Former N.J. county executive, who served a fiery term on the bench, has died

Wilbur H. “Bill” Mathesius, a lively and outspoken lawyer who held several prominent public positions in Mercer County, died Sunday following a fall in his Bucks County, Pennsylvania, home.

He was 85.

Mathesius was a prosecutor for the federal government and Mercer County before serving three terms as Mercer County’s executive, from 1980 to 1992. In the 2000s, he served a “colorful” term as a Superior Court judge.

A Republican, he was sometimes referred to as “Wild Bill.”

His maverick style garnered headlines in the late 1980s when he publicly and repeatedly argued for the legalization of all drugs, a now prescient position.

In a question-and-answer story in the New York Times , in March of 1990, he argued the federal “war on drugs” was not worth it, financially or societally.

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