Superior Court Judge Susan E. McGuirl to retire after two decades on the bench

PROVIDENCE — Superior Court Judge Susan E. McGuirl, a trailblazer in Rhode Island, is retiring Oct. 29 after two decades on the bench.

McGuirl, who made history early in her career as the first woman to be named deputy state attorney general, notified Gov. Daniel J. McKee on Monday of her intention to step down to begin a “new phase” in life.

Gov. Lincoln Almond swore McGuirl, who is now 69, in as judge in July 2001 following her pioneering career as a state prosecutor who took on the likes of late Providence Mayor Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci Jr. and Newport socialite Claus von Bulow in court.

“I promised then that I would treat everyone who entered my courtroom fairly and to do justice. I have strived to fulfill that commitment each day that I have been on the bench,” she wrote.

“Every day, I have listened to people speak of difficult events that have occurred in their lives. I have watched attorneys advocate passionately and tirelessly for their clients. I have observed ordinary citizens come forward and assume the awesome responsibility of a juror. I have been impressed, moved and inspired by their actions,” she continued.

She extended praise and gratitude to judiciary staff from Superior Court Administrator Marisa Brown and Presiding Justices Joseph Rodgers and Alice B. Gibney to stenographers, clerks and sheriffs. 

“Our judicial system works as well as it does because of the commitment of all to bring liberty and justice for all,” she said.

McGuirl made headlines most recently in 2018 when she issued a blistering ruling castigating the East Greenwich Town Council for willful and repeated violations of the state’s Open Meetings Act in hiring then-Town Manager Gayle Corrigan. The judge blasted East Greenwich leaders for misleading their constituents by failing to properly post meetings and declared Corrigan's appointment "null and void” due to the violations.

“It’s time for East Greenwich to turn the lights back on and keep them on,” McGuirl said. The ruling also reinstated East Greenwich firefighter James Perry to his post after he and the firefighters union sued the town over his firing by Corrigan.

She presided over the lengthy and highly contentious trial of seven Narragansett Indians arrested in the 2003 state police raid on the tribe’s Charlestown smoke shop. Gibney, in 2011, named McGuirl to oversee Rhode Island’s first dedicated domestic-violence court calendar.

'A.G.'s Avenging angel' took on Claus von Bulow, Buddy Cianci 

Prior to assuming the bench she was known as a tough and savvy prosecutor who thrilled to the action of jury trials, wrote then-Journal columnist M. Charles Bakst.

In 1981, she was the subject of a long magazine profile in the Sunday Journal that branded her "The A.G.'s avenging angel." 

At 29, McGuirl supervised the successful prosecution in the first trial of von Bulow, a Danish-born Newport socialite, on charges of trying to kill his wife, Sunny, by injecting her with insulin. (The conviction was overturned on appeal, and von Bulow was found not guilty at his second trial.)

She also helped broker a plea deal when former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. was indicted for assaulting a man he believed was having an affair with his estranged wife.

McGuirl went into private practice after leaving the attorney general’s office and later became Providence Housing Court chief judge.

She served as a special investigator of the Peter Gilbert affair. Gilbert was a mob witness who went skydiving, used cocaine, and took trips to Florida while in Providence police custody.

A breast cancer survivor, McGuirl adopted two daughters from China. She is an alum of Rhode Island College and Suffolk Law School.

Details about the pension McGuirl will receive were not immediately available.