She was the ER doctor of Pierce County’s legal system for 30 years. Now she’s retiring

There’s a Joni Mitchell lyric that often reminds Meagan Foley of the courtroom where she presides.

“To face the dream’s malfunction.”

People think their lives are going to turn out one way, then circumstances interfere, the Pierce County Superior Court commissioner explained.

“There’s a lot of sadness in this courtroom,” she said.

Foley’s court is the first stop for most suspects after they’ve been arrested and charged in Superior Court.

She is retiring this month after more than 30 years as a commissioner, with a reputation for being especially fair, professional and respectful to everyone in her courtroom.

That praise comes from both prosecutors and defense attorneys.

“You knew walking in that her courtroom would be efficient and professional,” deputy prosecutor Dru Swaim said. “She treated everyone — attorneys, defendants, witnesses and victims — with respect.”

Defense attorney Michael Stewart echoed that.

“If there were ever good days or bad days for her, you would never know it,” he said. “Commissioner Foley walks on the bench and court begins: promptly, calmly, courteously. And the docket runs until the job is done.”

Stewart also said Foley explains her decision-making when she rules against a defendant.

“I can’t tell you how important that is to clients when the outcome wasn’t what they hoped, that they know why,” he said.

Defense attorney Bryan Hershman said many of his clients have told him that they’ve appreciated what Foley has said to them in court.

“She has a calendar of, frequently, God-awful issues,” Hershman said. “She has handled these situations with grace and dignity. ... On a personal and professional level, she is one of my favorites.”

Foley studied law at the University of Puget Sound.

“In the 70’s there weren’t that many women in the legal profession, and that interested me,” she said.

She practiced primarily family law as an attorney, which meant a lot of her work was done in front of commissioners. Eventually she started filling in as a commissioner on a temporary basis, as needed, and in 1988 she was appointed full-time.

Foley describes commissioners as the emergency room doctors of the legal system. They triage cases as they come in, and final resolution comes later from a judge.

“We need the judges to primarily be trial courts,” she said.

Superior Court judges are elected. Commissioners are hired by those on the bench.

The commissioners didn’t used to handle criminal matters, with some exceptions, when Foley was hired. They largely handled civil cases.

That changed in recent years, when a commissioner was assigned to Courtroom 270 — Criminal Division 2 — to free up the Superior Court judges for trials. The job is largely overseeing arraignments, as well as bail hearings, hearings to quash warrants and occasionally pleas and sentences.

The docket opened while Foley was a commissioner at the county’s juvenile court, and she thought she might like the change.

Foley asked about the opening in Criminal Division 2 and was assigned to it in 2012.

It’s a lengthy, fast-paced docket. Emotions of the newly arrested sometimes run high. But Foley said the bulk of the suspects before her in court have been kind and polite. The grief on their faces is obvious, she said.

They occasionally shout and struggle with corrections deputies, who remove them from the courtroom. Foley stays calm and professional throughout.

“This is a stressful place to be,” she said, noting that many defendants are struggling with mental health and substance abuse. “You just try to maintain as much dignity as possible for them and yourself. ... My own approach is to just not react. Remain focused.”

The job requires her to read charging papers, which detail many different crimes. She arraigns homicide suspects as well as those suspected of theft. Foley said reading about all that tragedy can be hard, but the rapid pace her job helps. There’s not much time to dwell on any one case for long.

She noted that it seems like there’s been a resurgence of methamphetamine use in recent years. She’s noticed many references to it in the charging papers she reads.

“I think what’s really alarming is the behavior that is exhibited, particularly with regard to that drug,” she said.

It makes people psychotic, angry and aggressive, she said.

Another change she’s seen over the years has been the court technology. There was a large book when she started as a commissioner where attorneys would hand-write their cases to get them on a docket. That’s done electronically now.

It wouldn’t surprise her, she said, if the court starts doing arraignments via a video feed from the jail sometime this year. That’s an efficient system, given the number of arraignments they have to do, she said. But there’s a human element of the face-to-face interactions with defendants that she enjoys.

“I’m going to miss the way we handle arraignments right now,” Foley said.

An amusing change she’s noticed during her career: “My signature,” she said. “It used to be readable. All those years of the Palmer Method gone to waste.”

Foley retires Jan. 18, just as she turns 65.

Commissioner Sabrina Ahrens will take over her docket, and Clarence Henderson, Jr. has been hired to fill the vacant commissioner’s seat. He works for the Pierce County Department of Assigned Counsel. His first rotation as a commissioner will be the domestic violence docket in Courtroom 117.

Foley said her plans for retirement include gardening and travel. Shortly after her last day she plans to travel to Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti with her husband.

This story was originally published January 14, 2019 at 10:42 AM.