For more than 30 years, two figures helped set the course for Cass County’s law enforcement and criminal justice communities — an example their successors continue to follow today.

While the paths they traveled to reach their respective positions may have differed, both recently retired Sheriff Joseph Underwood’s and Circuit Court Judge Michael Dodge’s careers ran practically parallel to each other for decades.

Both began their respective careers the same year, in 1971, and they quickly rose the ranks in the years before reaching their respective pinnacles.

Brought together by a common cause to protect and serve the people of Cass County — as well as mutual love for the Fighting Irish — Underwood and Dodge formed a friendship that strengthened both of their offices for years.

As fate would have it, both men’s careers winded down at the same time as well, both retiring at the end of 2016.

Hometown boy

Like many others who choose to wear the badge, Underwood’s inspiration to become a police officer was seeing his father, Joseph Underwood Sr., serve the people of their hometown of Vandalia as village marshal. Growing up around officers like his father, the young Underwood quickly developed a love for law enforcement, he said.

Any dreams Underwood had of following in his father’s footsteps were put on hold shortly after his graduation from Cassopolis High School. Just a year after receiving his diploma in 1966, he received word that he had been drafted into the U.S. Army to serve in Vietnam.

After spending a year fighting, Underwood returned home after he was injured by shrapnel fire, for which he later received a Purple Heart.

After he was discharged from service, Underwood became a reserve officer with Cass County Sheriff’s Office while working at First National Bank in Cassopolis

“I always wanted to work at nothing but the sheriff’s office,” Underwood said. “Maybe it was because of the area, or because you would always be in your community, so to speak.”

Underwood was later offered a full-time position with the Dowagiac Police Department, spending 16 weeks at a police academy at Lake Michigan College before joining the force in 1971.

Climbing the ranks

A few years later, Underwood fulfilled his goal of joining the sheriff’s office full time, working his way up the ranks under the tutelage of Sheriff Jim Northrop.

“I had the opportunity to be involved with not just one segment of the sheriff’s office, but the whole part of it, all the different pieces that make up the department,” Underwood said. “As you move up through the ranks, you realize there is more to it than just the road patrol, than just the detective bureau. There is the dispatch center, the jail, and all these different components. In order to be successful, you cannot ignore any of them.”

Northrop also encouraged Underwood to continue to develop his skills as an officer through education and training programs. In 1987, Underwood participated in a three-month session through the FBI Academy, which exposed him to some of the same instruction and techniques given to federal officers.

When the longtime sheriff announced his retirement midway through his term in April 1988, a three-panel committee, made up of the county probate judge, prosecutor and clerk, selected Underwood to serve out the rest of Northrop’s term as head of the department.

His first tenure as sheriff only lasted through the end of the year, though. During the primary election in August, Underwood was defeated by Paul Parrish for the Republican nomination for the position, with the latter going on to win during November’s general election as well.

TAKING BACK the badge

Feeling his continued presence in the department would be a disruption for the new sheriff, Underwood decided to quit the force following the end of his term, and went to work for Haggin Ford in Dowagiac as the company’s leasing manager.

“It gave me a chance to start some new relationships,” Underwood said, about his break from public service. “It gave me a different perspective on the community and what its needs are, as opposed to just looking at it through law enforcement eyes and talking about it with law enforcement people. It gave me a broader view of the community’s thoughts and their views on what law enforcement should be.”

In 1992, though, Underwood threw his hat into the ring for the GOP nomination for his old job, running against the man who defeated him four years prior but also former sheriff Northrop, who had come out of retirement to run.

Underwood succeeded in the clash of the three sheriffs, retaking the badge he had lost years earlier.

To help bridge the gap between the community and his office, Underwood established several grant-funded community policing programs with the support of the county administrator and commissioners, which helped bridge the gap between police and the public by explaining to ordinary citizens how and why officers make the decisions they do while in the field.

“Ninety-five percent of the community does not get involved with law enforcement,” Underwood said. “They are not arrested. They are not getting speeding tickets. They really only see or hear about what we do in the news. Through community policing, you get them involved and engaged.”

Another mission of his was bringing back 24-hour road patrols in hopes of driving down traffic-related fatalities. When Underwood assumed office, around 30 people a year were perishing due to accidents, he said.

“It is not just about issuing tickets,” Underwood said. “It is about visibility. It is about enforcement. You cannot have one without the other.”

Underwood used state money to enact the program, before later transitioning to revenue from traffic fees, which continues to this day, he said.

A new approach to crime fighting

After tackling the problem with roadways, Underwood and his department turned their attention to dealing with a new problem that gripped the community: the rise of methamphetamine.

In response to the growing abuse of methamphetamine use and homegrown labs producing the drug during the early 2000s, Underwood and then-Dowagiac Police Chief Tom Atkinson — Underwood’s former partner during his days as a deputy — launched an ambitious effort to combat the issue in 2004. The pair asked the public to pass a millage to fund the creation of joint-department task force, comprised of a rotating set of officers whose sole responsibility was taking down drug dealers, manufacturers and users.

“It was important for us to send the message that if you used drugs in Cass County, there would be consequences,” Underwood said.

The proposal was passed by voters that year, creating the Cass County Drug Enforcement Team. The team continues to operate today, and has made hundreds of drug arrests over the years.

The most memorable case Underwood can recall, though, was not related to the methamphetamine scourge, but rather involved the kidnapping of a 14-year-old girl from Jones. Terry Drake, a convicted Indiana murderer and sex offender, took the child in 2003. After befriending the victim at her church, Drake took her with him across state lines, resulting in Cass County authorities joining forces with the FBI to track he and the girl down.

Tracing him through credit cards as well as working with several municipalities to issue Amber Alerts in areas he and the girl were suspected to be traveling through, authorities were able to track the two down to California, where Drake was taken into custody. Underwood and others believe that if they had not tracked him down when they did, Drake would have murdered his victim.

“It was a huge case for us,” he said. “We gained national recognition, and we became partners with the Missing and Exploited Children Center in Virginia as a result of the case.”

Leaving behind a legacy

In spite of Cass County’s size, Underwood kept his department as up-to-date as possible in terms of new technology and practices, including purchasing body cameras.

Underwood leaves another legacy from his time at the helm of the department, though it is not for his officers but for local students hoping to one day become one,. After running a golf outing for 18 years to raise money for scholarships, Underwood created an endowment fund in 2014, worth more than $100,000, to provide financial aid to students studying criminal justice at Southwestern Michigan College on a perpetual basis.

Over the years, Underwood came to rely on the help of Judge Dodge as well, who he witnessed climb the ranks just as he had.

“He was always a person you could go and talk to,” Underwood said. “He could offer you that wisdom you needed to make the right decision. You could bounce things off of him. He has been a tremendous resource for law enforcement in Cass County.”

It certainly did not hurt that both were tremendous fans of Notre Dame. The two longtime season ticket holders frequently attended games or tailgated together over the years, Underwood said.

“We have cheered together, and we have cried together,” Underwood said.

Similar to how he succeeded his mentor, Northrop, in 1988, Underwood’s longtime undersheriff, Richard Behnke, has taken the reigns following his retirement, elected to the office last November.

Now that he has hung up the badge, Underwood plans on spending some time with his wife, Cindy, touring the country, in hopes of visiting each of the national parks, he said.

“There are still so many interesting things in the U.S. I want to see,” he said.

Looking back on his career, Underwood said there are two things he is particularly proud of: the establishment of his office’s college scholarships and the compassion with which he served the people of Cass County for so many decades.

“I have been surrounded by good people,” Underwood said. “That has been one of the key things to my success. We had a good foundation when I took over, and we have been able to build upon that, and I have good people to follow in my footsteps. I have had a good family to see me through the peaks and valleys, through all the good days and the bad days. They have kept me grounded through my darkest days.”

Establishing roots

While Underwood made his career in the community he was born and raised, for Judge Dodge, Cass County was the place he chose to make his mark.

The Detroit native received his undergraduate degree from the University of Detroit in psychology, and was interested in becoming a clinical psychologist before someone he worked with at the school piqued his curiosity to go to law school instead. He attended law school at Notre Dame beginning in 1966, and interned with a legal aid office in Berrien County.

Like Underwood, Dodge was drafted by the U.S. Army and served two years fighting in the Vietnam War. Shortly after his discharge from service in 1971, he was contacted by Cassopolis attorney Jerry O’Connor, who was put in touch with Dodge by his former boss with the legal aid office.

“He knew I was out of the Army and looking for a job,” Dodge said. “He mentioned it to Jerry and Jerry called me up in Detroit and offered me a job. I was like ‘OK, let me look up on the map where Cassopolis is.’”

Less than a year after joining the office, Dodge was offered a position as a full-time assistant prosecutor with then county prosecutor Herm Saitz, who was running the office part time with another prosecutor, Daniel French. Dodge took the job with the blessing of his current employers.

“It was a pay raise for me, and it was something I was interested in doing,” Dodge said.

With Saitz looking to retire from his position at the end of the term, the prosecutor took the young attorney under his wing. Dodge successfully ran for the position the following year, and convinced the county board of commissioners to make the job a full-time one for the first time in history, Dodge said.

“I thoroughly enjoyed [prosecution],” he said. “I really loved the job. It was pretty demanding, because we had to do a lot of trial work. We did not have a large staff at the time — in fact, it was just I.”

While building the prosecutor’s office into what it is today, Dodge began to take an interest in the seat at the front of the courtroom. Watching the performance of the county judges, in particular Circuit Court Judge James Hoff, during his time in court sparked Dodge’s interest in becoming one himself, he said.

“I liked the way he [Hoff] handled the job and how he dealt with people,” Dodge said. “It seemed like the kind of job that I would enjoy doing. I admired and respected the job he was doing.”

Donning the robe

As he approached the end of his term as prosecutor in 1976, Dodge decided to forgo re-election to pursue his interest in donning the robe and gavel, running in a three-way race for Cass County Probate Judge. Dodge won the position from incumbent Wilson Eby and fellow challenger Bob Craig.

“It felt like going from being a player to becoming a referee,” Dodge said, about making the transition from prosecutor to judge. “You are not in it to win or lose. You are there to control the proceedings and deal with the outcome. You are not someone competing. From that standpoint, it was a big adjustment.”

After six years serving on the probate court bench, Dodge was named by then Gov. William Milliken as the successor to the man who inspired him, Judge Hoff, following his retirement in 1982.

On top of presiding over trials, studying case law and handling administrative matters, Dodge’s most serious duty for the past 34 years was determining the fate of the hundreds of convicted criminals who came into the courtroom for sentencing.

While he would pour hours into looking up state sentencing guideline measures and case information to come up with an idea of what punishment was appropriate before he entered the courtroom, Dodge’s decisions were occasionally swayed by testimony he heard in court shortly before making his final choice.

“Some cases are really tough,” Dodge said. “I mean I would think about them all week trying to figure out what I should do, what would be the right thing to do. You hope whatever decision you make is right, but it is never easy to send people to prison.”

Focusing on rehabilitation,

not punishment

While the law changed dramatically over Dodge’s time on the bench, no other type of case presented the type of issues that were caused by the plague of methamphetamine cases that began popping up during the early 2000s.

In response,  the Cass County court system began adopting specialized problem solving courts beginning in 2003. Instead of incarcerating offenders, these programs give judges the opportunity to sentence drug offenders to court-supervised rehabilitation programs, giving offenders a more structured environment to get themselves clean from their addictions.

Dodge oversaw the introduction of two of these programs in his court: the Swift and Sure sanctions probation in 2013 and the Berrien/Cass Regional Mental Health Court in 2015. The former program has been particularly useful, with around an 80 percent rate of success with participants since its introduction, Dodge said.

“It has really been rewarding to see people manage to avoid jail or prison and turn their lives around with these programs,” Dodge said. “There have been some great success stories. The most rewarding experience I have had in my years on the bench was seeing individuals succeed in these programs.”

In spite of these successes, there were a handful of cases over the years that challenged Dodge as well, especially those that involved children who suffered from abuse, he said.

“Experience helped me deal with cases as objectively and professionally as I could, without letting it get to me too much personally,” Dodge said. “But sometimes you cannot help it. You are going to be affected by what happens to people, by what you see in front of you in these cases.”

Some notable cases Dodge presided over included several high profile homicide cases, including a double homicide case in 1982 shortly after he assumed the circuit court judgeship, in which a man, Calvin Holmes, was convicted of murdering a 25-year-old Cassopolis woman and her 5-year-old daughter and stuffing their corpses in a closet; and a similar killing in 2013, where Niles’ Keith Lintz was convicted of stabbing and shooting a Howard Township couple, John and Carolyn Tarwacki, to death in their home in 2010.

Moving forward

In spite of some trying times, Dodge could always count on Underwood — his fellow Fighting Irish fan — for support.

“It is kind of unusual and surprising both of us are leaving at the same time,” Dodge said. “We have known each other for a long, long time and have been friends for years. We have shared a lot of experiences over the years, and I have a lot of respect and admiration for the job he has done. I know he will be missed.”

Like Underwood, Dodge’s position is now occupied by one of his former protégés, Niles’ Mark Herman, who won the circuit court judgeship in November in a hotly contested race against former county prosecutor Scott Teter. Herman served as Dodge’s first law clerk in 1982, and touted the judge as one of his mentors throughout his campaign.

With his service to the people of Cass County over, Dodge and his wife, Beth, have begun a new chapter of their lives. The couple is moving to South Carolina in order to be closer to family, though he said they are hoping to return north on occasion to visit friends or catch the occasional Notre Dame game.

“I served in this position the best way I could every day, to try and make the people of Cass County feel good about the fact I was their judge, and I have confidence in the way the circuit court was handled and the way people were treated when they came there,” Dodge said, reflecting on his career. “I hopefully ran a very professional court that treated people the way I would want to be treated or I want my family treated.”