RETIRING IN 2022: In final year in office, Doerr recalls decades as judge
Judge Thomas Doerr issued a personal decision this week: Three decades on the bench will be enough.
He's looking forward to retiring — going by his first name and dropping the sometimes detached official persona that judges must assume.
The 65-year-old has served as Butler County president judge since 2001.
Common pleas judges are elected to 10-year terms. Doerr said his plan always has been to retire and move on to other things.
Doerr worried that if he ran for retention, he wouldn't be able to hold the position until his mid-70s, possibly leaving the county's court system without a permanent judge for some time.
He now looks forward to taking vacation when his term ends at the beginning of 2022 and possibly working as a court mediator.
“You can't be involved in politics, even though I love politics: That was tough to do,” Doerr said. “As a judge, you have to avoid appearance of any conflicts. You become very isolated from your community.”Doerr was appointed as a district judge for Butler city and township in 1986 by former Gov. Dick Thornburgh. The next year he won an election for the position against several other contenders. Since then, he's worked his way through the judicial system. He said throughout that time he hasn't taken any long vacations.“The other thing is my parents were older, and I had to work my way through school since I was 16 years old,” Doerr said. “I haven't been able to take an extended vacation. So now I want to do it while I'm still healthy.“One of the things about being a judge is you're a judge 24 hours a day.”He said that the other reason he decided to retire is out of consideration for how the state conducts elections for judges.“Pennsylvania does not have a good method to fill judges (seats) on an interim basis,” he said. “So if I sought retention, knowing I have no intention to take on the full term — and with the caseload and population of the county going up, especially having to catch up after COVID — I think it would be unfair to the county to do that,” Doerr said.
Doerr's interest in law began when he was a child, looking up to his older brother, Donald, who served as the county's district attorney in the late 1950s and early '60s.Doerr's father, J. Paul Doerr, also stirred his interest in the law and politics.“My dad had to quit school at the age of 14 because there was an economic downturn, and he went to work to support the family,” Doerr said. “But he continued education on his own and was self-taught in legal matters. He had a good understanding of the law and, within our family, that was a natural topic of discussion.”Doerr described his father as a conservative in the mold of the early 20th century. Doerr said his father's role model was Theodore Roosevelt. He supported environmental conservation and limited spending.“We recycled glass and metal,” Doerr said. “He had a clear understanding, as an avid hunter, how important it was not to pollute the Earth, not just for hunting, but to live in.”To him, the first rule of government was to reduce deficit spending.“It went up significantly under Presidents (Ronald) Reagan and (Donald) Trump,” Doerr said. “He didn't approve of increasing national debt under Reagan. But other than that, he liked him.”Doerr said that he shares many of those views.“I'm still very much the product of his political views,” he said. “I grew up internalizing and believing that. In today's age, I find fault with both parties.”
“My dad was county treasurer from the 1930s to the 1940s, and then county controller in the '60s and '70s,” Doerr said.He said that while he was a student in St. Peter Elementary School, his father was running for controller.“Instead of me taking the bus home, he would give me a street list to hand out cards and campaign information,” Doerr said. “I walked the city of Butler door-to-door when he ran. In those days, the city generally voted Democrat and the rest of the county was Republican. He was one of the few Republicans that won in the city.”After graduating from Butler Senior High School in 1974, Doerr attended the University of Pittsburgh. He graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in speech. He then went on to Capital University School of Law, from which he graduated in 1981.For the next five years, Doerr practiced mostly criminal defense in association with Michael Mamula. During this period, he often was court-appointed for defendants who could not afford a private attorney.“It was good,” Doerr said. “It was interesting.”He became district judge in 1986.“It was a very busy office,” Doerr said. “At that time, I was just happy to be at that level.”In 1991, he won election to become a Common Pleas Court judge. And he won retention elections for that position in 2001 and 2011.And, finally, he became president judge in 2000 when Judge Martin O'Brien retired.He oversaw the administration of the court until 2017, when he was sued by a probation officer.Doerr's last day will be Jan. 2, 2022.He said that as president judge, the biggest impact he had on the court was to change the way the system perceives defendants and offenders.“Philosophically, we changed the outlook of the county,” Doerr said.During his career, Doerr pushed for relying more on house arrest and pretrial supervision as a replacement to jail.“In the long run, appropriate supervision leads to a decrease in recidivism, substantially more than long-term incarceration,” he said. “Twenty years ago, that was cutting-edge. The numbers have stayed very low in Butler County. Overall, we're a safe county to live in.”
Doerr also mentioned his impact on how the county handles juvenile offenders.“In 1997, there were approximately 600 kids having petitions filed against them,” he said. “Now, it's around 200. The overwhelming majority will never get into trouble again. We developed a community approach.”And by relying less on sending juveniles to detention centers, he said they began to look at what caused the children to act out in the first place.“We developed a policy of addressing underlying factors that led to the kid getting into trouble,” Doerr said. “We didn't push kids through the system in a rush. Whatever you were charged with, we looked and tried to identify what your underlying problems were and kept you in the community for as long as we could.“As a judge, throwing the book is very easy. One of the toughest things you could do is give someone a break.”For now, Doerr is looking forward to his youngest son's graduation from high school next year and taking a vacation “somewhere warm, maybe Florida or the Caribbean.”Doerr also is excited to spend more time with his wife, Lori. “My routines and my habits?” he said. “I like to cook and my wife likes to clean. Almost everything I make is from scratch. I follow recipes from my parents. I'm looking forward to taking more time to do things. I'm the kind of person who likes to do house maintenance myself.”
