John Hutchins came to the law later in life.
Before taking the job as Haines Court magistrate in March 2003, Hutchins built parts for the Apollo Lunar Module, anesthetized double amputees at a Philadelphia hospital, and worked aboard the USS Missouri, the site of Japan’s surrender to the Allied powers during World War II.
Hutchins, 69, will retire Aug. 31 from the magistrate job he says has become “much more important to me than anything I’ve ever done.” A farewell open house will be held at the court starting 2 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 16.
Though he didn’t start law school until 2001, Hutchins knew he wanted to be a lawyer in 1965, when he was an undergraduate student at Carson Newman College in Jefferson City, Tenn. But in his sophomore year, his wife got pregnant with twins.
“That kind of put the squash on going to a private school and living in the dormitory,” Hutchins said.
To provide for his family, Hutchins secured an entry-level job at an aircraft company in Southern California manufacturing metal components for larger projects, including the module that later landed on the moon.
The job was awful, he said. “The first day when I came home, my wife cried because as you grind these metal parts, the dust and the metal fragments would blow up in your face, and she said my whole face was black except for where my glasses were. It was dark and dingy and stinky. It was horrible, and it was boring.”
After two years, Hutchins and his family moved to Northampton, Mass., where the local hospital was hiring. After working as an orderly for several months, the nursing school’s director asked if Hutchins wanted to be the program’s second male student.
Hutchins scraped together some cash and an anesthesiologist got him a nights and weekends gig in the emergency room, allowing him to attend school during the day. He graduated from nursing college in June 1972.
When Hutchins discovered he could enter a specialized, advanced program to become qualified to practice anesthesia – a procedure he found interesting and complex – his wife responded, “You want more education? Find somebody else to pay for it.”
With the Vietnam War on, the military needed surgical teams. Hutchins joined the U.S. Navy, serving two years in the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, tending to servicemen with severe orthopedic and neurological injuries.
The experience qualified him for “full-time duty under instruction,” and the Navy enrolled him at George Washington University Medical School in Washington, D.C. He became a certified registered nurse anesthetist in 1976.
For the next 17 years, Hutchins served in Naval hospitals across the country, the last 10 aboard aircraft carriers and vessels stationed in the Persian Gulf.
“That’s how I ended up getting divorced,” Hutchins said. “I was gone so much during the last 10 years, I came home for a short time and was going to be gone for another six months and she said, ‘You know, you’re a nice guy, but you’re never here. You’re just never here.’”
After his last duty station in Adak in 1993, Hutchins moved to Anchorage to practice obstetric anesthesia at Alaska Regional Hospital. He stayed nine years.
Around 2001, Hutchins’ son – also named John – graduated college with a degree in economics. Hutchins pestered his son about the pointlessness of the degree.
“I said, ‘Why don’t you go to law school?’ And I kept bugging him: ‘You can’t get anything with a bachelor’s degree in economics. What are you going to do with that? Go to law school. Go to law school.’ So he said, ‘If you think law school is so hot, why don’t you go to law school?’ So I decided to sign up for it,” Hutchins said.
The two attended law school simultaneously, Hutchins via an online program. “It was kind of fun talking with your adult son about things, exams and tests and cases and stuff.”
While in the Anchorage law library one day in 2002, Hutchins saw an advertisement for a magistrate job in Skagway. He applied and got the job.
Juggling the intensive law school program and the magistrate responsibilities proved too difficult, and Hutchins dropped out after three years of study. “I just didn’t have the time. It was too much doing this job,” he said.
Hutchins moved to the Haines Court in 2003.
When Hutchins took his first magistrate job in Skagway, he thought the job would be easy and straightforward: “Criminals commit crimes and you look at the law and go to the penalties and you sentence them. You don’t become connected to them in any way.”
He soon found keeping the job at arm’s length was impossible. “Over time, you get to know the people in the sense that they’re not just a name or a crime. ‘Oh, I’m going to go do a driving under the influence case.’ They’re not just a case anymore. They’re real people, and they have families.”
In his office, Hutchins keeps a small poster taped to a bookshelf in front of his desk. On it is printed one of the two mantras Hutchins has tried to keep in mind as magistrate: “What people really need is a good listening to.”
Many of the people who come to the Haines Court for non-criminal matters – child custody, small claims disputes – represent themselves with no legal knowledge. Hutchins’ job is to listen to them tell their story and then decipher if the person has a valid claim or defense.
“Everything you do has meaning. You deal with child custody cases, you deal with property, evictions, protective orders, domestic violence, criminal law. Everything you do is important. You’re affecting peoples’ money, their rights, where they live, whether they can keep their children or not,” Hutchins said.
Behind his bench, Hutchins also keeps a taped note to himself, a quote by Walter Carpeneti, who served as Chief Justice of the Alaska Supreme Court from 2009 to 2012.
“For me, it’s really satisfying to do a job when my responsibility in that job literally is to do the right thing,” the note reads. “That’s what judges are supposed to do. When a dispute comes in, they’re supposed to find the law, figure out what the facts are in that case, apply the law to those facts, and do hopefully the right thing. This is why I think law as a profession is important work, and rewarding work.”
Court clerk Bonnie Hedrick, who has worked in the two-person office with Hutchins since 2008, praised the magistrate’s compassion and understanding of the human condition as more than a dichotomy of “good” and “bad.”
“He can speak to them about (their criminal charges) while still recognizing their humanity and offering respect for that other part of the person who is really struggling there in front of him,” Hedrick said. “After a case, he can go back to seeing somebody as another human – flawed like the rest of us are.”
Hutchins said he isn’t aware of any grudges held against him for his judgments. One man he put away for a year in Skagway ended up asking Hutchins to marry him and his girlfriend. In Haines at the time, Hutchins traveled back to Skagway to perform the ceremony.
“We’ve had defendants who have gone through the court for unpleasant proceedings and they’ve ended up in jail, and then they are out of jail months or even a year later and they will pop in and say ‘Hi’ to the magistrate,” Hedrick said.
Attorney Dick Folta practiced law before Hutchins since about 2004, representing local clients on a variety of civil and criminal matters.
“He has learned the skills and demeanor of judgeship exceedingly well over the years and I would not hesitate to say that I believe Magistrate Hutchins to be one of the best in Alaska at this time,” Folta said. “He is especially good at public relations, skillfully explaining the complexities of the law to laypersons appearing in his court. I cannot say enough good things.”
Assistant District Attorney Amy Paige, who has worked Haines cases since 2011, said she “genuinely thinks (Hutchins) is the finest magistrate in Southeast Alaska.”
“He’s so careful about getting his decisions right that if he doesn’t know the answer to a legal question he will withhold a decision until he is satisfied that he has done the research necessary,” Paige said. “He is truly among the best.”
When asked recently how he felt about retiring, about giving up the squabbling divorcees, landlord-tenant disputes, drunk drivers and petty thieves, Hutchins responded, “I already know I’m going to miss it.”