Rich Kid ‘My Dad is the Governor!’ – Judge Caprio’s 15 Second Response STUNNED Everyone
The morning air in the Providence Municipal Court was thick with the usual hum of bureaucracy, a mixture of nervous coughs and the rustle of legal papers. Case number 7842, however, arrived with a different frequency entirely. When the bailiff called for Derek Hastings, the doors didn’t just open; they seemed to retreat in the face of an ego that preceded the man himself.
Derek didn’t walk to the podium so much as he occupied the space around it. At twenty-three, he was a walking billboard for unearned status, draped in a designer jacket that cost more than the annual property taxes of most people in the gallery. His haircut was sharp, his posture was a slouch of practiced indifference, and his eyes scanned the room with a look of profound boredom, as if being in the presence of the “regular people” was a tax on his time he hadn’t agreed to pay.
Behind the bench sat Judge Frank Caprio. To the casual observer, he was just an elderly man in a black robe, but to the city of Providence, he was the embodiment of a dying art: the intersection of law and common sense. He looked up, his eyes peering over the top of his glasses with a practiced, neutral courtesy.
“Good morning, Mr. Hastings,” the judge began.
“Morning,” Derek replied. The “Your Honor” was conspicuously absent, replaced by a tone so flat it bordered on a challenge.
Judge Caprio didn’t flinch. He had seen thousands of defendants, from the desperate to the defiant, but the specific strain of arrogance radiating from the young man at the podium was a familiar poison. He looked down at the citation on his desk. “Mr. Hastings, you’re cited for traveling 58 mph in a 35 zone on Thayer Street. That’s a residential area with multiple crosswalks and a high volume of foot traffic. Can you explain what happened?”
Derek shrugged, a slow, languid movement. “I was late for brunch. The road was clear. It’s not a big deal.”
The courtroom stirred. In a place where people often pleaded for their livelihoods over fifty-dollar parking tickets, hearing a twenty-three-year-old dismiss a dangerous speeding violation as a “brunch delay” felt like a slap to the collective face of the gallery.
“Not a big deal?” Caprio’s voice remained calm, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop. “You were going twenty-three miles over the speed limit in a place where families live.”
“Look,” Derek interrupted, leaning his elbows on the podium in a gesture that was offensively casual. “Nobody got hurt. I’m a good driver. This is just revenue collection disguised as safety. Let’s not pretend otherwise.”
It was the “let’s not pretend” that did it. It was a suggestion that the judge was a participant in a scam, a cog in a machine that Derek felt he was too smart to be caught in.
“Mr. Hastings,” Caprio said, his voice dropping an octave, “this court takes traffic safety quite seriously. Excessive speed in residential zones puts pedestrians—children, the elderly—at significant risk.”
This was the moment where a sensible person would have apologized. A sensible person would have seen the trap closing. But Derek Hastings had spent twenty-three years being told he was special, and he had reached the limit of his patience for “the help.” He leaned forward, a smirk dancing on his lips, and delivered the line he had used to get out of trouble since he was sixteen.
“Do you know who I am? I’m Governor Hastings’ son. So maybe you should watch how you talk to me.”
The silence that followed was absolute. It wasn’t the silence of a quiet room; it was the silence of a vacuum, sucking the air out of the lungs of everyone present. The court reporter stopped typing. The prosecutor, who had been half-distracted by a different file, snapped his head up. Every eye in the building turned toward the bench.
Judge Caprio didn’t explode. He didn’t pound his gavel. He simply went still. For fifteen seconds, he stared at Derek with an intensity that seemed to strip away the designer jacket and the expensive haircut. Under that unwavering gaze, Derek’s smirk began to rot. He shifted his weight. He adjusted his collar. The bravado that had sustained him for two decades began to leak out through the soles of his shoes.
Finally, Caprio spoke. His voice was quieter than it had been all morning.
“Mr. Hastings, let me make sure I understand you correctly,” he said, his words measured and precise. “You just told me to watch how I talk to you because you’re the governor’s son. Is that accurate?”
Derek tried to find his footing, but the ground had shifted. “I’m just saying… you might want to consider who you’re dealing with here.”
“Who I’m dealing with?” Caprio repeated the words slowly, as if tasting something bitter. “Let me tell you who I’m dealing with, Mr. Hastings. I’m dealing with someone who was driving nearly sixty in a thirty-five. I’m dealing with someone who showed no remorse for endangering his neighbors. And I’m dealing with someone who thinks his father’s position makes the laws of this state optional.”
“My father is—”
“I know who your father is,” Caprio interrupted. The gentleness of the interruption was more absolute than a shout. “Your father is Governor Richard Hastings. I’ve served on commissions with him. He is a man who worked his way up from the city council through grit and public service. And I suspect he would be mortified—truly mortified—by your behavior in this courtroom today.”
Derek’s face, previously a pale shade of arrogance, flushed a deep, embarrassed red. The shield he had carried his entire life had just been turned into a weight.
“You invoked your father’s name as if it were a shield against accountability,” Caprio continued. “But let me ask you: Do you think your father breaks traffic laws and threatens judges when he’s caught? You told me to ‘watch how I talk to you.’ In what world, Mr. Hastings, is that not a threat to the judiciary?”
The prosecutor took the cue. “Your honor, for the record, threatening a judicial officer can result in additional contempt charges and potential jail time.”
Derek’s eyes widened. The “brunch” excuse was long gone. He was now staring at the very real possibility of a criminal record that no amount of political capital could scrub clean.
“That won’t be necessary yet,” Caprio said, waving a hand to quiet the prosecutor. He turned back to the young man. “Mr. Hastings, your father’s position means nothing in this courtroom. Nothing. If the governor himself stood where you’re standing and violated the law, he would face the same consequences as any other citizen of Rhode Island. That is the definition of justice.”
The judge leaned back, the leather of his chair creaking in the silence. “You seem to believe that being related to someone important makes you important. It doesn’t. You want to know what makes someone important? Character. Integrity. Respect for others. None of which you’ve demonstrated today.”
A veteran in the back of the room let out an audible “Tell him, Judge!” which prompted a wave of nervous, supportive murmurs from the gallery. The spell of the “governor’s son” had been broken. He was just a boy who had been caught speeding and had made the mistake of thinking he owned the road and the courthouse.
Derek, sensing the total collapse of his position, tried one last desperate pivot. “Look, Your Honor… I think we got off on the wrong foot. I apologize if I came across badly. Can we just handle the fine and move on?”
“You want to pay a fine and leave?” Caprio asked. “No remorse for the speed. No acknowledgment of the danger. No real apology for the threat. Just throw money at the problem and walk away. Is that the Hastings way?”
Derek opened his mouth, but the silence swallowed his words. He realized, far too late, that money was the one thing that didn’t matter to the man in the black robe.
“I’m imposing a fine of five hundred dollars,” Caprio said, beginning to write on the file. “But we aren’t stopping there. You are required to complete a defensive driving course. Eight hours, in person. No online shortcuts. You’ll sit in a room with other violators and you will listen.”
Derek winced, but the judge wasn’t finished.
“Third, I’m ordering twenty hours of community service with a traffic safety program that educates teenagers. Maybe teaching others will finally teach you. And finally…” Caprio paused, the tip of his pen hovering over the paper. “I’m sending a letter to your father. Not to get you in ‘trouble’ in the schoolyard sense, but to inform him of the facts of this case and to express my confidence that he will ensure you understand the gravity of your actions.”
“Your honor, please,” Derek pleaded, his voice finally cracking. “Don’t tell my father.”
“Mr. Hastings,” Caprio said with a look that was almost sympathetic, “you brought your father into this courtroom the moment you used his name to try to intimidate me. I am simply following through on the introduction you made.”
As Derek slunk out of the courtroom, his “stride” replaced by a hurried, head-down retreat, the atmosphere in the room changed. It felt lighter, as if a layer of grime had been scrubbed off the walls.
During the following recess, a retired teacher stood up from the gallery. “Your Honor,” she said, her voice shaking slightly with emotion, “I taught for thirty-seven years. What you just did… that’s what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to tell them the world doesn’t revolve around them.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Caprio replied. “Better he learns it here over a speeding ticket than ten years from now when the stakes are higher.”
The lesson didn’t end in the courtroom. Three days later, a formal envelope arrived at the courthouse. Inside was a letter from Governor Richard Hastings. It didn’t contain a demand for a rehearing or a veiled threat of budget cuts. Instead, it was a letter of profound gratitude.
“I am mortified by Derek’s behavior,” the Governor wrote. “I hope this experience teaches him what I have failed to instill: that character is measured by how you treat others, especially those with authority over you. Thank you for teaching him what I should have.”
Derek Hastings walked into that courtroom thinking his name was armor. He left realizing it was a responsibility. And Judge Frank Caprio, without once raising his voice, reminded everyone that while power might reside in the state house, justice lives in the hearts of those who refuse to be intimidated by it.
