In Africa, they say it takes a whole village to raise a child. Somehow, I don't think that means that a judge should take responsibility for the offspring of attorneys in his court.
But that seems to be what a husband-and-wife lawyer team from Towson is saying to Howard County Circuit Court Judge Cornelius Sybert Jr.
Judge Sybert took issue with the two attorneys, John Condliffe and Judith Shub-Condliffe, bringing their six-week-old daughter to a hearing in his court.
The judge didn't order the child removed, but by expressing his displeasure, he may be prejudiced against the case the attorneys were bringing. At least that's what the attorneys have contended in their request that Judge Sybert be removed from the case.
They claim the judge has shown a gender bias by criticizing their decision to bring their daughter to court and is unfit to preside in the case brought by their client, a Columbia woman who is suing a local Lutheran minister for allegedly manipulating her into a sexual relationship.
Judge Sybert denies any bias, although he is willing to meet with the two attorneys and discuss their concerns.
While they're at it, the attorneys might ask the judge to set up a day care center adjacent to the courtroom for such emergencies as theirs.
Of course, that might trivialize the very real problem of day care in America, and clearly the Condliffes are beyond the trivial. In a self-righteous way, they've come up with an arsenal of political correctness against a judge whose rulings they simply do not like.
There may be a bias on Judge Sybert's part, but I doubt that is based in gender or an insensitivity toward working parents.
I'll even bet that Judge Sybert likes children. He has six of his own.
What he probably does not like is attorneys who attempt to manipulate him and, failing that, turn to intimidation.
Even before the incident with the child, Judge Sybert denied the Condliffes' request to postpone a Nov. 25 hearing. It was only after denying the postponement that the two attorneys wrote Judge Sybert saying they could not get a baby-sitter on the 25th because it was the day after Thanksgiving.
That letter was sent about a month before the hearing date, and Judge Sybert had every reason to believe that the Condliffes had ample time to solve their dilemma. But when the hearing came, so did the child.
I know from experience that finding day care can be difficult, and crises do develop. But I have difficulty fathoming how the Condliffes could have found themselves in this predicament a month in advance and been unable to solve it.
They are, after all, two attorneys working side by side on the same case. One of them -- and I don't necessarily mean the wife -- could have taken the child while the other handled the case -- which is apparently what Judge Sybert suggested. If he was perturbed by being confronted by this situation, it was wholly justified.
Some allowances have to be given to working parents in an emergency.
But when parents use their children as an excuse by manufacturing emergencies that don't exist, they do all working parents a disservice.
When Judge Sybert dismissed some of the charges brought by the Condliffes' client, it was all they needed to level the accusation of bias, even though the judge never mentioned the child's appearance in court in his decision.
For better or worse, charges made against judges have a lot of currency these days.
Some recent cases have given justifiable rise to public concern about the fairness of judges.
First, there was Baltimore County Circuit Judge Thomas J. Bollinger who in 1993 made sympathetic comments, then gave probation before judgment to a 44-year-old man who had raped an intoxicated 18-year-old employee.
Then last year, fellow Baltimore County jurist Robert E. Cahill Sr. infuriated not only women's groups but just about every rational Marylander when he made sympathetic statements about a defendant who had murdered his wife with a shotgun after he found her in bed with another man.
Then there was John S. Landbeck Jr., the Harford County District Court administrative judge who was recently forced to withdraw his name from consideration for reappointment after several women alleged that he made inappropriate remarks and gave them unwelcomed attention.
But the Condliffes' complaint is no where in that league.
The Condliffes seem to be saying that all of us -- the judge, the defendant, their client (who has a right to expect their undivided attention), and taxpayers (who expect their courts to run smoothly and professionally) -- must share responsibility for their child.
I beg to differ.
Only they -- and the baby-sitter they hire -- bear that responsibility.
Kevin Thomas is The Baltimore Sun's editorial writer in Howard County.