LAKEPORT, Calif. – “All rise,” bailiff Steve Jones instructed a courtroom of well-wishers as Judge Richard Martin entered his courtroom to take his seat on the bench.
Jones’ words are the same ones that Martin has heard for the last 12 years, as he’s presided over thousands of cases in Lake County Superior Court’s Department 2.
However, that day – May 31 – was different.
“Judge Richard C. Martin presiding – for the last time,” Jones said, as Martin took his seat, wearing a blazer and not his usual black judicial robe.
The gathering wasn’t an arraignment or a trial but an occasion of honoring Martin on his last official day on the job as a full-time judge, before he stepped into retirement.
His son, Sheriff Brian Martin, said his father deserves a break after having worked jobs steadily since he was a teenager.
Martin thanked his colleagues, staff, friends and family for all of their help, and said it had been a big honor to sit on the Lake County Superior Court bench.
During the get-together that followed, Martin had the chance to visit with childhood friends who also now live in Lake County, including Mike Adams, executive director of the Soper Reese Theater, who went to high school with Martin.
Richard Martin took his oath of office on July 5, 2005. He was appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to succeed Judge Robert Crone on his retirement. Crone continues to sit on cases part of the year and was on hand – along with several other current and retired judges – to honor Martin on his retirement.
Martin’s tenure has been marked by hearing and ruling on thousands of cases of every kind, from criminal and civil to family law, conservatorships and adoptions. And he’s performed the occasional marriage ceremony.
Colleagues, staff and others who know him consider him remarkably kind, personable, concerned and thoughtful, a man whose family is filled with public servants.
He’s proud of having served the community as a judge, and looks back on his career with particular pride in helping to start the Veterans Court as well as a dependency drug court to oversee the welfare of children who are neglected or abandoned.
He cherishes his chosen profession, which can be challenging. “You’re in a position to help people with the worst things that happen in their lives,” he said.
Martin, now 70, said he had begun thinking about retiring several months ago, giving his friend and colleague, presiding Judge Andrew Blum, notice earlier this year that he intended to step down so the recruitment process for his successor could begin.
Under state retirement rules, judges now must wait until age 70 to retire if they want their full benefits. That rule has changed since Crone’s retirement, when judges were allowed to retire at age 60.
His son said Martin had started mentioning retirement about a year and a half ago but didn’t give him an official retirement date until a couple of months beforehand.
Over the years Martin, like all of his fellow judges, have faced huge workloads, with a formula that’s used to assess caseloads in courts across the state concluding that Lake County needs nearly six judges, two more than it currently has.
The county also is in dire need of a new courthouse, an effort Martin has been a part of and which is one of his key disappointments. The effort has been stalled by the state, which took $1.4 billion in courthouse construction funds to get through the recession. The result has been stalling of some projects and indefinite delays of others.
While he’s disappointed that it hasn’t been built so far, he holds out hope that, at some point, a new courthouse will be constructed for Lake County.
Blum said he and Martin got to know each other while working in the District Attorney’s Office, where Blum was chief deputy and Martin’s boss. Like Martin, Blum is a Southern California native who came north to make his home and career in Lake County, drawn by its quality of life.
“And then, lo and behold, we both became judges here in Lake County,” Blum said.
Blum praised Martin for his ethics, his positive and engaging attitude, and his careful approach to his work, which doesn’t include snap decisions.
“He works at it,” said Blum.
He added that he gets no complaints about Martin. “People like being in front of him.”
Martin also is generous with his time. The day before he was due to retire, Martin stopped what he was doing to help Judge Crone – himself back from vacation – with 120 cases.
“That’s always been the attitude, always willing to help,” said Blum of Martin.
Blum added of Martin, “He’s not afraid to take a risk,” whether it was moving to Lake County more than 30 years ago from Southern California, going overseas to take a new job or coming back and becoming a judge. As tough as the job has been, “He’s loved it ever since,” Blum said.
Early years and coming north
Martin was born in Glendale and raised in the Granada Hills area of Los Angeles, which he recalled as being a nice place to grow up.
Part of his introduction to public service came through his father, a longtime Los Angeles firefighter.
As a youngster Martin – who had an interest in science and mathematics – had started working, first a paper route at the age of 12, and by age 15 moving into working as an orderly at a convalescent home, then later at a rifle range.
He later got a job at Technicolor when he was about 19, editing in-flight movies and handling the archives. While he liked the work, it was seasonal and left him without employment for a large part of the year.
Later, he worked in real estate before a friend brought him into a private investigation company in which he worked as a bodyguard and conducted investigations in Arizona and Southern California.
That job would lead to him being hired by star Olivia Newton-John to provide her personal protection and conduct investigations to support her business interests. She in turn introduced him to her friends, and he would work for Beatle George Harrison, singers Neil Diamond, and actor and musician Kris Kristofferson.
Within a few years, however, Martin became interested in the law, which he said he has found allows for both creativity and expression, and is a career that can be done at any age. So he entered law school at San Fernando Valley College of Law, now LaVerne University.
Brian Martin said his father met his mother, Joyce, in law school. They later married and Richard Martin adopted Brian.
When Martin later passed the bar on the first try, he decided to go into the law full-time, opening up an office with his wife in North Hollywood.
But life in Southern California was starting to wear on Martin. He said the third time that his house was burglarized he started to think he no longer wanted to live there any longer, and about a year after moving into the legal profession he would come north.
He had a friend who was a judge who traveled around the state. Martin, an outdoors enthusiast who loves to hunt, fish and camp, asked his friend about a good place to live where he could pursue those activities.
The response was to look at Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma or Napa counties, Martin said.
It was a few months later, around the end of 1980, that Martin came across a newspaper advertisement for a public defender position in what was then Lake County’s public defender’s office, he said.
He brought his family up, including son Brian, then about 9, and then-wife Joyce, to spend some time. “We all liked it,” he said, noting the beautiful lake and friendly people, and a Main Street in Lakeport that is “heartwarming for anybody.”
He applied for the job, got an interview and got the job, and then it was, “Hey, we’re moving to Lakeport.”
When he arrived, he was driving a willow green Jaguar XKE. “I really liked that car,” he said. Son Brian remembered riding to Lake County in the Jaguar.
However, the car wasn’t best suited to life in Lake County. “So I traded it in for a truck,” Richard Martin said.
New opportunities
In his new job, Martin handled misdemeanors in the public defender’s office, which at that time was located in the main courtroom of the old courthouse, now the Historic Courthouse Museum in downtown Lakeport. His office was off the main courtroom, and had a little balcony.
A year later, the Board of Supervisors was talking about abolishing the public defender’s office, which it eventually did.
Crone, then the district attorney, called Martin over for a meeting. Crone liked Martin’s work and said there was an opening in his office. Betty Irwin had won a judge’s seat and so Martin succeeded her at the district attorney’s office.
Martin was with the District Attorney’s Office until 1985, then he went to work for the law practice owned by Fred Crump and Bruce Bruchler, where he stayed for a year before going out into private practice on his own.
In 1988 he ran for judge against Art Mann, who would win the contest. The following year, Martin returned to the District Attorney’s Office, explaining that he had missed the work. That’s when he and Blum became friends.
Martin remained a deputy district attorney there until 1996, when he left to take the attorney general’s job on the island of Kosrae, located in the Federated States of Micronesia in the Pacific.
He and wife Charlotte recalled Micronesia as a beautiful place, noting that going there was like visiting the United States in the 1700s. “It was a forming nation,” he said.
During his two years there, he hired Andrew and Debra Blum who moved over a few months before he left. Debra Blum would act as assistant attorney general and Andrew Blum became the attorney for the legislature before succeeding Martin in the attorney general’s job.
During their time there, Blum said he and Martin owned a fishing boat together, and would fish for tuna and go snorkeling.
The Martins had maintained their connections in Lake County and on the North Coast, so when they decided to return Richard Martin quickly found a job in Mendocino County, hired by the late Norman Vroman, then Mendocino County’s district attorney.
When asked about some of the challenging cases he’s encountered during his legal career, Martin said one that stands out is from his time in Mendocino County, a cold case for which he was profiled on the television show “Cold Case Files.”
The case involved the discovery of the remains of a young man from the East Coast, 20-year-old Jerry Sullivan, whose body was discovered in September 1975 near Navarro.
A cigarette butt had been found near the body, and it was preserved for years. The development of DNA analysis would allow that cigarette butt to help identify the killer, Robert Vaughn, then in prison for another murder. Vaughn confessed to detectives during an interview in prison.
Martin remembered the sentencing, where four of Sullivan’s friends came to speak about what he had meant to them. They included high-powered executives, a pilot and a fire captain.
All of them testified about how they had wanted to be like Sullivan, with one of them bringing his baseball mitt, that he had cherished for years.
“That was a really impactful case,” said Martin, noting that even he shed tears at that heart-rending hearing.
Martin remained in Vroman’s office, working as assistant district attorney, until he became judge.
Vroman encouraged him to apply for the judge’s job, and was on hand for Martin’s swearing-in, wearing a white suit, cane in hand. Martin recalled Vroman fondly, noting he was an unusual man. “He said exactly what was on his mind.”
The process of becoming a judge through the gubernatorial appointment process was an arduous one that began simply enough – with a letter of interest Martin submitted to the Governor’s Office, which called and asked him to apply.
From that point on, it became a good deal more complicated, he said.
“The paperwork is this thick,” he said holding his fingers 2 inches apart.
He had to give the 10 most significant cases he had done, include the names of opposing attorneys and judges on those cases. He also had to provide a list of 75 references, which the state would augment with another 75 references it would come up with on its own. Martin said he spent two to three days putting together his application.
Once he passed the initial vetting, he was interviewed by the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, also known as the JNI Commission, which included 34 people.
The commission sent out letters to attorneys in the area to inquire about Martin. “Whatever you have done to someone comes up,” he said. “It's very rigorous. There isn't much they don't know about you.”
About a month after the interview with the JNI Commission, he received a letter saying he had passed that part of the process.
He then had an interview with John Davies, Gov. Schwarzenegger’s judicial appointments advisor, which Martin recalled as one of the most friendly interviews he had ever had.
Davies asked him which county he preferred – Lake or Mendocino – as they needed judges in both. Martin chose Lake.
Then, in June 2005, while he was stopped in Benbow during a trip with Charlotte in their motorhome, Martin received a call from the governor’s office, notifying him of his appointment.
He would be sworn in the following month as many former and current judges looked on.
Brian Martin said it was great to watch his father’s legal career and how it culminated in him taking the bench.
At the same time, his father supported his career in law enforcement. “I think he would have liked me to go to law school, but that wasn’t in the cards for me,” he said, laughing.
A steep learning curve
Getting to work in his new job, Martin said he enjoyed the challenge, which helped him confront a learning curve that he said is “straight up.”
“There was a lot more work there than I expected,” he said, noting that there are too few judges for all of the caseload that the local courts need to accomplish.
New judges often find themselves facing a stack of case files. Blum said Martin handled about 140 cases the first day on the job as a judge in Lake County’s busy court.
“I had the same experience when I first became a judge,” said Blum, who explained that the reality for Lake County’s judges is different from the larger counties, where there are sometimes hundreds of judges.
“We have higher caseloads than most major counties,” said Blum.
Blum said he went to an orientation for new judges three months after he took the bench. When they each shared their caseloads, Blum described working on serious felony cases. He said a judge from Los Angeles County said he wouldn’t get such cases for 10 years. Blum said that’s because judges in larger counties tend to start off with misdemeanor cases.
“Here you just get thrown into the deep end,” Blum said.
Martin said he also enjoyed the broad range of cases and accompanying challenges, which always requires that a judge be on their toes. “You never know what's going to come up.”
Attorneys represent specific clients. “As a judge you have no entry into the game, so to speak,” and you don’t take sides, he said.
“There’s a fine line between winning and resolving the case,” he said, explaining that it’s necessary to look at what is in the best interests of those involved.
“I do go in open-minded,” he said. He’s adopted the discipline of not making a decision until he’s heard all sides. “It gives everybody an even start and that's the way it should be.”
In all cases, he was mindful of the stresses on everyone involved. “Somebody’s life is on the line.”
He recalled telling one man in a potential marriage dissolution to go and get counseling. Some years later, that man would come up to him on the street and shake his hand, telling him that his advice had helped save the man’s marriage.
Brian Martin said his father has always looked out for the victims in the system to make sure they have a voice.
From that, one of the key lessons his father taught him was how to treat others.
“He’s always set an example for me in treating people with respect,” he said.
As part of that effort to help those who need extra help or protection, Richard Martin has played an important part in creating and building programs the courts offer to address community challenges.
That includes the dependency drug/family treatment court, formed several years ago to serve children whose parents or family members neglected them due to drug and alcohol issues.
Laura Solis, the county’s former Alcohol and Other Drug Services director, talked him into going to a seminar at Konocti Harbor Resort several years ago on the dependency drug court topic, later added to the Lake County Superior Court.
“It has been really successful, and that really feels good,” Martin said.
The program has helped break chains of dependency and behavior, and put families back together, with parents who were having trouble with the law required to go through a program. He said there is no sentencing that he can impose on them other than to take away their children.
Martin said he tells people who go through the program that the reason they are there is that people want to help them. That, he said, helps change their life.
Those who graduate from the program are sent to Judge Stephen Hedstrom, where he considers a report written on their improvements written by AODS, Martin said.
Generally, completing the program is the only way for them to get their children back. “Boy, is it effective,” said Martin.
Martin said he’s seen the difference personally in many of the people who have passed through the program. He’s encountered them around town, now holding down jobs and spending time with their families, including going to Little League games.
“We’ve had a lot of them graduate, and they don't come back,” he said.
Martin also was part of creating the Veterans Court, which offers veterans who find themselves in the criminal courts an opportunity to address not just their legal problems but also health, addiction and mental health issues.
He would later hand the program off. Commissioner Vincent Lechowick handled it before retiring. Commissioner Doug Thiele now presides over the Veterans Court as well as drug court.
Some people don’t want to be better. “But that’s the minority,” Martin said.
After about a month or two of treatment of these programs, people who stick with the program start getting it. He said they also have counselors to help them.
The programs remain important to Martin, and he got a sense of how important they are to others as well.
At his May retirement party, he was approached by a little boy who shook his hand and told him, “Thank you for helping my mama.”
Selecting a successor
Blum, who before becoming a judge prosecuted judges for misconduct for the Commission on Judicial Performance, said he’s seen courts where the various judges were at each other's’ throats.
“It is absolutely critical” that all of the judges in Lake County work together, and that’s the case, he said.
“We have been very fortunate here in Lake County, all the judges are conscientious, hard workers, they get along,” and there are no big egos, said Blum.
Martin added to the positive atmosphere through his collegial, professional approach, Blum said, adding that Martin also is logical, completely ethical and trustworthy. “He’s just easy to work with.”
Blum said Martin had to make adjustments since his son was elected sheriff in 2014, including addressing potential legal conflicts.
However, as Blum pointed out, “Conflicts are common in a small county,” noting that the local judges are active in their community and tend to be well known. They can’t go to the store without being spotted. “Judges in the big counties are anonymous.”
While Martin’s last official day on the job was May 31, he’s been back sitting on cases for several weeks, handling some cases that he still had under review, Blum said.
“He was out of the courthouse for one week and then he was back,” Blum noted with a laugh.
Blum said Martin is now in the assigned judges program, which means he can serve on a part-time basis along with other retired judges, including Crone, Richard Freeborn, David Herrick and Art Mann, all of whom provide much-needed additional service in the local courts, alongside Blum, Hedstrom and Judge Michael Lunas.
As presiding judge, Blum said he’s been getting updates from the Governor’s Office on the process to select Martin’s successor, as is common practice.
In cases like Martin’s, where a retirement occurs when it isn’t an election year, the Governor’s Office will make the appointment. The person selected will then run in the next election. Judges hold six-year terms.
Blum said two applicants are being considered. One of them already has gone through the JNE Commission’s vetting process, and the second is going through the process now, which he said takes 90 days.
Once it’s past the JNE Commission, it’s up to the governor, he said.
Blum, who himself was appointed by then Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2010 to succeed Mann, said the process that led to his appointment took about 10 months. However, he said that time frame can vary widely, pointing out that Humboldt County just has a judge’s vacancy filled after a year and a half.
“We’re hoping to have someone by the end of the year,” he said.
Blum said he will miss having Martin as a full-time judge, describing how much he appreciated sitting with him and discussing cases and issues.
It’s likely that Martin will stay busy, even in retirement.
He and Charlotte, accompanied by their tiny Chihuahua Marcy, have already taken trips to the coast in their motorhome and plan more getaways.
Plus, there are plenty of projects he has around his ranch in Lakeport, which he’ll now have time to do without stacks of case files waiting for his attention.
“He doesn’t sit around much,” said son Brian, who noted that he’s not surprised his father came back so quickly as a part-time judge because he’s always been a hard worker.
He added of his father, “He’s put his time in and he’s still not done.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.