The Honorable Judge Ginina Jackson-Stevenson

In our latest episode of Voices of Annapolis, we sit down with Judge Ginina Jackson-Stevenson for a powerful and personal conversation that goes beyond the bench. She opens up about the realities of raising her children while building a demanding career, sharing honest reflections on balance, sacrifice, and the values she’s worked to instill at home. From navigating motherhood to leading with purpose, Judge Jackson-Stevenson offers a deeply human perspective on what it means to show up—for your family and your community—every single day.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Far on the left, the main street left with the big one and the city side right. These are the voices, these are their stories. Voices of Annapolis dive in.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Hi, Gretchen. Hey Cal. We have a fun guest today. I feel like we just did this yesterday.

SPEAKER_04 0:20

We We actually did. Yeah, so we have a fun guest today. Very, very like a lot of I would say if this was a a kernel somewhere, there'll be a lot of badges. There'll be a lot of ching ching ching when they walk through the door. But I have to ask, um, one when we get into this topic, have you ever been to jail or to court or in a court crazy court battle? I have been in a court courtroom setting. Besides like traffic, like you using a stop.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Unfortunately, my court experience um was sealed because I was a designer. My youth was maybe a little non-traditional. Yeah, no. Well, I don't know how to, it's not really getting caught. So, you know, I had sort of absentee parents, and when you have absentee parents, the juvenile justice system wants to still kind of know where you are. Um, so I made that difficult. Eventually they won. I lost. Um, there are papers I still have at home, and I don't know why I keep them. Maybe there is under all of this sort of humiliation, there is a little bit of badge of honor. I still have court papers that declare me a juvenile delinquent. Which should be, I know, we're looking at three credits. I do, but it should be, this should be inspirational for any young person out there who has had that label that, like, that's not the end of your story, right? You can come back from anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

You can bet you um I I had a I had a student when I was teaching. Um, he would God, he he wasn't even my kid. He was not even my student, but boy, boy, oh boy, did I me and him know each other? And we know each other. And he he would give me some hell. And I remember like five years later, we went to Chili's and Bowie, and I sat down and I'm like, I know who you are. Because he had his name tag, and his name was is you you can't, it's like say like it was Mississippi, it wasn't Mississippi, but that was basically his name. And I'm like, you can't, there's nobody, you're you went to, you know, and he's like, Yeah, and he was so polished and so like, I was like, oh my god, you grew up.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

I'm so excited. It's amazing what happens when that frontal lobe finally solidifies and and you can figure out how to make better decisions. Some of us actually do pull a lot of it, and so there's always hope. And with that, I'm so excited to introduce our guest today. This judge Janina Jackson Stevenson is with us. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Welcome, it's my pleasure. It's an honor to be here. Oh, I can't wait to talk to you, ladies.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Hey, so we're we're gonna this is this is as much about you as the amazing woman that you are as it is the amazing career you've had, but let me please just brag a little bit. So, um, Judge Janina, you were an associate judge in the AA Circuit Court. You were the first African American female magistrate on the AAC circuit court.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

Um, before that, you spent seven years as a public defender, ten years in your own practice. Yes. Um, I am feeling like I'm in the presence of celebrity here. Like I'm just overwhelmed by what I know must have been an incredible journey. And we certainly want to talk to you about that journey. And we're just thank you for sharing with us today everything about you.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Well, thank you for having me here today.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

With all of that said, the first thing I want to ask though is before we get into your incredible career, how do you introduce yourself when you're not in a courtroom?

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Janina Stevenson. Janina Stevenson.

unknown 4:07

That's it.

SPEAKER_04 4:07

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

That's it.

SPEAKER_04 4:09

You know, I there's something I love about that, and to be perfectly honest with you, and and I and I I think that's uh it's a humble move that you make because I've been around people who, you know, when I was teaching who had doctorates, and then I would mess up and be like, you know, Mr. Like, it's doctor, and I'm like, okay, I like I didn't live your life. Like I like we're not family members. I I know, you know, but I love the fact that you're just like, no, I'm I'm not a judge, I'm not this person, I am Janina. Right. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Oh it's it's a title. Now, with that title comes great responsibility, yes, but at the same time, it's still a title. You have to know who you are because as long as you know who you are, then people can't take that away from you. So when you wrap yourself up in a title, whatever that title may be, whether it's mom, wife, um, judge, doctor, teacher, whatever it is, then people have the power to be able to reduce you to whatever they want to reduce you to. But it is a it is a title, and yes, with that title comes again great responsibility, and it's also, you know, in some circles it has some prestige. But at the same time, it doesn't define who you are. Well, I can speak for me. It doesn't define who I am.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

Well, I think that's super powerful because I remember as a teacher, and when I lost being a teacher, that was very hard to differentiate. Like, I'm like, well, then who am I if I'm not this person? Even though that I was a wife and a mother, and you know, I've done I there's a variety of things that I've done. I had to get out of that mindset. Like, that's not that's not who you are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

So we often, as women, we lose ourselves. Yeah. We can lose ourselves as with the title of wife. Well, what happens if whatever happens, you're no longer a wife. For whatever reason, you're a mother and your children go away. And now, when my children are gone, what do I now do? And oftentimes we lose ourselves in those things.

SPEAKER_04 6:14

Are your ch do you have children? I do. And they're gone? Almost? Well, yes. Like going out of the house.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

My my son has graduated from college. Okay. So there's so he's he's nearby.

SPEAKER_04 6:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Close enough that you're gonna be able to do that. How are you handling that?

SPEAKER_04 6:28

Because like my my son is is a second year in college. My daughter, um, uh she's actually she's actually leaving for spring break with a friend, and it's gonna be like the first Easter that I haven't had children. Like in 19 years, I haven't had children at the house.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Like, that's how do you my daughter is at school, she's at college also. So one of the things that we often lose when we become professional women is and we're married, we lose touch with our partners, we lose touch with our spouses. So my husband and I have touch points along the day or along the way. We all go out, so we still have time where we spend time with each other, so that when the children go away, and now that both of our children are out of the house, and everybody says, Well, you're empty nesters. Well, yes, but we didn't lose touch with each other.

SPEAKER_04 7:24

You you pre you you preeminate preeminated? Is that the correct word?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Preempted.

SPEAKER_04 7:31

Preempted, yes, you preempted. Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

We preempted because we started off as friends.

SPEAKER_04 7:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

So we still have that friendship. We used to run together, we worked out together. Uh he would sometimes tutor me. He was a science major. I was a science major in college. So he was ahead of me. He had already graduated. So those were things we had so much in common. We were both on a choir together. Um, and you know, work out, um, run, choir, um, we our philosophies, um, both of us were um of the same religion, both of us are Christian. So we had all of those things in common, which made it easy for us to be able to spend time together, even when we're not husband and wife, we're still friends.

SPEAKER_04 8:18

Best friends. Oh, yes, best friends. Best friends, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

So, to get back to your question, how do you handle that? Well, I always wanted to raise my children so that if something ever happened to me, they still would be able to be productive. Yes, mommy's gone, but I didn't want them to be able to lose themselves. I wanted them to be independent of me so that they could be successful in whatever it is that they wanted to do.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

So, with that being the case, seeing them go and seeing them both flourish and thrive is like, okay, well, we did what we were supposed to do as parents to be able to allow them to be whatever their success is defined.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

I love like one or two practical things that you did because we all hear your words, Judge Janina, and I would say I want the same thing for my children, and so many of us parent in the absolute opposite direction of giving our kids independence because we we hover and we protect and we forget the ways they learn to be independent in spice through through sometimes getting a skin-the-nee. So, what were one or two practical things that your you and your husband were like totally aligned on when it came to, yeah, we're not gonna do that or we are gonna do this?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

We allow them to make the decision of what they wanted to do. My husband is a professional, he's a doctor. And um, with us both being first generation graduates, we had to march and we had to create our own path.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

So a lot of things that we went through, our children didn't have to. But being creative and being being creative in the things that they still had responsibilities as far as chores, um, I we held them accountable. So if we said don't do X because Y will happen, we had to make sure that Y happened so that they knew we were true to our word. So that was probably the biggest thing that we did to have them be held accountable when they did things that they weren't supposed to. Now, we were very, very blessed that our children didn't get into trouble. They were very good children. We didn't have the terrible twos, we didn't have the rebellious teenagers. We just didn't, at least as far as I know.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

Right. Well, mama don't know, don't hurt her.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Right. We didn't have the rebellious teenagers. You know, for my son, his his friend group didn't change, his grades didn't change, um, his habits, his eating habits didn't change. So he was true to who he was, and we didn't have those issues with them. We were always a part of their lives, so we didn't we didn't lose touch with them.

SPEAKER_03 11:13

You didn't take your eye off them.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

Even with being a doctor and a lawyer and a judge.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Like that's wild. That's that's that's wild. We didn't, and it was it was easy because we loved each other. My children were uh I looked at my children as as gifts, because that's what they are. There are a lot of people that would love to be mothers and to be able to birth their own children, but for whatever reason, they were unable to do that.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

So I recognize that being able to have child children is a privilege and a blessing. So I treated them that way, where we we didn't look at them and and over um say we didn't uh use them as dishwashers. Right, we didn't use them as dishwashers, nor did we give them everything that they wanted.

SPEAKER_04 12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

They had to earn the things that they desired. My son, both of my my son and daughter did well in school. So it wasn't difficult to be a to to reward them with things. Yeah. So if you do X, then this one again.

SPEAKER_04 12:26

Right, goes back to Y. Yes, it's the the reward and the punishment. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah, that's exactly right. So it was easy for them, um, for them to my now. My daughter, her both of their stories are still being written, but my son has already graduated from college. My daughter is now in the process of going through college, each of them different individuals. And that's spending time with your children. You learn that they're different individuals, and with them being different individuals, you don't treat them the same.

SPEAKER_04 12:56

No, my daughter literally tells me, she's like, You like, you know, you like uh Fletcher better. And I'm like, no, there you are two totally different people. Yeah, like I said, you talk about independence. I couldn't, my daughter could not be any more independent. I know if something was bad to happen to her that she couldn't tell me or feel like she couldn't tell me, I would immediately know.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:16

She gets, she, I next every time she comes home, she's like, oh, by the way, I'm part of this group now. Like, what? How are you getting there? Um, and like I said, she's leaving to go. I don't know if I could have left home for a week with a with somebody and away from Easter. You know what I'm saying? Like if I know, like that sounds like odd, but I'm like, but I'll I want an Easter basket. Like even at 15 years old. I still want my Easter basket. I know she's gonna still want it when she comes home, but she's there's nothing about, but they are two totally completely different.

SPEAKER_03 13:49

It's how it's how a child and I have two, I have four, but I have two that are wildly opposite. I have one that that was came into this world and said, This is a nice place. I'm gonna be happy here. Oh and I have another who came into the world and said, Everybody is against me, and I'm gonna fight from day one. So you're right. And I just I love us there was a story that um a mom told me once when she was struggling with her children, and she went to a therapist to talk to someone about it, and the therapist looked at her and said, You're giving yourself way too much credit. These kids come with so much of their own. And to your point, like staying close to them and allowing them to be this has been, I will say this, I will clearly own that I have struggled with this with my children.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

It's hard. Yeah, my daughter had um issue, she had challenges with school, where my son, he just I mean, he just flew through school. It was easy for him, he could do calculus in the air. Now, my daughter, on the other hand, she had challenges going through school. So we just had to be able, what we've done was to be able to give her the tools that she needs to be successful. Yep. And that's just how they are. Now, with my children, they have such a marvelous relationship. I couldn't ask for a better relationship. Now, they're 19 days shy, seven years apart. Wow, wow. So when my son found out about my daughter who he prayed for, he prayed for a sibling.

SPEAKER_04 15:18

And less than two months later, a little too close for comfort for me.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Two months later, less than two months later, you know, we were pregnant with his sibling. And the day that she came here, he was off from school. Uh, well, no, the next day. So he was able to see her when she was less than 12 hours old. And the way he held her was like she was his. She says, That's my baby. He did. He said, That's my baby. And he has treated her. He has treated her like that since she's been here. He would come home from school, he knew immediately when he got from home from school, change his shirt, wash his hands, and he'd run downstairs when I was home. And he would love on her and hug him. Well, you've got to do your homework. I know, mommy, I know. So he'd hug on her, love on her, and then he would go do his homework. But their relationship is just one that I couldn't have prayed for a better relationship. He takes her on dates. So the two of them go on dates together, and he opens the door for her. So he treats her like a little lady.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

And now you know what she's looking for when she's a big thing.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Well, now she begins to have a relationship. And I said, Oh, that poor guy who knows I know. Because between nobody's gonna be good enough for the big brother. No, and between my husband and my daughter, I mean, my husband and my son, she has been, and it's not like she's treated like a queen.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

No, it's a perfect.

SPEAKER_04 16:49

That sort of kind of my husband used to open the door for me all the time, and it even came to a point like it, he when it slowed down, like after a couple years, he slowed down, and it was only when someone was in the parking lot. I'm like, I see you, bro. Like, I see you.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yes, and even when she gets in the backseat, he'll open the door for her. So he has treated her, and I had to have a conversation with him because he's all boy. Yeah. So he would be a little rough, and I had to say to him, I said, Well, your sister is a girl, she's not one of your friends that you play with at school. You know, she's a little girl. I said, So you have to be careful how you treat her because how you treat her is what she's gonna expect that other guys will when she starts dating who that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

That's a good thing to make him like.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Yes. And so after that, we had that conversation in his mind it shifted. And that's when he started taking her out. Well, I can't because he wasn't driving at that time, but he stri started treating her differently. And yeah, they get into and he, you know, plays with her and they ruff out sometimes, but he treats her like she's a uh a princess, a young lady, without all of the the um, you know, giving her a whole bunch of things.

SPEAKER_04 18:06

The love bombing. Yes, which is which by the way is a sign of like that's a that's a red flag. The love bombing is a red flag. Yeah, and she does can't love bomb.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Oh, he she loves her big brother. When he was at school and he went to she had a program at school because we support each other. So if she had and when he was home from school and she had chorus or if she had a game as well. He was gonna be at her her performance, he was there.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

I love it. He was there.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Um, when she got her awards at school, he was there, which is what we did for him. So she was always there supporting her big brother, and then when he got old, when he came back home from school, he supported her. So they saw that where they're supporting each other. So my prayer has always been that when they get their spouses, that their spouses will respect their relationships.

SPEAKER_04 18:56

I don't think you're gonna have an issue.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

It sounds to me like you nailed that, and and embrace it and not be intimidated by it because they are very, very close. So I I just and you know, there it's just wonderful to see them, you know, when they're together.

SPEAKER_04 19:13

So how do you how because obviously I see the strong like you you have you have a script and you stick with your script, and I love that in terms of like your family and how it, and even though you treat them differently, the rules are still the same. Consistency. Consistency. So how do you how did you apply this to your your home life, how does it correlate into like the courtroom, into the judge judgeship world?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

It's the same way, it's accountability. You know, when you look at things and you see account you accountability, if you have individuals that um well, one, respect. You know, it starts there. So I respect my children as being children, but still understand that I'm mommy. And mommy and daddy are the ones that are still in authority. Now that they're adults, their relationship shifts where we're no longer telling them what to do, we now advise. So there makes a difference. Now in court, it's it's consistency. If I say as long as you do X and Y, we're gonna be you'll be fine. But when you don't do that, now you've got to come in and now you have to be accountable. But it also comes with compassion, understanding particularly I work on one of the uh one of the specialty courts. So with the specialty courts, you have people that are coming with issues. And with those issues, I'm on the drug treatment court, one of the judges on the drug treatment court team. And I worked on the drug treatment court team before I came, I became a judge when I was an assistant public defender. So you see things from a different perspective.

SPEAKER_04 20:57

Yeah, from a harder perspective on the other.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

I remember exactly. And I before when I was in um before I became a judge and went to law school, I worked on a child psych ward. Oh my goodness. So when you work on a child psych ward, and I had took psychology courses when I was in college, uh, you see certain certain things. So when you see those certain things that uh that can then manifest themselves as adults, you look at things from a different lens.

SPEAKER_04 21:29

It's like you're educated-on education. Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

So you see people who use drugs and when they use drugs or alcohol, you want to know what the underlying reason is. Most people what are they medicating? Exactly. Most people don't want to use drugs and be out of control of what they're doing and do the things that they do when they're using drugs, whether they be male or female. Um so understanding what's the root cause because when I look at things, I always Want to know what is the root cause of this? Because if you get to the genesis, the origin of what is causing the problem, now we can deal with it, but a lot of times that's peeling back the layers.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

And for people who probably never had anyone care enough to peel back the layers. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 22:20

So that's a that's a hard how how tough is that though, as being a judge and you have like, I mean, obviously, because your your caseload can't it is I'm sure because I mean if you think about it, like in the in the system of like even CPS and like child protective services and stuff, I mean they're overworked, it's under under under um, you know, not enough worker bees to help these people. How do you try to peel back the how can you how do you have the ability to like really or do you or at least you try to at least the the harder cases? Do you see where I'm going with this question?

SPEAKER_01 22:55

I do, I do. Uh a lot of times I rely on their attorneys because the attorneys are the ones that you get the information from. So if I get something and I'm looking, I can see just from the cases that I've handled over the years, I'm looking at something and I know if I see this pattern of behavior, usually that comes from something that may have happened. Gotcha. So whatever it may have been. So if I'm looking at, I can then ask those questions to the attorney. And it doesn't have to all the time be in open court, I can call them up to the bench so that I'm not embarrassing or embarrassing or making the courtroom uncomfortable. So ask those questions. Oh well, Judge, I've never, I didn't, I don't know. We'll find out that response. So then things can go in a direction because it's all about for me, when you look at justice, justice is, you know, you look at the scales. So justice is balance between when you're talking about criminal behavior, you're talking about rehabilitation and then reducing recidism. Everybody wants to live in a safe environment. Right. But if we have someone who is, let's say someone was on drugs and they were doing drugs, they were using drugs for whatever reason and they're they're out and they're doing things in the community. Well, you now have hurt people, whether it's an individual crime on a individual to individual or a business. So now, okay, we now have to figure out what the punishment is going to be, still going back to accountability. So you have to be accountable for your crime that you committed, and then at the same time, as you're being accountable for your crime, how can we fix it so that you don't come back and do it again?

SPEAKER_04 24:51

Are there enough of those programs in place though? Honestly, could we do better?

SPEAKER_01 24:58

We we can always do better. We can always do better.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

Are we going in the more because like I know like we have like the mental health crisis? Like COVID kind of broke open that shell. Um, do you see more of that coming through? Like more of the programs to kind of like help people as opposed to like you're going to jail, that's it, see you in 30 years. Are we having any more of those?

SPEAKER_01 25:22

We do. We have programs that are are um that are coming to be. But you have to look at how is that going to be best for the person that you're dealing with, the defendant. And and that's just the one aspect because we also deal a lot with family. The majority of the cases that come into the courthouse are family cases, family. So we see a lot of that coming in where you have parents that are that may have connected based on I like the way you look, so I don't know who you are.

unknown 26:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

We have a lot of you know cases that come in that they may not have known each other, but now you have a child. So now we have this child. I don't know who you are, but you want to have my child. And oftentimes, as mothers, because we're the ones that have the most time with the child, we look at it and we say, Well, that's my baby. Yeah, but we didn't do make this baby by ourselves, so it's 50% you and 50% dad, because he contributed also. But most times as women, we look at it as this is my child. And with us being mothers, of course, we we are very protective of that. And I don't know who you are, I don't know how you're going to treat my child. This is our child.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

A whole different mindset. It has to has to shift to get to a place where they can work together to reach out. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 26:54

So you're building that trust with the families and and everybody to make sure that you know that you're they're on your you're you're on their team regardless of the fact that this child is struggling. Exactly. Or even the family is struggling. Exactly. You're making yourself to be as a a a light. A beacon of light.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Right. And and it's a beacon of light at the same time with the law. Because law always comes first. The law, whatever the law dictates, then that's what we have to do. You know, using whatever factors the law deems for us to use, then that's what she used.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

See, I think if I ever ended up in court again, I'd want to be in your court because what I see from juvenile delinquent from you upright. But what I see from you, Judge Janina, is your accountability, your call for accountability doesn't seem punitive to me. I feel like you care about that, yes, that I have to deal with the consequences of my crime, but you care that I'm that I'm not gonna be in the same place when we're done here. And I know not everyone is receptive to that that comes through the system. But how do you how do you offer that again and again and again and again when I'm just saying? So many people just are not willing to accept it.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

You know, because I look at each person differently.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

And they were somebody's child once.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

That's what I think about. They are, and but it's really a lot of times people in whatever profession you may be in, you look at things as oh, it's just a fill-in-a-blank, you know, a file, or you know, it's just a case. I have 50 million cases, or you know, I'm overworked. How am I supposed to? But they're people, they're individuals, they're lives that are impacted. And when you don't get it right, the impact can last generations. So you have to be ever so careful in what you're doing and how you're doing it because the impact can be so great.

SPEAKER_04 28:57

So with that, with your clear empathy, have you ever had to give a judgment that you're like, oh, I don't want to do this, but I have to do this? Absolutely. We're human.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Yeah, there's oftentimes that those things happen. This is what it is, and it's kind of sort of like with your kids, like you know, it's like, okay, well, I told you. Yes, yes. I mean, we have mandatory minimums that we have, you know, that we have to deal with. There is there's no discretion with the mandatory minimums. This is what it is, and I don't have the discretion to change that depending on what comes before us. Uh, and also in family law cases, there's times when we get cases where neither parent is a clear best parent for the child, but we have to find who is fit and proper. You may not like the way that they parent, but they're parents nonetheless. Right. So you have to craft what is in the best interest of the child, which is always forefront, foremost in my mind. What is in the best interest of this child? And there are times when they're really, really they're you have to make hard decisions. That's why we're here. You know, we we're the ones who have to, we're judges, so we have to judge without being judgmental.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

And that seems so in this world where any small ounce of power people are so um prevalently abusing, it's interesting to me. The role of judge now is coming clearer to me as this place where you are the decision maker. So you obviously, whatever your locus of control is, even if it's just that courtroom, you're the big dog. And that could go to your head, but the best judge is gonna be humble and say, I've gotta see everyone and I've gotta see everything.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

Yes, and you keep clear. What do you do? What do you do when you can't when that case? That case comes over your desk and you're just like, what do you do to relieve that stress? What's your go-to, like my go-to moment?

SPEAKER_01 30:59

The gym.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

The gym. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

I mean, that yeah. Not as much as I I I would like to, especially during this season, but after this season.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

Can you go there and like just turn your brain off and and and invest in yourself? I do. They don't have a gym in a I feel like they should have a gym in a courthouse. But you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 31:18

Yes, for us to be able to go in. A meditation room, a gym. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Something because it's like if you have because I feel like that would help keep perspective, because like again, where power doesn't go to your head, keep perspective, like, okay, I need to, I need to go decompress. Everybody needs to decompress. And I couldn't imagine having to be the person who's sitting on top of a what do you call the thing you sit on? The bench. The bench. The bench. I mean, how many murder podcasts and lawn orders have I seen? And I couldn't come up with that word. Um, and and to have, and again, to have that power, like, and because you do have power in like just to kind of like shock yourself. I don't know. I I'm gonna lobby for that for you guys.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

I want to know gyms in courtrooms. So you said that you were a first-generation college graduate. Right. Your husband was a first-generation college graduate. You have this amazing, like just sitting here with you makes me want to sit here with you more. Where did where do you where does that come from? And and how did you take such an incredible journey that requires so much grit, strength, toughness? I mean, female energy. You didn't do this in a time when it went, you're standing on a few giants' shoulders, but you're one of the giants now that our girls get to stand on. So how were you shaped into this person?

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Well, I have to say, my elders, my grand, my father's mother lived with us.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

So she took me to church all the time before my parents started going consistently. I mean, they went, but I was in church with my grandmother all the time. And uh her best friends. So she had two best friends, which we called our aunties, and they were twins. So they their granddaughter, well, one of them's granddaughter was a good distance away, and then uh the other one lived across they were good distance away. So I was their granddaughter. So when I wasn't with my grandmother, I was with her best friends. So each of them, my grandmother was born in 1914, and they were born in 1916, so that was their perspective. So I was with them, and my mother's mother was probably the probably I knew she had to have been the closest to a true Christian that I had ever met. And she never heard her gossip, and she just didn't. Even back then? Back then I was gonna say that all you had was to gossip. No, she did not. Not that I ever heard. If she heard something, she was on the phone with you.

SPEAKER_04 33:53

I heard Oh, I love, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

And so, and she was just, I mean, just I mean, just beautiful. She was an absolute beautiful, beautiful person. And everybody, when she passed away, she um we had to move her service from her home church because it was too small.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

And we didn't have to pay for anything for her repass. Wow. The grocery store donated everything that she went to. She was just that person. The hardware store, my mother went and told them that she had a store. Why?

SPEAKER_03 34:30

Why with the tears? And this is Anne Ronald County.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

No, no, no, I didn't grow up in Areanda County. I grew up in New Jersey. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:35

Jersey girl.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

But so that was the type of individual she was where she went, she just spread love. And she had a sixth-grade education. And um, my her husband, my grandfather, he passed away in '86. So I had an opportunity to spend more time with her because I grew my other grandmother lived with us. And so between the three, between them, it was just, you know, looking at who they were. They didn't have education, but they were great people. So when you look at that and see how great they were, and they were giants in their own in their own right, you for me, I didn't have a choice but to treat everybody the same. My grandmother, she worked at Fort Dix in New Jersey, and she was she was uh a maid. But when she retired, they had a huge parade, and she was sitting up on the on the platform with generals. Oh wow, and yes, with colonels, and she sat up there with them, and it was just amazing. That's so even though she did not have the education, but she always remained humble, and that's what I tell my children all the time. Always remain humble.

SPEAKER_04 36:06

There goes back to what do you call yourself when you go, you know, when you go out. That's that's where you learn that from. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

So you always remain humble because then you can be blessed. When you start looking at the things that you do, the things that you accomplish, you think you did it on your own. And you don't. Nothing that we do, and I tell my children that turtle didn't get up on a fence post by itself. Somebody had to pick that turtle up and put that turtle on a fence post. That was his help. And that's how I look at where I am now. Like you said, I stand on the shoulders of many giants. Uh and being able, be knowing that you can't help but remain. Everything works together. When I'm in court, I can't do what I do without my clerk. I can't do what I do without my courtroom clerk. I can't do what I do without my sheriff. So I make sure that I always thank them, you know, good morning to them when I come in, and I always thank them at the end of the day because I couldn't do what I do without them.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

So it's always being grateful for the people that are around you because we work together to make the justice system be what it is. Same way with my law clerk and my assistant. Without them, I would not be able to work. I mean, we're we're a system. Yeah. You know, when I worked in a I worked in a factory when I was in um in when I came home my first year from college. So working there, you see how each person has their own job. And when you put all of that together, you realize, oh, okay, well, this assembly line works because each person is doing what they're doing. But if the person behind me isn't doing what they're supposed to do, then when it gets to me, it's not going to be complete. And the person in front of me, if they're not doing what they're supposed to do, then everything ends up falling. So all of those things come together and you're able to use those experiences to be able to make things work better as a system.

SPEAKER_03 38:06

The kitchen works very much the same way, by the way. It does. Very much so. It really does. And you you have a love for your kitchen. Tell us that start. And then did it start with the grandmother? Where did this culinary skill start? My mother.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Okay. So my mom was and still is one of the best cooks that I know. So she comes from a family of cooks. I and that's one of the things. If you're a Jackson, well, they're not, my mother's not a Jackson, but if all everybody in our family cooks. So all of the women, all of my grandmother's daughters, they all cooked. So they all taught their children how to cook. We didn't have uh gender roles in the house. Everybody washed dishes. They didn't let me cut the grass.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

My dad made me cut the grass one time with the thing that doesn't have the mower on it. Oh my gosh. I was like, never again.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

And my father, my father cooked also. So between you know, my parents were cooking.

SPEAKER_03 39:09

Everybody was in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Everybody at separate times. Okay. But my mother, when she cooked, when we were little, she would have us doing little tasks. So we were like her sous chefs, so we were prepping stuff for her. So if it was peeling potatoes, if it was peeling onions, if it was tasting the food.

SPEAKER_03 39:30

That's what you stuck around for. That's what we stuck around for.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

We were the tasters.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

Love that.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

So she would tell us taste this, what is it missing? So we would taste.

SPEAKER_04 39:39

She gave you the buy-in. So you so you probably didn't complain about what you're eating for dinner.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Not at all. So we would taste it. And we say, oh mommy, this is missing, whatever it may be. And so that's what I did with my children. So both of my children can cook. Uh it's just what he I will tell you, a huge selling thing to have. It is. So that that's what we did. And um she was, you know, thanks, not Sunday dinner. My aunties, the two that I just told you about. So they would come over, and all of a sudden we'd have people coming over. When I left to go to college, I would call home and I would hear all these voices in the back. Well, mom, who is that? Well, my brothers, all of his friends. Sunday dinner. No, they were even better. They would come over Saturday night.

SPEAKER_04 40:30

Stay through Sunday dinner? No.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

They would go to church Saturday morning. Sunday morning.

SPEAKER_04 40:37

Have Sunday dinner.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

Yes. So we would always see people coming. Your mother's brilliant. Yes, brilliant.

SPEAKER_04 40:46

I am such a fan of Sunday dinner. I I there's part of me that I wish like the world would shut down at like two o'clock in the afternoon so that you can just be together and just eat together. Because it's the it just seems to me, I'm I I just love the idea of Sunday dinner. And we do it at home, and I even like my kids know like if you're even if you're home from school, if it's Sunday, you're home for dinner.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

Like well, and Kelly, part of the reason we do this podcast is because we're gonna convince people to love their kitchens again. We did we're just with uh a waterman yesterday, um Rob O'Haues of SOCO Seafood, and he was talking about how the local crab and oyster industry's been been affected by the fact that families aren't sitting down and crack and crack together like they used to. He saw demand go up during COVID because people were home and they were eating together, and he said it was like clockwork as soon as we all went back to life.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:44

Their their business showed that families weren't sitting down together. So Kelly and I, a force of two, are gonna change that with your help. This is where you are a force for good.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

We're gonna get you a gym, you help us bring it, but it it really it really was Sunday dinner, and my parents had a way, which I'm so appreciative of. We had dinner every night until I went to high school and was involved in sports. Um, we didn't sit down because I played sports year-round. So they may have had dinner when I was at when I was at practice and then I come home and you'd have a plate. I'd have a plate, yes, and then clean up the kitchen, and then do your homework. Um yes, exactly. But it was um that was how they were able to stay in touch with us. Yeah, always over food. Yes, it was over food, and not only that, you get to look in your children's eyes. Let me see what's going on with them. And you look, and you know they say eyes are the window to the soul. So you can look at them and say, hey, you know, what's going on? How was school today? And well, what happened? How was practice? Oh, didn't you have an exam? Oh, okay, well, how did your exam go? How did your paper did you write, did you start your paper? So those were the things that we were able, even with us being in a professional world, and you also tried to keep the every every night dinners? We did. We did. A lot of times uh I ended up doing more fast food than I wanted to. And do we make those sacrifices when our kids are?

SPEAKER_04 43:22

Well, I think I saw a video and I was. It's it's uh it's a lady who opens this bag of salad. Now it was a funny video because she was upset that I don't even want to repeat what she is.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

I think she called for the PG list.

SPEAKER_04 43:36

Well, because it was like half the lettuce was like the butts of the lettuce. You know, she was like, and she's like, I don't want you to call. Start putting on social media that why am I even eating bag salad? Make your own salad. She was like, if it's one minute, I'm not gonna have to worry about extended salad and it's still salads, right? She was like, I want my bag salad to have lettuce in it. It was a lot funnier than that. But agree, I mean that's what you do. But but you're still doing it together. Yeah. Even if it is, you know, a bucket of chicken and some mashed potatoes.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

Oh yeah, right over there. I've said so many times that the hardest conversations I've had with my children have been at the dinner table because they aren't gonna get up and leave. They're gonna they're gonna stay for the food, they're gonna suck it up, they're gonna tough it out, we're gonna get to the answers I'm looking for. My mother would put me in a car and drive 65 miles an hour. Well, that is I can't get out. They say that that's the best time to talk to your kids because then they don't have to necessarily look you in the eye, but you can have the conversation because the kid can't go nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

What he said was, yeah, he said I would take my chip my son and we'd get in a car. He said and we'd go on a ride. He said because he couldn't get out of the car, so he had a captive audience. Exactly. Whatever.

SPEAKER_04 44:56

So how did you because you're sitting down at the table and you have not always because we did did find out that you are vegan.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 45:04

Have you all and clearly you there's no way that you've always been vegan.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

No.

SPEAKER_04 45:08

Um so when did you turn vegan and and how did your kids how did your kids sit down at the dinner table? Were you were you introducing them the same way as your traditionally cooking them food with the vegan stuff? Were you telling them that it was vegan?

SPEAKER_01 45:24

They knew.

unknown 45:25

They knew.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

And I say to you. Omni cooked chicken. Actually, no. When I fixed um some oyster mushrooms, so I fixed some oyster mushrooms and double battered them like a lot of times people do, a wet batter, dry batter, and put them in, did I use grapeseed oil? So I cooked them in the grapeseed oil, and my daughter said, Mommy, these are so good. They so I had to then fix more. Sounds fabulous. Yeah, exactly. And then I even had our healthcare worker, she's watching, what are you doing? So she's there watching me.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

She's like, What are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 46:04

And I said, Well, here, try it. She's like, Oh, these are so good. So, again, when things taste good, or we start again from looking at them, so our eyes are the first things that see it. And if it looks good, I wonder when it's gonna give it a try. Exactly. So that's part of it to make it look good, and then when it tastes good, that's just incentive, you know, to eat more.

SPEAKER_04 46:29

We we do have when we do events and Gretchen's been there, and it's like, you know, and I and I hate the idea of a food card. Like, if it looks good to you, eat it. But I know allergies, yada, yada, yada. But I Gretchen would be like, we had to take the sign down because once person people said that saw that it was vegan, yes, they didn't want it.

SPEAKER_03 46:46

And I'm like, and then you take the sign down and it's gone. It's all gone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:50

And I even remember telling some guy, like we were doing one of those events, and I was like, it's a it's a vegan crab cake, you know, it's it's we call it a jack cake. I'm like, it's good, it's gonna take, it's gonna taste like a crab cake. I promise you, you won't notice. He's like, and I was like, look, there's a trash can right there. If you don't take a bite, if you don't like it, put it in the trash can.

SPEAKER_03 47:09

So the and he ate the whole thing. The the best um the best story I have about Kelly's vegan was we do a charity event at Pack a House called Bourbon Blazers and Cigars. And it's all the men come, they get to try all the bourbons, and there's lots of different food vendors there to give them little snack-a-doos. Right. Kelly made a sweet potato sandwich that was I'll share it with you. I'm just saying this had it was illegal, it tasted so good. And and the the gentleman would walk up and you know, they don't want to ask. But I'm one, I'm gonna give a show, so I'm gonna be like, and this is what these rosemary nuts are, and this is this, and this is a sweet potato sandwich, and they would be like, I said just take one bite. Right. And before you know it, the whole thing's going in their mouth and they're picking up a second one, right? So that we could convert men are usually the the ones who are are least likely to gravitate to their vegetables. We converted the entire crew that night. They were so excited.

SPEAKER_04 48:09

And I'm I'm a huge meat eater. I love a good steak and potatoes. Don't get me wrong. But if I'm gonna eat, if I'm gonna make vegan, I'm gonna eat vegan, I want it to be just as good as that steak and potatoes.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 48:21

You know, and I don't I hate the idea of going out and like getting, you know, I'd rather like you showed us the cashew, the cashew meat, which I assume you you made. I did. Yeah, it which is gonna taste so much better than getting like the the the $23 two ounces of tempeh whole foods. You know what I'm saying? Like it gives you, and it's and you still get all that health benefit.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

And used taco seasoning. Oh yeah. So was it it was taco shells, so the soft tacos and used taco sauce with it, the powder, mix it all up. And it came out and my daughter ate it. My son ate it. Neither one of them were vegan, it's just my husband and I. I made a uh whole pork sandwich. Oh, with the jackfruit? With the jackfruit, yeah. And my husband, are you gonna make some more? When are you gonna make some more? And my daughter said, Oh, mommy, this is good. And then she called my son. I mean, you've got to come taste my you've gotta come taste so good. So that's what he what we did. Um, I've even made raw brownies.

SPEAKER_04 49:19

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Yes, I've made raw raw brownies.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

So you you go with a lot of the raw food because you mentioned something, you like more of the raw as opposed to like the cooked vegan, because there's definitely different layers of vegan. So there is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

So I do we mix it. Uh I try to stay on the raw side because it's better for you, less preservatives when we're doing the raw, but um, when you do the cooked, you're adding other stuff to it. So yeah. When did you start? About three years ago. And why? Well, it started. My husband had some health markers that weren't, um you weren't going where they should have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I said, well, why don't we try? And he's always he always indulges me because I'm the one like my good husband. Like my parents. I was the one, I was the adventurous one. I wanted to go places that nobody had ever been, I wanted to do things that nobody ever wanted to do. So my husband has been very supportive and indulging me in those things.

SPEAKER_04 50:18

I feel like you have been supporting of him because to be like, all right, honey, I see where this is going with you. I'm going to tell you this is how we're gonna do this.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

Well I was a pescatarian, so I didn't eat meat anyway. So there wasn't a crab I didn't like.

SPEAKER_04 50:33

Oh. Even that Jersey girl came down here and was like, mmm, crabs. Well, my father used to make crabs for us.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Really? He would steam crabs. That's how I learned how to steam crabs. Nice. So he would go get live crabs. We'd bring them home, and you know, they scurry across the floor and try to.

SPEAKER_03 50:53

I am not a native Marylander and the crabs still and I told her I'm lovely big.

SPEAKER_04 50:59

We're gonna rubo was gonna Robo was gonna take us out on his boat to go crab me. I'm gonna give her the whole, we're gonna go from picking them from the water straight to the steaming.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

Yes, that's it's fun.

SPEAKER_04 51:08

I need the experience.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

I'm I'm fascinated now that we've had the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

When I was in high school, one of my friends that I met when I was in high school, she said, Why don't you come? My my father and I are gonna go crabbing. She had two older siblings, so they didn't want to go. So she said, Why don't you know, let's we're gonna go do X again. I go, Well, mom, Dad, can I spend the night over her house? Because they were very selective. Oh, yeah. And whose houses? As you should. Right. In whose houses we could go over and whose houses and stay the night. That was you know, that was a no-no. So my aunties, of course, I could spend the night over their house, but as far as other people, my mom and dad, they're smart, they they would not let allow us to do that. Uh so she's high school, sure. And we got up, I guess it had to be old dark.

SPEAKER_04 52:01

Four in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 52:03

It was um it was four o'clock in the morning. I don't remember where he took us. I have no idea. I think I slept. Um, but he took us, we got there, we set up the baskets and everything.

SPEAKER_04 52:14

So oh, you went basket, no trout line, huh? You no, yes. You got the easy part.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

We did.

SPEAKER_04 52:19

I think we used chicken.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

I think we put the chicken in there to try to get them, and we only caught a few, but it was just the experience to be able to. How fun. Yeah, it was. It was it was very fun.

SPEAKER_04 52:30

There's something weirdly calm and beautiful about being on the water at like five in the morning. Yes. There's something, it's just it's just a different feeling than let's say three in the afternoon when you got like a zip-by or something. It's it's really quite lovely.

SPEAKER_03 52:46

Just like when the day starts. Yes, it gets to be your day. Yeah, I grew up near the Delaware.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

Oh, okay. So we were probably maybe a football field and a half away from the Delaware. So that's where I used to run. I would run down in Delaware and at night I would go. It's peaceful at night too. And I would walk down and it was like I could just cast my cares into the Delaware.

SPEAKER_03 53:09

So was that your sport running?

SPEAKER_01 53:11

No. There was I played a whole bunch of sports. Yeah. In high school, uh, my freshman year, I played um softball. So it was JV softball team and varsity basketball, varsity soccer. So soccer, basketball. Jeez, Louise, and then yes, and then my my sophomore year, it was still varsity soccer, varsity basketball, and then I ran track. So I jumped. I was a high jumper, and I did the two and I did the four by four, and then it depended. I would also do shot put if certain people weren't there.

SPEAKER_04 53:47

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 53:48

But my main sports was high jumping and um the two and the four by four.

SPEAKER_04 53:53

Can you still get can you do you still have hops?

SPEAKER_01 53:55

I do. I led my basketball team in rebounding.

SPEAKER_04 53:59

Dang! Yeah, so yeah. I couldn't, I if I'm not standing still. That's it, that's all I got.

SPEAKER_01 54:09

And I happened to be very, very fortunate to be on a very, very, very good basketball team. And my soccer team was good too. So we came, our team, our school did really well in sports. And um so yeah, and that do you do you pick up games now or anything like that?

SPEAKER_04 54:26

Well you I don't have time.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

Ah I don't have time at all. We'll put that in the courthouse too. But my my sophomore year when I high jumped, I was that year, I was the division high jump champ. Go. So my freshman year, our team wanted um three out of the four years that I played basketball, our team was the division champs. And my freshman year, we went to the semifinals in uh in basketball. So we played at the college. Those are incredible experiences. So it was it was really great. And so uh in 2000, when they started our Hall of Fame, I was inducted into our our high school hall of fame. And and there's there that's where the badges started. Yeah. All ever since high school.

SPEAKER_04 55:13

Do your kids play sports?

SPEAKER_01 55:15

They did, they did. My son played um football.

SPEAKER_04 55:19

But what did you like? Were you okay with that? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

I started playing soccer because my dad wouldn't let me play football.

SPEAKER_04 55:26

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 55:27

Okay, that's how I started playing soccer. Most of my um most of my friends are guys. So I would go out and we'd play football together. And so when I came to my dad and listened with daddy, I want to play football.

SPEAKER_03 55:39

Do you love these these leagues now for the girls?

SPEAKER_01 55:42

Now that I'm older, no. Yeah, I don't. It's tough. Our bodies, as I don't believe our bodies were designed to take those kind of hits. Right.

SPEAKER_03 55:51

Well, the flag, the flag football league. Flag football is departments.

SPEAKER_01 55:55

They had powder puff football when we were growing up, yeah, but it still had a level of I mean when you're playing contact. Right. Yeah. When you're playing soccer, it's still contact. Yeah. You know, and I ended up um my junior, junior year to senior year, I was on an all-star soccer team. We played a year one.

SPEAKER_03 56:13

Did you play these sports and not tear an ACL? These kids you can't get out of the way without without tearing food. They're poisoning the food.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

Well, I am not a proponent for turf.

SPEAKER_03 56:29

Turf no, that's how my son lost his second ACL. He was on a turf.

SPEAKER_01 56:33

I'm not a proponent.

SPEAKER_03 56:34

Is that is that that's a big difference? Well, they have to have an entirely set of shoes, different set of shoes because the cleats for for rats are different will do really and then their legs turn and their body turns and their feet don't turn. Oh shit. That's how Jack tore his second ACL.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

Yeah. Yeah. So I I did not, you know what I attribute it to is that because I play different sports.

SPEAKER_03 56:58

Oh we were cross-training all the time.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 57:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 57:01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

I think there's a level of conditioning that that needs to be needs to be upped.

SPEAKER_01 57:07

Yeah, I did not overstress a particular muscle. That each sport built on the other. So I could use playing soccer, of course, we had to do headballs. So there was the constant motion. So when it came to basketball, it was the same thing, constant motion, but it wasn't the same.

SPEAKER_04 57:25

You're not, it's it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:26

It it wasn't the same muscles that we were using.

SPEAKER_04 57:29

You got a lot of upper body with the basketball as well as as opposed to mainly lower body. And then running running conditions you for all of it.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And playing softball when I played softball. That makes a lot of sense. Exactly. So it was um those muscles never had an opportunity to overwork. But yes, so my um between junior and senior year when I was on the all-star soccer team playing in Europe, it was very different. The women are built differently.

SPEAKER_04 57:58

Oh, you I mean that's a that's the football capital in the world, besides like Brazil, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:04

So the the women were built very differently. You know, we were smaller than those women. They were grown women that we were playing against, and we were in the most of us were in high school. So um in 18, I would say, I think we were 15 and 18. So they may have graduated that year, but that's we were 15 and 18. That was one of the adventurous things that my parents allowed me to do. Neither one of them had ever been on a plane before. So my first time on a plane was like, What all the way to Europe? Oh my goodness. Flying into London.

SPEAKER_04 58:35

Well, okay, I I act like I I I jumped out of the first plane I was in, so I shouldn't be too shocked, but I'm thinking just 18-year-old, my 18-year-old just or my 19-year-old just got on a plane for the first time and I wasn't with them, and I'm like, you text me when you get there.

SPEAKER_01 58:48

I don't, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:49

Well, you didn't have text back then, but we didn't have text back then, but no, we didn't. I'm like, make sure you tell me. I'm like, where are you? Life 360. Like, did you make it? Did the plane fly safe?

SPEAKER_01 58:59

I did call. So I did call my parents once we landed and we got into our hotel room. And then I called them one more time while we were in in Belgium. And then, of course, when I came back home.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

So I do you agree, Judge Janina, that sports can be so pivotal in choosing a trajectory for a child.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

I do. I do. Sports one, it builds camaraderie. Uh it builds teamwork. Again, we go back to the assembly line. When you're playing a team sport, you need each person to play their position. And if they're not playing their position, then is your team going to win? Because now I'm pulled out of my position to play your position, which leaves my position open, and somebody may have to fill mine, but there's always going to be a position that's going to be left open, which then what does that do? That leaves you vulnerable.

SPEAKER_03 59:52

And I think I think the lessons learned from losing a game are almost more important than the lessons learned from winning the game.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:01

You do. You do. And it's how you do it. My we we I saw my daughter's game last night, and they lost. Uh not not as bad. They said that they lost by eight, but it wasn't like eight to zero. It was like 24 to 16. So yeah, that at least they're score. The first inning was like a 17 run. But they caught back up. But these two girls, she does. And we and then after because it was a late game, and we went to go get uh dinner, and we had one of her friends with her who was on the team, and they are the whole time. I mean Michael have no idea what they're talking about. They were just saying stuff and then giggling the whole time. They totally got crushed, they totally lost, but they rebounded. So I actually thought they won at the end of the game because it was it was cold. So I sat in the car and watched from afar. Um, but they were bouncing around picking up the things just like I'm like, I thought they won. They're like, no, we lost. And I'm like, okay, that wouldn't have been me.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:01

I was I was never happy, but it was like when you're playing sports, it builds discipline, it builds resilience. You know, how do you come back from a devastating loss? And when you know how to ignore the press, because I used to tell my team, I said, This is what they're saying, but we know who we are. So when you go out there and you and you're playing, I believe in any given Sunday.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

So any given Sunday, anything could happen. And you always have an opportunity to win. They when you're especially when you're the underdog because they're underestimating you. And then you go out there and you're able, if we go out and we play our best game, then that's number one, that's what matters. And that's what I used when we my husband and I coached, that's what we would tell them. And you coach? Yeah, I did. I did. Um you be your best you be your best you, and I was able to um take those those skills. When I went to college, I played Division I soccer.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:09

So I walked on and I started and eventually earned a scholarship and became active. Amazing. So all of those things, and not sports also teach you it teaches you leadership for sure. When you're out there and you're playing, you have to emulate what you want other people to do. Because they're watching you. Because they're watching. Especially when you're in the world.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:36

How are you gonna react to that play or that elbow or that or that loss? And I think I think a lot of people struggle with a loss being the end. Right. Whether you failed at business, or whether you failed a test, or whether you lost a game. If you if you can reframe that to be not yet instead of no. Delay is not denial. Exactly. So then there's the next Sunday, right? And and you can learn from what happened, right, and maybe not lose as badly the next time and then eventually win. Like, right? That journey is it takes so much discipline. And I and I think what do you what would you give as advice to parents to help build that discipline, or even as us as people, like how do we build that discipline? Kelly and I are business owners, we're we're entrepreneurs. There is an inherent like self-flagellation in in entrepreneurship because you have to persevere through every single, whatever you want to call it, up, down, middle. Um but that's a special breed of human. Like how do individuals learn discipline? Because we're learning our through a whole lifetime. How do we do that as adults?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:55

For one, I know when I started my practice and I started with nothing. The first day that my practice was open, it was a Sunday. And I'm like, what am I supposed to do? It's a Sunday, and this is what I felt that I was supposed to do and I was instructed to do. And that same day, I ended up with three cases. I got a phone call, three cases on that day. On a Sunday. On a Sunday, on a Sunday. And you were like, okay, here we go. Here we go.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:29

That's exactly right. Here we go. First off, that's crazy because who because who would have thought that a lawyer's office would be open on a Sunday?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

So the fact that you were even there well with somebody calling me on myself that knew me. Okay. And still? Yeah, right. I don't, you know, I try to keep Sunday Sunday.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:45

They could have waited till Monday, because even if they know you, Sunday, it's like, do I want to bother on a Sunday?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:50

And she did, and I'm so glad that she did. So, excuse me, that entrepreneurship that you were talking about. I looked at it like this. I'm leaving the public defender's office. Guaranteed I know this is what I'm gonna do. But I do know if I go out on my own, it's limitless. What I can do, the experiences that I can uh that I can have, and at the same time the amount of money that I can make and the good that I can do. One of the goals that I had was to make this world a better place when I leave. So I should be able to see the good that I've done to make it a better place. So now I'm not limited in doing just criminal work or working in drug treatment court or mental health court or whatever I work there too.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:42

I'm not limited to You can see an opportunity where you can apply your skills and you can take advantage of it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:48

But one thing that I do know what I knew is that if I didn't try, I wouldn't be able to succeed. So what I would tell parents is you tell your your children. That you know everybody looks at it, well, what if I fail?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:03

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:04

And that's the question of, well, well, what if I fail?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:06

Well, what if?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:07

No, no, no. What if you succeed? Oh. So we have to change our narrative and change, shift the thought process. Instead of thinking about failing. No, we're thinking about succeeding. So what do I need to do in order to succeed? So that means, okay, like you said, the 12-hour days and the 14-hour days. So that means we okay we put in those 12 or 14-hour days as we're building the foundation. So we put that work in in the beginning so that as we grow, we don't have to continue at that same pace because the foundation is already set. If that foundation is not, I'm not this foundation, but if the building, and I say building figuratively, is knocked down, you still have that strong foundation. And you can build on that. So that's what we have to tell our children. You can accomplish anything, which is what we used to tell our team. You can accomplish anything that you put your mind to. Our team, our our our players were never allowed to say, I can. If they said I can't, they had to give us five push-ups.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:17

They had to give us five push-ups. Now, there was a method to the madness. It was baseball and it was basketball. So if you're doing push-ups, what are you doing? You're getting strength. Exactly. That's right. You're building your endurance and you're building up your arm strength. Why? Because you have to hit, throw, catch. And basketball, what do you do? You're dribbling and you're shooting. So there was a method to the madness, but at the same time teaching them the lesson that you can accomplish whatever you put your mind to. And my husband, we used to always tell him also, this is what he would tell them your body has got to obey the mind. So if my mind is telling me I'm going to succeed, then I'm going to put together the plan to be able to be successful. So when things don't happen when we want them to happen, it goes back to what I said: delay is not denial. And you don't fail until you stop trying. So until they're throwing the dirt over you, you still have an opportunity to succeed. And that's what I always keep in mind when I'm doing things. You always always continue to try.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:22

And I really hate to throw dirt on top of this podcast, but we have to do that.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:28

I know. I have so many, I have so many. I just think we need a V2. I think we need a part two. Janina, this has been such, I I again just want to keep sitting here with you because you're such a you're a great spirit to be in the presence of. I know our listeners can only hear it, but I can say to the audience out there that it's been just so wonderful to sit in your presence. Thank you. Um, and your story's amazing. And I love being in in conversation with strong women that don't use that strength as a baseball bat, but just use it as a force for good. And I think that's who you are. Well, thank you. Um so we do this fun little thing at the end of all of our episodes where we like to have a little lightning round. Are you familiar with those?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:10

I think so. Is it about food?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:13

It can be about some questions. We could throw a few food ones in here, but it really is just rapid fire questions. Don't overthink it, rapid fire answers right back, which we're so bad at, Kelly. Stop ourselves. But we can we'll give it a try anyway. All right, you want to kick it off, Kel? Okay, first job ever.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:37

Babysitting.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:38

Okay. Coffee, tea, or something else to start the day. Something else.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:45

Smoothie. Smoothie. All right. Any particular smoothie? One that I make. Pineapples, banana, mangoes, and then some juice, almond milk or coconut milk, and blend it up and um add my vegan protein powder.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:02

All right, very good. Oh, my turn. Okay, sorry. Uh favorite spot to eat in Annapolis or Anorondo County?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

I would probably say bread and butter.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:13

Oh, yeah, bread and butter.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:15

We love my True Food Kitchen. Oh, yeah, they're good. It depends on what atmosphere I want. True Food Kitchen has one of the best um mushroom um pizzas. Okay. And I love Monica's um oyster mushroom po-boy. Oh my goodness. Yes. And add some tomato, the vegan tomato soup. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:39

Oh nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

And a kale salad.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:42

I'm gonna change up my question. So, what is your favorite I don't know if you're making me hungry? Yeah, what is your favorite vegan meal that you're preparing the today?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:51

Oh, I don't know. I might make a salad. Um what I do make a salad and I chop up my um carrots and celery, tomatoes, mushrooms, avocado, and I season it with my special seasonings.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:10

I was gonna ask you if you make your own dressing.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:12

I don't. I don't have to put dressing on it.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:14

You just use seasonings. I love that. Oh, you are so healthy. Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:18

I just use seasonings. Sometimes I do do a dressing, but for the most part, if I'm doing a um chickpea black bean salad, then I'll chop up some red onions and I'll add um some scallions. Oh, yeah. Chop those up and put those in there in my seasonings, and then I'll make the dressing and put it in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:40

Uh, a book, podcast, or show you would recommend to everyone in this room?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:48

Book. I would say the 16 laws of success.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:53

16 Laws of Success.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:54

Laws of Success by Napoleon Hill.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:57

We'll put that in a show notes. 16. Is he this he's the Rich Emportette, isn't he? No, that's um Robert Kiyosaki. Yeah, yeah. So say that 16 Laws of Success. Success. By Napoleon. Napoleon Hill. He wrote something else though. What else did he do?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:12

He did. It was the um the uh abridgers version of 16 Laws of Success.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:20

And we're all looking it up now.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:22

Give give me, oh let me think. It'll come to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:31

Okay. Uh best advice you've received in who gave it to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:41

I mentioned it earlier. Always remain humble and keep God first.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:47

Love it. Think and grow rich. Yes. Think and grow rich, Napoleon Hill. That's another good one. Yes. Similar to Rich Dad Poor Dad, but yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:54

Think and Grow Rich is the abridged version of 16 months of the state. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:00

I'm reading that one. All right. So one word that describes Anna Ronald County right now to you. Shifting? Uh yeah, I see that. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:18

Shifting.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:19

Yeah, I'd like to see where it goes.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:21

Yes. And that's exactly right. We don't know which way it's going. It's shifting.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:26

Yeah. So what do people always get wrong about judges?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:31

That we're not people.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:32

Oh, really? Oh. I can see that.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

That we're not people.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:40

So many tears today. If you were not a judge, what you would you be not a judge, not a lawyer, nothing in the justice system at all. What would you be doing right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:52

Inspirational speaker.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:54

I even 100% agree. And and you're not retiring after judgeship. You're gonna be going to be a good one. That's exactly what she's doing. Yep. Um all right, finished last question, Judge Janina. Finish the sentence. The best thing about Annapolis is the people. I would agree. And we think you are a really fantastic Annapolis people.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:18

Thank you so much for spending time with us today. Well, thank you. I really enjoy myself. We'll have to do it again. Yes. We can talk about the vegan dishes. Yes, please do have to do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:28

We should do a like a vegan cooking. We need it. We need vegan cooking gathering. We have cooking. Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:34

We're ready for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:35

Well, thank you, Honorable Judge Janina Jackson Stevenson, for coming in. And thank you for tuning in to Voices of Annapolis, where every voice tells our story. Keep the conversation going, Naptown.