A caterpillar escapes its cocoon in San Diego, causing a butterfly to flap its wings in Baton Rouge, which changes the passenger list of a plane departing Uganda.  Two Bobs changed the lives of two Harriets.

Why?  Because both Bobs understand that Love Does, and both Harriets want to transform their country.

One of my heroes is San Diego lawyer Bob Goff.  He is primarily responsible for my life taking a sharp turn five years ago into the southern hemisphere.  Bob wrote a book called Love Does in which he tells lots of funny, interesting, and incredible stories of love in action.  About a year ago, another Bob read Love Does in his men’s group and was less than convinced Bob Goff was for real.  Retired Louisiana State Court Judge Bob Downing was more than a little skeptical about some of the stories he read, particularly those having to do with Bob’s work in Uganda.

After discovering a connection between the Ugandan work described in Love Does and Pepperdine Law School, Judge Bob called Pepperdine and was transferred to me.

“I wanted to let you know that Bob Goff appears to be taking credit in his Love Does book for the work you are doing in Uganda,” he said.

“Not as much as he should be,” I responded.

Over the next forty-five minutes, Judge Bob and I chatted about Bob Goff, Uganda, and the practice of law.  We became fast friends.  At the end of the call, he said, “Well, I know what I am eating for lunch tomorrow at the men’s Bible study.”

“Oh yeah?  What’s that?”

“Crow.  I will be admitting I was wrong about Bob Goff.”

Over the next few months, Judge Bob and I e-mailed and chatted periodically.  After my return from Uganda last July when I spent a bunch of time in a Ugandan maximum security prison, Judge Bob asked whether I’d ever thought about bringing prison officials out to the United States for training and idea exchanges, like we do with the Ugandan judges. “I have spent some time working with the folks at what used to be the bloodiest and most awful prison in American – Angola State Penitentiary just north of Baton Rouge.  The warden there, Burl Cain, is doing some phenomenal things and it is one of the best prisons in America now.”

“I haven’t actually ever thought about it,” I confessed.  “That sounds like a great idea, but I wouldn’t know where to start arranging it or raising funds to make it happen.”

“If you think it is a good idea and if you think you can get the Ugandans to come, I’ll work on the other aspects,” he replied.  “In the meantime, I am going to send you the book written about Warden Cain and Angola.  Read it and let me know what you think.”

A couple days later, “Cain’s Redemption: A Story of Hope and Transformation in America’s Bloodiest Prison” arrived.  I was blown away by the work the warden had done.

A couple months later, Judge Bob had secured a grant from his church (First Presbyterian of Baton Rouge) to pay for five prison officials to come, and had secured permission from Angola for a group of Ugandans to spend a couple days there.

A couple days ago, I flew to Louisiana to greet this group of Ugandans at the New Orleans airport as they stepped off the plane.

Two of them are named Harriet.

Jim and Bob Downing Conspiring to Assist the Ugandan Prison Authority

Judge Bob with Ugandan Prison Officials he Brought to Louisiana

More tomorrow on what promises to be a life-changing trip for all of us.

I was originally schedule to leave Uganda Friday night after eight days on the ground in Africa.  Early last week, however, my Thursday meeting in Kigali, Rwanda was pushed back to the following Monday (yesterday) to enable Uganda’s Principal Judge to attend the meeting.  This delay served to calm (somewhat) my usual frenetic pace while on the ground in Uganda.  I enjoyed a Saturday evening with the family of a member of Uganda’s Law Reform Commission who is, more than anyone, driving the logistical bus in Uganda for the reforms being implemented.  I also had a chance to worship Sunday morning with some friends from Sixty Feet, an American non-profit caring for Ugandan juvenile prisoners and orphans.

In Rwanda early Monday afternoon, I was once again reminded of the surprising contrast between life in Kigali and life in Kampala – separated by just forty minutes by air.  Kigali more closely resembles Western Europe than Eastern Africa – there are clean, wide, pothole-free roads lined with manicured vegetation, functioning (and obeyed) traffic signals, and modern buildings and shops.  Rwanda has recovered well from its devastating genocide in 1994.  Critics contend, however, that the economic and political stability Rwanda enjoys comes at the price of free speech and political dissent.

A few minutes earlier, I’d been greeted by at the airport by International Justice Mission’s former Kigali field office director, Lane Mears, who now works for USAID, a funding arm of the US State Department.  (Before I left Kampala that morning, I had a good meeting with IJM’s Kampala field office director, Kathryn Wilkes, about potential further collaboration between Pepperdine and IJM).  I’d invited Lane to attend the meeting between the Ugandan and Rwandan delegations so he could connect more closely with the players and assist in evaluating the whether Rwanda should consider following Uganda’s lead.

Uganda’s delegation consisted of Justice Bamwine, who leads the High Court of Uganda (trial court) as the Principal Judge; Andrew Khaukha, who serves as the Secretary of the Plea Bargaining Task Force chaired by Justice Bamwine; Betty Khisa, who serves as Deputy Director for Uganda’s Department of Public Prosecutions; and me, in my role as Specialist Advisor to the High Court of Uganda and meeting convener.  (Incidentally, Betty is the lawyer against whom I argued Henry’s appeal more than two years ago.  We’ve since become friends and she is going to inquire this week about the status of the ruling in Henry’s case).

Chief Justice Sam Rugege headed the Rwandan delegation.  When the genocide occurred 21 years ago, Justice Rugege was teaching law in South Africa.  At the urging of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Justice Rugege returned home to serve as Rwanda’s Deputy Chief Justice to help stabilize the country’s judicial system.  About four years ago, he became Chief Justice.   For the past half-dozen years, Justice Rugege has welcomed two Pepperdine summer interns each year into his judicial chambers, and has been a good mentor for our students.

Also on the Rwandan side: the Prosecutor General (who will have a Pepperdine intern this summer); the President of the High Court (counterpart to Principal Judge Bamwine); the Solicitor General; the Deputy Minister of Justice; the Inspector General of Courts; the Inspector General of Prosecutions; the Inspector General of Police; a couple High Court Justices; the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Prisons; and a few others.

Chief Justice Rugege and Principal Judge Bamwine at the head of the table

After warmly welcoming us, Chief Justice Rugege turned the floor over to “us Ugandans.”  I started off with a thirty-minute overview of plea bargaining concepts and the historical events that put Uganda on the path to plea bargaining.

The Principal Judge followed me, providing further depth to Uganda’s decision-making process and plea bargaining adaptations.  Andrew then concluded with a report of statistics, successes, and lessons learned along the way.  Our presentation last about two hours, and was followed by a lively question and answer session.  One of the obstacles in Rwanda’s path to plea bargaining is its Civil Law heritage.  Unlike the United States and Uganda whose Common Law legal systems trace their roots back to the British, Rwandan’s system derives from the French.  In fact, Rwandan laws are translated into three languages – Kinya-Rwandan, French, and English.  Unlike Common Law countries, Civil Law countries combine, to a large degree, criminal and civil cases such that a murder trial would also involve a component of monetary damages sought by the victim’s family.  (Those would be totally separate in the United States).  I suspect our students serving as interns in Rwanda summer will be called upon to assist the Rwandese in evaluating whether plea bargaining would be an appropriate way to enable Rwanda to reduce the criminal court backlog and prison congestion.

Group Photo after Meeting

All in all, the meeting was quite productive and I look forward to seeing where it leads.

Once I am back and settled in the US later this week, I will update where things stand in my quest to lose my “amateur” writer status.

Commissioning Prayer

Pepperdine is a different kind of place to study law than most, as evidenced by the annual Commissioning Ceremony that takes place for those graduates who attend the weekly Bible study at the Gash home each week.  I was heartbroken that my responsibilities in Uganda necessitated my absence from this culminating event.  My wife, Joline, was kind enough, however, to read for these graduates a few words I prepared for this occasion:

“While my body is in Uganda, my heart is with you right here, right now. I eagerly await my return to Pepperdine to celebrate with you in person, your graduation.

I will swell with pride and emotion as Dean Sturgeon reads your name in the book of graduation before you walk across the stage. I will do my best not to cry, but no promises.

I am so proud of you.

As you know, God has been reading your name in the book of life, and (as Bob Goff is fond of saying) Jesus is carrying a picture of you around in his wallet. He is quite proud of you as well.

But not for graduating from law school.

His pride in you is because of your steadfastness in the face of hardship, your faithfulness in the face of fear, and your love and support for the brothers and sisters here with you tonight as you walked this path together.

Over the course of your three years at Pepperdine, you have attended classes, briefed cases, written papers, presented arguments, and taken exams. Some of you liked law school. A few of you loved it. All of you have loved each other. You sang together, studied together, prayed together, played games together, walked beside each other, and at times, carried one another. Through it all, you have inspired your professors and you have shown your classmates what it looks like to follow Jesus in a community.

Over the course of this year on Wednesday nights, we have collectively pondered what it means to be powerful in Christ amidst our weakness. You have led worship, led prayers, led our thoughts, and led from your seats as the 1Ls and 2Ls watched your consistency and faithfulness. Some of you have excelled at the game of law school, and some of you have simply survived. But each of you in your own way has modeled perseverance and grace and joy in this journey.

Some of you have a clear vision of what the next step will be occupationally. Others are still waiting for God to reveal that. We pray that He will reveal that soon, but we also pray for patience as God unfolds His plan in His time.

But I do not believe that your first job, your second job, or your last job is your calling. The calling you have received is to live life overflowing with the joy that comes from being a child of God, a follower of Christ. You are a vessel, made by the hand of God, made in the image of God, made to reflect the love of the Son of God.

The context in which you live out this calling is but a backdrop for the content you pour into those around you.

My prayer for you as you receive this commission is:

That you, though hard pressed on every side by the stresses of your chosen profession, will not be crushed.

That though you are at times perplexed by the vagaries and ambiguities of the law, will not be in despair.

That though you may be persecuted for the stands you take, for the people you represent, for the God you serve, you will never feel abandoned.

And that even when you stumble in your cases, in your deals, in your relationships, and in your daily walk – when you feel struck down, that the Spirit of God that lives within you will never, ever be destroyed.

We will miss you, but a part of you will always be here among us each week we gather as law students, law professors, and brothers and sisters in Christ. Come back and see us often.”

I did something on Wednesday I never thought I would do and hope to never do again.  But I couldn’t help myself – it was a necessary compromise of my otherwise firmly held beliefs.

While a few of my colleagues have long since jettisoned their suits and ties when they teach, I have remained a traditionalist.  There is something about legal education that cries out to me for professional attire, which is why I never thought I would find myself wearing light, waterproof, zipper-laden safari wear as I taught my last Remedies class of the semester.  My students were as shocked as I was.  But the last flight out of LAX on Wednesday that would land me at the Entebbe International Airport on Thursday night departed just over two hours after my class.  So I hopped an Uber taxi straight from class and got to the airport just in time.

LAX à Detroit à Amsterdam à Entebbe.

While this twenty-seven hour journey certainly sucks, I mind it less than others because I am able to get quite a bit of uninterrupted work done, and because my friends in Big Pharma have provided me with an effective body-clock adjuster – Ambien.  My trusted driver/friend Tango was waiting for me at the airport with a big smile and hearty “Welcome back.”  By 1:00 a.m. on Friday morning, I was comatose at the Mosa Court Apartments where I will spend the next eight nights, and where my students will spend eight weeks this summer.

By 7:30 a.m., however, I was seated at the Kabira Country Club for a Consensus Building Workshop on plea bargaining.  Among the sixty attendees were Ugandan High Court and Magistrate Judges, prosecutors for the Department of Public Prosecutions, wardens at several Ugandan prisons, one prisoner who had benefited from the introduction of plea bargaining, representatives of donor nations who have been funding aspects of the plea bargaining initiative, a handful of members of the Ugandan press, and two judicial officials from Zambia who are studying best practices in plea bargaining for their country.

The Principal Judge of Uganda (head of the trial court system) presided over the gathering and invited me to address the crowd about how plea bargaining in Uganda got started – two Pepperdine students with an idea.  Most of what I said, however, consisted of words of encouragement and admiration for how Ugandans were building and implementing a system that accounted for their culture, desires, and resources.

Over the course of the six hours, we marched through the Plea Bargaining Practice Direction that appears set to be issued soon by the new Chief Justice.  This document will govern the procedures and practices of plea bargaining in Uganda and serves a pre-cursor to formal legislation that will likely follow in the next year or two.  The provisions that garnered the most discussion had been hammered out over the course of a week in Malibu about a year ago with the assistance of Pepperdine Professors Carol Chase and Harry Caldwell and a handful of Pepperdine alums.

At the end of the day, a strong consensus emerged among the wide-ranging members of the Ugandan judicial sector and everyone left happy.  The highlight of the conference, for me, was the heartfelt speech made by one of the prisoners our Pepperdine team worked with last summer.  A team of consisting of two Pepperdine students, one Pepperdine lawyer, one Ugandan law student, and one Ugandan lawyer had met with him in Murchison Bay Prison (part of the Luzira complex) and had prepared his case for resolution through plea bargaining.

He shared that he had been arrested three years earlier and had simply sat in prison waiting for something to happen – no lawyer, no court date, and no clue what would happen next.  Our summer project finally allowed him to meet with a lawyer, accept responsibility for his crime, and receive the sentence he is now serving.  He was overflowing with gratitude for the fact that he now knew when he would be going home.  He said that the anxiety associated with waiting for court and not knowing what his future held had been the worst part of being in prison.

As I write this on Saturday morning, I am sitting next to Tango staring out a long stretch of road that will, in five hours, take me to Ishaka, where Henry is attending medical school at Kampala International University.  I first met Henry in January of 2010 when he was a sixteen year-old prisoner in a juvenile remand home waiting for his day in court.  I was a wide-eyed Torts professor sure that this was the only trip to Africa I would ever make.  My, how things have changed.  This is my sixteenth trip to Uganda, but it will be my first to this part of the country.

More tomorrow.  Thanks for reading and thanks for your prayers.