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HOLLIDAYSBURG – When Senior Judge Charles C. Brown Jr. of Centre County graduated from Juniata College a long time ago, he was accepted at
New York University’s School of Law.
His dad, the manager of the J.C. Murphy Store on the diamond in Bellefonte, had a word of advice to reduce any trepidation Brown had about studying in New York City.
His dad, also a graduate of Juniata and a native of Woodbury in Bedford County, told him, “It would knock the hayseed off of me.”
Brown chuckled, “He actually said that.”
With that, he was off to the “big city,” having received a Root-Tilden-Kern public service scholarship.
He even interned at a Wall Street law firm that he said had many lawyers and encompassed many floors of a building.
Upon graduation, however, Brown wasn’t enamored with practicing law in New York. He couldn’t afford to live there, and he didn’t want to commute each day, so he turned to Judge Paul Campbell of Centre County to help guide him.
“Practice where you want to live,” the judge told Brown.
With that, the decision was made.
Brown respects the people of his hometown of Bellefonte, calling the residents “hard-working, law-abiding and responsible.”
He was hired by attorney Roy Wilkinson, whose law firm represented Penn State and who was among the seven judges named to the newly created Commonwealth Court, appointed by Gov. Raymond Shafer in 1970.
Brown remained in private practice for a decade, then became Centre County District Attorney for three terms, followed by nearly 30 years as Centre County judge.
For the past seven years, Brown has been a senior judge, and that has brought him even further back to his roots, this time in Blair County. His grandfather, Bernard Brown, lived in Roaring Spring and worked at the paper mill, he said.
Senior judges must retire at the end of the year in which they turn 78, and Brown is confronted by that mandate, which means the last few months of his long legal career will be helping Blair County judges with their cases.
Blair County Court Administrator Janice Meadows said a senior judge like Brown is usually assigned to cases in which the locally elected judges have a conflict, but Brown, she said, is very much involved in Blair’s court system and has been for several years.
At this point, he is helping the judges deal with a backlog of custody cases. In August, he presided over the high-profile case of Adam C. Hardin, a Blair County Prison inmate and Army-trained computer expert who was charged with using the prison’s law library computer system to send emails threatening the Blair County Courthouse and the Hollidaysburg water system.
Hardin was convicted of a minor charge, but the jury couldn’t decide on the most serious charges, and a retrial for Hardin could come later this year.
Brown said he has been coming to Blair County for many years, serving as a visiting judge as far back as the 1980s. He remembered hearing cases in the now-shuttered Highland Hall Annex in Hollidaysburg.
He said he used to hear cases there in a makeshift courtroom called the “bowling alley” because it was long and thin.
Brown was good friends with Blair County President Judge Thomas G. Peoples, who followed a similar career path as Brown. He was Blair County District Attorney and a judge during the same years as Brown served in Centre County. Peoples died just two years ago. Peoples was a senior judge assigned primarily to Blair County, and Meadows said that Brown “has been a great assistance to us, especially with the passing of Judge Peoples.”
Being a senior judge in Pennsylvania is a throwback to the time when judges and lawyers used to “ride the circuit,” traveling town-to-town by horseback, dispensing justice. Many people who are retired tire of traveling, but Brown doesn’t mind the almost-daily travel by automobile.
He has spent a great deal of time in Luzerne County, beginning his stint as the Kids-for-Cash scandal was about to break. People there immediately warned him that the foot was about to fall on judges in that county and, he said, they knew what they were talking about. Two Luzerne judges landed in prison for accepting kickbacks for their handling of juvenile cases, and, in the process, violating their constitutional rights of the youngsters.
Brown said he found Luzerne County to be very interesting with its heritage of coal-mining.
In fact, he likes being a senior judge, and concluded, “It’s been a nice part of my judicial career.”
Brown has found a desk and a home in Blair County.
“I like Blair County. I enjoy working with the people, the court administration, and Judge Kopriva. (The courts) work hard and with a great amount of success. The people get a fair hearing and fair treatment,” he said.
Art Heinz, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, said that senior judges provide flexibility and help save money.
Blair County over the years has had several senior judges who have dedicated most of their time to the county.
Senior Judge Hiram A. Carpenter, retired from the Blair County bench, is now assigned full-time in Greene County when its president judge decided to retire this year. Brown, who said he was attracted to the law because he liked working with people, even in high school, said his mentor was Roy Wilkinson. Wilkinson taught him attention to detail and pointed out to him that many law firms could handle the daily business that came into the Wilkinson law firm.
That’s why Wilkinson stressed “service” to the client: return phone calls, keep the client informed and do the work as quickly as possible. Brown himself handled several high-profile cases in his time. As a prosecutor, he sought the death penalty for a Bellefonte-area resident, John Tressler, who murdered Bellefonte police officer Ronald D. Seymore in 1971.
As a freshly minted district attorney, Brown sought help in preparing his case from Philadelphia DA Arlen Specter and Specter’s assistant in charge of major crimes, Ed Rendell. Tressler ended up serving life behind bars. When he became judge, he sentenced a young mother from the Philipsburg area who killed her newborn by placing him in a stream. Brown sentenced the woman to eight to 20 years after she pleaded guilty but mentally ill.
That case kicked off a national debate on postpartum depression.
Brown applauds efforts by the courts these days to strike at the root of why people end up committing crime.
During his time in Centre County, Brown, as president judge, worked closely with District Attorney Ray Gricar, who simply disappeared more than a decade ago.
“Ray was a very, very good lawyer,” Brown said, but as for what happened to Gricar, he, like the average citizen, can only speculate.
He believes Gricar is probably dead, but he is hoping that someday the case will be resolved and that Gricar will be found alive and well.
“It is, in the true sense of the word, a mystery,” he said.
As for the recent Jerry Sandusky child abuse case, Brown said, this type of case could have occurred anywhere, but as for the publicity it generated and the coverage by the news media that swamped his courthouse in Bellefonte, he could only say, “wow.”
Centre County judges had to recuse themselves from the Sandusky trial. Many helped support Sandusky’s foundation for at-risk children called the Second Mile.
Brown said he knew and was good friends with the trial judge in that case, John Cleland, a former district attorney in McKean County.
“I knew John Cleland well. I have respect for him,” he said. “The choice was good.”
He said he knew Cleland “would do things right, and it would be a fair trial.”