A people’s judge says good-bye

By: Dick Brinster
   WASHINGTON — Retired municipal court Judge Marvin VanHise thinks of the first line of justice as the "People’s Court."
   "By far, the majority of persons coming in contact with the judiciary have only this experience," said Judge VanHise, who stepped down form the bench here and in two other municipalities on Dec. 1. "It is important for people to believe in the fairness of the court."
   He said people need to know that they received justice because they were given an opportunity to be heard, whether they were on their own or represented by a lawyer.
   The judge said his greatest rewards came from those times he was stern with his sentences and later received positive feedback from the defendants. He recalls two incidents in recent years.
   "Two women approached me separately in court to thank me for sending them to jail," he said. "They were both drug addicts, grateful that they were arrested and grateful that I was heavy-handed.
   "They said going to jail helped them get off drugs. I reached the point after awhile in my experience that sometimes I thought it was in their best interests that I was heavy-handed."
   He said one of the women told him she was drug-free, showed him a picture of a child she got back and said she had a job, all of which she attributed to his work on the bench.
   He said the other woman told him she was in drug counseling, engaged and in control of her life. Those cases helped fortify Judge VanHise’s belief that he had been on the right track.
   "It was really gratifying to be strict and still make a difference, as long as you were fair," he said.
   He regrets that some defendants didn’t take advantage of such opportunities after they were before him, and calls all matters involving alcohol or drug abuse "disturbing and frequently sad."
   "The impact is immediate and lasting upon the user, any victim and the families of all concerned," he said. "To me, the saddest cases are of the young who are repeat offenders, often with very young children who should look up to these people as role models but instead see them taken away for rehab or incarceration."
   Judge VanHise, who has been succeeded in Hightstown by James Newman, said he was grateful for having the opportunity to serve in each of three local municipal courts — Hightstown, Lawrence and Washington — and work with dedicated people.
   "I want to be remembered as a jurist who tried to be consistent and uniform when applying the law and fair in meting out a penalty when warranted," he said. "I’m fearful that I wasn’t always successful."
   But Hightstown Detective Benjamin Miller says the judge was consistently judicious.
   "He was always equitable, and he always made himself available to the officers," Detective Miller said. "He will be missed."
   Although he no longer wears his robe and sits in judgment of defendants charged with everything from driving offenses to violent crime, the 59-year-old attorney remains in private practice in Lawrence, where he opened an office six years ago. And that’s not all he has to keep himself busy.
   "My wife and I operate the Crayons Nursery School in Lawrence with a student population of about 50," he said. "We have a had a child-care center for more than 15 years."
   Judge VanHise and wife, Lini, met in her native Taiwan, where they were married near the end of his four-year hitch in the Air Force in 1970. He spent a year of that time as a munitions specialist in Vietnam.
   He graduated from Trenton State College in 1976 and earned his law degree from Rutgers Camden in 1986. The VanHises raised three children — a doctor, a schoolteacher and a lawyer — and have three grandchildren.
   He says he enjoyed his nine years on the bench in the borough. He heard his first argument in 1995 in Washington Township, where he was municipal prosecutor for three years before donning the robe, and also banged the gavel in Lawrence, where he now lives.
   But Judge VanHise always will cherish childhood memories, among the earlier of which were his days as a potato jockey on the family farm just outside Allentown.
   "My dad raised potatoes and my grandfather before him," he recalled. "I was only about 6 or 7 years old, and I drove the truck around the fields.
   "They’d throw potatoes in the back to be taken back to the barn, then they’d give me another truck and we’d start all over again."
   After working for the state Department of Agriculture from 1971 to 1987, he opened his first law practice, which he maintained in Princeton until 1991. Then he went to work for the FDIC as a litigation attorney, and was a litigation section chief in lower Manhattan.
   His office was just a few blocks from the World Trade Center, but he left two weeks before the terrorist attacks to start a limited real estate law practice in Lawrence.
   Now, he spends a considerable amount of time away from the law books, helping run the nursery school and relaxing with family and friends in a serene setting.
   "We all enjoy our second home on a lake in the Poconos," he said.