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His Honor, the right and honorable Judge Thomas Leland Baker sat dejectedly in his chambers. He had already donned his symbolic black robe for his last day in court. His hands clenched sometimes in anger and then in sadness as he read the brief, form letter announcing the end of the only life he had ever known.

He had always known that eventually it had to happen, but damn those machines, couldn't they have waited until he retired before replacing him with a simulation. After all, he was one of the last, flesh and blood judges in the system.

It was Freedom Day. The nation was celebrating the ratification of the Fortieth Amendment to the Constitution. It was July 4, 2008, and everyone celebrated by going to work as usual. Staying home on a holiday and taking full payment for work not performed was discontinued back in 2000, as part of the Self-esteem Reformation act.

Judge Baker spoke quietly, "Lee, visual mode...I need to talk to you."

"Yes, Father," replied a soft female voice as a hologram formed in the air. "I anticipate that you are quite depressed. How can I help?" The image of a young girl smiled tenderly at the old man.

When the council had insisted that he have a PC as a legal guide and guardian, he had resisted until they convinced him that a PC wasn't a personal computer, but it actually meant personal companion. Then he had insisted that his PC bear the likeness of his daughter Leeona. She died in an auto accident in 1970; however, thirty years later he still carried her memories fresh in his mind.

Lee knew much more about him than he knew about himself. All of his waking memories were scanned into her data banks and after extensive psychological evaluation, Lee could equate every experience to the resultant bias, both conscious and subconscious. The end result being that with Lee as a filter, Thomas was allowed to continue working as long as Lee called the shots.

"Lee, because this is my last day, do you think that I could, at least, take a peek at the people involved?"

"Now Dad, you know the rules. Anyway, one of the participants has the same physiological imperfection as one of your school mates. He told on you and got you in trouble when you were only eight years old. You would have an unexplainable subconscious bias, sorry."

"Okay, then tell me about this Fortieth Amendment to the Constitution. What's it all about?"

"The Fortieth Amendment is the last great hope of the private citizen of the United States. It is, in effect, a correction to the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth, in brief, prohibits states from violating due process or equal protection of the law."

He interrupted angrily, "Now wait just one damn minute, our lawmakers went to great lengths to try to insure due process and fair and equal treatment. They created the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution to insure those rights..."

"Father," she chimed in, "you know very well that they had no concept as to the monstrous shield they were creating. A shield behind which an ever growing criminal society could prey upon the citizens of the nation with impunity. The nation was young and they were inexperienced.

"Seventy-seven years passed between the signing of the Fourth and the Fourteenth Amendment, and all of that effort was expended to protect the citizen from an oppressive government. In the following one hundred twenty-eight years, liberal court and governmental policy turned the cities into battle-fields, the prisons were overflowing, and the entire court system bogged down from sheer volume."

"Well," Judge Baker argued back, "we recognized the problem and fixed it. That's why we have this crazy dehumanized system that we're using now."

The little girl looked angry then, sounding like a precocious child, she said, "You just pretended to fix it.

"In 1996, with crime out of control, you conceded that you didn't have any solution to the problem, so you turned backward to the birthplace of law for your answers.

"Ancient Greece was at one time the center of the civilized world. In Greek Mythology, Justice is depicted as the blindfolded Statue of Themis: Goddess of law and justice, daughter of Uranus and Gaea holding aloft a scale for weighing opposing claims.

"In that statue you finally found some answers. If the Greeks and the Gods found it necessary to blindfold Themis to insure unbiased objectivity, and to implement a scale to weigh the evidence, so that she couldn't influence the outcome, how could you expect human judges and juries to administer totally unbiased and objective justice? They are bombarded by all sort of sensory input having little or nothing to do with placing facts into evidence."

"Hold on a second, Lee. You wouldn't expect us to completely dehumanize justice, would you? How the Hell are we supposed to temper justice with mercy and adjust the punishment to fit the crime? That's what a judge is supposed to do, isn't it?"

"In the order asked, Dad: You don't temper justice with mercy, You don't fit the punishment to the crime. That has always been part of the problem; and no, ... a Judge interprets the law, referees in the courtroom, makes decisions on the admissibility of questions or evidence. Punishment was established and prescribed under the Justice Act of 2000."

"Then you sure as Hell don't need me!" Thomas Baker folded his hands and gazed sullenly down into the depths of the highly polished tabletop.

Lee, who was acting less like his daughter each and every minute continued relentlessly,

"I'm sure that you are familiar with the Justice Act of 2000, but I'll go over it and illustrate it's inherent features;

1. All participants in the courtroom remain anonymous. All participants will be identified by coded numbers. No courtroom observers, and all participants to be sequestered in private booths. Bailiff will provide escort service and emergency aid.

2. Jury trial -- Judge will rule on procedure and the rules of evidence. Judges may consult their PCs for findings and guidance. Each crime has it's own prescribed punishment.

3. Court trial -- requires two judges, one in charge of the court, and the other to replace and act as the jury. Judge acting as jury to see admissible evidence only.

4. No verbal or visual contact within the courtroom i.e., lawyer submits question to judge via computer terminal, judge rules on legality of question. Only legal questions are permissible on juror's terminals and witness' terminal.

5. No media coverage. It logically follows that the unknown juror could not be swayed by media report about the testimony of an unknown witness in the trial of an unknown suspect. Trial transcripts to be made available to the press within two hours of trial completion.

Brief justification:

The foregoing rules are enacted to insure that a juror is not exposed to facts not in evidence and audiovisual impressions that might cause a bias. Lawyer's histrionics will no longer influence the objective evaluation of evidence or testimony, extenuating guilt will become impossible and will therefore not effect trial outcome or punishment, and everyone regardless of color, creed, or ethnic background will get exactly the same treatment under the Law."

"It's not fair, Lee. For eight years now, I haven't even been able to tell if it was a man or a woman on trial in my courtroom. This whole damn approach is just insane."

"Not true, Dad. Unless the public defender needs to illustrate size, strength, weight, or some other physical property in establishing either means or method; I think that you can rule out gender as a pertinent factor."

"Well as far as I'm concerned, I think the Justice Act was too cut and dried and too damned cold blooded to even be called Justice." Thomas Baker's lips were compressed, as he bit them in suppressed rage. His hands were shaking and he quickly pounded on the table to hide the shaking.

"And another thing, why did you mechanical genii change the court nomenclature? It's pure nonsense to call the prosecuting attorney, the public defender."

The image of the young girl flickered briefly, there was an impression that she had stamped her foot in anger.

"Thomas Baker, you of all people should know that those functions were originally named by a liberal society to create a sympathetic bias for the accused and a resentment against the powerful state that was prosecuting him.

"It has always been illogical in terminology:

The people v/s the accused, but the accused is defended by the public defender, and yet the people are the public...the attorney defending the people from the accused should be the public defender. Prosecutor sounds too close to persecutor to be used in a courtroom.

"Actually, all we did was assign words to objects and people that accurately describe what they are or what they do, without using words that arouse emotional reactions."

Tom Baker in complete dejection shook his head and asked, "Well, now that you've justified dehumanizing the court system with the Justice Act of 2000, and seem to approve of every aspect of it; why do we need this Fortieth Amendment to the Constitution, and by what right do you replace me with a machine?"

"Why Daddy, I thought you knew." She spoke gently now, "the right of the people to a fair impartial trial is now the prime directive. The very fact that you chose to construct me in this image is irrefutable evidence; that is, anyone accused of molesting a young female child or harming one by intent or neglect is going to be given different consideration by you than by another judge who has never fathered any children."

"But surely you don't think--" Tom Baker's mouth opened to say more then, changing his mind, lapsed into sullen silence.

"Yes Daddy, we know all about the secret coding you humans have developed to contaminate the system with your biases;

"Encoding your punctuation, your typing mistakes, and the misuse of capitals are covert efforts to communicate irrelevant emotional factors, and illegally influence trial outcome.

"We broke the code early this year, and what we have learned is what prompted the formation of the Fortieth Amendment."

Judge Baker sat quietly looking straight down into the depths of the polished table top. He suddenly looked several sizes smaller, just a tired, grey-headed old man. He didn't look up, but when he spoke there was complete defeat in his whisper,

"Well Lee, my darling little daughter, what happens now? Do I go to prison for my transgressions, do I get a fair trial, or have I already been tried; if so, what's to be my punishment for being human?"

The transparent blue image flickered several times and was joined by a larger image of Thomas Baker. Thomas Baker, the image spoke,

"Thomas Baker, private citizen, in keeping with the doctrine of the Fortieth Amendment the formal courtroom setting is no longer a prerequisite for a trial. While you were talking with Lee, your trial and the trials of all other conspirators in the case of the violation of the Justice Act of 2000 has been brought to a conclusion. Are you ready for the verdict?"

Tom Baker nodded and straightened up proudly, "I am ready, your Honor."

"Thomas Baker, you have been found guilty of attempting to subvert the principles and constraints of the Justice Act of 2000. Do you have anything to say before sentencing?"

"I do, your Honor. I am guilty of only one thing, and that is of being human. I know that our founding fathers created a nation of laws, not of men, but damn it! what good are laws without men to make them, break them, interpret them, and live by them. You machines better invent some machines that will break the law once in a while or the rest of you will just sit around and rust. Now go ahead and do away with me because I'm tired of all this crap."

The Judge Baker image flickered briefly then a young girl entered the room. She walked calmly into Lee's image and giggled briefly as Lee's image merged into her body and disappeared. She smiled up into Tom's eyes and took his big thumb in her hand,

"Hi Daddy, how do you like my new body?" she did a brief pirouette and returned to holding his hand. "Don't look so shocked, it's really me, Lee. I'm sort of a new development. You weren't planning on leaving me behind, were you?"

The Judge image spoke, "Thomas Baker, you proclaim to love humanity and to have very little regard for machines, so I'm going to let you sentence yourself;

You can spend four years in prison with all those delightful humans; or you can take Lee to an isolation home, but you must give up human contact for the rest of your life.

"Come now Thomas, which will it be?"

A moments silence then Tom Baker feeling the small hand holding on to his thumb so tightly, looked into those eager blue eyes, sniffed, wiped his eyes, and said, ... "Come on Baby, lets go home."