No-nonsense judge who treated each case equally to retire
In the final horrifying hours of his life, Joshua Evans witnessed the murders of his mother - whose unborn baby was sliced from its womb - and his sister before the killers nabbed him as he fled.
His assailants tried, but failed, to forever silence Joshua when they fatally stabbed the 7-year-old Addison boy and dumped his body hours later.
It was Joshua's words - as recounted through witnesses who say he told them about the murders before he, too, was killed - that helped convict three defendants of the infamous November 1995 slayings.
DuPage Circuit Judge Peter J. Dockery, who presided over the arduous 1998 trials, retires today from the 18th Judicial Circuit.
His legal ruling on the admissibility of Joshua's final words, as well as countless other weighty issues during a distinguished judicial career that spanned more than 20 years, often drew headlines.
But to the unflappable Dockery, whose no-nonsense, intensely focused courtroom management often left novice lawyers quaking in their briefs, the case's notoriety didn't make it any more important than others on his docket.
"It's part of the job," he said in his trademark terse, soft-spoken manner. "You handle these sort of things. You're concerned about legal decisions. It takes an effort, but the appropriate amount of effort. I don't feel pride. I don't think of cases that way."
Dockery's interest in criminal law led him in January 1976 to become an assistant DuPage County state's attorney after law school. His boss, John J. Bowman, now a state appellate justice, recalls the intense prosecutor he hired.
"Peter hasn't changed much from the time he started practicing law," Bowman said. "He's a very serious person who is dedicated to the law. He's very independent and has the highest integrity. There's no fairer judge."
In the courtroom, Dockery rarely looks up from the bench while taking meticulous notes. He does, though, look a defendant square in the eye at sentencing. Lawyers appearing before him sometimes say they're going to see "the dentist," because they know they'll be drilled. Dockery offers no apologies. Mention of the nickname garners a slight smile. His longtime friend DuPage Circuit Judge Robert Anderson said Dockery actually has a heck of a sense of humor outside of the courtroom.
"He is someone who is going to work until the bell tolls on his retirement," said Anderson. "He's extremely hardworking and smart. No one knows the law better than Pete. He gives everybody the same courtesy and dignity of treating their case as if it were the most important case he has."
As a prosecutor, Dockery rose through the ranks to deputy criminal chief and handled his share of heater cases before leaving the office in 1984. One of them involved the 1981 murder of Zigfield Troy during an ambush robbery while the former Illinois Professional Golf Association president closed up his Woodridge golf course. The two teen killers received 40-year prison terms.
After a short stint in civil private practice, Dockery returned to DuPage County in 1985 but, this time, joined the opposite side as an assistant public defender. Within months, he was named chief public defender.
Nicholas Kirkeles was among many defense attorneys to whom Dockery gave a start. Kirkeles said Dockery quietly observed their trials without interference, then left detailed notes of his observations on their desks days later.
Dockery was a zealous researcher of the law, usually from behind his closed office door, where he would send out nearly daily staff updates. As a joke, they took the hinges of his office door one day. Dockery wasn't amused. Kirkeles still refuses to name the perpetrator.
"He really made us good lawyers," Kirkeles said. "He was always there to help but, he wanted to be left alone to do his work and he left us alone to do ours. He said, 'Try your cases, follow the law. I'll worry about everything else.'"
Dockery was appointed an associate judge in 1989, working his way through the various divisions before being assigned a felony call in 1991. It was there that he presided over the 1998 trials in the Addison slayings, in which the defendants hatched a murderous plan to steal a full-term fetus - a boy who survived.
Dockery's decisions, including allowing Joshua's words based on the judge's professional dispassionate interpretation of the law, withstood vigorous defense appeals. The three defendants are serving life prison terms.
At 59, Dockery said he is contemplating what to do in retirement. He and his wife, Lanette, married for nearly 30 years, have three adult children whom the judge coached in youth baseball and football. They regularly attend games at Notre Dame, where Dockery received an undergraduate degree in English.
So, does Dockery feel he's made a difference? True to form, he's keeping it close to the vest.
"That's hard to say," he said. "You definitely have an effect on the lives of the people in front of you. You work hard, pay attention to the details and, from that, individual justice can be administered."