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Justice in Castle Rock, Douglas County style
On 10/18/2007

Contributed by: Fran Miller on 10/21/2007

Last week an attempt was made to bring former Judge Grafton Biddle before the bench for disciplinary action regarding his steamy sex escapades with a county prosecutor.

I considered his impending disbarment a milestone, although YourHub doesn't have a category for such things. Too bad.

It seems that the local press has tired of writing about him, and moved on to other things. One last tribute to the right honorable Judge Biddle is in order before court adjourns.

Now, Biddle would only be fleeting entertainment if the circumstances surrounding his case, or shall we call it affair, were not so salacious. Not only was the guy porking the prosecutor while he was presiding over cases, he has quite a rap sheet. Married four or five times, an alcoholic, member of a band and ex-Marine makes him something of a man for all occasions.

I had my own encounters with good old Judge Biddle. In this World where litigation lurks around every corner I had to appear before him on a civil matter. Being the respectful guy that I am, I wore a coat and tie.

As an aside, the Douglas County Justice Center is like being in a railroad station during WWII troop deployments. After a disgruntled girlfriend burned down the historic courthouse over on Wilcox with diabolical plan to free her boyfriend, they gathered up all the cinderblocks in the metro area and built the Justice Center.

It processes everything from child custody to traffic tickets, you name it. You can sit outside chambers there and see most of Douglas County's finest be processed before a judge. You can identify the attorneys as the guys in cheap suits pulling Samsonite files cases behind them and plugging quarters into the copy machine.

Anyway, that fateful day I am standing outside the courtroom when this guy in jogging shorts and a sweaty Marine Corp T-shirt came prancing down the hall. Ten seconds later he is on the bench in his robe with the jogging clothes under-neath.

Now, like most ex-Marine officers he cannot conceal his disdain for the unfit, a category I fit. You can tell it when the guy looks you up one side and down the other and grimaces. But, maybe it was because I was overdressed and he thought I was trying to use it as a ploy.

At any rate, Judge Biddle performed admirably that day, soliciting information in little sound bites where a "yes" or "no" answer allows him to get to the quick of things efficiently, cross examination style.

Now, I am always intrigued by people in positions of authority. The judge who decides your fate, the employer who gives you an annual review review, the military officer who inspects you while you are standing at attention in ranks; there is no shortage of ego-maniacs who will sit in judgment of their fellow man during the week and go to church on Sunday.

They are everywhere lording over us, putting us in our place and enforcing the rules of class distinction so we common men know where we stand. They almost always wear a uniform that is starched and pressed and exudes authority. It is only when you see them, wearing tennis shoes and a polyester jogging suit at the shopping mall after they retire that you realize the guy was just a human and not God.

Judge Biddle will be disbarred, you can count on it. He has failed to appear before the "Bench", something he would have issued a bench arrest warrant for the rest of us for being in contempt and not appearing before him. He handles things by email and has suggested that a six month probation and suspense would be the appropriate sentence. He is in denial and will not own the immensity of what he has done, typical of addicts, not yet recovered.

There are a couple of things you don't do in this world. First, don't kill a cop. They will track you down if it takes a lifetime.

Second, don't tarnish the hard-won image of the legal profession whose state of grace with the public is tenuous at best anyway. It animates the guys who want term limits for judges. Bringing shame on the high bench is frowned upon.

The oversexed Miss Muffet prosecutor who was slapped on the behind and told never to do it again (with a wink) is off the hook, but not Biddle. His crime is tantamount to original sin and his fraternity brothers will allow him to walk the plank and he knows it. So why should he even try to mount a defense? He's tiger now.

I suspect that when it is all done, Grafton Biddle, soon to be a civilian, will move to some sunny state and enter retirement early. He is in his late 50s and has been in the system for enough years that I am guessing he has a full retirement coming and will not hurt financially.

His last wife gave him the boot, but he obviously still secretes enough testosterone to put us all to shame. In Laughlin when his band performs that last Tango, he'll find another Miss Daisy, and you can bet this one will be his soul mate..

The good citizens of Douglas County will pick up the debris from the tornado he caused and we will go on with our lives. Even the guys sitting in jail wondering whether his tongue slithering down the unbuttoned blouse of that prosecutor which sealed their fate with a conviction will soon forget.

Was he whispering sweet nothings in her ear while she was whispering that she needed a few notches on her gun to get her career advanced? We will never know.

Soon, it will all be a distant memory like the shooting of the hole in the ceiling at the B & B Cafe. After all, it's justice in Castle Rock at high noon, Douglas County-style.



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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Fran Miller

Parker , CO

Fran Miller has posted 106 stories and 14 comments since joining on 9/28/2007. Fran Miller 's average story rating is 4.78.
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