Fadeley is county's new justice of the peace

Sisters attorney Charles "Chuck" Fadeley is the new justice of the peace for Deschutes County.

He was appointed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski earlier this month to fill a vacancy created when the incumbent justice, Steve Forte, was elected to the Deschutes County Circuit Court. Forte took office at the beginning of the year.

In his new part-time job, Fadeley will be one of 30 justices in 19 counties around the state.

Justice courts deal primarily with traffic violations but also have jurisdiction over boating, wildlife and other violations subject to fines but not jail sentences. The Oregon Blue Book says, "The justice of the peace is a remnant of territorial days when each precinct of the state was entitled to a justice court."

While Fadeley acknowledges that justice courts are not at the top of the judicial totem pole, he takes his new job seriously and considers it important.

"The thing that appeals to me about justice court," he told The Nugget, "is that it is the only experience that the majority of regular folks will have with the judicial system. Anybody can find themselves in the position of getting a traffic ticket.

"My goal is to have those folks -- when they walk away from the court they may not be overjoyed about the result of their particular case -- but my goal is to have them understand how the process works, that it actually does work, that they were treated the same as everybody else and that what they had to say was heard."

As the Deschutes JP, Fadeley will hold court two Wednesday evenings a month in La Pine, one Wednesday evening a month in Sisters and every Monday (morning and evening) and Wednesday morning in Redmond.

"Then there's paperwork."

Fadeley was one of four applicants for Forte's post, all of whom were interviewed by the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners. The final selection was made by the governor. The part-time position pays half the salary of a county commissioner, or about $32,000 a year.

To retain his job, Fadeley will have to stand for election in the May primary, according to Deschutes County Clerk Nancy Blankenship. Elected justices serve six-year terms.

Fadeley, 47, is widely known in the Sisters area, where he has lived and practiced law for the past 14 years. His civic activities include membership in the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce, of which he has been president for the past year.

"They don't let you live here unless you are active in the community," he commented when discussing this aspect of his life. "That's one of the great things about Sisters."

He was drawn to Sisters by more than its community spirit, though. The tall, lean lawyer skis, fishes, hikes.

"I just like to do things outside. I like to fly fish; I'm lousy at it but I like being outside and throwing a line around..."

He and his wife, Betty, live in Tollgate, where she is business manager of the homeowners' association.

Until now, Fadeley has also maintained a law office in Eugene, spending at least one day a week in the valley city of his birth. While he was growing up, his family name was a proverbial household word in Lane County, thanks to the political prominence of his parents. Both Nancie and Ed Fadeley, staunch Democrats, served in the Oregon Legislature, he for more than two decades. In 1988, Ed Fadeley moved from the Oregon Senate to the Oregon Supreme Court after winning election to a rare open seat. He was a Supreme Court justice for 10 years before retiring.

Chuck Fadeley has not spent all of his years in Oregon. For an undergraduate education he chose the University of Washington, coming away with a degree in history and a Phi Beta Kappa key.

He returned to his hometown for law school because he knew he wanted to practice law in Oregon. He received a degree in 1983 as a "second-generation law school graduate." His father Ed graduated first in his law school class in the late 1950s.

The younger Fadeley has run for partisan election only once. He was defeated in a bid for Democratic nomination for an Oregon House seat in Lane County in the mid-1980s. He claims to have no political ambitions today, although he does intend to run for a full term as justice of the peace.

His new office partly sought him. Last year, Forte asked him to serve as a substitute, pro-tem justice for a while. Fadeley declined. But later he agreed to a pro-tem assigment in a case from which Forte felt it necessary to recuse himself.

And to his surprise, Fadeley recalls, "I liked it." So he put his name in when the appointment to succeed Forte came up.

Fadeley will continue his law practice in Sisters, which consists largely of business, real estate and estate law matters.