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Colleagues remember Osborne
Photo
Judge Osborne
Judge Osborne was fair, compassionate and talented, a prot g says.
YOUNGSTOWN — Judges and a magistrate in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court remembered Judge Clyde W. Osborne, who died Monday at 91, as a highly respected county prosecutor and jurist with an excellent sense of humor.
“He is the reason that I became a lawyer and the reason I became a judge,” said Judge R. Scott Krichbaum, who attended night law school while serving as Judge Osborne’s bailiff between 1975 and 1980.
“He gave me my start,” Judge Krichbaum said.
A portrait of Judge Osborne is prominently displayed in Judge Krichbaum’s courtroom and photos of Judge Osborne adorn Judge Krichbaum’s chambers and his bailiff’s office.
After finishing law school, Judge Krichbaum recalled defending and winning acquittal in his first murder case in Judge Osborne’s court.
“He was the finest man I ever knew. He was honest as the day is long. He was as fair a man as I ever knew,” Judge Krichbaum said.
Besides being a good lawyer, Judge Osborne was “a good, kind, patient, compassionate, talented man,” Judge Krichbaum recalled.
“He was a second father to me, and he is everything I ever wanted to be as a judge. I had the great fortune of learning the trade from him, and no one could have a better teacher,” Judge Krichbaum said.
In addition, Judge Osborne, who kept a card file of jokes, was “as much fun to be around as anyone you’d ever meet. ... His laugh was infectious. It was as good as the joke,” Judge Krichbaum said.
Mark Huberman, Chief Mahoning County Domestic Relations court magistrate, who became a lawyer in 1976, recalled Judge Osborne “could scare the living daylights out of a lawyer and/or a client in court in a particular ruling and then he’d get that twinkle in his eye, and you’d know that he did that for effect. He was a master at doing that.”
“His bark was a lot bigger than his bite,” Huberman recalled.
An Army veteran of World War II, Judge Osborne had been a Vindicator police reporter and secretary to Mayor Charles P. Henderson.
After earning his law degree from Youngstown College and passing the Ohio bar exam in 1949, Judge Osborne was a lawyer in private practice before becoming an assistant county prosecutor in 1957 and prosecutor in 1963. He became a Mahoning County Common Pleas judge in 1967 and retired in 1981.
Judge Osborne “always spoke to you at street level. He never gave you the impression that because he was a judge he was superior to anybody,” Judge James C. Evans said.
Judge Evans recalled an appearance he made as a criminal defense lawyer, at which Judge Osborne became so angry upon reading a defendant’s lengthy criminal record that the judge threw a book from the judge’s bench to a spectator bench before imposing the maximum sentence. But about 18 months later, he gave the defendant shock probation.
Huberman recalled Judge Osborne sending 16 Boardman schoolteachers to the county jail over a weekend for contempt of court during a 1980 teachers strike. “They ended up painting the jail, and the jail never looked so good,” Huberman said.
“He had judicial temperament that was magnificent. He treated lawyers with respect. I think he commanded respect in return,” Huberman said.
“Anybody that knew him loved him,” said retired visiting Judge Charles J. Bannon, one of Judge Osborne’s contemporaries. “All the other judges, we got along so well, and he was one of the reasons, I think, that we did.”
Services will be at 1 p.m. Friday at the Davis Funeral Home, where friends may call from 4 to 7 p.m. today and one hour before the service Friday.