Mac Will Be Missed by Good and Bad : Courts: Roderick (Mac) MacPherson retires as a bailiff at the Van Nuys courthouse. He is well liked by criminal defendants as by lawyers, clerks, police officers and judges.

People around the Van Nuys courthouse are joking that they should hire a sound truck and drive it up and down the seamiest part of Sepulveda Boulevard to publicize bailiff Roderick (Mac) MacPherson’s retirement party.

So many prostitutes, heroin addicts and other criminals would want to come to the party, all crime would probably stop for hours, they say.

The Los Angeles County deputy marshal, who retired this week, is as well liked by the criminal defendants who have been in his custody as by the lawyers, clerks, police officers and judges who work in the building.

MacPherson’s job is to supervise the deputy marshals who make sure that about 275 jailed criminal defendants get to the proper Van Nuys Municipal courtrooms every day. The charm and warmth that MacPherson brings to the job have won over a lot of very hardened hearts.

“He’s one of the most likable marshals we’ve ever had,” said bailiff Bill Gannon. “Everybody knows Mac.”

“He’s always telling jokes. He’s always got the defendants laughing,” said bailiff Andy Romanisky.

“He treats everyone with dignity,” added Van Nuys Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb.

MacPherson’s boss, Lt. Art Valenzuela, said MacPherson has received “outstanding” performance ratings--the highest classification--on each of his annual evaluations for the past 17 years. His work ethic is superb: Not only is MacPherson nice to everybody, but he also usually shows up for work half an hour early and often stays late, Valenzuela said.

The 59-year-old, blue-eyed, white-haired bailiff said he has no trouble being friendly and pleasant to people accused of murder, assault and other violent or mean-spirited things.

“I don’t condone a lot of their actions, and if it was me on the bench I’d probably give them 100 years,” MacPherson said. “But I’m not here to judge.” If he thinks the crime was particularly heinous, he said, “I may not be as friendly or joke as much.”’

MacPherson said his use of humor maked things go smoothly. Say a prostitute, seeking favors possibly, says she wants him to come to her home after she gets out of jail. Mac quips back, “No, because if I do it for you, I’ll have to do it for all of you.”

He said he is proud that prisoners like and respect him.

“I’ve had guys say, ‘Mac, you’re the only one here who treats us like human beings,’ ” he said.

MacPherson’s rapport with the prisoners makes him “great at defusing hostile situations,” said Rion O’Brien, a court clerk. “He can really calm people down. Say a hothead comes into court, liable to explode. Mac defuses him just by his demeanor. He’s calm, he’s laid-back.”

MacPherson’s manner and its effect on inmates was demonstrated recently when he entered an inner courthouse corridor flanked by cells filled with people awaiting court appearances or a bus back to jail.

As MacPherson passed one cell, a young woman in a blue jailhouse jumpsuit tapped on the thick security glass and held two fingers to her lips, mimicking a smoking motion, then placed her fingertips together as if praying and looked plaintively at MacPherson.

He stopped, gave her a mock scowl and took a cigarette from his sock, lit it and slid it under the cell door. The woman smiled gratefully.

In a nearby cell filled with men who were sleeping, sitting or waiting, a greasy-haired man whose arms were completely covered with tattoos wished MacPherson well on his retirement.

“I have nothing but good things to say about Mr. MacPherson here,” said Marcos Bigitti, 24, of Van Nuys, who recently was released from Folsom Prison and is awaiting trial on charges that he stole a car and crashed it into a center divider.

“It’s like when you come to Van Nuys court, you say, where is Mr. MacPherson? You see him and your day is brightened right away. You’re always greeted with a smile by him. If someone from your family is out in the courtroom, he’ll give them a message for you. He’s good people.”

Bigitti said he has been in and out of the courthouse since he was 12, first with family members in trouble with the law, then for his own offenses. “He practically raised me,” he said. “He’s almost like a father figure in my eyes.”

Another prisoner, Herman Shead, 30, of Canoga Park, said MacPherson will bend the rules slightly to help inmates. “Sometimes you’re hungry, and he’ll slip you an apple or sandwich,” Shead said.

Kind acts like these--along with MacPherson’s nonjudgmental, friendly manner and his occasional inspirational words about straightening out one’s life--have won him intense loyalty from inmates.

A few years ago, MacPherson said, he was in a courtroom when a judge ordered bailiffs to take a woman into custody on an arrest warrant.

The woman, whom MacPherson knew from her repeated trips to court for heroin and prostitution arrests, suddenly bolted from the courtroom. MacPherson chased her for about a block. Then she abruptly stopped and fell down.

“Everyone said, ‘Why didn’t you keep running? You could have outrun that old guy,’ ” MacPherson recalled. “She said, ‘I turned around and saw it was Mac that was chasing me, and I didn’t want him to have a heart attack.’ ”

Former defendants seek him out in courthouse corridors to say hello. Others tell him they have kicked drugs or turned away from crime.

State prison inmates sometimes send MacPherson messages or thank-you notes for being nice to them while they were in custody. Beefy, tough-looking men come up to him in the grocery store, recognize him from when they were in jail, and exclaim, “How’s it going, Mac?”

“Sometimes it scares the life out of me,” MacPherson said.

A Boston native, MacPherson came to California 27 years ago and almost immediately joined the marshal’s service, coming to the Van Nuys courts three years later. The service, which provides courtroom security and supervision of prisoners, was a second career for MacPherson, who had spent 14 years as a mechanical engineer and was already 33 years old.

Maybe that is part of the reason he is so easygoing with the inmates, MacPherson said. “When I came to the job, I was a little more mature. I think some of these young guys, they put the badge on, they get more macho. I’m older than the other guys. I don’t go out of my way looking for problems.”

But MacPherson says he does not hesitate to use foul language, a loud voice, physical force or to take away phone privileges. And he said he has been in numerous fights over the years.

“I can be just as mean as anybody down here,” MacPherson said. “With these violent type of people, you have to have control. You let one guy get away with something, everybody wants to.”

The popular bailiff said he has mixed feelings about leaving his job, but retirement is mandatory because he will soon turn 60, the legal age limit for county peace officers. He and his wife of 30 years, a former big-band singer, plan to retire to a smaller city on the California coast. They have no children.

A former guitarist and band singer, MacPherson said he may form a group and play for fun with other retired guys.

Bill Gannon said he finds it remarkable that MacPherson’s constant dealings with criminal defendants and the court system have not made him jaded.

“What makes me proud,” said MacPherson, “is that these people consider me to be fair.”