No one is sure exactly who first called Dakota County Judge Timothy McManus “The Hammer,” or when, but the nickname stuck.
McManus first heard the label 20-plus years ago from a bailiff, who told him jail inmates knew of his hard-line, straight-shooter approach with repeat offenders and feared they would end up in his courtroom.
Last week, someone taped a picture of a hammer onto McManus’ chamber door in jest as a final reminder to the judge, who is laying 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 fair,” not “tough and mean.”
“I’ve been told my nickname is ‘The Hammer.’ I don’t believe that to be true, but I know why they come with it,” he told a convicted murderer at his Sept. 23 sentencing. “Because when I see a bad person, who does bad things, and who continues to do bad things and continues to break the law, with a high criminal history score, I put that person away for as long as I can. I make no bones about it.”
McManus is not stepping away from the legal profession entirely. He’s accepted an invitation to work with PowerHouse Mediation, a Burnsville-based company that provides alternative dispute resolution in the civil and family law arenas.
“I’m not burned out,” he said this week. “I’m still fired up.”
McManus, when asked what cases will always stick with him, was quick to point out several success stories from drug court, which offers repeat offenders intense supervision and a range of incentives to stay clean. He and now-retired Judge Leslie Metzen helped get it off the ground in 2007 through the county attorney’s office.
“I still get letters,” he said, referring to updates from drug court graduates who are leading sober lives. “It’s probably the best thing we’ve done in Dakota, I think, as far as adapting to what the problems are and trying to stop recidivism and so forth. I think we have that one pretty much nailed down.”
Then there was the guy who appeared before the judge in drug court last year wearing a sock as a tie.
“I’m looking at his file, looked up and I said, ‘Are you wearing a sock tie?’ And he goes, ‘Your Honor, I just got out of the halfway house, and I know who you are, how you like people dressing up for court. And I couldn’t go home to get a tie. So I went to the bathroom and I took off my socks,’ ” McManus said. “I’m thinking, ‘I love this guy.’ ”
Debi Johnson, his court reporter the past six years, said he’s the only judge she knows of who hits the gavel in open court.
“And it’s not self-importance,” she said. “It’s more about how he really likes to keep the integrity of the courtroom.”
‘Holding kids accountable’
McManus was raised 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 my way out of doing 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 St. Paul high school educator and coach who had fought in the Korean War.
“That is where this motto comes from,” McManus said, pointing to a sign in his chamber at the Hastings courthouse that reads, “Make Your Life Count.” “My dad said, ‘should I get out of this war, I’ll make my life count.’ It’s been our family motto.”
After grade school at St. Luke’s, McManus went to St. Thomas Academy, where he shined as a football player under legendary coach Gerry Brown and earned an athletic scholarship at Drake University. He returned to St. Paul and completed a J.D. at William Mitchell College of Law in 1985.
McManus spent the next dozen years as an attorney with Larkin, Hoffman, Daly & Lindgren in Bloomington. But the long hours were taking a toll on his wife, Amy, and their five young children. So, he traded his power suit for a black robe in 1997, when then-Gov. Arne Carlson appointed him to the bench. At 37, he was one of the youngest judges ever appointed.
Soon, at the urging of Metzen, McManus volunteered to work juvenile cases at the Apple Valley courthouse, where he grew fed up with the typical three-month wait for offenders to show up in court on petty charges such as underage smoking or vandalism. By that time, 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 collaborated with five other judges, the county attorney’s office, police officers and schools in 2001 to offer Operation JOLT, or Juvenile Offenders seen in Less Time — the first program in the state to push up court dates for first-time offenders under 18.
“We got it to a point where we saw them within seven days,” McManus said, adding the kids were volunteering in the community soon after. “Sometimes we saw you the next day.”
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JOLT was discontinued a year later after the funding ran out.
“If there’s one thing that has to happen in the juvenile system, it’s we need to see the kids right away,” McManus said. “It’s the number one thing. And judges would love it. I think the county attorneys would love it. They need to go out and get funding.”
The judge’s tough-love treatment was effective, said Dakota County Sheriff Joe Leko.
“He set the kids straight,” said Leko, who joined the department as a deputy in 1997 and has been a school resource officer and jail captain. “I got to sit in the courtroom to watch him work. But it was above and beyond just being a judge. He was holding those kids accountable.”
‘Bring the hammer down’
McManus said he doesn’t hesitate to go beyond state recommendations if a crime is particularly heinous or the offender 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 already had about 43 years to serve from other counties. Jackson showed little remorse for the victims of his violent attacks, which infuriated McManus.
“If I had the opportunity, 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 it was court clerks, deputies or defendants, Johnson said.
“There are times, though, where he is treated disrespectfully and he needs to, as we like to say, bring the hammer down,” she said.
Such was the case of a sneering teen who high-fived his brother in McManus’ courtroom and was sent to a holding cell for several hours. The boy’s brother lunged at the judge with car keys in retaliation. He got 30 days in jail; the bailiff who protected McManus got a box of doughnuts.
Losing a ‘vessel of knowledge’
McManus’ main concern has always been public safety, said Dakota County Judge Tanya O’Brien.
“In accomplishing that, he thinks outside of the box. He sees the people that are appearing in front of him and he 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 it leads to results.”
O’Brien’s first interactions with McManus came when she was a prosecutor, and she quickly learned he was a no-nonsense judge.
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“He demanded that attorneys were prepared and on time,” she said. “And we were. He demanded this of himself and his staff as well. He was well respected by those that appeared in front of him.”
Dakota County Judge Dannia Edwards said they’re losing a “vessel of knowledge on multiple levels. And that’s hard to replace. That’s why it’s called practicing. He’s been where I’m trying to go.”
Edwards said when people thought he was too conservative and wanted him removed from a case, she would tell them not to assume.
“They would come back and say, ‘Dannia, he listened,’ ” Edwards said. “And I would say, ‘I told you.’ I would go on to tell them that his moral compass guides him along with his knowledge of the law, and he will do the right thing.”
