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Published on: 5/28/2007
Last Visited: 5/28/2007
Joe Spurlock II sprawled across the desert sands and peered upward into the winter sky.He flailed his arms and legs, making sand angels as he marveled at the silkiness of the barren earth.
MONA REEDER/DMNMONA REEDER/DMNJoe Spurlock II, a law professor at Texas Wesleyan University, has been educating Mongolian Supreme Court justices and other officials about the U.S. court system.Mementos from six trips to Mongolia fill his office, including a picture of national hero Sukhbatar (in background).
The 69-year-old Fort Worth judge and educator wasn't in the hinterlands of West Texas, even though the landscape suggested as much.Judge Spurlock and his colleague Gombosuren Ganzorig were in the Omnigobi desert in southern Mongolia.
It was a brief respite amid some hard work: Judge Spurlock and his friend had come together to help overhaul Mongolia's judicial system.
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The Asian Judicial Institute, which Judge Spurlock formed at the law school, has been educating the chief justices of the Mongolian Supreme Court, as well as a handful of other judges and lawmakers, on how the U.S. - and Texas, in particular - manages a balance of power in its courts.
Since 2000, Mongolia's top brass have traveled to Fort Worth and to the Texas Supreme Court in Austin to study under some of Texas' finest legal minds.Judge Spurlock and other local judges have traveled to Mongolia, where they hold seminars, conduct panels and teach about judicial independence, honesty and responsibility.
"It's a tough concept for many of Mongolia's old guard to grasp," Judge Spurlock said.
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Judge Spurlock has worked as a prosecutor, and he was a member of the Texas House from 1970 to 1977.He was a judge of the 231st District Court from 1977 to 1983 and justice of the 2nd District Court of Appeals from 1983 to 1992.
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But "the boys on the East Coast were too concerned with the human rights issues in Mongolia to entertain a plea for assistance," Judge Spurlock said."They didn't realize that an independent, ethical judicial system brings about change."
President Orchibat and his Cabinet planned a trip to Houston in 1995.One of Judge Spurlock's former students worked for a large U.S. corporation that conducted business in Ulan Bator.The student called the judge and asked if he wanted to meet the president of Mongolia.
"I said to the student, 'You're so full of it!But I'll tell you what: I'll buy a ticket and fly down there.If I don't meet him, you're getting an F.' "
The judge did indeed meet President Orchibat in his Houston suite.Judge Spurlock chatted up his host, intrigued by how his country managed to shed the shackles of communism.By the end of the meeting, the president had invited Judge Spurlock to visit the North Asian country.The judge did visit, but not until five years later, after the 1999 creation of the Asian Judicial Institute.
'Marathon, not a sprint'
Over Judge Spurlock's six trips to Mongolia, he and the institute have been credited with Mongolia's decision to shift the power to issue search and arrest warrants from prosecutors to judges.
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In 2005, Mongolian Supreme Court justices discussed the case with Judge Spurlock and his colleagues during a visit to Fort Worth.
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Judge Spurlock said he feels drawn to Mongolia because it is an underdog trying to wrestle with its own internal democratic growing pains without compromising the resilience of its people.But some observers of Judge Spurlock see his involvement as nothing short of patriotic.
"He can speak intelligently with a genius legal mind or a first-year law student," said Bradley W. Elder, a Keller lawyer who studied under Judge Spurlock.
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He's a quintessential Texan and a quintessential American. ... So if [the Mongolians] are looking to become more like Texans, Judge Spurlock is Texas."
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