Retiring Hennepin County judge was no shrinking violet in court

It was the fall of 1984, and Hennepin County District Judge Charles Porter Jr. wasn't sending this defendant to prison quietly.

John Clark Donahue, the lauded founder of the Minneapolis Children's Theatre Company, had been convicted of molesting three boys at the school. During his sentencing, Porter questioned whether some parents might have turned a blind eye to the warning signs.

It was a bold thing to say, and Porter took a lot of heat from the arts community. But as he reflected last week on the case -- one of the most memorable in his career as a judge -- he doesn't regret it.

"Not a bit," he said, the indignation still in his voice. "Because I was right."

As Porter, 66, Minnesota's most senior judge, retires Tuesday after 31 years on the bench, he will be remembered not only for deft handling of difficult, high-profile cases and his sometimes hot temper, but for his dedication to fairness, and perhaps most important, for a backbone of steel.

"You don't do it because you don't care," said Hennepin County Court Administrator Mark Thompson, who worked with Porter for 15 years. "It was about taking it to the higher ground."

Porter, a Chicago native and 1970 University of Minnesota law school graduate, worked as a U.S. Air Force judge advocate for six years and practiced civil law for about six years in Minneapolis before being appointed a judge in 1980. He remained in the U.S. Navy Reserve 25 years before his 2003 retirement.

He's also known as an innovator who helped to streamline the court system in a time of diminishing resources.

He presided over the 1986 case in which gang member John Scruggs was convicted of first-degree murder for engineering the death of 16-year-old Christine Kreitz, whom Scruggs had suspected of disloyalty. The highly publicized case brought attention, for the first time, to Minneapolis' gang culture.

In 2008, he found gang member Myon Burrell guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison for the slaying of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards, shot in the heart by Burrell's errant bullet as she did homework at the kitchen table.

Both slayings were "senseless," Porter said.

"We now have generations that are absolutely without hope," he said.

Ruling in the Craig case

In 2007, Porter temporarily became the most-watched judge in the nation when attorneys for former U.S. Sen. Larry Craig sought to withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct following his arrest in an airport men's bathroom sex sting.

Porter let the conviction stand, writing that Craig was "a career politician with a college education" and is "of, at least, above-average intelligence. He knew what he was saying, reading and signing."

Porter's career hasn't been without controversy.

He was twice reprimanded by the Minnesota Board on Judicial Standards for commenting to reporters about pending cases.

In reelection races, his temper was an issue more than once. But without passion, Porter says, where would he be?

"I feel strongly about the things I feel strongly about," he said.

"I am not slow to anger, and I am not of the type where you know what I'm going to do at any given time."

Although he officially retires Tuesday, Porter will be back at work presiding as a retired judge over specialty courts, including Veterans Court and Criminal Mental Health Court. He'll work half-days three to four days a week.

Porter says he hasn't given "a moment's thought" to his legacy. He thinks aloud about what a friend once told him about being the "resident curmudgeon," an aggressive historian of sorts.

"I've been a huge part of change," he said.

"I'm the institutional memory, because I was there when it happened."