Remembering the wit of Judge MacDonald

There have been judges. Then there have been judges. Then there was Judge Paul A. MacDonald, who passed away last Thursday at 94 at his Woolwich home.

If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that he just loved to tweak the prosecutors and the police during his district court service from 1964 to 1978. MacDonald was appointed by Gov. John Reed as the first district court judge in the 6th District after MacDonald served as deputy secretary of state from 1944 to 1960, then secretary of state from 1960 to 1964.

When he retired in 1978, the district court judge was presented with a battered motorcycle helmet and a beer cap at a roast attended by about 75 attorneys and court officials.

The motorcycle helmet reminded people of MacDonald’s controversial decision on the helmet law. When the Legislature abolished the requirement, MacDonald dismissed 50 pending cases, ignoring the fact that the law did not take effect for 90 days.

Rockland police were at war with the local motorcycle club in those days. You can imagine their reaction.

Rockland police were also at war on downtown vandalism. When James V. Peters, then 20, flipped a beer cap across Main Street, Rockland police charged him with littering. When police brought the case before MacDonald, he levied a nickel fine. “It was a five cent crime and deserves a five cent fine,” he opined, a comment which was picked up by wire services and sent across the country.

Luckily, Rockland police Chief Maurice Benner had no comment.

There were people across the state who hated him for his alleged light sentencing of criminals. Local Rep. Wayne Gray once testified against MacDonald at his renomination hearing. The Maine State Highway Commission and various legislators also tried to disrobe the judge.

Somehow, he survived. Newspaper reporters, always scratching for stories, loved him.

I thought the Rockland City Council also adopted a resolution to remove MacDonald, but unofficial council historian and veteran Mayor Tom Molloy said it never happened. If Molloy says it didn’t happen in the council chamber, it didn’t.

But Molloy did remember that vitriolic Councilor Frank Lawrence, who had it in for MacDonald and his decisions. Even I knew this was a great story and interviewed the judge at the “new” Samoset in the late 1970s. The hotel windows were so bad that snow came through and settled on my notebook. I thought the feature was balanced, and presented both sides of the story.

Frank Lawrence did not. He denounced the story on radio station WRKD and branded me a “long-haired, liberal creep.”

I didn’t think my hair was that long.

Luckily for me, MacDonald stayed on the bench as an active retired judge.

A few months after his retirement, I got a speeding ticket, just outside Bath.

I got a fistful of speeding tickets and paid all of them – except this one. I fought it in court, like Clarence Darrow.

In the Bath court, I brought photos and maps of the area, right by the State of Maine seafood restaurant on Route 1, and proved (to me, at least) that I was traveling 40 miles an hour in a 40-mile-an-hour zone, not in a 25-mph zone as the state trooper charged.

Judge MacDonald listened to my brilliant, if high-voiced, argument and declared me as innocent as a newborn babe. I walked out into the Bath sunshine, a free man. Saved $200.

The fact that I attended his retirement dinner a few months earlier had nothing to do with the decision, I trust.

Paul A. MacDonald, one of my all-time favorite judges.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.