Pulliam: Judge Brewer ruled with discernment and compassion. His example will be missed.
Judge Webster Brewer added a practical hands-on angle to a 1980s Indiana effort to reserve prison cells for the worst criminal offenders.
Brewer, who died this month, was a Marion County Superior Court judge of that era, serving until 1997. As an African American Democrat, he joined with local and state Republicans to have non-violent offenders sentenced to something more constructive than state prison.
Republicans had a good idea. They figured that the state could never build a prison cell for every offender. Brewer was the key local judge who was practicing what they were preaching. As a former probation officer, he was using alternatives to prison, or what came to be called community corrections.
He helped guide county and state efforts to find something in between state prison or a slap on the wrist.
“I don’t think probation is enough,” he said in the early 1980s. “It has the appearance of leniency. We need something more than that.” He started a community work service program as one alternative.
He seemed to enjoy being the lone Democrat in rooms full of Republicans. State Sen. Leslie Duvall, a Marion County Republican, and Secretary of State Ed Simcox were leading a statewide effort to provide judges with alternatives to prison. “A lot of minor offenders become serious offenders in prison,” Judge Brewer liked to explain.
With a healthy sense of humor, Brewer claimed to be the only Indiana judge with time behind bars – as a probation officer.
He also recommended his own personal Christian faith as part of the answer to criminal justice challenges. “I’m convinced the source of most criminal behavior is man’s alienation from God, his alienation from himself – which results in a poor self-image,” he said.
Brewer had both discernment and compassion on the bench. When a drunken offender appealed to the insanity plea to excuse driving a highway tractor into a tavern, Judge Brewer ruled him responsible for the crime.
Former Mayor Stephen Goldsmith recalled the judge’s impartiality from the years when Goldsmith was Marion County prosecutor.
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“There was no doubt about who was in charge,” he said. “I can’t think of a judge who interrupted me so frequently but always with a small smile and generally for the right reasons. He did not fit neatly into a single category – neither tolerating prosecutorial excesses nor implausible characterizations by the defense.”
Judge Brewer’s life recalls a pleasant time in local and state politics, when Democrats and Republicans collaborated on some issues, finding common ground in criminal justice reform.
The Democrats did not dominate Marion County. Nor did the Republicans dominate state government. Either party could beat the other in most races, and the quality of the candidate was often the winning factor. In between elections the best leaders in both parties found common ground with opponents.
Judge Brewer’s example of public service will be missed. He took seriously his oath of office, which includes faithfulness to a state constitution that requires reformation of offenders and not just vindictive justice.
Pulliam is associate editor of IndyStar. Follow him on twitter at RBPulliam@twitter.com. Email him at Russell.Pulliam@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Opinion: Marion County judge Webster Brewer led criminal justice reform
