Family, Friends Mourn Superior Court Judge

VENTURA —  When it came time to say goodbye to Superior Court Judge Frederick A. Jones, his friends did their best to sum up the man.

He was fiercely independent and possessed a keen knowledge of the law, they said Tuesday afternoon at a memorial service for the jurist, who earlier this month lost a long, hard fight with leukemia.

Jones was tough-minded but fair, a no-nonsense man who loved his job but loved his family even more. He wielded a dry wit and a wicked sense of humor, they said. He was a man of courage and character rock-solid beyond their ability to describe it.

“The words I have to offer you are paltry and they really can’t do justice to what I really feel,” Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. told nearly 1,000 people who attended the memorial service at the Ventura County Courthouse.

“He was relentless and tireless in his fight for what he felt what was best for the judiciary,” Campbell said. “He was a shining example of dignity. Everything he did in his public office as a judge brought dignity to this court.”

Jones died Feb. 10 at UCLA Medical Center of complications from a bone marrow transplant. He had battled leukemia since 1994 and had gone through numerous medical procedures, including removal of his spleen.

Last month he underwent the riskiest treatment of all: a transplant of bone marrow donated by his younger brother.

Although the procedure carried risks, friends and colleagues at the courthouse were thunderstruck by Jones’ death. Many of them were on hand Tuesday, filling the jury assembly room at the courthouse and spilling into the cafeteria, where monitors and loudspeakers had been set up.

Jones’ wife, Lana, sat in the front row, flanked by the couple’s adult sons, Travis and Braden.

“We have come to dedicate a moment in time and remember how Judge Fred Jones touched all of our lives,” said Chaplain Larry Modugno of the Ventura County Fire Department.

Modugno offered an opening prayer, but said he would keep it brief because the judge would have wanted it that way.

“I know that Judge Jones would want the prayer to be short and the stories of his life to be long and filled with smiles,” Modugno said.

And so they were.

Friends traded stories about the man they knew simply as Fred, or even Freddy.

They told about the time he stalked the back of Courtroom 11 dressed like Darth Vader of “Star Wars” fame. And the time he squared off against one of his bailiffs, dueling with water pistols at 20 paces.

The funniest stories made his wife cry, and forced others to wipe tears from their eyes.

Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury recalled when Jones started as a young prosecutor in Ventura County in the early 1970s. Jones was tall and athletic, and was quickly recruited to play on the office football team in a friendly game against the probation department.

“Fred, our secret weapon, jogged onto the field, and players on both sides stopped and stared at this amazing physical specimen,” Bradbury deadpanned. “All of the sudden, he twisted his knee and dropped like a rock.”

Bradbury said he saw Jones shortly before the judge went into the hospital, and even then his old friend wouldn’t let his illness get him down.

“He talked as though he was going on vacation,” Bradbury said. “He just simply wouldn’t let you feel any sadness for him.”

Jones, who was elected to the Municipal Court in 1979 and appointed to the Superior Court in 1986, died a day before his 55th birthday. But Ventura attorney William Fairfield, an in-law of Jones, said people shouldn’t focus on the manner and time of his death. It was how he lived that mattered most.

“In spite of Fred’s age, he packed a lot of life into 54 years, 364 days,” Fairfield said. “He had thousands of torches and he has passed a torch to each of us with an order: Carry on.”