Walter Steele; judge had prosecuted Kopechne case

As a prosecutor, criminal defense attorney, and judge, Walter E. Steele Sr. saw every side of the law. And he loved each one -- prosecuting criminals as an assistant district attorney, standing up for defendants, or presiding from the bench.

"He always said you had to have a fire in your belly to practice law, and either you had it or you didn't, " his companion, Janet Stella Kotrofi of South Dartmouth, said yesterday. "He did."

Judge Steele, 78, who died Friday at St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford, was a former Superior Court judge, but he is best remembered by many as the bespectacled special prosecutor who brought charges against Senator Edward M. Kennedy for leaving the scene of the 1969 accident on Chappaquiddick Island off Martha's Vineyard that killed 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne. (Kennedy was found guilty and received a two-month suspended sentence.)

The case attracted international attention. It was not something he relished. "He had to hide from the press," Kotrofi said.

The son of a civil engineer, Judge Steele was born and reared in Roxbury. After serving in the Navy as a Seabee, he graduated from Suffolk University Law School in 1954. The following year he joined the staff of Suffolk District Attorney Garrett H. Byrne as a legal aide. Two years later, he was named an assistant district attorney, a post he held until 1969.

He was appointed special prosecutor for Dukes County on Martha's Vineyard a month before the Chappaquiddick accident. He remained special prosecutor and also practiced criminal law until he was appointed associate justice of Dukes County District Court by Governor Francis W. Sargent in 1975. He was named to the Superior Court in 1980.

"He was dedicated to principles of fairness and justice, regardless of your station in society," his son, Walter Jr. of South Boston, said yesterday. "He was enormously proud of his opportunity to serve as a judge and was humbled by the obligation he worked so very hard to fulfill every day."

Judge Steele was generally assigned to Barnstable and Bristol county courts. An opponent of mandatory sentencing, he was an advocate of judicial discretion. "For goodness sake," he often said, according to his son, "you're dealing with someone's life."

He stepped down from the bench in 1996 at the mandatory retirement age of 70, but he was not happy about it.

"They fired me" is how he usually put it, Kotrofi said.

Judge Steele's marriage to Dolores Hurley ended in divorce. She died last September.

A fastidious dresser who was particularly fond of Brooks Brothers fashions, even in his retirement he always put on a suit and tie.

"Does he go to bed with a tie on?" an acquaintance once asked Kotrofi.

Judge Steele was a Boston Bruins fan who mourned the demolition of Boston Garden and wept openly when he learned that Bobby Orr had been traded.

A man with an infectious laugh who loved to tell stories, he found an unending source of new material in the history books; he usually read three at a time. "He was a walking encyclopedia on Roosevelt, Churchill, and Kennedy," Kotrofi said.

In addition to his son and companion, Judge Steele leaves another son, Terrence of West Roxbury; a daughter, Roberta of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and six grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. tomorrow in St. Theresa of Avila Church in West Roxbury. Burial will be in St. Joseph's Cemetery in West Roxbury.