Most of us when we retire from a job well done would maybe tend a
garden, adopt a sport, volunteer for this or that. And, in fact, for a while Dean did just that: EMT with Stowe
Rescue, Stowe Development Review Board, Copley Hospital Board. Dean’s wife, Kristina
Stahlbrand, after a wonderful career with the South Burlington School System
seemed as well to be settling in to enjoying life in our fair town. But
retirement has not gone the typical route for Dean and Kristina.
Not content to visit local coffee shops and pontificate about the
world, Dean took a different path.
He became a criminal court judge in war-scarred Kosovo.
Until recently serving with the European Union Rule of Law Project
(EULEX), under a mandate from the United Nations, one of Dean’s last rulings before
returning home was to hand down the decision in the so-called Medicus Case – a
high-profile international case breaking up an organ trafficking ring
(mentioned in a recent New Yorker
article).
Dean’s road to Kosovo was long but not unexpected. While still a Vermont trial court judge
Dean traveled a number of times to the Russian Province of Keralia with the
Vermont/Keralia Rule of Law Project, helping that court system try to become an
independent and transparent judiciary.
In 2008 Dean and Kristina moved to the Republic of Georgia where
Dean volunteered as part of an American Bar Association team, advising the
Georgian Judiciary on much needed improvements and Kristina taught at the
University. The small matter of a Russian invasion and a mandatory evacuation
to Armenia disrupted the assignment.
And here is a detail about how Dean and Kristina approach being
ex-pat transplants. They would not evacuate to Armenia without their dear dog
Piper (and we won’t go into the paperwork required to bring the dog to Georgia
in the first place). Despite the order
to evacuate as the Russians approached, Dean and Kristina frantically secured
veterinary notes so they could take their little Toto from Tbilisi to Yerevan. The
three evacuated in a beat up old van with a crazy driver at the wheel, four
other evacuees and two cats, not knowing if they’d make it mostly because of
the state of the van and the driving, not the Russian MIGs. After roughly three weeks as exiles in
Yerevan, Armenia, they returned to Tbilisi to finish out the assignment in a
much-changed Georgia.
I thought Dean might settle down after Georgia, having
successfully rebelled a bit against retirement. I was wrong. In less than a year Dean was offered
the Kosovo job.
Posted first in the small city of Prizren, Dean and Kristina were
awakened every morning by the call to prayer from one of dozens of mosques in
this conservative, decidedly Ottoman and Muslim city. Working with one other western and one local judge, Dean
began hearing the hardest cases Kosovo had to offer. Dean was eventually
transferred to Pristina, Kosovo’s capital city, when he was selected to be on
the panel for the Medicus case.
As Dean worked his tour as a criminal court judge in Kosovo,
Kristina developed an adventure of her own making.
In Prizren Kristina taught at the newly formed University, teaching writing to advanced students of
English and completing a German to English translation project for the German
rector. When Dean was transferred to Pristina,
Kristina joined the faculty of the American
University in Kosovo/Rochester Institute of Technology, where she taught a communicating
in Business course.
Teaching 25 eager students, Kristina concentrated the
work on ethics and teamwork while teaching effective communication skills
(verbal and written) for the international workplace. Much like Dean’s
work with the courts, Kristina’s work with some of the best students of Kosovo gave
her a chance to influence those who will form the future of the country. Kristina
also began fundraising with the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Pristina
University Hospital. The Unit is
wholly underfunded and needs ‘every single thing under the sun, from incubators
to soap’ said Kristina.
During his tenure with the Court, two cases stand out. In the
“Klecka” case, a war crimes case against a Kosovar hero of the fight against
Serbia, Dean filed an unprecedented dissenting opinion on a crux matter of
evidence. Without the evidence the case was dead. Upon appeal, Dean’s reasoning
was adopted by the Supreme Court, which led to the reopening of the
controversial trial against Kosovo Liberation Army hero Fatmir Limaj, who
allegedly committed war crimes against Serb prisoners of war detained in a
village in Kosovo.
In the “Medicus” case Dean and two other judges presided over a
nineteen-month trial involving charges of coercing victims to give up kidneys
for the black-market organ trade.
An international case involving victims throughout Eastern and Central
Europe, a conspiracy in Turkey and secret surgeries in Kosovo, on April 29th
Dean read the fifteen-page verdict to a packed courtroom, handing out sentences
ranging from 1 to 8 years against three defendants.
And now Dean, Kristina and Piper are home. But two and a half years meting justice
in a land unaccustomed to the niceties of judicial process seems not to have
tamed Dean’s interest in the work.
After talking about his adventures over a scotch (‘to help me not miss
the homemade Rakia,’ Dean said,
referring to the local 90 proof liquor), I asked Dean if he was glad to be
home. He hesitated for a second and chuckled. “I think so,” he said. Another
hesitation. “I loved going to work every day. It was exciting.”
David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2013 David Rocchio
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