District Court Judge Enjoys Retirement After 18 Years
Former District Court Judge James Gleason was enjoying 75-degree weather in Florida while his former co-workers back in Omaha were shivering their way through another week of single digit temperatures less than a week after his retirement at the end of January.
Gleason, for his part, might have been rubbing it in a little bit.
“Oh, he enjoys doing that,” said friend and fellow District Court Judge Horacio Wheelock. “That is a man who is enjoying his retirement.”
After 18 years on the bench, Gleason feels “liberated” and plans to spend at least some of his newly free time traveling across Europe with his wife, once it’s safe to do so.
“In my age bracket, my wife has already got her vaccination,” Gleason said. “I’m in line to get it, so we’re planning on doing a lot of traveling. We’ve been to Europe many times and we love it, love the people, love the cultures. We just love to travel.”
Before being appointed to the bench in 2003 by Gov. Mike Johannes, Gleason worked in private practice. He enjoyed his time as a trial lawyer, arguing cases in front of judge and jury, and it was during this time that he first aspired to a judgeship of his own.
“I practiced in front of an awful lot of judges,” Gleason said. “Many of them were good. And I thought that I could do equally as well.”
As a judge, Gleason saw each case as a new intellectual challenge.
“It’s a puzzle in which all the pieces are square,” Gleason said. “And the pieces never end up being all black or all white. There are nuances and shades of difference in the texture of each piece and the job of the judge, then, is to fit all of the pieces together where they will fit correctly. It’s a fascinating exercise most of the time.”
Gleason made headlines in 2015 when he decided to ban law enforcement officers’ guns in his courtroom.
“The only people allowed to carry weapons in the courtroom that I sat in were the deputy sheriffs tasked with the protection of the judges in the courthouse – nobody else,” Gleason said.
If an officer was called to testify, Gleason had them lock their weapons in a gun safe in his chambers before entering his courtroom. Gleason saw it mainly as a safety issue, but he was also aware that “an officer testifying in a criminal matter in uniform has an unfair advantage” over the defendant due to the authority the uniform commands, “and carrying a weapon just reinforces that advantage.”
Perhaps the most challenging, and most rewarding, cases that Gleason oversaw were the ones through the Douglas County Veterans Treatment Court, which is a problem-solving court for military veterans who are charged with felonies and who have been diagnosed with substance abuse or mental health issues.
Gleason took over as the primary judge of the veterans court in 2018 after the sudden death of Judge Mark Ashford, with whom he had started the court in 2016.
“Most of the veterans become involved with the criminal justice system usually because of issues that arose out of their service,” such as post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, Gleason said.
“They’re dealing with it without getting help, so they self-medicate,” he said. “The veteran completes the treatment program, which is lengthy and difficult, and if they do it successfully, the charges are dropped.”
Gleason points out that since the program’s inception, the court has not had a single recidivist.
With Gleason’s retirement, Wheelock has taken over as primary judge of the veterans court.
“I honestly learned a ton from Judge Gleason,” Wheelock said, “Not only was he a mentor, but he was a friend, he is a friend, and he is somebody whose company I enjoyed tremendously and who I miss dearly.”
Despite being glad to have retired, Gleason knows that he is going to miss going to the courthouse and seeing the people he spent so much time with.
“The lawyers, the fellow judges, the staff,” Gleason said. “I had the pleasure of working with wonderful judges and excellent staff and I’ll miss that. And I’ll miss the camaraderie of lawyers. They’re a fascinating breed.”
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