Long-serving judge to retire

HARRISBURG - Commonwealth Court Judge James Gardner Colins, the longest-serving judge in the 37-year history of the court, will step down in January to devote himself to defending judicial independence, he said.

Colins, 61, said that after 23 years on the Commonwealth Court and four years on Philadelphia Municipal Court, it was "time to move on."

In an interview yesterday, Colins said he looked forward to taking up the cause of what he said was an "increasing threat to the independence of the judiciary."

"I have never observed the level of specious political attacks on the judiciary by special interest groups that now exists," he said in his resignation letter to Gov. Rendell on Tuesday.

Colins said he would resign effective Jan. 7, 2008.

He said he felt he had accomplished the goals he set during his two five-year terms as president judge, in charge of the statewide Appellate Court, its 124 employees, and $16 million budget.

Among Colins' achievements: building a new judicial center in Harrisburg, upgrading the computer and technology systems in the courts, and reducing the backlog of appellate cases.

Rendell, whose friendship with Colins dates to their undergraduate days at the University of Pennsylvania, praised him as "extraordinarily well suited for his seat on the Commonwealth Court."

"He was a jurist not afraid to break new ground and his courage should serve as an example to us all," he said.

Colins said that with one of his children in college and another in law school, financial considerations also played a role in his decision to leave the $164,000-a-year job.

"I'd be disingenuous to say that, amongst other things, I'd be in a better financial situation," said Colins, who indicated he likely would go into private law practice.

Colins' resignation comes amid lingering public criticism of the state courts, driven in large part by the role Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ralph Cappy played in the controversial pay raise of 2005.

Cappy incurred the wrath of many by advocating through the legislature pay raises for judges.

Cappy's action, widely perceived as having blurred the boundaries that separate the branches of government, spurred a campaign to defeat all jurists seeking to retain their seats.

Colins said he was disturbed by the negativism over the pay raise and the campaign to throw judges "out on the street" when [the issue] doesn't pertain to them.

On the positive side, he said, the increased attention had encouraged newspapers to endorse judges for the first time.

"I think that's healthy," he said.

He said he would write articles and make speeches to respond to what he said were the growing number of attacks on the judiciary.

During his tenure on the court, which was established in 1970 exclusively to handle cases involving governmental entities and elections, Colins, a Democrat, wrote majority opinions in several significant voter-fraud and vote-count cases.

In 2006, he ruled against the Democratic Party seeking to stop the hand count in a state House race in Chester County. In a 2004 opinion, later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, he ordered Ralph Nader off the Pennsylvania ballot after finding that fewer than half of the 51,273 names on his petition were valid, and that some were fictitious. Colins called it "the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated on this court," a charge Nader disputed as "slanderous."

During his tenure on the Commonwealth Court, Colins served for five years on the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board - two of them as chairman - the state agency responsible for investigating complaints of misconduct against judges.

Before he was elected to Commonwealth Court in 1984, Colins was a judge on the Philadelphia Municipal Court.

In the mid-1970s, he was an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia under U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter.

A spokesman for Rendell said the governor would appoint a successor to Colins to serve until voters select a replacement in November 2009.

Read Colins' letter of resignation and his biography at http://go.philly.com/colinsEndText