“I’m not saying that it isn’t about time for me to retire after what will be 28 years, but it is brought about by the fact that I turned 70 in June,” says Judge Charles C. Brown of his upcoming mandatory retirement. “And actually, until about five years ago, when a judge hit 70 – you were retired. But now, a judge can fill out that year. So, the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts said that on December 31st of this year, I’ll be a full-time, active judge. And on January 1st of 2008, I’ll be retired. So that’s where it is.”

Brown, the president judge of the 49th Judicial District will also have to vacate the largest of the three judges’ chambers at the courthouse in Bellefonte. The room is an elegant, old world sanctuary that is adorned with baseball souvenirs and memorabilia, as it was when I was here four years ago to interview Judge Brown about the courthouse renovation. But now, meeting him in chambers again—for the last time—I thought of his idol, Jackie Robinson, who spent his entire professional career in one town. Brown, who was born and raised in Bellefonte, did the same thing with his law career, although for five times longer than Robinson’s nine-year stretch with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Brown attended Juniata College in Huntingdon and, after graduating in 1959, applied at New York University School of Law. He recalls that his father was happy and relieved when his son was accepted at NYU. “He said, ‘This will be good. It’ll knock the hayseeds off you.’” However, after leaving NYU in 1962, Brown was back in Bellefonte, clerking for the firm of Love & Wilkinson. “It didn’t make sense to me to pick somewhere other than my hometown,” he explains. “Why would I go to Lancaster or York or communities like that? It would be very nice, but I wouldn’t know anybody. So it sort of worked itself out that I could get back here.”

He finished his stint as clerk and stayed on with the firm. “John Love was pretty much retired [then],” Brown explains. “The person that really was the office and was doing all the work was Roy Wilkinson, Jr., so he was really my employer and mentor.” Brown became a partner in the firm, which eventually added two more promising young lawyers and became known, after Wilkinson went to the Commonwealth Court in 1970, as McQuaide Blasko & Brown. “That was the firm name and those were the three partners and owners until I went on the bench in 1980,” he says.

Brown also served as district attorney of Centre County from 1966 to 1978. It was the first time he had ever run for public office, and there was some skepticism about him continuing his partnership with a highly successful firm while taking on the responsibilities of the D.A.’s office. “Some people said, ‘You were just being egotistical,’” he recalls. “Well, you could say that about anybody who wants to run for office. I don’t know how you run if you don’t have some belief in yourself. But I thought that being the district attorney of the county for 12 years was a great honor. As far as the private practice of law, I did some work for Penn State. And I have to admit that I take some pride every summer when they have Ag Progress Days, because one of my assignments in the firm was to assist then Dean Russell Larson in purchasing virtually all of the farmland out beyond Pine Grove Mills. I went out there this year and I thought, ‘By golly, I had something to do with this.’”

For the past three decades, Brown has managed to participate in a number of extracurricular activities, and is particularly proud of his involvement with his alma mater. “I’ve been on the board of trustees at Juniata College for about 30 years,” he explains. “I am now an emeritus member of the board, and I think it’s a very important institution. I’m actually teaching criminal law there, one evening [a week], just in the fall semester. I’ve been doing that for six years. Also, I became a member of the national board of the YMCA.”

With retirement looming, Brown plans to do some traveling with Barbara, his wife of 12 years. “And I’ll get a chance to do a little golfing, a little bit of bowling,” he says. “I’ll be looking to do things that most people do in retirement.” He has four children (three sons and a daughter) from a previous marriage, and 11 grandchildren, with a 12th on the way. “I do want to spend time with them,” he says. He also plans to become a senior judge, taking assigned cases on a per diem basis, after he steps down in January. “Will I ever consider resigning as a senior judge to do mediation? Well, we’ll see.”

When I ask about highlights and a summation of his career, Brown is quick to point out that he’d merely been part of a judicial system that flourished in Bellefonte while he was on the bench, noting that Centre County grew from a one-judge to a four-judge county during that time. “I’m not sure it would make any sense to start talking about any one case [as a highlight],” he says. “But there was the case of the woman who drowned her baby after it was a year old, and her defense of postpartum depression, which I essentially rejected.” Brown’s ruling became a national story in 1986, and an NBC camera crew was sent to Bellefonte. “Right here at this desk, I was interviewed by Connie Chung. I guess that’s a highlight. But I’d like to think that, with the help of the court administrators that have been with me through the years – Larry Bickford, Alexa Fultz and Maxine Ishler—that we’ve done a pretty good job.

Reflecting on his legacy, Brown is characteristically modest, “I’d like to think that people will say, ‘You know, he was fair. He would listen to your case, he thought about it, and he made a decision.’ And that’s what a common pleas judge should do.” – SCM