Following an anticlimactic first start, the scheduling of John Berchielli’s sentencing hearing was up in the air. Twice more, he was forced to sit through a long calendar of arraignments and changes of plea, only to be told that there would be more waiting. His trial judge, Rothwell B. Mason, had been asked back to town to handle the hearing, and accommodating his availability took some serious flexibility. The sentencing was postponed for several months, penciled in vaguely for sometime in October, but that plan was cancelled almost as soon as it was made. Quite suddenly, Judge Mason committed to a trip to Sacramento for a hearing date of August 20th, 2007.
Having been convicted on several severe felony counts, Berchielli was expecting to serve years in state prison. As such, he had to make all of his arrangements with the assumption he would be handcuffed and thrown behind bars at the conclusion of his sentencing hearing. It meant a scramble for Berchielli, who had just enrolled his daughter for her first year of high school, and was also helping his 90-year-old grandmother recover from a severe fall that had broken her back in several places. He hurried to create alternative plans for the care of his loved ones, and to tie up all the loose ends on grant applications he had been handling for community service groups. Every detail of his life had to be handled and redirected. It was a little like a prearranged death.
Sentencing of John Berchielli sketch by Dr. Care
Still, the community hadn’t lost hope, and continued writing to the judge to request lenient sentencing. Letters of support for Berchielli poured in right up until the very last minute, forcing Judge Mason to postpone the hearing for another hour in order to get some extra reading time. It was yet another delay, but it was one that Berchielli was grateful for. As he waited out in the hallway, anxious about his fate, ten devoted supporters huddled around him and asked him about his reactions. “It’s good he’s taking the time to really look at this,” Berchielli said about the judge. “It means he’s paying attention.”
There was a sense of change in the air. During the trial, Judge Mason had been in such a hurry that he pushed the proceedings forward relentlessly, and he didn’t even stick around for the verdict. Now, however, the rush of heated urgency had cooled. The judge was taking his time to carefully consider all of the submissions before him, and he now had the benefit of two months of hindsight on the case. As it turned out, the time spent in reflection and research had made a profound difference in the judge, and he returned to Sacramento with a dramatically changed perspective on the case.
“I don’t know how it happened,” Judge Mason said about the request for him to preside over the hearing. “In the 16 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve come back to town for the trials, but I’ve been freed from the sentencing. I don’t legally have to be here, but I didn’t want to dodge the bullet if someone wants me here.”
The probation department, however, did not make good use the extra time granted by the delays. The report they issued on sentencing recommendations was woefully inaccurate and frighteningly careless, mixing and matching various facts about the two defendants involved in the case. Berchielli’s attorney, public defender Joni O’Connor, brought many of the errors to the attention of the judge.
The report started with the assertion that Berchielli’s medical marijuana recommendation had expired, a statement that was factually false. O’Connor pointed out that this was true of co-defendant Sheldon Weber but not true of her client, whose valid recommendation had even been presented as case evidence during the trial.
Continuing, the report on Berchielli also stated that people had to go through the marijuana growing area to get to the living area in the home, which was another misconception. This condition applied only to Weber’s space in the garage, and was not true for the rest of the house and its living areas. “Probation had that as an aggravating factor on the child endangerment count, as though it were true of the living area for Mr. Berchielli and his daughter,” O’Connor explained.
The probation office’s report cited the presence of hot wires as another aggravating factor on the child endangerment charge. However, as the defense attorney pointed out, there was no evidence presented at trial, or anywhere else, that these wires were hooked up or “hot.”
John Berchielli
O’Connor went on to detail her opposition to four specific conditions suggested as part of Berchielli’s probation. “The report states that there should be no association with users and sellers of marijuana. This is not appropriate – Mr. Berchielli has a valid medical marijuana card. It also says he cannot use or possess cell phones. This is overly broad. And it requires that he seek gainful employment, but this shouldn’t apply because Mr. Berchielli is on permanent disability.” That condition was also the basis for O’Connor’s final request from the judge, which asked for a reduction in the fines set forth in the probation report.
Attorney Arturo Reyes, who represented Weber, echoed these arguments in favor of his own client. He kept his additional comments characteristically brief and to-the-point, summing up Weber’s involvement with just a few sentences. “We agree that probation is warranted in this case. He was only there for three months. His job was to water all the plants. Mr. Berchielli was to handle any problems with the plants. And Mr. Weber testified during trial that he believed this was a legal grow.” Weber, currently serving time for a violation of probation charge in Placer County, sat quietly beside his attorney.
The judge then looked at Berchielli, squinting as he sized him up. “And where would your daughter go, if I were to lock you up?” he asked ominously.
“I guess she’d stay with my parents,” Berchielli speculated. “But what’s more important is my grandma. She’s 90 years old and she’s going through intake at an assisted care facility right now. She’s not even able to communicate her medical history for the assessment herself, because she has senile dementia. Her insurance will cover the first thirty days there, but after that, if she can’t rehabilitate herself, she’s going to have to sell her house to pay to stay there.”
O’Connor used that plea for leniency as the opening to her own explanation of why her client was a good candidate for probation. “Mr. Berchielli is willing to receive probation and it is appropriate in this case,” she began. “Mr. Berchielli is 43 years old, a mature man. He has sole custody of his 14 year old daughter, who he rescued from a chaotic situation with her mother.”
“What kind of situation?” Judge Mason asked, leaning forward to better hear the defense attorney.
“A chaotic situation,” O’Connor repeated.
“Oh,” the judge said knowingly, as if he understood the entire set of circumstances through the communication of that one word.
“He’s the primary caregiver for his 90 year old grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s and needs Mr. Berchielli to check in with her several times a day to make sure she eats and takes her medicine,” O’Connor explained. “And he’s extremely active in community groups in North Highlands, where community activity is much needed.”
The defense attorney detailed her client’s involvement, citing his volunteer work for child and family programs that teach health, nutrition and self-sufficiency. She reinforced the fact that these programs are dependent on grants secured by Berchielli, and might fail if he were not there to continue participating in them. Her long speech, which came out like a cumulative version of all the letters of support for her client, concluded by speaking about the medical necessity. She urged the judge to look at the medical records from the stint Berchielli did in the county jail directly following his arrest in this case. The conditions in the institution exacerbated his medical condition, and he ended up with fragmented foot bones and debilitating heel spurs.
“Isn’t there also a problem with neuropathy -- didn’t I read that somewhere?” the judge asked, shuffling through his papers for a moment before looking up. “I suffer from that as well,” he revealed, “but I haven’t had the advantage of cannabis to do anything about it.”
It was an odd confession, and the courtroom was silent as listeners struggled to detect sarcasm. “I say that in all seriousness,” the judge assured them, then turning to address the other side. But at the prosecution’s end of the table sat an unfamiliar figure.
Instead of Maureen O’Connor, who had been the prosecuting attorney at trial, the District Attorney had sent a replacement lawyer from the office. Brian Morgan explained that his colleague was on vacation, and then quickly fielded Judge Mason’s jokes that the vacation had been taken to intentionally avoid dealing with this case and with the judge himself. When the chuckles died down, Judge Mason opened the floor to the stand-in and asked if he had any comments. “Mr. Morgan, you’ve been called out of the warm-up box,” the judge observed. “Are you familiar with the background here?”
As it turned out, Morgan was not only familiar with the details of the case, he was passionate about them. The prosecutor dove straight into his fervent speech, which included a few blistering assessments of the defendants. “With Mr. Berchielli, I take exception to several things,” Morgan began. “When determining probation, and he is probation-eligible, you have to consider the seriousness and the circumstances of the crime. This is a very large grow. We’re talking about three to four hundred mature plants and over a thousand cuttings. And remember, the reason you take cuttings is to be able to make a mature marijuana plant. There is a high level of sophistication here. Mr. Berchielli is a master gardener. He knows how to get the highest yield, and that’s precisely what he’s doing.”
Morgan was swimming upstream, attempting a sensationalist depiction in order to counter the probation office’s recommendation for leniency. “The recommendation says that this is a victimless crime,” he said with fervor. “I will remind the court that a jury convicted him of child endangerment. There is a victim here. She has a name. It’s his daughter.”
The prosecutor then looked over at Berchielli, raising his nasal voice to a level that neared shouting. “He wants you to be sympathetic here, but what he says is ‘I guess she’ll live with my parents.’ He hasn’t made a solid plan? He’s here for sentencing and he’s saying ‘uh, I guess.’ He didn’t make arrangements for her care? That’s ridiculous! Child Protective Services, when informed of this conviction, will have to determine whether to reopen the case.”
“What about the other side?” the judge asked, cutting in. “He got custody from the mother, where she was living in a chaotic situation. We can’t jump from the frying pan into the fire.”
The prosecutor rejected the judge’s suggestion entirely. “Could the situation with the mother be worse than the situation with the father? We know what the situation with the father is. ” He then launched into a detailed accounting of the items that prompted the booby trap charge. “The whole backyard had electric wires, nails, etc., making it very unsafe for a 14 year-old girl. An officer testified on the stand that when people become aware that someone has marijuana, that person becomes subject to other crimes: theft, burglary, vandalism, home invasion.”
Morgan saved for his finale the one recurrent image that had haunted the trial: the legendary bloody shoe. He had apparently been well-coached by the trial prosecutor – even in her absence, her words and sentiments were detectable through an eerie similarity. “There was testimony about a bloody shoe that came up in trial,” came Morgan’s impassioned declaration. “Someone stepped on those traps – it’s dangerous!”
“You believe the principal count is the child endangerment?’ the judge asked with skepticism.
Morgan said yes, and outlined a proposal that would give Berchielli a two-year prison term for the child endangerment charge and an assortment of several months for each of the other convictions, totaling a four-year sentence.
“There has to be some form of punishment for this crime,” Morgan said, justifying his proposal. “The purpose of incarceration is punishment, deterrence to others, and to put him in a position that does not allow him to re-offend. An ankle monitor is no punishment and it doesn’t keep him from re-offending.”
The prosecutor then slipped in a snide remark, “He’s been doing something sitting there at home besides smoking marijuana, and I know the sheriff isn’t going to allow him to do that.”
Carefully watching the judge’s reactions, Morgan attempted one last defense of his insistence on imprisonment. “I will remind the court of the statement Mr. Berchielli made to probation that he believes he’s exempt,” the prosecutor said in grave tones. “The defendant wants this court to believe that the law doesn’t apply to him because he’s supplying to medical marijuana patients. Well, under the law, he can have six to twelve plants and eight ounces for himself and for the other patients he’s caring for, but just saying he’s part of a co-op doesn’t make a defense under Prop. 215. He’s not operating in compliance with it – he is operating well outside of it. He didn’t get the benefit of it in trial, and he shouldn’t benefit from it now.”
Morgan had spent most of his speaking time blowing hot air. It was obvious from an analysis of body language that his rant about child endangerment was finding little resonance with the judge, but when he started talking about the lack of caregiver records and the possibility of re-offending, the prosecutor was suddenly speaking the right language. Judge Mason nodded repeatedly during the end of Morgan’s speech, and the attorney certainly took the cues, tailoring his points of emphasis as he continued. When the judge took over once again, he echoed many of the views in the latter part of the prosecutor’s discourse, adding his own unique flair.
In particular, the judge’s language employed a thread of literary allusion, comparing Berchielli to the title character in a famous work by 19th Century author Robert Louis Stevenson. “I have a Jekyll and Hyde before me,” Judge Mason said, referring to the Stevenson novel in which a doctor finds a way to polarize his behavioral traits to the point where he splits into two distinct personalities representing good and evil.
“As Dr. Jekyll he’s been a citizen of your North Highlands neighborhoods,” the judge explained continuing with the allusion. “I am willing to accept without hearing from this congregation that they would say, ‘Our program would fail without him.’ It doesn’t gainsay the other side. I have a Dr. Jekyll, about whom I’m sure all of these people would like to be on their feet telling me what a great man he is, but I also have a Mr. Hyde that was involved in growing 1600 marijuana plants and a sophisticated booby trap system to protect them.”
The flaw in Judge Mason’s employment of this allusion was that he did not make an adequate showing of the ways in which these two situations were incompatible with each other. There was something missing, a critical element that would have integrated the logic that such actions could not reasonably co-exist in one person. The analogy, in all it’s inapplicability, spoke more to the rigidity of the judge’s black-and-white view of the world than to any kind of supposed multiple personality disorder in the defendant.
“I am aware that the basic presumption of evidence rests on the prosecution, but an affirmative defense shifts that burden to the defendant,” Judge Mason continued, recounting the challenges faced by Berchielli at trial. “The defense talks about the Compassionate Use of Marijuana Act, but the evidence of that was zilch. It would ask the jury to assume that the entire grow was legal, and frankly I didn’t buy it. There’s a section at the top of 215 that reads, ‘nothing in this section shall be construed to…condone the diversion for non medical purposes.’ A great house of cards was built on the inference that this defendant came under the protection of this act.”
In an unexpected move, the judge then began a show-and-tell session with various press articles. First, he held up a newspaper clipping that featured the previous weekend’s Seattle Hempfest, an event that drew a massive crowd nearing 200,000 persons in attendance. “There’s a big push to legalize marijuana,” the judge commented. “It is not insubstantial. And it may happen someday.”
He next held up an article from the Oregonian, which displayed a headline about federal agencies trying to look into patient files for the state-run medical marijuana program. “This issue is being grappled with in all kinds of areas,” Judge Mason observed. “I think there’s a place for medical marijuana use. And I think it’s tragic that legitimate users have been caught in this bind of what’s legitimate and what’s not. There’s a gray area, and I don’t know how a fellow goes about getting permission to cultivate, but I know damn well it’s not done the way the defendant did it in this case.”
The judge turned back to his news clippings, again referencing the Oregonian. “It talks here about a system for registering caregivers,” he noted, then turned to point at Berchielli. “There’s no evidence this gentleman was a registered caregiver. He was just a de facto caregiver to Mr. Weber.”
No one was bold enough to mention to the judge that he was falsely assuming medical marijuana programs in different states were set up and run in an identical manner. Nonetheless, Judge Mason moved on quickly to his next point, not looking back again at his clipped articles. “I don’t make as much of the child endangerment charge as the prosecutor does. All this talk about drug dealers exposing people in the house to the risks of other crimes, home invasion. It just doesn’t ring my chimes to the degree that it does the prosecution. The conviction was right, but these other factors just don’t strike me as an aggravation.”
Judge Mason’s face was heavily folded in concentration. “One thing that does affect me is the impact on other people that the defendant’s incarceration would have,” he sighed. “With some reluctance, I’m inclined to conform to the probation recommendation. I’m just not so blooming sure he will conform to the recommendation.”
The judge then made a stab at employing an aphorism. “There’s a saying: ‘Probation is for the innocent, not for the guilty.’” As he attempted to expound on this saying, however, an odd look came upon his face. “No, that’s not right,” he said, correcting himself. “It’s: ‘Probation is for the guilty, not for the innocent.’”
Having finally gotten the adage right, Judge Mason proceeded to apply it to Berchielli. “And here, there’s not a bit of remorse or even a word that shows he thinks he’s done anything wrong. People in this room who are in this movement to legalize may think he shouldn’t be guilty because it should be legalized. But if he grows again because he thinks it’s right, probation won’t be doing him any favors.”
The judge had certainly tipped his hand – he was going to grant probation. But the war was not yet won in the prosecutor’s eyes, and Morgan was tenacious. He quickly seized onto the fears that caused the judge to hesitate, and attempted to emphasize and magnify them. “He told the probation office that he’s not guilty!” Morgan declared, channeling into his words a full-bodied outrage. “He told them he hasn’t done anything wrong!”
“Well, with the probation interview, you’re kind of between a rock and a hard place, between being intellectually honest versus toadying up. I don’t condemn his candor,” the judge said, nodding toward Berchielli. Still, Morgan’s words appeared to stick in his craw, and the judge gave voice to the shades of his reluctance. “The problem is – he thinks he’s the arbiter, not the state of California, in what can be done. That’s what troubles me.”
Berchielli’s attorney spoke up, but the judge didn’t even let her finish her first thought before going back to his monologue. “We’re still going through the process, changes with the law—”
“I think it’s tragic, the DEA versus the state of California,” Judge Mason declared. “That doesn’t justify what’s illegal under federal law. It just makes it harder for those who are legitimate.”
Grandmother May Reimann
O’Connor was smart enough to forgive the judge’s interruption and allow him to continue with his own rhetoric. In spite of his hesitation and glancing over his proverbial shoulder, Judge Mason was clearly on a path that was favorable to the defense. With his next sentence, he proved it beyond the shadow of doubt. “I’m going to give one awfully big break to Mr. Berchielli today, and he can thank grandma…and, to a lesser extent, daughter.”
The judge had made his decision solidly, but he remained conflicted about the consequences of his judgment. “I have telegraphed my punch – I am going to follow the probation report, but I do it with extreme reluctance. I think it’s pretty brazen for a man with such high standing in the community to determine what he thinks the law is or should be.”
The judge went on without mentioning whether it would be more appropriate for a publicly scorned man to make legal decisions. “This was not the marijuana cultivation case of the century,” he acknowledged. “But I do find a degree of professionalism. I think this was megalomania, that he thought he could do whatever he wanted and that he could decide if it was legal.”
Having made the decision to order probation, it was now up to the judge to determine the conditions of probation. He was quick to grant the defense’s request that Berchielli be allowed to use a cell phone. “I don’t think it’s the case that a guy like this can’t be trusted with a cell phone, triple beam scales, and other indicia,” Judge Mason consented.
Next, he addressed the probation office’s requirements about controlled substances, which were prohibited unless prescribed by a licensed physician and unless the amount is consistent with personal use. “I remember at trial the doctor said that marijuana couldn’t be prescribed, and the doctor said he writes a card for it that’s a recommendation,” the judge recalled. “So I’ll broaden the condition to say ‘unless lawfully prescribed or unless you lawfully come within the Marijuana Compassionate Use Act.’”
Continuing to acknowledge the defense’s objections to the probation conditions, the judge made another concession. “I won’t say that you can’t associate with sellers of marijuana, but the involvement should be for obtaining your own personal amount. If your business or entrepreneurial instincts tell you to get involved in growing marijuana for someone else, it must be under state law and approved by probation…and you’ll have a hard time getting that,” the judge smirked.
“I accept the philosophy of the Compassionate Use Act,” the judge added, looking intensely at Berchielli. “You haven’t been under the umbrella of that act to date.”
Judge Mason then considered the probation requirement that Berchielli continue with gainful employment. “I am satisfied that your medical situation does not allow for regular and steady employment, so I’m not ordering that, but to conduct yourself in a legal manner with regard to your hobbies, etc. You’re a master gardener, but if I hear you’re out there telling an illegal grower how to get the best yield from his crop, that’s out of the bounds.”
If Berchielli was unclear on that point, the judge made sure to rephrase it several different times and different ways. “Your lifestyle insofar as what you might see as a noble effort to spread the cultivation of marijuana, as of today has come to a sudden, abrupt stop, until the legislature says it’s okay for you to do that. Your career as a marijuana grower stops right here.”
Marijuana cultivation was so grave of an offense, in the judge’s view, that he catapulted it to the top of the list of Berchielli’s dangerous activities. “I think cultivation is the key case here, whereas the prosecutor thinks its child endangerment,” he clarified. “About all the sharp stakes in the backyard – if there was a 2 year-old child, I would say it was dangerous, but a 14 year-old? I’m not even sure she’s out there climbing on the fence.”
Judge Mason, betraying his ignorance about teenagers sneaking out of their homes for covert recreational activities, continued with his argument that the cultivation charge was the most serious of the convictions. He ordered a ten-month jail term for this charge, but considered allowing Berchielli to serve it as work furlough. The judge, however, had some concerns about the program, asking the defense, “Is it just that the sheriff winks and looks the other way because you’re medical?”
O’Connor explained that the program would involve an ankle bracelet, and the judge was amenable, ultimately ordering a work furlough if Berchielli was found to be eligible for that option. “I don’t think this is a case for state prison at this time,” Judge Mason determined. The ten-month term on work furlough would be part of a longer period of five years of formal probation, but the judge refused to officially sentence the defendant on his convictions. His intention was to purposefully keep Berchielli in the dark about the sentence he would face if he violated his probation.
“I’d like to have the whole bullet facing him,” Judge Mason said about such a circumstance. “I’ll suspend it for now and leave it to some other judge in the future. If Mr. Berchielli is stupid enough to continue to illegally cultivate marijuana, this leaves him open to the maximum sentence that can be imposed.”
Berchielli then agreed to waive his right against search and seizure, for the purpose of probation checks, and what remained was a listing of the other conditions of his supervised release. Berchielli was to register as a drug offender, and, in addition, he was not to own, possess, or be in the presence of a firearm or other deadly weapon. Judge Mason reduced the restitution fine down to $200, allowing for the payment to be made in installments. The judge tried to waive the remainder of the fines, including the booking fee, the classification fee, and the court security fee. However, the clerk broke in to assert that the security fee was mandatory, and so Judge Mason ordered a $100 fine for that purpose. “I was the prime mover 25 years ago to put some reality into these fees, only to find out there was not a serious effort for their collection,” he reminisced from the bench.
Before finishing with Berchielli, however, he had to bring his analogy full-circle. “I seldom have a Jekyll and Hyde as clear as you,” he said to the defendant. “A lot of people in this room think you’re the greatest guy around, but you’re a grower of 1400 plants illegally.”
After again misstating the plant count in the case, the judge concluded with an acerbic piece of ridicule. “You were smoking the pipe, and you thought you could get away with it,” he poked. “You couldn’t.”
In the last matter of business on Berchielli, Judge Mason referred to the recent batch of character letters that had arrived on behalf of the defendant. “I have considered the additional ton and a half of paper, and ordered it filed with the court,” the judge said for the record. It was a wryly humorous exaggeration, but had its necessary grain of truth – the letters in support of Berchielli had been numerous, lengthy, and appeared to have caught the judge off guard.
However, there was no such outpouring on behalf of the co-defendant. Weber had been a lonely figure throughout the case, arriving each day in shackles and with a police escort. None of his friends or family had come to the courtroom to observe during the trial, and at sentencing the only faces that looked on from the audience were Berchielli’s acquaintances.
And Weber was certainly not getting any moral support from the prosecutor, who insisted that the defendant was ineligible for a grant of probation. “He was on probation when the crime occurred,” Morgan told the judge, gesturing toward Weber as he spoke. “He had previously been to prison on a felony count. His case doesn’t warrant another grant of probation.”
With that, the prosecutor recommended for Weber a three-year sentence in state prison. When it came to Morgan’s perspective, there was no room for second chances. In fact, there was barely any room for first chances either.
“Mr. Weber does not have as impressive of a background as Mr. Berchielli,” Judge Mason said, stating the obvious. “He’s ineligible for probation unless the court finds exceptional circumstances.”
But in the judge’s view, comparative fates did create exceptional circumstances. “It wouldn’t be justice to punish Mr. Weber more than Mr. Berchielli. That would be the tail wagging the horse.” Listeners were left to wonder how this was different from the tail wagging the dog, but the judge didn’t pause long enough for much reflection.
Judge Mason shuffled through the section in the probation report that dealt with Weber’s legal troubles in Placer County. “I won’t paint him blacker than he is because of his charge in El Dorado,” the judge said, confusing the neighboring counties. “The only way for him to get along and get room and board was to water the plants for his buddy, and he did, and they got caught. The jury showed discretion, and only convicted him on the cultivation charge. Now, I find it unpalatable to punish him worse than Mr. Berchielli because of his minor role in this thing. I am going to order five years of formal probation for Mr. Weber, and the seven months in county jail recommended by the probation office.”
The clerk was quick to interrupt, stating that Weber had 537 days of credit from being incarcerated ever since his arrest in this case. “Well, that takes care of it,” Judge Mason concluded, indicating that Weber could now be transferred over to the hold of Placer County authorities. He went on to describe conditions of probation that were nearly identical to those ordered for Berchielli, including a waiver of many of the court fees. The judge decided to allow the use of a cell phone as well as the use of marijuana in conformity with California law. He also required that Weber register as a drug offender, submit to searches and drug testing, and give up possession of any dangerous weapons.
By the end of the recitation, Weber was so tremulous that he ended up overflowing water from the pitcher that was placed on the table before him. “He spilled the water – is that a violation of probation?” the judge asked jokingly, smiling down from his bench at a clearly embarrassed Weber who was making efforts to wipe up the spill.
Having just made a mess in the courtroom, it was perhaps not the most opportune time for Weber to make a request. However, the judge was wrapping up the hearing and Weber was running out of time, so he spoke up and asked the judge to order the return of items seized during the raid. His concerns centered on a medical marijuana identification card and a file of his medical records.
Judge Mason readily agreed to the request, “I will direct the Sheriff to return anything that isn’t contraband.” After a moment of thought, he said in stern clarification, for the record, “The marijuana, he doesn’t get.”
On that note, the judge began packing up the documents on his desk. “It’s been a long and tough one, folks,” he said, summing up the hearing. “I bit the bullet and came eight hundred miles to do this.”
Outside the courtroom, Berchielli was received joyously by the group of friends and colleagues who had come to support him. They gave grins and hugs galore, and when Judge Mason emerged unexpectedly from his chambers into the hallway, he was offered many handshakes from the celebrating group.
Thanks poured out in abundance, but the most salient words came from Berchielli’s pastor. With a friendly smile, Reverend William Ellis of the Zion Lutheran Church extended his hand to the judge. “You made a good decision,” Ellis assured Judge Mason warmly. “He’s not going to let you down.”
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