Interview Transcript-Interview #1

Jamie Knopsnyder: So the first question is: Why did you become an attorney?

Respondent: My father is an attorney and I watched him in court from the time I was little and I
remember I was probably about eight years old that I wanted to be a trial attorney. And then a
judge some day. So yeah from when I was eight I knew what I wanted to do, as crazy as that
sounds.

Jamie Knopsnyder: What made you want to focus on criminal law?

Respondent: I have always been fascinated by the jury trial system and we obviously have that
in civil, too but its not nearly as exciting work: arguing over money or damages and things like
that is not nearly as exciting as in a lot of the criminal trials so it’s the jury trial system that I was
always fascinated by.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Why did you chose to run for judge?

Respondent: I guess I probably can say that best because I felt that was the biggest way that I
could make a difference. Being able to have control over the outcome of the case and being able
to try to do the right thing. I feel like judges have the ability to make change where sometimes
people don’t realize. It’s not all about deciding cases, you can actually really make a difference
and impact people in that role and I felt very strongly about making, trying to at least, trying to at
least make a difference in that way.

Jamie Knopsnyder: How long have you been a judge?

Respondent: I was elected in 2013 so I took the bench in January of 14, so I’m in my fourth
year.

Jamie Knopsnyder: How long have you been an attorney?

Respondent: I passed the bar in 2000, so seventeen years, getting old.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Oh my gosh, no!

Jamie Knopsnyder: Could you provide me with what a typical day looks like for you?

Respondent: So in criminal court, we have a docket of cases everyday and they probably range
from about thirty-five to sixty-five cases in a day. Everybody is scheduled at nine a.m. and we
just call the one by one until we are done. A lot of those cases are just quick, routine matters that
don’t take much time. We’ll have longer proceedings that are usually set for a 1:30 hearing. So
we’ll do the quick things in the morning and then the longer motions or sentencing or something
that will take a long period of time, we will schedule in the afternoon. So I’m in court every
morning, for sure and then several afternoons out of the week and then the rest of the afternoon
that I might not be in court, I’ll spend preparing the files for the coming days or weeks, working
on opinions or things like that in the office.

Jamie Knopsnyder: What challenges do you encounter everyday by being a criminal judge?

Respondent: Patience. *Laughs* Definitely patience. It’s a challenge to, I try to stay positive,
some days it’s harder than others but you do get, you see yourself getting a little bit, it’s a
challenge not to become jaded, I guess, because I’m not jaded, but I can see how judges after
being on the bench for a long time, do become that way because you start to think “Am I really
making a difference here? Is this person really hearing me? Because they just don’t seem to be
getting it. so those are probably two of the biggest challenges you have on a daily basis is just
trying to maintaining your patience or your compassion for people. Knowing that they continue
to be knuckleheads. *Laughs*

Jamie Knopsnyder: So my research is about recidivism rates and why people continue to re-
offend even after they’ve been in prison or jail, so it kind of goes along with what you were
saying and the question is, as a judge do you see a lot of the same people and situations in your
courtroom?

Respondent: Yes, period. Yes. There’s a revolving door. You let somebody out, they come back
in. you let them out, they come back in. You send them to treatment they leave treatment, they
come back to jail. They do it again. Or they complete treatment, but then they relapse. You start
to see the same faces and I tell them “You know this isn’t good for you because I know your
name now and I know your face and I know you story. I see a lot of people and when the judge
knows you by name, it means you’re in the courtroom too often and there’s a lot of them at this
point.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Why do you think this happens?

Respondent: Probably the biggest reason in our county and maybe across the country, is drugs
now and alcohol are running ramped and criminal defendants are having trouble getting clean
and staying clean. Its causing them to violent their probation or parole and brings them back to
jail. Causes them to commit new crimes too which brings them back to jail.

Jamie Knopsnyder: What do you think could be done to keep these things from happening to the
same type of people and families?

Respondent: Well we’re making an effort to to treat these individuals and develop things in the
criminal justice system to try to treat people and addiction. But I think the biggest way to tackle
this on the front end is probably prevention so that as children, we’re educating them more and
we’re looking for early signs, needing intervention before it gets to be where it is once they get
to me.

Jamie Knopsnyder: What do you think is the reason for people to re-offend?
Respondent: Most of the times it’s going to be drugs and its going to be addiction, feeding the
addiction, stealing is probably the biggest thing. I do have a lot of thefts or retail thefts that are
related to poverty for sure and sometimes I can tell by what they stole.

Jamie Knopsnyder: What do they steal?

Respondent: Like if its something for drugs, its going to be like electronics or ya know gift
cards, and things like that that they can trade for drugs. If you’re stealing things like food or
infant formula or deodorant or something, it’s probably a money issue and that’s just something
that you kind of start to learn what’s valued on the street and what isn’t.

Jamie Knopsnyder: From your experience, what is the difference between what judges and
attorneys can do to help their clients in rural areas and urban areas? Can they help with housing,
food, resources, clothing, things like that, or is it more evident in rural areas or is it just as
evident in urban areas?

Respondent: From speaking to different providers and case managers that I work with, it seems
like housing is an issue everywhere, housing specifically, and speaking to judges from other
counties, both rural and urban communities, it seems like housing is an issue everywhere, and
safe, sober housing. I mean you could call a lot of things housing I guess but giving somebody a
place where they can call it home and be safe and secure and have what they need that is a
challenge everywhere, which is obviously a funding issue and every conference I go to it seems
like that’s a topic that comes up is how do we deal with funding; how do we deal with housing? I
mean, in our county for instance, we don’t have halfway houses and things like that so when
we’re sending somebody to treatment and they’re homeless, they don’t have somewhere to go
back to after their impatient stay, they need housing, usually its not going to be here in our
county. So it winds up causing folks to relocate out of county where they can get into a sober,
living, or a therapeutic community of some sort where we have them in Washington, and Erie,
and Lancaster, and other counties, and Allegheny county, but none here. So I’m not sure if I
answered your question because it’s one of those questions if I knew the answer, I’d be out there
doing it, it’s just a challenge with funding. I think that judges and attorneys both though, need to
be educated on where the resources are for folks so that, obviously we’re not social workers, but
in having a conversation with a criminal defendant who’s explaining the challenges they have,
it’d be nice if the judge could respond and say “well, have you tried community action? Have
you tried the Westmoreland County Food Bank? Have you tried Feeding the Spirit?” So it would
be nice if judges and attorneys educated on the resources that are available because sometimes
it’s just a matter of linking the client to the resource. We take it for granted that people know
how to help themselves and they don’t always. If they did, they probably would be doing it. And
I think I just answered your next question, sorry.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Oh, that’s okay. So do you think it goes back to like county funding or state
funding or government funding, or is it all of them?

Respondent: I think it’s probably all of them. When we’re talking about housing, I don’t think
anyone cares where the funding comes from, as long as it comes. You know there are some
housing vouchers and things like that that are available and that we tap into on the drug and
alcohol side. So there are moneys available through the Drug and Alcohol Commission for one
that assists a person in getting back on their feet after treatment. Somebody who is not dealing
with drug and alcohol addiction is not going to have that resource, however.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Do you have any experience with the public defender’s office or pro bono
services?

Respondent: Yes, I was an assistant public defender when I started practice, so 2000 to 2005, I
was there five years in our county public defender’s office.

Jamie Knopsnyder: What was it like?

Respondent: It was, I really enjoyed it, I really enjoyed, I mean it kind of sounds weird because
a lot of my client’s were bad people, but you got the opportunity to see the human side of them
rather than just how they’re portrayed on paper by the police or the commonwealth, you got to
see that they were actually human beings that weren’t bad people you know per say, they might
have done bad things, but there was a lot of mitigating circumstances that once you really sit
down and listen, some of it was just a cry for help, some of it was “I didn’t know what else to
do,” some of it was you know, “I’m just a bad person,” I mean there are those people. But I think
it really helped me be compassionate with people that come before me because you can’t just
judge a book by its cover and the book cover is usually just a list of the things they’ve done.
Sometimes you gotta give them a chance and delve a little bit deeper and ask them more
questions and see how you can intervene to stop the cycle.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Do you have any examples of how you intervened or any cases that stood
out to you that you still remember to this day?

Respondent: I have a couple. I have a couple where, I found that most of my clients in the public
defender’s office just wanted to have someone care about their case. They, they would complain
and people would say “my lawyer doesn’t call me back, she doesn’t write back to me or
whatever,” and I never really had anyone say that about me because I realized at a really quick
pace that all they really wanted was your time and your attention. So if they wrote you a letter
and asked you a question, just take the time to write back. Now, these days, they have a video
system where you can video conference your client at the jail. You don’t even have to go down
there to the jail and go through the process of getting in and getting out which took hours. You
can just set up a video conference. So there’s really no excuse to not give them the time and the
attention. You know they’re sitting down there, they’ve got nothing but time on their hands and
they’re just wondering if anybody cares about them. They just want to know that their attorney is
working on their case and paying attention to it and by making a quick phone call or writing a
letter that it builds credibility and it gets your client to take your advice because they start to trust
you and to understand that you really are doing what’s in their best interest and once you build
that trust, then you really have the ability to guide them through the system, whether it be putting
them in touch with resources or helping them succeed on their supervision so they can move on
with their life or helping them through the jury trial and helping them trust you can handle it, that
you have their interest’s at heart. I remember, I actually just had a guy in front of me, I was his
attorney in a jury trial and I had to disclose to everybody that I represented him because I didn’t
want there to be a conflict of interest, but I remembered him very, very well. And of course he’s
standing there how many years later in handcuffs and I’m shaking my head like “well you didn’t
take my advice. You’re still here,” but I guess you just have to be responsible with the process,
you can’t be responsible for the outcome.

Jamie Knopsnyder: What was, maybe, the most shocking case that you’ve had to represent or
deal with?

Respondent: As an attorney or judge?

Jamie Knopsnyder: Both.

Respondent: The most shocking cases are always the child sex cases. Those are shocking in a
really bad way. Those are the cases that you can’t un-see, once you see the pictures or you hear
the testimony of the child. Those are the cases that stay with you and really impact you.
Especially because I have kids of my own. It’s difficult to hear that and see that. There was a
case that I had to watch a video that was going to be placed into evidence of an aid on a school
bus, he was an aid for a special needs child and obviously there are videos that take video of the
school bus ride day after day after day and he was sexually assaulting this child and I had to
watch it in order to rule on whatever the issue was and that stays with me because I put my kids
on the school bus everyday.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Do you think the government should provide more public health, food
services that more people can access, especially in rural areas?

Respondent: That’s definitely an issue. I think that there’s a gap there and I know that because
just personally with children, at my children’s school and dealing with defendants here we know
that despite the government programs and the food stamps and governmental assistance and
things like that you still have people who don’t have enough to eat or the children are eating at
school but not on the weekend and so there are different community organizations, at least in my
community, that have stepped up to do like backpacks full of food or snacks that the children that
are in need take home on Friday and they bring back on Monday then its filled for the following
weekend. So then at least they’re eating two meals at school and then they have their backpack to
get them through the weekend in case they don’t have enough food at home. So there definitely
is a need. I do worry about children through the summer, without school.

Jamie Knopsnyder: How do you think that recidivism could be decreased?

Respondent: The biggest issue that leads to crime in our county is drug and alcohol addiction,
for sure. Now that causes issues that trickle down from there once a person is in addiction they
will normally lose everything. They have no money, they have no home, they have no family.
Their family has stepped away from them. They’ve lost their kids, their kids are in foster care, or
whatever it may be. The drug and alcohol addiction usually causes all the other collateral effects
that bring a person back into the justice system. So the question being, how do we decrease
recidivism, that’s a very difficult question and I think it probably has to center around the
appropriate response to the opioid epidemic that we are facing in the county. Prevention, early
intervention, and education for sure. We need more treatment programs, more access to
treatment, more detox facilities, more treatment facilities, more residential communities,
therapeutic communities I should say. And then aside from that, id like to see some sort of re-
entry type program where we are when we are releasing someone from jail, we are already
setting them up with the resources they need in order to be able to try to succeed on their
supervision. So for instance, when I release somebody from jail, they are released at six o’clock,
they are literally just released out the front door and we take it for granted that that person knows
how to get a ride, or can get a ride, or knows where they’re going to go with that ride. A lot of
them just start walking and they don’t even have anywhere to go. They’ve got no money, no
home, no bus pass, they’ve got nothing. And we’ve given them all these requirements on
supervision they don’t even known how to get a photo ID that they would need to start treatment.
So there’s so many different pieces that they need to be connected with before we can ever
expect them to be successful and not come back in because they violated the terms they were
ordered to do or committed a new crime because they didn’t have the supports in place once they
were released.

Jamie Knopsnyder: What do you think causes a lot of people to get involved with drugs and
alcohol in the first place?

Respondent: There’s a lot of different reasons based on what I’m told. It seems to me that the
first drugs that are used by almost all addicts would be marijuana and alcohol. And it appears
that the younger those two primer drugs are used or tried, the higher the risk that that person goes
on to use harder drugs, heroin, pills, whatever it may be. So I think sometimes there’s an
education piece lacking where kids don’t realize that they’re priming themselves for that type of
risk later. Parents don’t realize that those are red flags, that those are things that need to be
addressed. We can’t just chalk it up to a little bit of pot or it’s normal behavior because it’s not
like it used to be. The pot is not like it was in the ‘70s. It’s different, it’s more potent, it’s
addictive, and from the marijuana and alcohol now we have access. Children have so much
access to those really scary drugs where they didn’t before. Heroin is cheap, it’s accessible,
middle schoolers will tell me that it’s way easier to get heroin than it is alcohol. Pills, they can
get their hands on pills pretty easy as well, so we need to be educating the kids and the parents
and that early intervention and those primer drugs, those red flags. Sometimes it deals, you
know, I’ve had a lot of people tell me that they started using drugs because that was the one
group that never turned them away, that was the one group that always accepted them. So there
was some sort of acceptance that they were looking for and they found it with that group of kids.
Or, this is how they dealt with a trauma, an abuse situation, or some sort traumatic situation, a
death, this is where they masked their grief with drugs and alcohol. Or a mental health issue, that
wasn’t addressed properly. And you know, the mental health part of it feeds into the drug and
alcohol part almost every time, so I think there’s a lot of reasons.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Do you think we need more funding for mental health?

Respondent: Yes, absolutely. One-hundred percent. But there’s been so many different cases
involving mental health. Situations where we can’t find a facility to take them for whatever
reason. So you have somebody with a severe mental health diagnosis and is need of treatment
but we can’t find a hospital or a program that will accept them and so they’re sitting in jail or
whatever the case may be. And that to me, it’s not fair. So yeah, we definitely need more in the
way of mental health treatment. With regard to addiction, I think if you didn’t come into
addiction with a mental health diagnosis, you came out of it with one because you’ve
traumatized your brain chemically and you know the studies show the alteration of the brain and
the poor judgment and the impulse control and all the things that come after drug use, we can’t
expect somebody to be thinking clearly and all their, they’re traumatized by what they’ve done.
So now they’re living with and trying to heal from what they’ve done to themselves and to others
so the mental health is like which came first, the chicken or the egg? Mental health is always a
component of drug and alcohol so with the rise of the drug and alcohol epidemic, obviously we
have the mental health as well.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Why do you think there isn’t as many mental health facilities accepting
people, or why are they shutting down? Because I know my mom she is a mental health nurse,
she an RN and she worked at it wasn’t a half-way house, it was called a Trilogy house-

Respondent: Like a group home or something?

Jamie Knopsnyder: Yeah! And they shut it down because there’s just no more funding for it.
But that gave people treatment, it gave them a home to live, a community, and now they’re out
on the street. So why do you think that is, if it’s so necessary?

Respondent: I don’t know the answer to that, honestly. I mean I know all of these types of group
homes and treatment facilities the community never wants that. They don’t want a group of
people living beside them that are either in recovery or have some mental illness as they would
perceive them to have and there’s stigma attached there. So I don’t think you have any
community jumping up and down saying “hey can we put one of those next door?” and I don’t
know that you’ve allowed outcry to the government for that type of thing because of the stigma
that we still see. So, I guess you’d probably be better asking the people who hold the purse
strings because I really don’t know, I don’t know the answer as to why, why we don’t have more
focus on the mental health need.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Describe your interactions with local politicians, attorneys, and police
force. How do you think these groups could work together to decrease recidivism rates?

Respondent: Well, with the drug epidemic that we’re having this is probably one of the first
times where I see a community conversation happening. We’ve developed a drug court program,
for example, in the county, in September of 2015, so we just had our two-year anniversary for
the drug court and that’s kind of a novel approach to the drug epidemic where we have a team, a
drug court team, that is built of a judge, a prosecutor, a defense attorney, a detective, treatment
providers, case managers, and probation. and rather having that proverb approach that you
usually have in criminal court, now you have all those people working as a team, to try to help
that person succeed in their recovery, while still holding them accountable, accountability is a
huge part of recovery so this, drug court is an example at how we are all working together and
taking a different approach to it because it’s an issue that affects everybody.
Jamie Knopsnyder: You kind of already answered this one. What is the lack of education in
client recidivism, or how could we make prisoners valuable to employers so they can get a job
once released?

Respondent: I think vocational training and job training is really an important part of re-entry
into society. I know there are either through Career Link and Private Industry Council there are
some programs that are available for job training and resume writing and linking people with
employers. There’s still a stigma attached obviously but I think that if you can really get a person
to embrace working a true recovery program, you are going to see some employers who will give
them a chance. Obviously you are going to have a lot of employers who just have a policy that if
you have a criminal record, you’re not going to be hired but, hopefully that tide is shifting a little
bit because drug and alcohol addiction is hitting so many families, so many different kids of
families, that almost everybody has been touched in some way and I hope to see that we don’t
have everybody painted with the same brush and I think that’s just a matter of trying to educate
the public and have everybody realize that this could happen to anyone. It could happen to my
children, anybody’s children. It’s not a low-income type risk. It’s not at-risk youth anymore, it’s
all youth.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Do you think prison programs have a positive or negative effect on
recidivism? Why or why not?

Respondent: It’s kind of one of those things where if you have somebody in jail and you have a
captive audience, you feel like “why not have them do something productive like attend a
program or attend a treatment program or attend an NA meeting or do something while they’re
doing nothing down there,” but from what I understand and what the research is showing is that
court-mandated programs are usually seen to be ineffective by the criminal defendant. It’s
something that they identify on their own that is the most effective. It’s the point where they say
“ok I want to do this now, I want to change” and then they take the steps to do it. That seems to
be the most effective method but as a judge, it’s like “ok so maybe the majority of the people
don’t find the program to be effective, if it helps a couple, why not do it because at least it gives
them a chance that maybe a light bulb will go off and they’ll become engaged at some point that
somebody is saying to them at some point down there. So I think its positive, whether its always
effective, maybe or maybe not.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Is there anything else that I may have missed that is a cause of why people
re-offend or that causes recidivism rates to increase?

Respondent: I don’t think so, I think we’ve kind of touched on all the reasons that, drugs and
alcohol, mental health, poverty, those are all kind of broad categories but nothing necessarily that
I can think of. I mean anger issues, obviously but that might come under mental health.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Yeah.

Respondent: You know the domestic violence type cases.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Do you see a lot of those?

Respondent: Yes.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Why do you think that happens so often?

Respondent: You know the anger issue and the control that the defendant has coupled with the
victim’s inability or unwillingness to press charges or to maintain the charges. A lot of times the
charges get dropped because the victim is no longer willing to cooperate with the prosecution
and they don’t have the ability to pursue the case and then you know, not long after that we’ve
got the same criminal defendant same situation, another simple assault or worse, and it’s difficult
because a lot of times the victim doesn’t know how to get away or get out from under it or
they’re just not strong enough or they don’t have the support to be able to stop it. They don’t
have the resources or they’re so broken that they no longer want to cooperate or they have this
feeling that he’ll, he or she, whomever the abuser, will stop.

Jamie Knopsnyder: I’ve thought of one more question, it’s kind of un-related, but so many
people cannot afford an attorney even though there are a lot of attorneys in the industry right
now, and they don’t qualify for a public defender but they can’t afford an attorney, what do you
think is the best way to fix that or why do you think that is?

Respondent: Right. The public defender’s office has income guidelines, obviously, that they
abide by and if you make a certain amount of money, you don’t qualify for their services, but
then, like you said, that person doesn’t have enough money to go hire a private attorney, so
there’s definitely a gap there so we wind up having defendants in that gap a lot. The pro bono
office doesn’t handle criminal cases, so you know, I wish I knew what to do with those folks
who are in the middle because I, every once in awhile, you’ll have a private attorney who will do
something pro bono but it’s hard because criminal cases can go on for a long time so it’s not like
a quick proceeding that you can handle for free. Sometimes it can go on for a year, and you
know, to ask an attorney to do that, put in that much time for free, that’s a difficult ask. So, I’m
not sure what the answer is to that question. It’s definitely a problem.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Why does it take so long for things to get through the criminal court
system?

Respondent: Well, I can tell you it’s not the judge. It’s always like perceived that it’s the court
delay or whatever. Ninety-five percent of the time its, the delay is requested by the defense
because they need more time to explore the case, or plea negotiations are going on, and on and
on. I always feel that, and I feel like my colleagues would agree with me, our job is to try to push
the case through, we need to get a resolution here. You know the longer the case goes, a lot of
time the better it is for the defendant. And we know this because, witnesses forget. Witnesses
aren’t as angry, witnesses die, and so the delay is usually in favor of the defense. So the defense
usually doesn’t have much of an issue delaying the case or requesting continuances and things
like that. So it’s really the court’s job to keep that reasonable to the point where there’s not a
justified reason for an additional delay, the commonwealth and the court have to push the case to
trial. So in our county, we’ve had a difficult few years because we’ve had one of our criminal
judges pass away and she was ill for awhile, so we’ve had three judges in criminal court, as
opposed to four which we’ve always had four, and we have a need for four. So over the last few
years, we’ve just been trying to band aid the loss and that empty seat so we’ve had some delays
caused by that. Now with the new judge being elected and in come January, we will have four
criminal judges. We will be in a better position to get criminal court back running where things
should be moving at a much better pace. We’ve been shorthanded for several years and you can
only try so many cases in a trial term. If you have a week-long trial term, and a week-long
homicide, you’re only going to get one trial done and maybe ten on the list and you can only do
so many things.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Why do you have so many criminal judges? Like I’m from Somerset
County and we only have one criminal judge. Like I didn’t realize you guys had four, that’s a lot.

Respondent: Right. Bigger county, a lot more people, population wise and a lot more cases.
Yeah, pretty big case loads. Yeah, Somerset’s a more rural, smaller county.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Yeah.

Respondent: You go to Philadelphia they have like sixty judges or something crazy like that.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Wow, that’s crazy.

Respondent: Yeah.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Do you like that there are other judges that you can bounce ideas off of, or
does it get confusing?

Respondent: No, absolutely I find it to be really helpful because sometimes you second guess
yourself, you know: “Am I on the right track here?” It’s nice to have somebody else say “No,
that makes sense” or “Maybe think about this.” There’s always a new issue that comes up or a
new twist on a set of facts that you’re just thinking “you know how does that change things?”
And sometimes you just have to talk it through and sometimes you can figure it out on your own
just by talking it through. But that’s a real benefit of having colleagues to do that.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Yeah, that’s nice. How often do you have to go like training or meetings or
whatever?

Respondent: They just started, the Supreme Court just changed the rules where now judges have
to do continuing education, where as we didn’t before, it was voluntary. Now we have to do I
think thirteen credits of continuing education every year. And so, there are two conferences
every year, The Pennsylvania State Conference of Trial Judges. There’s one in February and one
in July, so you can usually get all of your credits by attending those conferences and then I do the
Drug Court Conference, Pennsylvania Drug Court Conference in October, so that’s a third
conference that I do so there’s plenty of time to get them, thirteen credits isn’t that much.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Yeah. How do you stay up to date with all the new laws and rulings and
things like that?
Respondent: Talking, like you know my law clerk helps with that. She works with the other law
clerks to try to stay up to date on new cases that are coming out and how it may affect our
decisions between the law clerks and working amongst themselves and the judges and we, the
other good thing about just being in a small town you’re always dealing with the same DA’s and
the same public defender’s and the same defense attorneys so in court you’re always having
discussions about new cases that are coming or if you haven’t heard it from somebody else, you
heard it in court so you go back and you say to your law clerk “hey print this out” and then that
starts the discussion so and then there are different, the court administrator does a an email to us,
I think every month where she’ll outline new legislation and things that are being proposed so we
try to stay up to speed. But it’s still hard, there’s always changes, it’s hard to stay up on
everything.

Jamie Knopsnyder: Yeah definitely. Well I think that’s all I have. I’m sorry it took so long.

Respondent: No, that’s fine! I hope that I helped!

Jamie Knopsnyder: You definitely did, thank you!

*End of Interview* 11-15-17