Don Hart Retiring As Clerk Magistrate After 12 Years
David Creed •
When someone arrives at Nantucket District Court, there is a strong possibility that it is their first time facing a judge and a dark moment in their life. Don Hart understood this as well as anyone and made a concerted effort each day to help people through the process while serving as the island’s clerk magistrate.
"When they come in, they're scared, they're nervous, they don't know what is going to happen, and so I try to set people at ease," said Hart, who celebrated his 70th birthday last week. "From my perspective, with a lot of the stuff that I do with things like small claims trials and show cause hearings, those types of things, is when people come in, I always try to get them to relax.... because they have to tell their story. You can't tell your story when you're nervous. You just don't do a good job. So I'm trying to set people's minds at ease before the process begins. I think it is really important.”
Hart will be retiring from the position after 12 years on the job. His last day is Tuesday, July 1st. His role was crucial for the island. A clerk magistrate presides over preliminary hearings in the District Court, notably clerk magistrate hearings. Their primary role is to determine if there's sufficient probable cause to issue a criminal complaint against an individual and whether the case should proceed to arraignment.
Hart said he will continue to work and live on the island, where he owns a home. He said his favorite part about his job and Nantucket as a whole is the vast array of people he has had the privilege of meeting.
"The thing about Nantucket that makes this place so special to me is the diversity on the island," Hart said. "We have people from all over the world. They come to live here because they want a better life, and to be surrounded by people like that, I think, it just makes it a very pleasant place to be. For me, I came here because I love the island, and I actually applied for this job because I wanted to build a house, and I did that. Shortly after I got here, I started building, I finished the house, and I got to spend time, for 12 years, in one of the most beautiful places on earth with some of the greatest people you'll ever meet. The sense of community here is so strong. You're walking down the street, and in the offseason, you know, probably a third to a half of their people. The ones you don't know, you recognize their faces. That, to me, the sense of community is the really special thing about Nantucket."
Hart took a brief hiatus from the position from late 2018 until March 16th, 2020 – one day before the COVID pandemic restrictions kicked in. He helped spearhead the court’s efforts to adjust to the new reality and continue operating smoothly.
"Being on Nantucket, there's no support staff. It's just us. We take care of ourselves," Hart said. "So when they wanted us to get PPE (personal protective equipment), I would hop on the boat and go over to Plymouth court, and they would give me the PPE, but they didn't want us to come in, so they would leave it in a pickup truck behind the Plymouth court. I'd go there after hours, grab it, and then bring it back down (to Nantucket). Same thing with all the plexiglass (between the judge and clerk magistrate bench). We didn't want to drill holes in the wood, so I hand cut all the plexiglass, custom cut it all so that we could set up the protection between the public and us without using any screws at all. So that was really kind of interesting. Then we had to start using Zoom. None of us had ever used Zoom before, so I took a lot of Zoom classes and learned how to do that and get it to run through the recording system here. So the first few months were really challenging, but once we got it down, we figured it out.”
Hart said COVID has significantly changed the court process and admitted that one of the things he always enjoyed about the court was its formality. He said COVID-19 harmed the old way of doing business in the courts, but for the island, he believes it led to some positive developments, such as the use of Zoom.
“For us on the island, it was a godsend," Hart said. "We still use Zoom now. So people that can't get over here, you let them Zoom. Say you're a person from Michigan that comes here and commits a crime, you shouldn't have to come back once a month to face the judge. So, to be able to go on Zoom and do it that way, I think that has helped a lot of people.
"There's been a lot of changes in the court over the years. COVID did a lot of harm to the court, because we became very casual, not as formal," Hart continued while describing the negative effects. "The thing I always loved about court was that it was the last place where it was very formal. Everybody wore shirts and ties. The women all wore suits, and we addressed each other with politeness and respect. With COVID and court being on Zoom, people were calling, lawyers even, were calling from their bedrooms. They were in tracksuits and to me, it's kind of brought the whole process down a little bit. So it is not nearly as formal as it was, and I do miss that.”
Hart will remain busy following his final day as clerk magistrate on Tuesday. He said he will be working for Northeast Mediation and Arbitration, and long-term he says that he plans to start his own private law practice back up while continuing his work with the Hart Speech Foundation, which is a recognized 501 (c)(3) charitable organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals who stutter by providing advocacy, funding and scholarships to clients of all ages so no one is denied the opportunity to achieve fluent speech.
"I'll be doing mostly estate planning," Hart said. "There will be some criminal defense work, a little bit of civil practice, and then I'm going to devote more time to my speech foundation."
In the interim, Brian Kearney will serve as the island’s clerk magistrate until Governor Maura Healey appoints a full-time replacement. Hart said his advice would be simple: make yourself available.
"You just need to be available for people because a lot of people come in and they don't know what's going on," Hart said. "A lot of people come in to me and they have legal questions because there's no other lawyer they can turn to. And I try to help everybody that walks through the door, whether it's a question that involves a case that they're involved in, or if it's something else going on in their life, and being able to sit down and say, 'Okay, this is what's happening. This is what you need to do.' We're not allowed to necessarily give legal advice, but I can certainly sit down and explain to somebody what a complaint is, what an answer is, how do you file an answer. So as an attorney, I think we have a certain debt to the people that come in, a certain duty, maybe, to try to help people out because they're confused. They don't know what they're doing. I guess my advice would be just make yourself available to the people of the island…because they really need you.”
When asked if he had a bizarre court story that he witnessed during his time as clerk magistrate that he could share, Hart quickly recalled a moment when an individual who had just failed an alcohol test and was set to be transported to jail snuck out of the bathroom window on the second floor and ran all the way to the Nantucket High School in an attempt to evade capture.
“I think the craziest story to come out of this courthouse involved a young man who had a serious alcohol problem," Hart said. "A .08 is personally intoxicated. So if you're at a .08 or above, you're probably pretty drunk. This kid would come in and consistently blow .33, .43, .38. He was always drunk.... really drunk. So that day, probation brought him in just for a test. I think on that day he blew like a .43, and they were going to ship him over to Barnstable, so the sheriff was going to take him. But the kid decided he had to go to the bathroom. So he goes into our bathroom here, which is on the second floor, and the court officers that were here that day followed protocol. They did everything they were supposed to do and let the kid go in there and go to the bathroom and kind of left him alone.
“The funniest part of the story was Sheriff (Jim) Perelman came over and said, 'Are you ready to release this guy so I can take him to Barnstable?' And the court officer says, 'Yeah, he's just wrapping up in the bathroom,' and the sheriff said, 'How long has he been in there' and the court officer said probably 15-20 minutes. The sheriff said 'When's the last time you checked on him?' And the officer goes 'five minutes ago,' which is what they should do. And the Sheriff goes, 'I bet he jumped out the window.' We all started laughing. But then we checked, and well, he jumped out the window. He started running. He made it all the way to high school before they caught him,” Hart concluded.