PORT TOWNSEND — While pancreatic cancer has forced Jefferson County Superior Court Judge Craddock D. Verser to leave the bench, he hopes the illness does not signal an end to his legal career.
“I love the law. I think it’s fascinating,” said Verser, 63, whose last day is today after having served as the county’s only Superior Court judge since he was appointed in 2004.
“We’ll have to see how it works out, but I look forward to the possibilities,” Verser said this week.
“Before I was a judge, I would always advocate for my clients, and I hope to go back to that.”
One of Verser’s last acts as judge will be to swear in his successor, Keith Harper, at 3 p.m. today in the Superior Courtroom of Jefferson County Courthouse, 1820 Jefferson St.
During his eight years on the bench, Verser has presided over cases involving brutal crime but said he has maintained an even keel by following one of the law’s most important tenets.
“The defendant is innocent until the jury says that he’s guilty,” Verser said.
“As a judge, you need to remember that and distance yourself from wanting to punish somebody because they may have committed a heinous crime.
“There are always nuances in the law that you have to wade through and figure out what the facts call for before you make your decision.”
Among his regrets is a ruling he made during the 2010 double-murder trial of Michael J. Pierce of Quilcene.
Pierce, now 37, was convicted of the first-degree murders of Pat and Janice Yarr on March 18, 2009, in their farmhouse near Lake Leland.
Pierce won a retrial — set for March 4 and expected to cost only slightly less than the $370,883 used to prosecute the original case — after the state Court of Appeals unanimously reversed his conviction July 17.
The court cited alleged prosecutorial misconduct, saying Scott Rosekrans — who prosecuted the case as chief deputy prosecutor and who now is county prosecuting attorney — made inappropriate closing arguments, and also said Verser should not have allowed a confession into court that was obtained without a lawyer present.
“During the Pierce trial, I made 50 to 70 rulings one way or the other, and I thought I’d ruled correctly,” Verser said.
“I was wrong, and it was kind of a bummer because it cost the county a lot of money,” he added. “I don’t like making mistakes.”
Verser was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer during a July 2011 vacation with his wife, Joyce.
Since then, he has spent about six months off the bench. When he returned, he was faced with the decision to run for a third term.
He at first said he would run but retracted the statement a week later, throwing his support behind Harper, a Port Townsend attorney and court commissioner.
Verser’s routine now includes a chemotherapy treatment every other Thursday, which debilitates him until the following Monday, he said.
“The prognosis isn’t good, which is why I didn’t run for another term,” Verser said.
“I try to not think about it so much. I hope I will survive.”
Verser said chemo is “horrible, but it seems to do some good.”
And while he has lost family to cancer, he said actually having the disease is quite different.
“If you haven’t had cancer, you don’t know how debilitating it really is,” he said.
Verser, then a Port Townsend defense attorney, was appointed to the bench after the death of Thomas Majhan in 2004, prevailing over three other applicants despite an arrest for a DUI the previous year.
At the time, he said the charge made him a better candidate for the job by putting things into perspective.
“I defend a lot of people charged with DUIs, but this was very much a learning process for me,” he said then.
Since the appointment, Verser has won election twice, in 2004 and 2008.
The public, Verser said, needs to understand that judges don’t make laws but only enforce them.
He said he has been the subject of public ire from people who are certain of the defendant’s guilt and can’t understand why he or she is not in jail while waiting for trial.
“The public needs to understand that each defendant needs to be treated the same as all others, that judges are only following the rules,” he said.
“But the mark of a good judge is the ability to explain your decisions so people understand why you did what you did, even if they don’t agree with you.”
Judges do a tremendous amount of reading and must impose sentences based on the law and not from personal feelings, he said.
An example was the 41-month prison sentence — or a sentence of a little more than 3 years and four months — imposed on Kaleb Mayo, 28, of Port Orchard in November after he was convicted in October of one count of second-degree aggravated assault and two counts of fourth-degree assault.
The prosecution had requested a stiffer sentence of 10 years because of the severity of the December 2011 assault, in which Mayo had severely beaten Lenard Marion as well as two other people.
“I believed that he had committed a really exceptional second-degree assault, but I read the defense memo and the cases that they cited,” Verser said.
“So I realized that I couldn’t impose an exceptional sentence even if I thought that the assault was more egregious than most and even if the jury had found that.”
Having served as a court commissioner, Harper is familiar with the judge’s routine and thinks he’ll have no trouble adjusting.
He said he may make some changes but is not entering office with an agenda to do so.
“I’ve done this already, so I have a relatively good idea as to what it will be like when I start work on Monday morning,” Harper said.
“I will be looking at some things a bit differently than Crad or Tom Majhan, but I don’t have any set goals; there won’t be any change for the sake of change.”
Verser’s said his life will change as he faces a period of transition centered on fighting cancer.
He credits his wife, Joyce — whom he married quietly Feb. 14, 2010 — as the reason for his continued survival.
“If I wasn’t married to Joyce, I’d probably be dead,” he said.
“She listens to what the cancer doctors say and makes sure I do what they say,” Verser added.
“She puts a lot of time and energy into my care, and I don’t know how she does it, although I’d certainly do the same for her if the situation was reversed.”
Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
