County losing 2 district judges to retirement

The Baltimore Sun

Two judges widely heralded for pioneering Anne Arundel County District Court programs are retiring in the span of a month.

Administrative Judge James W. "Jack" Dryden will step down July 31, a week after his 60th birthday, while Judge Vincent A. Mulieri, who turns 69 today, retired June 30.

Their vacancies on the nine-judge court are unlikely to be filled soon, as Gov. Martin O'Malley has not created any of the county panels needed to screen judicial replacements.

"Luckily, we have a contingent of retired judges that we use," said Ben C. Clyburn, the chief judge of Maryland's district courts.

Dryden is best known for turning the fledgling drug court, which offers a chance at treatment instead of jail, into a model program.

"He was really a trailblazer," said Clyburn.

About half of the defendants who start the diversionary program complete it, Dryden said, and studies and program statistics have shown a lower recidivism rate among those who complete the program than among offenders who fail to complete it or don't participate at all.

State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee, who helped found the drug court, said the result is that his office is not repeatedly prosecuting many of the drug court graduates.

Lawyers praised Dryden's straightforward yet pleasant way with defendants, especially those in drug court. His readiness to call their bluff and ability to see through lies has attorneys warning clients to avoid trying to fool him.

"He is con-proof in drug court - and with all those addicts, that is saying a lot," said Annapolis lawyer Gill Cochran.

Edwin H. Staples II, former county Bar Association president, recalled a day when one of his clients at a violation-of-probation hearing told Dryden he would test drug-free that minute. Dryden ordered an immediate test, and the man began backpedaling, saying maybe he inhaled a little marijuana smoke at a party.

"So Dryden said, 'You are telling me it will come back dirty?' and he said yes. He was quickly escorted out in handcuffs," Staples said.

Dryden said he was not sold on the value of a therapeutic court when he took it over about nine years ago but has since changed his mind. "It's not going to solve everyone's problems all the time, but it's the best thing we've come along with," he said.

Born in Salisbury, Dryden graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1969 and the University of Texas Law School in 1972. He worked as an assistant prosecutor for a decade, as a master hearing juvenile and family court cases for another decade and became a judge in 1991.

"That's a long time to hear somebody else's problems, but I have enjoyed it," he said.

He is thinking of retirement as an opportunity to travel, do projects at home and in the community and to work part time. Retired judges can earn up to one-third of their most recent salary by returning to the bench for up to a third of the year.

As the administrative judge since 1998, Dryden is credited with standardizing bail-hearing times at 2 p.m. Attorneys often grumble about the midafternoon hour but also like the predictability and being able to provide some certainty to relatives of jailed people.

Taking over for Dryden as administrative judge will be Judge John P. McKenna Jr., Clyburn said.

Criminal, traffic, civil and landlord-tenant cases are heard in District Court, which is not only the lowest-level court but the most crowded. It's not unusual for a day's cases to number in the hundreds, and judges balance how long to dwell on each case with the need to be done at the end of the day.

Mulieri is best known for creating an in-court reality-check program for high school students in 2001, basing it on a Michigan program he had read about.

"We want them to think about the consequences of making wrong choices," he said.

Twice a year, local high school students get cautionary experience, watching drunken-driving, drug and theft cases in court, then speaking with convicted criminals, probation officers and others.

Students and teachers have said the program hits home because it homes in on two big enticements for teens: drugs and alcohol. They see young mothers torn from their children and sent to jail, people not much older than themselves weep over injuries they've caused their friends, and men rue wasting years in a haze of drugs. They tally the financial cost of a drunken-driving conviction as well as the personal toll.

"It is a program that I would very much like to see expanded throughout the state of Maryland," Clyburn said.

Judge J. Michael Wachs agreed to take over the program, Mulieri said.

Lawyers say Mulieri has a methodical, if grandfatherly, approach to cases, ever reluctant to cut off lawyers and litigants as they tell their story.

"We could argue, argue and argue and he would listen, listen and listen, and then make a decision," Cochran said.

Many attorneys say Mulieri is far more patient than they could be while remaining gentlemanly.

"He is a very deliberate judge, which frustrated some people. But he took it very seriously, what he was doing," said Leo P. Hylan, whose law office is in Pasadena.

Mulieri said the harried pace of District Court is wearing but that it allows a judge to make a big impact in someone's life quickly.

"It's when you think you helped somebody - that's the biggest high on the job," he said.

Every so often, he said, he's gotten a letter from a defendant who thanks him for a much-needed kick in pants that put an early end to what could have been a career as a criminal. Some notes, he said, came from people he had jailed. "They say they learned a lesson," he said.

The Georgia native moved to Annapolis as a child. He graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1960 and the University of Maryland School of Law in 1963.

After six months in the Army, he decided not to go into a judge advocate program and instead returned to civilian life. He worked as an assistant county attorney and assistant prosecutor before joining a private practice and later establishing his own firm. He became a judge in 1991.

Now he's looking to buy a used piano so he can take lessons, to study Italian and to improve his golf game while juggling visits with his grandchildren. But in his two weeks of retirement, Mulieri has already been back to fill in at his old job.

O'Malley spokesman Sasha Leonhardt said the judicial nominating commissions would be named "soon." A commission is chosen to cover each court area in the state.

andrea.siegel@baltsun.com

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