Picking Up and Setting Off

Each of Friday’s meetings went according to plan, though the day started off with a regrettable run-in with the local police.  On my way to meet with Uganda’s Director of Public Prosecutions in the morning, I was going to pick up John Niemeyer on the road near where he was staying in town.  As usual, the Kampala “jam” made LA traffic look like an empty hallway.

So I decided to break the law.  I didn’t do so cavalierly, but out of a self-proclaimed necessity.  I called John on my cell phone to report on progress.

Uganda police officers stand on the sidewalks just looking for drivers to step out of line or for cars that could be credibly (or not so credibly) deemed unsafe.  When identify find their mark, they simply step into the road and point at the driver.  Well, I got the point — in more ways than one.

“Uh-oh, cop.  Gotta go, John,” I said as I hung up and slid my phone between my legs.  I put on my good-morning-and-so-happy-to-see-you face.  I usually carry a few of those with me when I get behind the wheel here.

“Where is your phone?” he said as I rolled down my window.

“Good morning officer, how are you?” my Howdy-Doody face beamed back.

“You give me your phone.”

“Sure, here it is,” I said as I handed my bottom-of-the-barrel, cheap-as-they-make-them (Nokia P.O.S. model, and that might actually be a compliment).

“Where is your other phone?” he inquired, insinuating I was giving him this one as a cover to preserve my iPhone from confiscation.

“I have no other phone,” said Howdy Doody.

“You give me your driving license.”

If one plans ahead, one can get an International Driving Permit from AAA.  It is 15 bucks and looks official.  I gave him that one, rather than surrendering my actual California license.  Howdy also told him he was on my way to meet up with the DPP director and I handed him my Ugandan Court business card.

He inspected both of them closely.  “I am going to give you a ticket for talking on the phone, OK?”

“OK, I understand.  I am sorry and will not do it again.”

He left with my driving permit and business card and returned with a ticket book and a pen.  “I am going to give you a ticket and keep your permit.  You can pay the ticket at the central police station and you can pick up your permit there.”

“I understand.  Thank you.”  I knew we were doing a dance, but we had a different step in mind.  He was doing the “give-me-a-bribe-and-you-can-go” dance, and I was doing “I-don’t-need-that-permit-and-I-will-never-pay-you-a-bribe” shuffle.

“You are not above the law,” he said.

“I understand, and that is why you are giving me a ticket.”

He stared, I smiled.

I won.

“You can go, but don’t do it again.”

Phew.

I finally met up with John, and then the rest of the students met up at the Commercial Court and we hoofed the mile in the humid, breezeless Kampala air to the DPP’s offices.

We had a good meeting with the Director, who will be joining the court of appeals next month.  In the afternoon, I met with the Head of the Criminal Division to talk about the next juvenile session we are scheduling, and then the students and I met with the Chief Justice of the Ugandan Supreme Court.  The CJ is retiring at the end of next week (Uganda’s Constitution requires mandatory retirement at the age of 70), though the smart money is betting there will be some sort of constitutional end run to keep in office for a few years longer.  A decision should be made in the next two weeks.

A Fond Farewell to the CJ

Our Students with the CJ

That evening, we took two cars out to the airport to pick up the Pepperdine team flying in.  This included Professor Carol Chase, her husband John Doyle who serves on California’s Superior Court, their daughter Meredith who just finished her second year at Pepperdine Law, their son Harrison who recently graduated from college, Nootbaar Institute Manager Dana Zacharia, and two 2011 law graduates, Jessie Johnston and Sophia Hamilton.  They were all tired, but so excited to be in Uganda.  Thankfully, their luggage all arrived, which is always dicey here.

The next morning, we had breakfast with Justice K before heading west in four cars out of Kampala.  Our full, including David, me, and the students already in Uganda, numbers 18.

Because our work at the prison doesn’t begin until Monday morning, because it takes a few days for one’s body to become acclimated, and because six of the seven who arrived on Friday night had never been to Uganda, we decided to build in some local wildlife to the first-weekend itinerary.

Accordingly, our first stop was at East Africa’s only crocodile farm, situated very near the equator.  My family and I visited this farm last year and I described it in complete detail here.  The highlight for some, and low point for a few, was our benevolent gift to two of the man-eating crocs (one had eaten 18 before he was finally caught) of a couple live chickens.  It is just as graphic as it sounds, and gives new meaning to the term “bone crunching.”

David inspecting what will become a pair of shoes in three years

We made it to the safari “resort” in Queen Elizabeth National Park a couple hours after nightfall.  Those in my car – Dana Zacharia, John Niemeyer, and his girlfriend Sandra Niagaga – joked that I was burning lots of calories just by driving.  Dodging pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, oncoming cars, and breathtakingly large potholes has a way of speeding up the metabolism.

The resort rested on the hippo-laden banks of a lake.  The accommodations were rustic (tents for some and canvas-sided rooms for others) ensured we didn’t get too comfortable.  Also contributing to the discomfort was the stern warning from the staff, who insisted (i) no one walk alone at night, and (ii) no one leave their tents in the middle of the night.  Several in our group reported hearing a quadrupedal locomotion around the tents during the night.

The next morning, David reported that one of the guards saw a lion walking around the edges of camp the night before.  Later that morning on the game drive, we saw three lions lazing away the morning having filled their bellies the night before.

Lounging after a meal

We also saw hippos, elephants, water buffalo, numerous varieties of gazelle, and some warthogs (think Pumba).

After the game drive, our group subdivided, with several of us heading to Fort Portal to finalize logistics, while the other stayed behind for a boat tour around the lake.  They are meeting us in Fort Portal Sunday night so we can begin our prison work in the morning.

I will provide more detail in subsequent posts, but what follows is the crux of what we are doing.  As previously written about, the J-FASTER program we designed and implemented in 2012 has succeeded getting the court system on track to deliver justice in a reasonably timely manner.  The five remand homes in Uganda – facilities where children who are arrested await trial – are slowly reducing in size as children are getting lawyers and case resolutions much more quickly via plea bargaining and fast-tracked scheduling.

On the adult side of the ledger, there are more than ten thousand accused persons “on remand” in prisons throughout the country, many of whom have been held without trial (or even a lawyer) for five years or more.  Given the successes on the smaller juvenile scale, we have been given permission to develop a pilot program for adults.

We are starting with a prison just outside of Fort Portal where over three hundred are awaiting trial.  This week, we will divide into five teams, with each team consisting of an American lawyer, a Ugandan lawyer (from the Uganda Christian Lawyers’ Fraternity), two American law students, and one Ugandan law student (from Uganda Christian University) acting as the interpreter.  We have been allocated 56 capital cases (with more than 70 defendants) for this program.  Our goal is to prepare all 56 cases for trial this week, with the hope that a percentage of them will be resolved short of trial via plea bargaining.  This is the first time such an effort has been undertaken in Uganda, and we have been warned not to raise our hopes too high because of the cultural expectations that such cases will get full trials.

We kick off our efforts with a meeting in the morning with the judge, defense lawyers, and prosecutors in the morning.  From there, we will descend upon the Katojo prison en masse.