Oakland Tribune

By Jay B. Gaskill, former Alameda County Public Defender

Published July 24, 2003 in “My Word” Op Ed section

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Legal world, community will sorely miss Richard Iglehart

A gentle giant has passed from the scene.

Judge Richard Iglehart was honored by friends and colleagues recently in Piedmont.

Richard was much more than a jurist, former prosecutor and legal reformer. He was an authentically good man. As a trial attorney, he was that most devastatingly effective of prosecutors— because he was a thoroughly fair.

Humanity, humor, a secure sense of right and wrong, and a sense of fairness that ran to the marrow of his bones defined Richard in everything he did.

In his career, Richard Iglehart served as the number two prosecutor in three separate venues. In our county, he was the Chief Assistant DA, a position from which he influenced vital criminal justice legislation.

In the state Attorney General’s office, he served in the number two role for a former AG. At that time, I vividly remember being approached by several Deputy AG’s who told me how refreshing it was to be supervised day-to-day by such a consummate professional who was also a wonderful human being. [A real “humanoid” one of them said.]

Then Richard served for a time in San Francisco as District Attorney Terence Hallinan’s number two, which made him the day-to-day manager of that office. It was a difficult role at a difficult time, and Richard brought that office prosecutorial gravitas, management acumen, and much needed balance.

Then he returned to Alameda County, joined the Superior Court bench and began a new phase in his career.

Richard Iglehart’s most important legacy was little known outside a small circle of knowledgeable judges and professionals. Richard Iglehart saved the California drug court.

The drug court is a national institution with brilliant success record. In its current form, the drug court originated in Oakland California, employing a uniquely effective approach to breaking the choke hold of chemical addiction-- “rehabilitation with teeth”. The drug court has saved the lives of thousands of addicts across the US since1990.

When the voters of California passed proposition 36 in 2000, well meaning reformers placed our state’s entire drug court program at risk by interposing a maze of unwieldy procedural restrictions and other provisions that threatened to undermine the court’s ability to impose appropriately flexible and timely sanctions.

The measure had been opposed by many drug rehabilitation professionals for good reason. After Prop 36’s passage, Judge Richard Iglehart was appointed by the governor to the workgroup tasked to implement proposition 36.

A couple of years ago, Richard and I talked in his chambers – we were to be on a panel together -- and he told me how had used his position to work with fellow judges across the state to develop “work around” strategies save the drug court. It worked. And hundreds and hundreds of former addicts are better of for it.

Richard Iglehart is one of those people about whom it really can be said: He left the world a better place than he found it.

Richard, we will miss you.

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