When David Dudley Dowd Jr. first became a federal judge, he inherited a backlog of cases.
His solution was to try two cases at the same time, one in the morning and another in the afternoon.
The backlog soon disappeared and Judge Dowd earned his courtroom the nickname “Rocket Docket.”
“No other federal judge that I know has ever done that,” said Canton attorney Ron Dougherty, Judge Dowd’s longtime friend.
Judge Dowd, 87, died Thursday morning, saddening Dougherty and many others in the Akron-Canton area who routinely use words like “brilliant” to describe the retired judge who spent 32 years on the bench.
Judge Dowd, who had been in hospice, was with family in Florida when he passed away, according to an email sent Thursday morning to U.S. District Court staff from the clerk’s office.
President Ronald Reagan appointed Judge Dowd to the federal bench in Akron in August 1982, replacing Judge Leroy J. Contie Jr.
Judge Dowd retired in July 2014.
“I’ve been very, very fortunate to last as long as I have,” Judge Dowd told the Beacon Journal at the time. “This is a marvelous job.”
Summit County Common Pleas Court Judge Todd McKenney, who clerked for Judge Dowd twice, said the former judge’s love for the job was infectious. He recently wrote to Judge Dowd and told him it is because of him that he enjoys his job so much.
“He loved being a judge,” McKenney said. “He really did.”
McKenney recalled sitting in on many pretrials with Judge Dowd and how fair he was.
“He really believed his job as a judge was to decide the legal issues entrusted to him,” McKenney said. “He really lived out his oath to do equal justice to both sides.”
J. Dean Carro, a retired emeritus professor of the University of Akron law school, recalls Judge Dowd challenging him as a young lawyer. He said he once said to Judge Dowd, “I wish you’d appoint me to a case that had law on the matter.”
Judge Dowd responded: “You should be thanking me. I’m giving you a rare opportunity to make law.”
“He cared about me enough to give me those cases,” Carro said.
Carro said Judge Dowd showed compassion for the attorneys and the defendants before him. Carro once represented a man who had blown up a bar, exploding glass onto patrons’ faces. He said Judge Dowd sentenced the man to prison, had him serve some time and then released him. He said the judge realized the man had changed and wasn’t the same person who made that rash and bad decision.
“He did that all the time,” Carro said.
Carro said Judge Dowd was humble and often didn’t seek or take credit for things he did. Judge Dowd, for example, created a scholarship at the University of Akron in the name of his late father, also an attorney. The judge worked behind the scenes to start the process for a much-needed new jail for Stark County.
“That was Judge Dowd,” Carro said. “Whatever needed to be done, he did it.”
Carro recently heard about Judge Dowd being ill and sent him a letter, telling him how much he meant to him.
Dougherty went a step further and flew to Florida on Monday to see his old friend. He said the two of them talked for three hours.
“I’m glad I flew down there,” Dougherty said.
Judge Dowd, a Stark County native, will have a memorial service in Massillon. Details are still being finalized.
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705 or swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @swarsmithabj and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/swarsmith.