It happened in 1981, when 150 Toronto police officers incensed the gay community by raiding four gay bathhouses and charging 286 men as found-ins.
The raids were widely denounced as evoking memories of Nazi Germany. They led to mass marches in the streets, a sustained press furor, and a widespread belief that Chief Justice McMurtry -- who was both attorney-general and solicitor-general at the time -- had approved one of the most socially regressive acts in the province's history.
"I was the attorney-general, so I made a very convenient bogeyman," the 74-year-old chief justice said in an interview prior to his retirement next month. "I had nothing to do with the bathhouse raids, but I certainly got hung with the responsibility.
"The irony of the whole thing was that I had expressed my concern to the chief of police; that it really looked like we were dissolving into a police state. The whole thing looked terrible.
"Without a doubt, that was one of my most frustrating experiences."
Chief Justice McMurtry's other great regrets involve two other major cases of the era. The first was the arrest of nurse Susan Nelles in 1979 on suspicion of murdering dozens of babies at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.
"I can remember that I had been away with my family on a school break," he said. "When I came back and saw the headlines, I brought in my deputy attorney-general, and said: 'What the hell is going on here? You've had a nurse arrested at one of the world's most famous hospitals?' "
It turned out that local prosecutors had failed to consult with senior officials in the ministry before telling police the charges appeared to be reasonable.
"As a lawyer, the first thing you think is: Who would have had exclusive access to these children?" Chief Justice McMurtry said.
Yet, he said, it was not at all clear that Ms. Nelles had enjoyed exclusive access to all of them. Chief Justice McMurtry smelled trouble. Sure enough, the charges were dropped after a preliminary inquiry judge found so many holes in the case that he refused to commit Ms. Nelles to trial.
The chief justice's third great regret was an erroneous perception about him that arose after his ministry appealed Henry Morgentaler's 1984 jury acquittal on illegal abortion charges.
Chief Justice McMurtry said that he had merely adhered to the advice of his senior legal advisers, as he habitually did.
The advisers felt strongly that the verdict could not stand because Dr. Morgentaler's lawyers had wrongly instructed the jury that they could flout the law if they disagreed with it.
But that did not make him personally anti-choice, Chief Justice McMurtry said. "I happen to have my own views on abortion that relate to the right of women to make their own choice," he said. "Actually, Dr. Morgentaler and I became sort of friends in later years."
Within weeks of announcing the decision to appeal, however, Chief Justice McMurtry was waging a tough fight to become leader of the Conservative Party. Although the sequence of events made it easy to brand him an anti-abortionist, he said he does not blame his ultimate defeat on that factor.
"I guess if I had been very ambitious about becoming party leader," he said, "I could have changed my portfolio. There are times you just get caught in the crossfire. The attorney-general tends to become a lightning rod."
It is hardly surprising that Chief Justice McMurtry's greatest regrets involve highly divisive cases, since he has a reputation for being a consensus-builder.
It is precisely what he set out to do a decade ago after being appointed Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal -- also called Chief Justice of Ontario -- helping transform a notoriously backlogged and sometimes fractious court into a highly efficient, harmonious bench.
"Under Chief Justice McMurtry's leadership, we pulled together and we worked hard, and the chief justice reached out to the bar and he sought their support, and he got it," Court of Appeal Judge Michael Moldaver said in a recent speech. "Thanks to his courage, leadership and vision, we now have an appeal process that is capable of delivering quality justice in a timely and efficient manner."
Chief Justice McMurtry took on the same role when racial tensions developed in Toronto a few years ago over policing. He has acted as the Toronto mayor's race relations commissioner, and helped create Pro Bono Law Ontario, a thriving organization that obtains free legal services for the needy. He was a driving force behind the Ontario Justice Network, which is focused on introducing high-school students to every facet of the justice system.
"I don't want to paint him as the Next Coming, but he has been a great uniter," said Clifford Lax, a veteran Toronto civil litigator. "He is a really very nice person who is able to find common ground. In a quiet, unassuming way, he has won a lot of converts to what he has done."
As he prepares to leave his job -- probably to become an associate with a Toronto law firm -- Chief Justice McMurtry said the difficulty of making the justice system accessible is his greatest concern. It troubles him deeply that legal aid is almost unobtainable for family or civil cases, in particular.
The root of the problem lies in the dilemma that any attorney-general faces trying to convince cabinet colleagues to provide funding for the justice system, he said. "There is a perception I often encountered that the legal profession is a spoiled, mollycoddled group."
In reality, Chief Justice McMurtry said, many lawyers work long hours and struggle to make a decent living. "I've become more aware of the solitudes that exist," he said. "The legal profession doesn't always enjoy the most favourable reputation with the public -- I think, often unfairly so."
While efficiency is part of the answer to underfunding, Chief Justice McMurtry said, a justice system cannot be run like an auto plant. "We should not attempt to create a justice system where efficiency is our No. 1 priority," he said. "When you are dealing with human factors, you are never going to achieve a particularly high level of efficiency."
