Live from Music Row, Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Davidson County General Sessions Judge GOP Candidate Brian Horowitz in the studio to describe the position and his main goal as a judge if elected.
Leahy: We are also joined by a Republican candidate for an office in Davidson County. Boom! Holy cow!
Carmichael: Maybe the only one.
Leahy: Yes. Brian Horowitz, who is a candidate for General Sessions judge. Welcome, Brian. Good to have you in again.
Horowitz: Nice. This is wonderful to be back on. I’m excited. A lot has changed since our first visit.
Leahy: So, General Sessions, judge, are you covering all of Davidson County or just part of it?
Horowitz: Yes, sir. So I’m running for Division Nine, but that’s just because there are eleven judgeships. So you run against for a division.
However, it’s not a district like we see in District 19 and District 59. It’s the entire county. So if you live in Davidson County, you can vote for every single judge.
Leahy: Brian Horowitz is the name, and he’s known by his trademark green jacket.
Horowitz: And I have it on this morning.
Leahy: Which you have it on this morning. And of course, I am going to file a formal complaint about your cultural misappropriation of my Irish heritage. Mr. O’Horowitz. (Laughter)
Horowitz: No, it actually was a factor in me choosing this color. I said, what can I do to get under Mike’s skin?
Leahy: There you go. Boom! Very good. (Laughter)
Carmichael: What does General Sessions do?
Horowitz: So, I get that question asked a lot, and I’m going to simplify it into four basic categories. There’s Judge Judy on the civil side. So if you have a complaint up to $25,000, it can be handled in General Sessions Court.
Carmichael: And the parties can argue the case themselves.
Horowitz: Absolutely. It’s encouraged. You have the opportunity to bring an attorney; however, it’s incredibly important that your General Sessions judges maintain the decorum of the people’s court.
The people didn’t go to law school. The people don’t know the consequences of their actions all the time. The people don’t know their rights. And so it’s imperative that your judge inform the people of their rights and of what’s going on.
And that doesn’t always happen. And so people make mistakes and people don’t understand the ramifications of their actions because the judge didn’t take a couple of minutes at the beginning to just lay that groundwork of what’s going on today.
Leahy: It’s a step up from small claims court.
Horowitz: No, it is small claims court.
Leahy: Oh, it is?
Horowitz: It just simply is small claim court.Uup to $25,000.
Leahy: I thought it was like $2,500.
Carmichael: No, but inflation has raised the number over the years.
Leahy: Bidenflation.
Carmichael: It used to be as low as I think it was, $10,000 years. They’ve raised it to $25,000. So that’s one thing it does.
Horowitz: So that’s one thing it does is you have the small claim side. So I call that the Judge Judy side because I’m trying to use language that everybody understands when explaining the job. You also have repossessions and evictions, so we both know that everybody should know what those are.
Leahy: That’s sort of an unpleasant case.
Horowitz: Cars and apartments. Getting your stuff back, whether they’re living in it or driving it or in possession of it, whatever it is. And it can be a Ferrari, so there’s no $25,000 cap on getting your stuff back.
Leahy: So you’ll see a lot of people who get behind car payments and they’re in there, and you get some tough stories there.
Horowitz: You really do. You have to listen because you don’t know. You also have to view the contracts. You have to say, is this unconscionable? There are good lenders and bad lenders.
There are good tenants, and there are bad tenants, and sometimes you get a bad tenant versus a bad landlord. And now you have to make this decision, and neither of them followed the rules.
Leahy: Sounds like that would not be a fun case to decide.
Carmichael: This is what they get.
Horowitz: That’s what I’m signing up for. I mean, I want to get my hands dirty. I want to help the Nashvillians. I want to help the system become more equitable and to treat everybody fairly.
Leahy: Equitable.
Carmichael: Two of four. There are four things they do.
Leahy: More to come. (Horowitz laughs)Â
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
I have always thought that appearances are important. Sometimes I am wrong when I judge people, but not usually. I like to think that this comes from a long time of observing people. How one presents himself is a window into how that person thinks, what his/her values are, etc.
I don’t know Horowitz, but quite frankly, I don’t like his looks. For one thing, the guy looks to me like a criminal defense lawyer. I don’t think that we need criminal defense lawyers sitting in an eight-year term of office as judge who will decide ‘minor’ criminal cases (which can be pretty major if such a case affects you).
I will agree with this guy, to some extent, that we do need people who serve as judges to have that intangible quality called ‘judicial temperment,’ which is simply the personal quality of being able to listen and to be fair.
But we also need people who serve as judges to be able to apply the law that the people’s representatives in the state legislature have enacted in the legislative process.
Nashville does not need the kind of Soros judges and prosecutors that other cities in our country have had the misfortune to elect.
Well if you don’t like him vote for the Democrat…
Do conservatives have a problem with fair play?