In Uganda, like the rest of Africa, storytelling is a highly valued and important part of culture.  Consequently, conversations with Ugandans usually last longer than with westerners because they tend to add details that, while unnecessary to the story, provide additional color and flavor.  Accordingly, when a lawyer asks a witness a question in court, the answer is often lengthy and larded with irrelevant asides and impertinent context.  And when the lawyer’s questioning is being translated from English to Munyonkole, and when the witness’s answer is being translated from Munyonkole to English, and then from English to Luganda so the defendants can understand the evidence being offered against them, the trial can proceed unmercifully slowly.

Fortunately, the judge presiding over the J-FASTER Pilot Program runs a tight ship and did her best to keep the lawyers and witnesses on task.  Nevertheless, due to a lack of training among the lawyers, and a lack of discipline among the witnesses, trial on Monday proceeded painfully slowly.  We got through two witnesses over the course of three hours in a murder case against two adults – the juvenile had already been dismissed.

On Tuesday, the lone trial (among fifteen cases) against a juvenile was dismissed by the prosecution because they were unable to locate any witnesses who could place the juvenile at the scene of the crime.  From my review of the police report, however, it appeared that there was plenty of reason to believe the child had been involved in a robbery that went wrong such that the victim ultimately died.  Accordingly, after the case was dismissed, I asked the probation officers if I could speak directly to juvenile, whom I knew spoke English.  I had also been told he had been a leader at the Remand Home, serving as a pastor (of sorts) for the others over the past year.

I asked the prosecutor, who is also a person of faith, to join me as we first congratulated the boy on having his case dismissed.  He was naturally quite pleased and accepted our congratulations gratefully.  The conversation then turned serious.  I explained to him that we had read the file and that it appeared to us he had actually been involved in the crime.  He looked down in apparent shame, not at all contradicting my suggestion.  I proceeded to tell him I believed the had been given a second chance at freedom and now had an opportunity to distance himself from the life he had previously led (apparently involved in a gang).  I told him I also believed he had been given this chance for a reason, that he was meant to be a leader for good in his community, and that he needed to live like the man of God he had become.  The prosecutor chimed in with her own words of admonition and encouragement.  The boy’s response was exactly what we had hoped – he agreed and accepted the fact that he needed to live differently and promised us he would.  I pray he will do just that.

Before heading to the airport, I met with Abby, the Regent Law school student I am working with who is interning at Sixty Feet in Kampala this summer, and with Mark Riley, the Welshman working for UNICEF with the Ministry of Gender.  Mark and I have become rather close friends over the past six months as we work toward the common goal of helping Ugandans implement a system for ensuring that orphaned Ugandan children are not improperly/illegally/unethically placed into inter-country adoption.  To be fair, Mark has been doing this work and I have been trying to connect him with the lawyers who practice in this area so that a consensus can be reached on how to accomplish this task without shutting down the entire process.  But our meeting was not about inter-country adoption.  Instead, we met to discuss a project Abby and I have been working on that would create a database to track all children in conflict with the law in Uganda so that no kids would ever slip through the cracks again in juvenile prisons.  Abby has taken and run with the project, and Mark has been very helpful in guiding us on how to navigate the governmental bureaucracy so we can get the Ministry to sign off on it.  He has also connected us with an organization who has agreed to create the interface for this database free of charge.  We hope to launch this pilot program at the Naguru Remand Home in July.

Later Tuesday evening, I flew to Kenya to join my family for the remainder of the week at the compound of a Christian Organization called “Made in the Streets” (MITS).  MITS recruits kids living on the streets of Nairobi (typically living as thieves, drunks, and/or glue-sniffers) who want to have a different life.  After demonstrating their seriousness by attending church and other gatherings over an extended period of time, the children are allowed to come and live at The Farm in Kamulu (outside of Nairobi), where they resume school and are taught a trade – catering/hospitality, sewing/tailoring, woodworking/carpentry, computers/information technology, salon/hair care or farming/agriculture.  The lives of these otherwise hopeless children are transformed in amazing ways.

On Wednesday morning, I joined the University Church of Christ youth group and a few of the parents on a trip to the streets where the children in MITS used to live.  We accompanied one of the graduates of the program, who now works for MITS, to his childhood home.  To call it sobering would be embarrassingly Pollyannish.  The jagged nail-laden metal roofs hanging over the narrow pathway between the aluminum-sided shacks adjoining each other rendered the labyrinthian walk through the mud rather precarious.  The stench of urine and feces as it meandered along the nearby ditch was thick enough to taste.  When we finally reached our destination, the ten of us passed through the curtain into the 8 foot by 10 foot shanty.  Nine people lived there when our guide was growing up.  The rent is 1,000 Kenyan Shillings a month — $12.50.  Even that pittance seemed like highway robbery for this “home,” which had no electricity, running water, or toilet facilities.  Inside were a couple beds, a few chairs, a bench, a table, and a pot for cooking over a small wood-burning stove.  I have seen grinding poverty in Uganda, but Mathare Valley here in Nairobi (where 2.5 million people live in three square-mile area) eclipses what I have observed by a comfortable margin.

Mathare Valley, Nairobi, Kenya

Meanwhile, back in Uganda on Wednesday, the last two juvenile cases were resolved without trial, and two of the remaining kids received their plea-bargained sentences.  Next week, everything will be wrapped up and I will begin frantically compiling the final report, which I intend to distribute before we head home . . . three weeks from now.

It struck me today that my time in Uganda is coming to a close.  We are “wheels up” four weeks from today.  I am frequently asked whether I am ready to leave and/or looking forward to going home.  As is usually the case toward the end of lengthy trips, the answer to such questions is complicated.  We certainly miss our family and friends and look forward to reuniting with them, but we will very much miss Uganda also.  Before we go, though, much remains to be done, including in court.

Today was the last day the court was hearing cases this week, and it was every bit as interesting as yesterday.  The first case called involved a boy whom everyone (including his fellow prisoners) is convinced is mentally unstable.  I know jack about jack in this area, but it seems to me that he is autistic.  When I first met the boy, it was immediately obvious he was several shillings short of a full dollar.  He was noticeably detached and he assiduously avoided eye contact.  His emotions and body language failed to track that of the other boys when we spoke as a group.

According to the police report, the facts of his case are undisputed.  He allegedly confessed to brutally and premeditatedly murdering an employee of his family’s metal working business.  He had purportedly snuck into the hut where the man was sleeping and unleashed a flurry of furious panga strokes that spilled the decedent’s guts out onto the ground.  The apparent motive was fear that the decedent would take over the family’s business after the boy’s father died, which had just happened.

When the session started two weeks ago, the judge granted the defense’s motion to have the boy examined by a doctor to determine whether he was fit to stand trial in the murder case against him.  Accordingly, his case was adjourned to the following week.  While he was being examined at the mental hospital, however, he requested permission to make a short call (number one).  Instead, he scaled the wall and disappeared.  That was a week ago Sunday.  The next day, a matatu driver (public taxi) called the police and reported that there was very strange boy in his taxi that was headed to Naguru.  While detained by the police, the boy told them that he had escaped from a mental institution, found his way to his family’s house where he spent the night, and then was on his way back to the Naguru Remand Home because he was due back in court the next day.  It is thus clear that the boy is picking up what the judge is putting down, even if that doesn’t appear to be the case.

When his case was called again last week, the probation officers reported that due to his escape, the doctor hadn’t finished his evaluative report.  It was promised by the next day.  Accordingly, the case was again adjourned until today.  Unsurprisingly, when the case was called again today, the report was still not finished – adjourned to next week.

The second case called today was another murder case against a juvenile and an adult.  During our plea bargaining session at the end of May, the lawyer for the adult had indicated that his client would plead guilty to murder and would exonerate the child who had been charged with him.  The prosecution had accepted this tentative deal.  Before court started today, however, there was some serious waffling as the defense tried to convince the prosecution to drop the charges from murder to manslaughter for the adult.  The prosecution held firm, so it appeared that the case would go forward against both the adult and the juvenile.  Bummer.  When the charges were read, we all held our breaths until the translator said “guilty” shortly after the “how do you plead?” question was asked by the judge.  Over the next few minutes, the juvenile’s case was dismissed and the defendant was sentenced to sixteen years.  Had he chosen not to plead guilty and had been found guilty, he likely would have been given a death sentence.  (Uganda hasn’t actually executed someone in several years, but the sentences are still being delivered).

The third and final case called involved two adults and one child being charged with the murder of herdsman in what appears to have been a cow-theft murder scenario.  The juvenile had been released on bail several months ago and now was nowhere to be found.  The court dismissed the case against the juvenile, and the case against the other two proceeded.  As I mentioned previously, the judge in this session is no-nonsense and was not at all pleased with the proficiency of the direct examination of the prosecution.  She repeatedly interrupted the questioning in an effort to keep the questions both relevant and succinct.  I felt sorry for the prosecutors as it was clear that they had not received proper training in questioning witnesses.  The bigger problem, however, was one for which there is no ready solution.

The witnesses in these cases are quite poor and thus cannot afford to come to the prosecutor’s office to meet in advance of the trial.  Likewise, the prosecutors cannot afford to spend their own money to travel to villages to meet with the witnesses, and they are not “facilitated” with funds to allow this to happen.  Moreover, the prosecutors are not given phones to call witnesses, so any calls to witnesses would have to be paid for out of the prosecutor’s own pocket.  And since their monthly salary is 850,000 (about $340), they cannot afford the pre-paid airtime minutes.  Adding insult to injury, many of the witnesses don’t speak either English or Luganda, so there is often a third party needed to interpret.  As a result, the prosecutors wait outside the courtroom until the witnesses arrive, just hoping for a chance to talk for a few minutes before direct examination begins.  The combined effect of all of this is a less-than-succinct presentation.

We got through two witnesses before the court mercifully called it quits for the day.  Trial resumes on Monday.

One prayer request before I close.  Over the past week, Henry has been wrestling with his second case of Malaria this year.  He thought he was getting better, but then took a turn for the worst.  Yesterday morning, I received a call from his school asking me to come pick him up to take him for immediate treatment.  So after court ended, I hustled out to his school to get him.  He was asleep in the nurse’s office and looked like hell.  I had called Joline in Kenya and she had remotely arranged for me to bring Henry to the medical clinic with which the Gregstons and my family have been working this year.  They saw him immediately and gave him a different kind of Malaria medication than he has been taking.  I haven’t heard from him today, which I am choosing to take as a good sign.

It was another full day of interviewing the juveniles out at the Remand Home for most of us.  Unfortunately for me, I was on administrative duty for most of the day and spent precious little time with the children and the students.

The day began quite well with a 7:00 a.m. meeting with an American law enforcement officer who lives in Masindi and provides much-needed training at the national law enforcement training center in Masindi.  I briefed him regarding Pepperdine’s activities in Uganda since we started coming in 2007.  Fortunately, these sorts of meetings are becoming more and more common as the word is getting around that Pepperdine has a special relationship with the judiciary and various other legal-based governmental entities.  Over the past couple of weeks, several opportunities to collaborate more closely with the United States Embassy and other foreign-based legal organizations have emerged.  Nothing is final yet, but things look rather promising.

After breakfast, we went out to the Remand Home to resume the interviews.  Since my driver Michael was a necessary party for interviews (so he could translate), I drove a group out to Ihungu before returning with a couple of my “teammates” to town to meet with the prosecutors about getting more police files.  Here are the teams:

Team One – Samantha Placeres, Jacob Franz, Amanda Martin, Abby Skeans (Regent Law), and Michael Mudgett (lawyer/pastor)

Team Two – Morgan Franz, Ashley Cook, Jenny Arnold, Jay Milbrandt, me

Team Three – Megan Callaway, Rachel Robinson, Nathan McKenzie, Steve Dixon, Carol Chase (Associate Dean)

We were able to secure permission to get copies of nine more police files (we got six over the weekend), but the copy machine at the prosecutors’ office wasn’t working.  Accordingly, we “hired” a clerk in that office to accompany us to a local photocopy business to have copies made.  She initially was quite miffed at having to leave the office, but after I bought her a Coke and two Chapatti’s (bread) we became BFFs.

In Uganda, the fancy brackets typically used to keep paper organized in legal files look eerily similar to string.  Consequently, removing documents, copying them, and replacing them is quite an ordeal.  Accordingly, it took about three hours to get the copies made.  Each time three were finished, I drove them the fifteen minutes out to Ihungu to deliver them to the Teams who were reading the files and interviewing the kids on the fly.  It actually felt quite good to see that my highest and best use for most of the day was as a courier.  The students are really into it and they are doing a fantastic job on the first draft on each of the twenty-two briefs we are preparing.

I spent a good portion of the afternoon meeting with the defense lawyers, prosecutors, and court officials making sure that everyone was on board with the path forward.  I will return in two weeks and we will see how many of these cases we can resolve prior to a trial session beginning.

As I type this, the students are gathered in the hotel restaurant finalizing the first draft of the briefs.  The lawyers will then begin the editing process.  Tomorrow, a few follow-up interviews will take place (we finished all of the first interviews today), and then we will feverishly work toward finalizing them before the group returns to Ihungu for a final goodbye in the late afternoon.

During the final goodbye, we will present them with photos we took of them, show them the briefs we have prepared, and pray with them.  All of this will take place after the most important part of the trip – an epic soccer match: USA vs. Uganda.  I am betting heavily on the kids of Uganda beating the lawyers and law students of the United States.  Unfortunately, my driver and I are leaving for Kampala at 5:15 a.m. tomorrow so I can be in court when the J-FASTER pilot program resumes.  I am sad to miss the farewell, but I would probably only get hurt in the soccer match anyway.

Nearly two and a half years ago, my love affair with Africa began in a juvenile prison in a sleepy town in central Uganda called Masindi.  I arrived with three other law graduates from Pepperdine hoping to do what we could to assist twenty-one minors who had been arrested and charged with crimes, but had not yet been to trial.  Some of them had been waiting for their day in court for nearly two years.

Earlier today, I arrived back in Masindi with three American lawyers – Jay Milbrandt, who had been with me on my first trip, Carol Chase, academic dean at Pepperdine Law, and Michael Mudgett, recovering lawyer who serves as a pastor at Malibu Presbyterian Church.  We were also joined by ten Pepperdine law students and one Regent law student.  Our three-day task will be to brief the cases for approximately twenty-five juveniles who are being warehoused at the Ihungu Remand Home just outside of town.  Most of these juveniles are charged with capital offenses, which are crimes that would carry with them the possibility of the death penalty if committed by adults.

We checked into the same Masindi Hotel where I had stayed in January of 2010 (and several times since then).  We had dinner with one of two Legal Aid lawyers who will be representing the juveniles when the cases eventually are presented to the court, and with the probation officer who serves as the warden of the Ihungu Remand Home.  Collectively, they delivered to us partial case files for eight of the twenty-five prisoners.  Of these eight files, six are charged with aggravated defilement – sex with a girl under the age of fourteen – one is charged with murder, and one is charged with rape.

We divided ourselves into three teams.  Each team has either one or two American lawyers, and three or four American law students.  The two Ugandan lawyers will join us for some of the interviews we will conduct with the juvenile prisoners.  Each of the three teams will also have one interpreter.  One will be a member of the court staff, one will be my driver (Michael), and one will be a boy named Joseph.  I first met Joseph on my first visit to the Ihungu Remand Home when he and his older brother Henry (with whom I am now quite close) were prisoners there.  During our work back then, Joseph and Henry both served as interpreters for the other children.  Joseph is now one of the top students in Senior 3 (equivalent to 10^th grade in the United States) at The Restore Leadership Academy, which is Bob Goff’s school in Gulu.  When I presented Joseph with the opportunity to return to Ihungu to assist those who find themselves in the same situation he was once in, he leapt at the chance.

As I write this, the students and lawyers are poring over the files in preparation for the interviews that will begin in earnest tomorrow morning.  For most of the students, this is their first encounter with a real, live case where the freedom of the one they are helping hangs in the balance.  We covet your prayers.  More tomorrow evening.

For those who have been keeping up with the J-FASTER program in Kampala, things continue to go according to plan.  Another few cases resolved at the end of last week via plea bargaining, and the lawyers on both sides are getting more comfortable with the whole notion.  On Friday, the deal in one of the cases collapsed as the juvenile changed his mind (yet again) and decided not to plead guilty.  The first witness of the entire session was called on Friday.  The session resumes on Wednesday of this week.

On a personal level, Joline and the kids boarded a plane for Kenya this afternoon to meet up with the youth group from our home church in Malibu.  This group is spending two weeks at Made in the Streets, which is a Christian organization that rescues Kenyan street children, loves them, and teaches them a trade.  A few minutes ago, I received a text message letting me know that Joline and the kids arrived safely, though the youth group is still in transit.  My plan is to join them a week later for their second week in Kenya.

This past week marked the beginning of Phase Three of the Juvenile Justice Pilot Program I have been working on for the past five months.  Phase Three is the culminating judicial phase of the Program, with Phase Four only involving the resettlement of the children into their home villages by the probation officers.

Phase Three is what we are calling the Resolution Phase, and follows the Investigatory and Evaluative Phases.  This Phase began on Monday with the kickoff of a Juvenile “Session.”  When the Pilot Program officially began on March 1st, we had sixteen juveniles who had been charged with “capital” offenses, eligible for the death penalty if they had been adults.  These cases were for murder, aggravated robbery, and aggravated defilement (unlawful sex with a minor).  These juveniles had been imprisoned in a Remand Home (juvenile prison) from between nine and twenty-four months.  This, even though the maximum time allowed for a juvenile to be held awaiting trial under Ugandan law is six months.  Shortly after the Pilot Program commenced, one of the murder cases was dismissed after the prosecutors carefully evaluated the file.  The juvenile in that case had been on remand for close a year.  And then there were fifteen.

During the last week of May, the prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers, one Ugandan court research attorney, Shane (Pepperdine Nootbaar Fellow), and I gathered in my office’s conference room and utilized principles of plea bargaining, heretofore outside the Ugandan procedures and comfort zone.  Then last week, the prosecutors and defense attorneys announced in court plea deals for ten of the remaining fifteen cases.  And then there were five.

On Tuesday, nine of these ten kids will be sentenced, with either one or none having to serve additional time.  (The other one will likely be committed to a mental health facility).  Over the next two weeks, either one or two of the remaining five cases will be dismissed, and one other one will likely be plea bargained (a deal was already reached, but failed to come to fruition last week due to a dispute as to some of the facts when they were read into the court record).  It looks like we will reach our goal of having four or fewer of the sixteen juvenile cases actually go to trial.  All in all, we are very pleased and are praying that the court and the participants are able to carry this momentum into future sessions.  Special thanks go to the American organization called Sixty Feet (www.sixtyfeet.org), known as Children’s Justice Initiative Ministries in Uganda, for footing the bill for the court and resettlement costs for this session.

A new set of prosecutors, defense lawyers, probation officers, and judges will be baptized into plea bargaining beginning in about ten days in Masindi – about three hours north of Kampala.  Prayers are welcome.

In other developments, our good friends from Midland (Alan and Holly Brown) who have been living below us for the last three weeks got a court ruling about ten days ago, which granted them legal guardianship over Moses (Big Mo, as we all call him).  We were thrilled.  But in Uganda, that is not the end of the road.  In addition to the ruling, one needs to get a written order signed by the court, which can then be taken to the Ugandan passport office to get a passport for the orphan child.  With the written order and passport in hand, one then makes an appointment for a visa interview with the US Embassy.  Only after receiving the visa can one leave with the child.

Well, between the ruling being announced in open court and the order being prepared and signed, the judge got sick.  To recover from his illness, the judge went to another town about three hours away.  The Browns were stuck.  Their enterprising lawyer, however, was able to hire a court official to track the judge down and got the order signed, more than a week later.  If all goes according to plan, they will get the passport tomorrow and then have a visa interview on Wednesday, allowing them to fly out by the end of the week.  More prayer would be welcome.

This weekend has also brought some excitement.  The water tank on the roof of our apartment building overflowed all night on Friday night, which caused water to seep into our ceiling in our living room.  This, in turn, caused a cave-in of a portion of our ceiling.  We were attempting to move many of our valuables out of the way when the plaster, electric fixtures, and metal supports tumbled down.  Joline narrowly escaped serious injury, and is posting it about it shortly.

Today, we got to see Henry at his school during the last visitation day occurring while we are here.  We are hoping to be able to get special permission to say goodbye to him next month.  He is doing quite well and is in excellent spirits.  Also there today was George Kakuru, who graduated two years ago from the secondary school Henry is currently attending.  George has just completed his sophomore year at Pepperdine University.

Jonathan (Physics Teacher), Joshua, George, Henry, Jennifer, and Jim on Visitation Day

Finally, I learned late last week that the appeal I will be arguing in Henry’s case will most likely be scheduled for argument in August – after we head home.  This means that I will be making a return visit to Uganda sooner than I anticipated.  This bad news was added to the fact that I got two flat tires this weekend, one on the car I drive and one when I stumbled on a footpath and grew an instant golfball on my right ankle.