A hand-written letter to the designated mediator, a well-known jurist whose lifework was mediation around family-court-type issues to divert cases from the conventional court system. This mediation was suggested by a Portland Police Detective and, to our great astonishment, agreed to by Carter. Carter failed to appear, however, and so I spent almost $1000 in attorney fees and half a day from work to sit alone in a conference room, without so much as a courtesy hello.

Judge Lamar,

I don’t know if you’ve ever read a book titled Gideon’s Trumpet, but a pencil figures significantly in it, and so I thought I would take a moment to write you in pencil.

I got a phone call from a detective who told me that Catherine Lynne Carter had reported a burglary and named me as the primary suspect. I laughed at him and told him I was sorry about that but no, I had no interest in taking a polygraph or giving a DNA swab for his convenience. The justice system, I explained, had not been just to me, and so long as Carter wanted to use that system to harass me she and he could both go hang. He suggested that perhaps we should consider mediation, so I paid a lawyer $200 to suggest such a thing and scheduled an appointment with you at 1:00 today.

The purpose of this mediation was to help Ms. Carter begin to address some of her irrational fears within a safe space, but that didn’t happen. Instead, I arrived at your office, where your assistant treated me as if I were a leper and shuttled Mr. Wilner and I into a side room. Without doing me so much as the courtesy of looking at me, I sat in that room for an hour and was dismissed, unseen, unheard and disregarded.

I don’t know what your class background is, but I took a half day from work and paid Mr. Wilner over half a month’s wages to be disrespected in this way. Having been involved in non-violence work and facilitation since the mid-1980’s I did not see anything resembling mediation today. It was all about you, your opinions, and judgement. I left unheard.

I feel that you wasted a huge opportunity, in teaching me something other than I had hoped for. I wasted a lot of my money and lots of people’s time today, in hopes of helping, of being seen and heard.

I am sorry that this didn’t work out, and I hope you have a better day tomorrow.

(signed) Rory Bowman