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ORAL HISTORY OF THE HONORABLE RICARDO M. URBINA NINTH INTERVIEW
15 MARCH 2012
This is the ninth interview of the oral history of U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina as part of the Oral History Project of the Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Gene Granof. The interview took place in the chambers of Judge Urbina at the United States Courthouse in the District of Columbia on Thursday, March 15, 2012.
Mr. Granof: Judge, in our last interview, just as we were sort of winding things up, you were called away to be in court to handle an emergency matter, and so we didn’t quite get finished.
Judge Urbina: Right.
Mr. Granof: One of the things I wanted to ask you was, what did you like about being a federal judge? And I say this in the context of your forthcoming retirement from the court.
Judge Urbina: Well, there are several things about being a federal judge that I have truly enjoyed. One is the time and the ability to think more about issues before deciding them. I had come to the federal bench from the Superior Court where the dockets were much heavier and the demands were greater in terms of case disposition. So I had thirteen years there of having to decide matters without enough deliberation on them as far as I was concerned. But being a federal judge gave me the opportunity to be much more deliberative. Secondly, I enjoyed very much the issues I faced in federal court as distinguished from the ones that I handled in the Superior Court. The issues I handled in the Superior Court were all just as important, but in this court both the criminal and the civil issues run the whole gamut.
Mr. Granof: They’re more varied?
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Judge Urbina: Yes, much more varied. And in many instances are more challenging in that unlike the laws that the District of Columbia’s Superior Court deals with, which are tightly knit and have been clarified by appeals over so many years, the federal law, of course, is less dense as far as precedent and things of that sort. You have thirteen separate circuits, you have the Supreme Court. You have cases that are persuasive, but they may not be binding. And you have much opportunity to exercise discretion and to justify it, which is another thing I liked in that I got an opportunity to write more and in that regard present the issues in a way that hopefully were not only correct, but also provided guidance to the lawyers and the Bar generally.
Mr. Granof: When you said you got an opportunity to write more, do you like writing?
Judge Urbina: Well, I liked to have written.
Mr. Granof: I feel the same way.
Judge Urbina: You know sometimes the shorter something is, the more difficult it is to write. And I think that was Mark Twain who kind of made that observation in a much more artful way. The thing with me is I’m not patient enough in that when I see an issue and I want to address it, I want to begin to write on it. But, in actuality, the right way to approach it is to be more patient and to organize my thoughts before searching for the words to express them. And, as the years have gone by, I’ve become more inclined to create the outline and to be not as fixed on the words as on the concepts. Identifying the concepts and then organizing them and then going to the written expression of the terms and factors that make up the decision, that’s been a wonderful discovery. But, yes, I do like to write, but I
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don’t appreciate the writing when it’s happening as much as I do as when it’s over.
Mr. Granof: It’s hard.
Judge Urbina: It is hard.
Mr. Granof: Do you find that it is the writing that in many ways shapes the analysis? That when you’re writing and you’re forced to put thoughts in logical order, your idea of where you wanted to go initially doesn’t always work?
Judge Urbina: Well, yes, in this regard. There are times when I’ve endeavored to organize my thoughts first, but without a preconceived notion of where they would take me. Sometimes I’ve seen an issue, in the case of the Blackwater employees for example, where both sides presented such persuasive arguments — dismiss the indictment, don’t dismiss the indictment — both sides did an exceptional job in giving me fodder for a decision. But beginning to organize the ideas and beginning to give the ideas shape, and see where they lead me, that’s been another kind of unique experience I’ve had with respect to writing.
Mr. Granof: What did you like least about being a judge? What would you change?
Judge Urbina: Well, I have not enjoyed the sentencing process. Because for so many years — I’d say the majority of the years I’ve been here at the U.S. District Court — the guidelines were mandatory. And, even though in many instances the guidelines as originally proscribed get it right, there are so many instances where I thought the guidelines didn’t get it right, creating either sentences that were too light or too severe. And that part of it I did not like. I did not like the idea of having Congress or its assigned Commission govern how a judge, who’s supposed to be a
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person of experience and integrity, is to decide with respect to a situation that no one knows better than he or she, which is the crime or whatever it is that’s taking place that is up for sentencing. So I didn’t enjoy that. Of course, the guidelines were declared unconstitutional. Something that Judge Harold Greene had said six or seven times, each time being reversed by the Court of Appeals. So that part of it was somewhat alleviated. But I still maintain that sending people to prison, putting them — as I once said in an article — putting people in a cage for an extended period of time even with the knowledge that these people are anti-social and they’ve done very harmful things, even believing that it’s justified, it’s still not something that I’ve enjoyed.
Mr. Granof: This concludes interview number nine, our final interview.