The clock on the wall of the downtown Boulder courtroom ticked at its own steady pace last Wednesday, urging along the morning’s criminal hearings overseen by Judge Luke Berger.
Berger, the sole presiding judge at Montana’s Fifth Judicial District Court, which convenes every Wednesday, sports a bushy beard fit for a woodshop teacher. But on this seemingly typical morning in court, he performed his duties with impressive efficiency, promptly informing each defendant of their rights, urging them to communicate with their attorneys and handing down sentences with little fanfare.
The morning’s theme, had there been one, could have been alcohol. Escorted by a police officer, defendant Michael J. DeShazo came to the stand in an orange jumpsuit, charged with a fourth DUI and facing three additional charges in Butte. Next, a sexual assault charge after a night at a bar, followed by felony destruction of property while drinking. Montana, it should be noted, leads the U.S. in per-capita drunk driving fatalities.
