THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 3, 1995 TAG: 9505030039
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LAWRENCE MADDRY
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
A BURLY, cigar-smoking, wise-cracking jurist, Judge Vernon D. Hitchings Jr. was setting records for swiftness of court justice long before Michael Jordan - basketball's avenging angel - redefined the slam dunk.
A critic once called the former Norfolk Traffic Court judge's court a circus.
But it was never that. There was only one performer: the judge. And while he may have his faults, Lord knows vacillation and dishonesty are not among them.
So, earlier this year, to the delight of many and the disappointment of a few, the Virginia General Assembly passed a resolution praising Hitchings for his 40 years of service to Norfolk and the Commonwealth of Virginia as a city attorney and general.
Vernon Hitchings Jr. is an American original. He can be found in the Guinness Book of Records - along with champion fire eaters and the world's smallest dwarf - for having tried a million cases from January 1954 to January 1977 in traffic court.
Hitchings took the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial as seriously as his fishing. And in nautical terms, those who cruised through his court had the impression of sailing the legal waters on a speedboat rather than a yacht.
His admirers like to point out that despite the huge caseload the judge handled in traffic court, only four percent of his decisions were reversed on appeal. And they note the many commendations he received from the American Bar Association.
Still others admire Hitchings for having done the nearly impossible in silencing Norfolk's No. 1 talker: attorney Peter G. Decker Jr.
``He's the only man other than my daddy who ever told me to shut up,'' Decker said. Oddly, the judge joined Decker's law firm when he retired from the court, impressed less, he said, by the lawyer's legal acumen than his wardrobe, which he reportedly described as ``more original than a Brandeis brief.'' Although still affiliated with the firm, Hitchings retired from legal practice three years ago.
On the bench, Hitchings, an imposing figure with a thunderous voice and caterpillar eyebrows, gave the impression of a thundercloud that might discharge a bolt at any moment.
He warned attorneys: ``No Perry Mason stuff or speeches you practiced in front of the shaving mirror. The point. Get to it, please.''
Hitchings pushed for a chronic offender law in Virginia that would revoke driver's licenses of habitual offenders for 10 years and send them to jail if they were caught driving during that time.
In sentencing a chronic offender to 18 months in jail, he complained that he couldn't make the sentence longer, observing that the man had a record ``as long as the towel in a boarding house.''
The judge never believed that his court should be a source of revenue for the city. His fines, while liberally distributed, were also small. So much so that a man brought before him for running a signal light once had the poor judgment to make fun of a fine he considered puny.
``Ten dollars?'' the man said. ``Why that ain't nothing. . . . Ten dollars. Why I've got that right here in my pocket. It ain't nothin.''
Hitchings leaned over the bench, his face inquiring and concerned. He asked the offender to examine his other pocket ``to see if you've got 10 days. Next.''
``You weren't drunk,'' he once told a man who registered a .44 on an alcohol-breath test. ``You were embalmed!''
He listened patiently as a woman explained that she had jumped from her moving car because the gas pedal stuck. The stuck pedal caused the car to speed around her block repeatedly, and she bailed out because she knew nothing else to do, she said.
Hitchings was unmoved by the woman's story. ``Madam,'' he boomed, ``a pilot goes down with his plane. A captain with his ship. And you should have with the car. Next!''
A judge makes a multitude of enemies no matter how fair he or she tries to be. Blustery on the bench, he was usually a model of goodwill off it. He has the respect and admiration of those who know him best. by CNB