{"id":5813,"date":"2021-10-26T16:08:21","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T16:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=5813"},"modified":"2023-03-27T15:59:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T15:59:13","slug":"ardor-in-the-court-a-judge-and-his-toys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2021\/10\/26\/ardor-in-the-court-a-judge-and-his-toys\/","title":{"rendered":"Ardor in the court: a judge and his toys"},"content":{"rendered":"
If someone asked you to picture a judge\u2019s chambers, you might imagine a room from a “Law & Order” episode, with quilted leather furniture, towering wooden bookcases, and draping maroon curtains. You may see an American flag or thick stacks of tattered law books or portraits of old people in scalloped gold picture frames.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n You probably wouldn’t picture an extensive toy car collection, a secret candy drawer, or a framed 18×24-inch poster of “The Three Stooges.” But then again, you\u2019ve probably never visited the chambers of the Honorable Archie L. Smith III. Because the first time you walk into the office of this judge and clerk of Superior Court, who has over 45 years of law experience (and white hair to prove it), you might wonder whether he shares the space with a third grader.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On Smith\u2019s wooden desk, a thick stack of papers covered in red annotations is situated right next to a tray full of colorful action figures, among them Snoopy and Smurfette. His deck of business cards, each featuring the great seal of the state of North Carolina, rests beside a tasteful assortment of food-shaped erasers. The wooden plaque with a golden gavel recognizing Smith\u2019s service as president of the state conference of superior court clerks is barely even visible behind his arrangement of magic crystal balls.<\/span><\/p>\n And yet, there\u2019s no third grader in sight. Just a gleeful 71-year-old Durhamite who wouldn\u2019t dare take himself too seriously. The way he sees it, if he can refer to his desk as \u201cthe command post of the Starship Archie,\u201d why wouldn\u2019t he?<\/span><\/p>\n Once you climb aboard the ship, the first thing you\u2019ll notice is Smith\u2019s impressive wall of credentials. A 4×5 grid of various-sized, slightly crooked picture frames, showing off Smith\u2019s degrees, certificates, and awards. It\u2019s not an ego wall, though. It\u2019s a wall of mileposts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt gives me continuity with where I am now and how I\u2019ve come along,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Then, thinking that sounds too serious, he grins and adds, \u201cAnd what else are you going to do with framed things?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Below the frames, behind the command post, is another desk which holds Smith\u2019s black Lenovo laptop, open but idle. It\u2019s used for \u201cthis and that,\u201d mostly communication. But when it comes to questions of the law, Smith much prefers to walk to the glass cabinet a few steps away and pull out one of 30-plus dark green law books, each dedicated to a different general statute of North Carolina. The books are exhaustive, but in his experience, Smith has found they don\u2019t quite cover it all. So, he\u2019s found alternative methods.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For example:<\/span><\/p>\n If you came into Smith\u2019s office to discuss a complicated motor vehicle collision, he may ask you to \u201chold on a sec\u201d while he pulls two toy cars out of a drawer. \u201cLet\u2019s reconstruct the wreck,\u201d he\u2019ll say.<\/span><\/p>\n