Retired Justice Augustus Agate has been appointed to the Queens Library Board of Trustees.
He may have retired on the last day of the last month of last year, hanging up the distinctive black robe for good after stepping down from the bench and absconding to chambers before leaving that cathedral of code and the Constitution—the courthouse on Sutphin Boulevard—in the rearview mirror, but Augustus Agate has not stopped moving.
“I’m not staying home,” he told The Forum this week, “I’m going to be active in the community.”
Active, for Agate, now four months into his second act, means taking on new roles. Last week, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz announced that she had thrust the Ozone Park native and long-time Howard Beach resident into his latest gig, appointing Agate to the Queens Library Board of Trustees.
“Justice Agate has extensive experience in making tough decisions from the bench, so his strong judicial temperament will serve him well as a member of the Queens Library Board of Trustees, which is entrusted with providing sound stewardship to one of our borough’s most treasured educational and cultural institutions,” Katz said last Thursday. “His intelligence and commitment to public service are also most impressive and will help guarantee he does an excellent job as a member of the Board.”
Agate, who attended his first Board meeting on Monday, called the appointment “a good challenge,” one in which he has the opportunity to again contribute to Queens.
“Borough President Katz said to me, ‘There are going to be a lot of legal issues with the Board; I need someone with your legal expertise,’” Agate recalled.
The road to that legal expertise and experience opened at a young age for Agate.
“I always wanted to do some form of public service,” he said. “As a young man, I always thought it would be an elected or appointed position in government.”
Agate attended Msgr. McClancy Memorial High School, and then City College, where he studied political science. After taking the Law School Admission Test, Agate left the Howard Beach nest he’d called home, for East Lansing, Mich., and the Michigan State University College of Law.
“My uncle was an attorney who really inspired me,” Agate said.
“I wasn’t good at math or science—so I knew I wasn’t going to be a doctor!” he added, punctuating his reasoning with a hearty laugh.
After law school, Agate was appointed an assistant district attorney by then-Queens DA Thomas Mackell. He spent a little more than three years in the Consumer Fraud Division, the Grand Jury Bureau, the Criminal Court Bureau, and finally the Supreme Court Bureau.
“It was my first exposure to court,” Agate said. “At that time—maybe 26 or 27 years old—I knew I wanted to be a judge.”
He earned his first gavel after being elected to the Civil Court bench in November, 2000. Agate was later elected to the Supreme Court 11th Judicial District in 2004, where he remained until he stepped down in 2014.
In retirement, Agate has found that he is “doing what I want to do, not what I have to do,” and that mainly involves spoiling his three grandchildren, supporting his local Kiwanis Club, and traveling.
He’s heading off to Europe later this month. But he always returns to his roots, to Howard Beach, the place that helped raise him.
“I really feel that when you contribute to the community, it’s a way of giving back,” Agate said. “You can’t be on the receiving end all the time.”
By Michael V. Cusenza michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
