On March 21, 2002, we celebrated the retirement of Associate Judge Robert Edward Cahill, Sr. from active duty. In case you missed the event there will be yet another retirement dinner on May 15, 2002 for Chief Judge J. William Hinkel who recently reached mandatory retirement age.

I thought it would be appropriate to provide as my message this month some of my thoughts included in my remarks on March 21, 2002 on behalf of the Bar Association. The following comments were actually made on behalf of each member.

I first met Judge Cahill in February of 1976 at the Junker Hotel in Baltimore City. Back then the City Circuit Court was known as the Supreme Bench and we still had separate rules for law and equity pleadings.

At any rate, when introduced to Judge Cahill by his other brother, my mentor, Bill Cahill, Judge Cahill said to me “we don’t have much time so I will just tell you about me!”

My next meaningful contact with Judge Cahill was when he applied for our Circuit Court in 1990 and I was a member of the Judicial Nominating Commission. Actually the Honorable Norris Byrnes applied at the same time and he and Judge Cahill were both nominated the first time they applied and they each were appointed on their first attempt, no small achievements.

Judge Cahill had always been described as “razor sharp” and during his interview I asked him if he had any secrets as a great trial lawyer and his response was “not really, I just forget a lot of stuff.”

The next commission so to speak involving Judge Cahill was in 1996 when he was challenged for his sentencing in the Peacock case in October 1994. By a 5 to 2 vote in May 1996 following one and a half days of hearings, Judge Cahill was 100% exonerated as to his extemporaneous comments.

I was honored to be appointed as his alter ego in May 1999, replacing Leo Hughes who had carried that burden for nearly nine years. I learned more geography as Judge Cahill’s alter ego then I did in grade school and high school combined. I felt like Biff on the Letterman Show in that as you can imagine, I received inquiries from around the world to include Honolulu, Hawaii, Melbourne, Australia, Latvia on the Baltic Sea, Montevido in Uruguay, etc. Since his retirement on January 18, 2002 I have been able to disconnect my international and 800 phone lines and lay off two part-time receptionists in that my task as alter ego ended upon the retirement of Judge Cahill.

On his last regular day on the Bench, Friday, January 18, 2002, I had the privilege to argue his last and only case on the docket that day in that Judge Cahill turned 70 years old on Sunday, January 20, 2002. In the jury box that Friday morning were Judge Cahill’s wife, Patty, and seven of their nine grandchildren. I overheard Casey Ames, the son of Judge Cahill’s daughter, Kelly and her husband Mike, ask his grandmother if she believed in heaven and Patty replied “of course, there has got to be some reward for living with your grandfather all of these years.”

The Bar Association presented Patty Abell Cahill with nineteen yellow roses at the retirement dinner, one for each child, one for each child’s spouse or significant other and one rose for each grandchild. Secretary John Nowicki made the presentation.

I then told the story that as a child, Judge Cahill in 1942 was standing on the corner with his older brother in their neighborhood in Baltimore City and a man stopped his car (with “out of state” tags) and asked for directions to a place Bill and Judge Cahill knew. Judge Cahill said, “That is too easy. Ask me something harder.” The man yelled at Judge Cahill and said he wasn’t playing games, kid, and then drove off. Judge Cahill thinks about him from time to time and wonders if the man ever got to his destination.

Judge Cahill and I were talking recently about growing up in the City and how our families would leave the lights on to keep away the burglars. Now that he lives in the County, Judge Cahill leaves the lights off to keep away the neighbors, plus there is always a chance he will like the burglars.

Growing up, I remember going to my great grandmother Brady’s house. It was a big white house on Roland Avenue (wrap around porch included) across from Morgan Millard’s Pharmacy and it always smelled like slightly burned toast and raspberry jam. She had a picture of Jesus on the wall in her living room and Jesus’ eyes would follow you around when you walked. I told Judge Cahill about it a while ago and he nodded, and said growing up he had a Chihuahua that did the same thing.

Our second gift or roses was made by President Elect Nolan who presented a dozen yellow roses to Sharon Pullen who has been Judge Cahill’s faithful secretary both downtown and while on the Bench for a total of more than 17 years. We really wanted to give Sharon a cabin cruiser or a small airplane for her loyal service but we do have a tight budget.

The highlight of the evening for me was to present to Judge Robert E. Cahill, Jr. not one but two checks to reimburse his father for one of two tickets to Judge Brennan’s retirement dinner on March 10, 1999. Patty missed the dinner due to a temporary health situation and Judge Cahill has been pestering me for the last three years to be reimbursed the $50.00 that he had spent on the ticket for his wife. We reimbursed him the $50.00 and then we figured he would want prejudgement interest and so a second check in the amount of $9.46 was also presented to his son for prejudgement interest.

We then concluded my part of the evening by toasting Judge Cahill as a man who does not suffer fools well, who loves family, God, country, the law and life itself, a man who is as hard on himself as he is on others, a man who goes the extra mile (it is not very crowded up front, just like church or synagogue) a person who is a curmudgeon of sorts, possessing a mosaic of different temperaments, a man who like Cato would rather have us ask why he has no statue then why he has one. It has been an honor to have been a part of his life along with JERRY Ashe, Pat O’Dougherty, George White, Robert Murphy, Bob Burns, Jack Lawrence, Leo Hughes, Al Figinski, Stuart Burger, Jerry Martin, John McGeehen, Russell Smouse, Tom Howell and all those present that evening. A man who is a Past President of the Saint Thomas More Society of Maryland and who like Saint Sir Thomas More is himself a “man for all seasons,” a man who like Saint Ignatius of Loyola is a “man for others” and who like Groucho Marx wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would accept him as a member but who unlike W. C. Fields loves children and dogs, we ended with the following toast:

May you have ward words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night.
And the road downhill all the way to your door.

God speed.

I will look for each of you at the retirement dinner of the Honorable J. William Hinkel to be held on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 at 6:00 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Select in Timonium.