Supreme court judge visits Washington

Iowa State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Waterman visited the Washington County Courthouse Friday morning to take questions from local residents, who numbered about 20 at the event.

Waterman is one of three justices who were appointed to the court in 2011 after three sitting justices lost their retention bids in the 2010 election. Members of the audience asked him if the new court conducts business differently from the old court. Waterman said the new court processes cases more quickly than the old court.

?You should see a faster opinion output from the bench,? he said. ?As the governor has observed, ?Justice delayed is justice denied.??

Waterman mentioned that he is an avid runner and has even run the Leadville Trail 100 Run, a 100-mile race through the Rocky Mountains near Leadville, Colo. He told the audience that when he started his term, there were 45 unfinished appeal cases left over from the former court. He knew he couldn?t take any time off to run with such an enormous workload. Only after the court is caught up will he consider returning to such races.

?I?ll have a clear conscience to resume that hobby next year,? he said.

Waterman also talked about the importance of stepping outside Des Moines to reach constituents in the rest of the state. He lives in Davenport, where he ran a private law practice from 1984 until his appointment to the bench. He said he remains in close contact with the board of supervisors in Scott County and the local attorneys.

?I?m all ears to anything to make our court better,? he said.

Kalona attorney Raymond Tinnian recounted a story in which U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren was on an airplane with President Dwight Eisenhower, who appointed Warren. Eisenhower, who was surprised at some of Warren?s rulings, said to him, ?I thought you were a conservative.? Warren replied that he was a conservative. Tinnian asked Waterman if he had even been on a plane with Gov. Branstad.

Waterman said he had never been in a similar situation with Iowa?s governor. He said he admires Branstad for appointing justices in a non-partisan way, and for taking a lower salary to be governor compared to what he was making in his previous job. At the same time, Waterman said he must respect the law, even when it goes against the governor?s interests. For instance, he voted to nullify Branstad?s line-item veto of a senate bill which closed 36 workforce development centers in 2011.

Waterman spoke about his personal experiences with the rights of the accused. He said he was surprised when he learned that a delivery man who frequented his law office had been in prison for 13 years for a crime he didn?t commit. The man came home one day to find his wife dead and her body tied up. He was given a lie detector test and interrogated for a long time, and eventually confessed to killing her. He served 13 years in prison until the court ruled his confession was coerced. The case occurred before the era of ?Miranda rights,? which require police to inform a defendant of his rights before questioning him.

?You don?t like to see someone you know is guilty get a new trial, but you have to think about the larger purpose of these rights, which have saved a lot of people from wrongful conviction,? he said.

Washington County Clerk of Court Julie Johnson asked Waterman if he would agree to let county clerks decide if their office is open on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. The state has mandated that the offices close early at 2:30 p.m. those days. Johnson and her staff would like to remain open until 4:30 five days a week. Waterman agreed that county clerks should have control over their own offices. Johnson said she believes that all the clerk offices in the eighth district would like to remain open for five full days.

Waterman was asked why he wanted to become a supreme court judge. He said there were two events that motivated his decision: 1) the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001; and 2) The unexpected death of his father after a bicycle accident in 2003.

?The shock of 9/11 made me think in a more community-minded way,? he said. ?I already had four kids and I was too old to go into the Army. I had done a lot of appellate practice, and I thought I could contribute to the court system. When my dad died in 2003, his obituary said that he had served on every volunteer board around, so I was inspired by his example.?