The history of Sonoma County Courts, 1920-2011 : Judges Hilliard Comstock and Donald Geary, Sonoma County judges ; recorded August 2012

how many judges were in each? Yeah, there were two Superior Court judges. Hilliard comstock in department two and Donald Gary in Department one and Judge Gary had the criminal uh cases and judge comstock had juvenile court and probate. And and then the two of them uh

did whatever civil cases there were um the there was no municipal court at that time. Uh There were there was a string of justice courts, justice justices of the peace. And that was interesting because most of them, almost all of them were not trained in the

law at all. Uh jess Robertson and Granville ran a garage and uh Petaluma who's a mortician. And and there were police courts in Healdsburg. And and uh Petaluma and Ernie du Lac who was a retired policeman, was the judge of the police court. My

father actually worked for bank for a while. Uh he's Gardner, my father was, let's see 15 years old when he moved out here and he somehow became acquainted with um a man and a lawyer named James W. O. A. T. E. S. And ended up studying

law under Colonel Oates who was a southern gentleman. In fact, Colonel Oates was reputed to have have having killed some day in a duel. I'm not sure about that, but my dad studied under Colonel Oates and Took the bar and passed, it was 21 years old.

Uh in those days it was an oral exam before the Supreme Court and I think he said they asked him three questions. My dad never went to school. Um well not exactly, but my grandmother didn't agree, approve of public schools. Yes, they were beneath beneath the

constructs, I don't know. Anyway, she educated all the kids. Uh except that when my dad was, you know in France after World War Two during World War One, I mean, and somehow he was able to get a semester at Oxford University and I don't know how

he finagled that, but he was uh enrolled at Oriel College at Oxford. I've seen it, I didn't see his name on it anywhere, but uh that's the only formal education he ever had, and that was long after he became a lawyer. Yeah. Now I know um

you see your dad came over here when he was 15. And do you know when that was 197, Let's say 1907, Okay. And okay, that's close enough. And uh so he became a lawyer. And do you know anything about his history as a lawyer before he

became a judge, he became a judge when I was two years old, uh enjoyed presiding, he enjoyed being the presiding judge, and he was always the presiding judge. They didn't rotate, he lived just a mile down the street, he was able to stroll down fourth Mendocino

Avenue across fourth street to go to work and say hello to every, every person on the street, everybody knew him, he knew everybody. Mhm. He worked hard, A lot of people used to ask me if I I'm not a judge. And I said first of all

nobody ever asked me. Second of all I think the job to to restricting. My dad worked till six o'clock every evening. If a lawyer wanted an order signed at 5 30 on friday night he got it signed. Uh huh. And he worked and can't remember working

nights before he could go off on his vacation to get his work in order because there was only two judges uh is what I think they were getting a month's vacation those days which was nice. But um he his interest for rifle shooting in duck hunting

and fishing. And he he had organized his vacations to include things like that. Did your dad get along with Judge Geary? Oh yeah they were old old friends. I have a thing out in the garage I pulled out the other day that has a picture of

uh into federal, pictures of whole heck of a lot of uh who were in World War One and my dad and said carrier on that. And you'd be surprised lawyers, Lg Hitchcock and Clarendon Anderson and Well there's probably 20 lawyers on there. You'd recognize that have

the breaches of the camp. Yeah yeah yeah. They were probably only company that was in that regard outfit that was in Santa Rosa. And my dad was the commander that when they went to europe. He also served on the mexican border in that company, Jason around

uh new palace or somewhere down there. Uh Well he had a mane of silver air and he lived on the corn suck houses on Mancino across the old from mid house. Ah And he would walk with his cane diamonds you know to the intersection of college

and then down street further all the way to the courthouse every day that it wasn't raining. How do you how do you do? Hello judge, How do you do? I mean it was like yeah caesar and he conducted his cord through the same way. Yeah. To

give you an example. My very first Superior Court trial by myself was missed was a felony marijuana case with paul judas e with the prosecutor. So he was being tried and you want to testify? So go right ahead. So he makes the sign of the cross.

He's got a bible in his hand. It gets up starts testifying and he says they planted it, they planned it. What do you mean? Well I'm sitting in this guy's office dutch for his office looking out the window, in the courtyard parking lot there between the

buildings. And I saw him searching my car and they set up the trunk and he found my lunch box in there lunch pail. And this big guy that's for grab something someplace okay? And stuffed it into my favorite bottle. At which point Hilliard says, are you

telling this jury that our Chief of police stuck marijuana in your thermos bottle. Yes sir, I am no front row is that's floor. Uh Judge comstock uh which is a good student of the law and they let you know it. Uh And uh he had a

habit of taking over a case uh which in my early years was wonderful because I didn't know how to do it and he would question the witnesses and especially if he I felt the case ought to go one way or another and that the lawyer wasn't

doing a job that was on the side that he liked, he would just take it over. And Leroy, one of us got so mad at him that he refused to appear in judge com stocks court because Judge Comstock would take the case away from Leroy. Yeah,

I grew up hearing stories about a lot of the judges uh that preceded uh the judges I started with and my father's favorite judge was Donald Geary Bill's father. And I used to hear hilarious stories about Donald Gary things like he'd be up in his chambers,

the same chambers where man took over and he had he'd opened the window and he dropped water bombs on people and stuff like that stuff that kids would really like, you know, and um there were two judges um that I heard a lot about and they

were I guess they were the only only superior court judge at the time, that would be Hilliard comstock. And uh Judge Gary. My father and Judge Gary were best friends. They loved each other. Uh Yeah that was Judge Gary in department one judge comstock and department

too. Do you remember you remember when you first had to go to court assumed before you took your your office as justice of the peace? Oh yeah, I went up a court to santa rosa of course. And I think the first case I did was the

usual default divorce, you know? Yeah. And uh oh yeah there was no trouble and Gary was a bear, you know in the default divorce. And at that time you had to have a corroborating witness, which was difficult because most corroborating witnesses would say, well yeah, I

knew that zone show was a bum or whatever, but you know when he was around me, they were always on their best behavior and so on and Judge Gary would lean over and say counsel, can you prove extreme cruel piece? And I would of course say

yes your honor. And he'd say proceed. And one day I was not too long after that I was, they're doing an uncontested divorce with judge yuri and my lady corroborating witness wasn't doing very well and he leaned over to me and he says counsel, I'm declaring

a 10 minute recess and you go outside and coach your witness. Uh and then because I didn't know what to do when judge Gary handle the criminal calendar and the justice court was essentially petty criminal stuff, drunk driving and so on. I would go up to

judge jury and ask him how to do things. And he sort of took me under his wing, as did judge comstock with the probate and I learned a great deal from them and judge jury called me the delegate from the Elephant's graveyard. Even at that time,

Sonoma was a retirement community.