On a Friday in May 1978, Michael E. Bortner walked into the York County Courthouse in search of what was next in his career.
He had recently made the decision to move back home after working for two years as an assistant public defender in Centre County.
Bortner said he offered to leave his resume with the receptionist. But she asked him if he wanted to speak with the newly elected York County district attorney, John C. Uhler, who was in his office.
They hit it off. Uhler happened to have an opening for an assistant district attorney, and it was the beginning of a long relationship. Twenty-five years later, they’d again find themselves colleagues, this time, on the bench.
“It’s funny how timing is everything,” Bortner said.
Bortner, 71, of Spring Garden Township, is retiring after more than 17 years on the York County Court of Common Pleas on Jan. 4, 2021. The decision marks the end of a long career in public service, which includes serving as a state representative from 1985 to 1991 and state senator from 1991 to 1994.
He cited several reasons for his decision to retire.
First, Bortner said, he thought he’d already be retired. That’s because the Pennsylvania Constitution, before the voters recently amended it, used to set the mandatory retirement age for judges at 70.
The COVID-19 pandemic, he said, has a lot to do with hisdecision. He said he also didn’t want to hang around too long and “go out like Willie Mays dropping routine fly balls in center field.” And Bortner said he thinks that there are young lawyers who’d like the opportunity to serve as a judge.
Defense attorneys, current and former colleagues and employees described him as a kind, even-tempered and fair jurist who was focused on doing justice.
“It’s a great job,” Bortner said. “It’s a job I’m honored to have, and it was a good career.”
“I liked everything I did in my career,” he added, “but this was definitely the place for me.”
RELATED:'He tried to do the right thing:' York County Judge Richard K. Renn retires after 22 years
From the Pennsylvania General Assembly to the York County Court of Common Pleas
Growing up with blue-collar roots — his father worked at the P.H. Glatfelter paper mill — Bortner graduated from Spring Grove Area High School in 1967. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Susquehanna University in 1971 and his juris doctor from the Ohio Northern University Claude W. Pettit College of Law in 1976.
Before going to law school, Bortner served as a volunteer with the Peace Corps in Ghana. The program, he thought, would be a neat way to travel — especially internationally. He admired President John F. Kennedy.
In 1981, Bortner ran for York County district attorney, losing to J. Christian Ness, a Republican.
Bortner thought he ran a good race. A lot of Democrats, he said, pinned their hopes that he’d run again for office. “You’re crazy. I already did that once,” he’d respond. “I’m not going to get poor running for office all thetime.”
He joined what’s now called Blakey, Yost, Bupp & Rausch, worked as a part-time assistant public defender in the York County Public Defender’s Office and opened a small law office in Spring Grove.
Then, state Rep. Stanford “Bud” Lehr, R-West York, announced that he would not seek re-election in 1984 after serving eight terms in the 95th District.
“I did not want to be one of these people who’s running for office all the time. And just running for any office that came along,” Bortner said. “I decided, ‘I’m not going to do it.’”
So Bortner put out an announcement that he was not going to run. But he said he spent Christmas vacation second-guessing himself. He decided to enter the race, later beating a fellow lawyer, Glenn Vaughn, in the Democratic primary by 52 votes, according to York Daily Record/Sunday News archives.
On Election Day, Bortner then defeated Charlene Vaught, a Republican and past president of the Northwest Civic Association.
In 1990, state Sen. Ralph Hess, R-Spring Grove, did not seek re-election to the 28th Senatorial District.
Bortner saw the opening as an opportunity. The seat, he said, was seen as a steppingstone to the U.S. House of Representatives. He won.
But then came the 1994 midterm elections, the Republican Revolution. That's when the GOP took control of both chambers of Congress during President Bill Clinton's first term.
Dan Delp, a Republican businessmanfrom Manchester Township who ran a door-to-door, family values campaign, defeated Bortner. “Everyone lost,” he said. “I had a lot of good company.”
(As for Delp, he later pleaded guilty to patronizing a prostitute and furnishing alcohol to a minor for paying a woman for sex and buying her drinks on his Senate expense account. He did not seek re-election.)
Later, in 1997, Bortner unsuccessfully ran for York County judge. He said he realized that the only path to victory to the countywide officewas winning the Republican nomination.
So in 2003, after some soul-searching, and with a vacancy on the bench due to the retirement of Judge Richard H. Horne, Bortner tried again.
Bortner said all the money his campaign raised went toward targeting GOP voters. He won in the primary on both the Democratic and Republican tickets — something that he recalls didn’t sit well with some, including state Rep. Stan Saylor, R-Windsor Township.
“Stan, he was beside himself,” Bortner said. “But he got over it.”
Gov. Ed Rendell previously appointed Bortner to fill the vacancy. After the primary, when it was all but certain that he’d be elected in the fall, the Pennsylvania State Senate confirmed him. He took office on Aug. 1, 2003. (Ironically, Bortner said, one of the issues that he pushed for in the Legislature was merit selection of judges.)
Saylor said he vaguely recalls that Bortner might’ve sent out a mailer during the campaign that insinuated he was a Republican but noted that they’ve always had a good relationship.
Bortner, he said, is a class act who’s served the taxpayers well in York County.
“I think he’s done a really, really good job as judge,” Saylor said. “I just think — as a whole — I’ll even use the word excellent.”
Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale served as the chairperson of Bortner’s second judicial campaign and met him after moving to York in 1997.
They quickly became friends. DePasquale said he felt that Bortner was better suited for the bench than the “day-to-day political warfare” in the Legislature.
Said DePasquale: “I do think York County was better off because Mike served in the public arena.”
READ:‘Champion’ of treatment courts: York County Judge John S. Kennedy retires
‘He has a really good heart’
During his time on the bench, Bortner has presided over several notable criminal jury trials and issued major rulings in cases:
- In 2012, Bortner presided over the trial of Jordan Wallick, who at 15shot and killed James “Jimmy” Wallmuth III, 28, a student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, during a robbery in York on July 28, 2010.
- Next, in 2013, Bortner served as the judge for the case of Aric Woodard, who wasfound guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for fatally beating 2-year-old Jaques Twinn in York on Nov. 7, 2011.
- In 2019, Bortner ordered a new trial for Noel Montalvo, who was found guilty of first-degree murder and related crimes andsentenced to death in the killings of Miriam Ascencio, 44, and her friend, Manuel Santana, 37, a/k/a Nelson Lugo, in York on April 19, 1998.
- Later, in 2020, Bortner resentenced Paul Henry III to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole— plus 10 to 20 years—for shooting and killing Danielle Taylor, 26, and Foday Cheeks, 31, in Fawn Township on Sept. 13, 2016. Initially, Henry had been sentenced to death, but the jury made an error on the verdict slip.
Tom Kelley, who served as a York County judge from 2004 to 2015, described Bortner as “the sweetest guy I know.”
In 1992, Kelley, who was a newly minted assistant district attorney, said he first met Bortner during a York County Association of Chiefs of Police meeting at San Carlo's & The Hop in Manchester Township.
Bortner, he said, told him, “I have a feeling I’ll be seeing more of you.” They took a picture together, which Kelley found years later and put up in his office.
“It was a fortuitous look into the future,” said Kelley, who’s now a defense attorney in York and a former first assistant district attorney in the York County District Attorney’s Office, where he played an integral role in prosecutions related to the York race riots of 1969.
Bortner is “one of the most compassionate judges I have ever appeared before in my entire career,” said Dawn Cutaia, a consumer bankruptcy attorney who still practices in York but now lives in Boynton Beach, Florida.
“He has a really good heart,” Cutaia said. “And we were all lucky to be able to practice in front of him.”
Cutaia said she represented a young manwho was charged with felony hindering apprehension. She believed he was innocent. “It was a stupid case, and we took it to trial, and we won,” she said.
Police found a bong when executing a search warrant at the man's house. Headmitted on the witness stand that it belonged to him.
Prosecutors, she said, wanted her client to serve time because it was his fifth or sixth conviction. Both sides later agreed that the judge should instead just come out and “kind of get him to not smoke weed anymore.”
“But it’s Judge Bortner. He sounds like he’s being so nice,” Cutaia said. “It wasn’t really like a lecture, because it’s Bortner.”
Former state Rep. Steven Nickol, R-Hanover, recounted how both of them were at the Halloween parade in Spring Grove in 1990 while running for different offices.
“He came over to our car and was talking to my kids and gave them some candy,” Nickol said. “When he left, my kids said they wanted to vote for him.”
Nickol said the moment sticks out because the tenor of the time was different. Everything, he said, has become “seemingly so cutthroat and partisan.” Back then, lawmakers who belonged to different political partiesrespected and treated each other with dignity.
Shaleeta Washington met Bortner when she was in the third or fourth grade at McKinley Elementary School while on a field trip to the Pennsylvania State Capitol and later served as his law clerk from 2005 to 2007.
At the time, Bortner was assigned to the family law section, hearing matters including juvenile dependency cases. Many of them, she recalled, were depressing.
Washington said both of them looked forward to the rare times when he presided over adoptions.
Bortner, she said, would take pictures with the children and let them sit up on the bench.
“I think that really spoke to him as a person,” said Washington, who’s now in-house counsel at Highmark Inc. “He really cared about the cases that he was handling.”
MORE:York County Judge Stephen P. Linebaugh retires from 'absolute best job'
‘He just has a great judicial temperament’
In 1982, Bill Poole was waiting in line in the York County Prothonotary’s Office when someone asked him if he and his wife had picked out a name for their first son.
Poole said no, but added, “it’s not going to be Seth.”
“What’s wrong with Seth? That’s my son’s name,” said Bortner, who happened to be standing in line.
“Well,” Poole responded, “your last name isn’t Poole.” He was concerned that combination would lead to the rather unfortunate nickname “cesspool.”
Now, they’ve been friends for almost 40 years. They were law partners at McCullough, Poole and Bortner, which later on became Miller, Poole and Bortner.
Poole said Bortner made him realizethat judicial temperament is the most important quality for a judge.
“He just has a great temperament,” Poole said. “He’s a caring guy, he’s compassionate, the law is the law, and the rule of law is absolutely a base part of his foundation.”
Following his first year at the Widener University School of Law, Chuck Hobbs became a certified student advocate, started handling juvenile cases and conducted his first trial in front of Bortner.
Hobbs said he represented a teen in juvenile court who was accused of acting as a lookout during a drug deal. But the boy was “just standing there, looking nervous.”
Bortner ruled in their favor, Hobbs said.
“He doesn’t approach it as if he is the hammer, and we are the nail. He showed me respect and grace and kindness,” said Hobbs, who’s now a general practitioner specializing in criminal, family and bankruptcy law in York. “He just wanted to get to the facts, and wanted the child to have an opportunity to present their defense. And he listened.”
CHECK OUT:
‘He’s utterly impartial’
James Dolan, who worked as his law clerk from 2012 and 2013, and again since 2014, said Bortner has always been there for him.
Bortner, he said, allowed him to leave, help his family and then come back. The judge is an excellent boss.
“From my perspective, it’s always been a joy and easy to work for judge, because every time we talk about the case it’s, ‘James, what does the law say?’” Dolan said. “That’s the lodestar.”
Dolan said Bortner is hyper focused on following the law.
“He works very hard to be fair to both parties. He’s not choosing a side. He’s utterly impartial,” Dolan said. “Whatever the law tells him, that’s what he’s trying to do: to adhere to his best understanding of the law.”
ALSO OF INTEREST:York County suspends criminal jury trials due to COVID-19 through mid-February 2021
‘I wanted people to leave the courthouse thinking they got a fair shake’
In his retirement, Bortner said he’d like to spend more time with his six grandchildren and travel the United States.
His wife, Jackie, is a retired flight attendant with American Airlines. So, as a perk, they can both fly for free. The pandemic, though, complicates the plan.
Last fall, Bortner said, they rented an RV and took a trip to the Finger Lakes in New York.
“It was kind of nice. It was kind of fun,” he said. “Although, you realize, there isn’t a lot of space in those things.”
Bortner said he might volunteer for nonprofit organizations, possibly with the Parkinson’s Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease after being elected to the bench.
He said he bought an inexpensive acoustic guitar and wants to learn how to play a few chords and maybe some Peter, Paul and Mary songs. He’s thinking of writing about the last 50 years of York County politics, from George Leader to Tom Wolf.
Looking back on his tenure, Bortner said he hopes that he’s been a good addition to the bench and that those who come after will see him as a model.
Bortner said he’s not the most intellectual judge on the court. But he said he always thought that he could have a good demeanor and presence. That didn’t cost anything.
“My philosophy always was, ‘I needed to be fair.’ I wanted people to leave the courthouse thinking they got a fair shake,” he said. “Even if it wasn’t the one they wanted, they felt, for the first time, somebody listened to them. To me, that’s not hard to do.”
He said he often tells his children that it takes a long time to build a reputation, but it doesn’t take long to have one torn down.
“And the one thing that I would like to do is have a good reputation, have people say, if they remember me as a judge, ‘There’s a guy who was fair,’” Bortner said. “‘There’s a guy who would do the right thing.’”
Contact Dylan Segelbaum at 717-771-2102.
Statement from Gov. Tom Wolf:
“Frances and I extend our congratulations to Michael E. Bortner on his retirement. Mike has had a long, distinguished career in public service – first in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and the State Senate, and then as a Court of Common Pleas Judge. His thoughtful deliberation will be missed on the bench. We wish Mike all the best.”
