WEST CHESTER — Ronald C. Nagle, the attorney and judge who grew up in modest surroundings in West Chester but who reached the pinnacle of respect in the legal community of his native Chester County, retiring as a lauded Common Pleas Court judge but continuing for years afterwards his work in the county’s legal world, has died. He was 84.
His death on Friday was confirmed by his son, Brian Nagle, a partner at the West Chester law firm of MacElree Harvey, who worked with his father at the firm in the judge’s later years and was, like him, a past president of the Chester County Bar Association.
“He and I were very, very close,” said Brian Nagle Tuesday. “I worked with him when I started as a lawyer. Then he became a judge, and when he came back to work with me he spent his final days as a lawyer with me. I will miss him a ton.”
News of his death on Saturday swept through the county’s legal community with universal praise for his legal acumen, his polished and poised demeanor, and his love for the work of an attorney and jurist. Common Pleas Judge Allison Bell Royer, now occupying Nagle’s former Courtroom 7 on the seventh floor of the county Justice Center, opened her court on Monday with a moment of silence in Nagle’s honor.
“He was a judge who was thoughtful and kind and who went at his job the way we all think it should be done,” she told those in the courtroom.
President Judge John Hall also paid tribute to his former colleague on Monday.
“During his tenure, he presided over a variety of matters, including both criminal and civil cases, always with his characteristic patience, preparedness and legal prowess,” Hall said in a statement. “His judicial temperament was ideal.
“Beyond his excellence as a jurist, his warm, engaging personality won the friendship of many, including the entire bench,” said Hall. “It is with great sadness that his passing is acknowledged by his former colleagues. His loss is a loss to us all.”
“Ron Nagle was one of the finest lawyers and judges with whom I had the pleasure of working,” said Senior Judge Jeffrey Sommer, who served at the law firm Nagle founded after Nagle left a career as a special agent with the FBI. “He had an encyclopedic mind and the ability to recall and recite from memory everything from case law to Shakespeare and the Rolling Stones.
“He was a giant in West Chester and a mentor to me and others,” Sommer added. “He will be sorely missed.”
“Frankly the first word that comes to mind about Ron is ‘gentleman,’ “ said Senior Judge David Bortner, another West Chester native whose career took him to the Common Pleas bench, on Tuesday. “He was pleasant, considerate, and humorous. He typically had a twinkle in his eyes, and was a very capable judge, bringing a broad background of many years of legal expertise to the bench.”
Attorney Joseph “Skip” Brion came to Nagle’s firm in the 1990s and found him to be the consummate attorney in thinking problems through and working towards acceptable solutions for all parties involved in a dispute. But beyond that, the two became great friends, he said.
“We were both raised by single mothers and came to feel that we were the brothers who we found later in life,” Brion said Tuesday. “He was one of the most honest and caring people I knew. He was always there when you needed him.” (Nagle’s father, Frank Nagle, was incapacitated by a stroke when Nagle was 8, and he grew up with his parents above the bakery on Gay Street that his mother, Virginia Nagle, owned, Quaker Bakers.)
His legal background in the county began in 1969 at the firm of Buckley & Nagle, now Buckley Brion McGuire & Morris of West Chester, which he founded with the late C. Barry Buckley and another attorney, V. Clayton McQuiddy in West Chester, his hometown. Nagle’s work encompassed extensive experience in municipal, land use and zoning law, administrative law, real estate acquisition and development, eminent domain, and all aspects of zoning and land development for local and county governments and for private clients, including litigation related to these areas at both the trial court and appellate court levels.
He worked with various townships in the county that were undergoing significant development pressures in the 1980s and 1990s. Among his most telling accomplishments, said Brion, was the process by which a large parcel of land in East Goshen was saved from heavy industrial development to become Applebrook, a significant open space with a golf course, township park, and minimal development.
“He was really the one that put that together and made it work,” Brion said.
Even though Nagle’s expertise was on the civil side of the law, he took on a full criminal caseload when he took the bench in 2005. Doing so, he presided over cases large and small and drew praise for his work from both prosecutors and defense attorneys who appeared before him.
“I was lucky enough to be one of the prosecutors assigned to Judge Nagle’s courtroom soon after starting at the D.A.’s Office,” said District Attorney Christopher deBarrena-Sarobe on Monday. “He was a smart, nuanced, and consistent jurist who truly cared about every case that was assigned to his courtroom.
“It is hard to explain, but the way Judge Nagle ran his courtroom allowed advocates to flourish and justice to be administered with ease,” deBarrena-Sarobe continued. “He will be missed. And his impact on the Chester County legal community will not be forgotten.”
Attorney Thomas Bellwoar, who served as a prosecutor before going into private practice and representing clients accused of crimes, agreed.
“I am fortunate to have practiced before him and always admired his thoughtfulness, candor and even demeanor on the bench.,” he said. “He treated everyone who appeared before him — lawyers, witnesses, involved parties, and staff — with kindness and respect. The Chester County legal community has lost a brilliant mind and a good friend.”
It was as the judge presiding over a highly publicized and emotionally fraught 2013 trial that his even keel, and his knowledge of matters beyond the world of real estate law, shone.
In sentencing a West Vincent man who had been found guilty of animal cruelty for shooting two of his neighbor’s Bernese Mountain dogs that he said were attacking his sheep, Nagle called the defendant’s actions “heartless” and “unnecessary.” But he rejected calls from across social media and the prosecution that the man, then in his 70s, be imprisoned for his actions
‘This is not a case for incarceration,’ Nagle said in addressing the defendant at the conclusion of an hour-long sentencing hearing at the Chester County Justice Center. ‘I am not going to do that. (But) I thought a lot about your case. Your actions were so rash and so heartless. I think you deserve some punishment for that.’
To that end, Nagle ordered the man held on 90 days of electronic home confinement. He was also ordered to complete 200 hours of community service with an organization that cares for dogs, ‘if they will have you.’
‘I want you to think on every one of those 90 days that there has got to be a consequence for your actions,’ said the judge, who said he had both owned dogs since childhood and worked around sheep and other livestock in his youth, and was even familiar with the ammunition Pilotti has used to kill the dogs. “I think this is a way you can help heal yourself,” he told the defendant.
Nagle’s sentence essentially offered a balance between the prosecution’s request that Pilotti be subject to incarceration for his ‘cold, calculated and callous’ killing of the two pets, and Pilotti’s attorney’s call not to harshly punish a man who had lived an admirable and caring life up to the point of the shooting. That, said many, is what a good judge does.
When Nagle left the bench just before Christmas in 2018, his fellow judges gathered in his courtroom to praise him and say their collegial farewells. Not all were happy that state rules governing senior judges set limits on their activities.
“I’m not happy to be here today,” said then-President Judge Jacqueline Carroll Cody in her remarks. “I wish you could stay.”
“It has been a great job,” Nagle told those in the packed courtroom. “I have mixed emotions about leaving. But there is a time for everything and we all have to move on. I’m going to miss it.”
Brian Nagle said his father’s decision to continue practicing law at MacElree Harvey even after leaving the bench was not surprising. “I think he just loved what he did. He could not sit still. He loved being a lawyer and he loved even more being a judge.”
Nagle’s impact in the county exceeded the world of law. For years, he devoted himself to working with various community charitable organizations, including serving as a long-term board member and president of Handi-Crafters, the organization founded in Caln in 1961 to provide a continuum of services to support the needs of individuals who are developmentally disabled.
“What a good man,” said Denny Howell, the current board president of Handi-Crafters. “He was a man who personified what a good judge should be. And his commitment to Handi-Crafters was pivotal in continuing its mission of providing people with various disabilities vocational job training, socialization, and the opportunity for competitive employment.”
Brian Nagle suggested that his interest in the organization came from having a cousin who lived with Down’s Syndrome. “That was something that impacted him.”
Nagle was appointed to the bench by then-Gov. Ed Rendell in 2005, and was elected later that year by county voters. He was retained for an additional 10-year term before retiring in 2018. After that, he joined his son Brian’s firm and worked on a variety of projects.
He was a graduate of Malvern Preparatory School in 1958, Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia in 1962 and the Temple University School of Law in 1965. In 1969, after he left the FBI, he co-founded the law firm where he remained until his appointment to the bench by Rendell. he also served as one of the first Juvenile Masters overseeing delinquency cases in the 1980s.
He was active in the Chester County Bar Association, serving as its president in 1987, and helped establish the Chester County Bar Foundation.
He is survived by his wife, Ann, their four children, Ginny, Kathy, Brian and Gretchen, and 14 grandchildren. A mass of Christian burial will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at St. Agnes Church in West Chester, following 9:30 a.m. visitation.
Remembering his father’s “extraordinarily powerful mind,” Brian Nagle mused that continuing to work into his 80s was proof of that. “It was like having a high-performance sports car,” he said. “You need to drive it every day.”
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
