Why I Do This!

Lots of leaders love to be up front and revel in the big dinners, celebrations, and head table optics.

Scott could really care less about any of this. He likes the people at these kinds of festivities but often reluctantly participates. Notice a bald muzungu with the light tan suit “dancing” at a recent thank you dinner for Pepperdine and Bob Goff’s work in Uganda.

The senior judicial leadership have opened doors for good work to happen here but Scott is most honored to work with the attorneys on Pepperdine’s Uganda team. These talented advocates are on the ground, in the prisons and before the judges every day doing ground breaking work on behalf of those who have never had an advocate before. Scott encourages their work. He celebrates their tenacious willingness to go the extra kilometer and he shares in their passion to see the Ugandan judicial system evolve.

A short reminder of this from Scott with the subject – “This is why I do this.”

“We had a client in late July in an outlying court. The team has struggled with that court because one of the judges doesn't play straight, if you understand what I mean. Cases in front of her take a very long time, they involve large fines/bail and frustrate the remandees (inmates) to the point where they often don't want to even try to resolve cases before her.

In fact, we had a small plea-bargaining session INSIDE this prison with a partner magistrate in April to try to course correct, but nothing seemed to work. Joseph (the newest Pepperdine hire who’s studying to pass the Ugandan bar) has been a trooper in that court, doing everything he can to move cases forward despite this magistrate.

In July, we reached a plea agreement on a small case, a possession of marijuana. The client had been on remand for a while so the prosecutor was OK with a 200K ($53) fine and immediate release. If the guy didn't pay the fine timely, 12 months jail.

The judge signed off on the plea agreement but sentenced him to almost 1M ($267) fine. He couldn't pay so back to prison he went. Clearly an illegal sentence.

Joseph (with help from Hassan, Pepperdine’s Sr. Advocate pictured above, and others) wrote up an appeal that pretty quickly got in front of the judge for the High Court. About a week ago, this judge agreed with us, revised the sentence back to the agreed 200K fine and the guy walked out of prison that day.

This is the kind of case that would normally just languish with no attention. A great example of the evolution of public defense in conjunction with plea bargaining. I don't want our lawyers to become appellate specialists but I'm very proud of their efforts, and certainly the result, here.”

Please continue to pray for our Ugandan team – they are remarkable!

(And I can post this "boast" as Scott's currently off to Rwanda and won't see this before you do.)