E. Leo Milonas, a New York lawyer and former judge, and a seasonal Vineyard visitor to Menemsha, Chilmark and West Tisbury since the 1970s, died of heart failure at his home in Riverdale, N.Y. on Jan. 2. He was 87.

When, at 36, he was appointed to New York City’s Criminal Court, he was the youngest person ever to have been appointed a judge in New York City. He retired from being a judge in a State Appeals Court in 1998, after having made his mark on the city’s judicial system.

He was born on Oct 23, 1936 in New York City, a son of William and Catherine Skoulikas Milonas. He largely spoke Greek until kindergarten. In his school days, he showed what would be a lifelong interest in music and was in charge of the public school garden, where he developed an interest in roses. In high school, he was a softball player. Later, in college, he was on the wrestling team.

His father, after having helped to lay the tracks for the Union Pacific Railroad after his arrival in the United States from a mountain village in Greece, had moved to New York City and opened a luncheonette in Harlem. The Milonas family was marginal economically and Leo proudly worked there weekends as a boy.

He graduated from George Washington High School in Washington Heights and then entered City College of New York. After earning a bachelor’s degree, he went to Brooklyn Law School and received a law degree in 1960.

He was at a bus stop in Harlem when he met Helen Gannanos, a student at Barnard College who was also the child of Greek immigrants. They would always remember, with amuseument, that they met in front of a chicken slaughterhouse. Leo invied her for a drink, the first of many. They were married on July 31, 1960 and Helen became his wife of 63 years.

Leo practiced law until his appointment as a criminal court judge in 1972. He went on to be a supervising judge of the Bronx County Criminal Court and the Manhattan Criminal Court. In 1978 he was elected Supreme Court Justice.

He next became deputy chief administrator of the New York City courts and then oversaw 450 judges as chief administrative judge. He returned to the appellate division in 1993. He retired as a judge in 1998 and joined the law firm of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman until retiring, ostensibly, last year but actually continuing to practice until he died.

During his days in court, he became known for his vigorous outcries against prisons, which he called “graduate school for crime.” He even suggested that prisons should be in neighborhoods where prisoners could be close to their families and might have jobs by day and spend only nights in prisons. As a judge, he vigorously fought for the selection of judges based on qualifications, not for political reasons.

As president of the New York Bar Association from 2002 to 2004, he was a passionate defender of the rule of law and due process when both were being endangered after Sept. 11.

The Milonas family first learned of the Vineyard from the late New York City district attorney Robert Morgenthau. On the family’s first visit, they rented a glass house in Menemsha. There were Chilmark summer visits until they discovered West Tisbury. On Music street, they rented the house of the late Jane Brehm. Her grandson Allen Whiting was a fledgling artist and the Milonases often watched him at work in the carriage house behind his grandmother’s.

But then they discovered Pond View Farm, where the late West Tisbury police chief George Manter had a house with a barn for rent. It was ideal. Their daughters Olivia and Alexandra were teenage “barn rats,” doing odd jobs. There, Leo could forget the problems of New York City as he watched the mist settle over Tisbury Great Pond in the evenings and the sun rising in the morning.

The family entertained friends and relations with outdoor cookouts that included fresh steamers as well as inviting Greek dishes. Illustrious guests might be in attendance, along with quacking and attacking Manter ducks.

They went on expeditions to Quansoo. From there, Leo took morning walks or runs to Lucy Vincent Beach. There were frequent fishing expeditions with Bob Morgenthau in his boat, and evenings of fishing off the Menemsha jetty.

On rainy summer evenings, there might be an old Hitchcock movie to see at the Grange Hall, where the judge and his family would arrive with their home-popped popcorn and beach chairs so they could watch from outside.

For a brief moment the Milonases considered buying an old house in Edgartown and having it moved to West Tisbury. In the end, it wasn’t possible and all agreed that Pond View Farm was just the right place for them.

Leo is survived by his wife, Helen, a psychotherapist, of Riverdale, N.Y.; daughters Alexandra Milonas, a psychotherapist, of Brooklyn and Olivia Milonas, a law professor, of Providence, R.I.; grandsons William Milonas-Milligan and Nicholas Milonas-Milligan of Providence; and his son in law, Dr. Benjamin Milligan of Providence, R.I.