No one knows exactly who first called Dakota County Judge Timothy McManus “The Hammer,” or when, but the nickname stuck.
McManus first heard the label more than 20 years ago from a judicial officer, who told him that prisoners were aware of his tough, direct approach to repeat offenders and feared they would end up in his courtroom.
Last week, someone jokingly taped a photo of a gavel to McManus’ chamber door as a final reminder of the judge, who is putting down his gavel after 27 years on the bench. His last day is Thursday, which happens to be his 66th birthday.
McManus prefers to describe his style as ‘tough and honest’, not ‘tough and mean’.
“I’ve been told my nickname is ‘The Hammer’.” I don’t believe that’s true, but I know why they’re coming up with it,” he told a convicted murderer during his Sept. 23 sentencing. “Because if I see a bad person, who does bad things, and who continues to do bad things and who continues to break the law, with a high criminal record, I will lock that person up for as long as possible. I don’t make a big deal about it.”
McManus is not leaving the legal profession entirely. He has accepted an invitation to work with PowerHouse Mediation, a Burnsville-based firm that provides alternative dispute resolution in the areas of civil and family law.
“I’m not burned out,” he said this week. “I’m still excited.”
When asked what cases will always stick with him, McManus was quick to point to several success stories of the Drug Court, which offers repeat offenders intensive supervision and a range of incentives to stay clean. He and now-retired Judge Leslie Metzen helped get this off the ground through the state’s attorney’s office in 2007.
“I still get letters,” he said, referring to updates from drug court graduates living sober lives. “It’s probably the best thing we’ve done in Dakota, I think, in terms of adapting to the problems and trying to stop the recidivism and so on. I think we have that pretty much mastered.”
Then there was the man who appeared before a drug court judge last year wearing a sock as a tie.
“I looked at his file and looked up and said, ‘Are you wearing a sock tie?’ And he says, ‘Your Honor, I just got out of the shelter and I know who you are, how you like people to dress up for court. And I couldn’t go home to get a tie. So I went to the bathroom and took off my socks,” McManus said. “I think, ‘I love this man.’ ”
Debi Johnson, his court reporter for the past six years, said he is the only judge she knows who hands out the gavel in open court.
“And it’s not self-righteousness,” she said. “It’s more about him wanting to maintain the integrity of the courtroom.”
‘Holding children accountable’
McManus grew up in a St. Paul Irish Catholic family, the middle child of seven children.
“So I was born to be a lawyer,” he said. “I knew how to do the dishes.”
He said he learned the value of public service from his parents. His mother was a nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital, while his father was a high school educator and coach in St. Paul who had fought in the Korean War.
“That’s where this motto comes from,” McManus said, pointing to a sign in his room at the Hastings courthouse that reads: “Make Your Life Count.” “My father said, ‘When I get out of this war, I’m going to make my life count.’ It has been our family motto.”
After grade school at St. Luke’s, McManus attended St. Thomas Academy, where he starred as a football player under legendary coach Gerry Brown and earned an athletic scholarship to Drake University. He returned to St. Paul and completed a JD from William Mitchell College of Law in 1985.
McManus spent the next twelve years as an attorney at Larkin, Hoffman, Daly & Lindgren in Bloomington. But the long hours took a toll on his wife Amy and their five young children. So he traded in his power suit for a black robe in 1997, when then-Gov. Arne Carlson appointed him to the bench. At the age of 37, he was one of the youngest judges ever appointed.
Soon, at Metzen’s urging, McManus volunteered to handle juvenile cases at the Apple Valley courthouse, where he grew tired of the typical three-month wait for offenders to appear in court on minor charges such as underage smoking or vandalism. By then, he says, the crime is too old for the punishment to be effective.
So he proposed a new program, secured a $60,000 grant, and in 2001 teamed up with five other judges, the prosecutor’s office, police officers and schools to offer Operation JOLT, or Juvenile Offenders Seen in Less Time – the first program in the state to set court dates for first-time offenders under the age of 18.
“We got to the point where we were seeing them within seven days,” McManus said, adding that the children began volunteering in the community soon after. “Sometimes we saw you the next day.”
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JOLT was canceled a year later after funding ran out.
“If there’s one thing that needs to happen in the juvenile system, it’s that we need to see the kids right away,” McManus said. “It’s the most important thing. And the jury would love it. I think the county attorneys would love that. They need to go out and get funding.”
The judge’s tough love treatment was effective, Dakota County Sheriff Joe Leko said.
“He put the kids on the right path,” said Leko, who joined the department in 1997 as a deputy and has served as a school principal and prison director. “I was allowed to sit in the courtroom to watch him work. But it went further than just being a judge. He held those kids accountable.”
‘Bring Down the Hammer’
McManus said he doesn’t hesitate to go beyond the state’s recommendations if a crime is particularly heinous or if the perpetrator has a criminal history.
In one case, McManus added 21 years to the sentence of 25-year-old Tony Dejuan Jackson, a serial rapist who was already serving about 43 years from other counties. Jackson showed little remorse for the victims of his violent attacks, which enraged McManus.
“If I had the chance, I would put you away for life,” the judge told Jackson during the 1999 sentencing.
Despite his no-nonsense reputation, McManis always treated everyone with respect, whether they were clerks, deputies or defendants, Johnson said.
“However, there are times when he is treated with disrespect and he has to, as we like to say, bring down the hammer,” she said.
Such was the case with a mocking teen who high-fived his brother in the McManus courtroom and was sent to a holding cell for several hours. In retaliation, the boy’s brother attacked the judge with car keys. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail; the bailiff who protected McManus was given a box of donuts.
Losing a ‘vessel of knowledge’
McManus’ primary concern has always been public safety, Dakota County Judge Tanya O’Brien said.
“He thinks outside the box. He sees the people in front of him and tries to solve problems,” O’Brien said. “He is effective and efficient. He has an uncanny way of connecting with people. That connection is genuine and leads to results.”
O’Brien’s first interactions with McManus occurred when she was a prosecutor, and she quickly discovered that he was a no-nonsense judge.
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“He demanded lawyers be prepared and on time,” she said. “And that was us. He also demanded the same from himself and his staff. He was highly respected by those who came before him.”
Dakota County Judge Dannia Edwards said they are “losing a barrel of knowledge on multiple levels. And that is difficult to replace. That’s why it’s called practice. He has been where I want to go.”
Edwards said if people thought he was too conservative and wanted him removed from a case, she would tell them not to.
“They came back and said, ‘Dannia, he listened,’” Edwards said. “And I’d say, ‘I told you.’ I would then tell them that his moral compass guides him along with his knowledge of the law, and that he will do the right thing.
