U.S. District Judge Scott O. Wright, who died Monday, understood justice

Scott O. Wright, the irrepressible federal judge who died on Monday, was delighted to be the subject of an impeachment resolution in the Missouri General Assembly 12 years ago.

Wright’s rulings overturning the Legislature’s abortion laws had infuriated some Republicans, including Ed Emery, a House member from Lamar, who had vowed when campaigning to “return Godly values to our culture.” Emery, who now serves in the state Senate, authored the resolution asking the U.S. Senate to remove Wright from the federal bench.

It never went anywhere, of course, and Wright was hardly worried. “You might tell those guys that I’m 81 years old,” he told reporters. “If they’re going to impeach me, they’d better get at it.”

While some constitutionally challenged lawmakers wanted Wright gone, others of us hoped he would live forever, this elfin judge with the salty tongue and a love for humanity in all of its guises. At times, Wright did seem immortal; he was 93 when he died but had stopped reporting to work at the U.S. District Courthouse in Kansas City only a couple of years ago.

A judicial appointee of President Jimmy Carter, Wright outlasted most of Missouri’s most stalwart politicians. That included Republican John Ashcroft, who was state attorney general and eventually moved on to governor, U.S. Senator and President George W. Bush’s first attorney general.

Wright handled cases that originated in Jefferson City when Ashcroft was Missouri’s top elected lawyer, and let’s just say the liberal judge and the Bible-thumping politician didn’t usually see eye to eye. The judge loved to tell a story about a meeting with Ashcroft during which he expressed some concerns about the quality of the legal filings coming from the attorney general’s office. As Wright told the story, Ashcroft heard him out and then said, “Tell you what. You take care of your business, and I’ll take care of mine.”

Wright absorbed the rebuff but he didn’t forget. Eventually, Ashcroft told him he wanted a case continued so his office could have more time to prepare. “Tell you what,” began Wright’s answer to the attorney general. You can guess how he ended that crisp rebuff.

While Wright loved being a federal judge, aspects of the job pained him. He found the death penalty abhorrent and eventually refused to take cases if it was a possibility. He also loathed mandatory minimum sentences set by Congress, mostly for drug crimes.

Wright talked to me once about one of his cases. The defendant, a Mexican-American woman from California, had gotten busted in Kansas City carrying a quantity of drugs sufficient to get herself a lengthy stay in a federal prison. Wright didn’t want to sentence her. She was a grandmother with custody of grandchildren, and her family was reeling financially from the failure of a small restaurant. As the judge saw it, the woman, who had no previous criminal record, had made a mistake, but not one that justified years in prison.

He sought out a Spanish-speaking Kansas City attorney to represent the defendant. The judge and the lawyer did their best, but the woman was guilty, and the mandatory minimum guidelines applied to her case. All that was left was the sentencing hearing.

Wright stalled. He really, really didn’t want to put this grandma in prison.

One day, I ran into her lawyer and asked about her. He said she had slipped across the border and was now in Mexico, outside the reach of U.S. law.

“Does Judge Wright know?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” the lawyer said. “Why don’t you tell him?”

So I phoned Wright and told him that apparently, his defendant had absconded to Mexico. There was a silence on Wright’s end, long enough for me to grow nervous.

Finally, the federal judge replied: “Hot damn! Good for her.”

Wright was giddy in the conversation that followed, and said he was having a great day. As we were signing off, he said, “I guess I’ll go ahead and set that sentencing hearing.”

Judge Wright loved the law, but he loved people, and fairness, even more. If heaven has a courtroom, one can envision his petite, bald-headed figure at the bench, cackling that distinctive laugh.

That would be justice at its finest.