Bucks Writs - Summer 2017 - 13

be. But people continued to complain about him, even
suggesting that he had a nervous breakdown, whatever
that was. And then I was told the following was the reason
why he was occasionally cynical and rude to attorneys.
It was now 1973-74 and illegal drugs were just beginning
to flood our communities. Two men, I will call them M
and M, because I'm not sure who they were, but I believe
both of their last names started with the letter M. Well M
& M were arrested for drug sales in three different jurisdictions. The Justice of the Peace on the first case to be filed
set bail at $50,000.00, 10%. The defendants posted it.
The Justice of the Peace in the second jurisdiction set bail
at $50,000.00 and the defendants again posted it. The
Justice of the Peace in the third district likewise fixed bail at
$50,000.00 - and the defendants were unable to post it a
third time. After they languished in jail for a time, someone
brought a petition to Judge Garb seeking to reduce the
bail. The petition came to Zeke, who, once the facts were
disclosed, reduced bail in the third case to $1.00, leaving
a total of $100,001.00 bail in place for each defendant.
The newspapers, especially the Bucks County Courier, who
covered the Court House much more aggressively than
has become their wont, got wind of the bail reduction and
falsely wrote misleading articles and editorials castigating
Garb for letting drug pushers out on bail of $1.00. When
this misinformed story got to the public, Zeke received
threatening phone calls, poison mail and was a victim of
hateful, venomous contacts of all sorts.

One protestor went so far as to
dump a pickup truck load of
manure on the front walk of the
entry to the Court House, but
nearly all protests were peaceful.
would become a creek. Provincials opposed, supposing
they were giving a Bucks County treasure to Montgomery
County. And politicians opposed it, recognizing that they
could see a lot of votes to be plucked from the opposition
to the pump and pipeline.
Sensing he could revive his career as a firebrand leading
the forces through civil disobedience came Abbie
Hoffman, the most outrageous of the Chicago Seven in
the trial following the riots outside the Democratic Presidential Convention of 1968 to organize the opposition.

He went to District Attorney Ward Clark and asked him to
publicly clarify the record in regard to the bail, explaining
that the defendants still had bail posted in the sum of
$100,000.00, probably comparable to a million dollars
today. The DA said, "Look, I sympathize with you, but I've
got my own public relations to fight." Judge Garb felt
betrayed and apparently he let it show in the court room.
Never again was Judge Garb seen as the judge with the
perfect judicial temperament.

Multiple areas of litigation were raised by multiple
attorneys, and it fell to Judge Garb to handle all of the
issues of the Limerick cooling tower and pump litigation.
However, long before the litigation began, the Bucks
County Commissioners had entered into airtight contracts
with PECO Energy and the contracts had to be honored,
allowing the pump and pipeline to be built. Ah! But
getting there was most of the drama.

When PECO Energy dreamed up the idea to construct
a pipeline to pump water for cooling towers from the
Delaware River over to Limerick in Montgomery County to
cool the nuclear reactor it proposed to build there, there
were various theaters of opposition. Conservationists
opposed the pipeline, thinking it would tear Upper Bucks
asunder. Anti-development groups opposed it fearing a
whole new wave of development energized by nuclear
power. Naturalists believed it would divert the water off
from the Delaware River as a result of which the river

Protestors at the construction site were arrested and
hauled off to prison. They were given hearings on the
same day before Judge Garb. Most protestors were also
released on the same day, after a promise was extracted
from them that they would not block the construction
site again. One protestor went so far as to dump a pickup
truck load of manure on the front walk of the entry to the
Court House, but nearly all protests were peaceful, Abbie
Hoffman notwithstanding. Judge Garb handled all of the
issues surrounding the dump, from standing interpretation

SUMMER 2017

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