Edmund B. Spaeth Jr., 95, formerly of Mt. Airy, a retired president judge of the Pennsylvania Superior Court, died March 31 of congestive heart failure at Cathedral Village, a retirement community in the Andorra section of Philadelphia.
Judge Spaeth served for 22 years as a respected trial and appellate judge and for his final three years as president judge of the Superior Court. A longtime advocate for judicial reform, he was strongly opposed to the election of judges rather than their appointment based on merit, feeling that political campaigning by judges was incompatible with a fair and impartial judiciary.
After leaving the bench in 1986, he was a member of the Philadelphia-based law firm of Pepper Hamilton until retiring in 2002. He also taught evidence and professional responsibility at the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania from 1974 to 1997 and was a co-founder of the school’s Center on Professionalism.
A year after he was appointed in 1990 by Gov. Bob Casey as chairman of the state Judicial Inquiry and Review Board, Judge Spaeth resigned, telling the Governor that the judicial system was too dysfunctional for the JIRB to perform its duties. Casey then appointed him to a commission that would recommend changes to the judicial system.
The commission’s recommendations, which included abolishing the review board and replacing it with a more transparent system of judicial discipline, were later enacted into law.
In 1988, he was named chair of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, a nonprofit organization established to promote reforms to the judicial system. He was honored by PMC in 2013 for his contributions to court reform.
Raised in Mt. Airy, where he and his wife, the former Nancy Wiltbank, would later settle, Judge Spaeth graduated from Germantown Friends School and Harvard University. He served in Naval Intelligence during World War II and afterward joined the Naval Reserve, retiring with the rank of commander.
After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1948, he joined the Philadelphia law firm of MacCoy, Evans & Lewis, where he defended members of the Communist Party who had been charged under the Smith Act with advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government.
In 1964 he was appointed a judge of the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court by Gov William Scranton. In January of 1973 he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Superior Court by Gov. Milton Shapp, but was defeated in the primary election that year. Later that year, he was named to fill another vacancy on the Superior Court and ultimately was elected to a full 10-year term.
He served on the boards of the Diagnostic and Rehabilitation Center, Gaudenzia House and the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, and was chairman of the board of trustees of Bryn Mawr College under three presidents. He also was on the board of the Squirrel Island Library on Squirrel Island, Maine, where he spent summers with his family
In addition to his wife, Judge Spaeth is survived by a son, Edmund B. Spaeth III; daughters Eleanor Lee Simons and Suzanne Marinelli; brothers George and Karl; four grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and two step-great-grandchildren. Another brother, Philip, preceded him in death.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 24, at Germantown Friends Meeting, 31 W. Coulter St. in Germantown. Burial was private.
Memorial donations may be made to the Squirrel Island Library, Squirrel Island, ME 04570, or to Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, Three Parkway, Suite 1320, Philadelphia, PA 19102. – WF
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