Bill Brennan; Calgary's 'ping-pong judge
Hyfler/Rosner
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
June 6, 2007 Wednesday
Judge who was given 24-hour police protection won DFC as bomber
pilot;
Known as Calgary's 'ping-pong judge' for presiding over a case
involving the bawdy acts of a stripper, he risked his life to sentence
a killer who once played for the Edmonton Eskimos
BYLINE: KATHY FEDORI, Special to The Globe and Mail
SECTION: OBITUARIES; BILL BRENNAN, 84 LAWYER AND JUDGE; Pg. S9
William Robert Brennan was afraid of nothing - not the flak-filled
skies of wartime Germany or the death threats when he was about to
send a former Edmonton Eskimo football player to jail.
During the Second World War, as the pilot of an RAF Lancaster bomber,
he flew scores of missions without a loss of life. He was awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross and returned home to become a lawyer and
then a judge who was once urged to wear a bullet-proof vest.
"The majority of his trial work was civil 'fender benders,' but Bill
must have had at least 30 to 35 major criminal judgments," said his
former legal partner, Robert Fraser. He said his friend was never a
hawk, hungry to sentence, but "when he thought someone was guilty,
he'd convict them."
The second of two boys born on a Prairie grain farm, he spent the
early years of his life in Veteran, Alta. At the age of 7, his parents
were bankrupted by drought and the family was forced to move to the
city. In Calgary, he attended St. Mary's Boys School and, like a lot
of youngsters at the time, developed a passion for aviation. In 1939,
as a teenager, he quit school amid rumours of war in Europe to try and
get into the Royal Canadian Air Force. He lied about his age and was
accepted for pilot training.
By 1942, he had won his wings and was fully qualified, but was
suddenly declared superfluous. The RCAF had trained too many pilots.
But it was a different story for the RAF, and he soon found himself
skipper of a seven-man Avro Lancaster bomber based in Britain. He
ultimately flew 33 missions for the RAF, bringing his crew home
unscathed every time.
It wasn't until his last mission, in the summer of 1944, that things
went wrong. Barely off the ground, and with a huge bomb load that
included a 4,000-pound "cookie" with enough wallop to level a city
block, his plane's inner starboard engine died. Standing orders
required him to drop the explosives in the sea and turn back to base,
but he could not bring himself to deny his crew a winning finish to
their war.
"The plane is working pretty well," he told them, which was all they
needed to hear. They pressed on toward their target, Cologne, only to
find they had also lost their navigation and targeting system. Unable
to gain height because of the dead engine, the Lancaster closed on the
target but drifted below squadrons of higher-flying planes and was in
danger of being bombed from above. Mr. Brennan circled back through
the fog and was flying on instinct when the targeting system suddenly
kicked in. He dropped his bombs right on target and headed for home,
where he was recommended for the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Back home in Calgary after the war, he fell in love with Mary Jane
Steinbach, a teacher, and preferred the idea of being a lawyer to
staying in the air force. First, he finished high school, then lived
on a $80-per-month veteran's allowance while studying at the
University of Alberta. Along the way, he proposed to Mary Jane and in
1950, he graduated with both a BA and a law degree. A year later, he
was called to the bar, joined the Calgary firm of Fenerty, Fenerty &
McGillivray, and began to establish an expertise in civil litigation
and insurance matters. He later was made partner and became a Queen's
Counsel in 1965.
In 1976, he turned down an offer to join the trial division of the
Supreme Court of Alberta. At that time, judges were expected to live
outside their home jurisdiction, but he refused to leave Calgary. A
month later, the government changed the rules. He could stay in
Calgary, after all. Mr. Brennan served on the Court of Queen's Bench
of Alberta until 1995, as a supernumerary justice for the last four
years.
In 1979, Mr. Brennan first came to the attention of the public after a
long trial called to hear charges of price fixing that had been
brought against the mining company Cominco. After 150 gruelling days
of testimony, and $1-million in legal expenses, he ruled that the
giant mining company had been wrongly accused by the Crown. He said
glaring inconsistencies in the landmark monopoly case revealed that
Cominco's actions had been misrepresented and that the company was
simply being keenly competitive.
A year later, he made headlines of a different kind by becoming known
as the Ping-Pong Judge. Mr. Brennan had presided over the case of
Mitzi Dupree, a stripper who faced charges of lewd behaviour. Ms.
Duppree, whose act was familiar to hundreds of Calgary men (but no
women), was famous for propelling table-tennis balls from a certain
part of her anatomy into beer mugs. In a difficult case that found the
spotlight long before the days of Court TV, Mr. Brennan found himself
balancing morality and freedom of expression. In the end, he fined Ms.
Dupree but caused such a stir that city officials had to begin
enforcing a bylaw that limited body contact between exotic performers
and their audience.
Of all his cases, Mr. Brennan was best known for a case involving a
shooting that rocked Calgary to its roots. In 1980, a shotgun blast
ended the life of a 19-year-old Keg n' Cleaver waitress named Suzanne
Meloche. Charged with first-degree murder was former B.C. Lions and
Edmonton Eskimo football player, Raymond Enright.
As the trial date drew near, it became known that the defendant's
supporters were gathering handguns to stage a courthouse siege. The
police took the threats seriously and the Crown prosecutor turned up
in judge's chambers with a bulletproof vest. There weren't enough
vests to go around and Mr. Brennan refused to wear one, saying
everyone in court must be protected. Mr. Brennan then calmly observed
security experts install metal detectors, but even he was shocked to
see a tactical police team on the roof of the adjacent Court of Appeal
building. By all accounts, the team was braced and ready to fire.
Despite all the attention and notoriety, Mr. Brennan resolved to
listen only to the evidence. It transpired that Mr. Enright was on
drugs on the night of the killing and had chosen Ms. Meloche at
random. In the end, he sent Mr. Enright to jail for life. (In 2001,
Mr. Enright was granted parole and will remain under the supervision
for the remainder of his life.)
It was only later that Mr. Brennan discovered he had been under round-
the-clock police protection. The case raised questions about
courthouse safety that remain to this day, as was seen in April when a
Manitoba prosecutor received a similar threat.
"It's unbelievable the risk the police run," Mr. Brennan said in 1996.
"They should be in Hollywood."
Around the same time, Mr. Brennan and his wife visited Germany, his
old target from the Second World War. At Cologne Cathedral, their tour
guide proudly explained that the RAF had taken extraordinary care to
spare the church and bomb only the surrounding factories. Apparently,
Mr. Brennan acknowledged the church's enduring strength and then
whispered: "We were lucky to find that
damn town!"
WILLIAM ROBERT BRENNAN
Bill Brennan was born in Veteran, Alta., on Aug 17, 1922. He died in
Calgary on March 10, 2007, of complications after a stroke. He was 84.
He is survived by his children Laurie, Kerry, Dennis and Janie. He
also leaves numerous grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife
Mary Jane.
Hyfler/Rosner
> Known as Calgary's 'ping-pong judge' for presiding over a case
> involving the bawdy acts of a stripper, he risked his life to sentence
> a killer who once played for the Edmonton Eskimos
>
>
> as the Ping-Pong Judge. Mr. Brennan had presided over the case of
> Mitzi Dupree, a stripper who faced charges of lewd behaviour. Ms.
> Duppree, whose act was familiar to hundreds of Calgary men (but no
> women), was famous for propelling table-tennis balls from a certain
> part of her anatomy into beer mugs.
Oh those Canadians.
Matthew Kruk
news:1181161788.4...@i13g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
Hey, we know Beer!