PORTSMOUTH DISTRICT COURT Judge Alvin Taylor didn’t want to retire, and he’ll be the first to say that.

After 33 years on the bench and thousands of cases, Taylor reached the mandatory retirement age of 70. According to the New Hampshire Constitution, he had to step down.

"I’ll miss the action most of all," Taylor said. "I’ll miss the courtroom interplay. There was always something going on. I will also miss the court staff. They are great people."

Taylor said he would have liked to remain a judge. "But you can’t go against the constitution," he said.

Jim Boffetti, managing attorney for the Rockingham County office of the New Hampshire Public Defender’s Office, said Taylor is a good example of why that mandatory retirement age might not be a good idea. "Judge Taylor is one of the best judges I have ever had the privilege of being in front of," Boffetti said. "He is a judge’s judge, eminently fair, respectful of all parties that appear before him, and he follows the law. He is certainly qualified to continue on the bench."

In his 10 years, Boffetti has appeared countless times before Taylor, as have the rest of the 14 attorneys who make up the Stratham office. "In all my years as managing attorney, I have never been in chambers with Taylor and never approached the bench," Boffetti said. "He is clearly one of the best judges and a very nice man. We will miss him in that court."

Boffetti said the attorneys didn’t always agree with Taylor, but they all knew that he did what he thought was right and that he knew and followed the law.

A lot of changes took place during Taylor’s 33 years on the bench. "When I first sat on the bench," Taylor said, "district courts were autonomous. Judges ran the show and their salaries were paid by the state. The operation costs of the courts were paid by the localities, like in Portsmouth by the City Council. There’s much more centralization now, and all the expenses come from Concord."

In terms of the court docket, Taylor said judges today hear a lot more domestic violence cases than when he started. "There is a marked increase," Taylor said. "I believe it’s more a change in society that more [cases] are being reported. Domestic violence has always been there. We just didn’t talk about it. It is taken much more seriously now, and society has made it clear it will not stand for it."

Another change in the law that Taylor said was made for the better was the lowering of the legal blood-alcohol limit for a drunken driving conviction. "I was very pleased to see the driving-under-the-influence limit go from .15 percent to .08 percent in blood-alcohol tests," he said. That change was made in 1993.

One law Taylor doesn’t like requires charges against underage teens for smoking or possession of cigarettes. "I believe that is a parental problem and not one for the courts," he said. "I would not accept a plea from a teenager unless his or her parents were in the courtroom. The same holds for teen-age drinking cases. There has to be some parental responsibility."

A judge’s decisions affect lives and often make him unpopular. In 2001, a transient who was under arrest threatened to kill Taylor. The man was charged in the incident. Taylor said he wasn’t frightened.

"I never felt I was in danger," he said. "I never took such things seriously and not once in the courtroom did I feel threatened in any way.

"Incidents arise from time to time in a courtroom where a defendant or another person gets out of control," Taylor said. "I had every confidence in the courtroom bailiffs and the officers who were always present. I always found that if you treat people with respect, they do the same. I think that’s the best way to handle it."

Taylor hasn’t completely retired. He will continue to work a shortened schedule at the Portsmouth law office where he and Tom Keane are partners. "I am not the type of person to just stop working," he said. "I will limit my practice to part time. My wife, Janet, and I like to travel. I want to spend more time with my children and grandchildren."

Taylor’s son, David, is a lawyer who lives with his family in Seattle. Taylor’s daughter, Leslie, is a stay-at-home mother of four children, three of whom are triplets.

A New Hampshire native, Taylor graduated from Hillsboro High School. He attended Clark University in Worcester, Mass., then went on to the Duke University School of Law. He graduated in 1958 and began practicing law in the state in 1959.

From 1965 to 1966, Taylor served as Rockingham County attorney. In 1970, he was appointed a special justice in Portsmouth District Court, assuming full judicial duties in 1989 after Judge Thomas Flynn passed away. "I became the head judge here and stayed here," Taylor said. "I stayed until I retired on March 7."

Judges who retire early are allowed to retain their authority as judges and work part-time or when needed. Five years ago, at age 65, Judge Douglas Gray of Rockingham Superior Court did just that.

Because Taylor has already reached the mandatory retirement age, he could not retain his judicial authority. He noted that Gray, his former law partner, was about to join him at age 70.

"We were law partners for 13 years," Taylor said. "We did general practice law - including real estate trusts, wills and some criminal and trial work."

Criminal trial work is the type of law Taylor enjoyed the best, he said. He chalks it up to his experiences as a county attorney.

Asked if he found it difficult to go from the prosecution side of a trial to the defense table, Taylor said he didn’t. "It’s all a matter of arguing the law," he said. "There are cases you wish you didn’t have to sit on, but it’s law, not emotion. As a judge, I was very fortunate in that I could make decisions and then put the case behind me. Any judge who cannot do that has a problem."

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