{"id":18411,"date":"2011-12-31T06:32:01","date_gmt":"2011-12-31T11:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=18411"},"modified":"2012-01-01T04:16:16","modified_gmt":"2012-01-01T09:16:16","slug":"judge-fortney-reflects-on-his-27-year-judicial-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2011\/12\/31\/judge-fortney-reflects-on-his-27-year-judicial-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Fortney reflects on judicial career"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Retiring Probate-Juvenile Court Judge Rex Fortney in his office. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By now, Rex Fortney has heard his last juvenile-related case and probated his final will. The end of the year will also be the end of a 27-year career for Rex Fortney as judge of the Van Wert County Probate-Juvenile Court.<\/p>\n

While Judge Fortney is now one of the more veteran juvenile-probate judges in the state, that wasn\u2019t the case when he began his first term in 1985. \u201cI was 34, which is fairly young for a judge,\u201d Judge Fortney said, noting that a judge has to have to have a minimum of six years experience as an attorney, which would make the minimum age for a judge the early 30s.<\/p>\n

Being a judge — or even an attorney — wasn\u2019t something Fortney planned on when he graduated from Crestview High School and went off to Bluffton College in the late 1960s. \u201cI was going to be the infamous history teacher,\u201d the judge said, noting that history is still a love of his.<\/p>\n

Judge Fortney said he was not even thinking about law school at the time. \u201cIf someone would have said \u2018thinking about law school?\u2019 I would have said \u2018no,\u2019\u201d he said, adding that he didn\u2019t feel he could afford law school, didn\u2019t have any interest in being a lawyer and didn\u2019t even know someone who was a lawyer.<\/p>\n

That changed, though, when his college advisor — who also happened to be his history professor — told him he had made him an appointment with a representative of the Ohio Northern University College of Law.<\/p>\n

It also didn\u2019t hurt that the Vietnam War was going on and Judge Fortney hadn\u2019t found a teaching job by the time law school was to start.<\/p>\n

After graduating from law school, the judge began looking for a job — something that also wasn\u2019t easy as a lawyer, since several other attorneys, including Steve Keister, Sumner E. Walters and Don Johnson, had created somewhat of an \u201cattorney glut\u201d in Van Wert the year before he passed the bar exam.<\/p>\n

He finally found work in the Putnam County community of Ottawa, where a local judge was having trouble getting attorneys to take court-appointed cases. After a brief time doing that, Fortney took a job in former local attorney Jim Childs\u2019 office. At the time, Childs\u2019 wife, Luanne, who was also an attorney, was terminally ill and Childs needed another lawyer to help with the couple\u2019s mostly estate planning practice.<\/p>\n

Fortney worked with Childs for 7 or 8 years and then was elected Van Wert law director for one four-year term. He then sat out a year before running for retiring Judge Cathryn Harrington\u2019s probate-juvenile court position.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a free pass, as Fortney had opposition in the primary from fellow Republican Steve Mansfield and then had to run a three-way race against then-Democrat Steve Gehres and Legal Aid attorney Sherry Katz, who ran as an independent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a tight race,\u201d the judge remembers, noting that he won with only 36 percent of the vote. Since then, Fortney has had no opposition when running for four more six-year terms.<\/p>\n

After his election, the new judge then spent the next six years learning the job. \u201cToday, the Ohio Supreme Court has new judges\u2019 school,\u201d Fortney explained, adding that being a judge in 1985 was strictly OJT — on the job training.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it probably took me all of that first term to develop a philosophy and learn the job,\u201d Judge Fortney said. \u201cThat was the learning curve; anytime something new came up, I had to research the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, with nearly three decades as a judge, Fortney said, while he looks at each new case \u201cwith fresh eyes,\u201d he doesn\u2019t have to look up the case law. \u201cThere\u2019s probably very little I see today that I haven\u2019t already seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean things haven\u2019t changed in his 27-year judicial career. For one thing, Judge Harrington\u2019s office didn\u2019t have computers. \u201cThey would pull out these big books and hand write judgment entries in them,\u201d Judge Fortney said with a smile.<\/p>\n

As an attorney, Fortney had his own personal computer, and he also brought a couple of staffers with him who were computer-literate, but said it took some time to develop forms and get everyone trained on computer use.<\/p>\n

Another change has been the change in formality for juvenile hearings. During Judge Harrington\u2019s 27-year tenure, juvenile cases were much more informal and hearings were often held in the judge\u2019s chambers, rather than in a formal courtroom setting.<\/p>\n

Although Judge Fortney began holding hearings in his courtroom, it was awhile before he started wearing robes in court. Today, hearings are more formal, mostly because the legal system has changed the way it looks at juvenile cases. \u201cJuveniles now have the right to an attorney and the right to remain silent,\u201d Judge Fortney said, noting that young people didn\u2019t have much in the way of constitutional rights 25 years ago.<\/p>\n

What most people don\u2019t know is juveniles still don\u2019t have the right to a jury trial, Judge Fortney said.<\/p>\n

For the most part, the judge said the cases — and the kids — weren\u2019t much different in 1985, despite the perception that young people commit more serious crimes today.<\/p>\n

Sex cases is one area that has increased dramatically over the past 27 years, Judge Fortney said, adding that he developed a special counseling program — CARE — that he said has been very successful in treating youthful sex offenders. \u201cThe younger you get sex offenders, the more success you have in treating them,\u201d the judge said, noting that he can\u2019t recall a single juvenile who has completed the CARE program who has committed another sex offense.<\/p>\n

But while there hasn\u2019t been a big change in kids, there has been a change in their parents, Judge Fortney said. \u201cThere has been a little more breakdown in the family,\u201d he noted, adding that there used to be someone in a kid\u2019s extended family — maybe a grandmother — who was religious and taught the kids right and wrong. \u201cThat\u2019s gone now,\u201d the judge said, noting that today\u2019s kids are more concerned they got caught than understanding whether what they have done is right or wrong.<\/p>\n

Still, Judge Fortney said he\u2019s pleased he hasn\u2019t had a single case of murder or even an armed robbery in 27 years in his own court.<\/p>\n

In fact, the judge\u2019s personal judicial philosophy is a simple one: don\u2019t give up on kids. \u201cThere have only been a handful of kids in 27 years that were hopeless; that I knew were going down the wrong path and we weren\u2019t going to be able to solve them,\u201d Judge Fortney added. \u201cI still see some of them in the adult criminal courts.\u201d<\/p>\n

His biggest fight, though, hasn\u2019t been over kids, but with the Van Wert County Board of Commissioners to get decent facilities.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, Judge Fortney had to sue the commissioners to get them to provide him with what he felt were adequate and secure courtroom facilities. \u201cWe tried arbitration, mediation, without success,\u201d the judge said. \u201cFinally I had to file a lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problems with the old Probate-Juvenile Courtroom, which was located in the basement of the Courthouse, was it was too small, had no security and badly needed renovating. Judge Fortney did note, though, that once the commissioners did agree to do something, they provided excellent facilities. \u201cUltimately, I got great facilities,\u201d the judge said, adding that the current court offices should be adequate for decades.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next after retirement? Judge Fortney said he and his wife, Bev, a retired kindergarten teacher, have purchased a condo near their daughter, Laura, in Florida and he also plans to do more church work — he\u2019s a lay minister — and also provide more care for his 84-year-old mother.<\/p>\n

Judge Fortney said he also has some concerns, though, about retiring, noting that there is some prestige in being a judge, as well as the feeling that he has helped kids over the years.<\/p>\n

Of course, he also feels he has something yet to contribute in the judicial area and said he would likely do some visiting judge stints down the road.<\/p>\n

But not too many; after all, he’s retired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor By now, Rex Fortney has heard his last juvenile-related case and probated his final will. The end of the year will also be the end of a 27-year career for Rex Fortney as judge of the Van Wert County Probate-Juvenile Court. While Judge Fortney is now one of the more veteran juvenile-probate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-16 08:36:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}