The Constant Struggle for Justice

Perhaps in no other form is the paradox between the perfect ideal and imperfect practice apparent than in our judicial system.

At once we ask that justice be blind, then parade before her the political and social demands of the day. We ask jurists to be fair and impartial, all the while using our best rhetorical skills to influence the outcome.

Then there are the things that can go wrong.

"It is terribly flawed," admits Federal Magistrate Judge Carla Woehrle '72. "Partly it is flawed in ways we can identify and work to correct; fundamentally it is flawed because it is administered by human beings."

She received her formal education at a time when the injustice of unequal treatment was at the forefront of the national debate, amplified on college campuses around the country including her own. Her sensibilities were sharpened by 21 years bringing civil rights cases and defending accused criminals. So, 'terribly flawed' would seem to be ulceratingly worrisome.

But this is her version of the paradox. Tempered by time, wiser certainly from experience, the kind-faced judge expresses no cynicism, no disillusionment.

"I think it is alright for the system to be messy," she says.

Appointed to the bench in 1996, Woehrle does not invite messiness into her chambers, nor are her statements meant to construe that justice is an accidental tourist there. Her confidence comes from the belief that, if the rules are properly applied, justice will be done--most of the time.

"At umpteen different stages of any case there are human beings making decisions," explains Woehrle. "If it is a criminal case, it may start with the person who calls the police, then the police make decisions, prosecutors, judges, juries make decisions. All of those are human decisions and can be influenced by someone having a bad day or having a particular axe to grind. And any of those things can result in the wrong thing happening.

"I think, truly, the system is designed, and is intended, to minimize the times that justice isn't done. But it doesn't always work."

There was a time not long ago when even this imperfect system was a far-off ideal for some.

Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, in what she describes as a "classically white suburb", Woehrle saw this firsthand. As part of her high school's human rights group, she worked with underprivileged youth in other Los Angeles communities. Separated by only a few miles, Woehrle saw a chasm of difference when it came to the opportunities afforded in the different communities.

While legal segregation had been abolished in most parts of the country by this time, Woehrle said it still existed "de facto" in LA.

She also participated in outreach programs with her local parish, including work with an orphanage just south of the California border. Her parents, she says, were committed to ensuring she was not "isolated in the valley."

"I was really raised with a sort of broader social consciousness," she explains. "I always thought what I did with my life had to embrace that. So it was really a question of where I am going to end up accomplishing things—it wasn't clear it was going to end up in the practice of law."

In 1968, she enrolled at Pomona College, having heard of its reputation through her high school counselor. It was far enough away to allow her to move out on her own, but not so far as to make her feel she was leaving all that she knew behind.

"I fell into it," she remarks, "It turned out to be the perfect spot."

She went into the English program with the idea of becoming a teacher and briefly entertained joining the Teacher Corps to become an instructor in the inner city.

Protest and civil unrest were commonplace on many college and university campuses across the nation during those years. At Pomona, there were teach-ins, marches and rallies. Woehrle participated, although she recalls a too accommodating local police force making it difficult sometimes to cause real civil disobedience.

"It was an absolutely amazing time to be in college," she recalls. "Pomona was a wonderful place to be. Looking back on it now, I can see that it was protected in its way."

At the same time, she remembers campus minority rights movements were forming the foundations for the Chicano and Black Studies departments. There was also an increasing awareness that women were a minority class, too.

"It was really the beginning of some of those things that are now so engrained in the college culture there," she notes.

"In my spare time, when I went to class," she laughs, "I had really memorable teachers, particularly in English. They taught me to write, and that is what I have been doing for a living ever since."

She did not go into teaching upon graduation. Instead, she took a job as a secretary to earn money. Meanwhile, her boyfriend, fellow Pomona alumnus Eduardo Prado, was working at a newspaper in East Los Angeles.

He was busy one evening, Woehrle recalls, and so asked her to take notes on a bar association hearing he'd been covering. At issue was whether or not a man who'd gotten into trouble during a protest could still obtain a bar card.

"It was my first exposure to this idea that there were these activist lawyers," she says.
Around the same time, she learned about a night school program at Loyola Law School. She applied.

"When I started law school, I didn't know very much about how the legal world worked," she admits. Yet, 4 years later she was an attorney and working on one of the first civil rights lawsuit alleging police misconduct brought in Los Angeles County. The allegation: that a police officer in Buena Park forged fingerprints in a bank robbery case. The city paid a $750,000 settlement.

"I don't think I thought of myself as a rabble-rouser, by any means," she says. "I did feel a strong urge that what I would need to do would be to aide the powerless, or the less powerful. I think in its purest mission that is what the practice of law is.

"Through law school and your experience practicing law, what you learn is the rules," she continues. "There are masses and masses of people who don't know the rules, or don't know how to use them."

As an attorney, she says she tried to share her knowledge of the rules and make them work for her clients. Now, as magistrate, Woehrle sees an even purer mission, "to make sure the rules are applied fairly."

In general, she is responsible for overseeing settlement conferences, handling motions for discovery, bail hearings and misdemeanor criminal trials.

Where she may have the greatest opportunity to tip the scales, and right an unjust ruling, is in hearing habeas corpus petitions. Here, she is given the sole power to overturn a conviction if she finds a person's Constitutional right to due process has been violated.

Asked if she believes those same communities she tried to help as far back as high school now have equal access to justice, she admits there are still hurdles.

"It is still a constant struggle for everyone of good will at every stage of this justice system, still a constant struggle to ensure access and fairness," she says. "It is not an easy road, but I think that there is a broader awareness of the need to struggle.

"Forty years ago, if you asked every judge and every lawyer if that was important I'm not sure" they would have agreed, she says. "Genuinely, I think people in the system are very aware of the responsibility now."

-Gary Scott