Western New York is remembering retired Surrogate Judge Joseph Mattina. He died Sunday at Erie County Medical Center after a long illness.
Born of Italian immigrants, the Buffalo News reorts he was a 1950 graduate of Lafayette High School, then went on to earn his bachelor and law degrees from the University at Buffalo.
After a few years in the Erie County District Attorney's Office, he was elected to City Court. State Supreme Court has his home bench in the 1970s, then Surrogate Court in the 1990s.
Mattina stepped down in 2003 at the mandatory retirement age of 70 as Western New York's longest-serving judge. Columbus Hospital was renamed the Joseph S. Mattina Community Health Center in his honor.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be offered Thursday at 9 a.m. at St. Michael Church in downtown Buffalo.
