Martin reflects on three decades presiding from the bench – Indiana Gazette

Whats quietly taken place with Judge William Martin steadily at the helm in the Indiana County Common Pleas Court for month after month and year after year is something done by only one other man in county history.

If you knew that Judge John Young, the first appointed when Indiana County was created more than 200 years ago, is the only man to serve 30 years on the bench, you just might be a trivia nut.

But if you knew that Martin will soon be the second to reach that milestone, you have serious command of local history.

A page of history turns Monday as Martins retirement after 29 years on the bench takes effect. Judge Thomas Bianco will assume the title president judge, which Martin held for 22 years, and move down the hall to preside in Courtroom No. 1. Judge Michael Clark will hear cases in Courtroom No. 2 and bring along his staff and personal law library to the freshly painted and recarpeted chambers overlooking North Eighth Street. (Martins old office also has been spruced up for Bianco.)

What also happens Monday will be the uninterrupted flow of justice that Martin has administered lo all these years, but without the need for an out-of-county backup judge and the traveling that would entail. Martin already has been approved by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to assume senior judge status, so he would be called back to the fourth floor on an as-needed basis.

Ill be out, but I wont be all the way out, Martin said. Ive told them Ill do whatever they want me to do. Theyre already scheduling me for some things here.

That would put Martin on track to reach 30 years as a judge in June, and finish one year from now when his elected successor takes office just three months shy of being the countys longest-serving jurist.

Martin himself is the last judge to be appointed by the governor to fill a retirement vacancy, when Judge Robert Earley left the bench in 1991. Then the district attorney, Martin won both the Democrat and Republican primaries and was named by Gov. Robert Casey Sr. as the interim judge, in view of his likely election to a 10-year term that November.

Since then, county voters have been divided on their choices for replacements when Judges Parker Ruddock, Gregory Olson and Carol Hanna retired. Democrats and Republicans chose different nominees for general election contests, and no governor opted to make an interim appointment, leaving the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts to choose from a pool of retired-but-willing judges to help handle the caseload.

Although an asterisk would come into play for observing Martins 30 years as a judge, another passed in October when Martin gained credit for the days in the 1980s when he taught in the paralegal program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. That allowed him to accumulate 30 years of service as a state employee (judges are not paid from the county budget).

October was Martins original target when he pondered retirement at the start of 2020, he said, but the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for avoiding upheaval wherever possible led him to hold off until the turn of the year.

Martin talked about three decades of changes in the courts, how technology has been a double-edged sword for justice, heightened security for court systems and his plans for when his judging days are through, in his first news interview in almost 30 years granted this week in the courthouse.

The courtroom was packed in 1989 when Martin, as the DA, won the conviction of Walter Beatty on two murder charges stemming from a January 1987 fire in a downtown Indiana college bar, the worst of the scores of arson fires that investigators suspected Beatty had started in a three-year spree. Putting away the Indiana arsonist, and winning convictions in nearly every high-profile case he took before a jury, was regarded as what catapulted Martin to the bench.

Sensational trials still drew full galleries for years after Martin became judge, but public attention to dramatic cases has markedly fallen in recent years, and that has disappointed Martin.

I noticed over the years that people feel they cant come. Ive always encouraged people to come to court, Martin said. You can walk in and listen to any case. But people think theres a shroud of secrecy about what were doing and there isnt, its wide open and transparent.

The pandemic the past year has hurt that cause, Martin said. Announcements and signs on the doors saying Courthouse Closed have belied the work actually being done in the courts. A brief respite from rising COVID-19 infection rates in late summer and early fall enabled Martin, Bianco and Clark to continue to dispense justice. Renting the Toretti Auditorium in the Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex in White Township enabled the courts to summon scores of citizens for selection to juries, and the courts completed a good run there in August, September and October, Martin said. Judge Bianco tried the first civil jury trial in the state since March. We had three homicide cases and the attempted murder of the two troopers. But then the (virus) numbers went back up.

Over 30 years, caseloads have spiraled. Increasing numbers of criminal, civil and family cases led the state to create a third seat for a judge for Indiana County Common Pleas Court. High numbers of cases led all in the local judicial system to streamline the calendars and to reach more out-of-court resolutions to cases.

More people willing to go to court as litigants to have their troubles aired has increased.What made the job more difficult was the number of pro se litigants (people without lawyers), particularly in family law. We get emergency custody, contempts filed daily. Im usually on the phone to Children & Youth to see if theyre involved, he said. When I first started most people had a lawyer.

While not calling them frivolous, the number of complaints filed by jail inmates especially since the addition of State Correctional Institution Pine Grove to the Indiana landscape 20 years ago has created a glut on the court calendar and resources. Its the No. 1 change Martin said he would make in the legal system.

They have an absolute right to present their case. Being in prison doesnt mean they cant make a claim, he said. But there are so many of them. There ought to be a different tribunal to take care of them on a statewide basis, part of Commonwealth Court or a regional court.

There was no internet when Martin became judge. Windows was a splashy replacement for DOS. He pored over volumes and volumes of law books and relied on judicial publications to stay abreast of precedent cases. Lawyers typed their complaints, rebuttals, briefs and proposed orders and drove them to the courthouse from Altoona, Greensburg or Pittsburgh. Court workers may never have been healthier, from their exercise in hauling armloads of blue jackets between the courts, the reporters and the clerks offices.

Nothing, Martin said, has changed the justice system as much as the digital revolution. A document scanning project has relieved the prothonotary and clerk of courts of file cabinet after cabinet of hard copy. Judges, secretaries, clerks and lawyers exchange documents in an instant by email instead of days by postal delivery.

Its going to change the way people practice law. When you have a pretrial conference in a civil case, a lawyer wont have to drive from Pittsburgh to Indiana, sit down with a judge for 15 or 20 minutes, and drive the whole way back. Martin said. Now lawyers in Pittsburgh who would normally not take a case in Indiana County because they dont want to travel back and forth may now take the case because they know they can appear remotely.

Likewise, lawyers in Indiana County who like to leave the county might take cases in neighboring counties knowing the same thing. So I think this is going to change the way people practice law.

The court system had a lot of practice before the pandemic and Zoom.

Skype and Facetime first changed the way suspects were charged after hours. No longer did district judges have to leave home at all hours for preliminary arraignment in their offices. Video connections between judges in their homes and police officers in the stations replaced that.

When pandemic-related limits on gathering took effect, Martin said, Zoom brought defendants, litigants, lawyers and judges together for procedural matters to move their cases.

If theres any positive coming from the pandemic, its the use of technology, he said.

While trials have not been held online, Martin has allowed lawyers to bring laptop computers and video projectors in the courtrooms. That lets attorneys quickly and easily display photographs or documents to the entire jury, saving the time once lost with jurors individually inspecting exhibits.

It really speeds things along, and I think thats one of the positives. The pandemic has forced us to use it, he said.

But technology presents a compromise that doesnt sit well with Martin because it takes away a human element.

Part of our job is to judge peoples credibility, and its nice to have them in the room with you so you can really observe, Martin said. A lot of that is lost when youre doing Zoom. You can see them but its not the same thing. Thats one of the drawbacks.

Martin estimated he has tried almost 300 cases with juries over his career, as a judge and as an attorney. There, hes in his element.

County judges traditionally have been anxious about choosing juries. They worry most about having to disqualify too many people. Historically, their fears havent been realized, Martin said

If we summon 75 people, 72 people show up, and they dont just answer the questions wrong to get out of jury duty, he said. The people of Indiana County really take it seriously and they appear.

Youre always afraid that youre not going to get a jury, and from that standpoint it is stressful, Martin said. I love trying cases, thats the best part of my job, but jury selection always stresses me out. But we always made it through.

Reaching verdicts in courtrooms is a part of life that most would hope to be perfect. Nothing is absolute, but Martin said he hasnt seen a jury decide a case against overwhelming evidence and testimony presented.

Where thin lines separate acquittal from conviction or findings for plaintiff or defendant, Martin said no decision is wrong.

When I talk to jurors, theyll sometimes say, do you agree with us? Martin said. And I always tell them, Im the last guy to answer that question. I have been in this business so long and I have seen so much, and its not fair for me to second-guess what you do.

The reason we have a jury is to get 12 people from all different areas of the county, different occupations, different walks of life. Its that dichotomy between those people and them looking at the facts that they arrive at their verdict. Have I been surprised? Yeah, I have. But I tell jurors that they get an appreciation for being on a jury and how it works. Thats the huge thing. So you get a new appreciation for the people who serve on juries.

Martin carried a reputation for a calm demeanor and firm control of his courtroom, a trait he said was instilled in him by his father. He said he would urge his successor to abide by the same.

Never make a decision when you are upset. And regardless of who is in front of you, they deserve respect, he said. If you respect the people in front of you in court, you will get it back. And I have tried to do those two things in my career. My father always told me the best compliment a man could get would be to be considered a gentleman. And Ive tried to live up to that.

Lawyers may remember how Martin ran his courtroom but his greatest influence on Indiana Countys court system may be the Drug Treatment Court program inaugurated under his watch in 2007. The program counsels addicted defendants to make dramatic lifestyle changes chief among them, sobriety and become productive citizens, rather than imprisons them and releases them back to a cycle of drug dependency and crime. Noting the team of attorneys, the DA and public defender, the probation officers and treatment specialists who join him in gauging the defendants recovery, Martin downplayed the suggestion that Drug Treatment Court would be his legacy.

There was a lot of reluctance by a lot of people whether this would work, Martin said, noting that he had to remove himself from his traditional role. You become kind of a cheerleader for this person and you do get to know them very well. So from a judges view, its something judges dont normally do in criminal court.

It took a while for me to get used to it, but I think its a tremendous program. We have had some great successes and we have had failures.

The people we look at have been through the system and its kind of a last chance to turn your life around and get yourself straightened out. he said. The warehousing of people with addiction I dont believe is the right thing to do. You get to a point with some people who have to be excluded from society because they wont help themselves and are making victims out there. But those who are truly addicted and have a sincere desire to get their life back, thats what treatment court is for.

Martin said he tells defendants to realize from the start that addiction controls their lives. What we want to do is give you the tools so that when you graduate from this program, and you walk out that courtroom door, you are in charge of your life and addiction isnt driving you anymore.

A proverb holds that its lonely at the top.

For lawyers who rise to the level of judge in their communities, Martin said, changes to their lives may be more than they expected.

It starts as soon as judges are elected. The strong political support and the personal connections made in the campaign for votes disappear.

Your relationship with friends changes, Martin said. It can isolate you. And thats not good.

Gone is being one of the gang in the local legal circles. Up goes an unseen shield against friendship and influence anything that would cloud the view of a judges rulings and opinions being based on anything more than impartial and objective application of law.

Thats the reason why the other judges are so important to you, because they now become your sounding boards and the people you talk with more often than not, Martin said. Socially, you know that wherever you go, if you go out to dinner, somebody is going to know who you are. So it does curtail what you do. And you have to be careful.

The resulting isolation, Martin said, is not good. You have to know how normal people are thinking and acting so you can do your job.

Martins support for community causes is quiet. He has been on the board at The Salvation Army since the 1980s, but the agency never associates his name with their efforts. And he has a hands-off role on any legal matter involving the organization.

His service as a volunteer coach of the Indiana Area Senior High School football team for 25 years was Martins greatest public exposure when not wearing robes in the courtroom.

It played a big part of my life and it was a great thing for me therapy for me, Martin said. He waved his hand through the air. When I walked on the football field, all this went away. It was a good escape.

One of the best things that happens to me is, if I go into Sheetz and see one of my former players, its not Hey Judge, its Hey Coach. That makes my day when I hear that.

As he hands over the mantel of leadership on Monday, Martin does so with full confidence and some words of advice for President Judge Bianco and the days hell burn midnight oil in the office overlooking Philadelphia Street.

What that entails, and what I will not miss, is the administration of the court. That involves not just the cases that come before the judges, Martin said. Youre involved with domestic relations, Children & Youth, probation, clerk of courts, the prothonotarys office, the magistrates offices, all of that. The personnel issues that come up, changes in the law. Hell have to deal with the pandemic and the advantage he will have is that our administrator of the courts, Christy Donofrio, is excellent.

His most difficult decisions may now be made in his office rather than in his courtroom because of the administrative part of this. All the pleas come through him, whatever the lawyers file that require a court order or scheduling will go through him for review, hell be the guy calling Children & Youth every day on custody cases.

But wait, theres more. Bianco enters the 10th year of his first elected term. He must decide on one of the least stressful aspects of politics: whether to run without opposition, asking voters to say yes or no to 10 more years.

But hes going to do a tremendous job. Given where the courts are going, hes the right guy to be leading us. He is tech savvy, Martin said. As we go forward, technology is going to play a bigger and bigger role and Judge Bianco is going to be right there to lead the county and the court.

Until Martin decides to hang up the robes for good and retire from senior judge status, hes under the same judicial code and constraints that have guided him since 1991. So theres no dishing today on the law community, courtroom incidents or his judicial colleagues.

He will be asked to decide at the end of 2021. At whatever point, full retirement will be a true change.

I could do whatever I want to do at that point. I cant use the title judge anymore. Then I could be just Bill, he said. It reminds me, when Judge Olson retired, he said he was looking forward to getting his name back. Being Greg, not Judge.

So what does Bill want to do when the time allows? Travel with his wife, Janet, is on the list. But theres more.

Ive thought about training dogs to be therapy dogs, Martin allowed. He was inspired when he learned about small rural courthouses that have a dog on duty.

They have a dog in the courthouse, a therapy dog, and I could do something like that, where the dog comes in when children are here for Children & Youth cases and things like that, to kind of help them with the stress they would be facing.

Martins agenda beginning Monday, however, differs only in the change of title and easing of the assignments on his plate. A check of the court calendar shows Martin the administrators office has gone light on him so far. Courtroom No. 3 looks to be idle at least through Jan. 15.

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Martin reflects on three decades presiding from the bench - Indiana Gazette