QUILLIN, Dennis Joseph 1929-2013
QUILLIN, STURGEON, AKIN, ONDER, MOHRMANN, CAMP, POPE, DONLEA
Posted By: Matthew Whalen (email)
Date: 2/14/2013 at 19:47:03
Dennis Quillin, who died last week at age 83, wasn’t immune from crime just because he was a judge. He was once the victim of a burglary at his home, then in north St. Louis County. Police caught the thief. When Judge Quillin learned that prosecutors were preparing to throw the book at the man who had robbed a judge, the jurist asked for leniency. He got it, and, according to the judge’s family, made a friend for life: Each year at Christmas, the thief’s family delivered a tub of popcorn to the Quillin home as thanks.
Judge Quillin served on the bench for 28 years, retiring in 1999 as an associate judge in St. Louis County Circuit Court.
Judge Dennis Joseph Quillin of St. Charles County died on Monday (Feb. 4, 2013) at St. Mary’s Health Center in Richmond Heights. He suffered a heart attack in his hospital bed while talking with a visitor, his family said Friday.
As an associate judge, he held bond hearings, heard pre-trial motions, issued search warrants and took guilty pleas. He also heard major cases assigned to him by circuit judges. One involved a search warrant FBI agents had obtained from another judge about 3 a.m. The agents raided a room at a swank hotel in Frontenac and seized $150,000. Judge Quillin later ruled that there had been insufficient evidence for the search and seizure. He ordered the cash returned to the hotel guest. But the FBI had already taken the loot to offices in Southern Illinois and was refusing to return it. “I ordered them to bring it back the next day or be in contempt of jail,” Judge Quillin recalled later for the Post-Dispatch. He remembered a sheepish federal prosecutor showing up in his court the next day with two agents and a black satchel filled with cash.
In a divorce case, Judge Quillin awarded one dog to each of the partners. He also wanted to ensure that the separation wasn’t upsetting — for the dogs. Under his order, the two dogs were to meet on Sundays for an eight-hour get-together in a parking lot. He further ordered that the dogs receive a checkup by a veterinarian to determine the emotional effects, if any, of their separation.
In May 1992, Judge Quillin was holding court when Kenneth Baumruk killed his wife, wounded two lawyers, a baliff and a security officer and terrorized hundreds of people in the courthouse in Clayton. Police shot and wounded Baumruk, who fell just outside Judge Quillin’s courtroom — less than 30 feet from the courtroom where Baumruk had shot his wife. The rampage led to a permanent increase in courthouse security.
Judge Quillin was reared in a small town in Iowa, earned his bachelor’s degree at St. Louis University and joined the Marines, where he became a drill sergeant. After the military, he earned his law degree at Georgetown University in 1955.
In 1957, he married Charlotte Sturgeon; the couple had two sons and five daughters.
He worked as an insurance adjustor, for the legal department at Missouri Pacific Railroad and then in private practice with attorneys Thomas Howe and James Stewart in Clayton.
Judge Quillin had support from Democratic Congressman Robert A. Young, the North County Democrats and various labor unions when Gov. Warren E. Hearnes appointed him a magistrate judge in 1971. He won re-election in 1972 and 1976, before Missouri abolished partisan elections for judges.
When he retired, the Post-Dispatch’s longtime courthouse reporter wrote that Judge Quillin was a “mild-mannered and self-deprecating jurist” who had received a bevy of proclamations and resolutions of praise from Congress, the Missouri Supreme Court, the Legislature and the Missouri Highway Patrol. In retirement, he volunteered at the St. Augustine food pantry in Wellston.
The funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. today at St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church, 1424 First Capitol Drive, St. Charles. Burial will be at Bellerive Forever Cemetery on North Mason Road.
Survivors, in addition to his wife of 55 years, include four daughters, Laura Akin of Columbia, Mo., Maureen Onder of Brentwood, Mary Mohrmann of Town and Country, and Ellen Camp of Wichita, Kan.; two sons, Thomas E. Quillin of Portland, Ore., and Michael J. Quillin of Warson Woods; two sisters, Dona Pope of St. Louis Park, Minn., and Sr. Francine Quillin of Dubque, Iowa.; and 16 grandchildren.
~St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 8, 2013 (photo is from this obit)
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Dennis Joseph Quillin of St. Peter, MO, formerly of Waukon, died Monday, February 4, 2013 from complications following heart surgery. A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated Saturday, February 9 at St. Robert Bellarmine Church in St. Peter, MO.
Born July 26, 1929, Dennis was the fifth of seven children of Grace and Ed Quillin, and a member of the seventh graduating class (1947) from St. Patrick High School in Waukon. After high school, Dennis attended St. Louis University to receive his BA degree, then spent time in the Marine Corps, after which he attended Georgetown University School of Law in Washington, DC, receiving his law degree in 1955. Dennis practiced law in St. Louis, MO and then served as a judge in St. Louis County from 1970-1999.
In 1957 he married Charlotte A. Sturgeon, and together they raised six children, Laura (Dan) Akin, Tom (Katie) Quillin, Maureen (Jim) Onder, Mary (John) Mohrmann, Ellen Denise (Russ) Camp, and Michael (Elizabeth) Quillin. He is the dear grandfather of Katie Akin, Molly, Joseph and Declan Quillin, Jim, Michelle, Maggie, Jack and Tommy Onder, Emma, Will and David Mohrmann, and Brian, Julia, Michael and Emily Camp. Dennis is also survived by his sisters, Dona Pope of Minneapolis and Sister Francine Quillin, P.B.V.M. of Dubuque; nieces and nephews; cousins; and the many to whom he was a loyal friend.
He was preceded in death by his parents and his siblings, Connie (Gordy) Donlea, Earl, Mary Frances and Harold Quillin.
~Waukon Standard, February 13, 2013
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