Stepping down.

• Date: 22 September 2006
• Author: Hornby, D. Brock
• Published date: 22 September 2006
• Author: Hornby, D. Brock

I left the Maine Supreme Judicial Court for the federal trial court in 1990. At the time, I expected to miss the collegiality of the appellate bench and the satisfaction of resolving legal issues deliberately and studiously. But I looked forward to a more active, less monastic, professional life, interacting with lawyers, witnesses, and jurors, and gaining the opportunity to see if I could manage a trial docket fairly, speedily, and efficiently.

As a former appellate judge, I knew that I should explain my rulings as a trial judge. But I believed that I should do that simply, and leave it to the appellate courts to elaborate upon the law. I viewed it as my trial judge responsibility to decide even complicated issues in a timely manner, doing the best I could, but not trying to write for the law reviews or posterity. I would become what a former Maine Supreme Court colleague, Justice David Roberts, used to describe as "a working judge."

Has experience followed expectation? To answer the question, I consider "then" and "now."

THEN

In 1990, when I became the sole federal trial judge in Bangor, Maine, I spent virtually every available hour in the courtroom. From my first trial, a criminal fraud trial of a former Bangor mayor, to the host of ready and waiting civil cases, the life of a federal trial judge was what I had anticipated: presiding at trials; ruling quickly on motions to permit the cases to come to trial; and dealing with difficult criminal sentencing issues. Because I had temporarily left my family 135 miles behind while my daughter finished her senior year of high school, I was ready for the task--full days in the courtroom followed by evenings of reading briefs and writing short decisions. There was enough trial business that my Portland colleague came to Bangor from time to time so that we could run joint trial lists (nothing like the jeopardy of a trial, coupled with the uncertainty of which judge you would get, to move the parties to settle even the most difficult case).

I often felt insecure: What was the just sentence in a criminal case? What was the proper result in high-profile cases involving elections, or campaign finance, or the request of a church group to use school premises?

I did miss the luxury of discussing a case with colleagues and letting judgment mature over the course of seasoned deliberations. But it was satisfying to set my own schedule, to manage my own docket and cases so as to reduce the backlog, and to meet with the local bar to generate joint ideas for improving how the federal trial court should function.

I...