Pete Shellem, in memoriam

I was honored to be asked to speak at Pete's memorial service yesterday. Here is what I said in memory of my good friend.


I went to a meeting of the Dauphin County Bar Association a couple of years ago because Pete was going to receive an award honoring him for his coverage of our court system and generally for his good work. After the presenter said a number of nice and flattering things about Pete, he was given the prize, the photographs were taken and he gave his acceptance speech. It was short, and to the point, and it went something like this.

"I have always thought of the lawyers and the courts in Harrisburg as my extended family"

"But you’re a pretty dysfunctional family."

That was Pete. He always told the truth. And he never cared who was listening.

I believe that it was our dysfunctions that interested Pete the most. He despised hypocrisy and pomposity. He couldn’t tolerate falsehoods or error. And he hated to see that the law sometimes ground up the innocent along with the guilty. I saw him receive another award, that one was the ACLU’s Justice in Journalism Award – and that time it was my honor to present the prize to him – and instead of using his acceptance remarks to make some vacuous statement of appreciation he complained about a bill that was then in the legislature that would have limited public access to official records. And he explained how that bill if it became law would impede his efforts to free the wrongfully convicted. There was a state senator in attendance that day and that provision of the bill never did become law. Now I don’t know if Pete’s comments made the difference but I do know that Pete was never off-message. That award, by the way, has recently been renamed the Pete Shellem Memorial Champion of Justice Award.

I don’t remember the first time that I met Pete. I’m sure that it must have been in one of the courtrooms where I have spent the last 30 years. I’m sure that I may have thought that he was a persistent and aggravating pain in the neck who was trying to make me say more than I wanted to and tell him things that I would have been better off keeping to myself. I’m sure I didn’t like it, and I couldn’t have known at that moment, and didn’t, that that meeting would blossom into one of the close friendships of my life. A friendship shaped by sharing good times and some bad ones, by common interests and goals, and by a deep and abiding respect that I fervently hope was at least somewhat reciprocal.

In the last few days much has been written and spoken of the fact that with Pete’s passing journalism and justice have lost a friend. That is true, of course. Justice and journalism. Veracity and civil rights. Courage. Good and precise writing. Integrity and clear thinking have all lost a loyal friend. And like so many of those gathered here today, so have I. Since his death many friends have called and written to express their sympathy to me and to ask me to give their condolences to Joyce and their family. You never know how to respond to those messages and it would be impossible to describe Pete in a few words to someone who didn’t know him. So I got to the point where I just said thanks and then said "He was one of a kind."

Pete once described his journalistic philosophy to me. He didn’t call it a journalistic philosophy, of course. It was just his way of doing business. "First, I make sure that I’m right," he said. "And then I just write the story." We all know that Pete’s death leaves a gaping hole in our lives and in the life of the journalistic community and in the community at large. I hope that that journalistic hole does not stay vacant forever. It would be impossible to fill Pete’s shoes but I encourage others to follow in his footsteps. He has bequeathed to us a legacy of hunger for the truth and a commitment to honesty. I hope that all of us – the journalists and the lawyers, the courts and the citizens – accept that legacy and act on it. That is not only our responsibility to one another – but it would be the best of all possible tributes to Pete’s memory.

Pete, as I said, was never off message and his message was an indomitable belief in the defense of rights and in their free exercise. He believed in the promise, sometimes unkept, of the First Amendment – that government should be transparent and that citizens could and should understand their government. That agencies of the public should actually serve the public that empowers them, and that when officials speak with the voice of the people they serve, they should use that voice to tell the truth.

He revealed many hidden truths and he exposed many pernicious lies. But more than that, and I think that this is truest legacy, I believe that by the very nature of the life he created for himself he demonstrated the virtuous power of a solitary voice when possessed by a good man with a righteous idea and an incorruptible intention not to be deterred from its full expression.

In a long friendship with Pete he taught me many valuable lessons. But that was the best one.

Today he teaches me another one. One that I needed to be reminded of. It is never to soon to reach out to the people that you love and care for to tell them how much they mean to you and how important they are. It is impossible to do that too soon, because eventually it gets to be too late. As a great philosopher once said "Sometimes it gets late pretty early out there." Pete, you left us too soon. And I will never forget you.

So let me close with one last personal thought. Even today in this time of cavernous sorrow, our grief may be mitigated somewhat – though really not by much – with the gladness that Pete Shellem was generous enough to share a few moments of his time on earth with us. Many people pass through their whole lives and never experience a soul such as his.