Malcolm Stabler Muir

     Malcolm Stabler Muir was born on 20 October 1914 at Englewood, Bergen County, New Jersey. He was the son of John M. Muir and Sarah Elizabeth Stabler. Malcolm Stabler Muir married, at age 25, Alma M. Brohard, age 28, daughter of Thomas Warren Brohard and Alma Cather, on Friday, 6 September 1940 at Covenant Presbyterian Church, Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, by the Reverend Ganse Little.¹ Malcolm Stabler Muir died on 22 July 2011 at Divine Providence Hospital, The Gatehouse, Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, at age 96 years, 9 months and 2 days.
     He appeared on the census of 8 January 1920 in the household of John M. Muir and Sarah Elizabeth Stabler at Loyalsock Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Malcolm Stabler Muir appeared on the census of November 1930 in the household of John M. Muir and Sarah Elizabeth Stabler at Williamsport, 14th Ward, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. The following article about Malcolm Stabler was published on 8 July 1966 in the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, printed in Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. This article stated:

     Historic Interest Surrounds Rose Hill

Should one inquire about the location of the historic Alder-Musser House, most any Muncy resident could reveal the whereabouts of the 13-room domicile of the Malcolm Muir family. It stands at the South end of Main Street in Muncy on two and one-half acres of land purchased in 1792 by Thomas McCarty from John Penn the elder and John Penn the younger.

     Best known as Rose Hill, the present structure was built in 1820 by one Joshua William Alder. Its name is of indefinite origin. Mr. Alder, a chemist by profession, was associated in business with George Lewis, founder of the glass works at Eagles Mere. When operation of the business was discontinued after the War of 1812, Alder left Eagles Mere and moved to Pennsborough, now Muncy.

     Rose Hill remained in the Alder family's possession until its purchase by the Muir's from a great-grandson of Joshua Alder. The original portion of the structure is built in federal style of bricks which are more than a foot in thickness. In 1890 a wooden section was added to the home giving it a "non-period look" When the Muir's acquired the property they had the entire house restored and reconstructed. In the 13 rooms are five operational fireplaces.

     The protective branches of picturesque trees which surround Rose Hill provide a lacy canopy of nature. Tradition has it that one Dr. Musser, a grandson of the original owner, planted a tree when each of his children were born. A Norway spruce, still standing was planted in 1856 and is reportedly the largest of its kind in the area.

     So interesting is the historic background surrounding the Muncy residence that it has been included in the illustrated lecture being presented by the Junior League to interested groups in the county as part of the city's centennial observance.
He was appointed as a Federal Court Judge in 1970. He became a widower at the age of 71 with the death of Alma on 1 December 1985.² The following article about Malcolm Stabler was published sometime in November 1995 Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. This article stated:

     He's Not Just Any Judge

     If a judge's work, truly, is written in sand, the hourglass that has marked U.S. Middle District Senior Judge Malcolm Muir's first 25 years on the federal bench could speak volumes. First, because the jurist who began his legal career in 1938 has no plans to stop any time soon. At least, that's what Muir said during an open house commemorating the anniversary of his appointment this past Monday.

     Appointed Nov. 6, 1970, by then-President Richard M. Nixon, Muir's commission was counter-signed by U.S. Attorney General John M. Mitchell, who later was convicted in connection with the Watergate scandal. But you won't find the document hanging on the wall of his chambers, and if you tried to find it elsewhere, you'd have quite the time. But not Muir, who has developed an innovative filing system in his home by which he can locate items in his attic based on rafter numbers and distances. Relying on a card index that supplies the vital necessities, Muir's system is somewhat akin to using a private map. Not everybody believes he is serious about his system when he shares the story, he mused in an interview with the Sun-Gazette.

     About a year ago, Muir needed to located his certificate for admission to the bar, a document he had not seen in more than 50 years. Muir checked his card index, went to the appropriate rafter, marked off the feet, and wearing a hard hat, crawled back behind a row of boxes to the exact location. 'And there it was,' he said, noting he told the story at a bar association meeting that evening - and not everybody believed him. 'I have never lost anything in that house,' he said.

     The date on the certificate, by the way, is October 3, 1938. Except for three years as a gunnery officer for the Navy during 'the War,' Muir has practiced law ever since. During World War II, he commanded gunners aboard merchant tankers and troop ships, he said.

     Before he became a judge, nearly 30 years were devoted to private practice, both on his own and in association with other law firms. Since then, he has worn out three judicial robes and is currently on his forth. Muir identified his 'legal hero' as Oliver Wendell Holmes, a Supreme Court justice who said: 'A judge's work is written in the sand.' 'There's a lot of truth to that,' Muir observed when asked which cases over which he presided, if any, stand out in his mind for some significant reason.

     However, he did menton the U.S. vs. Glen Eagles case, which involved the sale of very large coal companies in the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre area. It was one of the earliest leveraged buy out cases in the nation, and Jimmy Hoffa was a silent partner in the situation, the jurist said, noting he was not certain of the specific connection. 'He was a substantial owner whose identity was hidden,' Muir said.

     About a decade ago, there were many leveraged buy outs, in which big corporations were sold to buyers who took the money out of the corporation to pay the seller, he explained. The case resulted in the invalidation of mortgages amounting to $12 million, and the final settlement is still in the works. 'The assets are still being liquidated. It took a very long time to try. The exhibits were in the thousands,' Muir said. The trial lasted more than six months, during which the government attorney rented an apartment in Williamsport and even ended up with his name in the telephone book, Muir recalled.

     But perhaps the most notorious case that Muir has worked on was the one involving former State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer, who committed suicide during a news conference in Harrisburg the day before he was to be sentenced in Williamsport. After a full trial, a jury found Dwyer 'guilty' of 11 counts of bribery in an attempt to steer a $4.8 million state computer contract to a California company, but Dwyer was never convicted, Muir said. 'He knew what many lawyers don't know, and that is that you're not convicted until you're sentenced,' Muir said. Dwyer and his family would have lost Dwyer's state pension benefits had he been convicted, but since he died before sentencing, technically he was not convicted, Muir explained. He would have been the highest ranking Pennsylvania official convicted in this century.

     Asked to comment on the year-long murder trial of O.J. Simpson, Muir said: 'It's an unusual amount of time to spend on a criminal trial, but I don't mean to be critical of Judge Ito because I don't know what problems he was presented.'

     He recalled a civil case over which he presided that began Jan. 3 of the year and was tried every work day until April 15, when it was settled. That case settled largely because of a summary jury verdict of $10 million, Muir said, noting that figure made a great impression on the home office lawyers retained by the defendant. A summary jury trial is a form of trial sometimes used in civil cases in which ordinary legal procedures are disregarded and the case is summarized for a jury so the issue at hand may be resolved in a timely fashion. The results are not binding. 'I think summary jury trials are very important,' Muir said, noting he has tried 57 cases before summary juries, and 46 of those settled. The remaining cases went to full jury trials, and seven of those resulted in identical verdicts to the summary jury.

     Muir's quarter century on the bench has also led him to the belief that mandatory minimum sentences are not everything they are cracked up to be. 'I think that mandatory minimum sentences are filling up the federal prisons, at least, and are not effective in preventing drug crimes,' Muir said. But he does not have a recommendation on how the system might be changed. 'I think, frankly, that it ought to be left to the sentencing commission to determine appropriate guidelines,' he said. The federal facilities at Allenwood and Lewisburg house 6,000 prisoners. 'I'm told that is the greatest concentration of federal prisoners in the nation, and a very large percentage of federal prisoners today...are there by reason of conviction for drug offenses,' Muir said, noting his belief that it's 'well over 50 percent.'
The following article about Malcolm Stabler was published on 18 October 2009 Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. This article stated:

     Living The Dream
U.S. District Senior Judge Malcolm Muir’s 95-year Journey Through Life and History
By R.A. WALKER

     On Tuesday, U.S. District Senior Judge Malcolm Muir will begin his 95th year of life. About a third of those years have been spent as a federal judge, a job he continues to do to this day. And it's been a long, full life so far for the dentist's son whose earliest recollection is the sound of church bells and sirens.

     He was 4 years old and asked his mother for an explanation. "She said the war was over," he recalled, "'and your daddy wouldn't have to go.'" The date was Nov. 11, 1918. World War I - the war to end all wars - had ended, and two decades later, Muir - by then a successful city-based attorney - would go off to a second world war.

     The family lived in Engelwood, N.J., when Malcolm entered this world, the son of a dentist who moved his practice to this city soon afterward. The Muirs resided at 610 Glenwood Ave. the day the bells and sirens caught the boy's attention. They would move two more times during his childhood- first to Locust Street and then to a house his parents built at 1315 Walnut St.

     Young Malcolm's first city school was the long-gone Vallamont School on Brandon Avenue, a structure that has since become an apartment house. At the time, the neighborhoods on the hill were still part of Loyalsock Township, and for sixth grade Muir attended the former Center School, located in a now-gone building at Grampian Boulevard and Market Street. From there, he entered what is now Curtin Middle School, where his classmates included the late county Judge Charles Greevy.

     The world changed dramatically during Muir's school years. Movies began to talk; the Great Depression shattered millions of lives. He remembers going to see his first sound movie at the Park Theater. The actors were silent, he recalled, but there was background music. Muir said he no longer recalls the title or the names of the actors because bigger things were happening.

     He remembers clearly learning about the collapse of the stock market while visiting the home of a friend whose father was Waldo A. Rich, treasurer of the C.A. Reed Co. Rich called the two of them into the living room to explain the news. "I think it's going to have extremely serious consequences," Muir recalled him saying.

     While Muir was a student at Lehigh University, banks were failing. As a safeguard, he withdrew half of what he had in his small account at a bank near the college and sent the money home for safe keeping after learning his father's bank had failed.

     Young Muir was unsure of his future during most of his stay a Lehigh. He waited until his senior year to select law as a career and applied for admission to the law school at Harvard University. He made it into Harvard and survived to earn a degree but was disappointed by his grades. It was a very hard curriculum, he recalled. "I didn't do well." According to Muir, Harvard's law school had a tradition at the time of flunking about a third of its students, and each incoming class was reminded that many of them would not last. Of Muir and his five original roommates, only two of them survived.

     Muir said he "barely got through." The other, John F. Kennedy's future postmaster general, James Edward Day, did much better, he added.

     After Harvard, the young lawyer returned home and began practicing law, initially in offices shared with John C. Youngman Sr., who would later be instrumental in getting the city's flood-control dikes built.

     He married the former Alma Brohard and they raised five children in Muncy, where the couple lived until the 1980s. Mrs. Muir passed away in 1985. In December 1941, the Muirs were living in a city apartment when war arrived. Muir recalled getting the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor by telephone from attorney and friend Alfred Jackson and having to ask his friend where Pearl Harbor was located. Muir joined the Navy in 1942 and went off to the war effort. His first son arrived soon afterward. Following the war, Muir returned and resumed his law career.

     "I worked extremely hard," he said, describing a typical work day as beginning with his arrival at his city law office about 4:30 a.m. and lasting until 5 p.m.

     Muir said the family had a "fine home" in Muncy - a home which until about 1963 had no television set. Like many parents, the Muirs were concerned television would distract the children from healthier activities such as studying. A television finally invaded the Muir household after a law partner gave the family a set after asking one of the boys what his favorite program was and learning he didn't have a set to watch it on.

     As the years passed, culture changes continued to reshape the world at large, but Muir's world remained constant. He watched the 1960s come and go and didn't take as seriously the cultural changes that occurred. "It didn't impact the way I lived or my family lived," he said. In the 1970s, President Nixon appointed him a U.S. District Judge - a job he had long set as his ultimate career goal.

     During an interview a year ago, Muir said he couldn't imagining any better job and described serving as a senior judge as exactly what he wants as his years advance. Being a judge, he said, is what he enjoys doing most.

     Muir said he is concerned about what is happening in the world, but he respectfully leaves what to do about issues such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "up to the president," who he believes has "done a fine job" to date, "given the circumstances." He said the president is "remarkably bright and thoughtful" - characteristics recognized when he was elected senior editor of the Harvard Law Review by his fellow editors.

     Once a registered Republican, Muir switched to "nonpartisan" when President Ronald Reagan made a series of judicial appointments for reasons with which he disagreed. Muir has his own personal slant on life; and his greatest influence, he said when pressed, was a piano teacher with "broad interests" named Harold Pries. "I learned dedication (from him)," he said, describing dedication as working hard and doing your best at "whatever work you're doing."³