If you were old enough to try to fight a speeding ticket in Lower Merion, any time before 1985, there’s a good chance that your case would have been heard by Robert P. (Bob) Johnson.
On April 29, The Inquirer reported that Johnson, at the age of 94, died on April 25 at Beaumont Retirement Community in Rosemont.
Johnson served as a Magistrate District Judge (formerly known as Justice of the Peace) for Lower Merion and Narberth for 27 years. He was first appointed to fill a vacancy by Governor John Fine in 1954, at the age of 27. Johnson was elected as District Judge several times after that. ,
He also won a seat in the State House in 1960, and he was re-elected in 1962. In 1964 after promising to resign from the court, he was elected to the State Senate. In 1966, still serving on the court, Johnson lost his State Senate seat in the Republican Primary to Lawrence (Larry) Coughlin.
In 1985, after serving 31 years on the court, Johnson stepped down from his position as District Justice in order to take a job as the administrator of a Philadelphia law firm.