Thomas Merryman Retires As Superior Court Judge A Stickler For Rules, Procedures, Judge Steps Down After 18 Years

The Spokane County judge who recently handed out the state’s toughest drunken driving penalty retired Friday.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Merryman wrapped up 18 years on the bench, passing the position on to new judge Sam Cozza.

Although regarded by his colleagues as the quintessential gentleman lawyer, the 64-year-old Merryman had moments when he became the very figure of stern justice.

James Barstad certainly found Merryman tough enough last month. Barstad was convicted of first-degree murder after driving drunk at high speed through a Spokane intersection and killing two people.

Despite pleas by Barstad that he was a changed man, Merryman dealt him a 50-year sentence.

“It was not an easy decision,” Merryman said this week.

Emotions in the community ran high over the case, with TV stations regularly rerunning footage showing a drunken Barstad cursing at the crash scene. Merryman said he put aside personal feelings and focused only on legal issues when he sentenced Barstad.

Barstad was the first person in Washington state facing first-degree murder charges for killing a person with his vehicle.

Merryman made sure the trial was just another courtroom proceeding, with himself at the controls.

“My main goal has always been that each person gets fair and equal consideration,” said Merryman. “That means treating everybody with respect.”

Some Spokane attorneys might not agree. Lawyers have felt Merryman’s verbal jabs when they’ve come to his courtroom unprepared.

Before he became a judge in 1979, Merryman served for seven years as a Superior Court commissioner. Much of the time he heard uncontested actions such as restraint petitions, adoption filings or other routine matters.

Merryman’s reputation as a stickler hadn’t made its way to most Spokane lawyers yet, said Superior Court Judge Robert Austin, himself an attorney at the time.

One day, Austin spotted a group of attorneys waiting to go into Merryman’s courtroom.

“Then I saw several of them coming out of his room, looking defeated. He was refusing their motions for one reason or another,” said Austin.

“They hadn’t done it right. And Tom wasn’t going to do it for them, and he told them so.”

After a dozen rejections, one attorney burst from the court and shouted to the others: “He approved it!” - that day’s winner of the Merryman award for following rules.

“Yeah,” laughed Merryman when hearing the story. “I told them when they did it wrong. I made them redo it.”

Growing up in Tennessee, Merryman dreamed of becoming an FBI agent because he saw the agency as the ultimate in law enforcement. But after taking pre-law classes during a stint in the Navy, he decided he preferred the challenge of analyzing legal issues. He got his law degree in 1960 from Gonzaga University, then went into private practice in Richland and later Spokane.

He was picked by former Gov. Dixy Lee Ray to fill a vacancy on Spokane County’s Superior Court in 1979. Back then the job paid $39,000 a year. Today, the salary is $99,000 a year. The work load has increased easily as much, Merryman said.

“Judges really now don’t have the time they’d like to keep up with the changes in the law,” he said. “All that research takes time, but with the added work we have here, you do the best you can.”

Merryman said he models his work ethic after Ralph Foley, father of the former U.S. House speaker and a distinguished Spokane County judge up through the 1960s.

“He was a true gentleman on the bench,” Merryman said.

Merryman plans to serve as a retired pro-tem judge who’ll handle cases part-time when the court is overloaded.

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