In Service to Justice

IN SERVICE TO JUSTICE

Striving to Bring Forth Our Nobility

William E. Davis

The contents of this work, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of events, people, and places depicted; opinions expressed; permission to use previously published materials included; and any advice given or ac tions advocated are solely the responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for said work and indemnifies the publisher against any claims stemming from publication of the work.

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Copyright © 2023 by William E. Davis

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Contents

Striving to Bring Forth Our Nobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Section One: My Internship in Serving Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter One: Coal Mine Owner’s Son

Chapter Two: Peace Corps Volunteer

Chapter Three: My Career Serving Justice Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Baha’i Interlude One: A Faith of Unity and Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Section Two: In Service to American Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter Four: Justice Reform – Kentucky Style

Baha’i Interlude Two: Creating Mutual Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter Five: Justice Reform – Uncle Sam Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter Six: Justice Reform – California Style

Baha’i Interlude Three: On Behalf of Peace and Racial Harmony . . . . .

Section Three: In Service to International Justice

Chapter Seven: Preparing for International Work

Chapter Eight: Developing the Rule of Law

Latin America

Middle East and Transcaucasia

Chapter Nine: Introducing Dispute Resolution

Mediating in Courts, Communities,

Acting as a Mediator in World Bank Disputes

Chapter Ten: Increasing Integrity

The Last Section: Closing Days of My Life

Baha’i Reflection: In Service to All Peoples

The Last Chapter: In Service, Still

Appendix.

Learning Opportunities

My Publications

Striving to Bring Forth Our Nobility

“Only if you perceive honor and nobility in every human being…will you be able to champion the cause of justice.”1

Universal House of Justice, Baha’i Faith2

It is 2001. I am at lunch looking at a cooked guinea pig looking back at me. It is the only delicacy my hosts—an Indigenous family living in the Peruvian Andes—can offer me. But I am more than grateful for the opportunity to partake of it and speak with them about their concerns for their land and their lives, as part my role as chief mediator for a World Bank project.

Unnerved by the guinea pig’s stare, I ask myself, How did Billy Davis from Hazard, Kentucky end up in this place at this time, heading a team to mediate a dispute between a poor Indigenous people living in the high Andes and the wealthy owners and managers of an American/Peruvian gold mine situated even higher in the Andes? I cannot draw a straight line from my earliest days in eastern Kentucky as a towheaded kid playing with friends in a coal mine slag to my more recent days as a legal consultant on the development of the rule of law and alternate dispute resolution all around the world.

Growing up in Appalachia had taught me, in some ways, that I was inferior to most other people. In fact, in April 1994, when my alma mater, Transylvania University, gave me a Distinguished Service Award, a former professor approached and told me, “We did not think you would ever amount to much.”

Yet I have had a truly unusual life. From “being reared” in the hills of Eastern Kentucky to meeting Presidents of several countries and one King to working in over fifty countries at the highest levels of justice reform, my journey has not been typical for a “Duke of Hazard [sic].”

As I look back on my life, one aspect that becomes clear to me is how purposeful I have been. Once I was able to see my path in the field of justice administration, the pattern of my life was set. Early on with the California Judicial Council, I had a sense that I needed to help lead a major change in the U.S. justice system. This desire was influenced by the teachings of the Baha’i Faith: “The best beloved of all things in my sight is Justice.” During the course of this journey, I did become a member of the Faith.

Since then, I have constantly sought to find ways to apply spiritual principles to the problems and challenges that come my way. I have not always been successful, but I’ve always thought that principles not applied to real life have less validity. In this book, I discuss one notable example of how I used a Baha’i principle on nobility to devise a strategy to confront corruption (Chapter Ten).

The dominant theme of my life has been striving to bring forth the nobility in each of us in the pursuit of justice, both in the States and elsewhere in the world. Advancing the cause of justice is a laudatory goal but one that seems elusive; the absence of a commonly agreed-upon standard allows for the idea of justice to remain largely abstract. I have always sought to find ways to reduce the abstract to the practical. In this book, I relate many experiences of making justice translatable and real for people.

Writing about myself has not been easy. Reliving over eighty years of life has brought back painful memories that I have sought to bury in the past. The entire process has taken me longer than I expected because of the emotional turmoil that so characterized some of my earlier life experiences. Having said that, I am grateful I stayed with the endeavor and finished it.

As a member of the Baha’i Faith, I have tried to cultivate a perspective on life that does not seek to glorify myself. The Faith encourages us to manifest humility and self-abnegation in our lives. I have wrestled with these concepts in writing this memoir, trying to relate my personal and professional experiences in a balanced fashion.

I have never been one to talk about myself; so many of the stories in this book were not known even to my wife and children. Writing is also not my

SECTION ONE:

My Internship in Serving Justice

“Billy, you have to remember that your mother would want you to pitch a tent in the backyard and remain here forever. You have to make decisions for your life.”

— Uncle Minor, country doctor serving coal miners in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky

CHAPTER ONE

Coal Mine Owner’s Son

Much of who I am came from my mother’s parents…

My maternal grandmother, Bess Crain, used to take me to the Methodist Church in Jackson, Kentucky every Sunday I stayed with her. Imagine a small boy with tons of energy having to sit quietly with the choir for an hour while people stood up to sing and knelt to pray. When an older man raised his voice to call those in attendance to repent their sins, I asked Momma Crain, “What are sins?” I asked Momma Crain, “Why do some people suddenly shout out?” I asked Momma Crain, “Why do people seem so sad?”

My earliest religious memories are with my grandmother. Her devotion to her church, including its community outreach activities like visiting the sick and helping the people of Eastern Kentucky, became the Christian standard of conduct I grew to understand.

Before Wednesday night prayer meetings at the Church, we would walk up the alley in front of her home, cross the street, and walk another two blocks to the Church with my little hand firmly in the grip of hers. Every night before going to sleep, we would pray, thanking God for his love for us and asking forgiveness for our sins. Momma Crain would say to me, “Billy, Christ came to save us, and we must be good Samaritans to those around us.” Service to others was what Faith meant to her, and it has meant the same for me.

Momma Crain’s fame, though, was mostly for her fried chicken. I used to watch her wring the necks of the chickens in the backyard and chop them into parts before cooking them for Sunday dinner after church. Fortunately, she believed in the attributes of butter and bacon fat for frying. She even cooked her fried chicken for the wives of several Presidents of the United States during their visits to Jackson: Eleanor Roosevelt, Lady Bird Johnson, and Rosalynn Carter.

Momma Crain and I would sit for prolonged periods on the back-porch swing and imagine places we could travel to if the swing could fly. She would read me fairy tales and the story of cock robin. She would take me to the train depot, where her uncle was a locomotive engineer, and say he was driving a train carrying coal from my father’s mine.

I was never in trouble when at her home. I could palpably feel her love, a memory that has never left me. I have often remembered my relationship with her and encouraged my wife to take on the same role with our grandsons.

My grandfather, Daddy Crain, gave me a different gift. He was an itinerant schoolteacher who would ride his horse from school to school, teaching classes to the kids living in the remote areas of the mountains surrounding Jackson. Along with his brother, Mitch, he also started a dry goods store, where they sold everything a farmer might need and clothing for the people living in town. In 1929, he was appointed U.S. Postmaster for Jackson; he would use an original Parker Big Red fountain pen for signing documents, a treasure I recently gave to my granddaughter, Ella.

After observing someone acting poorly, Daddy Crain would often say, “You have to remember, ‘a drop of vinegar will spoil a gallon of milk.’” His point was that you can make a difference in life by the decisions you make.

As Daddy Crain was telling his tales, I would sit with him on the large sixfoot-wide swing on his front porch, rapt by his message. He would keep me on the edge of my seat with his stories, but I could not tell the difference between “spun tales” and truthful ones. I got so upset after one of his stories that I wrote to the FBI and asked for an investigation into the supposed events he had related. My grandmother kept the letter.

What a gift Daddy Crain gave me: the gift of storytelling.

political system, especially in Kentucky, where the evolution of merit-based employment was still struggling to gain a foothold in state government.

At the conclusion of the meet and greet session, I called Chief Justice Scott Reed and told him of the discussion with Sonny Hunt. I explained to him, “Registering as an Independent was a matter of religious principle and not negotiable, and if this causes you difficulty, I could return to California where I am still welcome.”

“There is no need for you to leave,” he responded. Unfortunately, he would never be supportive in my frequent encounters with Sonny Hunt because he wanted Hunt’s political support to be appointed a U.S. District Judge. Several years later, Justice Reed was able to fulfill this lifelong aspiration.

Much later, I realized the significance of this encounter with Sonny Hunt. We were focused on building a new judicial system, which meant new ways of doing business. By openly declaring my adherence to principle, I became a topic of much discussion in state government employee circles. Ten years later, during a visit to Kentucky, I ran into several people who had heard of this incident and spoke of it as having been an encouraging sign for public employees laboring under the patronage system.

How the opportunity for reform arose

Reform of any kind in Kentucky is not common. It is a state that proudly clings to its historical roots.

When I was a child growing up in eastern Kentucky in the early 1950s, I participated in a campaign to raise school funds because Kentucky ranked last or nearly last in school funding. The school administration encouraged us school kids to ask our neighbors for support, from whom we frequently heard the common refrain, “If schoolin’ was good ’nuff for me, no need to change it now.” I don’t want to put down Kentucky, but securing any lasting reform of a major element of state function has always been extremely difficult.

Court reform that would create a new trial court system had been on the state ballot two previous times before 1975. It had been defeated primarily because of the opposition of county judges, who held the unique combination of judicial, legislative, and executive power, giving them near total control over local government. This situation had contributed to corruption and near autoc-

racy at the local level. The famous TV example of a county judge was Boss Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard TV series. Although Boss Hogg was a caricature, he was an example of the figures I would be dealing with over the next several years.

What was unique in 1975 was the emergence of a coalition of civicminded groups led by the League of Women Voters, who spearheaded the campaign for reform. The leadership of the League very wisely approached both gubernatorial candidates early and secured their support for the constitutional amendment, or the Judicial Article. With both candidates supporting the reform, those groups opposing the county judges and the Association of Counties faced formidable challenges. The campaign against the Judicial Article went under the label Preserve Local Control. To the astonishment and objection of many, the call to reform passed.

Around the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to require legally trained judges to hear cases that could impose a prison sentence of more than 6 months for a guilty verdict. This decision struck a fatal blow to the traditional role of lay judges. Kentucky had over 1200 lay judges serving in the limited jurisdiction courts. With this change came the transfer of the court duties of county clerks and judges to the trial court clerks.

The Judicial Article also called for the creation of a new trial court with legally trained and elected District Court judges; the creation of a new Court of Appeals with the election of 14 new Court of Appeals justices; the creation of a Nominating Commission for Court of Appeals positions; and the creation of a Disciplinary Commission to investigate complaints about judges. As I saw it, these rather simple-looking reforms laid the foundation for comprehensive reform, although I was the only one to see this opportunity. A colleague at the Judicial Council in California had given me a framed quote as a parting gift, “In the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is King.”

I seek allies to counter legislators’ hostility

In my brief experience in California, I had not had much opportunity to interact with legislators. Now in my new position, I was the lead for the reform effort. Initially, I was unprepared for the level of hostility I would encounter.

The legislators arrived in early January 1976 in Frankfort for the ninetyday, bi-annual session. Many came with instructions from various local officials

My First Projects in Central America

In the early 1980s, while serving as the circuit executive for the federal courts in the Ninth Circuit, I received phone calls from individuals at the U.S. State Department. They had been given my name by the Administrative Office of Courts for the federal courts and wanted to discuss possible justice reform interventions for the countries in Central America that had undergone recent civil strife.

Just after the invasion and capture of Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1989, I received a call to be part of a team to go to Panama to design a justice reform package. I had never done anything like this mission. I was intrigued by the idea but went with trepidation.

After we arrived in Panama City, we drove by an area called Chorrillos, which had completely burned to the ground. I had not seen reports of this large fire. Later, I came to understand that during the invasion our troops had sent mortars and rockets into this shanty town built of wood. The precise number of those who perished has never been known. In fact, when we first visited the Supreme Court building, we could see places where court records had probably been burned.

As we began to interview individuals who would be part of the team to take first steps in a justice reform project, we realized Panama would first need to name key people to assume leadership positions in a new government. Designing a justice reform project amidst a total change of government belied the understanding necessary for conditions to build a state. USAID felt it necessary to show the flag and identify some constructive steps.

I found myself on the outs with much of the project design team. To me, Panama had to stabilize its government first, then we could develop a program.

Sometime later, Violeta Chamorro won the Presidency of Nicaragua in a contested election with Daniel Ortega, a Sandinista who was President at the time. She was the widow of the publisher of the principal newspaper in the country, who had been murdered.

Once again, I was part of the first team contracted by USAID to land in Nicaragua. We were asked to identify a possible justice reform project but were confronted with a bitterly divided country. In almost every meeting where an official was a holdover of the Sandinista government, there was total resistance to any U.S. government involvement. The U.S. had been perhaps the most vocal opponent to the Sandinista government funding the Contras.

The newly appointed personnel of the Chamorro government faced enormous hostility. I remember being in a meeting with members of the Supreme Court, which consisted of a majority of Ortega appointees and newly appointed Chamorro appointees. This meeting was barely civil. I observed that in this environment it would be impossible to engage in any meaningful reform project with governmental groups.

The divisions in the country were evident everywhere. Interviews with representatives of NGOs disclosed how difficult it was to engage in meaningful work in such a political setting. It seemed to me the country had devolved into an abyss of perpetual dissent. The very idea of compromise or reconciliation was not discussed. My natural tendency is to look for common ground between diverse interests, but I was unable to find any.

A side note of interest that piqued my curiosity: President Chamorro became an instant hit with the women of Nicaragua by eliminating incredibly heavy coins of little value. She complained that for years going shopping and having to carry a bag full of these very heavy coins had taught her there must be a better way to have small denominations. Thus, bills of small value were printed. A man would never think of such a change.

Frustration leads to a new consulting company, DPK

A Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm contracted these early consulting assignments. Because the firm consisted of former USAID employees, they had a particularly good grasp of how to go about implementing a prescribed format for USAID projects. The days of USAID having its own expert staff had long been gone and consultants were the informed arm of the agency.

After nearly twenty-five years working in the state and federal courts of the U.S., I found the consultants’ approach to international justice too constrained and too narrowly focused. U.S. government officials and their con-