What Matters Most in Life (In Memory of Judge Frank Caprio)

Mel Robbins (00:05):

The life lessons you're about to learn, they're going to stay with you forever. Let me tell you about America's nicest judge. 88-year-old Frank Caprio. Judge Caprio had its show on public television for 25 years that was shot in his courtroom in Rhode Island. These are videos that make people smile, laugh, ugly, cry, and believe in humanity again, all at the same time.

 

Frank Caprio  (00:28):

I'm going to ask you one question. Is your father guilty or not guilty? And without hesitation, what do you say?

 

Courtroom Child (00:36):

Guilty.

 

Frank Caprio  (00:36):

Guilty.

 

Mel Robbins (00:40):

But then something wild happened. Oh, exploded. Syndicated on 200 stations, four Emmy nominations, 10 billion views worldwide, and he has 2.9 million followers on Instagram. 1.4 million followers on TikTok, 2 million followers on Facebook, half a million subscribers and over a hundred million views on YouTube. But today he's here for you and me.

 

Frank Caprio  (01:05):

My first day on the court set the tone of my judgeship of over 30 years. You can change the course of someone's life by placing your hand on their shoulder and telling them that you love them, that you believe in them.

 

Mel Robbins (01:23):

Can you share what this journey of facing this cancer diagnosis has taught you?

 

Frank Caprio  (01:30):

Stay close to the people you love.

Frank Caprio  (01:51):

Well, you have a pretty good reputation yourself.

 

Mel Robbins (01:54):

Well, that's a very, very kind thing to say, especially coming from somebody who's as respected as you are. Thank you.

 

Frank Caprio  (02:00):

Well, thank you.

 

Mel Robbins (02:01):

Here's how I want to start. Judge Caprio, you are 88 years old. You have millions of followers on social media. So many of us were introduced to you because you were on television for 25 years and became known as America's nicest judge. What has 40 years on the bench and 88 years on this planet taught you about life?

 

Frank Caprio  (02:24):

Help other people. Lift other people. Particularly the unfortunate, the disabled, those in need. The hungry doesn't take much. Sometimes it's just a matter of being nice and putting your hand on their shoulder and telling them that you believe in them. And if there's anything I can ever do to help you, let me know. It's not a heavy lift at all for us. For them, it's like lifting a mountain, but just letting them know that you care. It's not always giving, it's just giving of yourself. I always make the reference of put your hand on someone's shoulder. Tell them you love them. Tell though you believe in them, particularly your children and close associates and people who are in despair, who are going through crisis. Just let them know that you care, that you care. It's very so important.

 

Mel Robbins (03:31):

I love that about you. You as a judge and as a human being, always take a person's story into consideration. And I think it's remarkable. At the age of 88, you're a retired judge. You also are a bonafide social media phenomenon, and you are known as America's nicest judge. Why do you think it's important to be kind and nice to people?

 

Frank Caprio  (04:01):

Because people look up to judiciary sometimes in a way that's terrifying. And unfortunately, it's not nice for me to say this, but unfortunately some judges put a robe on and they think it gives them the ability to take certain excesses that I don't appreciate or agree with. I think that you have an obligation though. You have that robe on and you have all of this authority, and I always placed myself in the shoes of the person before me. It's a working guy with four kids. It's a mother, and they're trembling even. It doesn't make any difference who they are. They're trembling they before a judge. They don't know what's going to happen when the judges up there. Many judges, they take so seriously, they Oh, there. Oh, the robot. I'm the boss here. I never subscribed to that theory. I always thought that you could be understanding and compassionate. It's very simple. It's what I was taught at my house. I was raised that way with my parents. My father was one of 10, my mother was one of eight. I had 18 aunts and uncles. One was more compassionate than the other. So it's all the basic unit of societies, the family unit and everything springs from that.

Frank Caprio  (06:03):

Well, tell me who doesn't need a second chance in life? In other words, go through your life and think of all those times that you were given a break or a second chance. It's just to be the words. Understanding and compassionate are not just words. They sound nice, say, oh, it's wonderful. He's compassionate. What does that mean? It's the exercise of being compassionate and understanding and it's very simple. I just put myself in the shoes of the person before me. I had a, not difficult, that's not the right word, but a very interesting bringing up. I came from a poor family and we have stories about things that we couldn't have and places we went that people didn't think we belonged because we were poor and all of that. And my father was like a rock. I'm a working man. And he'd wear his milkman uniform, he didn't care. He'd wear it to a Christmas ball and it was brought up to always take other people into consideration.

 

Mel Robbins (07:20):

So what did you learn from your dad by riding on the milk truck and going on the delivery route as your dad was?

 

Frank Caprio  (07:29):

I learned how to treat people, but my father's example, my father was a very understanding person. One simple example is he worked for a big company and they had a standard rule that if someone did not pay their milk bill after two weeks you stopped delivery. That was the company's policy. My father had his own policy. If they have children, he wasn't stopping the milk, he didn't care how far behind they were. And as a matter of fact, many times he'd put in, back in those days it was a lot of money. He'd put it in a dollar or two toward their milk bill to tell us his superiors. They're making it an effort to pay and they have children and he stood them down. There was a nice big sign on the truck. It says, no riders, you wasn't supposed to be on the truck unless you work for the company except my brother and I. My father would wake us up and we were riders

 

Mel Robbins (08:33):

And carriers of the milk probably too, right, right. You write in your remarkable book, compassion in the Court about one of the most impactful moments in your life. You were in sixth grade, you were about to graduate and something happened. Could you tell us that story?

 

Frank Caprio  (08:51):

I'm not sure if they still do this, but when you left the sixth grade, you went to middle school and it was a big deal and we all had an autograph book and our friends would sign it If you are thirsty and you're near a spring, you know all of that.

 

Mel Robbins (09:05):

All the funny stuff the kids write, right?

 

Frank Caprio  (09:08):

So my father came home from work one day and he was tired and he had his milkman uniform on and he was reading the newspaper and I had my autograph book. I had my mother sign the autograph book first. I said, mom, you want to sign the book? She signed three pages. Love mom, I love you. So I asked my father, I said, dad, will you sign my book? So he just preached for it and he put it down and he just was staring at it for what seemed like a long time, probably a couple of minutes trying to think of what he was going to say to his 12-year-old son who's going to go to middle school? The street is wide, the road is long and very bumpy and very tough going, but I know that you'll proceed to along it honorably with your head held high to the end of the highest earning. And then the line that really got me here was from your dad, Antonio Caprio Jr. My father was born in Italy. He came here with his parents, but he wanted to make sure that this document was accurate. So it wasn't just your dad, Antonio. Antonio Caprio Jr. This is an official document with my legal name. I really mean it. From the bottom of my heart is what he was saying to me.

 

Mel Robbins (10:57):

What does it mean to you?

 

Frank Caprio  (10:58):

I still have that book. It's in the right hand drawer of my desk and I keep it.

 

Mel Robbins (11:05):

What do you think your dad was trying to say to you in that phrase?

 

Frank Caprio  (11:10):

My dad was trying to say to me, listen, we don't have the resources to give you material things in life. The road is tough going, it's very tough going, so you're going to have to be a little bit tougher than the next person and you're going to have to study hard. And you constantly was saying, you have to go to college, you have to go to college.

 

Mel Robbins (11:31):

I'm reading to you from page 43 and you write and you're reflecting on what your father said. My father was not educated, but he had the soul of a poet. I have read that message a thousand times. His words touched me to this day, and I still find myself to make him proud and live up to his high expectations. For me to successfully navigate the wide street and long and bumpy road, we all need a moral compass. I wasn't told how to be moral. I learned by watching others. Most importantly, the fine examples set by my mother and father. And they did set a really big example for you and your father kept saying, go to college. And so you did. Tell me about going to college and what happened next in your life.

 

Frank Caprio  (12:29):

My father was one of 10 and he was considered the smartest one of the family. He was right in the middle and unfortunately he couldn't go to college because of the financial position. Family of 10 immigrated from Italy. They were fruit pedalers with a push cut. So my father's dream always was to go to college and it was not afforded to him, but he wanted to make sure that my brother and I both had an education and he would wake us up at four o'clock in the morning and we'd go to work on the truck and he would constantly say, if you don't want to do this, you're going to go to college. He just drove that into us and it worked because a lot of my friends after high school, we had no money and they went out and got a job and then they were able to buy a car and they had some material things that I didn't have, and it was a temptation to go, not to college, to go out and get a job, but it was my father's dream that we do that. And he impressed it upon it so much that it was a no brainer for me that I had to go.

 

Mel Robbins (13:40):

Where did you go to college and did you

 

Frank Caprio  (13:42):

Providence College,

 

Mel Robbins (13:43):

You went to Providence College, did you know you wanted to be a lawyer?

 

Frank Caprio  (13:47):

My father, when I was, I must've been 12 years old, we lived in what they called a cold water flat, which meant we didn't have heat, central heat. We had an old pot belly stove, and I recall it, it happened like five minutes ago that with my brother and myself, and it was freezing that day and we were sitting, they kept the oven door open so we could get some heat. My father would talk about things in life and so forth, and he was saying to my brother, this is what you're going to do in life and so forth. And he said to me, he says, you're a good talker. These are his words. And yeah, I was 12 years old and I still remember them. He says, you're a good talker. You are going to be a warrior someday. It was like an idiot coming down from heaven. I never wanted to be or do anything else except be a lawyer. As a matter of fact, when I was in middle school, we had to write a career book in the eighth grade. My career book was on being a lawyer. And when I went to school, my courses were all geared toward going into the legal profession and it was just that one sentence that my father said to me, and if I remember it correctly, he put his hand on my shoulder, put his hand on my shoulder.

 

(15:15):

You could have said you're going to be president of the United States. No, no, no, no, I'm going to be a lawyer. My father said, I'm going to be a good lawyer. And then my father said, and this still remains with me, he said, remember, you can't charge poor people like us, can't charge poor people like us. And then he said, but don't worry because you make it up with the rich people. Those were his exact words. I was 12 years old and can I tell you something? My law office has never charged a poor family. Never. And we won't.

 

Mel Robbins (15:54):

It is amazing because you're right, it is like it came straight down from heaven because he basically told you what was going to happen, that you would be successful like the rich people, but you would never, ever, ever judge the poor.

 

Frank Caprio  (16:10):

I think more parents should do that. Sometimes parents think the way they can get their kids to succeed is by berating them, but you have to encourage them, let them know you believe in them.

 

Mel Robbins (16:25):

And you did that every day in court. It was absolutely amazing to watch because you didn't just talk it, you showed it. When you graduated from college, did you go straight to law school?

 

Frank Caprio  (16:37):

I determined when I was a junior in college that I would not have enough money to go to law school, so I'd have to get a job teaching, but I had majored in political science, which I thought would prepare me for law school, which doesn't incidentally, it prepares you for political science. It does not prepare you for law school. But there was this misconception that, oh, you take political science. That's a pretty good entrance of the law. It's not actually business is a better entrance into law for all you kids out there who want to go to college and then to law school, major in business. I was a wrestling coach as well.

 

Mel Robbins (17:17):

Yeah,

 

Frank Caprio  (17:18):

I taught at Hope High School in Providence, Rhode Island.

 

Mel Robbins (17:22):

And how did teaching high school and coaching a wrestling team, what did that teach you about life?

 

Frank Caprio  (17:28):

Well, life's a lesson for me. There's all the things that they taught you when you were younger. If you don't give up, if you stay the course, you find a way to do it. It's hard work, but you will survive. So I always did what I had to do, but my final goal was law school. Law school because my father said to me, you're going to be a lawyer, right? And I wanted to be a lawyer after that. I never wanted to be anything else.

 

Mel Robbins (17:59):

How long did you teach before you because you went to law school at night? At Suffolk

 

Frank Caprio  (18:02):

I went to law school nights, yeah, four years.

 

Mel Robbins (18:05):

Okay.

 

Frank Caprio  (18:06):

Yeah, I taught for six years.

 

Mel Robbins (18:07):

So you taught for six years and then while you were teaching, you went to law school at night?

 

Frank Caprio  (18:12):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (18:14):

Wow. And what did that period of your life teach you? Just keep going. There's a will. There's a way you can figure it out.

 

Frank Caprio  (18:22):

There never was all poor me and I used to drive me and a friend of mine would drive up to law school and then he dropped out. So I drive up alone sometimes. I took the train one time I got stuck right outside the Lafayette house and had to hitchhike the rest of the way to school.

 

Mel Robbins (18:44):

Well, there's one thing about you. Once you lock your mind on something, you're going to find a way.

 

Frank Caprio  (18:49):

Oh yeah. I'm going to find a way.

 

Mel Robbins (18:50):

So what kind of law did you practice before you?

 

Frank Caprio  (18:53):

General law.

 

Mel Robbins (18:54):

General law.

 

Frank Caprio  (18:54):

General law,

 

Mel Robbins (18:55):

And how did you come to be elected to become a judge?

 

Frank Caprio  (18:59):

First of all, I ran for the Providence City Council when I was a lawyer and I ran against the president of the city council who was a very powerful individual. He had been in the council for 35 years. He was considered the most powerful figure in providence, more powerful than the mayor, and it was a remarkable victory back then.

 

Mel Robbins (19:24):

What happened when you won?

 

Frank Caprio  (19:26):

I won. I was the boss.

 

Mel Robbins (19:28):

That's fantastic. So when did you decide to run and become a judge or how were you appointed to become a judge?

 

Frank Caprio  (19:37):

Actually, I was appointed by the city council because it's a municipal judge.

 

Mel Robbins (19:41):

Got it.

 

Frank Caprio  (19:42):

Judge ship. So I had my friends on the council and I had the councilman from my district and the mayor supporting me. I had a pretty good record in public life, so I wasn't exactly an unknown.

 

Mel Robbins (19:56):

Now, were you excited to be a judge? Is it something that you thought you wanted to do or did somebody recommend it to you?

 

Frank Caprio  (20:01):

This judgeship was ideal for me because it's a part-time judgeship because I could never have support of five kids on a judge's salary, particularly a municipal judge's salary was able to, I was actually a parttime judge. I was the chief judge and there were two other judges, but I could still practice law while I was practicing on the court as well. If not, I would never have been able to take the job.

Frank Caprio  (20:49):

I get elected, now I'm a judge. I got the robe right. I'm going to go, I'm the boss. I'm going to sit on the bench and this is it now, right? I have arrived. So I said to my father, I said, dad, my first day on the bench, he said, I'll come down and walk. I said, good, come down. Love for you to come down. So I'm there and I am really full of myself. I'm a judge now looking at me. All rise, please. Everybody rises and so forth. It's so crazy. So this woman comes before me. She owed, she had a boot on her car. I dunno what, she owe a couple hundred dollars in tickets and she couldn't pay them. So I said, well, if you don't pay it, I'm not going to take the boot off the car. And she says, I just don't have the money. I don't have the money, and I have four kids. It's my first day on the bench. No one's going to bully me around, right? So I says, well, you owed the money and if you don't, we're going to leave the boot on the car. She said, I don't have the money. I have to get my kids to school. So I said, I'm sorry, continue the case. We'll give you a couple of days to come in. Right? My father's in the courtroom.

 

(22:04):

After the court's over, my father comes into the chambers. I said to the sheriff, how did my father come in chambers? I'm so happy. I said, dad, how did it go? He said, how did it go? How could you do that? How could I do what he said? That woman, I said she was disrespectful. I said, she wasn't respecting the court. I said, I wasn't going to take care of her. He said, Frank, she had four kids. I suppose she can't feed the kids tonight if she paid those tickets. She, no, she doesn't have a car. She can't drive 'em to school. What are you doing? You weren't brought up that way. My first day on the court set the tone of my judgeship of over 30 years after that, I took everybody's personal situation into consideration in the imposition of a sentence, and that case still bothers me. It still bothers me to this day when I think about it, I say to myself, how could you do that with my upbringing and so forth, and I don't know why my first day is my case. This woman, she was insulting to begin with, but you have to overcome that.

 

Mel Robbins (23:17):

She was scared

 

Frank Caprio  (23:19):

And she was scared to death, right?

 

Mel Robbins (23:20):

Yes.

 

Frank Caprio  (23:20):

As my father said,

 

Mel Robbins (23:21):

Well, I think she was a gift to you because you write in this book on page one 10, the lesson was that being a judge is much more about the person in front of you than it is about the law. Since then, I've always tried to find out what was really going on with the person, and I always considered how my ruling would impact not only them, but their whole family. If you really think about that,

 

Frank Caprio  (23:51):

Those aren't only words. I did that.

 

Mel Robbins (23:53):

Yes, yes you did. You did that for over 30 years

 

(23:58):

And I think you needed that case with your father sitting there to be reminded of who you are. We all need those moments. You were just smart enough and wonderful enough to recognize what it was and to actually change, which is incredible.

Frank Caprio  (24:47):

Place yourself in their shoes. Imagine that you were sitting there. It can happen to all of us. We don't know what tomorrow's brings. We've had many very wealthy people who ended up penniless, so I always have subscribed to that. I always place myself in the shoes of the person that was before me and then try to exercise a modicum of compassionate understanding. Sometimes I went overboard, but you know what? I'd rather go overboard with compassion than go overboard with punishment.

 

Mel Robbins (25:23):

When you step into somebody else's shoes as a judge, you have seen people at their most vulnerable. You have seen them scared, you've seen them ashamed. What's something that you've learned from all of these interactions with people that really gives you hope about human beings and the world? Because you have been in this amazing role as a judge, you step into people's shoes. You consider their circumstances. You always take into account how this is going to impact the family. What do you believe is true about the true nature of every human being that stands before you?

 

Frank Caprio  (26:07):

We're not in this world alone. We have to rely on other people for many necessities in life, for some of our needs, we have an obligation to use whatever resources we have our own resources to help others to make society better because of our contributions. Those are the words we hear all the time. Dedicate yourself to a cause. Give to charity. Help people, they sound good, but put them in practice. I've seen people, for lack of a better term, we were frauds who are preaching this, but don't do it. People in public life, they preach one thing and do another. My theory always was, if you deserved an eight or you deserve the six in sympathy, I gave you a 10 hoping that it would help you and that it would change your life.

 

Mel Robbins (27:03):

You mentioned that you really regret how you handled that first case. How do you deal with regret the things that you wish you had done differently?

 

Frank Caprio  (27:12):

It's a lesson. I never repeated it after that, and I was on the bench for 30 years after that. I never repeated it. I can't tell you how many times I was there and I, neat jerk reaction. I wanted to really beg somebody and I says, I can't do that. They have kids at home. They probably won't be able to put food on the table tonight. So all of those things,