Justice Mead: ‘What I do really is teaching’

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In early February, Maine Superior Court Justice Andrew Mead presided over an emotionally charged double-manslaughter trial.

Throughout the four-day trial, Mead sat in the large leather judge’s chair in the Piscataquis County court room in Dover-Foxcroft, listening intently as he supervised the proceedings and ruled on the attorneys’ motions and objections so the trial moved along smoothly. Focused on the case, he was stern, and his authoritative expression changed little.

After the attorneys gave their closing arguments, Mead turned to address the jury before they retired to discuss the case and arrive at a verdict. His eyes lit up. His tone lightened as he defined the crime the defendant was charged with and explained how to regard the evidence and testimony of the case.

“As the Superior Court justice in jury trial, what I do really is teaching,” Mead said a week later in an interview at his Penobscot County Superior Courthouse office in Bangor. “I have to explain concepts to the jury in a way that folks who aren’t lawyers can understand.

“Justices are good teachers,” said Mead, who on Wednesday was nominated for the Maine Supreme Judicial Court by Gov. John Baldacci. “The best way to understand something – to really embrace it – is to teach it. It takes you to a whole different level when you’re trying to explain it to someone else.”

At the University of Maine this semester, Mead has an opportunity to prove that statement to a conceivably tougher audience, students taking the Mass Media Law and Regulation course in the Communications and Journalism Department.

Mead met Shannon Martin, a communications and journalism professor, when they served on a committee dealing with access to electronic court records, and she suggested that Mead take over the media law class while she went on sabbatical.

“I was very impressed with his concern about the teaching profession,” Martin said, “and his interest in my students at UMaine.”

Mead’s students said they weren’t looking forward to the 21/2-hour class at 6 p.m. on Tuesdays. But when they first opened the door to the classroom in the Donald P. Corbett Building, their concern turned to curiosity.

Easy-listening, soft rock and jazz music played on the speakers in the room. Then Mead strolled in and set two large boxes of granola bars and Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Treats on a table at the front of the room to help get the students through the night. As class progressed, Mead moved back and forth at the front of the room, stopping occasionally and leaning up against a wall as he talked. He seemed to be chatting rather than lecturing as he discussed libel laws and the responsibility of the press regarding them.

“When I heard Professor Mead was an actual Superior Court Judge, I was a little intimidated,” said sophomore Whitney Hodgdon. “But he makes the classroom a very comfortable environment to share your thoughts and not be afraid that they weren’t what he was looking for.”

Mead, a 55-year-old New Jersey native, first came to the University of Maine as a student intending to major in psychology in 1969. He remembers his time at UMaine vividly. He recalls the volatile times on campuses across the country and in Maine during the Vietnam War era. He especially remembers the president of the university at the time, Winthrop C. Libby, and how he alone seemed to defuse several potentially dangerous situations on campus.

Soon after the Kent State shootings in which four protesters were killed and another nine were injured by National Guardsmen, UMaine students rallied on the campus mall and marched to the front lawn of the president’s house.

Libby went out onto the front porch and addressed the students, inviting every last protester into his home for tea and discussion.

“That whole situation really inspired me, really showed me the power of listening was a powerful thing indeed,” Mead said. “It was just a very inspirational kind of turning point for me in how to deal with adversity.”

The power of listening has served Mead well both in the courtroom and the classroom.

Mead described the one thing he wanted students to take away from his class: “There’s a really close and sometimes difficult relationship between media and law. It’s a complicated relationship, and I want them to fully understand that and understand their role as protectors of the first amendment, especially.

“I’m a big First Amendment fan,” he chuckled.

While a student at the university, Mead was inspired to become a lawyer. A debate course helped him realize he loved researching and presenting arguments, things he tied closely to law.

“It really kind of surprised me how much I enjoyed it,” Mead said. “I stopped looking into graduate school in [psychology] and started looking at law school.”

He graduated from New York Law School and spent 14 years as a lawyer before being appointed to the courts in Maine.

“When I started in law, the people who inspired me were the Superior Court justices,” Mead said. “I always thought that was what someone should aspire to be. They were the most imposing and impressive people I’d dealt with.”

When Mead isn’t in court or teaching his communications course, he said, “I do a lot of things – not many of them well – but I do a lot.”

He has been a part of a band, the RetroRockerz, for about three years. Mead plays lead guitar and is joined by a fifth-grade teacher as a lead singer, a therapist on drums, an orthodontist on keyboard, and an orthopedic surgeon and the chief executive officer of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

The RetroRockerz play 1960s, 1970s and 1980s era rock ‘n’ roll for charity and municipal events, as well as for an escape.

“We have a lot of fun. It’s a very pleasant diversion from very stressful day jobs,” Mead said.

He also plays hockey in the Penobscot Valley Senior Hockey League and traveled overseas to play a Russian team in 1987.

Mead even tried his hand at fiction. He had five articles published in various law journals, but said fiction writing was much tougher to break into. After finishing his book, a spy-military thriller titled “The Line of Fire” a few years ago, he sought a publisher.

“When you get into that Tom Clancy genre, it’s a very closed shop,” Mead said. He received nice letters from publishers who said they didn’t need any new writers.

When asked if he planned on taking another shot at a writing career, Mead said, “Nope, I’m retiring early.”