Throughout his life, and most notably during his years as a public defender and judge, Edwin L. Douglas strove to demonstrate how compassion and understanding had a place within the legal system. Even as a child, he had a way of displaying acts of kindness that sometimes heartened, as well as frustrated, his mother.
“We grew up hearing stories about how his mom would send him off to school all bundled up for the cold weather, and how he’d return home missing a coat, or gloves, or whatever,” said his daughter Jean Stoia.
“When his mother would ask what happened to his clothes, my dad would just shrug and pretend he didn’t know. It was a while before she found out he was giving his things away to kids in his class whose families couldn’t afford them.”
Judge Douglas, 89, of Naperville, formerly of Warrenville, a retired Circuit Court judge of DuPage County, died of pneumonia Monday, Jan. 19, in Edward Hospital.
Judge Douglas was born in Chicago and raised on the Far South Side in the Pullman area. His father was a pharmacist who owned a drugstore in downtown Hammond. His summers were spent at the family’s cottage in Cedar Lake, Ind., where his lifelong passion for fishing began.
“His boyhood years were warm and loving, a childhood blessed with wonderful parents and so many positive experiences that all shaped him later as an adult,” said another daughter, Diane Lord.
Judge Douglas began his legal career in 1940, when upon his graduation from Chicago-Kent College of Law he joined the U.S. Department of Justice. There his job was investigating enemy aliens for the Bureau of Immigration.
In 1943, Judge Douglas married Mildred Sperry, a Chicago-area musician and piano teacher. She died in 2001.
“He was so supportive and proud of our mother, always interested in her career and what she thought of things,” Stoia said. “He’d often defer to her judgment, saying that she graduated magna cum laude and he graduated magna cum lousy.”
After World War II broke out, although he could have been exempted from military service, Judge Douglas enlisted as a private and was sent to officer training school. He was assigned overseas as a special agent attached to the 9th Armored Division Counterintelligence Corps, which was part of the 3rd Army under Gen. George Patton. Judge Douglas’ tour of duty took him from Paris, working with the underground French Forces of the Interior, and on to Alsace-Lorraine, Luxembourg, and the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium.
In carrying out his assignment to locate and interrogate Gestapo agents and war criminals, Judge Douglas made numerous trips by Jeep, accompanying invading tanks deep into enemy territory. According to family members, one high-ranking arrest he made was that of operatic composer Richard Wagner’s daughter-in-law, Winifred Wagner, a personal friend of Hitler and Nazi Party member since 1926.
Upon his discharge, Judge Douglas worked with the Atomic Energy Commission doing legal work and representing the government at loyalty hearings until 1954, when he was appointed assistant state’s attorney in DuPage County. Three years later, while conducting his law practice in Warrenville, he became the county’s public defender, for which he achieved national and international recognition for his writings published in several law journals.
In 1970, Judge Douglas was elected to the office of circuit judge, serving in all divisions over 15 years. During his first 3 1/2 years on the bench, he held court in the Divorce Division as presiding judge. For the next several years, he heard criminal felony jury cases and civil jury cases, making history by being the first justice in Illinois to sentence a murderer to life in prison without chance for parole. His decision, although overturned by the Appellate Court, was later upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court.
“His experiences as a public defender and a judge gave him a balanced perspective that was reflected in his judgments,” Lord said. “He’d look at a defendant not just in terms of the crime he or she may have committed, but also with consideration given to the circumstances surrounding that person’s life.”
In 1981, Judge Douglas was unanimously elected chief judge to replace Judge William Hopf, who had vacated the post to accept an appointment to the 2nd District Illinois Appellate Court. At the time of his retirement in 1985, Judge Douglas was presiding in the Chancery Division, where it was said of him that his open-door policy and thoughtfulness aided both the inexperienced attorney and the seasoned trial lawyer.
Judge Douglas also served as an elected member of the former Warrenville District 31 Board of Education for five years, and was its legal adviser for 15 years. He was a member of the Warrenville VFW Post 8081, Lions Club, Warrenville Historical Society, and a member of St. Irene Catholic Church and past president of the church’s school board.
Family members said Judge Douglas, a recipient of the Bronze Star Award, had been looking forward to being in Washington for the dedication of the World War II monument in May, along with three others from the Warrenville VFW Post, a trip sponsored by the Rolling Thunder motorcycle group.
Other survivors include two daughters, Marion Douglas-Hempel and Dorothy; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Visitation will be held from 3 to 9 p.m. Thursday in Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home, 44 S. Mill St., Naperville. Mass will be said at 11 a.m. Friday in St. Irene Catholic Church, 28W531 Warrenville Rd., Warrenville.
