James Fitzgerald

Judge James M. Fitzgerald, an Alaska state and U.S. District Court judge for 47 years, died April 3, 2011, in Santa Rosa, Calif.

Fitzgerald began his long and distinguished career as a jurist when Gov. William Egan appointed him to be among the first crop of Superior Court judges when Alaska became a state in 1959. He served on the Superior Court until 1972, when he became a justice of the Alaska Supreme Court. Fitzgerald spent three years on that court before President Gerald Ford appointed him to the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska. Fitzgerald remained on the federal bench from the end of 1974 until he retired in 2006.

Fitzgerald was born in 1920 in Portland, Ore.

He attended college at Willamette University. As a football player on the Willamette team, he was on Oahu in Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941. The football team was conscripted, was given uniforms and rifles, and was put on duty guarding the water source at Punahou School until just before Christmas. The team was put on board an American ship, the Coolidge, which carried military personnel wounded in the bombing from Hawaii to San Francisco. While aboard, the team members helped care for the wounded.

When they returned to the United States, Fitzgerald enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. From 1942 through 1946, Fitzgerald served in the Marine Corps, ultimately as a radio gunner in a torpedo squadron operating in the Solomon Islands. The squadron's principal target was Rabaul, a major Japanese air base and supply center for the Japanese in the Solomons. In his war diary, Fitzgerald recorded one bombing run in which one-third of the aircraft that left the base did not return. For his extraordinary and meritorious wartime achievement, Fitzgerald was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal. He was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in December 1946.

Fitzgerald returned to Portland, where he worked as a firefighter while attending law school at night. Ultimately, he completed college and law school at Willamette, obtaining his law degree in 1951.

While still in law school, Fitzgerald married Karin Fitzgerald. He and his new wife drove their Model A Ford, named "Little Nell," up the primitive highway to Prince Rupert, British Columbia. From there, they ferried to Ketchikan, where they spent the summer. Fitzgerald worked on a fish trap tender, known as a brailer, at a time when fish traps still were legal in the Territory of Alaska.

Fitzgerald returned to Seattle in fall 1951 to pursue a career in the U.S. State Department and, in fact, began a graduate program at the University of Washington Institute of Public Affairs. However, in 1952, he decided to return to Alaska, where he began his first law job as an assistant United States attorney for the Territory of Alaska. There he brought indictments against, and successfully prosecuted, the chief of police, the captain of police and a U.S. marshal in Juneau on corruption charges.

In 1954, while still an assistant U.S. attorney, Fitzgerald, with his wife and baby son, moved to Anchorage. From 1956 to 1959, he worked as the city attorney in Anchorage. In 1959, he served as legal counsel to Gov. Egan and was the first state commissioner of public safety. In that capacity, Fitzgerald organized the Alaska State Troopers. Significantly, in 1959, Gov. Egan appointed Fitzgerald one of Alaska's first Superior Court judges.

Fitzgerald left the Alaska he loved in 2008 and enjoyed the last two years with his wife of 61 years, Karin, in Santa Rosa.

He leaves his wife, Karin Fitzgerald; children, Dennis Fitzgerald (Kathy O'Brien), Debra Fitzgerald (Tom Amodio), Kevin (Shanwne) Fitzgerald and Denise (George) Trefry; nine grandchildren, John, Kate and Sam Trefry, Madeleine and Bennett Amodio, and Regan, Nolan, Aidan and Evan Fitzgerald; great-grandchild, Lorenzo Trefry; and sister, Alexine Schweizer.

A celebration of life will be held from 3 to 6 p.m. April 17 at the Marriott Hotel in Anchorage. A presentation honoring Fitzgerald will begin at 3:30 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Hospice of Anchorage, 2612 E. Northern Lights Blvd., Anchorage 99508-4119.