There’s a joke about a couple learning that there was no marriage in heaven and wanting to know if divorce was otherwise possible. They made their enquiry to St Peter at the pearly gates, who promptly told them that there were no lawyers in heaven to ask.
Contrary to jokes at the expense of lawyers everywhere, I am confident that one long-time lawyer is soon to prove the jokers wrong.
Known as the world’s nicest judge, Frank Caprio, passed away from pancreatic cancer last week.
While you may not know his name, I am certain you would be familiar with his work. He came to fame as the compassionate judge from Providence, Rhode Island, who would deal kindly with those charged with low-level traffic offences who would appear before him, often dismissing their cases after hearing a little about their lives.
In 2000, a local television channel in Providence began filming and broadcasting some of these matters for a television series titled “Caught in Providence.” The show had been running on local TV for almost two decades before clips started being shared on YouTube, making Caprio a global sensation very quickly.
Unlike Judge Judy, whose show is based not on court cases but binding arbitrations occurring in a mock courtroom setting, Caprio’s cases were authentic and the defendants, real people. A judge for close to 40 years, he only became famous after more than three decades on the bench. What made him so popular was his ability to draw out the stories of hardship from those who appeared before him, and offer them a merciful response that managed to affirm the goodness of the person, acknowledge the struggle they were facing and how this often contributed to them being on the wrong side of the law, and suggest that they did not need to endure financial hardship on top of their existing difficulties.
This type of attitude wasn’t a made-for-TV persona; it was something that was clearly part of Caprio’s character, instilled in him at a young age from his Italian immigrant father, Antonio, and his daughter-of-immigrants mother, Filomena.
Caprio attributes a lot of his attitude towards the struggles of others with his childhood experience of growing up in poverty.
“I had the most privileged childhood I could imagine; I had the privilege of growing up poor,” he told EWTN reporter Colm Flynn in an interview shortly before he died.
He spoke of living with no hot water, of joining his father on milk runs at 4am each day, prior to going to school, and from the lessons his father taught him about treating people according to their circumstances: “What might seem like a small fine to some was something that many couldn’t afford,” Caprio said.
Also underpinning his treatment of people was Caprio’s deep, Catholic faith that was with him until the very end. On being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2023, Caprio asked for prayers.
He travelled to Lourdes with the Order of Malta and – on the day before his death – recorded one last video requesting that people pray for him.
Caprio acknowledged that some, including fellow judges, thought him too lenient and perhaps there is merit to the argument that a judge who waived consequences for illegal behaviour was failing to deter offenders and would-be offenders.
There was a little more to it than that.
In a number of the cases, the consequences were not waived. Caprio would still enforce the fine but offer to have it paid from the “Filomena Fund,” a pool of donations named in honour of his late mother, collected over the years from people who had seen Caprio’s work and felt moved to contribute.
The result was that the hundreds of millions of people who watched videos of Caprio’s cases over the years witnessed the rightful and just consequences of a person’s failings being willingly borne by another, giving them a second chance.
Sound familiar?
Caprio was giving his viewers an icon of Christ redemptive love, and offering them the opportunity to participate in it, even if in a very small way.
What a good man he was.
May the truly Just Judge, to whom Caprio tried to give witness in his own judicial career, now receive him into eternal life.
