By J.M. Lawrence
Boston Globe
March 26, 2011
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/watertown/articles/2011/03/26/geoffrey_c_packard_62_noted_public_defender_judge/
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| Geoffrey C. Packard spent 30 years as a public defender, representing some of the most despised criminals, including defrocked pedophile priest John Geoghan (left) in 2002. Geoffrey C. Packard spent 30 years as a public defender, representing some of the most despised criminals, including defrocked pedophile priest John Geoghan (left) in 2002. (Kevin Wisniewski/Pool) |
At Harvard Law School in the early 1970s, Geoffrey C. Packard looked like Robert Redford and talked like the lawyer Atticus Finch from the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,’’ friends said.
A magna cum laude law school graduate, he could have made a fortune at a big law firm but spent 30 years as a public defender, representing some of the most despised criminals, including defrocked pedophile priest John Geoghan.
He became a district judge in 2003 after being nominated by Acting Governor Jane Swift, and served on the bench in Lowell and Malden.
“There’s not anyone I know who didn’t respect his brilliance,’’ said Dorchester District Judge Rosalind Miller. “He was an incredible lawyer. The fact he wanted to be a judge was a gift really to the public.’’
Judge Packard died of lung cancer on March 17 at his home in Watertown. He was 62.
A former smoker who had quit decades ago, he was diagnosed in August 2008 and continued working through chemotherapy until last year.
He chronicled his life after his diagnosis on a private blog for friends and family, often making jokes and repeatedly thanking others for their friendship and help.
Humor, literature, and sailing were all hallmarks of his life, according to friends.
Writing in his blog about radiation treatments, Judge Packard said doctors marked “my aging torso with ‘tattoos’ to help in aiming the Death Ray. I asked for a hula girl, but they declined. Maybe for my next birthday.’’
He reported that he was reading “Moby Dick’’ again. “I am tempted, under my present circumstances, to assign roles — am I Ahab, Ishmael, Queequeg, Pip? I think we all know who the whale is.’’
Born in Boston, Judge Packard grew up in Newton and Weston. His father, Richard, was an English professor and once served as acting president of Lasell Junior College. His mother was Georgia (Glidden).
He graduated in 1966 from Weston High, where he won awards in drama; he received a history degree from Princeton in 1970. In 1973 he graduated from Harvard Law, where he was president of the Harvard’s student defenders group and met his longtime colleague William J. Leahy.
“We were the kind of jeans-and-sweatshirted guys in there on Saturdays, kind of save-the-world guys,’’ said Leahy, who spent 27 years as a leader of the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services and is now director of the New York State Office of Indigent Legal Services.
According to Leahy, Judge Packard embodied “duende,’’ a term popularized by George Frazier, one of their favorite newspaper columnists in the 1960s and ’70s. Packard had duende, a kind of natural grace, wit, and class.
“He was part of that effortless excellence,’’ Leahy said. “Here I’m a scrappy kid from Uphams Corner, and I meet this guy who’s just like me on some levels, and from another planet on other levels.’’
After law school, Judge Packard went to work for the state’s public defenders committee. He won an acquittal during his first Superior Court trial, where he represented a woman accused of arson.
He was head of the Committee for Public Counsel Services office in Cambridge from 1984 to 2002 and won the Edward J. Duggan Award, the top award given to a Massachusetts public defender. He was later named the office’s senior trial counsel.
“Given his intellect and his moral standards, he could have been a powerfully dismissive man, but he was not,’’ said his friend Judith Lindahl, a retired defense attorney who lives in Cambridge. “He had an enormous gentleness toward his friends . . . and he had a deep understanding and an acute perception of human frailty.’’
He was asked to represent Geoghan when the former priest was charged with a single count of child molestation amid accusations that Geoghan had molested more than 100 children while serving in the Boston Archdiocese. Geoghan was convicted and sentenced to 9 to 10 years. In 2003 he was killed by an inmate, despite the fact that Judge Packard had written letters to prison officials raising concerns about guards’ mistreatment of the reviled former priest.
“I think he always felt terrible Geoghan was murdered and he wasn’t able to prevent it,’’ said his wife, Patricia A. Geller.
They met when Geller was working in the courts as a social worker. Judge Packard had sought her out to gather social history for a defendant accused of knocking out an elderly woman. Geller said she later joked that they would stay married as long as that client remained in jail. They were married 28 years.
At cocktail parties, her husband invariably faced the question of how he could represent killers and child molesters, his wife said. “They’re not those people,’’ he would reply. “ ‘They’ are a person.’’
His sons Nick and Sam recalled their father’s formidable memory and breadth of knowledge on a wide range of subjects. “We watched “Jeopardy’’ together one night and my dad got every question right. Then he acted like it wasn’t a big deal,’’ said Sam, a junior at Bowdoin College.
When his sons were young, Judge Packard played baseball with them until his arm ached, and once drove them to Fenway Park at 4 a.m. to stand in line for Red Sox seats.
Nick, a budding comedian who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., said his father was a master of jokes and storytelling. “To some people it might be off-putting how much we’ve been laughing together in these last weeks. That’s just how our family is,’’ he said.
Judge Packard always found refuge in humor. “Some of that has to do with the work he was doing. You can’t be around such murders and all that if you don’t have a sense of humor to dull the sharpness,’’ Nick said.
When his health failed, Judge Packard spent his days walking his beloved bearded collie, Dexter, and having coffee at the local Starbucks. He made new friends with the baristas and argued with his wife over the calorie counts in blueberry scones.
“His way of dying taught us an awful lot about how to approach this with dignity and courage,’’ said his friend Frank Herrmann, an associate law professor at Boston College. “He was really a terrific human being. He had so many talents, intellectually and personally, and he chose to deploy them for accused people who couldn’t afford lawyers.’’
In addition to his wife and sons, Judge Packard leaves his brother, Chris, of Newton.
A memorial service is planned for May 7 at 2 p.m. in the First Unitarian Society in Newton. Burial will be private.
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