NORWICH – America thrives on the dream of social mobility, that anyone who works hard enough can pull themselves up from poverty through determination and chance. One’s luck will often prevail if their convictions hold steady.
One of the only members of his family to attend college, New York State Supreme Court Justice Kevin M. Dowd has been a judge for the past 23 years and his ascent represents an embodiment to those founding inspirations.
“I think public service is a very high calling and the judgeship is to me the highest principle of that,” Dowd said.
One of nine children from a large Irish Catholic family that was trapped in poor economic circumstances and led by a father who struggled with a drinking problem, Dowd was elected into judicial service at the relatively young age of 36.
Dowd became a Supreme Court Justice in 1999 after serving as Chenango’s County, Family and Surrogate Court judge since 1986.
“The joke that gets told in my family is that I was the only Dowd ever to pass the bar – the rest stopped to have a drink,” laughed the judge.
Growing up as a shy child, Dowd learned to confront his anxieties. He said he always wanted to be a lawyer, but didn’t think he could be a criminal lawyer or a judge due to a fear of public speaking.
Today, the well-known judge often uses his quick wit and sense of humor to ease tensions in the courtroom, speaking directly to attorneys and defendants even in the face of political correctness or social norms.
“Shy kids, I think by nature, become good observers. Honestly, I still get nervous when I walk out to the bench. I deal with it through humor,” he said. “This job is a lot of fun. Where else can you get a crowd of people to stand up every time a man wearing a dress walks into the room?”
Dowd credits his ascent to “a legacy of inspiration” involving a number of influential and interested legal professionals who urged and guided him along his career path. “I’ve yet to meet the self-made man,” he said. “I’m really not some brilliant scholar; I’m just lucky.”
Dowd grew up in Massapequa, Long Island before attending SUNY Cortland where he received a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and history. He earned his juris doctor degree in 1974 at the College of William and Mary Marshall-Wythe School of Law.
He began his public service in Chenango County in 1977 as an assistant district attorney and then as district attorney in 1980.
In 1971, he married his wife, Dawn, who was a first grade teacher at Sherburne-Earlville Elementary School. The couple have been together for 37 “wonderful years,” Dowd said. “Let me tell you something about women,” he advised. “They civilize men.”
Since January, the Chenango County Supreme Court has assumed the duty of a full time criminal court because of a backlog of family court cases. Dowd will be the criminal court “fill in” for County Court Judge W. Howard Sullivan through 2009 when the system is supposed to catch back up.
“I like Chenango County. Being in upstate New York we can cut through a lot of red tape. Unlike metropolitan bureaucracies, it’s more about the people,” the judge said.
“I miss being a county court judge and wonder if I might be able to go back to it sometimes. After becoming the supreme court judge, you get treated like you’re the ‘Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz’ or something. The contact you had with people as a county judge just isn’t there anymore,” he said.
“I like people and I love family court. That’s really the people’s court, in my opinion. I think Chenango County is fortunate to have two judges (Sullivan and Dowd) who love what they’re doing.”
The judge has a very specific view of how an independent judiciary should behave and believes in the traditional philosophy that judges themselves should lead by example. “I think your life is about integrity,” he said.
Dowd serves the faculty of New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics. The committee deals with ethical problems facing the state’s judiciary. He discourages the idea of a judge making a ruling based on consensus from “this department or that department.”
“Every time in my life where I have gone against my own set of principles, I have regretted it. I try to make reasonable decisions based on law and practicality rather than personal spite or the litany of other motivations you might come up with. ... (I try) to follow the law and not your predilections or prejudices,” he said.
Part of being a judge, in Dowd’s view, is upholding the system’s integrity through “fairness and consistency.”
“As a judge, you have to give people a belief in a fair system - not that they’ll agree with your decision, but that they’ll receive their fair day in court. It is absolutely necessary for our judiciary system that people believe in it for it to work. Every time a person steps into a courtroom they should have the same feeling they get when they step into church. A courthouse is like a judicial cathedral and when you’re in it, people should feel as if there’s something greater than themselves at work ... the law.”
The judge encourages debate and believes in embracing controversy because there should always be a healthy balance of tension in the law.
“I’m a big believer in holding people accountable and I don’t think protecting people’s rights is controversial. We have to protect people from the incredibly awesome power of the state. A healthy distrust of one’s government is what this country was founded upon and it’s something, I think, people seemed to have forgotten. I certainly distrust government even though I work for it. It’s not your friend.”
While the judge is critical of the system he loves, he stresses: “The law is essentially the frame work for our civilization.”