MANSFIELD — Former Richland County Common Pleas Court Judge James D. Henson died Sunday at the age of 83.
Henson was the longest-serving Common Pleas Court judge in Richland County history, serving 33 years on the bench before retiring in February 2014.
He was first elected judge in 1980 at the age of 38, and was then re-elected to five consecutive six-year terms, the final in 2010.
When elected, Henson was the second-youngest person Common Pleas Court judge in county history.
Henson announced his retirement in February 2014. Then-Gov. John Kasich appointed Brent Robinson to replace the long-time jurist.
Robinson won election to the bench nine months later and remains in that position today.
Henson, who served in the U.S. Army for three years and as an FBI officer, also worked as a welfare case worker.
He once compared his work as a judge to that of a social worker.
“The work we do here is social work,” Henson said. “It’s social work with teeth. I went from being a social worker at the Welfare Department in Columbus to being a social worker with a lot of power. And that’s what being a judge is today.”
He earned his undergraduate and law degree from The Ohio State University before beginning his legal practice in the Cleveland area.
Henson worked as an assistant prosecutor in the Richland County Prosecutor’s Office before making the decision to run for judge.
He presided over many criminal and civil cases during his three-plus decades on the bench.
Perhaps no case gained more public and media attention than the 1990 aggravated murder trial of Dr. John Boyle, a month-long legal proceeding that resulted in a jury’s guilty verdict.
After Boyle was convicted of killing his wife, Noreen, and burying her body beneath the basement of a new home he had purchased in Erie, Penn., Henson sentenced him to 20 years to life in prison for aggravated murder and 18 months for abuse of a corpse.
Boyle remains behind bars at the Marion Correctional Institution.
One of Henson’s crowning moments on the bench came in 1997 when he helped establish the first Richland County Substance Abuse Treatment Court, aka “Drug Court.”
Henson was honored by officials with that court in 2014.
“[The Drug Court] was his idea,” then-Chief Probation Officer David Leitenberger said at the ceremony honoring Henson. “And he tasked not just the court, but the entire law enforcement criminal justice community to come together and bring to fruition this new idea.”
He said the court was one of the first drug courts in Ohio and even the nation.
As he prepared to retire more than a decade ago, Henson talked about how a judge’s caseload had changed — both in sheer numbers and in the number of cases involving illegal drugs.
“When I first came here to Richland County, I saw a few dozen criminal cases a year as a prosecutor,” the judge said. “As a judge, I saw a few hundred cases a year. Very quickly thereafter, it rose to several thousand cases a year.
“I’ve seen a great deal of influx of drugs. A huge number of cases involve the sale, possession, distribution or manufacturing of drugs.
“We have less educated clientele. At one time, people were getting an eighth- or ninth-grade education. Today, many thousands of people [that appear in court] aren’t getting any education at all. They’re leaving school without graduating, and they immediately turn to what they can do and that is sell drugs,” he said.
Current Richland County Common Pleas Court Judge Phil Naumoff on Sunday afternoon praised Henson.
“As defense counsel, I would appreciate the fact he would consider each individual separately. He didn’t lump people together. He gave people a chance,” he said.
Naumoff, elected to the bench in 2018 after eight years as a Municipal Court magistrate and 16 years in private practice, said more than three decades on the bench is rare.
“It takes a bit of stamina … you have to love and really enjoy what you are doing. It will be a rare occasion that you will see anyone on the bench that long again. It just doesn’t happen,” Naumoff said.
He also said it’s rare to see a judge with the varied work experience Henson possessed before becoming a judge.
“You just don’t see that anymore,” he said. “Now it’s straight to law school and then into practice.”
Naumoff said Henson treated everyone in his courtroom fairly.
“He was someone you could always talk to. His door was always open and he was someone you could approach. He was respectful to everyone in his courtroom.
“That included our clients. He did the job the way you’re supposed to do the job. He would sit there and show respect to all parties. He was a decent person on the bench. He really was,” Naumoff said.
