Everett, Medford and Malden are mourning the death of the late Justice Lee G. Johnson.
Johnson, who died on June 20 at his Medford home, cast a long shadow across these three communities and across Massachusetts. A product of public higher education, he broke ground in the judiciary as an African-American judge and Johnson’s tenure as Malden District Court’s first justice was the longest in the history of that court.
Johnson’s obituary describes how he “brought joy, hope and love to all who were fortunate to cross paths with him.” It also said Johnson “served the public good for his entire life.”
That is an impressive tribute for anyone to receive at a time in American history when public servants of various stripes are condemned more than they are celebrated.
Johnson’s career is a tribute to a man who saw and understood the value of public service. For more than 10 years preceding his appointment to a judgeship, Johnson held several public sector jobs, including Register of the Middlesex County Probate and Family Court and Commissioner of the State Civil Service Commission.
He started his career as a public school teacher in Everett and became a probation officer in the Middlesex Superior Court.
Good teachers, it is said, learn more from their students than they teach them. Long before he became a judge, Johnson was listening to and learning from the people he taught. As a probation officer, he worked in a part of the judicial system most people don’t know or understand.
Probation work is all about communicating with people and gaining their trust to forge a contract that keeps a probationer out of trouble and the probation officer guiding clients in the right direction.
Johnson’s early career undoubtedly prepared him for the unique role judges play in public life.
They are responsible for upholding justice but the work involved in meeting that challenge sometimes subjects justices to public ridicule. A societal segment is all too ready to call the court lenient while another sector condemns judges for following archaic sentencing standards.
Johnson served in Malden District Court from 2002 through last year. A tenure of that duration in a district court makes a judge a witness to all of humanity’s frailties, excuses and tragedies. Johnson, like all judges, surely witnessed the same defendants cycling through his courtroom again and again.
But for 10 years of his judicial tenure, Johnson — in the words of his obituary — “was instrumental in the successful implementation of the drug court session that empowered many defendants to lead productive, drug free lives.”
Johnson’s compassion for addicts and his understanding of the limitations facing the judiciary in the battle against addiction is mirrored by the work of Lynn District Court justices. Working with probation officers and treatment specialists, justices are trying to make courts and, by extension, the corrections system, the first step on the road away from addiction and death.
Johnson called Everett his birthplace. He served Malden faithfully during his career and Medford was his home. Residents of these communities and countless other people remember Judge Johnson and mourn his passing.
