”
Judge Edwards worked in Mississippi in the civil rights movement as a young man. “I belonged there, it was right for me,” he said. After working as a Peace Corps volunteer and public defender, Edwards said he realized the “real issues” were in juvenile court.
“I gravitated toward the problems I thought the most meaningful - looking for high-impact cases where I could make a difference,” he said. “I was looking for outcomes, in an area that until a few years ago was not considered important.”
Edwards took a pay cut to come to the bench. He said that the cases in juvenile court were considered a “family matter,” with a common attitude that children weren’t important, “just kids.” But he added, “It’s the best decision I ever made.”
In a credo on the importance of children’s justice that he wrote upon receipt of the prestigious William H. Rehnquist award in 2004, Edwards wrote, “The role of the juvenile court judge is unlike any other. In the traditional judicial role, deciding a legal issue may complete the judge’s task; however, in deciding the future of a child or family member, the juvenile court judge must, in addition to making a legal decision, be prepared to take on the role of an administrator, a collaborator, a convener, and an advocate.”
“There are not many natural leaders in the community of whom people are not suspicious,” Edwards said. “Tensions are created by who you are in a political system. The surprising thing about the role of the judge is people say you don’t have (an agenda). You are naturally situated to convene the community.” Edwards said that making children a priority is an understandable task that reaches across political and social divides. But he added, “A lot of traditional values people hold don’t hold all the answers for these kids. I have to overlook religion, gender and traditional American values.”
The programs in drug court seek to serve individualized populations of women, Edwards said. “What you learn in this business is that some institutions were created as essentially white institutions. Women have been excluded from the treatment models developed.
“Drug abuse, domestic violence, child abuse generally - those are the real issues of the day for people who come to court,” Edwards said. “You don’t realize that court is a multidoored institution which handles a myriad of problems. It deals with children and families in crisis. It may end in criminal prosecution, but it is about children in crisis - how you take care of the situation of a child in crisis.”
Edwards said that he grew up with two “great parents,” but that they went through a nasty divorce in 1950. This part of his past played a role in Edwards’ landing in juvenile court 20 years later.
“When I got my first real assignment on the bench in family court, I realized I was reliving my past a bit,” he said. “I know how powerful parental dysfunction and conflict can be.”
Edwards said that one of his faults was to act too fast, to follow any opening he saw. “I’m very competitive and I don’t give up,” he said. “I knocked at doors for five or 10 years on some issues and waited until people got tired.”
Despite the harrowing pace he keeps at work, Edwards makes time to cross-country ski and golf. He revealed that although he is no longer the rock and roll singer he was in college days, he will still strike up a tune around the campfire. If you pass him on the Pacific Crest Trail heading from Squaw Valley to Sugar Bowl, you would never guess the relaxed, smiling man has reformed juvenile courts across the nation with an iron determination.
An advocate’s work doesn’t end with retirement
The ambitious couple has collaborated on articles, and Sagatun-Edwards said that in her eyes, joint projects were a recipe for a happy marriage. She infected him with an interest in theories behind juvenile delinquency, and he gave her a curiosity about the impact of child abuse and family violence.
“My husband is a good people person, especially with those who have had all kinds of trouble, but also a very good administrator, a person with vision and large ideas and the ability to execute and follow up. That’s a nice package and a really fun person to be with.”
Today, Edwards lobbies politicians, writes newspaper editorials, journal articles and policy papers, and speaks around the nation and the world. When Edwards joined the juvenile court in 1971, there were two lawyers working for it full time. Now there are 75 - a 37-fold increase - while the area’s population has only increased by 25 percent, he said. Drug courts are proliferating around the country. And another motivated juvenile court judge, Katherine Lucero, currently of the Juvenile Delinquency Court, is ready to continue his work on the bench.
Lucero said that she will try to emulate Edwards’ undying sense of compassion for their clients. “He sees the good in everyone before he sees the bad. That’s how it’s done.”
If you were to observe Edwards in court in these, his last few days, you would see a serious-looking man who can crack a grin from cheek to cheek. There are many moments, throughout the parade of incessant hearings, that illuminate how a leader can transform so much human suffering into hope. During a recent court date, the girl who had suffered a miscarriage told him, “Sometimes, you’ve just got to learn the hard way. I’ve been trying to be positive about it. You keep on striving.”
