[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 141 (Friday, October 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12212-S12214]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TRIBUTE TO JUDGE ROBERT I.H. HAMMERMAN

 Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise to acknowledge the unique 
and extraordinary contributions made to Baltimore and the State of 
Maryland by Judge Robert I.H. Hammerman who, this past summer, retired 
after thirty-seven years of distinguished service to our citizens and 
legal system. During his career on the bench, Judge Hammerman was a 
leader in court reform and the efforts to establish an effective yet 
caring system of juvenile criminal justice. These efforts were directed 
not only at changing the system, but also at exerting every effort 
possible to give young men in need the opportunity for academic and 
athletic development.
  His remarkable commitment to the youth of Baltimore is most 
exemplified by the Lancers Boys Club which he founded 50 years ago and 
which greatly affected the lives of approximately 3,000 young men of 
all different backgrounds and races. Through his remarkable commitment, 
Judge Hammerman influenced several generations of young men whose 
leadership has affected every facet of State and national life. 
``Bobby'' Hammerman, as he is known by his fellow Baltimoreans, served 
his community with exceptional dedication as a jurist but also, even 
more importantly, as a good and caring citizen. I want to take this 
occasion to express my own appreciation for his life of service and ask 
to have printed in the Record several articles from the Baltimore Sun 
and the Baltimore Jewish Times which chronicle his accomplishments.
  The articles follow:

[[Page S12213]]

                [From the Baltimore Sun, July 16, 1998]

             With Closing Argument, Judge Ends 37-Year Term


     Md.'s Hammerman questions being forced to put down gavel at 70

                           By Dennis O'Brien)

       The longest-serving trial judge in Maryland history hangs 
     up his robes today--and he is not happy about it.
       ``I'm not retiring. They're retiring me,'' says Baltimore 
     Circuit Chief Judge Robert I.H. Hammerman.
       After 37 years of deciding other people's fates and 
     distputes, Hammerman says this choice is being made for him: 
     He will turn 70 tomorrow, the mandatory retirement age for 
     judges under Maryland law.
       He sees little sense to being forced out because of his 
     age, especially since he is fit enough to walk up the five 
     fights of stairs to his countroom two or three times each 
     day, he still needs only four hours of sleep each night, can 
     beat 20-year-old opponents at tennis and plays an hours of 
     squash five times a week.
       He loves the work routine that begins at 5:30 a.m. and 
     involves listening to hours of arcane legal arguments.
       ``I feel like every day is a new day, and every day is 
     different. I've never felt tired, or bored at this job,'' he 
     says.
       Hammerman has asked Court of Appeals Chief Judge Robert 
     Mack Bell to allow him to serve in retirement as much as 
     possible as a part-time judge, a position that would mean 
     ``specially assigning'' him to any courthouse in Maryland 
     where judges are short-handed.
       Bell says he intends to take Hammerman up on his offer. ``I 
     think he's been a great judge,'' said Bell, who served with 
     Hammerman on the Baltimore Circuit Court in the 1980s before 
     Bell was appointed the state's top judge.
       It upsets Hammerman that Maryland law will allow him to 
     serve as a part-time judge for only one-third of any calendar 
     year.
       Hammerman, who is single, gives the impression of being 
     willing to go just about anywhere to hear a case.
       ``I've always said that when my time is up in this world, I 
     want it to be one of three courts: a court of law, a tennis 
     court or a squash court,'' Hammerman said.


                           From the beginning

       Robert Israel Harold Hammerman was born in Baltimore, the 
     son of Herman Hammerman, a lawyer who did mostly real estate 
     work for his older brother, S.L. Hammerman, a prominent 
     Baltimore developer.
       A graduate of City College, the Johns Hopkins University 
     and Harvard Law School, Hammerman was appointed in 1961 by 
     Gov. J. Millard Tawes to be a judge on the old Baltimore 
     Municipal Court to decide traffic cases, neighborhood 
     disputes and misdemeanor offenses. He was appointed six years 
     later to the Supreme Bench of Baltimore, which became the 
     Baltimore Circuit Court in 1983.
       He spent his first eight years on the Supreme Bench 
     presiding over the city's Juvenile Court and is credited with 
     bringing the court into compliance with a landmark 1967 
     Supreme Court case, In Re Gault, that guaranteed juvenile 
     offenders the same right to an attorney as adults.


                            In the spotlight

       Over the years, Hammerman has presided over some of the 
     city's most publicized trials, including the 1995 jury trial 
     for John Joseph Merzbacher, then 53, a former Catholic 
     Community Middle School teacher accused of sexually abusing 
     14 students and other teen-agers between 1972 and 1979.
       Hammerman sentenced the former teacher to four life terms 
     for raping one of the students.
       In recent years, Hammerman said, the courts have been 
     flooded with criminal cases--particularly drug cases. When he 
     was appointed to the Supreme Bench there were 15 judges, he 
     said. These days there are twice that many judges--and the 
     courts are still swamped, he said.
       ``The drug culture just permeates everything we do here,'' 
     he said.


                          Be on time, or else

       In court, Hammerman developed a reputation as a strict, 
     uncompromising no-nonsense judge, who appeared each morning 
     on the bench at exactly 9 a.m. and expected lawyers to be 
     just as punctual.
       ``He's very big on punctuality,'' said David Moore, a 
     former law clerk who is now a Baltimore assistant state's 
     attorney.
       Many lawyers also say that Hammerman is prone to lose his 
     temper, is often quick to make up his mind on a case and will 
     dress down lawyers who either try to argue him out of his 
     position or fail to show proper respect.
       ``He's never held me in contempt, but he's chewed me out.'' 
     said Curt Anderson, a criminal defense lawyer, former state 
     delegate and a longtime friend. ``It reminded me of being 17 
     again and being chewed out--it was that bad.''
       Lewis A. Noonberg, another lawyer and longtime friend, 
     attributes Hammerman's legendary short fuse to his work ethic 
     and his competitive edge.
       ``He loves sports, and he loves to beat the pants off 
     people half his age. He doesn't get any thrill out of beating 
     me `cause I'm only 10 years younger than him,'' said 
     Noonberg, 60.


                         Reputation for honesty

       Hammerman admits to being competitive and to insisting on 
     civility in his courtroom.
       But more than anything, he says, he values his reputation 
     for honesty. So he says it offended him when he was charged 
     with leaving the scene of an accident after a fender-bender 
     outside the Pikesville library on Reisterstown Road on April 
     5, 1997.
       The driver of the car who reported the accident, Ronnie N. 
     Albom, said publicly after Hammerman was cleared of the 
     charge on Sept. 22, 1997, that his position as a judge helped 
     him win the acquittal in Baltimore County District Court, a 
     charge that Hammerman vehemently denies.
       Hammerman said that there was no accident and no damages, 
     that he did not know the judge who acquitted him and that he 
     turned down an offer to have the case dismissed if he would 
     pay the $77 in damages to Albom.
       ``For one thing, there was no accident. Second, I didn't 
     leave the scene; that's how they got the information that 
     they later used to file these false charges,'' Hammerman 
     said.


                         Legacy of the Lancers

       Although as a judge he has often been in the public eye, 
     Hammerman may be best known throughout the city for his work 
     as adviser to the Lancers Boys Club, a high-profile civic 
     organization for teen-age boys established by three childhood 
     friends in 1946. The club, which boasts Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke 
     and numerous other prominent people as members, has been the 
     judge's pet project ever since.
       Hammerman has used the club to steer 3,000 boys to civic 
     activism through activities such as tutoring in schools, 
     working in soup kitchens and participating in community 
     cleanup drives. The club encourages members to study in 
     school, play sports and strive for success and rewards them 
     with overseas trips, dinners and lectures that have included 
     celebrity guest speakers.
       In retirement, Hammerman says, he probably will spend more 
     time on club activities, lining up speakers, corresponding 
     with members and making arrangements for trips, dinners and 
     other events.
       Anderson, who joined the Lancers when he and Schmoke were 
     students at City College, praises Hammerman for his club 
     work.
       ``You've got to hand it to him,'' Anderson said. ``He's 
     probably touched thousands of lives.''
                                  ____


            [From the Baltimore Jewish Times, July 10, 1998]

  A Good Way To Leave--Baltimore's Chief Judge Robert I.H. Hammerman 
            Might Be Retiring, But He'll Never Stop Working

                          (By Christine Stutz)

       One can only imagine how crestfallen Chief Judge Robert 
     I.H. Hammerman will feel when his alarm goes off at 3:52 a.m. 
     on July 17, and he remembers he's not due in court.
       For July 17 is his 70th birthday, which means it's also the 
     first day of his retirement, a status he finds about as 
     appealing as a dip in a frozen lake.
       ``I'm not retiring,'' Judge Hammerman says, indignantly. 
     ``They're retiring me.''
       With 37 years of service to the city of Baltimore, Judge 
     Hammerman has the longest tenure of any judge in the Maryland 
     court system. For a man who lives by a strict work ethic and 
     personifies the core values associated with that ethic, every 
     day off the bench will carry a certain emptiness.
       That's why he's offering to hear cases as a retired 
     ``recall judge'' in whatever local jurisdiction needs him, 12 
     months a year--even though by law he can only be paid for 
     four months of service.
       ``I don't know anyone who has tried, and continues to try, 
     harder than he does simply to be a good judge,'' says 
     Baltimore Circuit Court Judge David Ross, a longtime 
     colleague and friend of Judge Hammerman's who retired 
     voluntarily two years ago.
       ``He gives a lot and he expects a lot,'' says David L. 
     Palmer, a former Baltimore assistant state's attorney who now 
     works in the law offices of Peter Angelos. ``He takes a lot 
     of pride in the courtroom.''
       At the luncheons and dinners planned in his honor in the 
     coming weeks, the vigorous, whitehaired jurist will be lauded 
     as a man of intellect, industry and integrity. No doubt he 
     also will be teased about his tennis game, his fondness for 
     iced tea and Rold Gold pretzels, and his fastidious nature.
       On the bench, he is Chief Judge Robert I.H. Hammerman, a 
     stickler for detail and a force to be reckoned with. The 
     first week on the job, every trial lawyer in town learns two 
     cardinal rules about the Hammerman court: be on time and be 
     prepared. Those who have incurred his wrath are probably 
     still smarting from it.
       In his private life, though, he is Bob Hammerman, a sports 
     enthusiast who attends Smashing Pumpkins concerts and shares 
     his cluttered den with a giant Mickey Mouse doll. At 11:25 
     every evening, the Harvard Law School graduate opens a pint 
     of Baskin Robbins ice cream and sits down to watch the sports 
     segment on the Channel 2 evening news. About halfway through 
     ``Nightline,'' he reaches the bottom of the container and 
     calls it a night.
       At precisely 3:52 a.m., his alarm goes off, and he begins 
     another day. He's at the courthouse by 5:30, when even the 
     pigeons are still sleeping.
       A lifelong member of Reform Har Sinai Congregation in Upper 
     Park Heights, Judge Hammerman blows the shofar, or ram's 
     horn, every Rosh Hashanah. For the past 25 years

[[Page S12214]]

     he also has blown the shofar during Ash Wednesday services at 
     Immaculate Heart of Mary, a Catholic church in Towson.
       Although he says he never set out to be a role model, Judge 
     Hammerman takes pride in exemplifying certain character 
     traits he holds dear:punctuality, diligence, honesty, 
     respectfulness and generosity. As founder of the Lancers Boys 
     Club in 1946, he has influenced more than 3,000 young men to 
     strive for excellence.
       A doting father figure to many current and former Lancers, 
     he cheers them on at ballgames, follows their academic 
     progress, and is always available for late-night phone calls 
     when advice or encouragement is needed.
       With his guidance, countless Lancers have attended 
     prestigious colleges and professional schools and become 
     outstanding business and community leaders. Baltimore 
     Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, state Del. Samuel I. ``Sandy'' 
     Rosenberg and former Alex. Brown chairman Alvin ``Buzzy'' 
     Krongard are Lancers alumni.
       ``I believe in discipline everywhere. Discipline is 
     something we haven't enough of in our society,'' says the 
     judge, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins 
     University in 1950.
       ``It isn't enough to do something that will simply pass 
     muster, that is adequate,'' he tells his proteges. ``You must 
     do it to the very best of your ability.''
       In his first assignment, to the juvenile court, he took 
     great pains to find something a young offender was interested 
     in and ``use that as a building block,'' he says. One boy, 
     who had brought a loaded gun to school, loved football, but 
     there were no organized teams in his Southwest Baltimore 
     neighborhood.
       The judge arranged for him to play with the Randallstown 
     Rams, and made attending practices a condition of his 
     probation. The youth became a star of the team, and then--
     with the judge's help--attended Baltimore Polytechnic 
     Institute and went on to college.


                          demanding, but fair

       It's difficult to imagine a profession for which Judge 
     Hammerman is better suited. As a judge, he can use his 
     brilliant mind to serve mankind, but in a secure, controlled 
     environment where he's very much in charge.
       ``It has allowed me to use the habits I believe in, in 
     constructive ways,'' he says.
       David Rosenberg, a litigation partner with the Washington, 
     D.C., law firm of Wright, Robinson, Osthimer & Tatum, clerked 
     for Judge Hammerman in 1985-86.
       ``He really influenced me and had a profound effect on my 
     career,'' says Mr. Rosenberg. ``I was always amazed. He never 
     took the bench without looking at the file completely. And I 
     was always struck by the fact that he let the lawyers have 
     their say.''
       Even though the judge has been very demanding of his law 
     clerks, they praise him for teaching them what it takes to be 
     a successful lawyer.
       ``His demands were not so much that Robert I.H. Hammerman 
     was an important person, but the people who went into that 
     courtroom were important people,'' says state Del. Robert L. 
     Frank of Reisterstown, who clerked for the judge in 1984-85. 
     ``In a society of me-first people, he has given far more than 
     he'll ever get.''
       Judge Hammerman, who never married, lives in the same Park 
     Heights apartment he shared with his mother, the late Belle 
     Greenblatt Hammerman. Every item in the home has a history 
     he's eager to share, and which he recalls in great detail.
       He opens the glass doors of a secretary to reveal the 
     complete works of Tolstoy, Hugo, Dickens and Hawthorne--
     classics he says his father, whose family could not afford to 
     send him to college, devoured each night before retiring. 
     Filed among the yellowed pages of those books are all of 
     Judge Hammerman's school report cards.
       In the same way that he recalls his happy childhood, Judge 
     Hammerman looks back with pride on a stellar career as one of 
     the city's most prominent public figures.
       ``I feel I have been very privileged, very fortunate, very 
     lucky to have had this job,'' he says. ``I have no regrets. 
     None.
       ``And it's a good way to leave.''

                          ____________________