nothin Federal Judge Framed | New Haven Independent

Federal Judge Framed

Zachary Riegelmann Photo

Crowd at the courthouse unveiling.

Ten judges, draped in black, jostled for views from the front of a federal courtroom, while a dozen more spilled into the jury box. 

Tipped off that U.S. District Court Judge Janet Bond Arterton was finally getting her due, the visiting VIPs did not want to miss seeing their longtime colleague framed and, maybe, even hung.

There to do the honors among all those answering to your honor” at a ceremony inside New Haven’s Church Street federal courthouse this past Friday was Steve Brennan, a Connecticut-based portrait artist. Judge Arterton’s law clerks had commissioned him nine months ago at their own expense to create an oil portrait of their boss, which they hoped to donate to the federal government for display.
 
Perched on an easel pointed out to face the spectators in Courtroom One, the 54-inch by 38-inch canvas was veiled but otherwise, ready to be viewed and installed in Judge Artertons courtroom next door. Arterton had made sure to call Friday’s ceremony a presentation,’’ she said, after several people mentioned how much they were looking forward to her, ahem, unveiling.’’

Now it fell to the court to decide whether to accept the gift, and several attendees wanted a chance to weigh in.

What a joyous occasion this is, Your Honor,’’ exclaimed one supporter, Robert A. Katzmann, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan. His comments were directed at Chief Judge for the District of Connecticut Janet C. Hall, as she presided over the ceremonial session. But he was fretting that his messages might misfire. People who answer to the words Your Honor” were all over the place,’’ he observed. 

Steve Brennan’s portrait of Judge Janet Bond Arterton.

In the 22 years since President Clinton plucked Janet Bond Arterton, an employment lawyer who helped build up Garrison & Arterton in New Haven, for the bench, she estimates that she has taken 29 law clerks under her wing. Eleven were there for last Friday’s ceremony in support, as were former proteges from the law firm. 

So was Herbert J. Stern, a retired federal judge from New Jersey whom she clerked for in 1977 after earning her law degree from Northeastern University, with an infant in tow. In 1995, when she herself ascended to the federal bench, Judge Stern presented her with his gavel. It stands ever at the ready on my bench,’’ she assured him, glancing at the jury box. 

Wielding that storied gavel, Judge Arterton has put her own mark on many complex, closely-watched cases, and verdicts have stuck. There was the 2003 corruption trial of Bridgeport’s back-again mayor, Joseph P. Ganim, and the 2014 corruption trial of former Connecticut Governor John G. Rowland, his second. She dispatched both offenders to prison.

She credits her legion of clerks for helping prepare the more than 13,500 opinions and counting” that she has issued in total. Jennifer Willcox, a former clerk who is now a top lawyer for Yale New-Haven Health System, recalled, however, that the judge prepped for some sentencings without any staff input, signaling that the burden in those difficult cases was hers alone.’’

On Thursdays, the public is treated to a softer side of the 73-year-old judge when she leads what is known as Support Court. There, she counsels dozens of addicts whose lives need reimagining. Paul Thomas, a former federal defender who has seen her in action, told the courtroom, she never gives up on them.”

Andrew D. O’Toole, a former law clerk who now plies his trade at O’Toole & O’Toole in Katonah, N.Y., touched on the judge’s boundless moxie. In eighth grade,’’ he said, she was elected vice-president” of the Valley Road Student Council in Princeton, N.J., coming in behind the male classmate, who was elected president. When the boy moved away, she spent the summer of 1957 studying Robert’s Rules of Order with her father for when she assumed her rightful position,’’ according to Mr. O’Toole.

Sadly,” he continued, when school resumed, the faculty adviser informed her that Girls could not be president.’‘’

Zachary Riegelmann Photo

Brennan and Arterton at the portrait.

Far from being stymied, she went on to major in political science at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and ran a write-in campaign for county coroner in Mercer County, N.J. in 1965, while still a senior. She ran on a platform that once elected, she’d abolish the office,” according to Mr. O’Toole. He noted Life Magazine soon hailed her as an example of the new generation of young women in America who are shunning convention to lead interesting lives.”

Diane Daskal Ruben, a fellow lawyer and friend to the judge, also spoke in support. She said she first met Judge Arterton back when they were both baby lawyers, juggling mothers, and activists” and a friend suggested they meet, because, that’s what rare creatures we were.”

Her brainy pal mastered the intricacies of double hull construction when a case required it and deliberated exhaustively whether to tell her future employer” she was pregnant with a second child once she learned the news. Should she tell them and risk the opportunity, or show up for work and risk their wrath?” Ms. Ruben recounted. She claimed not to recall how that one shook out, just that her friend examined all possible options thoroughly. And mind you,’’ Ms. Ruben said, she was going to work at an employment firm.”

The afternoon’s sole note of caution, and it was a mild one, came from Mr. Thomas, the former federal defender. He stipulated that he was a great admirer of Judge Arterton for her painstaking attention to detail,” and open mind.”

But, he added, it is the heart beneath the robe,” that may be her most impressive feature. He cited her deep understanding of the human condition and the merit she finds in defendants others might consider lost causes. Even the best portrait probably cannot capture that.”

Hearing no further objections, Judge Hall rendered judgment. I have the privilege,’’ she proclaimed, as Chief Judge of this court to accept as a gift the portrait of our colleague.’’

This event,’’ she stated, will serve as a reminder of and to honor what is now 22 years of service rendered by Judge Arterton.”

She disclosed that she, too, had benefitted from her colleague’s acumen, citing countless compliments she receives from well-wishers for court decisions that require her to tell them, Oh, that’s the other Judge Janet.”

She also noted for the record that she was approving the acquisition even though she had an obstructed view of the canvas and could not see the painting. But as you know, circumstantial evidence” has its place in courtrooms. Ergo, she explained, I’ll take the oohs and aahs as evidence” that the portrait is, in fact, stunning.” 

At 2:45 p.m., it was the honoree’s turn to rise. Unlike her peers, she had eschewed her robe in favor of a simple black dress, topped off with a scarf and pearls. 

You have touched me deeply,’ she said to all the clerks who had participated in the tribute. She thanked them, too, for the myriad ways they made her smarter and slightly less uncool” over the years.

Turning to the portrait, she made sure to commend her portrait-unveilers,” the four grandchildren who minutes earlier had responded giddily to a summons from the bench to step forward and remove the veil.

Their grandmother then went on to explain the significance of visual elements in the painting meant as symbols of what’s important to me.” 

On the left was a sliver of New Haven’s historic downtown green. As one of the lifetime Proprietors of New Haven Green, Judge Arterton helps oversee that local treasure. 

Two tiny figures that she described as crossing the green were there to signal the judge’s daughters heading to their mother’s office for a visit. 

And while the judge’s beloved boxer, Jezebel, is no longer visible in the frame, the artist tucked a good-sized image of Professor Christopher Arterton among the law books. He was the up-and-coming political science student she had met in college and married after he helped manage her successful campaign for county coroner.

They wear the years since that joint adventure well, without shame. Thus, when she noticed that her husband looked unusually young in the painting because the artist was relying on an old photo for guidance, she asked for a redo. She hinted to much amusement that the long-married septuagenarians did not want to give anyone the false impression that they had breached some generational divide. Or as Judge Arterton cracked, we did not yet have Macron,” the new French President whose wife is a quarter-century older than he is. 

Once court was dismissed, many of the parties opted to continue their conversations upstairs at a reception. Mr. Brennan lingered. Unlike sketch artists who cover trials, Mr. Brennan had never before drawn inspiration from the inside of a courthouse. He brightened, however, once he noticed that the artist who had signed Judge Peter C. Dorsey’s portrait on the wall was Joseph Funaro, a former mentor at Paier College of Art in Hamden, who had taught his portrait painting class.

In fact,” Mr. Brennan said, the more he thought about it, the more he suspected that more people could come here than a museum.’’ With that, he floated out of the courtroom towards the reception, checking other portraits along the way.

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