Judge tells it like it is

Melissa Schorr

Monday, April 7, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Judge Judy Sheindlin is not one to equivocate.

"No," declares the former New York City Family Court judge. "I've never regretted a decision I've made.

"Quite the opposite. The only times I've erred is when I've decided to take a chance on a youngster and there was another victim as a result.

"I've never lost a night's sleep over someone I sent to jail. Only over the victims, when I have not."

Judge Judy also does not believe in extenuating circumstances.

"I'm disinterested," she says, "as to why a 16-year-old would rob a store, and then -- for no reason at all -- shoot the clerk in the face. I don't care about his historical reasons for doing that. And neither does the clerk's family."

And Judge Judy has no use for gray areas.

"A woman, single, who uses crack every day, which she does with my money -- because she's on welfare -- has no business having 11 children.

"Period," she says, her voice approaching a yell. "Because those children are going to suffer. You shouldn't have a child until you're physically, emotionally and financially ready."

Sheindlin, 54, has spent the past 25 years presiding over a steady stream of welfare abusers, crack addicts and remorseless juvenile delinquents.

To say it has made her more cynical and less liberal would be a bit of an understatement. "What I've seen has changed me," she said. "Absolutely."

It also led her to write the book, "Don't Pee On My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining," in which she critiques the abuses she has observed in the Family Court system and advocates her own brand of 'tough-love' justice.

Sheindlin, like responsibility-guru Laura Schlessinger of talk-radio, has no patience with the "cult of victimhood."

"If you want to eat, you have to work," summarizes her credo. "If you have children, be prepared to take care of them. If you break the law, it is your fault. Be prepared to pay."

Among her suggestions to help revive the lost sense of culpability are making juveniles pay restitution for committing a crime or using a public defender; eliminating "kinship foster care," where grandparents are reimbursed for taking care of their own grandchildren; and cracking down on welfare abusers who continue to have children they can't afford.

Although some of these hard-line positions have often put her at odds with women's groups, Sheindlin was invited to give the keynote address for KLAS Channel 8's "Eye On Women" luncheon on Saturday.

Sheindlin says women's issues curry no special favor with her. "I abhor discrimination," she says. "But I am not a feminist."

This, despite the fact that she, like many women of her era, was told upon entering New York Law School in 1963 that she was taking "a man's place."

This, despite the time that, newly appointed to the court, she stepped into the judge's cafeteria, only to be told by an "older gentleman" that "this is a lunch room for judges only."

(To make her point, she told him, "Oh, excuse me, I'm just here to clean up," and proceeded to clear away the plates. "The other judges, who knew who I was, were all mortified," she recalls. "It was the best way to make the point.")

But Sheindlin has broken a gender gap of sorts, updating "The People's Court" and Judge Wapner with her own TV show, "Judge Judy," (Channel 8, 4:30 p.m.), where her crotchety demeanor squashes the petty squabbles appearing before her.

"Shoulda, woulda, coulda," she says impatiently to the civil litigants on her show, dismissing what she sees as feeble excuses.

"People are fed up with the 'abuse excuse': people not taking responsibility for their actions."

On one recent episode, Sheindlin chastised a girl for signing a contract to buy a car and then not honoring the agreement when it turned out to be a lemon.

"You're 23 -- you should have known what you were signing," she said, her fiery eyes flashing.

"Even though these cases are not the crisis-oriented social cases that I once did, the show gives me an opportunity to reach a wide segment of the American public who've been saying privately what I say publicly."

Did she ever think of taking her stance into the political arena?

"Absolutely not," she says. "You have to play nice with too many people in order to get something done. I much prefer being able to say exactly what I want -- and get paid for it.

"I don't consider myself liberal or conservative. I'm a realist."