Windfall resident Freida Adams, who waited in line to pay her respects to Caprio on Thursday, got here earlier than Caprio for in his courtroom for a parking ticket – an interplay she by no means forgot. She mentioned he requested her for her story, and he or she instructed him about being a foster mom to 27 kids through the years. He was moved.
“He had a lot compassion and love. He mentioned, ’You realize what? Because you was a foster mom, you don’t should pay it,'” she mentioned. “That’s the form of love that decide had for everybody and all people. He had good morals and he cherished all people and he didn’t deal with nobody no completely different from he handled anybody.”
Adams mentioned she cried when she realized Caprio died.
“If extra judges was like him, it could be a greater world immediately as a result of he was a good decide, he is a simply decide, he’s a caring decide and he’s a real man of God,” she mentioned. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world as a result of that’s how a lot respect I’ve for the decide.”
Riccardo Giannini flew in for Caprio’s providers from France, the place he mentioned Caprio’s demise had been everywhere in the information.
“It’s superb – the simplicity, the kindness, and the way far that goes,” he mentioned.
CAPRIO HAD A WORKING-CLASS BACKGROUND
According to his biography, Caprio got here from humble beginnings, the second of three boys in an Italian immigrant household within the Federal Hill neighbourhood of Windfall, Rhode Island. He mentioned he realized compassion from his father, who would wake Caprio and his brother up at 4 within the morning to accompany him on his route delivering milk. His father additionally labored as a fruit peddler.
“I noticed firsthand how different hardworking individuals couldn’t afford to pay their invoice, and I noticed how my dad handled them, you understand?” Caprio instructed journalist Adrienne Bankert whereas selling his biography, Compassion In Court docket: Life-Altering Tales from America’s Nicest Choose, earlier this yr. “His firm ordered him to cease supply in the event that they missed paying for 2 weeks. He by no means stopped supply. By no means.”
Caprio’s cousin Carol Caprio Stravato grew up on the identical avenue as Caprio within the tenement buildings their fathers purchased working as fruit peddlers.
“It doesn’t matter what he did via his entire life, he at all times made the household very proud,” she mentioned. “We did not come from cash. He labored for every part he had. That is why he had compassion for the working man.”
In a 2017 interview with the AP, Caprio mentioned he is aware of that his courtroom often is the solely interplay with the justice system many individuals ever have. He wished it to be a constructive one.
“Whether or not it’s justified or not, I believe there’s mistrust of the establishments of presidency,” he mentioned. “I believe there’s a way that there’s missing in understanding and compassion and kindness with the establishments of presidency … I’m not making an attempt to vary the world, however I’m making an attempt to do my half to dispel these ideas, these emotions.”
Father Bob Marciano, pastor of Saint Kevin Parish in Windfall and a longtime buddy of Caprio’s, mentioned Caprio grew to become such a sensation on-line “as a result of he was so actual”.
“Final week, the gospel at Mass was, ‘The final shall be first, and the primary shall be final,’” he mentioned. “Who’s final however an immigrant from Italy who comes from nothing, after which rises to this rank of a decide in Windfall, after which a world star who reveals the world with kindness and compassion, actually does work and adjustments lives?
