The South Bend Tribune reports….
For well over 40 years, Mike Barnes created a quiet legacy that has had a wide-ranging impact on the legal system here and throughout the state.
Attorneys that worked under the longtime St. Joseph County prosecuting attorney are now serving as judges here and elsewhere. The CASIE Center, which he helped start, continues to provide a coordinated and comprehensive approach to dealing with the problems of child abuse, and the Special Victims Unit, which focuses on domestic abuse, was founded while Barnes was prosecutor.
The 1973 graduate of the Notre Dame Law School died early Friday morning after a short battle with cancer. According to his friends, Barnes had won a previous bout with cancer and was preparing to enter a second-round battle when he died.
“We grew up in the criminal justice system together,” former South Bend police chief and St. Joseph County coroner Chuck Hurley said. “Mike was tough, but compassionate.”
Rather than just focus on conviction numbers, for example, Barnes would look at the bigger picture, always aiming to do the best thing for everyone involved.
“He cared about people and would review each case individually,” Court of Appeals Judge Terry A. Crone said. “He tried to fashion a remedy or a consequence that would most appropriately hit the mark.”
Crone worked in private practice and then as a St. Joseph County Circuit Judge while Barnes served as prosecutor. The two then spent many years working together in the Appellate Court, before Barnes retired from active service in June 2018.
“He was a regular guy who liked to talk about baseball, Notre Dame football and his family,” Crone said. “But he was also very intelligent and a great student of the law, particularly criminal law.”
Barnes recently told Tribune columnist Bill Moor how he was missing baseball and how he had left Arizona early because of the coronavirus pandemic. He also recounted how his lifelong love of the Cleveland Indians came about because of the nuns he had while attending parochial school in Bradford, Ill., a small town south of Chicago.
Those types of stories used to keep Hurley and others regularly entertained at breakfast meetings with Barnes. During an annual meeting of the National District Attorneys Association, for example, Barnes recounted how they were entertained by an unknown youngster named Harry Connick Jr., whose father happened to be a member of the organization, according to attorney Rick Morgan, a partner in the law firm Pfeifer, Morgan & Stesiak.
“Mike was the kindest, gentlest person who was always concerned about others,” he said. “He didn’t want to ruin somebody’s life because they made a single mistake.”
But Barnes’ compassion — tempering the letter of the law against what is ultimately best — rather than just a diehard focus on conviction rates ultimately contributed to his defeat after 22 years as prosecutor by challenger Chris Toth.
Though Barnes left his mark in St. Joseph County with the programs he helped create and the young attorneys he influenced, he continued to shape the law during his time with the Appellate Court where he authored more than 2,800 opinions during his career.
A graduate of St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa, Barnes moved here to attend law school and remained a South Bend resident throughout his career. The former prosecutor and judge is survived by his wife, Alberta Edwards Barnes, and their two sons, Tim and John, and their families.
Because of restrictions surrounding the coronavirus, funeral services are still pending.
