On seemingly a daily basis Enterprise municipal judge Pearl Collingsworth gets asked when she is going to retire. Her favorite response is "next year". She is now in her 26th year at the position and, thus far, "next year" has never come.

She was appointed by the Enterprise city council in 1976 and will willingly step down when the city council asks her to.

Collingsworth is 80, healthy, and not interested in retiring. "What would I do if I retired?" asks the spry lady who works long hours at her Enterprise Stationery Store when she is not doing her official duties for the city.

Her philosophy of the judge position comes out in a series of related sentences: "I like to treat people fairly and justly." "I try to be fair." "I try not to make a harsh judgment of people." "I like to be considerate of people and their feelings." "I try to spend enough time with people so that they feel they are treated fairly." "I try to consider both points of view; to reach a fair decision you almost have to do that."

"Fair" is an operative word in Judge Collingsworth's court whether conducted in her official office in the city hall building or in the nearby chambers of the city council.

Municipal courts are set up in many incorporated Oregon cities with police departments – including Portland and surrounding suburbs – to adjudicate criminal misdemeanors.

Collingsworth's official office hours are from 9 a.m. to noon on Mondays and Fridays, and she sees, on average, three to five potential offenders per court day. That translates into 156 to 260 persons per year, or anywhere from 4,056 to 6,760 potential offenders during the course of her career.

That would mean that, during her 26 years as municipal judge, Collingsworth has seen two to three times the current population of the city.

"All of my citations come from the police department," says judge. By statute she handles all Enterprise Police Department complaints up to and including Class A misdemeanors. Included in the latter are criminal trespass, assault and DUII charges. She says that the majority of cases referred to her are traffic related such as speeding, disobeying stop signs, DUII, driving while
suspended, seat belt violations and lack of insurance.

Born in Wallowa, Pearl Prout moved to Enterprise at age 12 and graduated from EHS in 1940. She was city recorder in Enterprise from 1956 to 1964, acting as the equivalent of a traffic court judge in that position. It was possibly because of that background that the council, without any overtures from her, appointed Collingsworth to the position she still holds.

In 1950 she married Cliff Collingsworth and in 1962 they opened Enterprise Stationery.

Though her official office hours are six hours per week, the municipal judge says she is on call 24-hours per day, seven days per week. Arraignments, the official informing of the offender of the charges he or she is facing, must take place within 72 hours of an arrest. The shortage of jail facilities in Wallowa County sometimes quickens the process.

The judge estimates that she presides over 12 to 14 trials per year. Some of those trials are judge only trials and some are in front of a six person jury.

She does not wear a judge's robe.

Collingsworth, other than the city recorder position, had no formal training on how to be a judge in 1976 when her tenure began. She has since attended four days of training annually offered through the Oregon Municipal Judges' Association, an association on whose board she sat for over 12 years. She recently completed an eight-year stint as the 80-member association's
treasurer.

From 1968 until 1980 Pearl's husband Cliff acted as justice of the peace for Wallowa County.  From 1976 to 1980 the Collingsworths were the only husband-and-wife justice of the peace and municipal judge team in Oregon. Cliff's position was assumed by what is now the circuit court when he stepped down in 1980. Cliff Collingsworth died in 1997.

"It is interesting, but it is a hard job," says Pearl Collingsworth, a municipal judge who does not wish to talk about the monthly salary she receives for her efforts. She is joined in her municipal chambers by full time/part time court clerk Joyce Anderson.

On occasion Collingsworth becomes reacquainted with former violators who thank her for the lessons learned in her court. Those stand out in her memory clearer than the thousands of cases that have come before her in the past 26 years. She likes those who have become "reliable, dependable citizens."
 

© Copyright 2002 Wallowa County Chieftan   Reprinted by permission