Bound by Law, Freed by Faith

by Kristen Aasmundstad Walsh

How does religious faith intersect with upholding the law? Not in the way many people expect. Lutheran School of Theology board member William C. Lee, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, dispels common assumptions about how personal beliefs influence judicial decisions, as he discusses his passion for upholding the U.S. Constitution and his compassion for all people.

The “hurly burly.” The “give and take.” The “heavy lifting.”

Not many would immediately associate these words with the profession of being a federal district court judge. But this is how William C. Lee, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, ardently describes the landscape of the trial court world, where arguments are made, testimony is given and witnesses are examined in this, the most nitty gritty arena of the judicial court system.

Not to be interpreted as flippant, Lee uses these terms in the most affectionate of ways: they describe what he loves about his job. He takes his job very seriously, and his meticulous commitment to upholding the law in a fair and just manner drips from everything he says.

A member of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago’s board of directors, Lee began his career as a lawyer, and moved on to become a state prosecutor and then U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana. He never set his sights on becoming a judge, until a colleague suggested that he consider pursuing a vacant position with the district court. He was appointed by President Reagan in 1981 as a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, and currently serves as Chief Judge. This role means that in addition to trying cases, he is responsible for the operations of the district court, managing court personnel, budgets, programs and other administrative activities, a job described by his predecessor as “like herding cats.” Half-laughing but in all seriousness, he claims to work chiefly on the basis of “diplomacy and persuasion” in this role.

But the bulk of his time is spent hearing cases, and this is clearly where his passion lies. “The variety of cases and factual scenarios that I have to try to resolve and apply to complex legal principles in some cases is really interesting, and something I love about the job,” he says. “You never know what you’re going to be faced with when you show up in the morning.”

FAITH AND WORK
When it comes to the intersection of his spiritual faith and his work, Lee, a lifelong Lutheran, says that there is virtually no crossing of the two paths, due to the nature of his job. In fact, setting aside personal beliefs and opinions, religious or otherwise, is a prerequisite of the post.

“As a matter of fact, I think a cardinal principle here is that I have to put aside all personal feelings and views when I decide cases,” explains Lee. “And so religious views are just a part of that package. I try to make an extremely conscious effort to approach the case on the basis of what the law and facts dictate and what the decision should be.”

It is this precise point that he feels the general public often misunderstands. “A lot of people think that judges in general have a great deal of discretion to decide cases this or that way depending on how they feel about it,” says Lee. “My view is that this is absolutely untrue. Every case that I’ve ever tried really has to be decided on the basis of the facts and the law. That may appear to be naïve or disingenuous, but that’s the way I approach it consciously.”

While he can in no way let his personal beliefs come into play when considering a case, Lee does feel that being a Christian contributes to the underlying sense of compassion he feels for the defendants he tries.
“I send people away for long periods of time, because the law requires me to,” he says. “It’s very commonly the case that as a personal matter, I feel a great deal of compassion or sorrow over the plight of the person that’s before me, but I am compelled to comply with the law, particularly within these sentencing guidelines that I am now controlled by.”

Lee does recall a couple of occasions when his personal opinion and his judicial oath clashed. “I’ve had a couple of sentencings where I thought the sentence that I was required to give was significantly too harsh for the nature of the offense and the nature of the defendant before me,” says Lee. “And I felt terrible about it. The little discretion I had I did exercise in favor of the defendant.”

GUIDELINES CONSTRICT JUDGING
This situation illuminates Lee’s frustration with the federal sentencing guidelines instituted in 1987, which include a set of floating minimum sentences for various offenses. This, says Lee, was an attempt by the government to remove disparity in sentencing, a legitimate objective in and of itself. But he and many other judges feel that the pendulum has swung too far the other way, that the guidelines are too “cookie-cutter” and often do not or cannot account for what he calls an “oddball confluence of factors that occurs in perhaps at least 5-10 percent of the cases. With these cases,” says Lee, “you wind up with this really gigantic sentence relative to the nature of the offense involved.”

Though he feels the guidelines should be suggestive rather than mandatory, Lee does acknowledge that having them helps minimize any subconscious influences that may be operative in judges’ sentencing decisions. Still, he feels judges are paid to judge and they should have the authority to exercise discretion in judgement in individual cases.

Lee’s palpable commitment to fairly applying the law to the cases that come before him has been recognized and lauded. A recent editorial in The Journal Gazette of Ft. Wayne says of Lee, “Most of Lee’s cases didn’t make headlines, but his commitment to fairness and impartiality extended to every criminal charge and lawsuit before him. He understood the importance of each case to those involved in it, and how the rule of law depends on the integrity of those who hold the power to apply it."

A CASE IN THE HEADLINES
Though most of Lee’s cases haven’t made headlines, a few have. One such case was in the summer of 2001, when Lee upheld the right of a student to stage the play Corpus Christi on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. The play depicts gay characters who resemble Jesus Christ and his 12 apostles, and some people were offended by it.

As described in the Memorandum of Decision and Order written by Judge Lee on the case, the plaintiffs sought to halt the play’s performance because “they believe the Play is an ‘undisguised attack on Christianity and the Founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ,’ and thus, the performance of the Play in a publicly funded, taxpayer-owned, educational facility such as IPFW (Indiana Purdue Ft. Wayne) violates the separation between church and state as required by the Establishment Clause.”

During the trial, it was shown that the play was a student production neither sponsored nor funded by the university, and that the university had placed a disclaimer in the program book disassociating itself from the production and its content.

"As it played out, one could hardly see this as an endorsement of the play,” says Lee. “That’s a good example of how the facts in that case really dictated the outcome. And regardless of what my personal view might have been with respect to that case, that’s a good example of how the outcome was clear based upon the facts as they finally developed.”

Lee recognizes that some may jump to the inaccurate assumption that the outcome of a case represents the personal viewpoint of a judge. “This is a classic example of where the guy on the street might think I decided this case because this is the outcome I’d like to see,” he says. “But if you read [the summary of the case] carefully, you’ll see that there is a very peculiar factual scenario about the university’s involvement or non-involvement in this.”

While he is not aware of any backlash against him relative to this case, he knows there will always be some who judge his rulings. “Sometimes people will congratulate me on some decision I’ve made, and I tell them I really can’t take credit for it,” says Lee. “Just as I don’t expect blame for decisions people don’t like, because in my view the result is determined by the process I have to apply to the case.”

REVERENCE FOR THE FOUNDING FATHERS
Lee’s reverence for the law and the judicial process is evident when he talks about the tenet of separation of church and state, which played a key role in the Corpus Christi case. “It’s one of the many unique and powerful insights that the founding fathers had when they created the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.” He also emphasizes how revolutionary the creation of an independent judiciary was at the time, and that it has become the framework for this country’s economic prosperity.

“The economic prosperity in America is due to the stability that the judicial system brings to economic activity,” he explains. “Because you have a system that will enforce rights, a system that will enforce contracts, a system that won’t be manipulatable in favor of the large economic interests. The idea that you would create this really strong institution of judicial independence and set it up, in so far as is humanly possible, so that it’s not manipulatable by political interests or economic interests, that’s a pretty unique idea.”

He gives as an example the concept of intellectual property, which has been the basis for much of America’s prosperity. “It wouldn’t even exist without a legal system that enforces intellectual property rights,” he says.
Despite the fact that wrestling with complex issues is part of his daily diet, or perhaps because of it, Lee feels a sense of satisfaction and peace with the decisions he renders on the bench, though he does admit that considering shades of gray through an essentially black and white lens is, at times, a challenge.
“Well, it is,” he says. “But of course that’s what makes it a great job.”