Court Watcher Offers ‘Constructive Criticism’ to Lawyers, Judges

In the Van Nuys Courthouse, the murder trial of the Menendez brothers has been the center of attention for weeks, packing the courtroom with observers and attracting worldwide news coverage. For Bill Shussett, 79, big trials mean just another day at the office.

Every courthouse has its court watchers, people whose hobby is seeking out the best real-life drama of the day, and at Van Nuys, Shussett is a 17-year veteran and dean of the group.

Shussett retired in the early 1970s after a 35-year career as a construction electrician. He says he started coming to court after pain in his hand prevented him from continuing his volunteer efforts at the Exceptional Children Foundation.

“It passes the day in the sense of very interesting cases from one extreme to the other,” he said. Shussett was interviewed by court correspondent Thom Mrozek.

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Question: You say you come here to pass the time, but I would imagine that it’s a little bit more than that. Why spend your time here?

Answer: I enjoy speaking with my friends and I’m on friendly terms with most of the judges. We pro and con with our thoughts. We’ve seen various workers come and go. We’ve seen a lot of deputy district attorneys come in green, move along, progress, and it’s very good knowing these people.

Q: How would you characterize your relationships with these people--the judges, the prosecutors, the public defenders?

A: It’s very friendly, but we also offer quite a few of those, who we consider our special friends, constructive criticism. And they thank us for it.

Q: In 17 years you’ve probably seen many strange things. What sticks out in your mind?

A: That’s a hard one. We enjoy most of them. We’ve seen quite a few death penalty cases that were hard to believe.

Q: Any particularly interesting or heinous crimes that come to mind?

A: We had an ironic case here where a man and his wife took out insurance policies on each other for something like a million dollars, and it seemed like they were trying to determine who was going to be the winner. He was the winner. He had her killed. And as the trial went on and on, he started getting wasted away. We all thought it was an act. Just before the trial concluded, he passed away from cancer.

Q: You’re a type of professional legal eagle, giving you a special insight on the system. Do you think the general public understands what goes on in here?

A: They’re naive with some of this stuff that goes on.

Q: How so? In terms of the proceedings, the sentences, how the whole process works?

A: The process is hard to figure sometimes. Sometimes you lose some, sometimes you win some. And it’s the same all over.

Q: Something that I heard a long time ago is “justice only exists in textbooks.” Once you enter a courthouse, justice isn’t necessarily the way you measure things, rather it’s a matter of which attorney is smarter, or who has a better presentation. Would you agree with that?

A: Yes. We had a very interesting case here involving a barber who was arrested for rape. He owned a little shop and had just been divorced, I believe. He had one love of life, an old Mercedes. If he had looked after his wife like he looked after this Mercedes, he would still be with his wife.

So, one day he goes to a Laundromat, and a girl in there sees him drive up in his Mercedes and says, “There’s a live one.” She comes on to him in the Laundromat, and they made arrangements for a meeting. She calls him afterwards for a supper--a very fine supper--where they had three, four, five drinks, and lived it up. Afterwards, they went to the back of the parking lot, where they started playing, and one thing led to another. He calls her again and takes her out again. They had one of those very fine suppers again with five, six or eight drinks, and they went up to his apartment, she said to help him decorate it or something. To make it short, she runs outside screaming “rape.” And he was convicted of it. I don’t believe that’s a rape. We thought that was a bad one.

Q: What do you think about the trial for the Menendez brothers being held upstairs?

A: Open-and-shut. Very simple. We’re wasting a lot of time and money there.

Q: So you think they’re lying about being abused by their parents?

A: Yes. There was only one thing at stake there--money.

Q: What’s your prognostication on the jury up there?

A: They’re going to be found guilty.

Q: There is some talk around the courthouse that they have a chance to convince the jury that it’s only second-degree murder.

A: That’s what they’re fighting for. But you never know. Look at what happened downtown, that was a fear verdict.

Q: You’re here every day, but you still have to wait in line with everyone else to see the Menendez trial. Do you think that is right?

A: We do not care for the Menendez trial. In Menendez, you’ve had a psychiatrist from Pennsylvania. She spends three or four days on the stand and says, “Yes, it could be that way.” Then when the prosecutor gets her, he says, “You say it’s yes, couldn’t it be no?” She says, “It’s just as possible it could be yes or no.” So this is what we think about psychiatric experts.

Q: Well, what about earlier in the trial when the prosecutor was presenting their case? Did it hold some more interest then?

A: A little bit. But when they brought in witnesses for the defense, it was a shame. They brought in relatives. These people said, “I saw him when he was five years old. I spent a weekend at the house.” All these relations come in and say what fine boys they were, even though they didn’t know them then.

Q: Do you consider this a job?

A: I’m not interested in working any more. This keeps me in shape, because I park about six blocks from here. So I walk here and it keeps me out of the house. Also, we’ve coached a lot of the prosecutors coming up. When they start, we tell them, “Speak a little louder. Be more assertive.” And they appreciate it. A lot of them thank us after we comment. They come to us during a case and ask, “What do you think?” We used to have judges that we would consult with for an hour or so in their office.

Q: Who do you think is a good prosecutor here now?

A: Shellie Samuels is our No. 1. Also, her associate Franco Baratta is good. We like him. And we’ve seen them all come up the ranks, from Judge Stanley Weisberg on.