By Bo Shoemaker
Bo Shoemaker is from Brighton, NY. He received degrees in history from SUNY Geneseo (B.A.) and Fordham University (M.A.). He also attended law school at Syracuse University (J.D.) and SUNY Buffalo Law School (LL.M.). He is currently an Assistant District Attorney in Monroe County. Bo is also the author of A History of Camp Cory, published in 2011.
Stories that feature time travel almost invariably bring up the paradox of predestination. In “Have Gavel, Will Travel,” Bo examines the effect of temporal meddling from a legal perspective as the visitors from the future try to impose new precedent on the past.
—
“Why are we even here, Phil?” I whispered to the law clerk standing next to me. “They don’t need us for this, not at all.”
“Shhhh. Ez, just deal, okay? Think of it as a fun field trip to the Adirondacks.”
Mechanics in baseball caps wheeled the future-judges’ machines to the clearing where we stood. Not one machine this time, but three, each bigger than the one used in past years. The judges referred to some kind of digital technical manual to hook up the machines, then one of the them flipped a switch. There was a flash of light, and a small brown parcel appeared, matting down the grass.
Two of the judges must not have seen the package and turned to their manual, presumably to see if they had made some mistake in setting up the machines. But Co-Chief Judge Santos had seen the parcel and bellowed, “Everyone please stay back! Clerks, please back up to the edge of the clearing!”
We did as asked, and we watched as Santos moved toward the parcel. The rest of the judges formed a horseshoe around him. Santos carefully opened the parcel and pulled out a small white object that looked like an envelope, but it didn’t look like paper. He moved his fingers along the surface of the white object, reading. He then looked up and beckoned to the other judges. They all came forward to get their own little “envelopes.” When they’d finished reading, the judges looked at each other with grave expressions.
After a few seconds, Santos looked to the mechanics and said, “Put the gates away. We’ll not be needing them further today.” Turning to us clerks, he continued, “Time to head home. Gather whatever things you brought and head back to the buses.”
None of us had much to say on the ride back to Rochester. The next day, however, rumors abounded following the announcement that Judge Orlando had set up meetings with all of his clerks, myself included.
The judge’s chambers were unchanged: red leather chairs, dark wood walls, a warm fireplace, and green-coated lamps. I sat across a coffee table from the Hon. Judge Orlando, who had changed, looking pale and shaken. Even so, the judge sipped his Earl Grey with elegance. I awkwardly followed suit, glancing appreciatively at the orange evening sky through the windows behind his desk. The Appellate Division courthouse, at the corner of East and Chestnut, still had a poor view despite the removal of Midtown Plaza years before, but at least the judge could see the sky.
“So, in short, Ezra,” he continued, “I cannot go back. Nor can any of my colleagues, at least for the foreseeable future. And neither I, nor any of my travelling colleagues, can tell anyone why.”
I nodded. “So you would like your clerks to stay on for another year?”
“Yes,” Judge Orlando responded, “that’s why I’ve called this meeting with you and why I’ll be meeting with the others later today. It might not be for just another year, Ezra. We don’t know when we’ll be going back.”
I paused. “Your Honor, if it’s a question of the machines being broken, I’m sure they can be fixed within a year if only you’d—”
He cut me off. “It isn’t a mechanical issue, or a technical one, or a mathematical one. I assure you, the machines are working just fine. Suffice to say that some events that unfold in 2111 prevent us from returning home for some time. So, for now, the six of us will just have to break procedure and remain here in Rochester into the fall 2011 term, and perhaps longer. The same for the judges in the other cities, too.”
I took another sip of my tea and engaged in small talk with the judge for some time. Then I went home through the snow to tell my roommates that my gainful employment would last for at least another year.
After a few drinks at home, my tongue loosened, and I began to rant at my roommates. “These future-judges come to Albany Thanksgiving 2006, pop in on the highest-ranking state judge, the Chief of the Court of Appeals of New York. The chief goes public, telling everyone that judges from 2106 are here to help, and, big surprise, no one believes him. Until he shows the proof the visitors gave him.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “This, again, Ezra? I swear—”
But I barreled on. “These guys negotiate with the chief judge and get the consent of the legislature to sit in mid-level courts in Rochester, Albany, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. By fall 2007, they occupy seats on all higher State courts, including the Court of Appeals,” I continued. “Hey, Tiny, hand me another beer, would ya?”
Tiny drew another Dundee from the cooler and tossed it to me, saying, “How much longer, Ez?”
I ignored him and continued my rant. “Thing is, they aren’t the same guys, but replacements from 2107 who look just like them. For some reason, the judges from 2106 were no longer adequate. Why the Hell not?” I took a big swig from my Dundee. “The future-judges influenced everything. Why risk upsetting this by replacing them? And then do it again every year since?”
Amanda was resting her forehead on her palm, elbow of that arm on her knee, took a swig of her Rohrbach, and said, “Jesus, Ez. Can you stop, now? Please?”
“I saw it, Amanda. Every September since 2008, the future-judges take a bunch of law clerks, including me, to the Adirondacks.” The Dundee then really started to affect my brain, taking the edge off the memory. “There, they activate this device, a gateway. For a moment, it looks like there are two of each judge. But the new judges are … different. The judges we know face off with the doubles, shake hands, then switch places. The judges we know disappear in a blinding flash, leaving the doubles from the next year to ride back with us and assume their duties.”
“Shut UP, Ez!” cried Tiny. “It’s been a good gig for you for years. It’s what it is. Just take the money and run.”
Another swig from my Dundee, and I replied, “Tiny, something went wrong, this time. Judge Orlando’s one of the 2110 judges, and we went up to the Park as in past years, but instead of new judges, they get this package?”
But Tiny had started some parallel conversation with Amanda. It was just me and my Dundee contemplating the vagaries of time-travelling judges.
“Okay, guys, I get it. I’m heading to Jeremiah’s.”
As I’d hoped, several other clerks were at Jeremiah’s Tavern. They were only too eager to blow off steam with me, to try to reason what might have happened to keep the 2110 judges here. World War III? A 22nd century labor strike? We, of course, had very little to go on. As the night wore on, we began to realize just how little we did know about our judges—where they were from, when they were born, what their qualifications were. Some of us became suspicious, less trusting, and less willing to accept the future-judges at face value.
I spent hours each day at my desk, falling more and more behind in my work through the rest of September and into October. Instead of doing the legal research I was assigned, I pored through newspapers from 2007 to earlier in 2010, looking for more information about the future-judges and their society. I had, for all of law school and for most of my clerkship, assumed that the people of the future were more enlightened than we. During law school, I’d read opinions from earlier times filled with bias, prejudice, stereotypes, and oppressive views. Shouldn’t this have been true for judges in the future reading decisions from our time? But why were they in our time, and why New York state courts? Didn’t the U.S. Supreme Court have cases that were much more important and well known? What was so special about the law of New York?
I thought I found the answer to this latter question one day while meeting with Judge Orlando in his chambers. Some days before, I’d noticed a small globe on the judge’s desk, among the minutiae. I brought something to his desk to have him look it over. In the few moments he took to read the document, I gave the globe as thorough a looking-over as I could. It was like a snow globe, but the miniature city within had been created with amazing precision. I recognized it as a representation of the island of Manhattan, though with added and more technologically advanced structures. Around the rim of the globe had been engraved: “Revelation 18:19.”
When the judge and I had finished our meeting, I returned to my office and searched the Web for the Biblical verse I’d seen on the globe. After a short while, I found the verse:
And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! For in one hour is she made desolate.’
Raising my eyes from the screen, I shuddered. I knew what brought the judges here. But how could they stop it?
Judge Dycus disappeared later in October. He had been out to The Inn on Broadway the night before, and by all accounts, he had had a few glasses of wine with his dinner. The judge had left alone, in the direction of his manor on East Avenue, around 10 p.m. The Democrat and Chronicle ran stories for days, consistently filling up the front page with analysis and speculation. Dycus had been an uncontroversial judge; still, the D&C spent much time poring over his decisions, since they had no biography to analyze.
Judge Dycus’s disappearance was soon overshadowed by Judge Frank’s disappearance. She had been one of the more publicly visible judges: in part because of her charisma, in part because of her laconic, pithy quotations. On October 28th, she just hadn’t shown up for work. Three days later, a witness came forward, saying that she had seen Judge Frank jogging along the canal at sunrise on the 28th. The witness said that Judge Frank had stopped to talk to a person standing at the treeline. There had been a bright flash of light, the witness had shielded her eyes, and when she looked again, both the judge and the person in the treeline were gone.
Four years before, the witness would have been dismissed as a crackpot, but since the future-judges had arrived, it seemed no tale could be too far-fetched. FBI agents conspicuously arrived in town. The Rochester Police Department escorted the judges everywhere they went and sat guard outside of their East Avenue manors or their Victorian homes on Mount Hope Avenue.
One early November afternoon, I walked over the Court Street Bridge with Judge Orlando. He appeared to be concerned, but was doing a very good job of hiding it. His old face was beaten with the cold of the approaching winter; his scarf flew in the chilly air.
“Your Honor,” I said, “I saw the verse on your snowglobe.”
The judge stopped and turned toward me, his face wearing a mix of anger and alarm.
“Tell me what happens to New York in 2106. Tell me about the future, your past.” Orlando’s face grew stony, but I continued, pointing over the bridge rail. “No one will hear us over the river. If we know more about why you’re here, why the 2111 judges aren’t, then we might be able to help.”
Judge Orlando was steadfast, refusing to give me any information. “We have taken on this duty,” he said, “and while times like these may hinder us, or even bring our work to an end, they will never cause us to lose our resolve, and they will never convince us to betray what he have sworn to do, or not to do.” He fiddled with a wedding band on his finger. I looked down into the river and watched the water gush northwards.
By Christmas, several judges in each of the appellate courts had been disappeared. Usually there were no witnesses, and no leads, but in several cases, people claimed to have seen a mysterious figure in the shadows and a bright flash before the judge vanished.
I was walking around Marketplace Mall one evening, shopping for Christmas presents and trying to unwind. I entered a restaurant, ordered a drink and a snack, and looked around the room. My eyes lit on a television showing a picture of Judge Orlando. The court was on holiday, and he had driven to Bristol Mountain for a day of skiing. According to the news, the judge’s car was found, empty, next to a field on his route to the mountain.
I went into work the next day, though hardly anyone else was there. Access to Judge Orlando’s chambers had been restricted to the remaining two future-judges, who went in and out every so often to remove some confidential item. Soon, Judge Orlando’s office would be clear of future material, and it would be cleaned by present-day staff.
I waited until the two other judges were off in their own chambers, then ducked into Judge Orlando’s office. The snowglobe was gone from his desk, as were several notebooks he kept between bookends on the right end of the desk. His computer had been removed, as well.
I began going through the heavy wooden drawers of his large desk, hoping to find something, anything, that would explain what was going on. Then, in his bottom drawer, I found it: the white envelope he had received from the parcel in the Adirondacks, now over three months ago.
I ran my hand along the front, hoping it would respond to my touch, but nothing happened. I traced my fingers around the edges, feeling for a switch. Still, nothing.
I heard footsteps approaching in the hallway. I leaped from the desk and ran to the door, locking it. The knob turned just a second too late. I heard keys clinking, and I quickly pulled the coffee table over to block the door.
“Who is in there?” I heard Judge Aziz, a future-judge, shout. “Get out of there this instant!” He tried to open the door, but the coffee table slowed him down. I flapped Judge Orlando’s envelope in the air, hoping to develop it like a Polaroid. Then I twisted the edges. Then I squeezed. The rattling at the door had stopped momentarily.
Finally, I ran my fingernail along the top edge of the device, mimicking the motion I usually made when tearing open a real envelope. The surface brightened and displayed a logo and some text—a startup screen. The device was a flexible, ultrathin tablet. The startup screen remained, and, of all things, a progress bar appeared.
Bang! Something had hit the door. Judge Aziz, possibly along with a maintenance worker, was attempting to force the door open. The coffee table didn’t budge. “Oppena-door! Oppena-door!” I heard Judge Aziz shout. On rare occasions, when they became emotional, agitated, or inebriated, I had heard the future-judges resort to this quick, monosyllabic manner of speech.
The startup screen finally disappeared, and I saw bold black letters on a white background. I could tell that the text was a judicial opinion. I began reading, scrolling through the rest of the document.
My eyes scanned over the year, “2111,” and the large, underlined words, “FINAL JUDGMENT OF PERMANENT INJUNCTION.” My heart quickened as I saw what the suit was about: “a lawsuit to cease and desist the augmentation of the past courts of New York with judges from 2111.” I skimmed over the verbose opinion until reaching, “… witnesses from 2711 C.E. have presented numerous documents and videos …” my grip on the device tightened, “… dire and horrendous future consequences …” I leaned against a nearby armchair, “… decisions rendered in 2011-2013 would result in unacceptable events …” I sat down, oblivious to the continued banging at the door, as I read the remainder of the opinion:
“Now, therefore, it is accordingly ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the Court of Appeals of New York shall cease and desist all activities relating to judicial augmentation in the year 2011, and shall send no further judges.
“Furthermore, all judges currently in the year 2010 must return upon receipt of this injunction. Some witnesses have made clear that some or all of the travelling judges currently in the past may refuse to cease their work; therefore, federal officers, in cooperation with security officials from 2711 C.E., shall have the authority to enforce this injunction by any means necessary.
“SO ORDERED this 15th day of July, 2111 C.E.
“EDWARD N. SMITH, District Judge (sitting by designation from the year 2711 C.E.)”
“… by any means necessary,” my eyes ran over that sentence one more time, hoping that I had read it wrong. I hadn’t. The device fell from my hand and landed on the floor.
At that moment, the door burst open. I jumped up. A maintenance worker, Smith, stood there with two security guards who were holding a battering ram. Judge Aziz strode in, picked up the device from the floor, saw that it was turned on, and looked at me.
“I understand your desire to know what’s happened, is happening, will happen,” he said. “But these things you should not know. I am afraid you can no longer work here.” Aziz turned to the security guards and said, “Gentlemen, please—”
“Judge Aziz—Your Honor—” I blurted. “Revelation 18:19. What happens to New York City?”
The judge gave me a long look, then turned again to the guards. “Leave us. You, too, Smith.”
“But Your Honor—” Smith protested.
“Ezra will not harm me,” Aziz interrupted. “Do not worry about me. It will be fine.”
Reluctantly, Smith and the guards left the room. Judge Aziz closed the door and turned to me.
“Some of us wavered,” he said quietly. “Some of us wanted to return. But how could we, when each decision we wrote could have been the one to save our home?” He looked at the floor. “I cannot tell you what happens to the City. That is far too risky, and you’ve likely guessed enough, anyway. What I can tell you is that we have a purpose here. A noble one. We knew we might fail, but we had at least to try.”
After a moment, Judge Aziz heaved a sigh, and said, “I am sorry, but you cannot return to this courthouse. I will have your cohorts clean out your office and deliver your things.”
With that, Judge Aziz opened the door and walked me to the guards, who escorted me out of the building.
Having clerked for the future-judges, I had little trouble finding a job. By the resumption of the court’s work in January, the only future-judge left anywhere was Judge Aziz. He worked tirelessly, offering to sit on more panels, asking to write more opinions, and reportedly toiling late into every night. Then, in February, Judge Aziz, too, disappeared.
Our visitors might have been noble, trying to save the city they loved and millions of lives. Their visitors, however, had not shared such nobility.
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