JOSEPH HUMPOLICK

By SHELLEY TERRY - Staff Writer - sterry@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon

July 09, 2009 03:39 pm

— ASHTABULA TOWNSHIP — Joseph Humpolick’s desire to practice law began 47 years ago when the Painesville native read a book about Abraham Lincoln.
His fourth-grade teacher gave him the book after he watched, “Young Mr. Lincoln,” (1939) starring Henry Fonda and Alice Brady, on television with his father.
“My teacher, Mrs. Mendoza, saw me differently than any other teacher I had before, who all thought I was learning disabled,” he said. “She felt nobody knew how to reach me. She felt I was misunderstood. I was a good kid who wasn’t turned on to school because no teacher was willing to teach me what I wanted to learn.”
Mendoza gave young Humpolick history and science books to read — things he was interested in.
“Bingo! I was turned on to learning,” he said. “She wrote in my report card that I had ‘an insatiable desire to learn.’ My grades shot up.”
She encouraged him to set goals. He decided to become a lawyer.
Today, Humpolick, 57, celebrates 30 years in the Ashtabula County Public Defender Office.
President Lincoln’s black and white photograph sits in a prominent place in his office, along with many other Lincoln memorabilia. When he goes to Washington D.C., and he tries to go frequently, he always takes time to visit the Lincoln Memorial.
“When Martin Luther King had his march on Washington my dad put me in front of the TV and said, ‘Joey watch this. This could be history,’” Humpolick said. “We watched the ‘I have a dream’ speech live. I think of it whenever I go to the Lincoln Memorial.”
The 1960’s cartoon character, Underdog, as well as photos, boxes of research notes and books fill his office, which can be described as pleasantly cluttered.
“I may need that again some day” could be his motto, although the Internet has made his job a lot easier, he said.
Humpolick kept his first science book (from second grade) to remind him of how far he’s come from school days when his classmates teased him because of his terrible handwriting and a speech impairment, which he still has today in a much milder form. Some teachers and a school principal misjudged him, too.
For example, during an eighth-grade assembly, Humpolick asked a guidance counselor what classes he had to take to be a lawyer and he got soundly laughed at by the other students.
“I was called a ‘retard’ a time or two,” he said. “A guidance counselor at Riverside (High School) called me into his office just before I graduated and told me that I shouldn’t think about college let alone law school. He didn’t think I was smart enough.”
The day Humpolick passed the bar exam, a former principal called and apologized. “The greatest phone call I ever got,” he said. “Apology accepted.”
Humpolick grew up in Lake County. His father worked at Diamond Alkali in Fairport Harbor until a few years before it closed, when he got a job at Jones and Laughlin Steel in Cleveland.
Humpolick was the oldest of five boys.
Starting at age 8, Humpolick helped care for a severely handicapped brother, Charlie, when he got home from school. A severe ear infection and subsequent allergy to an antibiotic left Charlie in an infantile mental and physical state. This meant Humpolick had to feed, clean and change Charlie as one would an infant.
In October 1962, Humpolick’s mother delivered his brother, Ron.
“After that she was preoccupied with his care and I remained preoccupied with Charlie,” he said. “She joined the workforce a few years later, taking various jobs — waitress, secretary, cook — to make ends meet.”
During Humpolick’s high school years, his parents watched Charlie a little longer weekday afternoons so he could participate in sports. Humpolick played guard for his high school football team, or at the very least, he “kept the bench warm,” he said jokingly.
But from fifth-grade to his senior year in high school, it was always Humpolick’s responsibility to clean and change his brother, Charlie, as well as to give him his medicine.
“I helped rear Charlie so my parents could work and that sense of work ethic stuck with me,” he said. “That sense of compassion for people who are less fortunate, the underdog, also stuck with me.”
One of Humpolick’s fondest memories of his brother is that he developed funny voices to make Charlie laugh — cartoon characters and people from television, many of which he can still do today.
“Charlie would laugh like crazy,” he said, stopping for a moment to reflect on his thought. “I can still hear his laugh in the back of my mind.”
In October 1969, Charlie died at age 13.
It was Homecoming Week at Riverside High School and Humpolick’s senior year. He missed the homecoming football game because Charlie’s funeral was on the same day.
The next week, Humpolick put on his uniform and played against Fairport Harbor. With a few minutes left in the game he helped sustain a time-killing drive when Fairport got momentum on Riverside by blocking like he never did before, he said.
“We got some yards to keep the ball and wore down the clock and won,” he said, amazement still true in his voice. “My coach, Frank Gerard then made a point about it in his closing remarks after the game. I did that for Charlie.”
From that day forward, Charlie continued to inspire him.
Humpolick enrolled at Lakeland Community College, Lake Erie College, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in economics and government. He earned his law degree at the University of Toledo.
Humpolick passed the February 1979 bar exam. His father told him he wasn’t surprised and reminded him of a Cleveland Indians game the two of them attended years earlier.
“It was very cold and all I had on was a polo shirt, a thin windbreaker and a thin pair of pants,” he said. “Fans started leaving early as it got colder.”
His father kept asking him if he wanted to go home, but he said, “No sir, not me, I want to stay until the end.” It was the game the Indians won against Seattle when they were 12 runs down.
“My father was proud of that game we saw together when I was a boy,” Humpolick said. “He was convinced I would accomplish anything I set out to do — or die trying.”
Humpolick sent out his resume to the Ashtabula County Public Defender Office after he passed the bar exam. Judge Charles Hague and Director Leo Downey interviewed him.
Hague asked Humpolick, “How much do you want to get paid?”
“I said, ‘Just enough to get the bills paid.’ “Which was probably the dumbest answer ever, but I got the job.”
Humpolick took the job because he liked the idea of defending the underdog in court and because it was close to the Cleveland Indians.
“I also remember the smell of the french fries at the Jefferson Diner, and Jefferson is close to Painesville Township and my family,” he said. “I consider french fries to be one of the four food groups.”
Once in the courtroom, Humpolick put into the action what his law professors taught him — to question everything and make the prosecutor’s job as difficult as possible by filing lots of motions and being as zealous as possible.
“Force them to prove it,” he said. “I was taught to be passionate and tenacious for the defense ... Fight the good fight.”
Humpolick said he gets up every morning looking forward to work.
“I like everything about the job, but I like appeals a lot,” he said.
He speaks passionately about his work and it’s with a sense of compassion that he puts in long hours as a public defender.
“I see my brother’s eyes in every client,” he said.
One of the highlights of his 30 years as a defense attorney was representing and helping a former high school football teammate under Coach John Mummey, who played for Woody Hayes.
“(Mummey) drove you,” Humpolick said. “I worked my butt off in law school and never quit because I was afraid I would run into Mummey. If I quit, and he heard about it, I didn’t want to explain why ... People have called me many things over the years, but nobody ever called me a quitter.”
Many times Humpolick’s clients need help, suffer with an addiction or find themselves disabled in some way. He believes these are the people he is here to serve.
He once bought a mentally disabled client a teddy bear to replace the one she lost on Interstate 90. Humpolick drove along the interstate, searching for that teddy bear, but he couldn’t find it. So, he bought her a new one. Other court personnel also took a liking to the client and gave her a birthday party.
“My clients come first,” he said. “They have a right to expect time, passion and emotion. You do what you got to do.”
As for Humpolick’s personal life, he’s single, but he has a serious relationship with “a lovely, intelligent and socially conscious woman by the name of Doris,” he said. “I don’t know why she puts up with me.”
To this day, he loves sports. He still goes to see the Cleveland Indians, as often as he can. He’s been a season ticket holder for 20 years.
“I’m proud of that, I have faith,” he said. “2050 is our year. Tell your great-great-grandchildren. Buy your season tickets now or your descendants may not be allowed to buy tickets later.”
He also enjoys skiing and he race-walks marathons.
“I’ve done 13 (marathons) so far,” he said. “When you grow up with someone who can’t walk, you appreciate every step in life.”