The Boyk Brief
Go into chambers with attorneys Chuck Boyk, Mike Bruno, Zac Shaffer, and the attorneys of Charles Boyk Law Offices on The Boyk Brief, as we talk with interesting personalities from the legal world, celebrities, experts, business & community leaders, and other engaging people about a variety of topics.
The Boyk Brief
Toledo's Rock & Roll Judge Nicole Khoury
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In this episode, Boyk Law Attorney Andrea Young and sits down with the Honorable Judge Nicole Khoury for an in-depth chat about Judge Khoury’s career both in the courtroom and on stage. This episode of the Boyk Brief was recorded in Judge Khoury’s offices at the Toledo Municipal Court. Judge Khoury tells Andrea about growing up in a musical family in Toledo’s south end and how she started singing. Ever the ball of energy, Judge Khoury also shares about how she graduated early twice, started a band, and founded a nonprofit, all while running a successful criminal defense practice.
Welcome to the Boyk Brief. I'm Desmond Destru, Marketing Director at the Charles E. Boyk Law Offices, located in Toledo, Ohio. The Boick Brief invites you to go into chambers with the attorneys of Boyk Law as we explore real legal cases, talk to fascinating people in our area, raise awareness about community initiatives, and share helpful information about protecting yourself and those you love. In this episode, Boyk Law attorney Andrea Young sits down with the Honorable Judge Nicole Corey for an in-depth chat about Judge Corey's career both in the courtroom and on stage. Judge Corey tells Andrea about growing up in a musical family in Toledo's South End. Ever the ball of energy, Judge Corey also shares about how she graduated early, not once but twice, and started a band and a nonprofit, all while running a successful criminal defense practice. All of this coming up on the Boik Brief.
SPEAKER_01We are here today with the uh honorable and fabulous Judge Corey. Hello, thank you for sitting here and being available to chat. How are you? Absolutely. Great. How are you? I'm well. It's a little rainy here today. I think we came in uh and got your office a little wet. I heard the the thunder was pretty wicked right before you walked in the door. So I guess it's that time of year. So I am very interested in learning about you. I read articles before I started law school talking about how you were this dynamic personality and you were in a band, but you practiced law, and I said, This is a woman I have to meet. So let's start from the beginning. Okay. Where did you grow up?
SPEAKER_02I grew up in Toledo. I'm a South Ender through and through. I still live in the South End. I went to Harvard Elementary and then Burndale and Bowser. Okay. I am the oldest of four girls, so you can imagine how that is. My dad has no hair.
SPEAKER_01He used to have a lot of hair. Well, I have six nieces. My brother only had girls, so he had six girls. So I guess they just keep trying for that boy and it doesn't happen, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. So uh yeah, and my whole family, you know, lives in Toledo for, I mean, for the most part. My my sisters have have moved. I have one in one in Chicago and two in Charleston, South Carolina. But me and my 95-year-old going on, 21-year-old grandmother, and my mom and dad, and then my aunts all live within a mile of each other. Like and we hang out and play cards all the time. I love that. Yeah, it's a very close-knit family. My um father's side of the family, uh, they live over Sylvania Seacor area, and most of them live in the West End, and we're, you know, in the South South end though, but we still get together all the time for all kinds of crazy things.
SPEAKER_01I really appreciate that. I have a sister that lives just around the corner. We get together every day in rollerblade. And at one point I wanted to leave Toledo and get out, but I couldn't get away from my family. So did you ever have aspirations to leave or so?
SPEAKER_02I went away to college for uh, you know, for undergrad and then came back for law school. And I, at the risk of sounding snobbish, I guess, I kind of like the idea of I like being a big fish in a in a littler sea rather than a little fish in a big sea. Sure. I like the idea of being able to make a huge community impact in a lot of different facets of my life where I might get swallowed up in the masses somewhere else. I mean, I don't doubt that I would have been driven and successful anywhere in the world. But Toledo's a special place. It's there are times when you don't really, you know, you want to throw your fist in the air. But then there's times when you realize we have got such great opportunities here. We're making so much progress and and really trying to build things up and doing so much more. And I don't know that I would have been able to do everything that I do, which is a lot of stuff, if I were anywhere else. So I'm at a place in my life right now where I'm just really, really happy with every single part of my life, which is really strange because you know I'm a woman and you're ever happy with everything in your life, right?
SPEAKER_01Well, hey, we're glad to have you in Toledo. So for that you're here still. So I'm sorry, I don't know if I heard. Where did you go to undergrad?
SPEAKER_02I went to Hillsdale College in Michigan. So I was only about an hour and 15 minutes away, um, which was actually kind of nice because you can just jump on the turnpike and be home in in an hour if you want to, but you're far enough away that you got to live in your dorms and sorority houses and stay away from your parents. It it is a very scholarly driven school. I to this day can call the college and people know my name and remember who I am. I have constant contact with several of my professors. You know, there were some philosophy classes that I was in where there's no more people than there are in this room right now in the class. And the education that I got there is something that I'll never forget. Really learned how to critically think, learned how to write. Uh, it's a liberal arts college, so you got a little bit of everything. I didn't have to just focus on one thing in my major. I focused on several different things, which was really cool. And what was your major? So American studies is technically my major. So instead of doing, you know, 36 hours of a focused history major, it is it was history, English, political science, and philosophy, but all American. So I say all the time, like the only thing I really know about Shakespeare is what I read my freshman year. Everything else was all American authors, you know, so all of that was really focused that way. So law school, I think people have this weird idea. When everybody tells me, I made I'm majoring in pre-law, I'm like, but I don't really think there's anything that really is pre-law. Right. You know, you could be a drama major and go to law school. And sometimes that might help, to be completely honest. I agree. But um, you know, being able to have that well-rounded education that interested me, so I didn't really lose sight of focus was and right, like I said, just learning how to critically think, which I think is the most important thing you can have to go to law school. That and being able to write, of course.
SPEAKER_01So as I understand, a little birdie told me you graduated with honors from Hillsdale. I did. Okay. And what was that?
SPEAKER_02Uh I I I'm trying to remember because I was I was, I think I was can't remember if I was just cum laude at at Hillsdale, and then I was either cum laude at UT Law School or I just missed it by like one one thousandth of a point. It was one of those things, you know, with the curse of the bell curve, which I think is the stupidest thing in the world. But I graduated both undergrad and law school early. So I graduated undergrad in three and a half, and I graduated law school in two and a half. So for me, you know, you're still graduating early, you're taking 18 credits every semester. Yeah. And you graduate with honors. That's a lot. I didn't need to be sumakuma. I was okay.
SPEAKER_01No, I completely understand that. So let me back up. What made you go to law school? Is that something you always wanted to do?
SPEAKER_02Or it's a really, really interesting question because people ask me that all the time. Um, I will never forget when I was in eighth grade, we at Berndale, we went on a field trip to University of Toledo and, you know, we got to shadow probably a freshman or a sophomore. I don't remember. I remember the girl was very nice. I went to her dorm room. She took me to Angelo's attic, if that tells you how long ago that was, back when UT actually had Angelo's attic. And I was a dancer growing up and a piano player growing up. And I wanted to be a, I mean, I had the I I was gonna be a ballerine, I was gonna be a dancer. That's what I was gonna do. I was gonna be on Broadway, I was gonna be a dancer. And right before that field trip, my dad was like, Well, you can't go there and say you want to be a dancer. You should say you want to be a lawyer. I'm like, all right, fine. So I said I wanted to be a lawyer, but from there, it kind of was like, Well, this kind of makes sense. And it kind of, and then I just kind of focused on it and focused on it. And to be completely honest, there was never any question, kind of once I started realizing that it was a really good knack for me. The only thing that really changed for me was my field. Um, I thought I was going to be an entertainment and sport lawyer. Okay. I ended up being a criminal defense attorney and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. I probably made a lot less money, but I wouldn't change it for anything in the world because that taught me how to be a courtroom lawyer. And that's what I love is being in the courtroom. I don't like any of the desk stuff. I don't like the administrative stuff. I like being in the courtroom and trying to actually make an impact and a difference on people's lives.
SPEAKER_01Which I will want to go back and touch on that. Um, but dance. So I have a dance background, and I feel like that will never leave me. So you mentioned ballet. Is that the only type of dance or I was actually uh primarily I was a jazz dancer.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I did, and I mean back then we called it jazz. Now it's probably hip hop, whatever the heck they call it. I was very uh I had a lot of stage presence and I was always I was always the nine-year-old in the classes with the 18-year-olds, you know. Oh. And then I did teach in college a little bit. Uh very again, a very small town with this really cool college, but the town folk in Hillsdale didn't really like the college kids so much. They thought, you know, we were elitist or whatever. So I remember going to a dance class and being like, wow, this is what a dance class is like here. Okay, this is interesting, you know. But I did teach for a couple years. I taught piano and um dance in college and uh, you know, for extra jobs to make some extra cash.
SPEAKER_01So you also have a music background. Um, did that start with piano?
SPEAKER_02That absolutely started with piano, to be completely honest. My sister, the second one down, was always the singer in the family. She started singing at a very, very young age. And I was always kind of accompanying her. And it's kind of a funny story because my dad played in bands while I was growing up as, you know, a night job on the weekends. And I grew up around it, then practicing in my basement, all that. I learned the piano. I was a very classically trained piano player, which is a shame right now because I haven't kept up as well as I should. And I was always my sister's accompanist. And her voice, she's got an a, you know, Aretha Franklin voice. I have a Janice Joplin voice. You know, that's that's what it is. But she was singing like the national anthem at professional sporting events all over uh when she was 15. She was going to sing for the lions and going to sing at the Pistons, and you know, I'd be the one that driver there. I was 22 years old and was at Mona's Riverview Lounge. It used to be right by where the Greek festival is with my dad, and there was an open jam. We stopped in there after something. I feel like it was like the Greek Fest or something. And Bobby May, the godfather of, you know, Toledo Rock, was in there playing, and he knew my dad, but he knew me because I used to bartend at Jed's and they used to play up there, and I'd get up and sing Bobby McGee. Well, my dad never heard me sing by myself. Okay. I was always in the choirs, I was always the the accompanyist for Rebel Airs, the accompanyist for the choir, but I was never the soloist. And Bobby was like, Well, come on, Nicole, come up and sing a song. And my dad was like, Nicole, you mean Nina? And no, I mean Nicole. And I got up and I sang Bobby McGee, and my dad's eyes got real big. And then, of course, within two seconds, my dad was like, Okay, now we gotta start with the band, we gotta do this, we gotta do that. And I was like, Okay, chill out, you know. From there, um, I started kind of just doing an acoustic thing with an old friend of mine, and then that moved into working with my guitar player, which turned into, hey, we have an opportunity to play a band gig, let's play a band gig, and then we'd play a band gig, and then you're you know, one of the more popular bands in in town, and here we are, you know, 20 years later and still going strong. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01So your band, Arctic Clam. Yep. Okay. When did you officially, I guess, start that?
SPEAKER_02So the band band, like the full band, the rock band, uh was would be I would say 2009. The acoustic version of it, which started it, was like 2005. So, you know, it was just me and my guitar player, and then we transformed into the full band.
SPEAKER_01So, how often are you playing gigs now? Right now, not very often.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um And this is because of the pandemic. Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I had gigs booked all the way up through the end of the year. The band hasn't played a gig since New Year's Eve. Okay. Uh, except for Acoustics for Autism, which is a different story. But I have been able to play acoustically, you know, maybe one or two gigs a month. So that's been nice to kind of keep doing it. You know, I these bar owners I feel terrible for. I just feel awful for them. Yeah. Aside from the fact that most of them had to shut down during the pandemic. The ones that were able to stay open and try to, you know, keep things going, but you know, you come back and there are forget the rules for a minute, forget the forget the masks, forget the that you have to buy all this plexiglass, forget the fact that everybody has to be seated, which is really hard in a bar situation. Yeah and trying to make it work. Now we're throwing on top of it you can't serve alcohol past 10 o'clock. In what world am I as a bandmate gonna say, well, you need to honor my gig, you know, and pay me money when you my job is to pack your bar. And I can't do that anymore. You know, I can't I can't pack it for you, so I'm not gonna hold people to that. Um, I really appreciate uh Saturday, I'll be acoustic at Cock and Bull right down the street. But um, they've been able to, they've been closing down here on street right outside of Fifth Third Field. So I'm actually playing outside in the street, and they are able to put a lot more people out there so that they can afford to do. But this might be the first New Year's Eve when nobody can be out celebrating at midnight. Uh you know, and I told my husband, I said, this is the first New Year's Eve we've had off in probably 10 years, like that I can think of. Wow. Unless we can figure something out. I mean, but as of right now, they're not gonna be able to serve alcohol past so you know.
SPEAKER_01So pre-pandemic, was this a weekly thing that you were playing, or how often would you say then?
SPEAKER_02At one point, it was definitely a weekly thing. In more recent years, uh, we were kind of doing every other week. In the last year, again, in the current version of the band, I have two full-time musicians in the band who are also in several other bands, and then I have one guitar player who is in another band. So we're limited. Not to mention my husband and I are kind of the old folks in the band. So we we actually got to the point where we were like enjoying having a Friday and Saturday night off. So I would say we were playing once or twice a month as a full band. I was doing a little bit more acoustically, but also we kind of try to focus more on just doing events. You know, we play a lot of events as it is. Uh our summer, we might play two shows a week every week because you're making five times as much money. Sure. You're playing in front of huge crowds, you know, you're you're you're doing all of this stuff. And then in the winter you kind of back off. So we'll see what happens next year. I don't think anybody's real eager to book right now, knowing what's going on.
SPEAKER_01So did you say that your husband is in the band? He is my drummer, yes. That is my husband. So, how is that dynamic? Do you guys get on each other's nerve or call each other out if you do something? No, it's always funny.
SPEAKER_02He's always like, She's a singer in my band. I'm like, uh, why don't you rephrase that? You're the drummer in my band. No, um, I I always make a joke. We we're best friends, I mean we absolutely are best friends, but I always make a joke, you know, I could have married a harmonica player who liked the new the New England Patriots, instead, I married a drummer who likes the Browns. So I'm constantly suffering when it comes to things, you know. It's like you don't even understand how much equipment is with the drummer, and you know, you gotta be the wife. And I'm not the diva lead singer, I'm the one that's carrying in the drums, carrying in the stands, getting stuff set up, getting stuff torn down. So um, no, it's great. I wouldn't play with anybody else at this point. It's weird. We used to occasionally have a sub for him. This was before we were dating, and it was weird not playing with him because he was he's very, very good. Um, but now I just wouldn't play without him. I wouldn't play a full band gig without him.
SPEAKER_01So I know that I've been asked this. How do you find time and did you find time to practice and do everything that you're doing? I mean, that's the burning question.
SPEAKER_02The the first answer is I do not sleep, and that isn't necessarily by choice as much as it is I just have a very active brain, and my brain is constantly moving. That's the that's the first answer. The second answer is I mean, people always laugh at me. They're like, seriously, you you emailed us at three o'clock in the morning. I'm like, that's because I woke up. It was on my mind, and if I didn't get it out of my mind, there was no chance I could fall back asleep, you know. Um, the second thing is, you know, as a criminal defense attorney, I have my own practice, and that means you have your own schedule. You dictate what you want. There were days when I was at work until 6 30. There were days when I was at work until 9 30 in the morning. Okay. You know, I mean it just depends. There were some days I worked part-time for uh the public defender's office, so I had a study schedule with that. Okay. But the kid days I had private cases, I might have had one case in Toledo Municipal Court at nine o'clock. I'm always an early bird to get there early. I'm out the door by 9 30 and I'm like, well, am I gonna come to my office and do this? I don't have anything to do. I'm the type that if there's research that needs to be done, I do it. If there's a a motion that needs to be written, I do it. I I did all my own stuff. I don't depend on secretaries or staff. So I just do things and get them done, and then you have this time. But I am very naturally I don't drink coffee, which is kind of funny because people think like I must be jacked up on coffee all the time. I just have a natural energy and I always have, and I kind of have thought like, well, that's gotta end at some point. And here I am at 43, and it hasn't ended at all. So that's like the answer. I just have this natural energy that is really wish I could slow it down. I wish I could slow it down, I wish I could sleep, I wish I could just relax and not think. It's just not in my nature. It just isn't.
SPEAKER_01Um, well, I mean, that answers that. So when you sorry, I was hoping to get like the the foundation of how I could get some of this energy, but um hang out for a while. We'll we'll get it. I hope. Um, so when you do, I guess, have downtime, what's your go to? Do you ever have a moment where you're, you know, you're I really like to travel.
SPEAKER_02My husband and I really like to travel. And there are times when there was one day, it was his birthday weekend, we had fun the night before, and I was a wreck the next day. And I just looked at him and I said, I'm gonna be absolutely lazy and do nothing. And we sat and laid on the couch and watched Disney movies, and you know, the the we binge watched The Crown, which I never watched on Netflix, which was awesome, and I'm really excited about the next season. So, like, we sat and I was like, man, this is what normal people do. They they like binge watch stuff, and here I am, I binge watch in between every 10 minutes that I have, like, oh, I'm getting ready for work. Oh, I've got this, I've got that. But I really love to travel. I really love to travel. We're planning a so long as life goes well, we went on this um, which I thought was for old people, but it really was fun, a bus tour for our honeymoon. So we were able to go, you know, from Sicily, we were able to go to um Munich, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, and you have this bus tour with this tour guide who was fluent in seven languages and used to work for the United Nations, and all of your hotels are taken care of, and you get off the bus and she's like, here's your key, and your luggage is already up at your room, and you have all these tours, and it was very inexpensive. Well, next year she's doing the same one, but it's like I keep calling it the vampire tour, and it's right around Halloween. It's like Romania, Bulgaria, Albania. It's 16 days, it's like 15 or like 10 countries, Croatia. Wow, it's pretty cool. And I'm like, maybe we should just, you know, we're obviously not doing much this year. Maybe we should just plan this big thing. So I really enjoy traveling, but even traveling isn't really relaxing. No, no, no. We go, go, go. We gotta see this, we gotta see this. But you know, at least you're in a different country doing it. Sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I do want to touch base on how you got into the criminal defense area. And I was, I guess I had heard, and I'll correct me if I'm wrong, that you started working before you went to law school in the legal field. Yes, that's not what turned me onto it though.
SPEAKER_02So I graduated a semester early, and so again, law school wouldn't have started till September. So in January until September, I was bartending, and then it was like, well, is there anything else? Random story happened to be at Loma Linda's with my family. One of the people I was there with knew a guy who walked in. He happened to be the city administrator for the city of mommy, who happened to say, Hey, our sec our league, our secretary for the prosecutor's office is having surgery. She's gonna be gone for two months. Do you want to come be a fill-in? I said, sure. So I interviewed, I got the job, and the prosecutor and mommy and I are still very, very good friends because of it. So that kind of started me there. And then my last semester of law school, I did the prosecutor internship class and went back to mommy. So now I was there as a prosecutor. Okay. And then as soon as I graduated, I became the public defender in mommy. So I hit all facets of that there. Judge Byers and I are very close. He was a huge mentor to me. Um, and then prosecutor John Arnsby and I are very close. We had a lot of fun. He really kind of taught me like you can have a really serious courtroom and have a lot of fun and respect for each other. You can have a good relationship between your prosecutor and your defense attorneys. But when it really, really came was when um I got a call from the now late Dean Eisler. Um, because I was not the law student that was going to have a summer job at a firm. I wasn't gonna do it. I was enjoying my life. I was pushing to get through school early. I mean, I graduated when I was 21. It was like, Wow, you know, you're like, you know, I'm gonna, you're a lawyer at 22 years old. Like, um, no, I'm lying. I'm totally lying. I graduated undergrad when I was 21. I was 24 when I was a lawyer. Still very young. I had my first murder trial when I was 24 years old. That's and I got a call from Dean Eisler. She goes, I know you don't want a job with a firm, but there's a criminal defense attorney in town who uh is looking for somebody to do research, and I think it would be right up your alley. I said, Okay, who is it? They said, Alan Conup. And I about dropped the phone because all I ever knew of Alan Connup was he's, you know, the efflee Bailey of Toledo. And so I said, Oh, okay. And I went and interviewed with him, and he hired me on the spot, and I did research for him, which led me to, you know, I took the bar in February, I passed it in May, and by that October, I had my first murder trial with him. Wow. And then we we did the Father Robinson murder trial together, and I did uh like I had four murder trials in the first like two years of my practice, and I won them all, which was a really bad way to start off your career. Because then you standard, yes. Well, you're just gonna win them all, and then Father Robinson hit, and I my heart was shattered, you know. I was like, what do you mean? I was 28 years old and I'm sitting there thinking my career, my life was over because I just couldn't believe how the whole thing happened. And um, that was, like I said, I mean, at 28, now I look back and I'm like, my God, that was 15 years ago, and and so much has changed. But it took me that that hit me down pretty hard to the point where it took me a while to get back on the horse. Like I was just kind of going through the motions. And then pick myself back up and you know, do what you gotta do. But it was Alan that that really solidified that I was gonna do criminal defense a hundred percent. He is the greatest attorney I've ever learned from. He's the best trial attorney this city this town has seen. I just learned so much from him. And I carry it over on the bench now because I I critique all the defense attorneys, of course, in my head. Uh, but I think about ways that he cross-examined people, and then I listen to attorneys now and things like that, and I think, well, they didn't need to do that, they didn't need to do this or they should have done this. But um, yeah, no, we're we're still very, very, very close to he is a he is just a gem of the Toledo legal community for sure.
SPEAKER_01Is that where your passion is, the trial work?
SPEAKER_02And absolutely, yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh, and criminal defense is fun. I mean, it's hard, but it's fun. It's really hard, but it it is fun. You know, people are always saying, Well, how could you defend that guy who did it? Well, I'm not really defending him, I'm defending the system and his rights. And if anybody else was in the same situation, you'd want to be treated the same way. But every once in a while, I tell my public defender this now. I said, It is a hard, grueling job, but one out of every 10,000 people are gonna look at you and say thank you. Yeah. And you're gonna have changed their lives, and that's what makes it all worth it when it's done.
SPEAKER_01I agree. You know, absolutely. Do you have any stories that stand out to you throughout your years?
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. I have a book that I started writing that's right back there. I keep letters, uh, I keep letters from defendants. I have a poem framed on my bench from a defendant that sent my oh, dear Bill Coker, who passed away, surprisingly. I I say that very facetiously. Um, he was just a wonderful piece of work. Like he was the most friendly, kind of motorcycle guy, grizzly dude in the world, but he just couldn't stay out of trouble and he just loved me. And he wrote me a poem from jail, and I have it framed on the bench, and he made up a word about me called Slimber. Okay. He says, You are you are so tall and slimber. Oh you my public defender. It's the best poem. I have to see this. Yeah, it's bad, it's back there. There are just there's way, way too many stories. I mean, yeah, some of it's funny, some of it's sad. I'll tell you a story that stands out. It's a good story. There was a guy, I'll call him Jay because I won't say his name. But from 2003 until 2015, he was on probation to Sylvania. Not because you're allowed to be on probation that long, because you're not, but because the last thing he needed to complete was getting his GED. And this was not a guy that didn't want to get his GED. This was a guy who kept trying and kept failing and kept trying and kept failing. And finally, he walked in one day, and I'm about to cry right now. He walked in right one day and he showed me his GED, and I just burst into tears. I hugged him. I went to the judge. I ran up to the judge. I said, Judge, judge, judge, you've got, we gotta make call him in the very first case. We gotta call him, we gotta let everybody see this. We gotta calm, we gotta call him, we gotta call him. And we called him, and it was the first time Judge Raimi, who's now retired. I I just used to, he used to drive me nuts because he'd keep these people on probation and coming back for so long. But then after that moment, I was like, But this is why. Yeah, you know, this is why he did it. Everybody in the courtroom was crying because this guy got his G E D. Yes. And I've kind of tried to take a little bit of that into my philosophy of being on the bench. Um, I will give everybody one chance. Okay. I don't care if you have no record or if you have a 50-page record, because let's face it, if you have a 50-page record, you've been to jail. The only thing I ask is you don't lie to me. If you are gonna stand in front of me at your sentencing and you're gonna say, I really want help, I'm really done, okay, I'm gonna give you a chance to prove it to me. Okay. But if you lie to me, right, there's gonna be a problem. Yes. And you get people who don't like it. And I mean, I'll have them report directly to me instead of probation. I won't even put them on probation. I'll I'll say, okay, I'm giving you a six-month jail sentence, but I want you to come back in two weeks. And if you've gotten the assessment, then I'll and so I basically keep pushing off their sentence and if they're compliant, I kind of become their probation officer. Sure. So what happens in the end is it's been a year, you've come to court half a dozen times, but now you're clean, you've been clean and sober for a year, you're doing well. I didn't have to waste the resources of the probation department. And I've got a guy who's coming back, and all of a sudden now he looks at you and he says, I didn't like it very much in the beginning. I'm very grateful. I want to thank you. And now that person who had a 50-page record has an appreciation and a trust and a respect that the legal system isn't all bad. Right. That it's not just out to get you, that it's not just out to punish you. And now he's gonna realize that if he relapses or something happens, he can come back and talk to me about it and we can get him straightened out rather than just I'm just gonna go to jail again. And there are a lot of people that continue to lie. I'm gonna see one of them tomorrow. And it ain't good. Yeah. And it's not gonna be good. Sure. But you all deserve to have that chance if you tell me you want it. Yeah. But just don't lie to me. Right. Don't lie to me. And I'm fair. I would much rather have somebody walk in and say, I relapsed. I that's why it didn't happen because I relapsed than have somebody come in and say, Well, because of the COVID, I'm like, if you mention the code, if you mention the C word one more time, do not sit here because your violation was in 2019 and there was not the COVID in 2019. So let's be honest. Just be honest with me. Yes, and let's work together. And you know what? If you say you don't want help, that's fine. I've got plenty of bed space. I'm not, I'm not gonna waste the resources. But the goal is to make the community healthy and to make the community clean so that they don't go commit crimes. Yes, you know, and and we all know we don't have a lot of resources, but if you get their trust, then you have a much better chance at them succeeding, which makes the community better.
SPEAKER_01I agree. Um, so what are your ambitions or plans going forward? What's the next big thing we can see from?
SPEAKER_02It's so funny people say that because I mean I've been on the bench almost a full three years now, but everybody's like, well, why aren't you running for common please? Well, why when are you gonna run for court of appeals? When are you gonna do this or when are you gonna do that? I am so happy at Toledo Municipal Court. Um, to me, you know, making the extra couple thousand dollars a year isn't worth the um, I don't want to decide whether somebody gets the death penalty or not. I don't want to sentence somebody to 18 years in prison. I don't want to have a 10-year-old girl tell me how she was raped on the stand. I like being able to help people get their driver's licenses. I like changing their lives in those ways because I think at this level, you still have the ability to really help change people's lives before they get to the big boy court, you know. I don't have any desire right now to move from where I am. I really don't. And that may change. I don't know. You know, I'm pretty nervous energy anyway. I can't imagine if I was in the court of appeals where I'm not like around people all the time. Like I like being around people. So it is definitely um, I'd like to continue. I think I'm having a really positive effect on a lot of people. I'd like to continue to be able to do that. I enjoy doing it here and I'm very happy here. Um, I'm fortunate enough to be able to still use my musical talent to have a side job. And I'm also fortunate enough to still be able to have a charity that I started and founded and is hugely successful. But, you know, you you're able to do all these things, and and I I think the easiest answer to that question is I continue to aspire to be a big fish in a little sea and keep helping people because it's in my nature to help people. And I I think that what I'm doing is is that exactly. And just like I said, it took me a really long time to get to a point in my life where I was just happy. Yes. I'm in a very happy marriage, I have amazing friends, I've got a great family, um, I have a great job. I am able to do whatever I really want ex extracurricularly and heck, make money off of doing it, and um be involved in the growth of the city. And I think that that's a wonderful thing.
SPEAKER_01Well, Your Honor, I very much appreciate your time. I know that you're busy. Um, I didn't get to half the questions because I just have a million questions for you. So we can do a part two of COVID. How about that? Absolutely. We'll think about it.
SPEAKER_02Come out to a show and do a live broadcast and we'll get some questions. There we go. We're gonna do that. Thank you. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Tune in next week for another episode of the Boik Freak where we'll discuss more issues of life and law. Thank you for joining us.