The community is mourning the loss of former Montgomery County State’s Attorney, Andrew Larimore Sonner. Sonner, 90, passed away on October 13, 2024. He was a graduate of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and taught history at Walter Johnson High School while attending law school at night before being elected as State’s Attorney in 1970 and serving for more than 25 years.
Per the Office of the State’s Attorney: “It has been a sad and reflective week for many of us at the S.A.O. as we learned about the passing of a true pioneer who served as the leader of our office for more than two decades.
Andrew Larimore Sonner was elected Montgomery County State’s Attorney in 1970 and served for more than 25 years. His legacy continues to have a lasting impact on how we operate and seek justice within our community.
Andy changed the face of criminal justice in Montgomery County by becoming the first to hire African American, Asian American, and female attorneys in the office. Under his leadership, the “Sonner Scholars” program paved the way for young professionals straight out of law school to pursue careers in prosecution. One of our current division chiefs and several of our senior prosecutors are graduates of that program. Several others went on to become judges.
We will be forever grateful to Andy Sonner for laying the foundation and creating a tradition of the utmost professionalism, where we work each day to ensure justice is served equitably and fairly in Montgomery County.”
Per the official death notice from the Maryland Bar Association: “It was a beautiful fall day, just the type of weather he most loved, and he was surrounded by his family in his home of 59 years. Andy was born in 1934 in Middletown, Ohio to Kathryn White and Kenneth Sonner, one of four brothers. The family spent his early years in Texas and California before settling in Garrett Park, Maryland in 1944.
After graduating from Bethesda Chevy Chase High School, Andy attended the College of Wooster before transferring to the American University in Washington, DC, receiving first his BA in History from the College of Arts & Sciences and then his JD from the Washington College of Law at American. He taught history at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda while attending law school at night. Andy was an educator at heart, and continued to teach throughout his legal career, at the University of Maryland and the Washington College of Law, among others, and serving as a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School. Andy relished his role as a teacher, remaining in close contact with many of his former students over the years.
Throughout his life, Andy was committed to supporting justice and equity in society. As a prosecutor, he understood that he was in the primary and unique position to ensure that the extraordinary powers of the criminal justice system were employed fairly and equitably. Andy was elected Montgomery County State’s Attorney in 1970 and served for over 25 years. At one point, he was the longest serving state prosecutor in the country. As a leader and teacher, he imbued the staff of the State’s Attorney’s Office with the mandate to seek and secure justice. To his assistants, he often quoted Berger v. United States, the 1935 US Supreme Court case requiring that, while a prosecutor “may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.” Andy mentored several generations of Assistant State’s Attorneys who would go on to illustrious careers as defense counsel, federal prosecutors, and judges, many noting that he served as a moral compass in their practice of law. He worked assiduously to improve the administration of justice and to address inequities in the criminal justice system. He led the development of community-based prosecution and a series of initiatives to reduce delay, address overcrowding in the detention center, improve victim and witness support services, and promote early case screening.
In 1996, Andy was appointed by Governor Parris Glendenning to the then Court of Special Appeals for Maryland and served until his formal retirement in 2004. In 2005, Andy worked with an international community of judges in Bosnia. Throughout his career, he served on various county, state, and national committees and councils supporting criminal sentencing policies, pre-trial release, and juvenile justice, to name a few. He received numerous honors and awards, authored reports for government agencies and non-profit organizations, and wrote articles in professional journals. In his formal retirement, he served as a substitute judge and published a professional memoir, illustrating the ways in which the Montgomery County legal sphere had grown and changed throughout his time in office. Andy was an active member of the National District Attorney’s Association, as well as the Montgomery County, Maryland, and American Bar Associations. He loved his career, his legal community, and the opportunity to serve the cause of justice, fully retiring only at age 87.
He and his wife, Sandra, met in high school, married in 1958, and, until her death in 2005, raised six children together.
Andy was both a lifelong athlete and avid sports fan. He played high school football, attended college on a cross country scholarship, and coached the swim team in Garrett Park. He was a long-distance runner for years (completing the JFK 50 Miler) and played competitive tennis most of his life. He was an enthusiastic traveler and loved the outdoors, often happiest on his weekends at Maryland’s Eastern Shore, gardening, exploring local waterways in his pontoon boat, and mixing gin and tonics for family and friends. Andy loved music (opera, bluegrass, folk, and classical), and poetry, which he paid several generations of young children to memorize and which he quoted with regularity.
He was committed to progressive causes and delighted in the political process, believing that healthy disagreement was part of the discourse. He relished a good debate and never shied away from confrontations. Family dinners were infused with this spirit, and friends and colleagues (including those he assembled for regular political discussions) always knew the conversation would be lively.
He believed that a society should be judged by how we treated the least among us, exhorting his children, his clerks, his staff, and his friends to remember our shared commitment to one another and the importance of the social contract. He was a New Deal Democrat, believing that government was a critical tool for improving individuals and communities. He left this world a more just place than he found it, as an early champion of integration, an active supporter of equal opportunities for women, an opponent of the death penalty, and an advocate for the most disadvantaged.
His enthusiasm for life, the law, and his family are what defined him. Andy’s children expressed a deep gratitude to his companion, Kathy Parker, for her devoted support and the richness she brought to his life, and to theirs. He will be profoundly missed.
Andy was preceded in death by his parents, his sister-in-law Margaret Smith Sonner, his wife Sandra, and his brother, White Sonner. He is survived by his brothers Alan Sonner and Steve (Kathy) Sonner, his six children, Mary (Kent Bloomstrand) Costello of Shepherdstown, WV; John (Karen Kelly) Sonner of Boxboro, MA; Ken (Sonia Garcia) Sonner of Rockville, MD; Molly Andolina of Oak Park, IL; Timothy Sonner of Rockville, MD; and Teddy (Rosie Wells) Sonner of Washington, DC. He was beloved grandfather to 11 grandchildren (Ken, Bobbie, Andy, Anthony, Maggie, Katherine, David, Mary, Liam, Owen, and Mandy), six great grandchildren, five nieces, three nephews and their many children.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions to the Andrew L. Sonner Memorial Scholarship Fund at the Washington College of Law. A celebration of life ceremony will be held on Friday, October 25th at 11:00 a.m. at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre at the Rockville Civic Center, 603 Edmonston Drive, Rockville, MD. A reception will follow the service.