Do Equal Right: The History of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia 1849-2013

Do Equal Right The History of the United States District C ourt Northern District of Georgia 1849~2013

By Lu ther D. Thomas

Do Equal Right T he H istory of the U nited S tates D istrict C ourt N orthern D istrict of G eorgia 1849~2013 n the earliest days of the federal court system in Georgia, cases were small and sporadic and sometimes delayed if the horseback-riding judges didn’t make it to the courthouse on time.

But in time, what became the Northern District of Georgia grew into one of the busiest district courts in the United States.

Today, the district’s work is spread over four courthouses (Atlanta, Rome, Newnan, and Gainesville) with some of the largest and most challenging multidistrict, multipledefendant cases in the country decided in its courtrooms.

Author Luther “Dan” Thomas, the Northern District’s longest-serving clerk of court upon his retirement in 2006, takes the reader into the courtroom and allows peeks at the duties of not only the judges and magistrates, but the unsung workforce of the court, such as the clerk’s office, probation officers, and security team.

Along the trail are bits and pieces of infamous defendants, such as Al Capone and Eric Rudolph, and also cases that carried national implications involving desegregation, the war on drugs, mental healthcare overhaul, and corporate malfeasance.

new photographs taken specifically for Do Equal Right. Through the eye of nationally known photographer Thomas England, you will find life behind the chambers’ doors—judges and their staff at work outside of the courtroom. These images provide a rare glimpse at the inner workings of one of America’s most august institutions.

Do Equal Right takes its name from the federal judicial oath of office, which has been administered since 1789. While there may be no similarity between court of today and when Judge John C. Nicoll served as its first judge in 1849, the oath of office has held fast, testament to the work and commitment performed every day by the men and women of the United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia.

About the Author Luther D. Thomas retired in 2006 as the longest-serving of the Northern District of Georgia’s fourteen clerks of court.

Beginning his career as an elected clerk of a state trial court in Kentucky, he then served over twentynine years with the federal judiciary, including service as a bankruptcy court clerk in Kentucky, special assignments as acting clerk of two federal courts in Florida, as well as traveling overseas providing assistance to five judiciaries, including Iraq, in 2003.

The United States District Court Northern District of Georgia

The second part of the book features bios on every judge and magistrate who served (and is still serving) on the bench for the Northern District.

Sprinkled throughout the book are not only historic archival photographs of early courthouses and judges, but numerous

The Richard Russell Federal Building and United States Court House 75 Spring Street SW Atlanta, Georgia 30303

Do Equal Right “I do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me under the Constitution and laws of the United States.

So help me God.” Federal Judges’ Oath of Office Judiciary Act of 1789, as Amended.

The United States Post Office, Courthouse, and Customs House in downtown Atlanta (completed 1880) served as headquarters for the Northern District of Georgia from 1880 to 1910. The building faced Marietta Street on a block bounded by Forsyth and Fairlie Streets.

It was later Atlanta City Hall.

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Do Equal Right T h e H i s t o ry o f t h e U n i t e d S tat e s D i s t r i c t C o u rt N o rt h e r n D i s t r i c t o f G e o rg i a 1849–2013 Copyright 2014 © Clerk of the United States District Court, The Northern District of Georgia All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia.

The United States District Court Northern District of Georgia

The Richard B. Russell Federal Building and United States Courthouse 75 Spring Street SW Atlanta, Georgia 30303 Luther D. Thomas Writer James N. Hatten Editor William C. O’Kelley, Charles A. Pannell Jr. Editorial Review Chairs Rick Korab Design Elliott Studios, Thomas S. England Photography Renée Peyton Production David Deleon Baker Proofreading Bob Land Copy Editing and Indexing

Book Development by Bookhouse Group, Inc. Covington, Georgia www.bookhouse.net

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Margaret deNeergaard’s painting of forty-one new citizens from throughout the world being administered the oath of citizenship graces the lobby outside the Atlanta ceremonial courtroom.

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The Federal Judicial Districts of Georgia

CONTENTS

Foreword X Introduction XIII Chapter One Origins of the Federal Judiciary and the District of Georgia: 1789–1848 1 Chapter Two The Northern District of Georgia Is Created: 1848–1882 9 Chapter Three The Northern District Gets Its Own Judge: 1882–1900 21 Chapter Four More Judges, More Divisions, and More Work—The Northern District Continues to Grow: 1900–1968 27 Chapter Five A Metropolitan Court and Three Additional Judgeships: 1968–1977 47 Chapter Six The Court’s Offices 59 Chapter Seven The Court Transforms: 1977–1988 71 Chapter Eight Senior Judges and a New Generation of Judges: 1988–2013 83 Chapter Nine The Northern District in the Twenty-First Century 101 Epilogue 109 United States District Judges—Northern District of Georgia 113 United States Magistrate Judges—Northern District of Georgia 193 Acknowledgments 218 Appendix 219 End Notes 222 Index 228

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Any history follows events, but to give meaning to the events, it must also describe and chronicle the participants. The history of this court has many parts and phases. The challenge for the author, Luther D. Thomas, retired clerk of the court, has been to blend everything into a whole.

The district court’s character has been shaped by the individual judges and the influence of Atlanta’s growth as a government center, a regional hub, and international city, flavored by the culture of the Southern states and the Appalachian Highlands. The fast pace and the variety of challenges make the Northern District different from many parts of the country.

The district court has always reflected an abiding concern and thoughtfulness for the rights of litigants and their counsel, which is derived from a legal community that enjoys congeniality among lawyers and judges. Particularly since the end of World War II, the impressive character of the court is its ability to move its cases, large or small, controversial and sometimes sensational, professionally with calm and steadiness. This history highlights the judges’ ability to rise to the occasion and move the people’s business to conclusion effectively and fairly—more slowly than some would like, too fast for others.

Whether they are overseeing a multimillion-dollar business dispute, reapportionment of voting districts, the sensational trial of a corrupt public official, or one of the “most wanted” criminals, protecting the civil rights of all citizens—whether black, white, rich, poor, disabled physically or mentally, or imprisoned—controversies over the Ten Commandments, drug gang cases (with dozens of defendants, millions in cash, tons of drugs, and multiple murders), desegregation, a fraudulent crematory, lawsuits concerning Gone with the Wind, or any one of many categories of cases that require long hours of work, the judges handle them with a quiet effectiveness, a quiet dignity. While the judges may differ on judicial philosophy, when moving the people’s business, the court has a reputation for professionalism beyond the boundaries of Georgia and the Southeast.

Judges who have had the honor and privilege to serve the court are a part of its history and have contributed to its stability and success. Let’s hope this history will be the beginning of a better preservation of the court’s record, not a conclusion.

William C. O’Kelley Senior United States District Judge

Charles A. Pannell Jr. Senior United States District Judge X

Binai Desai, formerly of India, and other prospective new citizens during their naturalization proceedings before Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. in Atlanta in 2013.

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Atlanta has been called The Capital of

the New South, and the United States District

Court for the Northern District of Georgia has played a significant part in Atlanta’s development into this role. Congress divided Georgia into two federal judicial districts in 1848, creating the Northern District about the time this former railroad camp once known as Terminus began to experience substantial growth.

Since its creation, the Northern District of Georgia has had an important impact on the citizens of Atlanta and North Georgia. The court’s landmark opinions in the civil rights cases of the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, other significant lawsuits with national or international implications, and cases interpreting civil or criminal law reflect both continuity and change.

Throughout its history, the courtrooms of the Northern District have seen disputes of every size and description. The federal government has prosecuted some of its most infamous criminals in the district, and individuals have been able to assert their constitutional rights and maintain civil actions against each other and against some of the world’s largest corporations.

The far-reaching decisions of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia place it at the core of Atlanta’s vitality. Moreover, with Atlanta’s increasing role as an international center of commerce, the court’s decisions reach far beyond the Northern District’s borders.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia convened for the first time on March 12, 1849.1 As there was no federal courthouse for the district at the time, the setting was the Cobb County Courthouse in Marietta, Georgia. The presiding judge was the Honorable John C. Nicoll. So began the Northern District. To fully understand the history of the Northern District, however, one must retreat in time before proceeding and sketch the course of events leading to that first court session.

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Naturalization and name change petition of a new citizen at a ceremony conducted before Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. in 2013.

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Minutes of the District of Georgia’s second meeting in Savannah on December 8, 1789, when its first judge, Nathaniel Pendleton, presented his commission signed by President George Washington.

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Origins of the Federal Judiciary and the District of Georgia Although Article III of the United States Constitution establishes the judiciary of the United States, it offers only the briefest sketch of the court system for the new nation. While mandating a Supreme Court, the Constitution leaves it to Congress to decide the size of that court and whether to establish “inferior courts.” The framers’ more general outline for the judicial branch reflects their preoccupation with balancing the powers of the elected legislative and executive branches, which received more detailed treatment. Article III did provide for the independence of the judicial branch by granting federal judges tenure during good behavior and protection from salary reductions.2 The first Congress did “ordain and establish” lower “inferior” federal courts. As its twentieth enactment, Congress passed the first Judiciary Act, “An Act to Establish the Judicial Courts of the United States.” Signed into law

President George Washington nominated Nathaniel Pendleton as the first United States District Judge for the District of Georgia.

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on September 24, 1789, this act remains the cornerstone of the federal judicial system.3 The Judiciary Act of 1789 divided the eleven states (North Carolina and Rhode Island had not ratified the Constitution as of the date of the act) into thirteen judicial districts, which, in a tradition that continues to this day, corresponded to state boundaries. Massachusetts and Virginia, which were then much larger geographically, were divided into two districts. The act also provided for the appointment of one district judge for each of the thirteen districts.4 The Judiciary Act further divided the country into

as well as stay in touch with the country by riding the circuits. These circuit-riding duties were onerous from the outset, and in response to requests from the chief justice and attorney general, Congress changed the composition of the circuit courts in 1793 to a single Supreme Court justice and one district judge.6

three circuits, each with its own circuit court. The southern circuit comprised the districts of Georgia, South Carolina, and, soon after, North Carolina.

Each circuit court consisted of two Supreme Court justices and one district judge from within the circuit, with any two of these judges constituting a quorum.

The circuit court was to sit twice a year in each district within the circuit. The circuit court, like the district court, was a trial court having authority to hear cases involving serious federal crimes and cases based on diversity of citizenship. In addition, the circuit courts had authority to review decisions of the district courts in civil cases in which the matter in controversy exceeded $50, and on appeals of final decrees in admiralty and maritime cases in which the matter in controversy exceeded $300.5 The act’s creation of two sets of trial courts, one with limited appellate jurisdiction, was remarkable.

Similarly remarkable was the fact that the circuit courts, unlike the district courts, did not have their own judges. Congress envisioned that the Supreme Court would not be very busy and that the Supreme Court justices could perform these additional duties

along the coast, primarily in Savannah, with Augusta and several other settlements up the Savannah River. Terms of the circuit and district courts were alternately held in Augusta and Savannah.7 The Judiciary Act of 1789 empowered the president to appoint thirteen judges, one for each of the districts. The day the Judiciary Act was signed into law, September 24, 1789, President George Washington nominated Nathaniel Pendleton as the first United States District Judge for the District of Georgia.

The District of Georgia Is Established The Judiciary Act of 1789 organized Georgia as a single judicial district with a single district judge. At that time, the majority of Georgia’s population lived

Nathaniel Pendleton— Georgia’s First Federal Judge Judge Pendleton was born in Virginia in 1756.

He studied law under a Colonel George Johnson, who would later become an aide-de-camp to General Washington. Surprisingly, Pendleton may not have set foot on Georgia soil before the American Revolution, coming to Georgia then as a captain and aide-de-camp to General Nathaniel Greene.

He concluded his service as a captain and General

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Greene’s aide-de-camp. The earliest record of his living in Georgia is a brief announcement of his marriage in the Georgia Gazette in 1785. Pendleton somehow became known as Major Pendleton after the war.8 Pendleton’s rise in political office in Georgia was meteoric. In 1786, he became a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from Chatham County and was also selected by the citizens of Glynn County to be their representative. That same year, he became Georgia’s attorney general. The following year, he was selected as a delegate to the convention that framed the United States Constitution, although

These attorneys were admitted as “solicitors and proctors.” Their titles are significant as they indicate the nature of the new court. In its early minutes, the court often referred to itself as an admiralty court.

Solicitors in England were the only practitioners who were allowed to appear in the chancery courts, and proctors practiced exclusively in the admiralty courts. In England, there would not have been any crossover between these two groups of attorneys.11 The first case coming into the new district court

he never signed that document. In 1789, he was commissioned as chief justice of Georgia, the highest judicial office in his adopted state. He served in this position for six months before President Washington appointed him to the district judgeship.

Judge Pendleton was confirmed by the Senate, and his commission was signed by the president on September 26. Pendleton, like many of those named to the first judgeships, was personally known to the president, who had previously considered him for the position of secretary of state.9 The first session of the United States District Court for the District of Georgia was opened by Judge Pendleton in Savannah on November 13, 1789.

The court next met on December 8, 1789, and by that date President Washington had appointed Matthew McAllister as the first United States attorney for Georgia and Robert Forsyth as the United States marshal for the district. In March 1790, Judge Pendleton appointed Venable Bond the first clerk of the District of Georgia.10 At the December 8 session, one of the matters handled was the admission of several attorneys.

Draft of Senate Bill One from the first session of the first Congress. The resulting legislation, known as the Judiciary Act of 1789, established the framework of our federal judicial system of today.

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Supreme Court vacancy that never occurred. In his letter of March 5, 1791, to the president, Pendleton complains of his salary: When I solicited the appointment of Judge of this district, I imagined Congress would have made a more ample provision for the Judges, but having, at my own solicitation, had the honor to be nominated by you, I could not with propriety refuse service, although it will be readily admitted by those who knew, the extent of my practice at the Bar, that the salary allowed me was but a small compensation, nor is it, indeed, an adequate provision for a family in this country.15

was Mathus Travens v. Brig, an admiralty case. The vessel in question had been taken adrift at sea.

Judge Pendleton ruled that the vessel had not been derelict, had run aground on a bar, and had been abandoned by necessity of weather. Under prize law, the judge awarded the libelants salvage, which was one-eighth of the value of the vessel, its tackle, and cargo.12 On May 29, 1790, six months after the district court initially convened, Supreme Court Justices John Rutledge and James Iredell along with District Judge Pendleton inaugurated the United States Circuit Court for the District of Georgia at the Chatham County Courthouse in Savannah. Originally scheduled to be held on May 20, the first two sessions were delayed when the two circuit-riding justices did not arrive on time. The first case in the circuit court’s initial session was John Habersham v. Seven Pipes and Two Butts of Wine, a case involving a seizure under the customs laws. Many of the circuit court’s early cases were diversity cases involving the collection of debts.13 The first criminal trial noted in the minutes of the federal courts in Georgia was that of Oliver Bowen at the April 1790 term of the circuit court in Savannah.

Bowen was indicted for extortion, and then tried and found not guilty by the petit jury.14 No other details of the case survive. In another case, noteworthy for its sentence, a defendant was charged with larceny on the high seas and found guilty by a jury. He was sentenced to be whipped thirty-nine lashes, pay all legal fees, and pay a fine of one hundred dollars.

Less than two years after his appointment as Georgia’s first federal district judge, Judge Pendleton and his supporters lobbied President Washington to appoint him to an anticipated

In addition to his disappointment with his judicial compensation, Judge Pendleton came under intense public scrutiny for his alleged role in a dark chapter in Georgia’s history, known as the “Yazoo Land Fraud” or “Yazoo Land Controversy.”16 This controversy took place between 1789 and 1803 and involved the state of Georgia selling large tracts of land in what is now Mississippi to political insiders at low prices. Judge Pendleton was alleged to have played a part in the scheme by using his influence with members of the Georgia General Assembly.

The judge denied any involvement but did admit in a letter to having drafted the bylaws of the Georgia Mississippi Company, a company that was involved in the fraud.17 Judge Pendleton tendered his resignation to President Washington on September 1, 1796, citing the inadequacy of the salary to support his family.

Shortly thereafter, he relocated to New York City, where he practiced law for a number of years. He later became a member of the New York state legislature and served as a state judge in New York’s Dutchess County. The judge died in 1821 as the result of a

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riding accident.18 The Rise and Fall of the “Midnight Judges” Fifteen days after Pendleton’s resignation, President Washington gave a recess appointment to Joseph Clay Jr. to replace him. On December 21, 1796, just a few months shy of the end of his term as president, he nominated Clay for the permanent appointment, who was confirmed by the Senate on December 27.19 The organization and jurisdiction of the federal courts became the subject of fierce battles between

years of debate on these subjects, the lame-duck Federalist majority in Congress approved an act that established three new circuit courts with their own judgeships and greatly expanded federal jurisdiction at the expense of the state courts. The Judiciary Act of 1801 also abolished the circuit-riding duties of the Supreme Court justices. Under this law, the newly created Fifth Circuit consisted of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. President John Adams set about filling the new judgeships.

On February 23, 1801, President Adams nominated District Judge Clay to become a United States Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit. Clay was confirmed by

the political parties in the 1790s. In 1801, after several

the Senate and began serving in his new position the

Artist Sidney Quinn’s sketch of Chatham County’s first courthouse in Savannah, Georgia. Judge Nathaniel Pendleton presided here over the first session of the federal court for the District of Georgia on November 13, 1789. The federal district court for Georgia met here until 1830.

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following day. Dominick Augustin Hall and Henry Potter were appointed to the two other Fifth Circuit judgeships. The commissions of the last of these new judges were completed on Adams’s final day in office, and the law came to be unofficially known as the “Midnight Judges Act.”20 Judges Hall and Potter held the circuit court’s first session in Augusta on December 15, 1801. Judge Hall held a session in Savannah on April 19, 1802, but no business was conducted since the statute required the presence of two judges.21 After Thomas Jefferson became president and the Republicans became the majority party, they passed

individuals accused of failure to properly account for money they had received as government agents.

Sessions of the district court seldom lasted more than three days.

A majority of the pre–Civil War circuit court cases involved simple issues concerning commercial accounts. A frequent plaintiff before the court was Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin. Over a twelve-year period from 1795 to 1807, Whitney brought twenty-seven actions before the circuit court to defend his patent against infringement.24 In the early decades of the district court, there were not many federal criminal cases; federal criminal

the Judiciary Act of 1802, repealing the Midnight Judges Act. This eliminated the circuit judgeships created the previous year, including the one held by Judge Clay. This would be the only time in American history that any permanent Article III judgeships would be eliminated.22 To fill the district court vacancy created by Judge Clay’s short-lived elevation to the circuit court, in October 1801 President Jefferson gave a recess appointment to William Stephens. In January 1802, Judge Stephens was formally nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate for the permanent appointment. Judge Stephens, just as Judge Pendleton had served as Georgia’s attorney general prior to his federal service.23 In those days, the federal circuit and district trial courts were both in Savannah. In addition to conducting the district court sessions, the district judge also sat with the circuit-riding justice on the circuit court. Most cases were tried in the circuit court. The district judge would perform principally administrative functions in his district court as well as trying admiralty cases or petitions from

jurisdiction was limited. Theft from the mails was a frequent offense tried in the circuit court, as was forgery of notes issued by the Bank of the United States. Crimes committed on American vessels on the high seas were also tried in federal court in those days.

Judge Stephens resigned in October 1818, and in January 1819, President James Monroe named United States Attorney William Davies as Stephens’s replacement. Judge Davies would serve barely two years before resigning in March 1821. He would later serve as a state superior court judge in Savannah from 1828 to 1829.

Three months later, on June 12, 1821, President Monroe gave a recess appointment to Savannah attorney Jerome LaTouche Cuyler to fill the vacant judgeship. Judge Cuyler was subsequently nominated and confirmed that December for the permanent appointment. He served as a district judge for nearly eighteen years, until his death on May 7, 1839.

Four days after Judge Cuyler’s death, President Martin Van Buren made a recess appointment of John Cochran Nicoll to fill the vacant judgeship, and the following January, Nicoll was formally nominated.

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He was confirmed by the Senate in February. Prior to coming to the federal bench, he had a distinguished career with service in the state legislature, as a city court judge, and on the superior court bench. Judge Nicoll, along with Judges William Stephens and William Davies, also served as mayor of Savannah prior to becoming a federal district judge.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, a political power shift occurred from the aristocratic planters living on large plantations along Georgia’s coast to the small, yeoman farmers. This shift brought a major demand for land to settle in the northwest interior areas of the state. Through the removal

of the Creek and Cherokee Indian tribes, and eight land lotteries, three-quarters of the state’s interior was settled. Adding to the population growth in the northern part of the state was the 1829 discovery of gold near Dahlonega, and the development of railroad lines, which served as a catalyst for the settlement of cities and towns in the interior. In 1836, the Georgia General Assembly approved a bill creating the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which would run to Chattanooga. Colonel Long, the engineer in charge of building this line, chose the village of Marietta as his base. This brought about rapid growth in Marietta and Cobb County, which had been Indian land three years earlier.25

This 1795 map depicts the settlement of the state along the Atlantic coast. During those years, the interior of the state was occupied by Indian tribes and had not been settled.

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Judge John C. Nicoll served both the Northern and Southern Districts of Georgia from 1849 until he resigned his judgeship in 1861. For twelve years, he traveled from his Savannah home to Marietta to hold court in the Northern District in March and September each year.

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The Northern District of Georgia Is Created This significant growth in population of North Georgia was the major factor behind the Georgia General Assembly’s adoption of a resolution in 1845 asking for the state to be divided into two federal judicial districts.26 Three years later, on August 11, 1848, Congress responded by creating the Northern District of Georgia, which would hold its sessions in Marietta, and the Southern District, which would continue to sit in Savannah. The statute creating the Northern District did not provide for a separate judge, district attorney, or marshal for the new district. It specified that the judge for the Southern District would also preside over cases in the Northern District and that its attorney and marshal would also serve the court in Marietta.

The law set two terms of court: one in March and the other in September. The act did provide for the appointment of a separate clerk for the Northern District, who was required to reside and keep his office in Marietta.27

In just a few years, Atlanta outgrew Marietta and eventually became the headquarters of the federal court for Northern Georgia.

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At the first session on March 12, 1849, Judge Nicoll appointed William H. Hunt as the Northern District’s first clerk. The first order of business on the second day was the calling of the new court’s docket. Each case was called and continued or set for a trial date. The law provided that the clerk of the Southern District would transfer to the Northern District all of the papers in cases in which the parties resided in the new district.

A review of the records from those days discloses that continuances were freely granted.28

Unlike many of the federal district courts of that era, the Northern District of Georgia was given complete federal jurisdiction and was not a part of the circuit system. When Judge Nicoll sat in the Northern District, he exercised greater authority than when he had sat in the Southern District, which continued to be a part of the circuit system. In those days, decisions from the Northern District went directly to the United States Supreme Court when the amount in controversy exceeded two thousand dollars whereas decisions in the Southern District went first to the circuit court when the amount exceeded five hundred dollars.29 In those first years, the civil docket of the Northern

Cobb County’s second courthouse (1838–1853) in Marietta, Georgia. Here on March 12, 1849, Judge John Nicoll presided over the first session of the newly created Northern District of Georgia. In 1853, the building was disassembled and moved to Washington Street in Marietta. Today, it is the office of The Bentley Law Firm.

District court was principally commercial cases

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involving disputed debts. The docket for the September 1855 term consisted of some sixty cases, all of which were common law actions on contracts. On the criminal side, most defendants were charged with embezzling or stealing from the mails. Crimes committed against or by post office employees constituted many of the criminal prosecutions. A review of the docket during the first ten years, 1849–1859, fails to disclose much activity.30 When a new engineer took over the construction of the Western and Atlantic Railroad to Chattanooga, he moved the base of operations from Marietta to a small Georgia settlement on the Chattahoochee River south of Marietta. Originally an Indian village named

The Georgia secession convention that met in Milledgeville in January 1861 provided for the abolition of all United States courts in the state. The convention established a single district court of the Independent State of Georgia and provided that all causes then pending in the United States courts were to be transferred to the new court. This court was never formally organized. Not long thereafter, the Confederate Congress established Confederate district courts in each of the seceded states and gave them jurisdiction over unfinished business of the United States courts. Originally, the entire state of Georgia was a single judicial district under the Confederacy,

Standing Peachtree, the settlement came to be called Terminus because it was the end of the railroad line.

Its name was later changed to Marthasville, in honor of the daughter of the state’s former governor. Some of the town’s residents and railroad workers objected to the feminine name, so it was changed again, this time to Atlanta. In just a few years, Atlanta outgrew Marietta and eventually became the headquarters of the federal court for Northern Georgia.31

but eventually it was divided again into the Northern

The Northern District in the Civil War As the United States approached the election of 1860, sectional differences over slavery, tariffs, and other issues were such that the Southern states would not remain in the Union under the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Following Lincoln’s election, Georgia and other Southern states seceded. In September 1860, Judge Nicoll conducted in Marietta what would be the Northern District of Georgia’s final session before the Civil War.32

In December 1845, the Georgia Senate and Georgia House of Representatives passed a resolution requesting Congress to divide the state of Georgia into two judicial districts. Nearly three years later, Congress did just that, creating the Northern and Southern Districts.

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Henry Rootes Jackson served as a Confederate district judge in 1861 before resigning to become a brigadier general in the Confederate Army.

Civil petition of Hartford Stoddard and Asa Wood versus Bentley and Gager for collection of a promissory note filed in 1848 and transferred to the new Northern District of Georgia in 1849 as its first civil case. A jury trial resulted in a plaintiffs verdict of $580.

District sitting at Marietta and the Southern District sitting at Savannah. Nearly all United States district judges in the secession states vacated their federal commissions and were reappointed as Confederate district judges. Judge Nicoll, however, was so opposed to secession that he made himself unpopular and was not appointed as a Confederate judge.33 The first judge appointed to the Confederate Court for Georgia was Henry R. Jackson, who had previously served as a superior court judge as well as in several military positions during the Mexican War. He served in the judgeship only a few weeks before resigning to accept a military commission. The bar of Georgia was united behind Edward J. Harden, who was a leading member of the Savannah bar. Judge Harden was

appointed in August 1861 and served until the end of the Confederacy.34 William H. Hunt, who had been appointed in 1849 as the Northern District’s first clerk, was appointed as the Confederate Court’s deputy clerk at Marietta.35 After the Northern District Confederate Court’s first district attorney died shortly after his appointment, Judge Harden lobbied the Confederate government to appoint former Judge Nicoll to the post. Despite his initial opposition to secession, Judge Nicoll was appointed as the district attorney and served until his death in November 1863.

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Although the Confederacy’s Judicial Article provided for a supreme court and such inferior courts as the Confederacy’s Congress should establish, the only courts that actually went into operation in each district were the district courts. The Confederate district court was a trial court, which combined the jurisdictions of the circuit and district courts of the United States.

As the Supreme Court of the Confederacy was never established, judges in Confederate district courts were effectively the final authority. District judges were authorized to set the dates for their own court sessions as opposed to having them set by the Confederate

Congress. Later, the Confederate Congress enacted a statute setting the dates for terms of court in the Northern District of Georgia on the first Wednesdays in June and December. These sessions were to be held in the same locations as previously provided under federal law. A statute did give the Confederate district judges the authority to adjourn their courts to a more secure location if the city in which its sessions were being conducted was under attack or occupation. This occurred in the Northern District in the fall of 1864 when Marietta fell to Union troops.

Much of the litigation in the Confederate district

The Northern District’s first criminal case was in 1857, when a grand jury sitting in Marietta returned an indictment against William Ervin, postmaster at Ellijay, Georgia, charging him with destroying a letter and embezzlement. Later, a petit jury found Ervin not guilty. The indictment is shown on the left, and the bench warrant for his arrest, signed by Judge Nicoll, is on the right.

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courts dealt with the Confederate Sequestration Act, which involved the property of alien enemies. This statute provided for the seizure and condemnation of real property as well as debts belonging to the enemy.

Confederate district judges were authorized to appoint receivers and to oversee their work in the seizure, condemnation, and disposition of this property. Defining who was an enemy was difficult, for many Southerners did not support the Confederacy. An individual who was thought to have such property was served with a writ of garnishment to appear before the Confederate district judge on a day certain to provide testimony under oath as to what property belonging to an alien enemy might

on the same debt.37 Another aspect of the Confederate court’s workload involved individuals who brought actions seeking exemption from the Conscription Act. This law made men ages eighteen to thirty-five eligible for induction into the Confederate armed services. Quite a number of citizens brought habeas corpus actions in the Confederate district court and in the state courts seeking relief from this law.

By the spring of 1864 the Union Armies under General William Tecumseh Sherman had begun its invasion of Georgia. After several decisive battles, Sherman captured Marietta, making it impossible for the

be in his possession. A hearing was held in which the judge ruled upon the petition, which had been prepared by the receiver with a listing of the property attached.

Most of the property at issue under sequestration was stock in corporations, dividends, and promissory notes owed to merchants in the North, many of them in the city of New York.36 Writers addressing the Confederate district courts always commend Judge Harden’s actions in the sequestration cases, citing the case of Confederate States v. Lawshe and Purcell, which was reported in the New York Daily Transcript in 1864. Lawshe and Purcell, an Atlanta clothing manufacturer, answered its garnishment admitting that it owed certain promissory notes and accounts to persons who were enemies of the Confederacy; however, the firm pointed out that it was unaware as to whether these notes and accounts had been assigned or transferred to others who were not enemies. The legal question raised was whether the payment to the receiver of the debt due an enemy alien would protect the payer against any future claim.

In a very detailed ruling, Judge Harden held that the payment would not relieve the payer from future claims

Northern District Confederate Court to hold its regular session in Marietta that September. The courthouse in Marietta began to be used as a hospital in the summer of 1864. Northern District Confederate Court sessions were moved to Macon. After the fall of Savannah, court for both Georgia districts was held in Augusta.38

Judge John Erskine Shapes a New Court For a short period of time after the surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, it was unclear whether a civil or military government would be established in the former Confederate states. On June 17, 1865, President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation establishing a provisional government in Georgia.

The proclamation provided for the filling of state and federal offices in the state and specified, “In making the appointments the preference shall be given to qualified loyal persons residing in the districts where their duties are to be performed.” The proclamation went on to state that the district judge for Georgia should proceed to hold court in the state in accordance

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District’s place of holding court from Marietta to Atlanta. His first session of court on September 10, 1866, was held in the building that served as Atlanta’s city hall and the Fulton County courthouse. The building was on the site now occupied by the Georgia state capitol. The delay of more than a year between the judge’s appointment and the first court session was typical in the postwar South.40 The first order of business before Judge Erskine in Atlanta was the appointment of William B. Smith as the district’s second clerk of court, succeeding William H. Hunt. The court then addressed the admission of attorneys. Attorneys who had practiced before the court prior to 1860 were permitted to resume their federal practice after taking an oath to support the Constitution and laws of the United States. Attorneys

A docket sheet of a civil case from the original court minutes of 1855.

with provisions of the act of Congress.39 On July 10, 1865, President Johnson gave a recess appointment to John Erskine to fill the vacant district judgeship for the Northern and Southern Districts of Georgia. On December 20 of that year, he formally nominated Erskine for the position, and Erskine was confirmed by the Senate the following month. Judge Erskine had opposed secession and thus met the “qualified loyal person” criterion of the president’s proclamation. He was the first federal judge in Georgia to live outside Savannah because he continued his residence in Atlanta as his official duty station during his judicial service. Between Judge Erskine’s appointment in 1865 and his first session of court in Atlanta in 1866, Congress enacted a statute moving the Northern

who had participated in the war resumed their practice

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In 1866, the first Northern District court session in Atlanta was held in this building, which served as Atlanta City Hall and Fulton County Courthouse. Built in 1854, it was demolished in 1884 to make room for Georgia’s present state capitol building.

as soon as they were pardoned and took the amnesty oath.41 Judge Erskine addressed this issue previously in a Southern District case (Ex Parte William Law), in which he ruled that an attorney who received a pardon should be permitted to resume his practice without taking a second oath that said he had “never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since becoming a citizen.”42 The judge held that provisions of the Attorney’s Test Oath Act (1866) were unconstitutional in that it was an ex post facto law.43 Much of Judge Erskine’s tenure on the federal bench was during Reconstruction, a devastating time for the South. Although he had not believed in the Confederate cause and had been against secession, the judge was favorably viewed by most, if not all, of those who came

before him or had any dealings with him. During the war, he had spoken out against Confederate seizures of property. While on the bench, Judge Erskine ruled consistently against attempts to seize the property of the defeated Southerners. Atlanta newspaperman and historian Lucian Lamar Knight said of the judge, “The Reconstruction laws and the revenue laws of that period bore very hardly upon the people, and yet, though he upheld the laws, he managed to do his duty in such a way to avoid inflicting unnecessary harshness upon the Southern people.”44 One of his biographers said of Judge Erskine, “He was a true civil magistrate, a true ambassador of peace at a time when war, though it had relinquished arms, was still raging in the emotions of many, and in the greedy craving of some who, eager for

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the spoils of conquest, hoped that much of what sword and fire had left might be taken by a sort of judicial pillage through summary sentences of condemnation under the confiscation laws.” Another person called the judge “a moderating voice at a time of still-deadly acrimony between North and South.”45 The esteem in which Judge Erskine was held is remarkable, especially given the disdain that many Georgians had for the federal courts in those days. The courts enforced many new laws with which the judges did not agree, including taxing liquor, licensing distilleries, and providing civil rights for emancipated slaves.

In 1867, Judge Erskine had the distinction of being

business organization. Federal courts were called upon to address jurisdictional questions. The expanding role of the national government, federal jurisdiction over interstate commerce, regulation of railroad rates, and the enforcement of many more federal statutes increased the federal court workload.49 Adding to this was the significant growth in population in the state.

Atlanta’s population quadrupled to about thirty-eight thousand in the twenty years between 1860 and 1880.

the first federal judge to rule on the constitutionality of the greenback dollar as legal tender. The judge held that a bond entered into three years before enactment of the Legal Tender Act could be discharged by payment in paper money (legal tender notes or “greenbacks”).46 The Supreme Court overruled this decision in 1870 in Hepburn v. Griswold.47 Judge Erskine had the satisfaction of seeing the high court reverse itself in 1871 and agree in principle with his original decision.48 For eighteen years Judge Erskine traveled from his home in Atlanta to regularly hold four court terms for the Southern District in Savannah (February, May, August, and November) as well as terms for the circuit court. All of this was in addition to holding regular terms of court in the Northern District.

During his tenure on the federal bench, Judge Erskine saw marked changes in the federal courts in many respects. Before the Civil War, very few Georgians had any contact with the federal courts, as federal laws in those days seldom had an impact on the ordinary citizen. Federal court sessions were held in only two cities, and few lawyers practiced in federal court. After the war, corporations became the dominant form of

Court minutes from September 1868 with roll of attorneys admitted to the bar of the Northern District. Following the Civil War, Judge Erskine ruled that pardoned attorneys could resume their practice or be admitted to practice without taking a second oath.

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Judge William T. Newman presiding with Clerk of Court W. Colquitt Carter, sitting in front of the judge. To Mr. Carter’s right is an unidentified deputy clerk, and to his left is a deputy marshal standing at the corner of the bench.

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1882–1900

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The Northern District Gets Its Own Judge In 1882, because of the court’s workload, area population growth, and the distance litigants had to travel, Congress authorized a separate judge for each of Georgia’s two federal judicial districts. The authorizing statute provided that the existing judgeship held by Judge Erskine would be assigned to the Southern District, and the new position would be in the Northern District.50 By this time, federal judgeships had become coveted appointments. The new Georgia judgeship was no exception. One newspaper said, “Candidates were under every bush.”51 The appointment would be made by President Chester A. Arthur, a Republican, but as with all lifetime judicial appointments, it would require confirmation by the United States Senate, including the approval of the state’s two senators, both Democrats.

During the Reconstruction period and for several years afterward, considerable tension existed among members of the Georgia Republican Party.

By this time, federal judgeships had become coveted appointments. One newspaper said, “Candidates were under every bush.”

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withdrawn, and Justice McCay was nominated for the position on August 3, 1882.52 He was confirmed by the Senate the following day and took his oath of office on August 14.

Judge McCay came to the judgeship with considerable experience. He had a substantial statewide practice prior to his seven years of service as a justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia. The judge had been very open in his opposition to Georgia’s secession from the union. Once Georgia seceded, however, McCay fought for the Confederacy and was wounded. The Bar Committee appointed to memorialize his death described his service on the Georgia Supreme Court as “ever be remembered as one of the ablest jurists who has presided on this bench.”53 In a biographical sketch of Judge McCay, noted historian and later federal judge Alexander A. Lawrence recites the familiar names of judicial giants in Georgia history: Lumpkin, Nisbet, Warner, Bleckley, Jackson, and Lamar, but describes Judge McCay as having been “shrouded in obscurity” despite commendation from many legal scholars of the time.54 Judge Lawrence attributes this obscurity to Judge McCay having “turned Republican during Reconstruction and was appointed to the bench by Governor Rufus B. Bullock of unhappy memory.”55 Another historian, Warren Grice, lists Judge McCay and United States Attorney General Amos T. Akerman as “two of the few Republicans who enjoyed the personal esteem of their fellow Georgians of all classes.”56 During his tenure on the Northern District bench from 1882 until 1886, Judge McCay presided over a number of high-profile cases. The most well-known of these was the trial of the Banks County White Cappers, an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan, who had conspired to keep African Americans from voting in a congressional

The fourth Floyd County Courthouse in Rome, Georgia. Judge William T. Newman presided here over the first session in the Northern District’s Northwestern (later Rome) Division on November 19, 1900. Built in 1892, it is of the neoclassical revival style.

The two leading contenders for the judicial appointment were former Georgia Supreme Court justice Henry K. McCay of Atlanta, and James Atkins of Savannah, former collector of the Port of Savannah.

President Arthur formally nominated Atkins, but the nomination received considerable opposition, including from the state’s two senators. Atkins’s nomination was

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election.57 Eight members of the group were convicted.

The landmark civil rights case of Ex Parte Yarbrough58 grew out of the affair.

Judge W. A. Bootle credits Judge McCay and Emory Speer, a United States district judge in the Southern District of Georgia, with originating the “key man” or “blue ribbon” jury selection system, which was in operation in federal courts nationally for many years.

Under that system, the clerk of the court and a jury commissioner of the opposite political party got together

have always been duties that all district judges find as two of the more pleasurable aspects of their office.

On March 23, 1883, Judge McCay admitted a new member to the Northern District bar. Little did the judge know at the time that thirty years later the new lawyer, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, would be elected the nation’s twenty-eighth president and would appoint

and agreed upon a list of honorable, upright, intelligent, and educated leaders of the community. When Judges McCay and Speer conceived of this system, they viewed it as the only way they could assemble a group of jurors who would have the discipline sufficient to convict fellow whites of violating unpopular Reconstruction federal laws, such as the civil rights acts.

While this system may have served a noble purpose in the 1880s, it had the opposite effect during another civil rights era in the mid-1960s, when it operated to keep African Americans off federal juries.59 The admission of attorneys to the court’s bar and the naturalization of new citizens

Judge Henry Kent McCay was appointed in 1883 as the Northern District’s first judge of its own. Serving from 1882 to 1886, he is credited as one of the originators of the “key man” or “blue ribbon” jury system.

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the decision.61 United States Attorney Benjamin H. Hill Jr. described Judge McCay’s opinion in the 1885 case of Weil v. Calhoun as “one of the ablest ever pronounced from any bench, conclusive, exhaustive and irresistible.”

Hill said the opinion was “worthy of Marshall or Taney.”62 The judge died on July 30, 1886.

A Civil War Veteran Oversees a Growing Docket Fourteen days after Judge McCay’s death, President Grover Cleveland gave a recess appointment to William Truslow Newman, an Atlanta attorney. The president’s formal nomination of Judge Newman for the permanent position followed on December 9, 1886.

He was confirmed by the Senate on January 13, 1887.

Judge Newman was a Tennessee native who had served with distinction as an officer in the Confederate Army.

Wounded in two separate battles, he lost his right arm in the latter of these near Jonesboro, Georgia. In addition to being one of Georgia’s most prominent attorneys in his day, the judge had served his adopted city of Atlanta as its city attorney for twelve years.

Judge Newman was one of the South’s first Democratic appointees to the federal bench after the Civil War. Former Georgia governor and historian William F. Northen said of him in a biographical sketch, “When he took his seat the United States Court was regarded by our people generally as a foreign tribunal, and comparatively little business was brought in it, as the lawyers felt more at home in the state courts. From the day Judge Newman held his first term the court began to grow in popularity and importance.

Its business rapidly increased, and the people soon commenced to regard the court as a part of their own

President Woodrow Wilson’s 1883 petition for admission to the Northern District bar approved by Judge Henry Kent McCay. After law school, Wilson spent a year practicing law in Atlanta before changing professions.

one of his successor judges to the Northern District bench. President Wilson practiced law in Atlanta for a year early in his career.60 While on the Northern District bench, Judge McCay suffered from numerous physical afflictions. Despite these, the judge had an uncanny memory and grasp of the law. One of those who knew him well, Logan Bleckley, a prominent Georgia jurist, said that he could enter into a discussion of a certain case in the reports, naming the volume and reciting the facts and principles decided with as much accuracy as if he had just read

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judicial system, and the lawyers filed in the court all the cases over which it had jurisdiction.”63 In addition, Judge Newman was acclaimed for being very dedicated to his work. In a memorial tribute published shortly after his death, Georgia Superior Court judge A. Z. Cozart, of Columbus, who had known him well, said that the judge had never once failed to hold a term of court.64 The judge was also recognized for his numerous scholarly opinions, many of which were published in the Federal Reporter series.

In a number of these, Judge Newman made literary references.65 The business of the federal court in North Georgia

for untaxed whiskey production.67 Judge Newman was noted for taking a defendant’s circumstances into consideration when sentencing.

For example, he often allowed defendants convicted of making illicit untaxed liquor to go home to plant or to harvest their crops before reporting to prison to begin serving their sentences.68 In 1919, after thirty-three years on the bench, Judge Newman notified the president that he was retiring as an active judge. The judge died on February 14, 1920.

had increased substantially by the time Judge Newman took office. In 1887, Congress authorized out-of-state parties to remove cases from the state courts to the federal courts on the grounds of prejudice and local influence. Different types of cases were coming before the court. In addition to diversity and removal cases, the docket included litigation between corporations. The corporate entity had become a more widely accepted form of business organization in the late nineteenth century, with many cases involving railroads— especially the rates charged for freight and actions by bondholders. Another major change in this era involved the use of receivers. A sizeable part of the civil caseload in the Northern District had a state government nexus since Atlanta had become Georgia’s capital in 1868.66 The Northern District’s principal criminal cases of this era involved untaxed liquor. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Georgia became a leading state for the production of moonshine, or untaxed whiskey.

According to reports from the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, for several years beginning in 1877, Georgia was one of the top two states in the number of illegal moonshine stills seized and in persons arrested

Civil War veteran William T. Newman served on the Northern District bench from 1886 until 1919. Judge Newman was one of the first Democratic appointees to the federal bench in the South after the Civil War.

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Judges W. Boyd Sloan and Frank A. Hooper decided many civil rights and desegregation cases in the 1950s and ’60s.

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CHAPTER FOUR |

1900–1968

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More Judges, More Divisions, and More Work— The Northern District Continues to Grow Beginning in 1891, consistent with the effort to make federal courts more accessible, Congress authorized the Northern District to hold court in locations outside Atlanta. The first such location was Columbus, which became the site of the Western Division of the Northern District. A new federal courthouse and post office was built there.69 In 1900, Congress created the Northwestern Division of the Northern District of Georgia in Rome as an additional place of holding court,70 and in 1901 a court location was established in Athens.71 Columbus and Rome were staffed court offices with deputy clerks in residence.

The court’s caseload continued to increase. Fewer cases involved revenuers and illicit liquor, and more cases involved individual rights and liberties.

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In 1913, Congress added Gainesville as an additional place of holding court.72 Judge Newman regularly traveled to each of these locations in addition to holding court in Atlanta.

In 1926, as a part of a reorganization of Georgia’s judicial districts, Congress established the Gainesville Division of the Northern District, which not only established a clerk-staffed office, but allowed cases to be filed and held there.73 Sessions of court were conducted in the Hall County Courthouse until 1936 when a new federal courthouse was added to the 1910 Post Office Building in Gainesville.

In 1935, Congress created the Newnan Division of

County Courthouse. Newnan files and records were filed and maintained in the Atlanta courthouse. Upon completion of a new federal building / post office and courthouse in Newnan in 1968, a permanently staffed clerk’s office and facilities for a resident judge were provided in the new building, which in 1999 was named in honor of the late Judge Lewis R. Morgan.75 Once Judge Newman announced his retirement, President Woodrow Wilson nominated Atlanta attorney Samuel H. Sibley to succeed him. Judge Sibley took his oath of office in August 1919. An accomplished trial lawyer, he came to the Northern District bench having been referred to as “a lawyer’s lawyer.”76

the Northern District.74 Two terms of court were held each year, with the sessions conducted in the Coweta

Judge Sibley had begun the practice of law as the only lawyer in Union Point, a railroad stop in East

Judge William T. Newman and Clerk of Court W. Colquitt Carter along with United States attorney and United States marshal staffs on the opening of the 56 Forsyth Street courthouse and post office in 1910.

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Georgia’s Greene County. In his first law office, he operated without a secretary or a telephone. Before long, he developed a broad and lucrative practice, first in the surrounding counties and eventually statewide.

With the growth of the railroad in Georgia, much of his practice was representing rail companies. He was quite active in the Georgia Bar Association (predecessor of today’s State Bar of Georgia), and in 1919 he was elected president of the association.77 Judge Sibley was noted as a sound thinker and very able legal scholar, both as a lawyer and as a judge. His address at the 1910 annual meeting of the Georgia bar proposed many changes to Georgia’s state court

significantly affect the Northern District of Georgia’s workload.

Illegal liquor cases continued to dominate the Northern District’s criminal docket in those days, especially after the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act. In those difficult economic times, many Georgia farmers discovered that it was much more profitable to sell their corn in a liquid form in glass jars than in its conventional form.

Numerous sources have suggested that Judge Sibley handled as many as fifteen thousand criminal cases during his time on the district bench.79 Many of these cases involved the production, sale, or transportation

system, including reducing the number of trial and appellate courts and appointing judges. Judge Sibley served on the district bench from 1919 until 1931.

During those years, he handled all cases in Atlanta as well as traveling to Columbus, Rome, Athens, and Gainesville to hold court.78 During his tenure as a district judge, Judge Sibley addressed constitutional issues such as those arising from special legislation adopted during World War I, including price controls and the draft. In several of his opinions he said that the war powers of Congress had to be restricted to whatever was necessary to successfully prosecute a war and maintain public safety. Many of these issues had not been addressed by the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. He also dealt with land condemnation for federal facilities such as national parks and national forests. A number of eminent domain cases involved the taking of land for the Chattahoochee National Forest and Fort Benning, both of which were established during the judge’s service.

Although the federal penitentiary in Atlanta had been built in the early 1900s, not until Judge Sibley’s tenure did the number of cases filed by prisoners begin to

of illegal liquor.

The judge was known as a stickler for following the law, which is best illustrated by the following story. A newspaper reporter in Atlanta told of a conversation he had had with Judge Sibley on the subject of the abuses of Prohibition: “One day I was in the office of federal Judge Samuel H. Sibley, who was the finest judge I’ve ever known. He was a man that I think liked to drink but during Prohibition would never take one in his home or anywhere else. But we were talking about the minimum sentence, which then for anyone convicted was a year and a day in the federal penitentiary. That was the minimum, even if they got caught with a quart of moonshine whiskey. So he says, ‘John, I think Prohibition is doing more harm than good. The finest citizens in Atlanta are drinking bootleg whiskey and in the clubs and homes and so on, and yet I’ve got to give these poor people that are starving to death up in the mountains of North Georgia a year and a day.’”

With the judge’s permission, the reporter wrote about the judge’s observations, and the story was printed in newspapers nationally.80 Given Judge Sibley’s well-deserved reputation, few

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I. A second judge had been authorized in a few districts in the United States, but there was opposition in some quarters to adding a second judge. Conflicts had arisen in some districts that had a second judge—including the Southern District of Georgia, where Judges Emory Speer and William Lambdin were often at odds with each other, although there is little in the public record to support this.82 United States Senator WalThe Coweta County Courthouse in Newnan, Georgia, where sessions of the Northern District were held from 1935 until the Lewis R. Morgan Federal Building/United States Courthouse was built in 1968. Completed in ter F. George was the principal 1904, it is of the classic revival architectural style. advocate for the establishment of the Middle District.83 When the proposal for a secobservers were surprised in 1930 when President Herbert Hoover, a Republican, elevated him to fill a ond Northern District judge was made, Senator George strongly opposed it and suggested realigning of the vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the state’s existing judicial districts to create a third disFifth Circuit. Judge Sibley served on the appellate court trict. The 1926 Act divided Georgia as follows: Northas an active judge until 1952 and continued to serve as ern District with forty-five counties and population of a senior judge until his death in 1958.

1 million; Middle District with sixty-eight counties On May 28, 1926, Congress realigned the boundaries and population of 1.2 million, and the Southern Disof Georgia’s two existing federal judicial districts, trict with forty-seven counties and 900,000 people. The the Northern and Southern Districts, and established a third judicial district, the Middle District, with its 1935 act creating the Newnan Division brought about the move of Meriwether and Pike Counties from the headquarters at Macon. To create the new judicial Middle District to the newly created Newnan Division district, divisions were taken from each of the two of the Northern District. The configuration of the existing districts—the Western Division (Columbus) boundaries of the three districts has changed slightly and the Eastern Division (Athens) were transferred over the years. The Middle District today has seventy to the Middle District from the Northern District.81 Creation of the new district came as a compromise counties and is the largest of the three in geographic area (24,717 square miles), followed by the Southern solution to a longstanding request that a second judge be authorized in the Northern District, whose docket District’s forty-three counties (18,933 square miles), and the Northern District’s forty-six counties (14,255 had become overloaded by the end of World War

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square miles). Notwithstanding the respective sizes of the three districts in geographical area, 2014’s population figures tell a totally different story, with the Northern District’s 6,019,701 residents followed by the Middle District’s 1,933,687 residents and the Southern District’s 1,410,553 residents.84 Contrasting the population of the three Georgia districts in 1926 with present-day census figures tells a great deal about what has occurred in the Northern District.

Empathy for Moonshiners, Less So for Al Capone

districts in Georgia. By 1930, the Northern District was authorized to have its own probation officer, which caused Officer Chappell to seek reassignment to Atlanta.

In those days, with a single judge and one probation officer in the district, Judge Sibley and Officer Chappell became very familiar with each other. Judges Sibley and Underwood would always ride with Chappell to divisional terms of court in Rome and Gainesville. In his memoirs, Chappell recalled that Judge Underwood would never impose a sentence without a presentence investigation being completed.86 The creation of new federal agencies under President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal brought

To fill Judge Sibley’s district court seat, President Hoover named prominent Atlanta lawyer Emory Marvin Underwood. E. Marvin Underwood, as he was known, came to the federal bench with broad experience, including having represented various railroads in private practice, being a named partner in King, Spalding and Underwood (1909–1913), an assistant attorney general in the United States Department of Justice (1914–1917), general counsel of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, and general counsel of the United States Railroad Administration (1919–1920).

Judge Underwood shared Judge Sibley’s empathy for the North Georgia moonshiners. He continued Judge Sibley’s practice of allowing offenders to go home to plant or harvest their crops prior to commencing their sentences.85 By 1925, Congress allowed judges to suspend sentences and impose supervised probation as an alternative to incarceration. The 1925 law also provided for the appointment of probation officers. The Northern District’s first officer, Richard A. Chappell, came on duty in 1927 and was headquartered in Macon with responsibilities for all three federal court

about a number of issues that Judge Underwood was called upon to decide.87 One of these, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), built hydroelectric dams and transmission lines throughout its service area, which included portions of the Northern District. In a case filed in the Northern District, the privately owned power companies providing electric service to the cities and towns objected to TVA’s construction of these lines. The central issue before Judge Underwood was whether Congress had delegated legislative authority to these new agencies.88 In 1937, the judge upheld the constitutionality of the TVA, similar to his ruling in a 1934 case brought by the textile industry challenging the work of another New Deal agency, the National Industrial Recovery Administration.89 Judge Underwood also considered a large number of habeas corpus petitions, including a case that resulted in a significant ruling from the Supreme Court of the United States. In that case, the record before Judge Underwood was clear that the defendants had been rushed to trial and had not been given counsel as required by the Constitution. Unfortunately, the defendants had not objected to the lack of counsel prior to their habeas

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petition, as was required. Judge Underwood had to decide whether, despite the defendants’ prior failure to properly raise the issue, a writ of habeas corpus could be used to order them a new trial. Noting that the right to counsel was on the same level as the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury, the judge nonetheless denied the petition based on the state of the law at the time.90 The judge’s opinion made clear, however, that he was not pleased with the result or the case law. As further proof

of the judge’s displeasure, he took the unusual step of asking an attorney to handle a pro bono appeal of his own order.91 While the Fifth Circuit upheld the judge’s ruling denying the habeas petition, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari. In the landmark case of Johnson v. Zerbst,92 the high court reversed the Fifth Circuit’s decision.93 As a result of this case, federal felony defendants have the right to be represented by counsel unless they knowingly waive that right.

Prisoner habeas petitions seldom attract much public or media attention; however, this was not the case in May 1932, when a habeas petition was filed in the Northern District on behalf of a new resident of the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta. After many years

Infamous gangster Al Capone entering and leaving federal courthouse at 56 Forsyth Street, NW, in Atlanta for his habeas corpus hearing in one of two court appearances before Northern District Judge E. Marvin Underwood in 1932–1933.

Mobster Al Capone’s bond from his 1933 appeal to the Fifth Circuit of Judge E. Marvin Underwood’s denial of his habeas corpus petition. At the time, Capone was serving his sentence at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta.

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In 1936, a three-story courthouse was added to the existing marble United States Post Office (built in 1910) in Gainesville.

This neoclassic architectural style building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The court’s Gainesville Division has held sessions here since 1936.

without success, the federal government was finally able in 1931 to successfully prosecute Chicago crime boss Alphonse “Al” Capone. Capone had been convicted in Chicago of income tax evasion and given an elevenyear prison sentence. He was confined in the custody of the United States marshal, who housed him in Chicago’s Cook County Jail. Later, he was transported via a special railroad car to the federal prison in Atlanta to serve his sentence. Capone unsuccessfully appealed his conviction to the Seventh Circuit. The Supreme Court declined to grant certiorari. Capone’s family retained two prominent Washington, DC, criminal lawyers, who filed a habeas petition in the district court in Atlanta, which was, of course, assigned to Judge

Underwood.94 In that era, the rules of practice required the judge to conduct a hearing at which the prisoner or petitioner was physically present. On two different occasions, September 21 and November 16, 1932, Judge Underwood ordered Capone to be transported from the prison to the federal courthouse at 56 Forsyth Street, NW, in downtown Atlanta for hearings. The news media had advance notice and positioned newspaper and newsreel photographers just outside the Poplar Street side entrance to the courthouse. They were able to photograph a smiling Capone being escorted from the courthouse holding his white fedora over his wrists in an attempt to conceal his handcuffs.95 Judge Underwood’s decision in the case, announced

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on January 25, 1933, denied Capone’s habeas petition.

The judge pointed to the narrowness of the remedy of habeas corpus as not allowing Capone to challenge his sentence. The judge stated that the only issue to which habeas corpus law applied at the time was the jurisdiction of the court in the original case. In short, Capone’s counsel had chosen the wrong remedy.96 Four months later, the Fifth Circuit affirmed Judge Underwood.97 Within a few years, the federal habeas corpus statute would be vastly expanded in its reach, but at the time of Capone’s challenge to his incarceration, the reach of the statute was quite narrow. A second Capone habeas petition, filed in November 1933, was

similarly disposed of by the judge. The Capone case was the lead story in the Atlanta newspapers with a banner headline both times he appeared at the federal courthouse and again when Judge Underwood entered the order dismissing his habeas petition.98 As the only judge in the Northern District, Judge Underwood had an exceptionally heavy workload. The need for a second judge had been recognized early in the twentieth century. Visiting judges had been brought in to help Judge Underwood and his predecessor, Judge Sibley. An additional judge for the district had been proposed as early as 1922 but had been dropped from the Omnibus Judgeship Act of that year. After its

United States Circuit Judge Samuel H. Sibley (left) at his retirement in 1948 with United States District Judge E. Marvin Underwood (center) and United States Circuit Judge Robert L. Russell (right). Each of the men served on the Northern District bench.

creation in 1922, the Judicial Conference of the United States recommended to Congress through the attorney general that additional judges be appointed in several

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states, including Georgia. In those years, it was the collective opinion of the bar that it was better to create a new district with a single judge rather than have two judges in the same district.99 This opinion changed over time. One of the purposes behind the creation of the Middle District of Georgia in 1926 was to provide relief to the judges of Georgia’s two existing districts.

In 1930, a second judge for the Northern District was proposed by the Judicial Conference, but the proposal went nowhere with Congress.100 Some feel that the opposition of key legislators such as Senator Walter F. George may have been involved. Finally, in 1940, Congress created a temporary second judgeship, which

Northern District, he no longer carried a significant caseload. This meant that Judge Russell would be the only full-time, or active, judge in the Northern District, because the language of the 1940 temporary judgeship authorization statute provided that first vacancy in the district would not be filled.

Finally, on August 3, 1949, the Congress approved, and President Truman signed, legislation creating a second permanent district judgeship for the Northern District of Georgia.103 A few weeks later, Judge Samuel Sibley announced that he was taking senior status, thereby creating a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. On October 15,

was made permanent in 1949.101

President Truman announced that he was appointing Judge Russell to fill the seat left vacant when Judge Sibley took senior status.

Six days later, the president gave recess appointments to Atlanta attorney M. Neil Andrews and Fulton Superior Court Judge Frank A. Hooper Jr. to fill the two vacant district judgeships. Andrews, a friend of Truman, was named to the Russell vacancy, and Judge Hooper was appointed to the new position. Judge Andrews was sworn in as a district judge on October 24, 1949, and Judge Hooper took his oath three days later, on October 27. Although their commissions bore the same date, Judge Andrews became the court’s chief judge due to his earlier birth date.104 On January 5, 1950, President Truman nominated the two judges for permanent appointments. Judge Hooper had served on the faculty of the Atlanta Law School, been a judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals, and served six years on the superior court bench. Judge Andrews had been the solicitor general of the Rome circuit, an assistant United States attorney, special assistant to the United States attorney general for the antitrust division, chief of the United States Justice

The Northern District Gets a Second Judge On August 5, 1940, President Roosevelt nominated Robert Lee Russell of Winder, Georgia, to fill the temporary judgeship. Judge Russell was a brother of United States Senator Richard B. Russell Jr. of Georgia, a long-serving and prominent member of the Senate. To minimize potential claims of nepotism, the state’s senior senator, Walter F. George, sponsored Judge Russell’s confirmation.102 He was confirmed by the Senate three days later and took his oath of office on August 19, 1940. Judge Russell served on the district court bench until 1949, when President Harry Truman appointed him to fill a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

In early January 1948, Judge Underwood announced that he would be taking senior status on March 5. In those days, when a judge took senior status, he was largely retiring and unlike today’s senior judges in the

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Atlanta Journal headline from January 9, 1959, when Judge Frank A. Hooper Jr. declared Atlanta’s segregated public bus system to be unconstitutional.

Department’s criminal division trial section, and the United States attorney for the Northern District, as well as serving on Justice Robert Jackson’s staff prosecuting the Nazi war crime trials at Nuremberg after World War II. The judge had also served as a lieutenant in the United States Army during World War I and for ten years as a captain in the United States Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps after his wartime service.105 Judge Hooper’s nomination was very quickly approved by the Senate. He had longstanding relationships with

few days to complete, the Andrews nomination was a completely different story. Although President Truman strongly supported Andrews for the judgeship, Senator Russell had previously committed to support William Boyd Sloan, a superior court judge from Gainesville, to fill the vacancy created by the senator’s brother’s elevation.107 Senator George also backed Sloan but was willing to accept Andrews. Senator Russell told the judiciary subcommittee considering the nomination that Andrews’ name had been “sent to the Senate by the

Georgia’s two Democratic senators, Richard B. Russell Jr. and Walter F. George. During Senator George’s service on the Georgia Court of Appeals, Hooper had served as his law clerk. When Senator Russell was the Speaker of the Georgia General Assembly, Judge Hooper had been a state representative and one of his closest political allies.106 While Judge Hooper’s confirmation took only a

Executive Branch of Government without the approval of either of the Georgia Senators.”108 Senator Russell was not willing to compromise with the president.

On the floor of the Senate, he declared Andrews’ nomination “personally obnoxious and objectionable to me,” thus invoking senatorial courtesy—the practice of the Senate deferring to the wishes of a home-state senator opposing a nomination from that state.109

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Civil Rights Issues Weigh In on the Court’s Caseload President Truman, obviously annoyed with Senator Russell, was in no rush to fill the Northern District vacancy. Finally, on February 15, 1951, he met with the senator and agreed to name Russell’s candidate, Judge Sloan, whose name was sent to the Senate four days later. The Gainesville judge was confirmed on March 20. In the federal courtroom in his hometown, a week later, Judge Sloan took his oath of office, administered

by Judge Russell.112 As had his predecessor, Judge Sloan maintained his headquarters in Gainesville during his service on the Northern District bench and would travel to Atlanta, Rome, and Newnan to hold court sessions.

The court’s caseload continued to increase during the postwar period. Beginning in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the composition of the docket began to change.

Fewer cases involved revenuers and defendants charged with the manufacture, transportation, or sale of illicit liquor, and many more cases involved individual rights and liberties. Most of these were civil cases, although some were criminal prosecutions brought by the United States attorney involving deprivation of civil rights.

In 1950, Judge Hooper presided over a five-week trial in Rome in which the sheriff of Dade County, his deputy, and eight Ku Klux Klansmen were tried for conspiring to violate the civil rights of African Americans in northwest Georgia. The first trial ended in a mistrial, and the defendants were tried again with only the sheriff and deputy being convicted.113 The convictions were affirmed by the Fifth Circuit and received national media attention.114 Four years later, in 1954, Judge Sloan presided

Judge M. Neil Andrews’ one year and seven days is the shortest tenure of any judge who has served in the three federal districts in Georgia. His confirmation was blocked by United States Senator Richard B. Russell Jr.

Persons familiar with the federal judicial nomination process did not then and cannot today understand why President Truman with his background as a senator was so insensitive to senatorial prerogative, a longstanding tradition.110 At the same committee meeting at which Senator Russell voiced his objection, there was a sizeable contingent of the Atlanta and North Georgia bar who testified in support of Judge Andrews. Both the subcommittee and the full Judiciary Committee voted against Judge Andrews but sent the nomination on to the full Senate. On August 10, 1950, the Senate rejected the Andrews nomination as well as that of a Truman appointee to the district court in Iowa who had been opposed by a home-state Democratic senator.111 On October 31, Judge Andrews resigned his recess appointment. His one year and seven days on the Northern District bench is the shortest tenure of any judge who has served in the three federal judicial districts in Georgia.

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over a case brought by African American plaintiffs challenging the segregation policies of the city of Atlanta’s golf courses. Although the city owned seven golf courses, including its prestigious Bobby Jones course, African Americans were not allowed to play on any of them. The judge ruled that the city could not deny a citizen the use of public facilities because of his race. Judge Sloan postponed the effective date of his ruling to give Atlanta time to put regulations in effect.115 The plaintiffs appealed the issue of the delayed effective date to the Fifth Circuit, which upheld Judge Sloan.116 The case was eventually heard by the Supreme Court, which ordered the judge to

known as the “county unit system,” that favored the least-populated counties and operated to disadvantage urban counties with large populations. Having no political recourse to change the system, residents of Georgia’s urban areas took their displeasure with the county unit system to federal court.119 The first attack on the constitutionality of the county unit system came in a Northern District case challenging the constitutionality of the 1946 primary election. A three-judge court consisting of Circuit Judge Samuel Sibley and visiting District Judges Louie Strum of the Southern District of Florida and Frank Scarlett of the Southern District of Georgia denied

modify his order and immediately grant the plaintiffs access to the golf courses consistent with its decision in a similar public facilities case from Baltimore.117 In 1958, African American students brought an action against Georgia State College of Business Administration (now Georgia State University) alleging that its admission requirements were designed to deny them admission. In 1953, the state board of regents had adopted a policy that required those seeking admission to produce recommendations from two alumni as well as the county ordinary (probate judge) or the clerk of the superior court of the county in which he or she resided. In larger counties, the recommendation of a third alumnus could suffice for the court officer’s certification. Judge Sloan tried the case without a jury in December 1958, and in January 1959 he enjoined the college from enforcing these admission requirements.118 During this same period, Georgia’s political system was being challenged in the federal courts. Georgia and several other states had political systems in which each county, regardless of population, was represented in the legislature by a given number of representatives elected at large. Statewide officers were elected by a procedure,

the requested injunction on the grounds that the Democratic Party, not the State of Georgia, imposed the requirements. The court further explained that the Supreme Court had ruled earlier that year that federal courts should not intervene in political matters.120 Four years later, a second challenge came in a lawsuit against the chair and secretary of the Georgia Democratic Party and Georgia’s secretary of state.

The suit alleged that the county unit system violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which grants citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and the Seventeenth Amendment, which provides for the popular election of United States senators. A three-judge court, consisting of Chief Circuit Judge Sibley, Middle District of Georgia District Judge Thomas Hoyt Davis, and Northern District Judge M. Neil Andrews, decided the case.121 Judges Sibley and Davis voted to deny granting an injunction, finding the Constitution left to the states the method of conducting elections. Judge Andrews dissented, writing that there could no longer be any doubt that the protection of individual rights was within the legitimate powers of the courts. Morris Abram,

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a prominent civil rights lawyer who was very active in Democratic politics of that era, later suggested in his oral history that Judge Andrews, by taking this most unpopular position, may have contributed to his rejection for the permanent judgeship.122 In 1962, urban voters ultimately succeeded in their challenge to the county unit system. A three-judge court, consisting of Circuit Judges Elbert P. Tuttle, Griffin B. Bell, and District Judge Hooper, found that the voters/plaintiffs had no political remedy and, therefore, found the county unit system to be “invidiously discriminatory,” and in violation of the equal protection clause. In issuing an interlocutory injunction, the court allowed

three-judge court on the “no greater disparity” issue and held that the equal protection clause requires that every voter is equal to every other voter in the state where he casts his ballot in a statewide election—in essence, one man, one vote.124 Judge Hooper served eighteen years as an active judge on the Northern District bench. Over that period, he handled a significant number of civil rights cases.

The judge heard cases filed against Atlanta’s segregated public transportation, public schools, and (after the 1964 Civil Rights Act) public accommodations. Emotions often ran high, sometimes fanned by politicians who tried to exploit unrest. A convenient target for such

the county unit system to be used in weighing any votes if the system showed no greater disparity against a county than exists against any state in the conduct of national elections.123 The plaintiffs and defendants were both dissatisfied with the ruling, and the case went to the United States Supreme Court later that year. The Supreme Court disagreed with the

tensions often was the federal judge whose duty it was to hear the case. During the late 1950s and 1960s, rulings and orders by Judge Hooper were frequently on the front pages of the daily newspaper. Every time there was a news article about one of his rulings, a photo of the judge appeared with the article. There was much pressure on him and his family. Judge Hooper was

Campaign manager Lewis R. Morgan welcoming presidential candidate John F. Kennedy upon arriving in LaGrange, Georgia, in October 1960. In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Judge Morgan to a newly created third judgeship on the Northern District bench.

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other persons sentenced to death by federal juries in the Northern District; however, neither execution has been carried out.129 In early 1959, Judge Hooper ruled that Atlanta’s segregated buses and trolleys were unconstitutional.130 In June of that year, he ruled that the city’s segregated public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

Judge Hooper’s opinion brought into focus the Georgia law that cut off all state funding to any school that desegregated for any reason. By taking the spotlight off Atlanta officials, he hoped the legislature would not force a school-closing confrontation. Judge Hooper’s restraint allowed passions to cool and for the Georgia General Assembly Committee on Schools (headed

by Atlanta businessman John Sibley), a statewide educational reform group, to do its work across the state.

This defused many combustible elements, and Atlanta’s school desegregation went ahead peacefully, although the litigation in the court continued for many years.

Other noteworthy cases in which Judge Hooper participated were those involving Lester Maddox’s Pickrick Restaurant and the Heart of Atlanta Motel.

Both cases were heard by three-judge courts that included Judge Hooper.131 In his concurring opinion, Judge Hooper noted the difficulty that African Americans would have in finding accommodations traveling between Washington and Miami.132 Judge Hooper observed that district courts would be faced with difficult questions interpreting the Civil Rights Act but would have to decide the cases one at a time.

The court upheld the authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, a decision later affirmed by the United States Supreme Court.

One cannot discuss Judge Hooper’s service without mention of his having ruled on the effort of African American student Horace T. Ward to gain admission to

Judge Frank A. Hooper Jr. presided over the desegregation of the Atlanta public school system in the 1950s and 1960s.

included in the book Fifty-Eight Lonely Men: Southern Federal Judges and School Desegregation, which told the story of federal circuit and district judges in the South who had assumed the burden of forcing school desegregation by school boards that were “unable or unwilling to act.”125 In 1955, the Krull brothers, two Pennsylvania exconvicts and career criminals, were charged by the United States attorney with rape, kidnapping, and transportation across state lines. A Northern District jury convicted both men and recommended the death penalty.126 Despite his strong religious reservations against the death penalty, Judge Hooper did what the law required and sentenced the men to die in the electric chair.127 Their federal executions, which took place in the Georgia State Prison at Reidsville on August 21, 1957, have been the only instances in Georgia of a person being put to death for violation of a federal law.128 Since 1957, there have been two

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Judge Lewis R. Morgan (center) joined colleagues Judges W. Boyd Sloan and Frank A. Hooper as the Northern District’s third judge in 1961.

Northern District Bench

the University of Georgia Law School. Judge Hooper ruled in 1959 that Ward had not exhausted his state remedies and, by having attended Northwestern University Law School, he had made the issue moot.

Judge Hooper dismissed the case.133 In an interesting twist of fate, nearly twenty years later, in 1979, Horace T. Ward became the first African American judge of the Northern District of Georgia and a colleague of Judge Hooper. Judge Ward’s chambers were for a time on the same floor of the courthouse as those of Judge Hooper. There was never any animosity between the two men, who became good colleagues during their time together on the bench.134

The continued growth of the district’s civil and criminal caseload throughout the 1950s caused the Congress on May 19, 1961, to authorize a third judgeship for the Northern District. On July 24, 1961, President John F. Kennedy nominated Lewis R. Morgan, a LaGrange, Georgia, attorney who had been active in his presidential campaign in West Georgia, to the new judgeship.135 Judge Morgan was confirmed by the Senate on August 9 and took his oath of office on August 22, 1961. During his service, he was officially resident in Newnan but spent a great deal of time in Atlanta hearing cases. He served as the Northern District’s chief judge from 1965 until 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson elevated him to

A Third Judge for the

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and the University of Alabama. The article was based upon an affidavit relating a telephone conversation between the two coaches that had been overheard. A jury awarded Coach Butts compensatory damages of $60,000 and punitive damages of $3 million, which Judge Morgan reduced. The judge rejected the defense’s motion for a new trial and was upheld by the Fifth Circuit.136 The defendants took the case to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled in Butts’s favor in a landmark libel ruling in 1967.137 Judge Morgan reduced Butts’s award to $460,000. Within two years of the Supreme Court’s decision, the Saturday Evening Post, a publication that traced its roots to Benjamin Franklin, went out of business. Some historians have suggested the settlements in the Butts case and a case brought by Coach Bryant contributed to the magazine’s demise.138 Other significant litigation that Judge Morgan participated in as a member of three-judge courts (along with Circuit Judge Bell and fellow district judge Hooper) included cases involving reapportionment of the Georgia legislature, the Lester Maddox–Pickrick Restaurant, and landmark Heart of Atlanta civil rights cases in 1964. As a single district judge, he issued a number of rulings in civil rights cases, including his 1962 ruling that desegregated the city of Atlanta’s public facilities. Judge Morgan also handled the consolidated wrongful death actions of 106 Atlanta art patrons who lost their lives in a 1962 crash of a chartered Air France plane at Orly Airport in Paris.139 President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Judge Sidney O. Smith Jr. of Gainesville to the court after Judge Sloan announced he would be taking senior status on August 1, 1965. Judge Smith had served for two years as a superior court judge in Georgia’s Northeastern Judicial Circuit (Hall, Lumpkin, White, and Dawson Counties). Prior to his judicial service,

James Kirby’s book recounts the libel trial against the publisher of the Saturday Evening Post for an article accusing Wally Butts and Bear Bryant of conspiring to fix the 1962 Georgia-Alabama football game.

the Fifth Circuit.

During his years on the Northern District bench, Judge Morgan was involved in several cases receiving national media attention, including the case of the University of Georgia’s athletic director James Wallace “Wally” Butts, who brought a libel action against Curtis Publishing Company. Coach Butts sought compensatory and punitive damages for an article published in the Saturday Evening Post, accusing him and Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant of conspiring to fix the 1962 football game between the University of Georgia

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he had been in private practice while also serving as an assistant solicitor general for his circuit.

Judge Smith was confirmed two weeks after his nomination and took his oath on September 15, 1965.

As with Judge Sloan, Judge Smith’s principal chambers were in Gainesville, but he regularly traveled to Atlanta to hear cases. Judge Smith served nine years on the district court, with six of those as its chief judge.

Judge Smith’s education at Harvard College had been interrupted by his military service in England and Europe during World War II. He returned to Harvard after the war and earned his undergraduate degree.

Following a conversation with noted Harvard law

where one of his mentors was W. Boyd Sloan.

Judge Smith’s service on the court coincided with the later years of the civil rights era. In that period, civil rights lawsuits were brought against many school districts and other entities throughout the state. Judge Smith singularly or as a member of a three-judge court handled a considerable number of these cases. The judge’s cases included a 1968 case that desegregated Georgia’s penal system141 and Doe v. Bolton, which involved Georgia’s abortion statute.142 This case was argued in the United States Supreme Court on the same day as the landmark case of Roe v. Wade.143 In 1966, Judge Smith presided over a case brought by

professor Roscoe Pound, Judge Smith decided to return to Georgia to attend law school at the University of Georgia.140 He received his law degree in 1948 and began his law practice in his hometown of Gainesville,

Meyer Harris “Mickey” Cohen, an infamous gangster.

A fellow inmate had assaulted Cohen with a piece of iron pipe while Cohen was confined at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta. Cohen, a tough character

New United States District Judge Albert J. Henderson Jr. (far right) joins (L to R) Judges Frank A. Hooper Jr., Newell Edenfield, and Sidney O. Smith Jr. in October 1968.

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President Lyndon B. Johnson greeting Judge Newell Edenfield at the White House in 1967.

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who had been in Alcatraz and other federal prisons, was disabled by the attack. His attorneys were able to prove that the prison staff was negligent in protecting the mobster. Judge Smith awarded him $110,000 in damages and $15,000 in attorney fees.144 Not long afterward, a few days before Christmas of 1966, Judge Hooper wrote President Johnson to advise him of his decision to take senior status effective June 29, 1967. On May 24, 1967, the president nominated Newell Edenfield, a well-known Atlanta attorney, to fill Judge Hooper’s vacancy. The judge was confirmed by the Senate a few days later, on June 12, and took his oath on June 30, 1967.145

Navy as a lieutenant during World War II. The judge’s trial practice before he assumed the bench established him as one of Georgia’s most eminent courtroom lawyers of the day. He served as president of both the Atlanta and Georgia bar associations. While in private practice, he often represented the city of Atlanta. As attorney for the city of Atlanta, he urged the state to repeal segregation laws then in effect. The judge was perhaps best known while on the Northern District bench for his role in the DeKalb County school desegregation case.

Judge Edenfield received his law degree from the University of Georgia and served in the United States United States Post Office and Courthouse, 56 Forsyth Street, NW, in Atlanta was headquarters of the Northern District of Georgia from 1910 until 1980. The Second Renaissance Revival building was completed in 1910 and now houses the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In 1989, it was renamed to honor longtime Eleventh Circuit Judge Elbert P. Tuttle.

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Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon greeting Atlanta attorney William C. O’Kelley in 1967. In 1970, President Nixon appointed Judge O’Kelley to the Northern District bench.

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A Metropolitan Court and Three Additional Judgeships In the summer of 1968, President Johnson nominated Judge Morgan to fill a vacancy on the Fifth Circuit. Judge Morgan was quickly confirmed and assumed his new duties on the appellate court within two weeks of his nomination. On September 25, the president nominated Judge Albert J. Henderson Jr. of Marietta to fill the vacancy created by Judge Lewis Morgan’s elevation.

Judge Henderson served seven years on the Superior Court of Cobb County after service as a juvenile court judge and as an assistant solicitor general. He was an army sergeant during World War II. After his wartime service and with the assistance of the GI Bill, he attended law school at Mercer University, where he received his law degree in 1947.

Judge Henderson was confirmed on October 10, 1968, and took his oath on October 18.

His trial experience as an assistant solicitor general and as a superior

By the 1960s, running a district court with multiple judges and growing administrative staffs was equivalent to managing a business or government agency.

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court judge was advantageous both to him and the court.146 The workload of the judges had nearly doubled in the preceding ten years; the Northern District was again transforming.

In the next few years, Atlanta would become an international city, and the Northern District’s caseload, in terms of both volume and type of cases, would scarcely resemble that of the first part of the twentieth century.

Atlanta’s growth was steady from the late 1940s, but the city and its suburbs would explode with people, commerce, and activity in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Much of Atlanta’s growth can be traced to events

contributed to the development of Atlanta and its suburbs.147 And all of these would also have a direct impact on the Northern District. An Atlanta newspaper headline from the mid-1960s, “Judges Face Heavier Loads as Court Cases Skyrocket,” told the story.148 Until the 1940s, the Northern District of Georgia had only one judge for its forty-six counties and 14,255-square-mile area when a second judge was added. A third judge was added in 1961, but the court was still inundated with cases by the mid- to late-sixties, and the composition of the court’s civil caseload was continuing to change.

in the 1920s through 1940s. William Hartsfield and Asa Candler Jr. lobbied for the city to be made a stop on the developing federal airmail routes, from Miami to New York, and the city acquired Candler Field in 1926. In these actions, one finds the roots of today’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the busiest airport in the world. Hartsfield would become the city’s mayor and its chief promoter. Many events helped shape the city’s development—the 1939 movie premiere in Atlanta of Gone with the Wind, based on Margaret Mitchell’s famous novel; the location in the Atlanta area of a number of military bases and the city’s becoming the military supply center for the eight southeastern states; the construction of the Bell Bomber plant in Marietta, which at its peak employed thirty thousand persons; Ford’s and General Motors’ postwar construction of large automobile assembly plants in the city; the city’s position as a major rail center—over two hundred passenger and freight trains would pass through the city daily; the construction of the federal interstate highway system, which made Atlanta a crossroads for Interstates 75, 85, and 20. All of these factors

Although the Northern District became a multijudge court in 1940, when Judge Russell joined its bench as the second judge, the court changed most significantly in the decade of the 1960s. The addition of the third judgeship filled by Judge Morgan was a major benchmark in the court’s history. It was an era of virtually continuous institutional change.

The Northern District court that emerged from that decade was vastly different from Judge Underwood’s single-judge court of just twenty years earlier.

The number of judges increased in direct correlation with the rising case filings, which reflected the district’s population growth and the steadily increasing role of federal law in American society. The increase in the number of judges meant that the courts had to become more complex institutions. The court’s administrative staff—the office of the clerk and the probation office—had to increase in size and responsibilities to meet the demands of an evolving judiciary. The professional stature of the administrative staff evolved over time as they interacted with judges and with their counterparts across the court system. By the 1960s,

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United States District Judge Newell Edenfield being sworn in by Chief Judge Sidney O. Smith Jr. with United States District Judge Lewis R. Morgan observing.

running a district court with multiple judges and growing administrative staffs was equivalent to managing a business or government agency. Perhaps the Northern District’s greatest hallmark as an institution has been its ability to adapt to the changing times demanded by a sophisticated judiciary.

Issues of rapidly increasing dockets, not enough judges, and other resource limitations were faced not only by the Northern District of Georgia but by other federal courts as well. In addressing these common problems, the interaction between individual courts began to increase, as did the need for interaction with the Fifth Circuit, its judicial council, and the Administrative Office of the United

States Courts. The creation of the office of chief judge in 1948 recognized that courts with more than one judge required an internal administrative capacity as well as an external capacity to deal with other courts, judicial councils, the Administrative Office, and other outside agencies.

As courts grew in size and in complexity, two questions often presented themselves: Which judge was empowered to speak for the court as a whole, and which judge would decide administrative matters?

The 1948 court modernization legislation directed that the most senior judge in each district having more than one judge would be the chief judge.149 A chief judge had to have at least a year of prior service

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Chief Judges

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R obert L. Russell June 25, 1948 to O ctober 27, 1949 M. N eil Andrews O ctober 28, 1949 to O ctober 31, 1950 F rank A. H ooper J r . November 1, 1950 to April 21, 1965 Lewis R. M organ April 22, 1965 to August 2, 1968 S idney O. Smith J r . August 3, 1968 to J une 1, 1974 Newell E denfield J une 2, 1974 to N ovember 8, 1976 Albert J. H enderson J r . N ovember 9, 1976 to J uly 27, 1979 C harles A. M oye J r .

July 28, 1979 to D ecember 31, 1987 W illiam C. O’K elley J anuary 1, 1988 to D ecember 31, 1994 R obert L. Vining J r .

J anuary 1, 1995 to M arch 31, 1996 G. Ernest Tidwell April 1, 1996 to August 31, 1999 O rinda D. E vans September 1, 1999 to August 31, 2006 J ack T. Camp S eptember 1, 2006 to D ecember 31, 2008 J ulie E. Carnes J anuary 1, 2009 to present as a district judge and could be no older than sixtyfour at the time of appointment. At seventy, he or she had to step aside for a younger colleague. Chief judges were responsible for overseeing all rules and orders of the court and for assigning all cases and business among the other judges according to these rules. In addition to the regular duties of a judge, the chief judge was the court’s chief executive officer.

Since the office of chief judge was established in 1948, twelve men and two women have served the Northern District in that capacity.

By the time Judge Henderson came on the federal bench in 1968, the Northern District’s judges were overworked, and it would be 1970 before some needed relief would arrive in the form of three new judges.

In June 1970, Congress passed the Omnibus Judgeship Act of 1970, authorizing more federal

judgeships. Included in the bill were three additional district judgeships for the Northern District.150 Selection of the nominees for the new judgeships was the province of the Republican president. Since Georgia’s two United States senators were Democrats, the president sought the recommendation of Georgia’s Republican congressional delegation. One nominee was proposed by Fletcher Thompson, United States congressman for Georgia’s Fourth District; a second nominee was proposed by Ben Blackburn, United States congressman for the Fifth District; the third and final nominee was proposed by the Republican State Central Committee.151 On October 7, President Nixon formally nominated Charles A. Moye Jr. and William C. O’Kelley.152 Both men received their undergraduate and law degrees from Emory University. Judge Moye had been in

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private practice his entire career with a single firm, Gambrell and White, whose original partners were E. Smythe Gambrell and Edward White. Judge O’Kelley, who served as a United States Air Force officer following law school, had been in private practice with two different law firms including his own firm, as well as serving as general counsel for the Republican Party of Georgia and an assistant United States attorney for a time. Both men were experienced attorneys with considerable federal trial practice. The two were confirmed by the Senate on October 13 and received their commissions on October 16. They took their oaths in a joint court

to bear arms on behalf of the United States. Dr. Thomsen was unable to practice medicine in Georgia and be employed by the Veterans Administration because she was not a United States citizen. The judge ruled that Dr. Thomsen could become a citizen by taking a modified oath.154 One of the more notable cases handled by Judge Moye during his years on the bench was the 1980 criminal trial of Bert Lance, President Carter’s close friend and former budget director. Before taking a position in the Carter administration, Lance had operated several banks in North Georgia.

Lance, along with three associates, was charged

ceremony on October 23, 1970.

Although Judges Moye and O’Kelley were sworn into office at the same time, Judge Moye, because he was older than Judge O’Kelley, was considered the more senior of the two in the judicial seniority protocol. Both men, however, would eventually serve as chief judge.

Judge Moye served almost forty years on the Northern District bench—seventeen years as an active judge and twenty-three as a senior judge.

Judge Moye continued to serve as a senior judge until his death in July 2010. During his service, he presided over nearly four thousand cases, including some of the most notable to be filed in the district. A 1988 newspaper article, “A Private Man in the Public Eye: Reserved Jurist Makes Presence Felt,” written when he stepped down as chief judge and took senior status, profiled the judge as an exceptionally quiet and private man.153 Judge Moye’s first case as a judge in 1970 was that brought by Dr. Wiebke Thomsen, a German-born psychiatrist, who had refused to take the oath of citizenship because it required immigrants to swear

with thirty-three counts of banking law violations.

Judge Moye presided over the four-month trial— the first jury trial held in the new Richard B. Russell Federal Building and United States Courthouse. In the course of the trial, Judge Moye dismissed many of the charges. The jury eventually found Lance not guilty on nine charges and deadlocked on three counts. The federal government elected not to retry the case.155 Two of Judge Moye’s habeas corpus cases sparked considerable outrage. The first of these came in 1975 when he overturned the convictions of five defendants from a double murder case in Cobb County because the state had used the dubious testimony of a reformed prostitute.156 The second case was the conviction of Georgia death row inmate Jack Potts for murder and kidnapping in Cobb and Forsyth Counties. After finding that serious errors had taken place during Potts’s trial, Judge Moye ordered that Potts be resentenced on the murder charge and retried on the kidnapping charge.157 While Judge Moye’s legal career was centered

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on a single firm, Judge O’Kelley’s journey to the federal judiciary included several years in North Africa, where he served as an officer and judge advocate in the United States Air Force. Following his military service, Judge O’Kelley returned to Georgia and went into private practice. He interrupted his practice to serve two years as an assistant United States attorney before returning again to private practice. He was appointed to the court in 1970.158 With his service as an active and senior judge of more than forty-three years, Judge O’Kelley holds the record as both the Northern District’s and

Georgia State Patrol and Georgia’s largest employer, Lockheed-Martin; a number of public corruption cases involving North Georgia sheriffs and commissioners; housing discrimination actions including a major 1974 case against Atlanta’s largest real estate firm, Northside Realty Associates; and several First Amendment cases. For over twenty years, Judge O’Kelley presided over the DeKalb County school desegregation case, which was finally resolved in 1992 by the United States Supreme Court.162 In his years on the bench, the judge has sat, by designation, on the Third, Fifth, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits, and was a member of several three-judge

Georgia’s longest-serving federal judge. He has served the federal judiciary nationally in a number of capacities, including as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, its Executive Committee, several of its other committees, and on the board of directors of the Federal Judicial Center. He was also appointed by different chief justices of the United States to serve on two special courts: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and, more recently, the Alien Terrorist Removal Court.159 Judge O’Kelley has presided over many notable and high-profile cases. They include the highly publicized 1974 case against William A. H. Williams, who was convicted twice of the kidnapping of Atlanta Constitution editor Reg Murphy—initially in Atlanta and again when, due to pretrial publicity, Judge O’Kelley moved a second trial to Key West.160 Another of his high-profile cases involved the copyright of the “I Have a Dream” speech given in Washington in 1963 by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.161 Other noteworthy cases include employment discrimination class actions brought against the

district courts ruling on constitutional issues, including major Georgia legislative reapportionment cases in 1972 and 2004.163 Judge O’Kelley also presided over the Rome Division cases from 1970 to 1974. He has presided over cases in the Gainesville Division since 1974 and over Atlanta Division cases throughout his entire time on the bench.

After the relatively speedy appointment of Judges Moye and O’Kelley, the third new judgeship was not filled until the spring of 1971, when President Nixon nominated Richard C. Freeman. Judge Freeman was nominated on March 3, confirmed by the Senate on April 21, and took his oath as a district judge on April 29, 1971.

Judge Freeman served in the United States Army during the occupation of Japan in 1946–1947. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from Emory and was in the private practice of law for nearly twenty years. For nine of those, he served on Atlanta’s Board of Aldermen, predecessor of today’s city council. As chairman of the city of Atlanta’s aviation committee during his time as an

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Judge William C. O’Kelley, Judge Charles A. Moye Jr., and Judge Richard C. Freeman were appointed to the bench after Congress authorized three new judgeships in 1970.

alderman, Judge Freeman played a major role in the development of Atlanta’s present-day airport.

Judge Freeman was an active judge for nearly twenty years before he took senior status on December 31, 1991. During his service, Judge Freeman presided over some major cases, including the 1989 criminal trial of former United States representative Pat Swindall, convicted by a jury of nine counts of perjury. Judge Freeman sentenced him to a year in federal prison and fined him thirty thousand dollars.164 In a 1981 case, Judge Freeman enjoined Georgia governor George Busbee from filling a vacancy on the Georgia Supreme Court without holding a special election. In 1992, he presided over the case of an applicant for an assistant Georgia attorney general position whose job offer was withdrawn

after she made it known that she was planning to marry another woman. Judge Freeman ruled against the applicant, granting summary judgment to the attorney general.165 In a historic decision, the Eleventh Circuit overturned Judge Freeman’s ruling, holding that the applicant’s relationship with her partner was constitutionally protected as rights of intimate and expressive association.166 Judge Freeman continued to handle cases as a senior judge until his health deteriorated. He died on August 26, 1999.

On November 27, 1973, Chief Judge Sidney O. Smith Jr. announced his resignation effective the following June 1. In his announcement, Judge Smith advised that he would be joining a major Atlanta law firm as a senior partner. The judge’s announcement shocked many people, as a federal judgeship and its

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia

This October 1970 photo was taken at the investiture ceremony of United States District Judge William C. O’Kelley (far left), and United States District Judge Charles A. Moye Jr. (2nd from right). Also shown are Judges Albert J. Henderson Jr., Sidney O. Smith Jr., Newell Edenfield, and Frank A. Hooper Jr.

where the public interest lies. . . . Nobody can blame the judge, though. He has been trying—along with many other colleagues on the federal bench—to say that the workload is too heavy and the pay is too small.168 In response to a reporter’s query as to the length of time between the announcement of his resignation and its effective date, Judge Smith explained that he had given six months’ notice “because the machinery for appointing judges is so slow, and a lengthy vacancy would be ‘crippling’ to the court.”169 While knowledgeable observers were familiar with the significant differential in the salary of

lifetime tenure were viewed by the public and the legal profession as a lawyer’s dream.167 Writing of the judge’s departure, editor Reg Murphy said in an editorial in the Atlanta Constitution: A federal judgeship is a proud thing. A man can go there, become a modern scholar, live the life of the mind, find security and have some impact on his times.

It is the dream of the intellectual lawyer to sit on the federal bench. . . . Which is a shame. The federal courts ought to be able to retain the good judges. That’s

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a federal judge and that of a partner in the law firm, the general public, then as now, may not have understood the economic plight of the federal judiciary. Pat Chapin, a judicial administration scholar whose article “The Judicial Vanishing Act” appeared in Judicature, told the story behind the judge’s resignation: Salary wasn’t the sole consideration for Smith. He hadn’t had a vacation in three years.

He couldn’t get a clear direction from the appellate courts, particularly with respect to civil rights cases; and the backlog kept building—“it doubled last year in spite of everybody just killing themselves

Atlanta trial lawyer James C. Hill to replace him.

The Senate confirmed Judge Hill on August 8, and on August 9—in one of his last official acts before his resignation became effective later that day— President Nixon signed Judge Hill’s commission.

The judge took office on August 16.172 Judge Hill, a native of Darlington, South Carolina, served in England in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. After the war, he returned to the University of South Carolina to complete his undergraduate education and then attended Emory Law School, where he received his law degree. The judge was in private

down there,” the former judge said. On top of that, Congress was alternately deaf and cavalier to the desperate need for more federal judges.170 Later, in correspondence supporting increased judicial compensation, Judge Smith explained the plight of federal judges: At that time, I resigned to join this law firm.

I have been asked many times whether salary was a factor in my decision. While there were other important considerations involved, obviously it was.

At the time, I was fifty years old and had been a judge for twelve years. I had two children in college and one only a year away. I had missed some productive years and, therefore, did not have any personal estate to fall back on. Indeed, what resources I had were diminishing during these expensive years and through eroding by inflation. . . . Excepting those who have inherited wealth or those who go on the bench at an age after they have accumulated some security, most lawyers aged 35–55 can serve only at great sacrifice.171 On July 9, 1974, nine days after Judge Smith left the bench, President Richard M. Nixon nominated

practice in Atlanta, for many years at the Gambrell firm, where he was a colleague of Judge Moye.

After Judge Hill had served only twenty-one months on the Northern District bench, President Gerald Ford elevated him to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.173 He began his new duties on the Fifth Circuit on May 26, 1976.

While on the district bench, Judge Hill presided over several noteworthy cases. In a 1974 trademark infringement and unfair competition case, he found on behalf of The Coca-Cola Company and against the Howard Johnson’s restaurant chain, which had served a different cola-flavored carbonated beverage to its customers who had ordered “a Coca-Cola or a Coke.”174 In 1975, Judge Hill denied injunctive relief to a residents’ organization from Atlanta’s Reynoldstown and Inman Park neighborhoods, which had attempted to prevent the East Line of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) from going through those neighborhoods.175

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Judge James C. Hill (far right) joins his colleagues on the Northern District bench in 1974.

(L-R) Judges Frank A. Hooper Jr., William C. O’Kelley, Albert J. Henderson Jr., Chief Judge Newell Edenfield, Charles A. Moye Jr., Judge Richard C. Freeman, and Judge Hill.

The War on Drugs Comes to the Northern District

combination of Atlanta’s growth, the statutorily mandated Speedy Trial limits, and the enactment of other laws broadening federal jurisdiction taxed the Northern District of Georgia’s ability to timely manage its caseload. From 1972 to 1976, Congress passed no legislation to provide additional judges for overworked courts.178 In addition to the increase in workload, the types of cases constituting the court’s criminal docket had begun to change. In the mid-1960s, recreational drug use became popular among young, middle-class Americans. The social stigma previously associated with drugs lessened as their use became more common. Drug use represented protest and social rebellion in the era’s atmosphere of political unrest.

In the late 1960s, because of the growing national drug problem, changes were made in the structure of the federal agencies charged with enforcing drug laws. In 1968, the Johnson administration consolidated the drug enforcement functions of

Adding three new judges to the Northern District bench in 1970 brought some relief, but as the Atlanta metropolitan area’s growth continued at a breakneck pace through the mid-1970s, Northern District case filings continued to skyrocket. By 1975, the district’s weighted caseload per judge increased to 561 cases—the third highest of any district in the nation and substantially greater than the 350-case national average for that period.176 In 1974, Congress enacted the Speedy Trial Act, which established time limits for completing various stages of a federal criminal prosecution.177 These deadlines placed a great deal of pressure on district judges to give priority to criminal cases.

Although the Speedy Trial Act stated that judges should not prejudice civil litigation, the pending civil caseload nationally rose by 20 percent. The

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several federal agencies into the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD). Two years later, in 1970, Congress passed stronger drug enforcement laws, and in 1971, President Nixon declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one in the United States.” In 1973, the BNDD was renamed the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), consolidating more anti-drug efforts into a single agency. The federal “war on drugs” had begun.179 Because of its strategic location in the Southeast, Atlanta became a hub for illegal drug activity.180 In an effort to deal with the growing problem and to marshal the country’s resources, the federal

flights at remote Georgia airports.

Until the late 1960s, a considerable part of the Northern District’s criminal caseload involved cases related to the manufacture or transportation of untaxed liquor, interstate transportation of stolen cars, theft from interstate shipments or violations of federal firearms laws, and other federal crimes. From 1980 until the present, the court’s criminal caseload has shifted to multiple-defendant drug cases, which take considerable judicial resources and time. The trial of a large multidefendant drug case takes weeks and often requires the use of interpreters. Nearly all of the longtime judges on the court have had at least

government established multi-agency drug enforcement task forces staffed with prosecutors and agents whose principal purpose was to deal with the flow of drugs. The southeastern states task force was headquartered in Atlanta.

Atlanta and North Georgia had become a drug trafficking hub by the mid-1970s, much for the same reasons that the area’s growth had begun to expand in the 1960s—its geographic location in the Southeast and transportation networks, including three interstate highways.181 An additional factor was the rural nature of Georgia outside metropolitan Atlanta. Airports and landing strips existed where small, private planes ferrying drugs from South America could land undetected. Many Georgia moonshiners changed their business models from manufacturing and transporting illicit liquor to the much more highly profitable trafficking of drugs.182 Drug trafficking, however, required many more participants. The huge profits from illicit drug activity enabled drug traffickers to bribe law enforcement officials to look the other way when drug traffickers unloaded cargo from South American

one lengthy multidefendant drug case. Criminal cases are generally known around the courthouse by the last name of the first-named defendant. Some of the multidefendant cases are part of the legend and lore of the Northern District: Judge Ward’s “Gumball” case in 1986, which involved twentyfive defendants;183 Judge Tidwell’s “Rosenthal” case, involving thirty defendants and at the time, the nation’s largest cocaine trafficking ring;184 and Judge Vining’s “Miles” case, which had twenty-seven defendants.185 The large multidefendant case is no longer an unusual occurrence in Northern District courtrooms. A recent report by the United States attorney’s office disclosed that in the period from 2002 to 2012, its office had brought twenty or more cases in the Northern District with fifteen defendants or more. The highest number of defendants in a single case or in related indictments was before Judge Murphy in Rome in “Villenas-Reyes and Smith,” a 2004 sixty-defendant case,186 and “Patel,” sixty-five related indictments in 2005.187 “Benitez-Torres,” the largest criminal case in Atlanta, had forty-five defendants before Judge Pannell.188

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William Henry Hunt was the first clerk of the Northern District of Georgia. He was appointed in March 1849 and served until December 1861, when Georgia seceded from the Union.

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The Court’s Offices An important part of the Northern District of Georgia’s ability to deal with a rapidly increasing and changing caseload has been its United States magistrate judges. These judicial officers have been known by different titles throughout the history of the federal judiciary (United States commissioner 1793–1968, United States magistrate 1968–1990, and, since 1990, United States magistrate judge). The roots of the magistrate judge position run deep in the country’s history, tracing back to 1793 when Congress passed a statute permitting the judges of the United States circuit courts to appoint “discreet persons learned in the law” to take bail in criminal cases.189 In 1896, Congress formally established the position of United States commissioner, to be appointed by the judges of the district rather than the circuit court.190 The operation of the commissioner system varied across the country from district to district. Most often the commissioners were part-time and were not required to be members of the bar, although most of them were attorneys.

The Federal Magistrates Act’s main purpose was to relieve district judges of certain judicial responsibilities in order to reduce unmanageable caseloads.

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Generally, commissioners worked out of their law offices. In the Northern District of Georgia, several of the early clerks of court in addition to other duties also served as part-time United States commissioners.

Commissioners were appointed principally to issue warrants and to take bail in criminal cases, especially in the divisional court sites and in other cities and towns throughout the district. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries because of the difficulties of travel, there were as many as thirteen commissioners in the district, located at such places as Dahlonega, Hiawassee, Blairsville, Cartersville,

being phased out in favor of full-time positions.194 After a transition period during which the current United States commissioners continued in office, the first magistrates in the Northern District of Georgia were appointed on April 29, 1972. J. Roger Thompson was appointed as a full-time magistrate in Atlanta. The following attorneys were appointed as part-time magistrates in the outlying divisions: Clinton J. Morgan in Rome, John H. Smith in Gainesville, and Henry N. Payton in Newnan. The three part-time magistrates had previously served as United States commissioners.

The Federal Magistrates Act permits a district

Gainesville, Rome, Newnan, Dalton, Jasper, and Blue Ridge, as well as in Atlanta.191 As roads improved, fewer commissioners were appointed.

The modern-day magistrate judge position began with the 1968 enactment of the Federal Magistrates Act.192 That act authorized magistrates to perform those functions previously performed

by United States commissioners and to discharge the additional duties assigned by district judges “as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.” According to the legislative history of the Federal Magistrates Act, its main purpose was to relieve district judges of certain judicial responsibilities in order to reduce increasingly unmanageable caseloads. The act has been amended several times since 1968 to significantly broaden the authority that magistrate judges exercise.193 Magistrate judges are appointed for eight-year terms and can be reappointed. At one time, the Northern District had part-time magistrate judges, who were appointed for four-year terms and could be reappointed. Part-time magistrate judge positions throughout the United States are

judge to refer “any pretrial matter” by direct order or local rule to a magistrate judge without the consent of the parties, and to directly resolve that issue, as long as the referral is not inconsistent with the Constitution and law of the United States. Under this provision, all Title VII cases filed in the Atlanta and Newnan divisions since 1987 have been automatically referred to the magistrate judges on a random basis.

Within a few years, this practice was expanded to also include Rome and Gainesville in all Title VII cases regarding employment discrimination.195 In the Title VII cases, magistrate judges handle all pretrial case management duties, including motions, pretrial conferences, and discovery disputes. Magistrate judges submit case-dispositive motions to district judges with a report and recommendation. District judges conduct a de novo review. If the Title VII case has not been disposed through a case-dispositive motion, the magistrate judge presides at a final pretrial conference where the litigants are asked if they consent to have the magistrate judge decide the case. If the parties decline to consent, the magistrate judge will conduct an evidentiary hearing, presiding

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as a special master, and then prepare a report for the district judge. The district judge will conduct the jury trial and read the special master’s report to the jury. In the past few years, more and more parties are consenting to trial by Northern District magistrate judges, as parties are desirous of their cases being heard quicker.

For the past several years, many district judges have required the parties in their civil cases to go through a mediation process with the magistrate judges as mediators. This practice has been very successful and has been well received by the bar.

Consistent with the increasing judicial nature of

office as a pilot program in ten districts to determine the effectiveness of a separate agency. The Northern District, which was designated by Congress as one of the ten districts, had a separate pretrial services department with its own chief pretrial services officer from 1974 until 1998 when the court consolidated its probation and pretrial services departments into a single organization under the chief probation officer.201 Over the years, the responsibilities of the Probation Office have significantly expanded. From Officer Chappell’s single cubbyhole in the Atlanta courthouse, the Probation Office has grown to

their work, in December 1990 Congress changed the title from United States magistrate to United States magistrate judge.196 Today, there are nine full-time United States magistrate judges in the district; seven sit in Atlanta, one in Rome, and one in Gainesville.

The Probation Office The Northern District Probation Office has grown substantially over the years since 1927, when Officer Richard A. Chappell, its first probation officer, was appointed to serve the judges in all three Georgia districts.197 By 1930, the Northern District was authorized to have its own probation officer, and Officer Chappell filled that position.198 Over the years the complement of probation officers grew with the criminal caseload. By the mid-1970s, the Northern District Probation Office had thirty-one sworn officers and thirteen support personnel.199 Currently the Probation Office has eighty-seven sworn officers and thirty-five support staff.200 One of the provisions of the 1974 Speedy Trial Act established a separate pretrial services agency apart from the probation

The court’s first probation officer, Richard A. Chappell, who was appointed in 1927, later served as first chief probation officer from 1932 to 1938, and as chief of probation for the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

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United States probation officer Shree Sullivan (left) with Assistant United States Attorney Katherine Hoffer (right) in a Rome courtroom.

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include offices in each of the court’s three divisional sites—Rome, Gainesville, and Newnan. This decentralization would eventually include satellite probation offices in Marietta, Tucker, and Morrow.

Probation staff also monitor probationers and those on release by electronic ankle bracelets and programs designed to ensure that they remain drug-free.

The office of clerk of the court is a statutory

staff numbers reached ninety-six people in 2012.

The most dramatic changes in the work of the clerk’s office started in the mid-1970s with the advent of automation. The first automated application was developed to compute time deadlines in criminal cases and docket those cases for compliance with the Speedy Trial Act of 1974.207 Over the next several years, other automated applications implemented fully electronic case docketing, electronic case management reports for judges and staff, twentyfour-hour electronic public access to court records, management and payment of jurors, property management, and many of the other facets of the

position dating to the Judiciary Act of 1789.202 The clerk and his staff have undergone substantial change over the years. Over the Northern District’s history, fourteen persons have served as clerk.203 From the appointment in 1849 of the first clerk, William Henry Hunt, through the early 1900s, the clerk’s office remained small—just a clerk and a single deputy. The office’s third staff member finally came on board in 1902.204 Although there had been growth in the size of the caseload, the office staff stayed constant for a long time. When one looks at the situation more closely, there was a simple economic rationale behind the clerks’ fiscal restraint.

Until 1919, clerks were compensated by fees.205 After salaries and office expenses were paid, any funds remaining were retained as income by the clerk of court. The decision to operate with minimal staff was purely economic. When the fee system was abolished in 1919206 and clerks were put on salary, office staff grew as responsibilities and caseload increased. By 1942, there were fifteen members on the clerk’s staff, twenty-five in 1965, and thirty-eight in 1974. By 1985, there were sixty-five employees. Clerk’s office

clerk’s office operations. The clerk and the clerk’s automation staff are responsible for information technology and a data communications network of more than three hundred computers connecting the judges’ chambers, clerk’s office, and court employees with the rest of the federal judiciary. The largest of these automation initiatives took place from 2002 to 2004, with the court’s conversion to case management and electronic case filing. Those initiatives continue, and now attorneys initiate cases and file documents 24/7 without leaving their offices.208 By the early 1980s, the title of “clerk” had become something of a misnomer. The duties of the clerk and the clerk’s deputies had evolved far beyond the office’s initial mission of basic record keeping to include case flow and jury management, purchasing and procurement, facilities management, information technology, personnel administration, court reporters and interpreter supervision, statistical reporting, naturalization ceremonies, attorney admissions, court security coordination, disbursing officer for all federal court entities in the district including any circuit court functions, budget

The Court’s Right Arm —The Clerk of the Court

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formulation, and secretariat for judges and committee meetings. The clerk manages and supports many other nonjudicial functions for the court at the chief judge’s direction.209 Because the clerk’s duties had expanded so much, the Judicial Conference of the United States in 1981 established a pilot program to appoint a second administrative position, the district court executive, to serve alongside the clerk in six large metropolitan courts. In 1984, the Northern District of Georgia was approved as the sixth court for this pilot program.210 Ben Carter, the court’s longtime clerk, was appointed as the court’s first district court executive. Many

Court Security— An Ever-Present Concern For a number of years, the security of the federal judiciary has been an increasing subject of concern.

In the South during the 1960s, federal judges issued a number of unpopular rulings in civil rights cases, particularly in areas of school desegregation. Those rulings brought threats against the personal safety of the judges and their families. Beginning in the mid-1970s, entrances to federal courthouses began to have staffed security checkpoints that required public visitors to be screened by metal detectors and packages to be X-rayed. In the 1990s, security concerns for the federal judiciary in general, and particularly in Atlanta, escalated. In December 1989, Judge Robert Vance of the Eleventh Circuit was assassinated, and a mail bomb was intercepted at the Eleventh Circuit’s Atlanta courthouse.211 Security was again stepped up with the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City and the bombing at nearby Centennial Olympic Park during Atlanta’s 1996 Summer Olympic Games. As a result of these tragic events and other threats, security for court facilities in the Northern District of Georgia became a major concern for the court.

When the Russell Building underwent a major renovation in 2005, one of the most important facets was the addition of a detached security pavilion at the building’s front entrance.

of the duties and responsibilities of the clerk that pertained to matters outside the clerk’s office were assigned to the district court executive. The new office allowed Carter’s successor as clerk, Luther D. Thomas, to concentrate his efforts on managing a growing clerk’s office and, in particular, automating the court. Carter retired as district executive in 1988 and was replaced by John Shope. A few years later the Judicial Conference opted not to expand the pilot program to additional courts but allowed the six courts with district executives the option to retain the position. When Shope retired in early 2009, the judges of the Northern District court continued the district executive slot, but appointed its incumbent clerk, James N. Hatten, to serve as both clerk of court and district court executive. Mr. Hatten established a second chief deputy clerk to assist him with his duties, following the model adopted by many other courts nationally.

The entire two-person staff of the Northern District clerk’s office around 1900 with an unidentified deputy clerk in the foreground with Clerk of Court W. Colquitt Carter in the background.

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Clerks and District Executives of the Northern District of Georgia 1849–2013

First row, left to right: William Henry Hunt 1849–1861 William Bundy Smith 1866–1873 Alfred Buck 1873–1887 Henry Hamilton 1887–1890 W. Colquitt Carter 1890–1911 Second row, left to right: Olin C. Fuller 1911–1932 Jon Dean Steward 1932–1940 Frederic L Beers Sr. 1940–1956 Carl Meadows 1956–1963 Bart G. Nash 1963–1965 Third row, left to right: Claud L. Goza 1965–1972 Ben Carter 1972–1984; Dist Exec 1984–1988 Luther D. Thomas 1985–2006 John T. Shope, Dist Exec 1988–2009 James Hatten, Clerk 2006– and District Executive 2009–

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The Northern District bench on August 17, 1979, after four new judges took their oaths.

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CHAPTER SEVEN |

1977-1988

of

The Court Transforms The filling of Judge Hill’s vacancy was delayed by the 1976 presidential election. On July 7, 1977, President Jimmy Carter nominated Judge Harold L. Murphy, a highly respected jurist and trial lawyer, to fill the Hill position.

Immediately prior to his nomination, Judge Murphy had served six years as a superior court judge in the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit in west Georgia. The judge was confirmed by the Senate on July 28 and took his oath as a district judge on August 11, 1977. Judge Murphy has presided over cases in Rome since 1977 and also hears Atlanta cases.

During his years on the federal bench, Judge Murphy has presided over many significant cases. Knight v. State of Alabama, a class-action case in the Northern District of Alabama, was specially assigned to him by the chief judge of the Eleventh Circuit. This case involved desegregation issues pertaining to Alabama’s state universities, their financing, and admissions policies. Judge Murphy’s involvement spanned seventeen years (1989–2006) including a six-month bench trial in Birmingham with a fortythousand-page transcript.212

Since the mid-1970s, the Northern District has been at the forefront of federal courts nationally with the automation of its court records.

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Then Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter administering the oath of office to new Superior Court Judge Harold L. Murphy, who was his first judicial appointment in 1971. Six years later, President Carter made Judge Murphy his first federal judicial appointment in Georgia when he appointed him to the Northern District bench.

In 2005, Judge Murphy presided over the closely watched case of Common Cause v. Billips. The case was brought seeking to declare Georgia’s voter photo identification law unconstitutional. The judge initially enjoined application of the new photo law, but after the state legislature changed the law and a 2007 bench trial, he granted judgment to the defendants.214 The judge’s most recent high-profile case was the criminal trial against Georgia nursing home

In 1979, Judge Murphy presided over the criminal trial of pornographer Michael Thevis, which at the time was the largest racketeering case ever to go before a United States jury.213 Another significant case that received international media attention was the Tri-State Crematory MultiDistrict Litigation. The case was filed after the discovery of the remains of 339 improperly cremated bodies on the grounds of a Northwest Georgia crematory and involved over seventeen hundred family member plaintiffs and fifty-six funeral homes as defendants in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. The case was eventually settled during trial.

operator George D. Houser, whom he sentenced to twenty years in prison for conspiring to defraud the Medicare and Medicaid programs by billing more than $33 million in “worthless services.” The case marked the first time in the United States that a defendant had been convicted in a federal trial for submitting “worthless services” claims.215 Noted defense attorney Bobby Lee Cook once said

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of Judge Murphy, “If one were to design a profile of what a judge should be, you could use Judge Murphy as a perfect example, and you would be very correct. He would be perfectly incapable of doing a fellow man an injustice—either consciously or unconsciously. I would trust him with my life and liberty.”216

the Russell Building.

Judge Shoob, a native of Walterboro, South Carolina, grew up in Savannah and attended Georgia Tech, Virginia Military Institute, and the University of Georgia. He served in the United States Army as an infantryman during World War II. After the war he attended law school at the University of Georgia, where he received his law degree in 1948. He was in private practice in Atlanta from 1949 until his appointment to the bench in 1979.219 Throughout his thirty-four years on the federal bench, Judge Shoob has been involved in high-profile cases ranging from his ordering a national trucking

Finally, in the summer of 1978, Congress passed an omnibus judgeship bill adding 152 new federal judges nationally, including 5 new positions for the Northern District of Georgia.217 Overnight, the Northern District bench increased from 6 to 11 judgeships. In April 1979, President Carter nominated Chief Judge Albert J. Henderson Jr. to fill one of 7 new appellate judgeships on the Fifth Circuit, creating a sixth Northern District bench vacancy. In nearly doubling in size with its new judgeships, the court crossed the threshold to become a large metropolitan court—one with at least 10 judgeships in a single location.

In June 1979, the president nominated Atlanta attorney Marvin H. Shoob, Superior Court Judge Robert L. Vining Jr. of the Conasauga Judicial Circuit, Superior Court Judge G. Ernest Tidwell of the Atlanta Judicial Circuit, and Atlanta attorney Orinda D. Evans to the Northern District bench.

The four were confirmed by the Senate on July 23 and sworn in on August 17. The additional judges created a major space problem when they arrived with their staffs at the old courthouse on Forsyth Street. Although a new federal courthouse, to be known as the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and United States Courthouse, had been under construction since 1975, it was not ready for occupancy in the fall of 1979 when the new judges took office.218 Five more months elapsed before the new judges and the Northern District moved into

company to hire women drivers220 to ordering county

Then Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter with Judge Horace T. Ward and Mrs. Ruth LeFlore Ward in 1974. Governor Carter appointed Judge Ward to the Civil Court of Fulton County in 1974, and as president in 1979, appointed him to the Northern District bench.

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commissions to build new jails in Cobb, Fayette, and Douglas Counties. Several of his notable cases have received international media attention.

In one of those, the federal government charged the manager of the Atlanta branch of the Italian bank Banca Nationale del Lavoro (BNL) with making illegal loans of $4.5 billion to Iraq. The loans, which were guaranteed by the United States government, were supposedly for agricultural purposes; however, the funds were diverted for Saddam Hussein’s acquisition of weapons. After presiding over the case for eighteen months, Judge Shoob questioned the manager’s guilty plea, stating that he thought the bank’s top management

foster care in Fulton and DeKalb Counties, the parties entered into a consent decree, making sweeping changes to Georgia’s foster care system. Among many other things, the judge ruled that all such children in state custody are entitled to effective legal counsel throughout the process as well as the appointment of a guardian ad litem.223 Judge Shoob retains jurisdiction over the case to ensure compliance with the consent decree.

Appointed the same day as Judge Shoob was Judge Robert L. Vining Jr., a native of Murray County in North Georgia, who received both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Georgia. He

and perhaps others in the United States government had knowledge of the loans. After his objectivity was challenged by the acting United States attorney and consistent with his policy at the time, the judge recused himself from the case and reassigned it for trial by another judge.221 As a result of the BNL case, Judge Shoob changed his recusal policy to require more than simply an assertion by a party.

In a 1995 case, Judge Shoob awarded summary judgment to two mentally challenged persons institutionalized in a state mental hospital who alleged that, under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fourteenth Amendment, they were entitled to an order requiring the state of Georgia to provide them with care in the most integrated setting appropriate, which was a community-based treatment program rather than a state mental hospital.222 Judge Shoob personally visited the institution in which the women were held, including the room in which they lived. After their release, both were able to live independently.

In a more recent case, in 2005, after Judge Shoob had denied summary judgment for the defendants in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of children in

interrupted his undergraduate studies to serve in the United States Air Force from 1951 to 1955, with service in Korea as an air traffic controller. After being admitted to the bar, he was in private practice and also served as the solicitor general (now known as district attorney) for the Conasauga Judicial Circuit. He served ten years as a superior court judge prior to his appointment to the federal bench in 1979.224 Judge Vining served as chief judge of the Northern District from 1995 to 1996.

In addition to handling his caseload in the Northern District, Judge Vining has presided over cases outside his own district on several occasions. Following the death of United States District Judge Frank W. Wilson in the Eastern District of Tennessee, Judge Vining handled the late judge’s caseload in Chattanooga in 1982–1983 until Judge H. Ted Milburn was appointed.

The following year, President Reagan elevated Judge Milburn to the Sixth Circuit, and Judge Vining again stepped in to try cases on the Chattanooga docket until Judge Thomas H. Hull came on board.

During his years on the federal bench, Judge Vining has presided over several high-profile cases. In 1984, he ruled that the heirs of author Margaret Mitchell had

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sole rights to any sequel to the film based on her novel Gone with the Wind. In that case, the judge personally reviewed extensive correspondence of Mrs. Mitchell and her brothers dating to 1936 to determine that they had not granted sequel rights.225 That same year he presided over a jury trial in a libel action by Nobel laureate physicist William Shockley over an article published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. During the trial, Mr. Shockley told the jury that he brought the case as a matter of principle and that he was not seeking monetary damages. The jury, after finding in his favor, awarded him one dollar. In 1985, Judge Vining presided over a case involving media entrepreneur Ted Turner’s

jury trial of racketeering and conducting a continuing criminal enterprise involving narcotics and activities in Atlanta that was financed by organized crime families in Chicago and New York.

In 1982, in a major environmental ruling, Judge Vining held that the Georgia Department of Transportation had not conducted sufficient impact studies nor studied alternative routes and enjoined construction of the Highway 411 Connector, a part of the proposed Northern Arc of an Outer Perimeter highway across land owned by a prominent family.

The third jurist appointed in July 1979 was Judge G. Ernest Tidwell, a native Atlantan who received

failed effort to take over CBS Inc. In 1987, the judge sentenced Carl Coppola, founder of Atlanta’s Jilly’s Restaurant chain, to a fifty-five-year prison term following his conviction in a four-month

his law degree from Emory Law School in 1954. He Four new judges joined the Northern District bench in August 1979. Chief Judge Charles A. Moye Jr. is at center, flanked (L-R) by Judges Orinda Evans, Robert L. Vining Jr., Marvin H. Shoob, and G. Ernest Tidwell. Later that year, after this photo was taken, Judges Robert H. Hall and Horace T. Ward also took their oaths.

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was an associate general counsel for the State Bar of Georgia before joining the staff of the Georgia attorney general’s office. There he served as the executive assistant attorney general, the attorney general’s principal deputy. His judicial service began in 1968 when he was appointed to the Civil Court of Fulton County. In 1971, then governor Jimmy Carter appointed Judge Tidwell to the Superior Court of Fulton County, a position he held until President Carter appointed him to the Northern District in 1979. Judge Tidwell served as chief judge from 1996 until 1999, when he took senior status. He served as a senior judge until his death on August 4, 2011.226

prayers violated the separation of church and state.230 Upon Judge Shoob’s recusal in the sentencing of Banco Nationale del Lavoro (BNL) manager Christopher Dragoul, the case was assigned to Judge Tidwell, who sentenced him to thirty-seven months in federal prison. In pronouncing sentence, the judge said that Dragoul “was the author of his own misfortune” but also lambasted the prosecution for its “over-indictment” of the defendant, which originally contained 347 counts.

In addition to presiding over cases in Atlanta, Judge Tidwell was responsible for the Newnan Division from 1979 to the early 1990s.

In his thirty-two years on the Northern District bench, Judge Tidwell presided over a number of important cases. As the court was moving to its new quarters in late 1979, the judge held the first court hearing in the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and United States Courthouse. The hearing was in a patent infringement case involving the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, which would become one of the biggest fads of the 1980s. After a bench trial, Judge Tidwell found for Xavier Roberts, creator of the dolls, and awarded him damages as well as injunctive relief.227 The appeal of the case was the first intellectual property case heard by the newly created Eleventh Circuit in 1982.228 In 1984, Judge Tidwell presided over the Rosenthal case, which at the time was described by federal authorities as the largest cocaine smuggling ring in American history.229 At the beginning of the 1986 high school football season, the judge ended a custom steeped in southern tradition when he enjoined Douglas County High School from opening its home football games with a prayer. The judge’s order came in a lawsuit brought by a student and his parents who alleged that pregame

The First Woman and the First African American Join the Northern District Judge Orinda D. Evans, the Northern District’s first female judge, also has the distinction of being the youngest judge ever appointed to the court.231 Judge Evans received her undergraduate education from Duke University and her law degree from Emory University. After a brief stint with a firm specializing in employment law, she joined the litigation department at Alston, Miller and Gaines (later Alston and Bird), where she became the firm’s first woman partner.

Judge Evans served on the Committee on Security and Facilities of the Judicial Conference of the United States. From 1999 to 2006 she served as chief judge of the Northern District of Georgia.

In over thirty-four years on the federal bench, Judge Evans has presided over many highly publicized cases.

In her second year as a judge, after being given her own special showing of “Scarlett Fever,” a purported parody of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind,

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Judge Evans issued a preliminary injunction barring its performance.232 In a 1981 case involving interest rates charged borrowers, she sanctioned lawyers and a prominent Atlanta law firm for an improper campaign to convince bank customers not to take part in classaction litigation.233 In 1994, Judge Evans sentenced former Fulton County assistant district attorney Frederic Tokars to concurrent life sentences for money laundering and racketeering charges that included the murder-for-hire of his wife, Sara. The sentencing followed a six-week jury trial, which the judge conducted in Birmingham, Alabama, due to pretrial publicity in Atlanta.234

the admission of expert testimony was reversed by the Eleventh Circuit only to be reinstated by the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court’s opinion in the case is the middle case in the Daubert trilogy— the three cases that set forth the legal standards for the admission of expert testimony in federal court.235 In 2008–2009, she sentenced eleven defendants of The Black Mafia Family, a violent drug trafficking gang that originated in Detroit and established a hub in Atlanta. The group had distributed thousands of kilograms of cocaine and laundered millions of dollars.236 A recent decision of Judge Evans has been

Judge Evans’ decision in a case in which she addressed

heralded as “a landmark decision on the nature of The court’s first African American judge, Horace T. Ward (back far right), and its first woman judge, Orinda D. Evans (back row second from right), are shown with the remaining members of the Northern District bench in this 1982 photo.

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on November 1, the president nominated Fulton Superior Court judge Horace T. Ward for the second slot.

Judge Hall, a native of Soperton, Georgia, received his undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia and his law degree from the University of Virginia. Judge Hall was confirmed by the Senate on October 31 and took his oath on November 27, 1979. Prior to his selection for a federal judgeship, the judge was a law professor at Emory University, served as an assistant attorney general for the state of Georgia for eight years, and was on the Georgia Court of Appeals for thirteen years before his five years’ service on the Georgia Supreme Court. The judge, often described as erudite, was involved with and served as an officer in several national judicial improvement organizations. Judge Hall served as an officer in the United States Army during World War II and was in the Army Reserve until 1961, when he retired as a colonel.239 During his sixteen years on the court, Judge Hall had numerous noteworthy cases. For two years in a row, 1987 and 1988, Judge Hall struck down Georgia laws that required minors to notify their parents before having an abortion. The judge held that the verification procedures were unconstitutionally burdensome and failed to provide an alternative means to verify that parental notification had been done.240 Also in 1988, Judge Hall ruled that the three major national television networks could do exit polling at polling places during the Super Tuesday primary

The Lewis R. Morgan Federal Building and United States Courthouse at 18 Greenville Street has been the site of the Northern District’s Newnan Division since its opening in 1968. In 1999, the building was named for the late Judge Morgan.

copyright law in the digital age.” The principal issue was whether Georgia State University officials violated copyright law by allowing its professors to provide students with free electronic access to selected portions of certain academic books published by defendants. In a 350-page opinion, Judge Evans ruled in favor of university officials on nearly all the copyright infringement claims brought by three textbook publishers. Both the plaintiffs and defendants in the case agree that her ruling has very broad implications for issues of copyright in the context of higher education.237 In the fall of 1979, President Carter filled the two remaining Northern District judgeships. On September 28 he nominated Justice Robert H. Hall of the Georgia Supreme Court to fill one of the new seats,238 and

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election, and enjoined enforcement of a Georgia statute that prohibited contact with voters within 250 feet of a building in which a polling place was located. The judge held that the statute was overly broad since it prohibited exit polling no matter how unobtrusive or nondisruptive.241 In a 1992 ruling, Judge Hall declined to halt certification of the results of a runoff election in which Republican challenger Paul Coverdell unseated Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler Jr. The plaintiffs had alleged that the 1966 Georgia law—the only one of its kind in the country requiring a candidate to receive more than 50 percent of the vote to win, as opposed

to admit him in a case filed in the Northern District of Georgia.244 In 1959, as a member of a team of renowned civil rights lawyers, Judge Ward helped desegregate the University of Georgia.245 The judge took senior status on December 31, 1993, and retired from the bench on September 1, 2012. On the occasion of his retirement, Chief Judge Julie Carnes said of Judge Ward, “Having been treated with hostility by many lawyers and judges as he was trying to make his way in the world, he could have become bitter and responded in kind once he enjoyed power. He never did so. He treated all with whom he came into contact— litigants, lawyers, and colleagues—with kindness,

to a plurality—violated the United States Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act.242 Judge Hall took senior status on December 31, 1990.

He continued to handle a caseload during his service as a senior judge until he began to lose his battle with a physically debilitating illness. Judge Hall died on October 14, 1995.

Judge Horace T. Ward, the court’s first African American judge, was confirmed by the Senate on December 5, 1979, and sworn in on December 27, 1979. A native of LaGrange, Georgia, he received his undergraduate degree from Morehouse College, his master’s degree from Atlanta University, and his law degree from Northwestern University. Judge Ward was the second African American to be elected to the Georgia State Senate and the first African American to become a superior court judge in Georgia when he was appointed to the Fulton Superior Court. He also served on the State Court of Fulton County.

Judge Ward was a trailblazer in the civil rights movement, beginning in 1950 when he applied for admission to the University of Georgia Law School and was rejected.243 He challenged the school’s refusal

charity, and patience. Through his graciousness and decency, he has quietly imparted the power of good will and civility. We in the Northern District have been privileged to serve with him.”246 The case with which Judge Ward’s name is most associated is the Jan Kemp case. The case was brought against top officials of the University of Georgia by a professor in its development studies program who alleged that her dismissal came about due to her speaking out about athletes being given preferential treatment. After a five-week trial, a six-person jury awarded Ms. Kemp $2.6 million, which Judge Ward reduced to $680,000, explaining that “the reach and coverage of the award far outdistanced the aim and purpose.” In May 1986, the case was settled for $1.08 million and the university’s agreement to reinstate Ms. Kemp.247 In 1981, Judge Ward ruled for the plaintiffs after a four-week bench trial in a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of mentally challenged children against state education officials. He ruled that state and local school officials have an obligation to provide individual attention and

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services to those children beyond the traditional 180-day school year.248 At about the same time that case was coming to a close, President Ronald Reagan, on November 24, 1981, nominated J. Owen Forrester to fill the vacancy created by Judge Edenfield’s taking senior status.

Judge Forrester had been serving as a United States Magistrate for the Northern District since 1976.249 The Senate confirmed his appointment on December 9, and he took his oath of office on January 4, 1982.

Judge Forrester, a Columbus native, is from a family deeply rooted in the political affairs of Lee County in Southwest Georgia, and one that included

which issued a landmark opinion.252 The case has been noted by legal scholars.253 In 1987, Judge Forrester sentenced a California businessman to fifteen years in federal prison and fined him $6.6 million after his conviction for violating federal export laws in the sale of two C-130 military transport airplanes to Libyan businessmen in Germany, who were undercover agents of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. After passing sentence Judge Forrester commented that he wished the sentence could be “chiseled in stone with the name of every person who has died as a result of Libyan terrorism.”254 Judge Forrester presided over the 2002 trial of

a United States congressman.250 He received his undergraduate education from Georgia Tech and his legal education at the Emory School of Law. The judge served as an assistant United States attorney for several years and headed one of the first drug enforcement task forces in the Southeast prior to becoming a federal magistrate.

The judge was one of the judiciary’s earliest advocates of automating chambers, connecting courts by computer networks, and electronic case filing. He served on the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on Automation and Technology for seven years (1990–1997)251 and was its second chair (1994–1997).

Judge Forrester’s numerous cases include the federal habeas corpus of Georgia death row inmate Warren McCleskey, an African American sentenced to death for the murder of white Atlanta police officer Frank Schlatt. McCleskey alleged that Georgia’s capital sentencing process was racially discriminatory. Judge Forrester granted his habeas petition but ruled that Georgia’s death sentence was not unconstitutional.

The case reached the United States Supreme Court,

two men who were convicted by a jury in the first prosecution in the United States under the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act for human trafficking (“pimping”)—the prostituting of juvenile females as young as twelve years old. The defendants were given prison sentences of thirty and forty years.255 Judge Forrester took senior status on April 27, 2004 and died on July 1, 2014.

The Northern District’s Docket Goes Online Since the mid-1970s, the Northern District has been at the forefront of federal courts nationally with the automation of its court records. In 1987, the second mainframe computer to be locally housed on-site in a United States District Court was installed in the Northern District of Georgia to support the court’s participation in the development of electronic case docketing in civil and criminal cases.

In late April 1989, the Northern District of Geor-

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gia became the second federal district court in the United States to make its civil case dockets available online at almost any time of day to anyone with a computer and a modem.256 Such access to information is commonplace today, but in 1989

The Northern District’s Rome Division has been housed in that city’s Federal Building on East 1st Street since the building was completed in 1974.

it was a significant milestone for the court, its bar, and the public. Until that time, the court’s civil dockets had been available only to those who visited the public area of the clerk’s office in the Atlanta, Rome, Gainesville, or Newnan courthouses during regular office hours.

This expanded access was made possible by the court’s participation as one of four courts nationally in a Federal Judicial Center pilot program known as PACER—Public Access to Court Electronic Records. Following successful testing in Atlanta and other locations, the PACER program was nationally implemented in all ninety-four federal districts and was one of the intermediate steps that would lead to the Northern District’s implementation of electronic case filing in 2004. Today, the addition of electronic appeals has completed the process so that a case is fully electronic from filing through appeal.

As electronic access was being ushered in, Congress passed the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990, which included the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990

(CJRA).257 The CJRA required each federal district court to implement a civil justice expense and delay reduction plan under the direction of an advisory group “composed of those who must live with the civil justice system on a regular basis.” In addition, the CJRA directed the Judicial Conference of the United States to designate ten district courts to serve as pilot districts for a four-year period. The Northern District of Georgia was included as one of these ten pilot districts.

In March 1991, Chief Judge O’Kelley appointed an eighteen-member advisory group for the Northern District consisting of representatives from major litigants in the district—civil rights organizations, labor groups, airlines, the carpet and poultry industries, banking, and insurance. Over the four-year term of the CJRA pilot, considerable court resources were devoted to complying with its provisions.258

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Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr. at his investiture ceremony on December 1, 1999, with wife, Kate, and daughter, Dr. Ruth Pannell Crider.

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CHAPTER EIGHT |

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Senior Judges and a New Generation of Judges The position of senior judge was created by Congress in 1948. In establishing the position, Congress provided those judges who qualify with the ability to continue hearing cases but with fewer cases should they choose to do so as opposed to completely retiring from judicial service. Until a few years ago, those Northern District judges who took senior status had health issues that prevented or inhibited their ability to continue to handle a substantial caseload.

Beginning in about 1988, a new era commenced in the Northern District. Many judges who elected to take senior status decided to handle substantial caseloads.

The court benefited because senior judges would continue working, and the president would appoint new active judges to the court. Over the next several years, many of the court’s judges would meet the senior judge requirements—having reached their sixty-fifth birthday and a minimum of fifteen years of service.

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The rule for senior status requires that a judge be at least sixty-five years of age with a combination of years of service and age equal to eighty—“The Rule of Eighty.”

The many contributions made by the Northern District’s senior judges over the last twenty years cannot be overemphasized. Several of the senior judges have carried as much as 80 percent of the caseload of an active judge, and some have served as senior judges for over twenty years. Their work has allowed the court to keep pace with its workload—which has increased in terms of both volume and complexity. The first of these judges, Judge Moye, notified President Reagan in

31, 2008. He served as a senior judge from January 1, 2009, until his retirement from the bench on November 19, 2010.

Another bench spot opened a little more than three years later when Judge Hall took senior status; and Julie E. Carnes was nominated on August 1, 1991, by President George H. W. Bush. A native Atlantan, Judge Carnes received her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Georgia, and then clerked for the Honorable Lewis R. Morgan, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. At the time of her nomination, Judge Carnes was serving as one of seven presidentially appointed commissioners of the United

the fall of 1987 that he would take senior status at the end of the year or upon the selection of a replacement active judge, whichever came first.

While a handful of judges were beginning their senior status, a new generation of judges was coming on board in the Northern District. On December 18, 1987, President Reagan nominated Jack T. Camp, a Newnan lawyer, to fill the vacancy created by Judge Moye’s taking senior status.259 The Senate confirmed the appointment on April 19, 1988, and Judge Camp took his oath of office on May 27, 1988.

Judge Camp received his undergraduate education at the Citadel and received a master’s degree from the University of Virginia. He served in the United States Army in Vietnam as an infantry lieutenant and military intelligence officer. After this service, he attended law school at the University of Virginia. He was in private practice in Birmingham, Alabama, and then in Newnan, Georgia, prior to joining the court.

Judge Camp presided over cases in the Atlanta and Newnan Divisions. He served as the court’s chief judge from September 2006 through December

States Sentencing Commission. A career prosecutor prior to her Commission service, Judge Carnes had been an assistant United States attorney for twelve years in the Northern District of Georgia, including service as the appellate chief of the Criminal Division and five months assigned as special counsel to the Sentencing Commission in Washington, DC. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 6, 1992, and sworn in as a district judge on May 29, 1992. In 2005, then chief justice William Rehnquist selected Judge Carnes to serve on the Criminal Law Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, whose work concerns federal sentencing practices and oversight of the federal probation system. In 2007, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed her as the committee’s chair, a position she occupied until her term expired in 2010. While committee chair, she appeared before a congressional committee in 2009 to provide the judicial branch’s perspective concerning mandatory-minimum sentences.

Her father, the late Judge Charles Carnes, served on the State Court of Fulton County and was its chief judge for seventeen years.260 Judge Julie Carnes

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has been the chief judge of the Northern District of Georgia since January 1, 2009.261 In twenty-one years on the bench, Judge Carnes has presided over a number of noteworthy cases including a federal civil rights criminal prosecution in which she sentenced veteran Atlanta police narcotics officers to prison terms for conspiring to destroy evidence and cover up a botched and unfounded no-knock raid in which a ninety-two-year-old woman was killed.262 In a ruling that received considerable national media attention, Judge Carnes issued a ninetythree-page order in a defamation case against John and Patsy Ramsey, finding, on the record before

had murdered their six-year-old child, JonBenét.263 Judge Carnes also served on the three-judge court that declared some of the Georgia Legislature’s reapportioned legislative districts from the 1990 census to be unconstitutionally drawn. She and the other members of the court redrew the affected districts.264 A class-action antitrust case over which she presided resulted in one of the highest antitrust settlements in the state of Georgia.265 In 2013, in recognition of Judge Carnes’s many accomplishments and contributions to the legal community, the University of Georgia School of Law added her portrait to its collection of distinguished graduates.

By the end of 1991, two more Northern District

her, the absence of persuasive evidence to support the civil plaintiff ’s argument that the Ramseys

Judge Julie E. Carnes (back left) joins her colleagues on the Northern District bench in May 1992.

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judges had taken senior status, which allowed the appointment of two new active judges. Judge Marvin Shoob had taken senior status on September 30, and Judge Richard C. Freeman on December 31. In June 1992, President George H. W. Bush nominated United States Magistrate Judge C. Christopher Hagy to succeed Judge Shoob.266 With the 1992 presidential election only a few months away, the Hagy nomination was one of fifty-three judicial appointments that were returned without action by the Democratic-controlled Senate at the end of the 102nd Congress.267 In November, President Bush was defeated, and Magistrate Judge Hagy was not renominated as a result of the change in

In early August 1993, Senator Sam Nunn announced that he would recommend Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Clarence Cooper to succeed Judge Freeman, and Fulton Superior Court Judge Frank M. Hull to succeed Judge Shoob.268 President William J. Clinton nominated Judge Hull on February 9, 1994 and Judge Cooper on March 9, 1994. The Senate confirmed the two judges on May 6, 1994.

Judge Frank Hull received her undergraduate education from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (now Randolph College) and graduated cum laude from Emory Law School. In 1973, she began her legal career as one of the first female law clerks on the United States

administrations.

Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and was the first woman to clerk for the Honorable Elbert P. Tuttle, longtime United States circuit judge. Following her clerkship, she was an Atlanta trial attorney from 1974

Senior Judge Charles A. Moye and the other six living Northern District chief judges celebrating his ninetieth birthday in 2009. (L-R Judges Moye, Evans, Carnes, Vining, Tidwell, O’Kelley, and Camp.)

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to 1984 with Powell, Goldstein, Frazer and Murphy. In 1980, she became that firm’s first female partner.

In 1984, Governor Joe Frank Harris appointed her to the State Court of Fulton County, where she served six years before he elevated her to the Fulton County Superior Court bench in 1990, the busiest court of general jurisdiction in Georgia.

On February 9, 1994, President Clinton nominated Judge Hull to fill the seat vacated when Judge Marvin Shoob assumed senior status. Because of her credentials and bipartisan support, Judge Hull was confirmed by the Senate on May 6, 1994. She received her commission on May 9, 1994, and was

challenged the United States Forest Service’s decision to allow timber cutting in the Chattahoochee and Oconee National Forests. Upholding Judge Hull’s ruling at the preliminary injunction stage, the Eleventh Circuit determined the Forest Service’s “decision to approve the timber sales without considering the population data on endangered species was arbitrary and capricious.”273 On June 18, 1997, President Clinton nominated Judge Hull for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In less than three months, she was confirmed by a unanimous Senate vote of 96-0 on September 4, 1997. She began her duties on the

sworn in to the district court on May 13, 1994.269 In a 1995 case that received national attention, Judge Hull denied a teacher’s motion for an injunction and upheld the constitutionality of Georgia’s newly enacted “Moment of Quiet Reflection in Schools Act.” Judge Hull held that the law met the Supreme Court’s three-part Lemon v. Kurtzman test and did not violate the Constitution’s establishment clause.270 Her decision was affirmed by the Eleventh Circuit in 1997, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari in 2001.271 Judge Hull also presided over many large drug conspiracy and money laundering trials, including a six-week trial of six defendants in an international heroin trafficking case.

In 1995, Judge Hull imposed what was at the time the most severe sentence in the Northern District for Medicaid fraud. Judge Hull sentenced Bernard Gates to seventy months’ imprisonment and fined him over six hundred thousand dollars for acts defrauding the government, including transporting patients in his Corvette and charging as if they were stretcher-bound patients transported by ambulance.272 In Sierra Club v. Martin, environmental groups

appellate court on October 2, 1997.

Senator Nunn’s other recommendation in 1993 was Judge Clarence Cooper. Cooper’s path to the federal judiciary was not an easy one, as noted in a 1994 Atlanta Journal-Constitution profile: “Hard work brought Judge Clarence Cooper from a Decatur housing project to the bench of the United States District Court.”274 After receiving his undergraduate education at Clark College, he received his law degree from Emory Law School. Judge Cooper also received a master’s in public administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Shortly after beginning his legal career, he was drafted into the United States Army and served a tour of duty in Vietnam.

Judge Cooper and former Fulton Superior Court Judge Marvin S. Arrington Sr. were the first to integrate the Emory Law School’s day classes and graduated in the first class that included African Americans. Judge Cooper was also the first African American attorney hired by the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, the first African American assistant district attorney for Fulton County, Atlanta’s first full-time African American municipal

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court judge, and the first African American elected to a countywide judgeship on the Superior Court of Fulton County. Judge Cooper was also the first African American to sit as a visiting judge on the Georgia Supreme Court.275 Judge Cooper was thrust into the national spotlight as the presiding superior court judge in the Wayne Williams “Atlanta’s missing and murdered children” case. From 1990 to 1994, Judge Cooper served as a judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals.

Judge Cooper’s notable Northern District cases include a twenty-six-defendant case of an Amerasian street gang that preyed on Asian merchants. Charges

the president nominated Chief Justice Hunt, and on March 24 the Senate confirmed his nomination. Judge Hunt took his oath as a United States district judge on June 30, 1995.

Prior to his nomination to the federal bench, Judge Hunt had served fifteen years as a judge on the Houston County Superior Court in Perry, Georgia. He was initially appointed and then elected to the Georgia Supreme Court in 1986 and became its chief justice in March 1994. The judge attended Emory University as an undergraduate and received a law degree from its law school. He also earned an LLM degree from the University of Virginia Law School in 1990. He served

included multiple murders, attempted murders, kidnappings, and extortion. The jury deliberated eight weeks before convicting seven of ten defendants.276 In 2005, the judge enjoined the Cobb County School District from placing stickers in public school biology textbooks that said, “Evolution is a theory, not a fact, concerning the origin of living things.” Although the Eleventh Circuit overturned the decision and ordered a new evidentiary inquiry and findings, the case was settled in favor of the plaintiffs.277 In 2012, in one of only four federal death penalty cases ever tried in the Northern District,278 Judge Cooper sentenced Brian Richardson to an additional term of life without parole after a jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on the death penalty for the killing of his cellmate at the Atlanta federal penitentiary.279 In 1993, Judge Horace T. Ward had notified President Clinton he would take senior status effective December 31 of that year, and so in late July 1994 Senator Nunn recommended to President Clinton that he appoint the chief justice of Georgia’s Supreme Court, Willis B. Hunt Jr., to fill the Ward vacancy. On January 23, 1995,

two years in the United States Army in Germany and was a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for three years prior to going into the private practice of law in 1960.280 In his eighteen years on the Northern District bench, Judge Hunt has had a number of very high-profile cases. The one attracting the most media interest was the 2001 criminal trial of Steven E. Kaplan, owner of the Gold Club, an upscale Atlanta exotic dancing club.

Kaplan and fourteen other defendants were charged with using the club as a base of operations for money laundering, loansharking, interstate transportation in connection with prostitution, bribing Atlanta police officers, credit card fraud against club patrons, and other violations under the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. A four-month trial ended in late July 2001, when Kaplan pled guilty, received a prison sentence, and was ordered to pay $5 million and make restitution to patrons whose credit cards had been overcharged.

During the trial, there were allegations of organized crime connections in New York.281 Another case was a securities fraud class action

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brought against Coca-Cola, which alleged that the beverage giant had conducted channel stuffing, which is a form of artificially inflating its revenue figures to boost stock prices. After several years of contentious litigation, the case was settled in 2008 for $137.5 million.282 In 1996, Judge Hunt presided over an employment discrimination case involving twenty Fulton County Sheriff ’s deputies, charging that they had been denied promotions because of their race and had suffered other adverse employment actions.

The case, Alexander v. Fulton County, lasted about six weeks and resulted in a large financial award for the deputies.283 Fulton County eventually settled this case

district attorney in Fulton County, he returned to the private practice of law until his appointment to the Northern District bench.

In his sixteen years on the bench, Judge Thrash has presided over complex cases, including the city of Atlanta and its water and sewer systems. He issued a summary judgment against the city in 1997 and entered consent decrees in 1998 and 1999 resolving complex multiparty litigation over the city’s violation of the Federal Clean Water Act. The decrees require Atlanta to meet certain deadlines to bring its sewer system into compliance with federal environmental laws. Judge Thrash retains jurisdiction over the case and continues

and several remaining co-cases.

In what was to be his last recommendation for the federal bench, Senator Nunn sent the name of Thomas W. Thrash Jr. to President Clinton. The post was to replace Chief Judge Vining, who had decided to step down as an active judge on March 31, 1996. The month prior, Nunn recommended to the president that he appoint Judge Thrash, an experienced litigator, to fill that vacancy. Judge Thrash was first nominated by the president in May 1996 and was accorded a hearing, but the 104th Congress adjourned without taking action on a number of judicial appointments, including Judge Thrash’s. President Clinton renominated Judge Thrash on the first day of the new session, January 7, 1997.

He was required to have a second confirmation hearing and went through much of the process again before being confirmed by the Senate on July 31, 1997. The judge took his oath as a United States district judge on August 15, 1997.284 Judge Thrash, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, received his undergraduate education at the University of Virginia and his legal education at Harvard Law School. After serving as an assistant

to monitor compliance.285 In 2007, Judge Thrash presided over one of the largest mortgage fraud cases ever filed in the Northern District. The case involved Phillip E. Hill Sr., who owned over a dozen Atlanta real estate holding companies, and eighteen other defendants who had been indicted for bank fraud in 2005 for a massive scheme involving real estate agents, appraisers, closing attorneys, and bank officers.286 A more recent high-profile case was the challenge to Georgia’s 2011 immigration law. Shortly after its enactment, Judge Thrash issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of certain of its provisions, including part of the law that allowed law enforcement to check the immigration status of persons apprehended for other reasons. Although reversed by the Eleventh Circuit following a Supreme Court decision in a case involving a similar Arizona law, Judge Thrash’s injunction remains in effect for the provision of the law making it a criminal offense in Georgia to harbor or transport aliens.287 From 2001 through 2008, Judge Thrash served on the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee

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on Rules of Practice and Procedure, significantly participating in the first major rewrite of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in seventy years.

Judge William C. O’Kelley notified President Clinton that he would take senior status on October 1, 1996. On June 2, 1997, Senator Max Cleland recommended to the president that he appoint Northeastern Circuit Chief Superior Court Judge Richard W. Story of Gainesville to fill the the vacancy.288 Judge Story was formally nominated by the president on September 15, 1997, confirmed by the Senate on January 28, 1998, and sworn in on February 10, 1998.

Judge Story, a native of Harlem, Georgia, received his

Commissioners meetings and the county’s planning commission sessions did not violate the establishment clause of the United States Constitution or show an official preference for one sect or creed to the exclusion of others. While awarding nominal damages for past discriminatory practices that had not ceased, he upheld the policy of nonsectarian invocations for opening sessions.291 In 2006, after a two-month trial in which former Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell was convicted of three counts of tax evasion, Judge Story sentenced him to thirty months in federal prison.292 Judge Story has achieved a couple of judicial firsts.

undergraduate education at LaGrange College and his law degree from the University of Georgia. He was in private practice in Gainesville and also served as a juvenile court judge prior to becoming a superior court judge in the Northeastern Circuit.

During his tenure on the Northern District bench, Judge Story has presided over a number of cases that received national and international coverage such as the 1998 class-action race discrimination case brought

by African American employees of The Coca-Cola Company. The 2001 settlement of the case was the largest racial discrimination settlement in United States history. In addition to the payment of $192.5 million, the settlement created a seven-member task force overseeing compliance.289 Judge Story was a member of the 2003 United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit panel that affirmed the order requiring Alabama’s chief justice to remove a two-ton Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama courthouse.290 In a 2006 ruling, Judge Story held that inviting ministers from a rotational list to give an invocation at the opening of the Cobb County Board of

In the fall of 2000, he presided over a multidefendant criminal trial that was severed into two trials but were tried simultaneously in the same courtroom before two juries.293 In the spring of 2007, Judge Story became the first Northern District judge known to have performed in a play while serving on the bench when he played to full houses as Atticus Finch in the Holly Theater Company production of To Kill a Mockingbird in Dahlonega, Georgia.

In the fall of 1997, another vacancy was created on the Northern District bench when President Clinton elevated United States District Judge Frank M. Hull to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. On April 21, 1999, Senator Max Cleland sent the name of Conasauga Circuit Superior Court Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr., of North Georgia’s Murray County, to President Clinton as his recommendation to replace Judge Hull. The president formally nominated Judge Pannell on July 18, and he was confirmed by the Senate on October 15. The judge took his oath of office on December 1, 1999.

Judge Pannell received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Georgia and served

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Deputy clerk Vicki Dougherty handling a telephone inquiry in the Gainesville divisional office.

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as a superior court judge for twenty years. Prior to his service on the superior court, he served as the Conasauga Judicial Circuit’s district attorney from 1977 to 1979.294 Early in his career, he was an assistant United States attorney in the Northern District. He served for twenty-nine years in the United States Army Reserve, with his last assignment as a military judge at the rank of colonel. The Pannells were recognized as a legacy family for three generations of attorneys by the State Bar of Georgia in 2008. The judge’s father served on the Georgia Court of Appeals.

Cases presided by Judge Pannell during his fourteen years on the Northern District bench that received

century and commented that the ruling recognized the sophisticated computer technology that makes the drawing of boundary lines much more accurate.298 After rejecting a settlement agreement in 2009 between the state of Georgia and the United States Department of Justice (which had filed a lawsuit over unsafe conditions in state psychiatric hospitals), Judge Pannell set the wheels in motion for a complete overhaul of Georgia’s mental health system, including the state providing more community-based facilities.299 This revamp of the system was included in a settlement he approved in 2010.300 Judge Pannell took senior status on January 31, 2013.

national or global media attention included the criminal case against serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph, who pled guilty to bombings in 1996 of Atlanta’s Centennial Park during the Olympic Games as well as an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub. The judge sentenced Rudolph to four consecutive life sentences plus other sentences totaling 120 years.295 In 2001, he enjoined the publication of an unauthorized sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s novel, Gone with the Wind.296 The case was later reversed by the appellate court, which found the new book to be a parody for purposes of the fair-use exception to the copyright law.

Judge Pannell was the initiating judge of the threejudge court that reapportioned the Georgia General Assembly in 2004. The three-judge court, assisted by a special master, produced a map, which made the legislative districts much more compact, eliminated partisan gerrymandering, and had a population deviation of less than 1 percent.297 A longtime observer of political events in Georgia described the ruling and its maps as a Reynolds v. Sims (referring to the 1964 landmark Supreme Court case) for the twenty-first

In the summer of 1999, Chief Judge G. Ernest Tidwell notified President Clinton that he would take senior status on October 8, 1999. Judge Tidwell relinquished the chief judgeship on August 31, 1999, and was succeeded in that position by Judge Orinda D. Evans.

In February 2000, Senator Max Cleland announced that he was recommending Beverly B. Martin, then the United States attorney for Georgia’s Middle District, to President Clinton, to fill the vacancy created when Judge Tidwell took senior status. On March 27, the president followed the senator’s recommendation and formally nominated Judge Martin. She was confirmed by the Senate on June 16. The judge took her oath of office on August 4, 2000.

Judge Martin is a fourth-generation attorney from Macon. Prior to becoming a federal district judge, she practiced in the public and private sectors. Entering private practice immediately after graduation, she moved to the public sector, serving as a Georgia assistant attorney general for ten years. She returned to her hometown in 1994 to be an assistant

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United States attorney in the Middle District. Upon Senator Cleland’s recommendation she received the presidential appointment as the United States attorney for Middle Georgia, a position in which she served from 1997 to 2000.301 In June 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Judge Martin to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She was confirmed by unanimous vote of the Senate on January 20, 2010, and took her oath as an appellate judge on February 1, 2010.

In late October 2003, United States Senator Saxby Chambliss announced he was sending the names of

service in 2001 when he was selected by the president to become the United States attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and he remained in that position until he joined the court.

Judge Duffey presided over a 2009 lawsuit brought by the family of a United States Army officer who had been killed in Iraq when his Humvee had been run over by a tractor-trailer owned by a Kuwaiti fuel-transport firm, which the family had sued. Judge Duffey ruled that the case properly belonged in Kuwaiti courts. The judge’s decision was based on the fact that although the firm had United States government contracts, it was operating under a United Nations contract at the time

three candidates to the president for the vacancy created when Judge J. Owen Forrester assumed senior status.

On November 5, President George W. Bush nominated William S. Duffey Jr., the United States attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, to fill the vacancy. Judge Duffey was confirmed by the Senate on June 16, 2004, and sworn in on July 1, 2004.302 Judge Duffey received his undergraduate education at Drake University and his law degree cum laude from the University of South Carolina. His legal experience before joining the Northern District bench included success in the public and private sectors. Following graduation and a period of private practice, Judge Duffey accepted a commission and served three years as an officer in the United States Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps. After his military service, Judge Duffey returned to private practice as an associate with King & Spalding in Atlanta, becoming a partner before leaving the firm in 1994. While at King & Spalding, Judge Duffey was also selected to serve as an associate and deputy independent counsel in the Office of the Independent Counsel for the Whitewater investigation.303 Judge Duffey returned to public

of the accident. His ruling overturned a $4.9 million default judgment previously entered in the case.304 In a highly publicized case in 2009, Judge Duffey sentenced two men, one a former Georgia Tech student, to seventeen and thirteen years in federal prison after they had been convicted of supporting terrorists and a foreign terrorist organization.305 In a 2010 race discrimination case against DeKalb County, defense lawyers filed fourteen motions for summary judgment and more than fifty discovery pleadings, and attempted to have the Supreme Court review the case before trial. Judge Duffey awarded plaintiff ’s counsel $1.9 million in legal fees and expenses. The jury awarded the two plaintiffs a total of $190,000.306 In another notable case in 2012, Judge Duffey sentenced a Ponzi scheme operator convicted of defrauding 160 Atlanta-area residents to 27 years’ imprisonment. The investors, many of whom were retirees, lost a total of $12 million, in some cases their entire life savings. The sentence was reported at the time to be the longest term of imprisonment ever given in the Northern District for investment fraud.

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The Federal Rules Decisions series by West Publishing Co. publishes decisions of the United States district courts involving the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, and Federal Rules of Evidence that are not published in the Federal Supplement.

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The defendant in the case will be eighty-nine years old at the conclusion of his sentence.307

e-mails and documents were discovered in an unrelated Department of Justice investigation.310 In a more recent 2013 high-profile case, Judge Batten issued an eighty-one-page order granting summary judgment to the plaintiffs in a voting rights case brought by the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP against the Board of Commissioners and the Board of Education in Fayette County. The members of both boards historically had been elected in at-large countywide elections as opposed to individual district elections. The judge held that Fayette County’s system violated provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting the vote of its African American citizens.

In the fall of 2004, Judge Willis B. Hunt advised the president that he would be stepping down as an active judge and would become a senior judge on June 30 of the following year. Georgia’s two Republican senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, established a screening panel to review applications. The two senators forwarded names to the White House, and on September 28, 2005, President Bush nominated Timothy C. Batten Sr., an Atlanta trial lawyer. The Senate unanimously confirmed Judge Batten on March 6, 2006, and he took his oath as a judge on April 3, 2006.308 Judge Batten, a fifth-generation Atlantan, received his undergraduate degree from Georgia Tech and his law degree from the University of Georgia, and practiced law with Schreeder, Wheeler & Flint after being admitted to the bar in 1984.

Among Judge Batten’s more significant cases is one in which he granted summary judgment to a Georgia computer store owner against retailer WalMart in an action involving trademark infringement over T-shirts and other items with images that parodied America’s largest corporation. The judge found that the T-shirts were produced to protest against Wal-Mart and were not intended to make money or compete against the retailer.309 In another case in 2012, Judge Batten imposed sanctions over discovery against Delta Air Lines Inc. and AirTran Airways Inc. in a class-action multidistrict litigation alleging that the two air carriers had conspired to fix baggage fees. The judge held that Delta had not conducted a reasonable search for documents in response to a discovery request. Later, sixty thousand pages of potentially highly relevant

He ordered the plaintiffs and the defendants to submit remedial plans for the election of members of both boards in individual districts.311 Judge Batten presides over cases in the Newnan Division and also hears cases in Atlanta.

A New President Makes His First NDGA Picks A short time after the 2008 presidential election, then chief judge Jack T. Camp and former chief judge Orinda D. Evans both notified President George W. Bush that they would become senior judges at the end of 2008. An advisory committee screened applications for the vacant judgeships and made recommendations to Georgia’s Democratic congressional delegation. On January 5, 2011, President Obama nominated Amy Totenberg, a veteran Atlanta litigator, to fill Judge Camp’s vacancy and Western Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Steve C. Jones, of Athens, to fill Judge Evans’s vacancy. The state’s two Republican United States senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson,

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supported the nominations. The two nominees were confirmed by the Senate on February 28, 2011, and took their oaths on March 4 as the Northern District’s newest judges.312 Judge Totenberg received her undergraduate degree from Harvard-Radcliffe College and her law degree from Harvard Law School before embarking on a thirty-year career in public interest law, specializing in constitutional and civil rights, education, and employment law across the state of Georgia. She served as the first general counsel of the Atlanta Public Schools. Additionally, in the period from 2000 to 2010, she served as a court-appointed

the Shelf. She found that despite similarities between the two works, the parody’s for-parents’-eyes-only version was a fair use and was not likely to create substantial consumer confusion in light of the marked differences in the two works.315 In a personal injury / product liability action arising out of a defective tire that came apart, causing the plaintiff ’s vehicle to overturn and leaving him a quadriplegic, Judge Totenberg concluded that the tire company had engaged in a pattern of subterfuge in withholding documents and had violated the court’s prior discovery orders. As a result, the judge sanctioned the tire company.316 In an Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) case, for wrongful termination of disability benefits, Judge Totenberg ordered MetLife to reinstate benefits to the plaintiff, who had been diagnosed with early-onset dementia. The judge concluded that MetLife had arbitrarily and erroneously terminated the plaintiff ’s benefits based on secondhand opinions of independent consultants.317 At his formal investiture ceremony on May 19, 2011, Judge Steve C. Jones’s commission from President Obama was presented to him by his longtime friend United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.318 Judge Jones, who received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Georgia, served as an assistant district attorney in the Western Circuit and as a judge on the Athens Clarke County Municipal Court prior to his fifteen years of service on the superior court bench.

Judge Jones’s notable rulings include his denial of a stay of execution to Georgia inmate Andrew DeYoung in 2011. DeYoung had claimed that the state’s method of execution violated the Eighth Amendment’s

special master, monitor, and mediator for the United States District Courts in Baltimore, Maryland, and for Washington, DC, in complex class-action cases involving education and the rights of students with disabilities. Judge Totenberg maintained an active arbitration and mediation practice during this time as well. Judge Totenberg taught as an adjunct professor at Emory Law School from 2004 to 2007.313 In her three years on the federal bench, Judge Totenberg has been involved in several noteworthy cases including cases with challenging legal issues raised by the foreclosure crisis in Georgia and nationally. She has arranged for pro bono mediation in a number of individual foreclosure cases. She presided over a large qui tam action brought by whistleblowers who alleged ten banks had illegally charged military veterans hidden fees on government-backed refinanced home loans. Multiple banks settled and agreed to pay $161.7 million prior to her allowing the case to proceed.314 In a case alleging copyright infringement by the publisher of the popular holiday children’s book The Elf on the Shelf, Judge Totenberg denied the publisher’s motion to enjoin publication of a parody, The Elf off

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prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s right to equal protection.

The judge found that DeYoung’s claims accrued in 2001 when Georgia adopted lethal injection as its method of execution, that the substitution of pentobarbital for sodium thiopental did not cause a significant alteration to the protocol that would reset the limitations period, and that DeYoung’s two-year limitations period had expired eight years before he filed his challenge. In denying the temporary restraining order and request for a stay, Judge Jones found that DeYoung had failed to prove both his claims, stating, “He has no likelihood of success on the merits.”319

him commendation from both the plaintiff and all five members of the commission. District lines for county commissions and other electoral jurisdictions that have experienced substantial growth are usually redrawn every twenty years to reflect population changes in keeping with “one man, one vote.”320 The plaintiff said of Judge Jones, “The judge majored in the majors.

He’s got the constitutional question absolutely right.

He’s got one-person one-vote absolutely nailed. His maps had even smaller deviations than the county proposed.”321 In 2013, in a case brought by the federal government on behalf of overseas military personnel, Judge Jones

In 2012, the judge’s redrawing of district boundaries in a case involving a challenge to the district boundaries of the Cobb County Commission in 2012 brought

granted summary judgment to the United States Justice Department and issued a permanent injunction specifying changes to the state of Georgia’s election schedule that would allow sufficient time for the transmittal to overseas voters of absentee ballots in runoff elections.322

United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaking at the investiture ceremony for Judge Steve C. Jones. (L-R Justice Thomas, Judge Jones, and Senior Judge Willis B. Hunt Jr.)

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Naturalization Service. Detainees were entitled to hearings to determine whether they were dangerous or could be released. The detainee bore the burden of proving that he was not dangerous. He had no right to appear at his hearing, to call witnesses, or to crossexamine those whose evidence was used against him.

These hearings were conducted by panels of two or three Department of Justice staffers. The detainee’s only recourse to an adverse decision was an internal administrative appeal within the Department of Justice.

The Mariel Cuban cases were assigned to Judge Marvin Shoob, who sought the assistance of the Atlanta Bar Association in soliciting volunteer lawyers

The Mariel Cuban Cases Beginning in April 1980, 125,000 Cubans came to the United States seeking asylum from the communist government of President Fidel Castro. Most of them began their journey in small boats from the Cuban port of Mariel and became known as “the Marielitos.”

Rumors grew and persisted in this country that Fidel Castro had turned inmates out of Cuba’s prisons and mental institutions, and had encouraged them to join the “freedom flotilla.” The United States government responded by exercising its authority to detain all the new arrivals since none of them had entry papers.323 The Marielitos were first confined in fenced camps.

Reacting to many pressures, the government began to release those not considered a threat. After a weedingout process, many of the remaining detainees were transferred to a federal prison in Louisiana and to the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, which was being used as an immigration detention facility. The government took the legal position that it could hold them indefinitely.

Shortly after the detention of the Marielitos, lawyers from the Atlanta Legal Aid Society and volunteer members of the Atlanta legal community brought civil actions on the detainees’ behalf in the Northern District. Among other claims, they argued that indefinite detention was unconstitutional and violated international human rights laws and treaties.

They also challenged the detentions on the grounds that many detainees were entitled to asylum in the United States.324 In response, the government established an administrative hearing process conducted by the Department of Justice’s Immigration and

to represent the detainees in these administrative hearings. The processing of more than eighteen hundred habeas corpus petitions from the Mariel Cubans, handwritten in Spanish, presented significant administrative issues for the court and its clerk’s office. In a number of rulings, Judge Shoob held that their indefinite detention without fair hearings was a violation of due process. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and overruled him; the Supreme Court denied certiorari.325 Nearly twenty years later, in 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that federal law barred the indefinite detention of a stateless immigrant, lawfully admitted to the United States, whose criminal record made him deportable but had no place to go.326

The 1996 Centennial Olympic Games Atlanta’s hosting of the 1996 Summer Centennial Olympic Games was a major event in Atlanta’s history.

It spotlighted and helped transform Atlanta into

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any major security issues, and nearly all of the related federal court cases were routine cases, having to do with subjects such as copyright infringement actions against street vendors. That calm was broken in the early morning hours of Saturday, July 27, 1996, however, when a bomb exploded in Centennial Olympic Park where sixty thousand people were enjoying themselves late on a Friday night and early Saturday morning.

Over the next year and a half, two abortion clinics, one in Birmingham and one in Atlanta, and a gay nightclub in Atlanta would fall victim to similar bombings. Nearly seven years would elapse, with one of the longest manhunts in United States law enforcement history, before the person responsible for the three bombings, Eric Robert Rudolph, was arrested and brought to trial for his actions.328 On August 22, 2005, in a Northern District courtroom of the Richard B. Russell Building, less than a half-mile from the spot where nearly nine years earlier he had placed the bomb in Centennial Olympic Park, Rudolph pled guilty to the three Atlanta bombings, and pursuant to a plea agreement, was sentenced by Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr. to multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.329 Earlier that day, Rudolph had appeared in a Birmingham courtroom in the Northern District of Alabama, where he had been sentenced to life sentences without parole for the bombing of a Birmingham family planning clinic. By nightfall, Rudolph had been flown to the location where he would spend the rest of his days, the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum at Florence, Colorado. This Supermax, or most secure, facility was built especially to house the federal prison system’s most dangerous offenders. Some have referred to this prison, known by the acronym “ADMAX,” as the twenty-first century’s version of Alcatraz.330

Schuster and Stone’s book tells the story of the five-year search for Centennial Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph, who pled guilty and was sentenced to life terms by Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr. in August 2005.

an international city.327 Notwithstanding the many positives of the Atlanta Olympics, the court’s proximity to many of the Olympic venues effectively meant that for much of that summer while the Olympic Games were being held, the Northern District of Georgia was unable to conduct trials and court hearings in Atlanta.

Some matters were heard in the divisional court sites, and a skeleton staff kept the court open to the public. Several civil and criminal cases grew out of the Olympics.

The Summer Olympics proceeded largely without

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The Northern District in the Twenty-First Century Despite the vast resources and best efforts of the federal government to eradicate the nation’s drug problem, it has not gone away. Until the 1980s, much of the nation’s illegal drug supply came through either Miami or from the southwest border, which includes Arizona, California, and Texas. By 2000, Atlanta had replaced Miami as the hub of drug distribution on America’s east coast.331 Atlanta and four metro-area counties—Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, and Cobb—were designated a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area for stepped-up enforcement and resources. In 2008, eight additional metro Atlanta counties were added to this designation. According to federal drug enforcement authorities, most of the narcotics that arrive in Atlanta do not remain in the area. Many of the drugs arrive in bulk and are then repackaged and sent out by various means.332 The court’s criminal caseload and, in particular, its drug cases continue

Apart from the drug cases, today’s federal criminal caseload in the Northern District of Georgia is reflective of the changes in our society.

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One of the most pleasant duties of a federal district judge is to preside over the naturalization of new citizens. Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. is presiding over a 2013 ceremony in Atlanta.

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to command much of its resources. Nearly a third of all federal criminal prosecutions in Northern Georgia are drug related. Atlanta, especially the Buford Highway corridor, has become a melting pot of many different cultures consistent with Atlanta’s position as an international city.333 However, with all of the many positives brought about by this ethnic and cultural diversity, there has been associated criminal activity.

In 1998, Judge Clarence Cooper tried ten Vietnamesespeaking defendants, members of an Asian gang, who were found guilty of victimizing their fellow immigrants in the metropolitan Atlanta area with robberies, kidnappings, shootings, murders, home invasions, and extortions.334 Other judges have had similar cases involving gang activity, which is said to be widespread in Atlanta and moving to its suburbs.

Apart from the drug cases, today’s federal criminal caseload in the Northern District of Georgia is reflective of the changes in our society. Cases brought in the district today include offenses such as violent racketeering, carjacking, securities, social security and health care fraud, money laundering, bribery, conspiracy to defraud the United States government, and offenses connected with the country’s increasing dependence on computers and the Internet. In recent years, there have been a number of convictions of individuals for various cyber crimes including the solicitation of minors for illicit activity and for pornography. The United States attorney has used federal firearms statutes, such as felons in possession of a firearm, to prosecute violent criminals.

The cases that compose the court’s civil caseload in the twenty-first century are likewise indicative of the changes to our society and, in particular, of Atlanta’s role as one of the nation’s major commercial centers.

There are many habeas corpus filings and a large

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The Federal Sentencing Guidelines set out a uniform sentencing policy for individuals and organizations convicted of felonies and serious misdemeanors. The guidelines went into effect in 1987 in an effort to eliminate sentencing disparities. Originally, they were considered mandatory, but since the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Booker v. United States, the guidelines are now advisory.

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number of civil rights cases. Even though Congress has continued to increase the threshold amount for a federal civil case to be filed, many cases are brought in the Northern District under the diversity jurisdiction statute. A sizeable number of the court’s civil cases arise because the United States is a party to the litigation.

Environmental litigation has also increased. Another type of civil litigation in the Northern District that has continued to grow in recent years is intellectual property cases—patent, trademark, and copyright.335 In 2004 the court adopted special local rules governing

the procedures applicable to patent cases. These rules provide more certainty on procedural issues that arise in patent cases and set a schedule for their handling.

Only a handful of federal district courts nationally have adopted specific local rules for patent cases. These rules have made the Northern District a preferred forum for patent litigation. By 2007 the Northern District of Georgia had become the ninth-busiest court in the country for patent cases.

View of the Gainesville courthouse annex from inside a building across the street.

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An attorney waiting for a hearing to commence in a Rome courtroom.

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As of 2013, 224 years have elapsed since the United States Congress enacted the Judiciary Act of 1789, and 164 years since that first session in 1849 of the Northern District in Marietta. From its creation through 2013, thirty-four men and five women have served as district judges in the Northern District of Georgia. Those thirty-nine judges have been appointed by seventeen different presidents. The most judges appointed by a single president is seven, a distinction shared by Presidents Carter and Clinton. The youngest judge was thirty-six on taking office, and the oldest judge was sixty-two.

The oath that Georgia’s first judge, Nathaniel Pendleton, took when becoming a judge in 1789 is essentially the same one taken in 2011 by the court’s most recent appointees, Judges Totenberg and Jones, when they swore to “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich.”336 In so many other respects, though, the changes in the federal judiciary since that time have been profound.

These changes have been steady throughout the Court’s history, but “many have come in the half-century that followed World War II, when Atlanta transformed itself from a provincial crossroads into the host of what was then the largest peacetime gathering in world history, the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games.”337 Today, there are many national and multinational corporations with headquarters in the Northern District.338 For those Fortune 500 companies not headquartered in Atlanta, there are very few that do not have a regional headquarters or some type of major presence in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is at the top of every listing of the world’s airports in the number of passengers passing through its facilities and the number of aircraft operations.339 With the three interstate highways crisscrossing Atlanta, and the number of flights into and out of its airport, one hears the cliché, “You can’t go anywhere without going through Atlanta.”340 All of these factors before the Northern District of Georgia have come to bear on the types and volume of litigation.

Apart from that, the roles of the federal courts and of the federal district judge in our society have greatly evolved over time. Federal civil and criminal jurisdiction has been broadened such that seldom does a reader not see an article in a daily Atlanta newspaper, or a viewer not see a televised live report, of an event taking place at the federal courthouse. One would be hard pressed today to find a metro-Atlanta resident who is not familiar with the scene of a local news reporter reporting live from the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and United States Courthouse against a background of satellite trucks describing an event that took place that day in one of the Northern District’s courtrooms.

The Northern District of Georgia has been a constant feature in the lives of Atlantans and North Georgians since its formation. Its landmark opinions—including those entered in the civil rights cases of the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, and those with major effects on international commerce—have struck the appropriate balance between continuity and change necessary to keep pace with North Georgia’s evolution. Simply put, the Northern District of Georgia plays a vital part in the lives of its citizens.

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John C. Nicoll ~ John Erskine ~ Henry Kent McCay ~ William T. Newman ~ Samuel H. Sibley E. Marvin Underwood ~ Robert L. Russell ~ M. Neil Andrews ~ Frank A. Hooper Jr. ~ William Boyd Sloan Lewis R. Morgan ~ Sidney O. Smith Jr. ~ Newell Edenfield ~ Albert J. Henderson Jr. ~ Charles A. Moye Jr. William C. O’Kelley ~ Richard C. Freeman ~ James C. Hill ~ Harold L. Murphy ~ Marvin H. Shoob Robert L. Vining Jr. ~ G. Ernest Tidwell ~ Orinda D. Evans ~ Robert H. Hall ~ Horace T. Ward J. Owen Forrester ~ Jack T. Camp ~ Julie E. Carnes ~ Clarence Cooper ~ Frank M. Hull Willis B. Hunt Jr. ~ Thomas W. Thrash Jr. ~ Richard W. Story ~ Charles A. Pannell Jr. Beverly B. Martin ~ William S. Duffey Jr. ~ Timothy C. Batten Sr. ~ Amy Totenberg ~ Steve C. Jones

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGES NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA

1849–2013

The Judges Congress created the Northern District of Georgia on August 11, 1848.

In the one hundred and sixty-five years since, thirty-nine individuals have been appointed for life by seventeen different presidents of the United States to serve on its bench. In its early years with a single judge presiding, the court’s docket consisted mainly of civil debt collection suits and a criminal docket of a few embezzling and mail-theft cases.

As the district’s population expanded, and Congress broadened the scope of matters handled by federal district courts, so did the cases and complexity and, with some amount of lag time, so did the number of judges appointed to overseeing them. The Northern District bench has grown from a single judge residing in Savannah who traveled to the district to hold terms of court for a few days two or three times a year to the current eleven authorized active judgeships. In addition, there are considerable case load contributions made by the court’s eight current senior judges. The roles and responsibilities of those serving as judges today are vastly different from those in the court’s early years.

In recent years, the court’s judges have had under court supervision a number of the public institutions within the district including county jails, public school systems, and other such entities. More than one county school system was under a judge’s supervision for nearly twenty years, and a judge has overseen operation of the largest county jail in Georgia as well as Atlanta’s public water and sewer systems for several years.

From mountain moonshiners to infamous figures such as mobster Al Capone and bomber Eric Robert Rudolph, from handing down rulings impacting international commerce and far-reaching decisions desegregating public institutions or protecting the civil rights of its citizens, the Northern District’s judges have served admirably and with distinction.

Following are the biographies of those men and women who proudly call as their judicial home the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

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John C. Nicoll Recess Appointment by President Martin Van Buren—May 11, 1839 Nominated for Permanent Appointment by President Martin Van Buren—January 23, 1840 Confirmed—February 17, 1840 Commission Received—February 17, 1840 Judge John C. Nicoll was born on October 7, 1793, in Savannah, Georgia. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1812 and attended Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1814.

Judge Nicoll began the private practice of law in Savannah in 1814. While practicing, he also served as the recorder of judgments for the city of Savannah and as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives. He was the solicitor of the Eastern Circuit of Georgia from 1821 to 1822, a judge on the city court of Savannah from 1824 to 1834, and subsequently a judge on the superior court for the Eastern Circuit until 1835. He served again on the city court of Savannah from 1835 to 1838 and was the mayor of Savannah for a short time.

In 1848, the District of Georgia, whose boundaries were the same as the state, was divided into two districts: the Northern sitting at Marietta, and the Southern sitting at Savannah. The congressional act establishing the two districts provided that the United States district judge for the former District of Georgia would hold sessions of court in both the Northern and Southern districts. Judge Nicoll continued to reside in Savannah, traveling to Marietta to hold court in the Northern District for a term in March and a term in September each year. Judge Nicoll opened court for the Northern District for the first time on March 12, 1849.

Personally opposed to Georgia’s seceding from the United States, Judge Nicoll held court for the last time in Marietta on September 12, 1860. Once Georgia seceded from the union, Judge Nicoll resigned his judgeship on January 19, 1861, and was appointed as district attorney for the District of Georgia under the Confederacy. He served in this role until his death on November 16, 1863. He is buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery in Savannah.

He was married to Eliza M. Nicoll. They had five daughters—Eliza Anderson Nicoll, Georgia Clifford Nicoll, Mary Anderson Nicoll, Susan Cumming Nicoll, Ada Clifford Nicoll—and a son, George Anderson Nicoll.

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John Erskine Recess Appointment by President Andrew Johnson—July 10, 1865 Nominated for Permanent Appointment by President Andrew Johnson—December 20, 1865 Confirmed—January 22, 1866 Commission Received—January 22, 1866 Oath Taken—January 26, 1866 Judge John Erskine was born on September 13, 1813, in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland. In 1820, his family moved to St. Johns, New Brunswick, later settling in New York City. In the 1820s and 1830s, he traveled around the world as a British sailor. He became a resident of Florida in 1838, taught school there, and became a member of the Florida Bar in 1846. In 1855, he moved to Newnan, Georgia, where he practiced law. In the early 1860s, he moved to Atlanta and from late 1864 through 1865, he temporarily lived in New York City until his appointment

by President Andrew Johnson to the benches of both the Northern District of Georgia and the Southern District of Georgia. The judge was first given a recess appointment in July 1865. President Johnson nominated him for the permanent appointment on December 20, 1865.

Judge Erskine continued to reside in Atlanta during his judicial service and traveled to Savannah to hold court.

His first session in Savannah was on May 8, 1866. On July 25, 1866, Congress changed the place of holding court in the Northern District from Marietta to Atlanta. As there was no federal courthouse, Judge Erskine opened court in Atlanta for the first time in the Northern District on September 10, 1866, in the old Fulton County Courthouse–Atlanta City Hall, which sat on the site of the present Georgia capitol.

Judge John Erskine served as a federal judge during the difficult time of post–Civil War Reconstruction. He was known as a defender of individual property rights and a moderating voice at a time of acrimony between North and South. He has been described by his biographers as a man of integrity and fairness. While on the bench, he ruled consistently against attempts to seize the property of the defeated Southerners.

Judge Erskine retired from judicial service on December 1, 1883.

He died in Atlanta on January 27, 1895, and is interred in Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery. A memorial fountain commissioned by his daughter to honor his memory sits at the Ormond Street entrance to Atlanta’s Grant Park.

The judge was married to the former Rebecca Smith. They had one daughter, Ruby Erskine Ward.

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Henry Kent McCay Nominated by President Chester A. Arthur—August 3, 1882 Confirmed—August 4, 1882 Commission Received—August 4, 1882 Oath Taken—August 14, 1882 Judge Henry Kent McCay was born January 8, 1820, in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, and received a bachelor of arts from Princeton University in 1839. In 1840–1841, he was the principal of the Lexington Academy at Lexington, Georgia. His legal education came by reading law in the office of Chief Justice Joseph Henry Lumpkin.

He was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1842 and moved to Americus, Georgia, where he practiced law until 1861.

Although opposed to Georgia’s seceding from the Union, the judge supported his state’s decision and entered the military service of the Confederacy, taking part in several campaigns under Stonewall Jackson and attaining the rank of brigadier general. After the war he was a leading member of Georgia’s constitutional convention of 1868, which framed the constitution of that year. That same year, he was appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. He served on the court until 1875, when he resigned to practice law in Atlanta.

Until 1882, a single judge served Georgia’s two federal judicial districts. In April of that year, Congress created separate judgeships for the Northern and Southern Districts, and Judge McCay has the distinction of being the first judge who was exclusively appointed to the Northern District.

Judge McCay is one of two judges who, at age sixty-two, are the oldest appointees to the Northern District. His four years on the federal bench were marked with poor health. He nonetheless handled a large volume of court business, including several notable criminal trials. Among these was the trial of several federal revenue officers in 1882 for killing a Gwinnett County citizen. Another trial resulted in the convictions of the assassins of a federal revenue agent. His most famous trial was the prosecution of the Banks County White Cappers in 1883. The famous civil rights case of Ex Parte Yarbrough grew out of the affair.

He died in Atlanta on July 30, 1886, and is buried in Oakland Cemetery.

He was married to the former Catherine Hanson.

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William T. Newman Recess Appointment by President Grover Cleveland—August 13, 1886 Oath Taken—August 13, 1886 Nominated for Permanent Appointment by President Grover Cleveland—December 9, 1886 Confirmed—January 13, 1887 Commission Received—January 13, 1887 Judge William T. Newman was born on June 23, 1843, in Knoxville, Tennessee, and attended private schools there. At age seventeen, the judge enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army, seeing service as a cavalryman in many campaigns, including Chickamauga and Atlanta, and losing his right arm during the Battle of Jonesboro. By the conclusion of the war, he had been promoted to captain, a title by which he continued to be addressed even during his tenure on the bench.

At the close of the war, he moved to Atlanta, read law in the office of Judge John L. Hopkins, and was admitted to the bar in 1866. Judge Newman very quickly rose in the ranks of the legal profession in his adopted city. In 1871, Atlanta’s city council named him the city attorney, a position he held until 1883.

Judge Newman’s biographers have credited him with favorably changing the perception of the federal court among Georgians. As a result of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the court had been seen as a foreign tribunal, and comparatively little civil business was brought in it, as the lawyers felt more at home in the state courts. The confidence of lawyers and the public in Judge Newman brought about a change. The court’s business began to increase, and the people began to regard the federal district court as part of their own system. After the Civil War, much of the court’s criminal business involved farmers charged with moonshining, or making liquor without paying the required federal taxes. Judge Newman, despite the disapproval of the federal government, allowed many of those violators to delay service of their sentence and remain at home until their crops were harvested.

Judge Newman continued to serve as an active judge until August 1919. He died in Atlanta on February 14, 1920, and is buried in Westview Cemetery.

He was married to the former Fanny Percy Alexander. They had six children.

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Samuel H. Sibley Nominated by President Woodrow Wilson—July 31, 1919 Confirmed—August 5, 1919 Commission Received—August 5, 1919 Oath Taken—August 23, 1919 Judge Samuel H. Sibley was born July 2, 1873, in Union Point, in East Georgia’s Greene County. The judge entered the University of Georgia at the age of sixteen and three years later, in 1892, received his AB degree. The following year, he received a law degree, teaching Latin and Greek at the university while studying law. He opened a law office in Union Point and argued his first case in the Georgia Supreme Court before he was twenty-one. He served part-time as a county and then city court judge. The judge quickly developed a statewide practice and in 1919 was elected president of the Georgia Bar Association (now the State Bar of Georgia).

Judge Sibley served on the Northern District bench from 1919 until 1931, when President Hoover elevated him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Many historians have made reference to Judge Sibley, a Democrat, being appointed to the circuit bench by a Republican president. He served on the Fifth Circuit from 1931 until his retirement in 1949. From 1942 until 1949, Judge Sibley was the Fifth Circuit’s senior judge, the equivalent of the present-day circuit chief judge.

A news report published at the time of the judge’s retirement from the Fifth Circuit said that as a district judge he had tried fifteen thousand criminal cases without a single reversal. At a dinner held in his honor, Judge Sibley requested the reporters present to correct this, saying, “I do not want the public to think I made a claim like that. I may have disposed of that many cases in my career, but at least two-thirds of them were on pleas of guilty, and not over 3 or 4 percent were appealed. It would be impossible for any human being to not commit an error.”

He died at his home in Marietta on October 13, 1958, and is interred in the Magnolia Cemetery in Augusta.

Judge Sibley was married to the former Florence Hart. They had a son, William Hart Sibley, and two daughters, Sara Virginia Sibley and Florence Weldon Sibley.

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E. Marvin Underwood Nominated by President Herbert Hoover—February 7, 1931 Confirmed—February 25, 1931 Commission Received—March 2, 1931 Oath Taken—March 5, 1931 Judge E. Marvin Underwood was born December 11, 1877, in Douglas County, Georgia. He studied at the Webb School, a private boarding school in Tennessee, and attended Vanderbilt University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, receiving an associate of arts in 1900 and his law degree from its law school in 1902. He also studied a year at the Faculte de Droit (law school) at the University of Paris.

The judge was in private practice in Atlanta from 1903 to 1914. From 1914 until 1917, he served as an assistant United States attorney general during the administration of President Woodrow Wilson. Judge Underwood served as general counsel of the Seaboard Airline Railroad from 1917 to 1919. He was solicitor general of the United States Railroad Administration from 1919 to 1920. From 1920 until his appointment to the bench in 1931, the judge was in private practice with E. Smythe Gambrell in Atlanta.

Judge Underwood was one of the first judges in the Northern District to utilize the services of a probation officer, and he often placed first offenders on probation when they had been convicted under the federal liquor tax laws.

According to the court’s first probation officer, the judge would not impose a sentence without a presentence investigation being conducted.

In an interview a few days afterward, the judge told the reporter of his efforts for prison reform and expressed his opposition to unduly harsh sentences: “The sentencing of an offender is not a search after vengeance. It is a protection of society and the rehabilitation of the offender with the least suffering to the offender and others that is compatible to the public good.”

Judge Underwood took senior status on March 5, 1948.

He died on August 28, 1960, and is buried at Westview Cemetery in Atlanta. Judge Frank Hooper, who practiced before him, once said that Judge Underwood was “a man who was troubled by injustice to the little man.”

Judge Underwood was married to the former Ruth Elizabeth Newton. They had a son, Newton Underwood, and a daughter, Florence Underwood.

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Robert L. Russell Nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt—August 5, 1940 Confirmed—August 8, 1940 Commission Received—August 15, 1940 Oath Taken—August 19, 1940 Judge Robert L. Russell was born August 19, 1900, in Winder, Georgia, to one of Georgia’s most prominent political families. His father, Richard B. Russell Sr., served as the chief justice of Georgia’s Supreme Court, and his brother, Richard B. Russell Jr., served as governor and as a United States senator for many years. The judge attended public schools at Winder and the Gordon Institute at Barnesville. He attended the University of Georgia from 1918 to 1919 and read law in his father’s law office in Winder. He was admitted to the Georgia bar and entered private practice in Atlanta in 1920. He served as secretary to his father during his service as chief justice from 1923 to 1929.

From 1929 to 1940, the judge was in private practice at Winder.

When Judge Russell joined the Northern District bench in 1940, for the first time the court had more than one judge. Judge Russell continued to reside in Winder and made his headquarters at Gainesville. He held court sessions in Gainesville and in Rome and came to Atlanta approximately three months of the year. In 1948, legislation was enacted by Congress that totally revised the operation of the federal judicial system, including creation of the position of chief judge. On June 25, 1948, Judge Russell became the Northern District’s first chief judge.

On October 15, 1949, President Truman nominated Judge Russell for appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where he served with distinction from October 27, 1949, until his death in Atlanta on January 18, 1955. He is buried at Russell Memorial Park in Winder, Georgia.

The judge was married to the former Sybil Millsaps. They had four children: Betty Russell Vandiver, who served as first lady of Georgia during her husband, S. Ernest Vandiver Jr.’s term as governor; Judge Robert L. Russell Jr., who served on the Georgia Court of Appeals; Richard Brevard Russell III, who served as judge of the superior court in the Piedmont Circuit; and Ina Russell Ingram, wife of the late Judge James F. Ingram of the Circuit Court of Virginia in Danville. Judge Robert L. Russell III, a grandson, presently serves on the superior court bench in the Atlantic Circuit.

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M. Neil Andrews Recess Appointment by President Harry S. Truman—October 21, 1949 Oath Taken—October 24, 1949 Nominated for Permanent Appointment by President Harry S. Truman—January 5, 1950 Confirmation Rejected—August 9, 1950 Judge M. Neil Andrews was born December 24, 1894, in LaFayette, Georgia. Judge Andrews, a graduate of Berry College, received his law degree from the University of Georgia in 1916 and studied international law at the University of Edinburg, Scotland. During World War I, he served in France as a first lieutenant and was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry. He returned to LaFayette to practice law and was assistant solicitor general of the Rome Circuit from 1925 to 1929 and solicitor general from 1929 to 1932. He was appointed assistant United States attorney for the Northern District in 1934. In 1938, he was appointed chief trial attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in 1939, he became chief of the United States Department of Justice’s Trial Section. He served in that capacity until 1942 when he returned to Atlanta as the United States attorney for the Northern District. In 1945–1946, taking a leave of absence as the United States attorney, Judge Andrews served on the staff of Justice Robert Jackson’s prosecution of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg.

On October 21, 1949, President Truman gave Judge Andrews a recess appointment to serve on the Northern District bench, and on January 5, 1950, nominated him for the permanent appointment. However, on August 9, 1950, the United States Senate voted not to confirm Judge Andrews and several other nominations due to differences of opinion between the president and some senators, including Georgia’s Richard B. Russell Jr., as to who should fill certain vacancies. Following the Senate’s rejection, Judge Andrews resigned his recess appointment on October 31, 1950, and returned to his law practice in Atlanta as the senior partner of the firm Andrews and Nall. He retired from active practice in 1954 and returned to his hometown of LaFayette.

Judge Andrews served as chief judge of the Northern District of Georgia from October 28, 1949, to October 31, 1950.

He died on August 31, 1967, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is buried at the LaFayette Cemetery in LaFayette, Georgia.

He was married to the former Foy E. Rhyne. They had a son, Alexander Rhyne Andrews, and a daughter, Ann Elizabeth Andrews Morgan, whose husband, Clinton J. Morgan, later served as United States magistrate in the Rome Division.

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Frank A. Hooper Jr. Recess Appointment by President Harry S. Truman—October 21, 1949 Oath Taken—October 27, 1949 Nominated for Permanent Appointment by President Harry S. Truman—January 5, 1950 Confirmed—February 21, 1950 Received Commission—February 23, 1950 Judge Frank A. Hooper Jr. was born on April 21, 1895, in Americus, Georgia, and attended public schools there, and later in Atlanta upon his family’s relocation. Judge Hooper attended the Georgia Institute of Technology for three years. In his fourth year, he had to suspend his education due to a serious health issue, and, while recuperating, he read law in his father’s law office, passing the Georgia bar in 1916.

In 1917–1918, he served as a law clerk for Judge Walter F. George on the Georgia Court of Appeals. He was commissioned a lieutenant junior grade in the United States Navy and served onboard the U.S.S. George Washington in 1919. From 1919 until 1943, he was in private practice in Atlanta. In 1925, he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, where he served two terms, beginning a lifelong friendship with State Representative Richard B. Russell Jr. In 1932, Governor Russell appointed him to fill a seven-month term on the Georgia Court of Appeals. At the conclusion of the term, Judge Hooper returned to private practice, also serving as an instructor at Atlanta Law School’s night program and as an assistant city attorney for the city of Atlanta.

In 1942, Judge Hooper was elected to one of the seven judgeships on the superior court of Fulton County and remained on that court until 1949 when he was recommended to President Truman by Senators Russell and George for appointment to a newly created permanent second judgeship for the Northern District.

He served as the chief judge of the Northern District of Georgia from November 1, 1950, until April 21, 1965, and took senior status on June 29, 1967.

Judge Hooper passed away on February 11, 1985, and is buried at Crest Lawn Memorial Park in Atlanta. He was married to the former Carolyn Newton. They had three sons, Charles Hooper, Ellis Hooper, and Frank Hooper III.

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William Boyd Sloan Nominated by President Harry S. Truman—February 19, 1951 Confirmed—March 20, 1951 Commission Received—March 23, 1951 Oath Taken—March 27, 1951 Judge William Boyd Sloan was born on July 9, 1895, in Gainesville, Georgia, where he attended public schools before briefly attending North Georgia Agricultural College in Dahlonega.

Judge Sloan’s legal education came by reading law in the office of his father, Wilford Baker Sloan, a well-known Gainesville attorney. After being admitted to the Georgia bar in 1915, he was in private practice in Gainesville until 1945, principally as a partner in the firm of Sloan and Welchel but also holding several part-time positions. Judge Sloan was a member of the Georgia General Assembly from 1927 to 1931, an assistant attorney general for the state of Georgia, and, from 1934 to 1945, he served as Gainesville’s city judge.

In 1945, he was appointed as superior court judge for Georgia’s Northeastern Judicial Circuit, serving until 1948, when he resigned to reenter private practice with the firm of Sloan and Telford. In a later interview he acknowledged that his decision to leave the judgeship was economically driven. In 1964, he told the Gainesville Times, “When I was judge of superior court, we covered nine counties, and I was paid $6,000 a year. I had to resign and return to practicing law so I could make some money.”

Judge Sloan’s service on the Northern District bench was during much of the civil rights movement. He took senior status on August 1, 1965.

He died on October 22, 1970, in Gainesville, and is interred in the Gainesville Memorial Park Mausoleum. A few days after his death, an editorial in the Gainesville Times commended the last Northern District judge who had not attended a law school but had read law to prepare for the bar examination. The editorial said, “His was the story of the unschooled boy making good on his own.” The newspaper praised the judge for his candid admission that “there is not a day of my adult life that has gone by that I have not felt the need of an education. All of my life, I have struggled to overcome my lack of an education.”

He was married to the former Jessie Lea Jackson.

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Lewis R. Morgan Nominated by President John F. Kennedy—July 24, 1961 Confirmed—August 9, 1961 Commission Received—August 10, 1961 Oath Taken—August 11, 1961 Judge Lewis R. Morgan was born on July 14, 1913, in LaGrange, Georgia. Judge Morgan attended the University of Michigan from 1930 to 1932 and received a bachelor of laws from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1935.

He was admitted to the Georgia bar that same year. From 1939 to 1942, the judge served as executive secretary to United States Representative Albert Sidney Camp. In 1942 and 1943, he served in the United States Army as a corporal in the signal and intelligence corps. He was city attorney for LaGrange from 1943 to 1946 and Troup County attorney from 1957 to 1961. From 1935 to 1961, he was a partner in the Wyatt and Morgan law firm in LaGrange.

Judge Morgan served on the Northern District bench from 1961 to 1968, and was its chief judge from April 22, 1965, until August 2, 1968, when he was elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit by President Lyndon B. Johnson. He served as an active circuit judge until he took senior status on September 1, 1978.

From 1978 to 1988, the judge was a member of the Special Division of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals for Appointing Independent Counsel, and from 1986 to 1987, he served on the Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. When the Fifth Circuit was split in 1981, Judge Morgan joined the Eleventh Circuit as a senior judge and served until 1996.

He was the recipient of several honors, including distinguished service awards from the LaGrange Chamber of Commerce and the University of Georgia Law School Alumni Association, as well as honorary degrees from the Atlanta School of Law and LaGrange College. Judge Morgan served twice as president of his circuit’s bar association, on the board of visitors of the University of Georgia Law School, and on the board of trustees of LaGrange College.

In 1999, the United States Congress named the federal building in Newnan, Georgia, the Lewis R. Morgan Federal Building and United States Courthouse.

Judge Morgan died on November 15, 2001, and is buried in Hillview Cemetery in LaGrange.

He was married to the former Sue Lorraine Phillips. They had a son, Parks Healy Morgan, and a daughter, Ann Morgan Anderson.

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Sidney O. Smith Jr. Nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson—August 24, 1965 Confirmed—September 10, 1965 Commission Received—September 11, 1965 Oath Taken—September 15, 1965 Judge Sidney O. Smith Jr. was born on December 30, 1923, in Gainesville, Georgia. After his primary education in Gainesville, he attended Middlesex Preparatory School. Judge Smith enrolled at Harvard College in 1940. His studies were interrupted by World War II, when he enlisted in the United States Army, rose from private to captain, and served in England and Europe. After the war he completed his degree requirements at Harvard and graduated in 1947 with a bachelor of arts cum laude in government and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. The judge attended the University of Georgia School of Law and received a law degree in 1949.

Judge Smith was admitted to the Georgia bar and joined the Gainesville firm of Sloan and Telford, whose senior partner, William Boyd Sloan, he would later succeed on the Northern District bench. He was in private practice until 1962, when he became a superior court judge for Georgia’s Northeastern Judicial Circuit, serving until his appointment to the federal court in 1965.

The judge served on the Northern District bench until he resigned on June 1, 1974, to return to private practice with the Atlanta firm of Alston & Bird. He was chief judge of the Northern District from August 3, 1968, to June 1, 1974.

Judge Smith was a member, and later chairman, of the Gainesville Board of Education, served on the board of regents of the University System of Georgia, and for many years was associated with Brenau University—as a member and chairman of its board. In 2009, Brenau named its graduate school for him. In 2008, the Gainesville Times named Judge Smith as one of the “Twenty-Five Titans—People Who Helped Build Gainesville and Hall County.”

Judge Smith died on July 14, 2012, and is interred at Grace Episcopal Church in Gainesville.

He was married to the former Patricia Horkan for fifty-seven years before her death in 2001. They had two daughters, Charters Wilson and Ellen Andersen, and a son, Sidney O. Smith III. In 2004, Judge Smith married the former Carolyn Reed.

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Newell Edenfield Nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson—May 24, 1967 Confirmed—June 12, 1967 Commission Received—June 12, 1967 Oath Taken—June 30, 1967 Judge Newell Edenfield was born August 10, 1911, in Stillmore, in southeastern Georgia’s Emanuel County. After completing high school he traveled the world for two years in the Merchant Marine. Judge Edenfield attended the University of Georgia, where he received a law degree in 1938 and was admitted to the Georgia bar. From 1938 to 1941, he lived in Brooklyn, New York, working as an editor for Edward Thompson and Company, legal publishers.

He returned to Georgia to join an Atlanta law firm, Powell, Goldstein, Frazer and Murphy. World War II intervened, and the judge interrupted his practice to serve for three years as a naval communications officer with the rank of lieutenant. After the war he returned to Powell Goldstein but left in 1948, later forming the partnership that became Edenfield, Heyman and Sizemore.

Judge Edenfield’s abilities as a courtroom advocate were legend in the Atlanta legal community. He was frequently asked by other lawyers to assist with their cases. During his years in practice, he also served as associate city attorney for the city of Atlanta, and special deputy assistant attorney general for the state of Georgia. The judge was active in the organized bar, serving as the president of the Atlanta Bar Association in 1954, and as president of the State Bar of Georgia in 1960.

He served as the Northern District’s chief judge from June 2, 1974, until November 8, 1976.

Judge Edenfield suffered with poor health for a number of years. He took senior status on September 1, 1981, and died on December 26, 1981. He is buried in Arlington Memorial Park in Sandy Springs.

He was married to the former Theresa Pope. They had a daughter, Nancy E. Spottswood, and five sons, Newell Edenfield Jr., Bruce M. Edenfield, James Edenfield, Steve Edenfield, and David Edenfield.

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Albert J. Henderson Jr. Nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson—September 25, 1968 Confirmed—October 10, 1968 Commission Received—October 11, 1968 Oath Taken—October 18, 1968 Judge Albert J. Henderson Jr. was born December 12, 1920, in Canton, Georgia. His father was a well-known attorney who practiced law for more than sixty years in Georgia’s Blue Ridge Circuit.

During World War II, Judge Henderson served in the United States Army as a sergeant. After his discharge he attended Mercer University, where he received his law degree in 1947. Upon graduation, he spent a year as an underwriter for Lawyers Title Insurance Company in Atlanta. From 1948 to 1960, he was in private practice in Marietta as a partner in the Walker and Henderson law firm. In addition to his law practice, he also served in parttime positions including from 1949 to 1952 as an assistant solicitor general for the Blue Ridge Judicial Circuit and from 1953 to 1960 as judge of the Cobb County Juvenile Court. In January 1961, he left practice and became judge of the Cobb County Superior Court, where he served until his appointment to the federal bench in 1968.

In the early 1950s, Judge Henderson was one of the founders of the Cobb County Bar Association. He later served on the board of trustees of his alma mater, Mercer University, and was a member of the Lawyer’s Club of Atlanta.

He served on the Northern District bench from 1968 to 1979 and was its chief judge from November 9, 1976, to July 27, 1979, when he was elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit by President Jimmy Carter. Judge Henderson served as an active circuit judge with the Fifth Circuit from 1979 to 1981, and following the division of the Fifth Circuit, with the Eleventh Circuit from 1981 until he took senior status on January 31, 1986. He continued to serve as a senior judge until his death on May 11, 1999. He is buried in the Marietta City Cemetery, Marietta, Georgia.

Judge Henderson was married to the former Jenny Lee Medford. They had a son, Michael John Henderson, and a daughter, Lee Schuster.

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Charles A. Moye Jr. Nominated by President Richard M. Nixon—October 7, 1970 Confirmed—October 13, 1970 Commission Received—October 16, 1970 Oath Taken—October 23, 1970 Judge Charles A. Moye Jr. was born July 13, 1918, in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended public schools. Judge Moye attended Emory University, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in 1939 and his law degree in 1943. He served as a law clerk for Judge Hugh M. Dorsey Sr. of the Fulton Superior Court before accepting a position with the only law firm (albeit through several iterations) for which he was to ever work—Gambrell and White. Over his twenty-seven-year career in private practice, Judge Moye engaged in a general practice including insurance defense, general litigation, antitrust, labor law, and corporate affairs. He was an attorney in the litigation over the 1962 Air France crash at Orly Airport in Paris, which resulted in the death of 130 passengers, many of whom were prominent members of the Atlanta arts community.

From the 1950s through the late 1960s, he was active in politics, and as a candidate for the Georgia State Senate in 1952, he was reportedly the first Republican to run for statewide office in Georgia since Reconstruction. He also unsuccessfully ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1954.

Judge Moye served on the Northern District bench for more than thirty-nine years. He served as chief judge from July 28, 1979, until December 31, 1987. He assumed senior status when he relinquished the chief judgeship.

He continued to serve as a senior judge until shortly before his death on July 26, 2010. He is buried in Decatur Cemetery, Decatur, Georgia.

Judge Moye was married to the former Sarah Ellen Johnston. They had a son, H. Allen Moye, and a daughter, Lucy Ellen Moye.

The Historical Society of the Eleventh Circuit dedicated its winter 2010 newsletter to the memory of Judge Moye, with recollections by his son, colleagues, and former law clerks. His traits that they remembered were best summarized by Chief Judge Julie E. Carnes: “He was thoughtful, wise, highly intelligent, and always kind. No judge had a better judicial temperament. He set an example that brought out the best qualities in both his colleagues and the lawyers that appeared before him.”

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William C. O’Kelley Nominated by President Richard M. Nixon—October 7, 1970 Confirmed—October 13, 1970 Commission Received—October 16, 1970 Oath Taken—October 23, 1970 Judge William C. O’Kelley was born January 2, 1930, in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended Emory University receiving the bachelor of arts degree in 1951 and a bachelor of laws (now JD) degree in 1953. He served from 1953 to 1957 in the United States Air Force as a first lieutenant and judge advocate, including service in Japan and Morocco.

Following active duty, he was in the Air Force Reserve as a captain until 1966. From 1959 until 1961, he served as an assistant United States attorney in the Northern District of Georgia. In 1961, he returned to private practice for the next ten years as a senior partner of O’Kelley, Hopkins and Van Gerpen until his appointment to the bench. During his law practice he was an organizer of a very successful bank.

Judge O’Kelley was appointed by three chief justices of the United States (Burger, Rehnquist, and Roberts) to handle some of the most sensitive special assignments and to serve on committees involved in the administration of the federal judicial system. He was appointed by Chief Justice Burger to serve from 1980 to 1987 on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Since 1996, he has served on the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, having been appointed and reappointed for a second and third term by Chief Justice Rehnquist and then reappointed twice more by Chief Justice Roberts. He was elected by his colleagues in the Eleventh Circuit to serve as its first representative on the Judicial Conference of the United States. His term was from 1981 to 1984, and he served as a member of its Executive Committee from 1982 to 1984. He has served as a member of the following committees or subcommittees of the Judicial Conference of the United States: Judicial Resources, Administration of the Criminal Law, Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules, and Judicial Statistics.

He was appointed to serve on the board of directors of the Federal Judicial Center from 1987 to 1991. The judge served on the Judicial Council of the Eleventh Circuit from 1990 to 1996 and was a member of its Executive Committee and numerous other committees, including several disciplinary committees, one of which handled the impeachment of a district judge.

He served as chief judge of the Northern District from January 1, 1988, until December 31, 1994. Judge O’Kelley took senior status on October 1, 1996.

He is married to the former Ernestine Allen. They have a daughter, Virginia Leigh O’Kelley Wood, and a son, William C. O’Kelley Jr.

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Richard C. Freeman Nominated by President Richard M. Nixon—March 3, 1971 Confirmed—April 21, 1971 Commission Received—April 23, 1971 Oath Taken—April 29, 1971 Judge Richard C. Freeman was born December 14, 1926, in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended public schools. Judge Freeman attended Emory University, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in 1950 and a law degree in 1952. He was president of his law school student body. From 1946 to 1947, he served with the United States Army’s First Cavalry Division during the American occupation of Japan. He began his legal career in the legal department of the Life Insurance Company of Georgia, establishing the firm’s first claims department. In 1954, he entered private practice, first with a partner, and then with the firm of Haas, Holland and Blackshear, which later became Haas, Holland, Freeman, Levison and Gilbert. He supervised the firm’s trial work and practiced until his appointment to the federal bench in 1971.

In 1961, Judge Freeman successfully ran for the Atlanta Board of Aldermen (today’s city council) as one of its first Republicans. He served nine years, and in that time, was on the board of trustees of the Atlanta Public Library and held seven committee chairmanships including zoning, police, traffic, and the fire department. His greatest pride was being aviation committee chairman for eight years during the airport’s expansion and planning for what is today’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. As an alderman and attorney, his efforts helped defeat the plan to run a new highway, Interstate 485, through Atlanta’s Morningside and Lenox Park neighborhoods.

Judge Freeman took senior status on December 31, 1991. Although chronically ill for many years, he continued to serve as a senior judge until shortly before his death on August 26, 1999. The judge, who served twenty-eight years on the Northern District bench, was best described in a 2001 memorial resolution by the Judicial Conference of the Eleventh Circuit: “With his dry wit, sometimes crusty manner, disdain for regimentation, and determination to do his duty rather than what was popular or expedient, Judge Freeman was known as a judge without pretense and with little patience for specious argument or lack of preparation.”

He was married to the former Christina Rice. They had a daughter, Holly Andrae Freeman Black.

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James C. Hill Nominated by President Richard M. Nixon—July 9, 1974 Confirmed—August 8, 1974 Commission Received—August 9, 1974 Oath Taken—August 16, 1974 Judge James C. Hill was born January 8, 1924, in Darlington, South Carolina, where he attended public schools.

In 1940, he enrolled at the University of South Carolina; however, his studies were interrupted by World War II, when he enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps, serving in England and Europe. When the war was over, he completed his undergraduate studies in 1946 and enrolled at Emory Law School, where he received his law degree in December 1948. He also received a bachelor of science in commerce degree from the University of South Carolina. Judge Hill passed the Georgia bar and became an associate at the firm then known as Gambrell, Harlan and Barwick, where one of his fellow associates was Charles A. Moye Jr., with whom he later served on the Northern District bench.

Judge Hill became a partner at the Gambrell firm, where he had a general practice, majoring in state and federal litigation. In 1963, he left Gambrell to join with Charles Hurt Sr. to form Hurt, Hill and Sosebee, which through several iterations would become Hurt, Richardson, Garner, Todd and Cadenhead.

He served on the Northern District bench from August 1974 until May 1976, when President Gerald R. Ford elevated him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He served on the Fifth Circuit until 1981, when the Fifth was split into the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits. He transferred to the new Eleventh Circuit on October 1, 1981, and served as an active circuit judge until he took senior status on October 15, 1989.

In 1989, the Atlanta Bar’s Litigation Section awarded him its Logan E. Bleckley Award, and in 2011 he received the American Bar Association’s Pursuit of Justice Award.

He was married to the former Mary Black from 1946 until her death in 2010. He has two sons, James C. Hill Jr. and Michael Hill.

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Harold L. Murphy Nominated by President Jimmy Carter—July 7, 1977 Confirmed—July 28, 1977 Commission Received—July 29, 1977 Oath Taken—August 11, 1977 Judge Harold L. Murphy was born on March 31, 1927, in Felton, in Haralson County, where he attended public schools. The judge attended West Georgia College at Carrollton, before his education was interrupted by World War II. He enlisted in the United States Navy in early 1945. While in the navy, he attended the University of Mississippi as a Naval ROTC student, and upon his discharge in 1946 he entered law school at the University of Georgia, receiving his law degree in 1949.

In 1949, the judge began the private practice of law in Buchanan, Georgia. In 1956, in addition to his private practice he served as an assistant solicitor general in the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit. From 1958 until 1971, Judge Murphy was a partner in the firm of Howe and Murphy in Buchanan and Tallapoosa, Georgia.

In 1950, at twenty-three, he was elected as the youngest member of the Georgia House of Representatives, where he served for ten years. He ran unopposed in four of his five elections.

In 1971, a new judgeship was authorized for the Tallapoosa Circuit. Governor Jimmy Carter invited informal nominations from attorneys in the circuit, but only Judge Murphy’s name was mentioned. The governor appointed Judge Murphy, and the judge served six years on the superior court bench before President Carter appointed him to the Northern District bench. Judge Murphy has the distinction of being Governor Carter’s first judicial appointment and President Carter’s first appointee to the federal bench in Georgia.

Although Judge Murphy has been eligible to take senior status since 1992, he continues as an active judge carrying a full caseload. In 1989, he was asked by the chief judge of the Eleventh Circuit to preside over an Alabama case seeking desegregation of that state’s entire university system. Resolution of the case encompassed seventeen years of judicial review and supervision before the case could finally be concluded.

In 2002, the Atlanta Bar Association awarded him its Logan E. Bleckley Award for Judicial Excellence. He also has received awards from the State Bar of Georgia and the State Bar of Alabama, as well as the Distinguished Service Scroll Award from the University of Georgia School of Law. He is married to the former Jacqueline Ferri. They have two sons, Mark Murphy, a juvenile court judge, and Paul B. Murphy, an attorney with King & Spalding.

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Marvin H. Shoob Nominated by President Jimmy Carter—June 5, 1979 Confirmed—July 23, 1979 Commission Received—July 24, 1979 Oath Taken—August 17, 1979 Judge Marvin H. Shoob was born February 23, 1923, in Walterboro, South Carolina, and grew up in Savannah, Georgia, where he attended public schools. He attended Armstrong Junior College in Savannah and transferred to Georgia Institute of Technology as a sophomore. His education was interrupted in 1943 when his Army Reserve unit was called to service in World War II. Judge Shoob served as a combat infantryman with General George Patton’s Third Army throughout Europe. He was discharged as a staff sergeant in 1945 and was later awarded the Bronze Star.

After the war, Judge Shoob resumed his undergraduate education with a transfer to the University of Georgia.

After briefly studying journalism he decided to study law. In 1948, he graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law with a juris doctor degree.

In 1948, he began private practice in Atlanta with the firm of Andrews and Nall. From 1956 until his appointment to the federal bench, he was the senior partner of Shoob, McLain and Merritt.

Over the years, the judge received a number of awards. These include the Zionist Organization of America’s Louis D. Brandeis Award in 1993; the Atlanta Bar Association’s Logan Bleckley Award in 1993; the Atlanta Bar’s Tradition of Excellence Award in 1993; Emory University Law School’s EPIC Inspiration Award in 1997; the Atlanta Bar Association’s Leadership Award in 2002; Wesley Woods Foundation’s Heroes, Saints, and Legends Award in 2006; and the Georgia First Amendment Foundation’s Charles L. Weltner Freedom of Information Award.

Judge Shoob took senior status on September 30, 1991.

He is married to the former Janice Paradies. They have two children: Michael Shoob and Wendy L. Shoob, a Fulton Superior Court judge.

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Robert L. Vining Jr. Nominated by President Jimmy Carter—June 14, 1979 Confirmed—July 23, 1979 Commission Received—July 24, 1979 Oath Taken—August 17, 1979 Judge Robert L. Vining Jr., whose politically prominent family goes back multiple generations in North Georgia, was born March 30, 1931, in Chatsworth, Murray County, Georgia, where he attended public schools, graduating from Murray County High School. He then studied at Georgia Military Academy for two years before enrolling at the University of Georgia in Athens. In 1951, his studies were interrupted by the Korean War. He enlisted in the United States Air Force, became an air traffic controller, and served in Korea. After being discharged as a staff sergeant in 1955, the judge resumed his studies at the University of Georgia in Athens, where he completed his undergraduate studies and enrolled in its law school. In the winter of 1958, he received both his undergraduate and law degrees.

In 1959, Judge Vining began practice as an associate at Mitchell and Mitchell in Dalton, Georgia. In 1960, he became a partner in the Dalton firm of McCamy, Minor and Vining. In 1963, Governor Carl Sanders appointed him as the first solicitor general of the newly created Conasauga Judicial Circuit. He was subsequently elected and served in the position until 1969, when Governor Lester Maddox appointed him as the superior court judge for the Conasauga Circuit, a position he held until his appointment to the federal bench in 1979. Prior to the governor’s call, Judge Vining had not thought about nor sought becoming a judge.

From the time of his appointment in 1979 until he established an office in the Rome courthouse in 1993, Judge Vining, who lived in Dalton, commuted daily to Atlanta, a round-trip distance of over 180 miles.

Judge Vining served as chief judge of the Northern District of Georgia from January 1, 1995, through March 31, 1996, when he took senior status.

Judge Vining was married to the former Martha Sue Cate for fifty-four years until her death in 2007. They had one daughter, Laura Lynn Vining Orr. In 2009, he married the former Ivy Parks.

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G. Ernest Tidwell Nominated by President Jimmy Carter—June 5, 1979 Confirmed—July 23, 1979 Commission Received—July 24, 1979 Oath Taken—August 17, 1979 Judge G. Ernest Tidwell was born August 1, 1931, in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended public schools. He attended Emory University and received his law degree in 1954. He was in private practice from 1954 to 1966 and later served as an associate general counsel for the State Bar of Georgia, a legal aide to the floor leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, and as executive assistant Georgia attorney general.

Judge Tidwell was appointed by Governor Lester Maddox to the Civil Court of Fulton County in 1968. He was appointed by Governor Jimmy Carter to the Superior Court of Fulton County in 1971 and won reelection in 1976.

Judge Tidwell was instrumental in the establishment of the Judicial Council of Georgia and the Institute of Continuing Judicial Education.

Judge Tidwell was chief judge of the Northern District from April 1, 1996, to August 31, 1999, and took senior status on October 8 of that year. He served as a senior judge and continued to handle a substantial caseload until his death on August 4, 2011. He is buried in Westview Cemetery in Atlanta.

The judge served thirty-two years on the Northern District bench and developed a reputation as one of the court’s more efficient judges. Known as a man of few words, he counseled young lawyers: “Be brief, brief, brief.

Don’t say more than you have to.” According to former law clerks, Judge Tidwell had a “three-sentence rule” that he applied that cut to the heart of every matter that came before him: “What do you want? Why do you want it? Why should I do it?” One former clerk quoted the judge, “If you can’t say it in three sentences, it’s not worth saying.” In an oral history interview, the judge was asked how he’d like to be remembered. The judge smiled and responded, “One word—fair.”

He was married to the former Carolyn White. They had two sons, Thomas G. Tidwell and David L. Tidwell, and a daughter, Linda T. Ochsenmeier.

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Orinda D. Evans Nominated by President Jimmy Carter—June 5, 1979 Confirmed—July 23, 1979 Commission Received—July 24, 1979 Oath Taken—August 17, 1979 Judge Orinda D. Evans was born April 23, 1943, in Savannah, Georgia, and spent her formative years in Avondale Estates, eight miles east of downtown Atlanta, where she attended public schools. Judge Evans attended Duke University, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in 1965. The judge received a juris doctor degree with distinction from the Emory University School of Law in 1968. In 1998, she received a master of laws in the judicial process from the University of Virginia School of Law. Judge Evans began the practice of law as an associate at Atlanta’s Fisher and Phillips in 1968–1969. In 1969, she joined Alston, Miller and Gaines as an associate, and in 1974, she was admitted to partnership, becoming one of the first woman partners at a major Atlanta law firm. From 1974 to 1977, she also served as an adjunct professor at Emory Law School.

The judge served on the Judicial Conference of the United States’ Committee on Security and Facilities from 1996 to 2002, on the Judicial Council of the Eleventh Circuit from 1998 to 2006, and on its Executive Committee from 1999 to 2006. She was president of the Eleventh Circuit District Judges Association from 1998 to 1999. Judge Evans has the distinction of being the youngest person to ever serve on the Northern District bench.

In 1973, the judge became the first woman invited to membership in the Lawyers Club of Atlanta. In 2006, the Atlanta Bar Association honored her with its Leadership Award. In 2007, Georgia Trend magazine listed the judge as one of its 2007 “100 Most Influential Georgians.” In 2008, she was the recipient of the prestigious Ben F. Johnson Jr. Public Service Award from Georgia State University’s College of Law. Judge Evans served as chief judge of the Northern District of Georgia from September 1, 1999, until August 31, 2006. She took senior status on December 31, 2008.

Judge Evans is married to Roberts O. Bennett. They have a son, Wells Bennett, and a daughter, Elizabeth Bennett.

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Robert H. Hall Nominated by President Jimmy Carter—September 28, 1979 Confirmed—October 31, 1979 Commission Received—November 2, 1979 Oath Taken—November 27, 1979 Judge Robert H. Hall was born November 28, 1921, in Soperton, in southeastern Georgia’s Treutlen County. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1941 and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1948. He served as a platoon leader and a company and battalion commander during World War II, and retired from the United States Army Reserves Judge Advocate General’s Corps as a lieutenant colonel in 1961.

From 1948 to 1961, Judge Hall was a professor of law at Emory University. From 1953 to 1961, he was an assistant attorney general for the state of Georgia, heading the office’s first criminal division. With a staff of investigators and accountants, he investigated corruption in state government. In 1961, he was appointed by Governor Ernest Vandiver to the Georgia Court of Appeals, serving until 1974, when he was appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court

by Governor Jimmy Carter.

When he was appointed to the federal bench, Judge Hall was described as “one of the more liberal and erudite” members of the Georgia Supreme Court. As a lawyer, professor, judge, and author, he was the moving spirit and principal architect of many improvements in Georgia’s judicial system, and he continued his advocacy of judicial improvement when he came on the federal bench in 1979. He served as president of the American Judicature Society and of the Federal Judges Association, and was a national leader of the court improvement movement. In 1973, Emory University awarded him an honorary doctor of laws and in 1992 established the Robert Howell Hall Professorship of Law and Civil Procedure to honor him.

Judge Hall took senior status on December 31, 1990, and continued to handle cases until his illness (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) intervened.

He died on October 14, 1995, and is buried in Westview Cemetery in Soperton.

He was married to the former Janice Wren and had two daughters, Carolyn C. Hall and Patricia Hall Wilson, and a son, Howell A. Hall.

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Horace T. Ward Nominated by President Jimmy Carter—November 1, 1979 Confirmed—December 5, 1979 Commission Received—December 6, 1979 Oath Taken—December 27, 1979 Judge Horace T. Ward was born on July 24, 1927, in LaGrange, Georgia, where he attended public schools. Judge Ward is a graduate of Morehouse College, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in 1949. He earned a master of arts from Atlanta University in 1950. From 1953 to 1955, he served in the United States Army, including a year in Korea.

The judge attended the Northwestern University School of Law, receiving his law degree in 1959.

In 1960, he associated with the Donald L. Hollowell law firm, becoming a partner in 1962. The firm later became Hollowell, Ward, Moore and Alexander. From 1970 to 1974, he was a partner in Ward, Moore and Alexander. During these years he also served as a deputy city attorney for the city of Atlanta and as an assistant county attorney for Fulton County.

In 1965, the judge was elected to the Georgia State Senate, becoming the second African American elected to that body. In 1974, he was appointed by Governor Jimmy Carter to the Civil Court of Fulton County, becoming the highest-ranking African American judicial official in Georgia. In 1977, Judge Ward was named by Governor George Busbee to the Superior Court of Fulton County, where he served until his appointment to the federal bench.

Judge Ward was awarded an honorary doctor of laws from his alma mater, Morehouse College, in 1981. In 2001, LaGrange College presented him with an honorary doctor of laws. He has been honored by the Gate City Bar Association with its annual presentation of the Judge Horace T. Ward Legacy Award. The University of Georgia has presented Judge Ward with its “Foot Soldier for Equal Justice Award.” In 2004, the Atlanta Bar Association presented the judge with its Leadership Award.

His biography, Horace T. Ward, Desegregation of the University of Georgia, Civil Rights, Advocacy, and Jurisprudence,

by Maurice Daniels, was published by Clark University Press in 2001 and was reissued by Howard University Press in 2004.

He took senior status on December 31, 1993, and retired on September 1, 2012.

Judge Ward was married to the former Ruth LeFlore until her death in 1976. Their only son, Theodore J. Ward, died in 1988.

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J. Owen Forrester Nominated by President Ronald Reagan—November 24, 1981 Confirmed—December 9, 1981 Commission Received—December 10, 1981 Oath Taken—January 4, 1982 Judge J. Owen Forrester was born on April 27, 1939, in Columbus, Georgia. The judge spent his formative years in Atlanta, where he attended public schools. He was awarded a Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship to the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he received a bachelor of science degree in 1961.

From 1961 until 1966, he was an investment analyst for Trust Company of Georgia while also attending Emory University Law School. He received his law degree in 1966. Following graduation, he served as a staff attorney with the gubernatorial campaign of Howard “Bo” Callaway. From 1967 until 1969, the judge was an associate at the law firm of Fisher and Phillips in Atlanta.

From 1969 until 1976, he served in several capacities with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia. His initial service was as an assistant United States attorney. From 1972 to 1973, he served as the director of a multiagency federal/state drug task force. He served as the first assistant United States attorney from 1973 until 1976.

In 1976, Judge Forrester was selected to fill the Northern District’s newly authorized third magistrate judgeship. He tried the first two jury trials conducted by a magistrate judge in northern Georgia. He served as a magistrate judge until his elevation to the District Court in 1982.

Judge Forrester was a member of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 2003 to 2005. The judge served on the Automation and Technology Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 1990 to 1997, chairing the committee from 1994 to 1997. He served as president of the Eleventh Circuit District Judges Association in 1999. The judge was a member of the Federal Judicial Center’s District Judge Education Committee. He also served as a member of the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Council’s Magistrate Judge Committee.

The judge took senior status on April 27, 2004. He passed away on July 1, 2014.

He was married to the former Linda Myrick. They have two sons, Rob Forrester and Randy Forrester.

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Jack T. Camp Nominated by President Ronald Reagan—December 18, 1987 Confirmed—April 19, 1988 Commission Received—April 20, 1988 Oath Taken—May 27, 1988 Judge Jack T. Camp was born October 30, 1943, in Newnan, Georgia. In 1965, he graduated with honors from the Citadel before receiving a Ford Foundation Fellowship to study history at the University of Virginia, where he received a master’s degree in 1967 and his law degree in 1973. From 1967 to 1970, he served on active duty with the United States Army as an intelligence officer, including a year’s service in Vietnam, where he was awarded a Bronze Star. Judge Camp completed his service as a captain.

Judge Camp was admitted to the Alabama bar in 1973 and began the practice of law with the Birmingham firm of Cabaniss, Johnston, Gardner, Dumas and O’Neal. He was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1975, when he returned to his hometown to join the firm of Glover and Davis, where he was a partner until 1988 when he went on the federal bench. He was a member of the board of governors of the State Bar of Georgia and also served as city attorney for Peachtree City, Moreland, and Grantville.

Judge Camp chaired the internal court committee that suggested major revisions to the court’s rules of procedure in the 1990s. As chief judge from September 1, 2006, to December 31, 2008, he began an initiative to solicit more input from the bar, including the local chapter of the Federal Bar Association, and conducted meetings with the state appellate courts in an effort to foster cooperation, communication, and coordination between the federal and state courts. He served a term on the Bankruptcy Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

He assumed senior status on January 1, 2009, and served until November 19, 2010, when he retired.

Judge Camp is married to the former Elizabeth Thomas. They have a son, Thomas Henry Camp, and a daughter, Sophia Rose Camp.

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Julie E. Carnes Nominated by President George H. W. Bush—August 1, 1991 Confirmed—February 6, 1992 Commission Received—February 10, 1992 Oath Taken—May 29, 1992 Judge Julie E. Carnes was born in 1950 in Atlanta, Georgia. Her father, Charles Carnes, served as a member of the Georgia General Assembly and for many years was the chief judge of the Fulton County State Court.

A National Merit Scholar, Judge Julie Carnes attended the University of Georgia, where she majored in English and graduated summa cum laude in 1972. She received her juris doctor degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1975, graduating magna cum laude.

From 1975 to 1977, she clerked for Judge Lewis R. Morgan of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Thereafter, in 1978, she became an assistant United States attorney in the Northern District of Georgia, Criminal Division. She quickly gravitated to appellate practice and became the chief of the Appellate Section from 1982 to 1990, briefing and arguing cases before the Eleventh Circuit.

As an assistant United States attorney, Judge Carnes developed specialized expertise in the newly enacted federal sentencing guidelines. From 1988 through 1990, she served as a member of the United States Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on Sentencing Guidelines. In 1989, she was selected to serve on a temporary assignment as a special counsel to the United States Sentencing Commission in Washington, DC. While there, her work caught the eye of the commissioners and of the administration of President George H. W. Bush, who nominated her to be one of the seven commissioners on the United States Sentencing Commission. The United States Senate confirmed Judge Carnes in 1990, and she served on the Sentencing Commission until 1996, both before and during her tenure as a district judge.

In 2005, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist appointed Judge Carnes to the Criminal Law Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, which is a group that oversees the judiciary’s formulation of policy in the criminal law arena. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. selected her to be that committee’s chair in 2007, a position that she held until the end of her term in 2010.

On January 1, 2009, Judge Carnes became chief judge for the Northern District of Georgia. In that capacity, she is a member of the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Council and was selected to serve on its Executive Committee.

She is married and has three children.

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Clarence Cooper Nominated by President William J. Clinton—March 9, 1994 Confirmed—May 6, 1994 Commission Received—May 9, 1994 Oath Taken—May 27, 1994 Judge Clarence Cooper was born on May 5, 1942, in Decatur, Georgia. He attended Clark College, receiving a bachelor of arts degree with honors in 1964. Judge Cooper attended Howard University School of Law from 1964 to 1965. He transferred to Emory Law School in 1965, receiving his law degree in 1967.

Judge Cooper was a law clerk at Johnson and Jordan from 1966 to 1968 and an attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Atlanta from 1967 to 1968. In 1968, he became a prosecutor with the Fulton County district attorney’s office; however, his career was interrupted by the Vietnam War. From 1968 to 1970, he served in the United States Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps, including a year in Vietnam, and was awarded the Bronze Star. After his military service, he returned to the prosecutor’s office, serving until 1975.

From 1976 to 1980, Judge Cooper served as a judge on the city court of Atlanta. In 1978, he took a sabbatical and attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he received a master of public administration degree and a diploma in judiciary budgeting from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

From 1981 to 1990, he was a superior court judge for the Atlanta Judicial Circuit and presided over the trial of Wayne Williams, the infamous “Atlanta missing and murdered children” case. In 1990, he was appointed by Governor Joe Frank Harris to the Georgia Court of Appeals, serving until his appointment to the district bench.

The judge was named to Who’s Who in America, Leadership Atlanta, and Leadership Georgia. In 1987, he led the historic American delegation to Russia for the Friendship Force International. In 1988, he received the NAACP’s prestigious Thurgood Marshall Award. The Gate City Bar Association presents its Judge Clarence Cooper Legacy Award each year. In 2010, the Atlanta Bar Association awarded him its annual Leadership Award. His alma mater, Clark College, recognized him with an honorary doctor of laws degree.

Judge Cooper took senior status on February 9, 2009.

Judge Cooper is married to the former Shirley Mae Elder. They have a daughter, Jennae Cooper, and a son, Corey Cooper.

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Frank M. Hull Nominated by President William J. Clinton—February 9, 1994 Confirmed—May 6, 1994 Commission Received—May 9, 1994 Oath Taken—May 13, 1994 Judge Frank M. Hull was born December 9, 1948, in Augusta, Georgia. Judge Hull graduated from RandolphMacon Woman’s College (now Randolph College) in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1970 and studied during her junior year at the University of Reading in England. She graduated cum laude from Emory Law School in 1973, where she was a member of the Order of the Coif and was Notes and Comments editor for the Emory Journal of Public Law. She began her legal career in 1973 as a law clerk to Judge Elbert P. Tuttle of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. From 1974 to 1984, she was a trial attorney with Powell, Goldstein, Frazer and Murphy in Atlanta and in 1980 became that firm’s first female partner.

She is also an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Construction Lawyers, and as a trial attorney she was an officer of the ABA’s Tort & Insurance Practice Section, the Forum Committee on the Construction Industry, and the Fidelity & Surety Committee.

In 1984, Governor Joe Frank Harris appointed her to the State Court of Fulton County, and in 1990, he named her to the Superior Court of Fulton County.

Judge Hull served on the Northern District bench from 1994 until October 3, 1997, when she was elevated by President Clinton to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

She is the recipient of Distinguished Alumna Awards from both Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (1998) and Emory Law School (1994). In 1998, the Georgia Council of State Court Judges presented her with its Ogden Doremus Judicial Service Award. A 1987 graduate of Leadership Atlanta, Judge Hull was a Rosalynn Carter Fellow in Public Policy Studies at the Emory University Institute for Women’s Studies from 2000 to 2002. Judge Hull previously served on the State of Georgia Commission on Family Violence, on the State of Georgia Commission on Gender Bias in the Judicial System, on the National Board of Directors of the American Judicature Society, and on numerous committees of the Atlanta Bar Association, State Bar of Georgia, and American Bar Association. From 2001 to 2007, she served on the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States. From 2008 to 2013, she served on the Committee on Space and Facilities of the Judicial Conference.

She is married to Antonin (“Tony”) Aeck, an architect, FAIA. They have a son, Richard Hull Aeck, and a daughter, Molly Hull Aeck.

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Willis B. Hunt Jr. Nominated by President William J. Clinton—January 23, 1995 Confirmed—March 24, 1995 Commission Received—March 24, 1995 Oath Taken—June 30, 1995 Judge Willis B. Hunt was born December 10, 1932, in Malden, Massachusetts, and attended public schools in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Miami, Florida. In 1950, he was admitted to the undergraduate prelaw program at Emory University and later to Emory’s Law School, from which he received a bachelor of laws degree in 1954. From 1955 until 1957, the judge served in the United States Army as a cryptographer, including a tour of duty in Germany.

From 1957 to 1959, he served as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Buffalo, New York, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

He entered the practice of law in 1960 in Atlanta as an associate with the firm of Shoob and McLain. The firm’s senior partner was Marvin H. Shoob, with whom Judge Hunt would later serve on the Northern District bench. From 1967 to 1971, he served as a partner with the firm of Nunn, Geiger and Hunt in Perry and Warner Robins, Georgia, whose senior partner, Sam Nunn, would later become a United States senator. In 1971, Governor Jimmy Carter appointed Judge Hunt as the first superior court judge for the newly created Houston Judicial Circuit, a position he held for fifteen years. Prior to his appointment he had not considered becoming a judge. In 1986, Judge Hunt was appointed by Governor Joe Frank Harris as a justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. From 1994 until June 1995, he served as its chief justice. In 1990, he received a master of laws in the judicial process degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. The judge is a member of the Joseph Henry Lumpkin Inn of Court and the Lamar Inn of Court. The State Bar of Georgia honored him as the 2006 recipient of its Judicial Tradition of Excellence Award. In 2013, Judge Hunt was the recipient of the Atlanta Bar Association’s Logan E. Bleckley Award for Judicial Excellence.

Judge Hunt assumed senior status on June 30, 2005.

He is married to the former Ursula Schroetter. They have two sons, Chris Hunt and Pete Hunt, and a daughter, Amy Hunt Leonard.

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Thomas W. Thrash Jr. Nominated by President William J. Clinton—January 7, 1997 Confirmed—July 31, 1997 Commission Received—August 1, 1997 Oath Taken—August 15, 1997 Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. was born May 8, 1951, in Birmingham, Alabama, where he lived until departing for Virginia to attend college. The story behind Judge Thrash’s decision to become a lawyer is most interesting. There were no lawyers in his family. He worked summers at the Birmingham Public Library to earn money for college, and while there read a biography of famed trial lawyer Clarence Darrow, which influenced his career decision.

He attended the University of Virginia as both an Echols and a DuPont scholar, where he studied history and literature and was president of the school’s debate team. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, he received his bachelor of arts degree with high distinction in 1973. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he was a semifinalist in the Ames Moot Court competition and received his juris doctor degree cum laude in 1976.

His legal career began in Atlanta, where he was an associate at McClain, Mellen, Bowling and Hickman from 1976 to 1977. The judge served as an assistant district attorney in the Fulton County district attorney’s office from 1977 until 1980. From 1980 until his appointment to the federal bench, he was in private practice in Atlanta, first at Ross and Finch, then as a partner at Finch, McCranie, Brown and Thrash, and ultimately at his own firm.

In 2001, Chief Justice William Rehnquist appointed Judge Thrash to the Judicial Conference of the United States’ Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, a group that reviews and coordinates the recommendations of five advisory committees on proposed rule changes for submission to the Judicial Conference. The first major rewrite of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in nearly seventy years took place during Judge Thrash’s tenure. This rewrite entailed a comprehensive style revision to clarify, simplify, and modernize language. He was reappointed to a second three-year term in 2004. As the project was nearing completion, Chief Justice John Roberts asked Judge Thrash to serve an additional year on the committee. The restyled Civil Rules project was recognized by the prestigious Burton Awards for Legal Achievement with its 2007 Reform in Law Award. Judge Thrash was elected in October 2008 to membership in the American Law Institute, one of the preeminent legal organizations in the United States.

He is married to the former Margaret Lines. They have a son, Andrew Styles Thrash, and a daughter, Margaret Van Buren Thrash.

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Richard W. Story Nominated by President William J. Clinton—September 15, 1997 Confirmed—January 28, 1998 Commission Received—February 4, 1998 Oath Taken—February 10, 1998 Judge Richard W. Story was born May 3, 1953, in Augusta, Georgia, and attended public schools in Harlem, in Columbia County in east-central Georgia. He attended LaGrange College, where he majored in English, and received his bachelor of arts degree in 1975. Judge Story attended the University of Georgia School of Law, where he was a member and coach of its international moot court team. He received his juris doctor degree in 1978.

The judge began his legal career in 1978 as an associate at the Gainesville firm of Kenyon, Hulsey and Oliver, where he later became a partner. He also served as a special assistant attorney general for the state of Georgia. In 1985, he was named as a part-time judge of the Juvenile Court of Hall County.

In 1986, Governor Joe Frank Harris appointed him to a newly created third judgeship on the superior court of Georgia’s Northeastern Circuit (Hall, Lumpkin, Dawson, and White Counties). At the time of his appointment, at age thirty-three, Judge Story was Georgia’s youngest superior court judge. He served as the Northeastern Circuit’s chief judge from 1993 until his appointment to the federal bench. The judge also served as the administrative judge for Georgia’s Ninth Judicial District from 1996 until 1998.

In 2008, Judge Story was appointed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States’ Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction, a committee of federal judges and state supreme court chief justices, which analyzes proposed changes in federal jurisdiction, makes recommendations to the Judicial Conference regarding such proposals, and facilitates communication between the federal and state judicial systems.

The chief justice named Judge Story as the committee’s chair in October 2011. Judge Story has also served on the board of trustees of LaGrange College and is president of the Joseph Henry Lumpkin Inn of Court.

He is married to the former Nancy Duffey. They have two daughters, Laura Droms and Elizabeth Story, and a son, Will Story.

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Charles A. Pannell Jr. Nominated by President William J. Clinton—July 14, 1999 Confirmed—October 15, 1999 Commission Received—October 26, 1999 Oath Taken—December 1, 1999 Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr. was born January 24, 1946, at Emory Hospital in DeKalb County, Georgia. His family goes back multiple generations in the mountains of North Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. He attended Georgia public schools in Atlanta, Murray County, and Dalton, graduating from Dalton High School in 1963. He received a bachelor of arts degree in 1967 and a juris doctor in 1970 from the University of Georgia. During college he was a member of Alpha Tau Omega, the Student Judiciary, ROTC, and the Gridiron Secret Society.

Judge Pannell was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army, Military Police Corps, later transferring to the Judge Advocate Generals’ Corps, and served twenty-nine years in the Army Reserves. He served as a military judge in the rank of colonel, graduated from the United States Army War College, and received the Legion of Merit.

In 1971 and 1972, he served as an assistant United States attorney in the Northern District of Georgia. From 1972 until 1976, Judge Pannell was an associate and later a partner at the Pittman and Kinney law firm in Dalton, Georgia. During that time, he had a general litigation practice including representation of indigent defendants in criminal cases.

At age thirty, Judge Pannell was elected as the district attorney for the Conasauga Circuit (Murray and Whitfield Counties). In 1979, he became the youngest superior court judge in Georgia. During his twenty years on the superior court, he served as an administrative judge, on the Judicial Council of Georgia, and as president-elect of the Council of Superior Court Judges. As judge he tried the “Bathtub Strangler Case” in 1983 after its transfer from DeKalb County.

It was the first death penalty trial that allowed Atlanta TV cameras. By 1999, he had presided over or been lead counsel in more than eight hundred jury trials.

In 1980, Judge Pannell was among the Five Outstanding Young Men named by the Jaycees of Georgia for the state. He served for twenty years as district chairman for the STAR Student Recognition Program. Because of his work with the Boy Scouts of America, he was awarded the Silver Beaver in 1999. The Cross and Flame Award and the Torch Award were presented by the United Methodist Church for his work with youth. In 2011, Georgia Trend magazine named him to its “100 Most Influential Georgians” list, citing his role in an overhaul of Georgia’s mental health system.

He is married to the former Kate Thompson Williams. They have two children: Ruth Pannell Crider, MD, and Charles A. Pannell III, an attorney.

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Beverly B. Martin Nominated by President William J. Clinton—March 27, 2000 Confirmed—June 16, 2000 Commission Received—August 3, 2000 Oath Taken—August 4, 2000 Judge Beverly B. Martin was born August 7, 1955, in Macon, Georgia. She received a bachelor of arts degree from Stetson University in 1976 and a juris doctor degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1981. After being admitted to the bar that same year, she returned to Macon and began the practice of law as a fourth-generation attorney at Martin, Snow, Grant and Napier, the firm founded in 1890 by her great-grandfather, where she handled business transactions. In 1984, she was hired by Georgia’s attorney general Mike Bowers as an assistant attorney general and became a trial and appellate attorney handling cases involving the state’s Department of Transportation.

The attorney general later selected her as the director of his office’s Regulated Industries and Professionals Division, where she managed a number of lawyers and was engaged in litigation involving doctors, dentists, and other professional licensing boards. In 1994, she returned to her hometown to accept an appointment as an assistant United States attorney for the Middle District of Georgia and returned to her passion—litigating cases. In 1997, she was selected as the acting United States attorney, and on the recommendation of Senator Max Cleland, President Clinton appointed her to the permanent position in 1998.

As United States attorney for Georgia’s Middle District, Judge Martin took an active leadership role. Together with her local partners, she implemented the Department of Justice’s Weed and Seed program in inner-city neighborhoods in Albany, Athens, Macon, and Valdosta. An example of the work done as part of these programs were camps held on military bases for the children from these neighborhoods, where the children interacted with military and law enforcement personnel who served as counselors. Judge Martin also served on Attorney General Janet Reno’s Advisory Council, composed of select United States attorneys from across the country who met regularly with the attorney general and consulted on policy matters.

Judge Martin served with distinction on the Northern District bench from 2000 until she was elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit by President Barack Obama, being sworn in to her new position on February 1, 2010.

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William S. Duffey Jr. Nominated by President George W. Bush—November 5, 2003 Confirmed—June 16, 2004 Commission Received—July 1, 2004 Oath Taken—July 1, 2004 Judge William S. Duffey Jr. was born May 9, 1952, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was a career naval officer. Judge Duffey received a bachelor of arts degree with honors from Drake University in 1973. He attended the University of South Carolina School of Law, where he was the Articles editor of the South Carolina Law Review and a legal writing instructor. He received his juris doctor degree cum laude in 1977.

Judge Duffey began his legal career as a prosecutor in the United States Air Force, serving from 1978 to 1981 in its Judge Advocate Generals’ Corps. His first two years of military service were as an assistant staff judge advocate at Headquarters, TUSLOG, in Ankara, Turkey. He next served as a circuit trial counsel responsible for Air Force felony prosecutions and officer elimination actions in the southeastern United States and the Republic of Panama. In 1981, Judge Duffey joined King & Spalding as an associate, where he served as a member of the firm’s commercial litigation section. He later was a founding partner of the firm’s Special Matters Group. He was elected a partner of the firm in 1987.

In 1994, Independent Counsel Robert B. Fiske appointed him as his deputy for the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan (“Whitewater”) investigations in Little Rock, Arkansas. He served with both Mr. Fiske and his successor, Kenneth W. Starr, who appointed him as deputy independent counsel in charge of the Arkansas phase of the investigations. In 1995, he was reelected a partner of King & Spalding’s Special Matters Group. President George W. Bush appointed him as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Georgia in 2001. He served as United States attorney until his appointment to the federal bench in 2004. His book, A Life in the Law: Advice for Young Lawyers, was published in 2009 by the American Bar Association. In 2011, he received Drake University’s Alumni Achievement Award. He founded the Center for Young Adult Addiction and Recovery at Kennesaw State University and serves on the board of directors of the Atlanta Track Club.

Judge Duffey is married to the former Betsy Byars. They have two married sons, Charles and Scott.

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Timothy C. Batten Sr. Nominated by President George W. Bush—September 28, 2005 Confirmed—March 6, 2006 Commission Received—March 28, 2006 Oath Taken—April 3, 2006 Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr. graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with highest honors in 1981 with a degree in industrial management. In 1984, he graduated cum laude from the University of Georgia School of Law. Judge Batten later explained how he made the decision to attend Georgia Tech for his undergraduate training and then attend its rival, the University of Georgia, for his legal education. While in high school he decided to become a lawyer. He sought the advice of his father, Hosea Batten, a 1948 Georgia Tech industrial management graduate, who recommended that he go to Tech because he thought its academic demands would “rough him up” more than the University of Georgia would; apparently, the judge’s father felt that Judge Batten needed some “roughing up.”

In the interview, the judge told of meeting with the University of Georgia’s law school admissions director, who told him that his technological academic background served him well in the very competitive law school admissions process.

From 1984 to 2006, Judge Batten was a trial lawyer with Schreeder, Wheeler & Flint, a medium-sized general business practice in Atlanta, where he became a partner in 1993. During his career in private practice, he personally tried over twenty civil cases to verdict and materially participated in at least fifty other jury and bench trials. His work was plaintiff- and defendant-oriented, encompassing a broad range of subjects, including medical malpractice, products liability, construction, commercial contracts, fraud, and personal injury.

He is married to the former Beth Parkman. They have five daughters, ages twenty-two, twenty-one, nineteen, fifteen, and thirteen, and a ten-year-old son. The family is active with Buckhead Church. Judge Batten is a member of the Old War Horse Lawyers Club.

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Amy Totenberg Nominated by President Barack Obama—January 5, 2011 Confirmed—February 28, 2011 Commission Received—March 1, 2011 Oath Taken—March 4, 2011 Judge Amy Totenberg was born January 29, 1950, in New York, New York, and spent her formative years in New York and Boston. The judge was a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard-Radcliffe College, receiving her bachelor of arts degree in 1974. In 1977, she received a juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School.

From 1977 until November 1982, she was a partner at the Law Project, an Atlanta public-interest law practice specializing in civil and constitutional rights, class actions, criminal law, and employment litigation cases. From 1982 until 1994, and from June 1999 until March 2011, Judge Totenberg was a solo practitioner, litigating constitutional, civil rights, education, and employment cases across the state of Georgia. She also served as a pro hac, or part-time, judge on the Atlanta Municipal Court from 1986 to 1993. From August 1994 until May 1998, she served as the first general counsel for the Board of Education of the city of Atlanta. She was actively engaged in educational reform within the state of Georgia.

For the decade immediately prior to her appointment to the Northern District bench, Judge Totenberg served as a special master, monitor, and mediator for the United States District Courts in Washington, DC, and Baltimore, Maryland, in complex class actions involving education and the rights of students with disabilities. She maintained an active arbitration and mediation practice during that time while also teaching at Emory Law School as an adjunct law professor.

She was a member of the Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest from 1992 to 2008, serving as its president from 1993 to 1994 and as a member of its executive board from 1992 to 2008. In 1999, Governor Roy Barnes named her to the Governor’s Education Reform Commission. From 2000 to 2002, Judge Totenberg served as the chair of the Special Education Advisory Committee to the Georgia State Board of Education. In 2002 through 2003, she served as a member of the State of Georgia Personnel Board.

Judge Totenberg is married to Ralph Green. They have four daughters: Sonya Green, Naomi Green, Emily Green, and Clara Green.

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Steve C. Jones Nominated by President Barack Obama—January 5, 2011 Confirmed—February 28, 2011 Commission Received—March 3, 2011 Oath Taken—March 4, 2011 Judge Steve C. Jones was born January 26, 1957, in Athens, Georgia, where he attended public schools and the University of Georgia, receiving a bachelor of business administration degree from its business school in 1978 and a juris doctor degree from its law school in 1987. From 1978 until 1985, before enrolling in law school, he headed the Athens Child Support Recovery Unit. After his graduation from law school, Judge Jones served as an assistant district attorney for the Western Judicial Circuit from 1987 to 1991.

The judge served as an Athens–Clarke County municipal court judge from 1992 to 1995. In 1995, Governor Zell Miller appointed him to fill an unexpired term on the Western Judicial Circuit’s superior court bench. He was subsequently elected to that post four times without opposition, serving until his appointment to the federal bench in 2011. In addition to his regular caseload on the Superior Court, Judge Jones also presided over his circuit’s Felony Drug Court Program, which integrated alcohol and substance abuse treatment with court supervision.

Judge Jones is a member of the board of trustees for the University of Georgia and the immediate past president of the University of Georgia National Alumni Association. He is also a member of the Old War Horse Lawyers Club. The judge is the former chair of the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission (2002–2006), the University of Georgia School of Law’s Board of Visitors (2003), and the Athens Community Foundation (2007–2010). He also served on the Georgia Supreme Court’s Commission on Equality (2006–2008) and the Domestic Violence Committee (2001–2004).

In 1998, Judge Jones was the recipient of the Chief Justice Robert Benham Award for Community Service. In 2007, the Junior League of Athens awarded him its Volunteer of the Year Award. Omega Psi Phi Fraternity named him Omega Citizen of the Year in 2007, and the Gate City Bar Association presented the judge with its 2009 Outstanding Jurist Award. The University of Georgia in 2007 gave him its “Fulfilling the Dream” Award, and in 2013 the judge received the Distinguished Service Scroll Award from the law school. In 2011, he was also awarded Leadership Georgia’s E. Dale Threadgill Community Service Award. The Association of Legal Professionals honored him with its Legal Professional of the Year in 2003.

He is married to Lillian Kincey.

190

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United States District Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1849–2013

191

J. Roger Thompson ~ Clinton J. Morgan ~ John H. Smith ~ Henry N. Payton ~ Allen L. Chancey Jr. Joel M. Feldman ~ J. Owen Forrester ~ John E. Dougherty ~ Robert J. Castellani ~ William L. Harper Jr. John R. Strother Jr. ~ William W. Byington Jr. ~ Richard H. Deane Jr. ~ Gerrilyn G. Brill E. Clayton Scofield III ~ C. Christopher Hagy ~ Janet F. King ~ Linda T. Walker ~ Alan J. Baverman Susan S. Cole ~ Walter E. Johnson ~ Russell G. Vineyard ~ Justin S. Anand ~ J. Clay Fuller 192

T h e H i s to ry

of the

U n i t e d S tat e s D i s t r i c t C o u rt | N o rt h e r n D i s t r i c t D O

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UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGES NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA

1971–2013

The Magistrate Judges The roots of the position of United States magistrate judge can be traced to 1793 when Congress passed a statute allowing the appointment of “discreet persons learned in the law” to take bail in criminal cases. These judicial officer positions have been known by different titles throughout the history of the federal judiciary—United States commissioner from 1793 to 1968, United States magistrate from 1968 to 1990, and since 1990, United States magistrate judge.

In 1968, Congress passed the Federal Magistrates Act, which authorized the appointment of United States magistrate judges to perform functions that were previously the responsibility of United States commissioners, and to be assigned additional duties “not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

The Northern District’s first United States magistrates were appointed in 1971 with one full-time and three part-time magistrates. As the court’s workload grew, both in size and complexity, its complement of authorized magistrates has increased to the current nine full-time positions, seven headquartered in Atlanta and one in Rome and one in Gainesville. They are appointed for eight-year terms and can be reappointed.

With a changing docket, the responsibilities of the magistrate judges have changed.

Since 1987, all Title VII employment discrimination cases are automatically referred on a random basis to the magistrate judges. District judges routinely refer a wide range of pretrial case management duties to magistrate judges including motions, pretrial conferences, and discovery disputes.

The following are biographies of the twenty men and four women who since 1971 have served the Northern District as magistrate judges with honor and distinction.

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia

J. Roger Thompson Appointed—April 29, 1971

J. Roger Thompson was appointed as the Northern District’s first United States magistrate on April 29, 1971, and served until he resigned to reenter private practice on September 30, 1974. n A veteran of the United States Marine Corps, Magistrate Thompson attended Georgia State and Mercer Universities and received his law degree from Emory University. He was admitted to the Georgia bar in December 1962. Prior to his service on the Northern District magistrate bench, he was an assistant district attorney in the Atlanta Judicial Circuit for a number of years. Following his service as a magistrate, he returned to private practice, first in Atlanta, and then in Ellijay, Georgia, where he later served as an assistant district attorney in the Appalachian Judicial Circuit. He died on February 27, 1994. Since 1994, the Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council has annually honored his service by awarding the J. Roger Thompson Award in his memory.

194

MAGISTRATE

JUDGES

United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

Clinton J. Morgan Appointed—April 29, 1971

Clinton J. Morgan served as a United States commissioner for the Rome Division from 1965 to 1971. He was appointed as a part-time United States magistrate for the Rome Division on April 29, 1971, and served until his retirement on June 30, 1990. n Magistrate Morgan received his undergraduate and law degrees from Vanderbilt University. Like many of his classmates, his undergraduate education was interrupted by military service in World War II. He enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in 1942. Commissioned a second lieutenant in 1944, he flew twenty-two combat missions over Germany as a B-17 navigator/bombardier. Early in his career following his graduation from law school, he served as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He moved to Rome in 1953 to begin the practice of law, specializing in civil litigation with Jones, Morgan and Byington firm.

Magistrate Morgan retired in 1990 and moved to Nashville. In 1991, he resumed his legal career, becoming a special assistant attorney general for the state of Tennessee, serving until 2002. He died on July 25, 2004.

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia

John H. Smith Appointed—April 29, 1971

John H. Smith served as the United States commissioner in Gainesville from 1967 to 1971. n He was appointed as a part-time United States magistrate for the Gainesville Division on April 29, 1971, and served until his retirement in 1995. n Judge Smith received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Georgia. From 1963 to 1965, he served in the United States Army, first as an infantry officer, then with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

Following his discharge, he returned to Gainesville to practice law with his father, R. Wilson Smith. He practices law today as the senior partner in that same firm, which is now known as Smith, Gilliam, Williams and Miles. He also served for a time as the Gainesville city attorney.

196

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United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

Henry N. Payton Appointed—April 29, 1971

Henry N. Payton served as the United States commissioner in Newnan for many years. He was appointed as a part-time United States magistrate for the Newnan Division on April 29, 1971, and served until his retirement on September 30, 1984. n Magistrate Payton attended Woodrow Wilson College of Law, in Atlanta, and was admitted to the bar in 1940. In 1942, he enlisted in the United States Army and was commissioned a second lieutenant after officer candidate school. He served overseas during World War II and was a captain when completing his service in 1946. He practiced briefly in Atlanta before becoming a Georgia assistant attorney general from 1947 to 1948.

Magistrate Payton served as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from Coweta County from 1957 through 1964. He was in private practice in Newnan from 1949 until his death in 1995.

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia

Allen L. Chancey Jr. Appointed—August 11, 1972

Allen L. Chancey Jr. was appointed as the Northern District’s second full-time United States magistrate on August 11, 1972, and served until his retirement on December 31, 1994. He served as the chief magistrate judge from 1976 to 1985 and from 1989 to 1993. n A member of Phi Beta Kappa, he attended the University of Georgia, receiving his bachelor of arts in 1949 and his law degree in 1951. He served as a first lieutenant in the United States Army in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1951 to 1953. He was in private practice in Atlanta from 1954 until 1960.

In 1960, he became an assistant United States attorney and served in that capacity until 1972. He served several months in 1969 as the acting United States attorney for the Northern District.

198

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United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

Joel M. Feldman Appointed—October 23, 1974

Joel M. Feldman was appointed a United States magistrate on October 23, 1974, and served until his retirement on October 20, 2006. n Judge Feldman attended Emory University where he received his bachelor of arts in 1962 and his law degree in 1964. He served as assistant legislative counsel with the Georgia General Assembly from 1964 to 1966 and as an assistant Georgia attorney general from 1966 to 1968. From 1968 to 1972, he was as an assistant district attorney for the Atlanta Judicial Circuit. He was legislative counsel to United States Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia from 1973 to 1974. He served in the United States Navy Reserve from 1964 to 1992, retiring as a captain.

His naval service included assignment as a military judge with the Naval-Marine Trial Judiciary.

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia

J. Owen Forrester Appointed—May 10, 1976

J. Owen Forrester was appointed a United States magistrate on May 10, 1976. He served on the magistrate bench until January 4, 1982, when President Ronald Reagan appointed him to be a United States district judge. n He received his bachelor of science in 1961 from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his law degree in 1966 from the Emory University School of Law. From 1967 to 1969, he was in private practice in Atlanta with Fisher and Phillips.

From 1969 until 1976, he served in the Office of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, including service as the head of a multiagency federal/state drug task force, and as the first assistant United States attorney. n Judge Forrester holds the distinction of being the first magistrate in the Northern District to conduct a jury trial. He died on July 1, 2014.

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United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

John E. Dougherty Appointed—December 1, 1977

John E. Dougherty was appointed a United States magistrate on December 1, 1977, and served until his retirement on January 1, 2000. Judge Dougherty served as chief magistrate from January 1, 1985, until January 4, 1989. n He attended Emory University from 1941 to 1943 and from 1946 to 1948, receiving his bachelor of arts in 1948. He attended Emory Law School from 1948 to 1950 and received his law degree in 1950. From 1943 to 1946, he served in the United States Army Air as a bombardier. Following his wartime service and completion of his education, he served in the United States Air Force Reserve in its Judge Advocate General’s Corps until 1976, retiring as a colonel.

From 1950 until his appointment to the magistrate position in 1977, he was in private practice in Atlanta. From 1963 until 1977, he served as an assistant and associate city attorney for the city of Atlanta while also practicing law.

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia

Robert J. Castellani Appointed—March 31, 1982

Robert J. Castellani was appointed a United States magistrate on March 31, 1982. He served as a magistrate until he resigned November 30, 1984, to accept an appointment as a judge on the superior court of DeKalb County. n Magistrate Castellani received his law degree from the Emory University School of Law in 1966. He was in private practice before serving as an assistant attorney general for the state of Georgia. He subsequently became an assistant United States attorney, and served as that office’s principal deputy, the first assistant United States attorney.

Judge Castellani retired from the superior court bench in 2010 and continues to serve as a senior superior court judge for the state of Georgia. He is also on the faculty at the Emory University School of Law.

202

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United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

William L. Harper Jr. Appointed—October 1, 1984

William L. Harper was appointed a United States magistrate on October 1, 1984, and served until his retirement on October 1, 1998. n Judge Harper received his bachelor of arts in 1954 and his law degree in 1956, both from Emory University. He was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1955. Upon graduation from law school he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force. He served on active duty with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1956 to 1958, followed by twenty-eight years in the Air Force Reserve, retiring as a major general in 1986. He was in private practice in Atlanta with Dorsey and Dorsey from 1958 to 1971. In 1971, Judge Harper became executive counsel to Governor Jimmy Carter, and later to Governor George Busbee. In 1977, President Carter appointed him as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, a position he held until 1981. From 1981 to 1984, he was with the Hurt, Richardson, Garner, Todd and Cadenhead law firm.

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia

John R. Strother Jr. Appointed—May 1, 1985

John R. Strother Jr. was appointed a United States magistrate on May 1, 1985, and served until his retirement on February 1, 2001. He later served as a recalled magistrate judge from February 1, 2001, through April 15, 2002, and again from September 5, 2006, until October 15, 2006. Judge Strother served as the chief magistrate judge from 1993 until 2001. n He attended Emory University, where he earned his bachelor of arts in 1956 and his law degree in 1958. He was admitted to the bar in 1958, and for twenty-seven years he had a general law practice in Atlanta.

While in private practice, he also served as an assistant Fulton County attorney and as a special assistant Georgia attorney general. As a magistrate judge, from 1985 to 1995, he served principally in the Atlanta Division. In 1995, at his request, he was transferred to Gainesville, where he became that division’s first full-time magistrate judge, serving until his retirement. Judge Strother died on September 26, 2011.

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United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

William W. Byington Jr. Appointed—December 20, 1990

William W. Byington Jr. was appointed a part-time United States magistrate judge for the Rome Division on December 20, 1990, and served until March 17, 2002, when the position became full-time. n The judge attended the University of Georgia, where he received his undergraduate and law degrees. He was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1976 and began the practice of law as an associate with the firm that later became Jones, Morgan and Byington. He continues in private practice at the firm of Cox & Byington in Rome.

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia

Richard H. Deane Jr. Appointed—February 24, 1994

Richard H. Deane Jr. was appointed a United States magistrate judge on February 24, 1994, and served until April 3, 1998, at which time he resigned to accept appointment as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, serving from 1998 to 2001. n The judge attended the University of Georgia, where he received his bachelor of arts cum laude in 1974 and his juris doctor in 1977. In 1979, he received a master of laws from the University of Michigan. From 1980 to 1994, Judge Deane served in several capacities in the United States attorney’s office, including assistant United States attorney, chief of the General Crimes Section, and chief of the Criminal Division. n Judge Deane served on the United States attorney general’s Advisory Committee. In 2001, he was named to TIME magazine’s “TIME 100 List of Innovators” for his use of the federal racketeering and corruption statute to fight local crime. That same year, Georgia Trend magazine included him in its “100 Most Influential Georgians.” He is currently in private practice with the Jones Day law firm.

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JUDGES

United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

Gerrilyn G. Brill Appointed—January 20, 1995

Gerrilyn G. Brill has served as a United States magistrate judge since her appointment on January 20, 1995. From February 2, 2001, until April 30, 2011, she served as the chief United States magistrate judge. n She received her bachelor of arts from Northwestern University in 1972 and her juris doctor with distinction from Emory University in 1975. She was in private practice from 1975 to 1978. In 1978, she began her career as a prosecutor with the United States attorney’s office in the Northern District of Georgia. Her seventeen years with that office included service as the interim or acting United States attorney, chief of the Fraud Section, deputy chief of the Criminal Section, and first assistant United States attorney.

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia

E. Clayton Scofield III Appointed—May 4, 1998

E. Clayton Scofield has served as a United States magistrate judge since his appointment on May 4, 1998. n A native of Atlanta and a graduate of the Lovett School, the judge received his bachelor of arts cum laude from Duke University in 1972 and his juris doctor degree, also cum laude, from the University of Georgia in 1975. He served as Notes editor of the Georgia Law Review 1974–75. From 1975 to 1977, he clerked for Chief Judge Anthony A. Alaimo of the Southern District of Georgia. From 1977 to 1990, he was an associate and then partner at Hurt, Richardson, Garner, Todd and Cadenhead in Atlanta. From 1990 until his appointment to the bench in 1998, he was a founding partner at the law firm of Gleaton, Scofield, Egan and Jones. Judge Scofield also served as president of the Atlanta Bar Association (ABA) from 1996 to 1997, secretary of the ABA from 1994 to 1995, and chair of the Litigation Section of the ABA from 1991 to 1992.

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United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

C. Christopher Hagy Appointed—June 1, 1998

C. Christopher Hagy was appointed a United States magistrate judge on June 1, 1998, and served until his retirement on May 31, 2012. n He received his bachelor of arts with honors from Williams College in 1964 and his law degree with honors from Harvard Law School in 1967. From 1967 to 1968, he was an associate at Proskauer, Rose, Goetz and Mendelsohn in New York. From 1968 to 1969, he clerked for United States District Judge Walter R. Mansfield of the Southern District of New York. From 1969 to 1974, he was an associate, and from 1974 to 1998, a partner at Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan in Atlanta.

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia

Janet F. King Appointed—October 20, 1998

Janet F. King has served as a United States magistrate judge since her appointment on October 20, 1998. She has been the chief magistrate judge since May 1, 2011. n The judge attended the University of Georgia, where she received her bachelor of arts in 1977 and her juris doctor magna cum laude in 1980. She began her legal career in 1980 with the United States attorney’s office as an assistant United States attorney. From 1995 until 1998, she served as the first assistant United States attorney, and, during that time, she served as the interim United States attorney, from August 15, 1997, to February 27, 1998. n Judge King is a member of the Lawyers Foundation of Georgia and the Atlanta Bar Foundation, and the judge served as the chair of the Judicial Section of the Atlanta Bar Association from June 2007 to June 2008.

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United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

Linda T. Walker Appointed—January 3, 2000

Linda T. Walker has served as a United States magistrate judge since her appointment on January 3, 2000. n The judge received her bachelor of science from Southern University in 1983, a master of science from Atlanta University in 1987, and her juris doctor in 1989 from the University of Georgia. She was inducted into the Joseph Henry Lumpkin American Inn of Court and the Order of Barristers. n While in law school she clerked for the Athens firm of Cook, Noell, Tolley and Wiggins. From 1989 to 1990, she clerked for United States District Judge G. Ernest Tidwell.

She practiced with the Atlanta firm of Webb and Daniel from 1990 to 1992, handling antitrust and general civil litigation. From 1992 to 1999, Judge Walker was with the Office of the County Attorney for Fulton County, beginning as deputy county attorney, and in 1997, as Fulton County’s first African American county attorney.

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Alan J. Baverman Appointed—February 1, 2001

Alan J. Baverman has served as a United States magistrate judge since his appointment on February 1, 2001. n He received his bachelor of arts from the University of Maryland in 1978 and his juris doctor from Emory University in 1981. From 1981 to 1983, he served as a law clerk to United States District Judge Harold L. Murphy. He practiced with Kadish and Kadish from 1983 to 1986, and from 1986 to 1989 he was with Chivilis & Grindler. He was a sole practitioner from 1989 to 2001, when he became a magistrate judge.

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United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

Susan S. Cole Appointed—March 7, 2002

Susan S. Cole was appointed a United States magistrate judge for the Gainesville Division on March 7, 2002, and served until her retirement on August 31, 2012. n The judge received her bachelor of arts cum laude from Bryn Mawr College in 1969, and her juris doctor cum laude in 1977 from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. She was a staff member of the Mercer Law Review. From 1977 until 1979, she was a staff attorney with the Elderly Legal Services Project in Macon, Georgia. She served as a law clerk to Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1979 until 1981. Following her clerkship, she was in private practice in Macon with Sell & Melton from 1981 to 1986; Anderson, Walker and Reichert from 1986 to 2001; and as a partner in Cole and Cox from 1996 to 2001. Judge Cole was an adjunct professor in appellate practice at the Walter F. George School of Law from 1983 to 1990.

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Walter E. Johnson Appointed—March 18, 2002

Walter E. Johnson was appointed a United States magistrate judge for the Rome Division on March 18, 2002. n The judge received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Georgia. He served as a law clerk to United States District Judge B. Avant Edenfield in the Southern District of Georgia from 1985 to 1986. He entered private practice in 1986 as an associate with Kilpatrick and Cody (now Kilpatrick, Townsend and Stockton), where he became a partner in 1995. From 2001 until 2002, he was principal counsel for labor and employment with the Georgia-Pacific Corporation.

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United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

Russell G. Vineyard Appointed—October 23, 2006

Russell G. Vineyard has served as a United States magistrate judge since his appointment on October 23, 2006. n He attended the University of Georgia where he received his bachelor of arts magna cum laude in 1986, and his juris doctor magna cum laude in 1989. From 1989 to 1991, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable H. Ted Milburn of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Judge Vineyard joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, where he served as an assistant United States attorney in the Civil Division from 1991 to 1994 and in the Criminal Division from 1995 to 2006. Judge Vineyard was the deputy chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section from June 2002 until his appointment to the bench in October 2006.

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Justin S. Anand Appointed—June 4, 2012

Justin S. Anand was appointed a United States magistrate judge on June 4, 2012. n He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1993 with high honors, and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1998. While in law school, he defended clients in criminal cases in Boston courts, pro bono, under guidance of a professor. Following graduation, he clerked for United States District Judge Jed S. Rakoff in New York City. A native New Yorker, Judge Anand then entered private practice in New York with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton, where he focused on corporate and securities litigation and international arbitration. n In 2003, Judge Anand became an assistant United States attorney in the Northern District of Georgia. From 2007 until his appointment to the bench, he served as the deputy chief of that office’s Economic and Cyber Crimes Section. Judge Anand prosecuted several high-profile securities, corporate, and health-care fraud cases during his tenure with the office. Judge Anand is a first-generation United States citizen and among the first Indian American federal judges in the South.

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United States Magistrate Judges | Northern District of Georgia | 1971–2013

J. Clay Fuller Appointed—September 4, 2012

J. Clay Fuller was appointed a United States magistrate judge for the Gainesville Division on September 4, 2012. n Judge Fuller was born in Atlanta and raised in Dalton, Georgia. He attended the University of Georgia, where he received a bachelor of arts in 1988. After playing music professionally for several years, he entered the University of Georgia School of Law and graduated magna cum laude in 1999. While in law school he was an Articles editor of the Georgia Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. From 1999 to 2001, he served as a law clerk to United States District Judge Richard W. Story. Following this clerkship he worked as an associate for the firm of Butler, Wooten, Fryhofer, Daughtery and Crawford. From 2006 until taking the bench, he was a partner in the firm of Daughtery, Crawford, Fuller and Brown in Columbus, Georgia.

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Acknowledgments

After I retired as clerk of the Northern District in 2006, Senior Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr. asked if I would be interested in working on the court’s history. The Eleventh Circuit Historical Society had commissioned the late Dr. Erwin Surrency to do a history of Georgia’s three federal district courts a few years earlier. However, there was no published history dedicated exclusively to the Northern District of Georgia. Judge Pannell secured the Court’s approval, including funding, and the project initially began as oral histories of the senior judges. This book is based on interviews, newspaper accounts, published opinions, and court documents. A number of illustrative cases are discussed. Some are important legally, some are important historically, and others are just simply interesting.

I first want to thank the judges of the Northern District for their cooperation in this project, and in particular, Judge Pannell and Senior Judge William C. O’Kelley, who served as the court’s history committee. Without their encouragement, guidance, and support this history would not have been possible.

I cannot overemphasize the role of the current clerk of court, James N. Hatten. I am most grateful to Jim for shepherding this project from its inception to completion, playing a major role as the book’s principal editor. The keen eye for detail and editing abilities of retired law clerk Allen Wallace was also an essential part of the process.

I also want to express appreciation to court employees Nancy Adams, Judith Motz, and Marti Minor; Frey DeVore of Georgia State University Special Collections; Sara Brewer of the National Archives at Atlanta; Bruce Ragsdale of the Federal Judicial Center; and United States Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Cohen of Birmingham, Alabama, whose collection of images of historical courthouses added so much to this history.

A special note of appreciation to the Eleventh Circuit Historical Society and to Professor Surrency, author of The Work of the Federal Courts in Georgia over Two Centuries, for allowing the use of copyrighted material in this history.

Luther D. Thomas

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APPENDIX Northern District of Georgia | 1849–2013

Clerks of the Court Northern District of Georgia William H. Hunt William B. Smith Alfred E. Buck Henry C. Hamilton W. Colquitt Carter Olin C. Fuller Jon Dean Steward Frederic L. Beers Sr. Carl B. Meadows Bart G. Nash Claud L. Goza Ben H. Carter Luther D. Thomas James N. Hatten

March 12, 1849 to August 30, 1861 September 11, 1866 to June 30, 1873 July 1, 1873 to June 12, 1887 June 13, 1887 to December 23, 1890 December 24, 1890 to September 30, 1911 October 1, 1911 to December 27, 1932 December 28, 1932 to September 30, 1940 October 1, 1940 to October 31, 1956 November 1, 1956 to June 30, 1963 July 1, 1963 to March 31, 1965 April 1, 1965 to June 30, 1972 July 1, 1972 to March 31, 1985 April 1, 1985 to July 31, 2006 August 1, 2006

District Court Executives Northern District of Georgia Ben H. Carter John T. Shope James N. Hatten

October 14, 1984 to July 2, 1988 September 22, 1988 to January 23, 2009 January 24, 2009

Chief Probation Officers Northern District of Georgia Richard A. Chappell Edward B. Everett Lamar N. Smith Joe B. Martin Claud L. Goza Joe B. Martin Claud L. Goza John C. Carbo William W. Bird Patrick J. Murphy Daniel D. Rector Patrick J. Murphy Jerry T. Williford Steve D. Mullis Fredrick Rogers Thomas W. Bishop

March 30, 1928 to January 3, 1938 January 15, 1938 to February 9, 1943 March 23, 1943 to June 30, 1946 July 15, 1946 to February 10, 1947 February 10, 1947 to October 9, 1950 October 10, 1950 to July 14, 1952 July 14, 1952 to March 31, 1965 April 1, 1965 to May 31, 1971 June 1, 1971 to November 3, 1972 November 4, 1972 to January 18, 1981 January 19, 1981 to January 28, 1991 January 28, 1991 to June 2, 1991 June 3, 1991 to July 31, 1998 August 1, 1998 to June 29, 2001 June 30, 2001 to September 2, 2005 September 5, 2005

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Multidistrict Litigation Cases 1975–2013 CASE

STYLE

JUDGE

MEMBER CASES

MD 220 Ryder Truck Lines

Moye

MD 237 Chicken “broiler” antitrust

O’Kelley

34

MD 318 Armored car antitrust

Freeman

17

MD 320 New Hope, GA - 4/4/77

Moye

81

MD 861 Domestic air transportation antitrust

Shoob

42

MD 862 Practice Management Associates, Inc., chiropractor

Tidwell

35

MD 930 New Brunswick, GA - 4/5/91

O’Kelley

17

MD 1075 In re: polypropylene carpet antitrust

Murphy

20

MD 1099 Carrollton, GA - 8/21/95

Evans

14

MD 1212 Motorsports merchandise antitrust

Thrash

4

MD 1274 In re: Gemstar Development Corp.

Hunt

MD 1342 In re: cigarette antitrust, et al.

Forrester

9

MD 1377 In re: Dippin Dots, Inc.

Thrash

8

MD 1424 In re: Delta Airlines, Inc.

Carnes

5

MD 1467 In re: Tri-State Crematory

Murphy

6

MD 1517 In re: Gator Corporation, et al.

Forrester

14

MD 1804 In re: Stand ‘N Seal products liability litigation

Thrash

41

MD 1845 In re: Con Agra peanut butter products liability litigation

Thrash

398

MD 1895 LTL shipping services antitrust

Duffey

50

MD 2035 In re: RBS Worldpay Inc., customer data security breach litigation

Pannell

2

MD 2084 In re: Androgel antitrust litigation (No. II)

Thrash

14

MD 2089 In re: Delta/Air Tran baggage fee antitrust litigation

Batten

13

MD 2171 In re: Capital One bank credit card interest rate litigation

Thrash

3

MD 2218 In re: Camp Lejeune, NC water contamination litigation

Forrester/Thrash

MD 2329 In re: Wright Medical Technology, Inc., conserve hip implant products liability litigation

Duffey

361

MD 2495 In re: Atlas Roofing Corporation chalet shingle products liability litigation

Thrash

10

220

8

13

15

APPENDIX Northern District of Georgia | 1849–2013

Larger Cases Brought by the United States Attorney’s Office From 2002 to the Present CASE NAME

CASE #

JUDGE

# * AUSA

DESCRIPTION

Abrams

1:02-CR-734

Carnes

15

McBurney

RICO gang case

Arreola

1:02-CR-730

Martin

15

Dammers

RICO gang case with 3 murders

Dale

1:02-CR-018

Cooper

17

Buchanan Plummer

Drug conspiracy and firearm offenses

Teran

4:02-CR-35

Murphy

20

Tarvin

Drug conspiracy

Ladson

1:03-CR-155

Pannell

17

Buchanan, Plummer

RICO conspiracy and drug case w/1 murder

Villenas-Reyes & Smith** 4:04-CR-57

Murphy

60

Dammers, Traynor

RICO gang and drug case with 5 murders

Phil Hill

1:05-CR-269

Thrash

25

Nelan

Mortgage fraud

Mach

1:05-CR-543

Carnes

32

Herskowitz

Drug conspiracy

Patel (24**)

4:05-CR-18–41 Murphy

65

Tarvin

Drug possession with intent to distribute

Prudente

1:05-CR-324

Pannell

19

Dammers, Jones

RICO gang case with 4 murders

Benitez-Torres

1:07-CR-279

Pannell

45

Hathway

Drug conspiracy

Martinez

1:07-CR-257

Carnes

25

Tarvin

Drug conspiracy

Campuzano-Velazco

1:07-CR-412

Pannell

22

Schansman

Drug conspiracy

Gonzalez

1:08-CR-356

Duffey

36

Tarvin

Drug conspiracy

Arreloa-Romero

1:09-CR-184

Carnes

20

Herskowitz

Drug conspiracy

Doe

1:09-CR-361

Batten

16

Herskowitz

Drug conspiracy

Villanuevea-Pineda

1:11-CR-06

Pannell

15

Ferber, Dammers

Drug conspiracy

Alvarado-Linares

1:10-CR-86

Story

26

Jones, Gwinn, Dammers RICO gang case with 7 murders

Martinez-Montanez

1:11-CR-239

Pannell

33

Tarvin

Drug conspiracy

Maldonado (6**)

1:12-CR-319

Batten

24

Schansman

Drug conspiracy

* Number of Defendants ** Related Indictments

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Record Group 21, Minute Book, N.D. Ga., Book 1 (1849–1861), National Archives, Morrow, GA. Russell R. Wheeler and Cynthia Harrison, Creating the Federal Judicial System, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Federal Judicial Center, 1994).

Wheeler and Harrison, 6.

Wheeler and Harrison, 7.

Wheeler and Harrison, 3.

Wheeler and Harrison, 8.

Erwin C. Surrency, “Sketches of the Establishment of the Federal Courts by States and Their Judges,” 212 F.R.D. 667.

Warren Grice, “Nathaniel Pendleton: Georgia’s First United States District Judge,” Report of the Annual Meeting of the Georgia Bar Association (1923), 119.

Grice, 120.

Erwin C. Surrency, The Work of the Federal Courts in Georgia over Two Centuries (TWFC), Atlanta: Eleventh Circuit Historical Society, (2006), 39.

Surrency, TWFC, 39.

Surrency, TWFC, 39.

Surrency, TWFC, 41.

Surrency, TWFC, 54.

Grice, 128.

Braswell D. Deen Jr., “Nathaniel Pendleton and the Yazoo Land Fraud,” Journal of Southern Legal History (Fall/Winter 1991): 455–59.

George R. Lamplugh, Politics on the Periphery: Factions and Parties in Georgia, 1783–1806 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1986), 109.

Grice, 136.

Warren Grice, “Joseph Clay Jr.,” Report of the Georgia Bar Association (1925).

Surrency, TWFC, 45.

Surrency, TWFC, 45–46.

“History of the Federal Judiciary, Establishing the Federal Judiciary: Partisan Conflicts and the Organization of the Courts,” Federal Judicial Center, www.fjc.gov.

Surrency, TWFC, 45.

Denison Olmstead, Memoir of Eli Whitney (New Haven, CT: Durrie and Olmstead, 1846), 26-32.

Rebecca Nash Paden, Images of Cobb County (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2005).

Resolution of December 29, 1845, Georgia Legislature 205.

Act of August 11, 1848, 9 Stat. 280.

Record Group 21, Minute Book, N.D. Ga., Book 1 (1849–1862), National Archives, Morrow, GA. Surrency, TWFC, 11–12.

Surrency, TWFC, 59.

Franklin Garrett, Atlanta and Its Environs, 1820–1870 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987).

Warren Grice, “The Confederate States Court for Georgia,” Georgia History Quarterly 143 (1925), 132–58.

Grice, “Confederate States.”

Grice, “Confederate States.”

Grice, “Confederate States.”

Warren Grice, “A Half Forgotten Chapter in the Judicial History of Georgia,” Georgia Lawyer (August 1930), 68.

Grice, “Half Forgotten Chapter,” 69.

Grice, “Confederate States.”

Surrency, TWFC, 60.

Surrency, TWFC, 60.

RG 21, Minute Book 2, Northern District of Georgia, National Archives, Morrow, GA, 3.

Ex Parte William Law (S.D. Ga 1866) 15 Fed. Cas. 3, 35 Georgia 285.

Georgia History Quarterly (September 1919): 101–30.

Lucian Lamar Knight, A Standard History of Georgia, vol. 5 (Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1917), 2305–06.

“Who Is Judge John Erskine?,” Grant Park Conservancy, www.gpconservancy.org.

Williamson v. Richardson, S.D. Ga (1867).

75 U.S. 603 (1870).

Knox v. Lee, 79 U.S. 457 (1871); Julliard v. Greenman, 110 U.S. 421 (1884).

“A Federal Jurist Whom the Public Esteemed,” The New York Times, May 15, 1885.

Act of April 25, 1882, 22 Stat. 47.

Savannah Morning News, August 2, 1882.

Alexander A. Lawrence, “Henry Kent McCay—Forgotten Jurist,” Journal of Southern Legal History: 319.

Walter B. Hill, “The Supreme Court of Georgia,” Green Bag: 5.

“Henry Kent McCay,” Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933), 578.

Lawrence, “Henry Kent McCay” Warren Grice, Georgia through Two Centuries (New York: Lewis Publishing Co., 1965), 403.

The Banks County Ku Klux Argument of Emory Speer (Atlanta: W. H. Scott, 1883).

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Northern District of Georgia | 1849–2013 110 U.S. 653 (1884).

W. A. Bootle, “Historical Connections: Henry Kent McCay, Emory Speer, and Alexander A. Lawrence,” Journal of Southern Legal History (1994), 328–329.

60 Thomas W. Thrash Jr., “Apprenticeship at the Bar: The Atlanta Law Practice of Woodrow Wilson,” Georgia State Bar Journal: (February 1992) 61 Lawrence, 319.

62 Lawrence, 320.

63 William F. Northen, Men of Mark in Georgia (Atlanta: A. P. Cardwell Publishers, 1908), 219.

64 A. Z. Cozart, “Memorial of William Truslow Newman,” Report of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Session of the Georgia Bar Association (1920).

65 Surrency, TWFC, 186.

66 Surrency, TWFC, 67–68.

67 “Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 1877–1879,” House Executive Document, 46th Congress, Second Session.

68 “William Truslow Newman,” Cyclopedia of Georgia, Vol. 2 (Atlanta: State Historical Assn., 1906), 707.

69 Act of March 3, 1891, 26 Stat. 1110.

70 Act of April 12, 1900, 31 Stat. 73.

71 Act of February 28, 1901, 31 Stat. 818.

72 Act of March 4, 1913, 31 Stat. 1017.

73 Act of May 28, 1926, 44 Stat. 670.

74 Act of August 22, 1935, 49 Stat. 680.

75 Act of June 7, 1999, 113 Stat. 117, Public Law 106–33.

76 “Samuel H. Sibley,” American Bar Association Journal, Vol. 33 (April 1947): 311.

77 “Samuel H. Sibley,” 310–314.

78 Oral history interview of Richard A. Chappell, first Northern District probation officer, conducted 1987.

79 “A Great Jurist Retires,” Atlanta Constitution editorial, September 10, 1949.

80 John Ottway, quoted in Living Atlanta: An Oral History of the City (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990), 180.

81 Act of May 28, 1926, 44 Stat. 620.

82 Surrency, TWFC, 103, 113.

83 Surrency, TWFC, 114.

84 Statistics provided by Clerk’s Offices for Northern, Middle, and Southern Districts of Georgia.

85 Chappell oral history.

86 Chappell oral history.

87 Peter H. Irons, The New Deal Lawyers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 53.

88 Surrency, TWFC, 74.

89 In Re Georgia Power Co., Georgia Power Co. v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 17 F. Supp. 769 (N.D. Ga. 1937). Richmond Hosiery Mills v. Camp, 7 F. Supp. 139 (N.D. Ga. 1934).

90 Bridwell v. Aderhold, 18 F. Supp. 253 (N.D. Ga. 1935).

91 Anne Emanuel, Elbert Parr Tuttle: Chief Jurist of the Civil Rights Revolution (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011), 125.

92 92 F. 2d. 748 (5th Cir. 1935).

93 304 U.S. 458 (1938).

94 John Kobler, The Life and World of Al Capone (New York: Putnam, 1971), 351.

95 Atlanta Journal, November 17, 1932, A-1.

96 Capone v. Aderhold, 2 F.Supp. 280 (N.D. Ga. 1933).

97 Capone v. Aderhold, 65 F.2d. 130 (5th Cir. 1933).

98 “Capone Denied Freedom on Habeas Corpus Writ,” Atlanta Journal, January 25, 1933, A-1.

99 Hearing on Creation of Additional Judicial District in Georgia, Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives, Sixty-Ninth Congress (1st Session), March 29–April 1, 1926.

100 Report of the Attorney General 1930, House Report 479, Seventy-Fifth Congress (1st Session), House Report 2788.

101 Act of May 24, 1940, 54 Stat. 219; Act of August 3, 1949, 63 Stat. 493.

102 Sally Russell, A Heart for Any Fate: The Biography of Richard Brevard Russell Jr. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004).

103 Act of August 3, 1949, 63 Stat. 493.

104 Title 28, United States Code, Section 136.

105 “M. Neil Andrews,” Walker County Heritage 1833–1983. (Lafayette, GA: Walker County Historical Society, 1983).

106 Gilbert C. Fite, Richard B. Russell, Jr., Senator from Georgia (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 47.

107 “Capitol Hill Story Reveals Why Sloan Lost Appointment,” Daily Times, October 17, 1949, 1.

108 Congressional Record, 81st Congress (2nd Session), August 9, 1950, CR12104-06.

109 “Obnoxious and Objectionable,” Time, August 21, 1950.

110 Michael Gerhardt, “Federal Judicial Selection as War,” William and Mary Law School Faculty Publication (2003), 681.

111 Sheldon Goldman, Picking Federal Judges: Lower Court Selections Roosevelt through Reagan (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press) 71–72, 91.

112 “Sloan Installed, Feted Here,” Daily Times, March 27, 1951.

113 United States v. Lynch, 94 F. Supp. 1011 (N.D. Ga. 1950).

58 59

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129

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133

134

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189 F.2d.476 (5th Cir. 1951) Holmes v. City of Atlanta, 124 F. Supp. 290 (N.D. Ga. 1954).

223 F. 2d. 93 (5th Cir. 1955).

350 U.S. 879 (1955), Dawson v. Mayor of Baltimore 350 U.S. 877 (1955).

Hunt v. Arnold, 127 F. Supp. 847 (N.D. Ga. 1959).

Louis T. Rigdon II, Georgia’s County Unit System (Decatur, GA: Selective Books, 1961).

Turman v. Duckworth, 68 F. Supp. 744 (N.D. Ga. 1946).

South v. Peters, 89 F. Supp. 672 (N.D. Ga. 1950).

Oral history interview of Morris Abram (January 4, 1978), Belle of Ashby Street, by Lorraine Nelson Spritzer, Georgia Government Documentation Project, Box G-1, Folder 1, Special Collections, Georgia State University.

Sanders v. Gray, 203 F. Supp. 58 (N.D. Ga. 1962).

Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963).

J. W. Peltason, Fifty-Eight Lonely Men: Southern Judges and School Desegregation (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961).

“Krulls Guilty; Death Penalty Recommended,” Atlanta Journal, February 3, 1957.

“Krull Brothers Hear August 21 Death Date,” Atlanta Journal, August 2, 1957.

“Executions, 1790–1963,” Capital Punishment Research Project; “Federal Executions since 1927,” Death Penalty Information Center.

Anthony Battle was sentenced to death by Judge Orinda D. Evans on March 20, 1997, for the murder of an officer at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, and William F. LeCroy Jr. was sentenced to death by Judge Richard W. Story on March 11, 2004, for carjacking and murder.

Williams v. Georgia Public Service Commission, Northern District of Georgia Civil Action No. 6067, January 9, 1959, unreported decision.

Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 231 F. Supp. 393 (N.D. Ga. 1964).

Willis v. Pickrick Restaurant, 231 F.Supp. 393 (N.D. Ga. 1964).

Ward v. Regents of the University System of Georgia, 191 F. Supp. 491 (N.D. Ga. 1957).

Charles L. Newton II, “Judge Frank A. Hooper: A Steady Hand through Times of Change,” Atlanta Lawyer, Vol. 24 (April/May 1980), 3.

“Portrait Presentation Ceremony for Honorable Lewis R. Morgan,” October 16, 1986, 808 F.2d. CI. Butts v. Curtis Publishing Co., 225 F. Supp. 916 (N.D. Ga. 1964), 242 F. Supp. 390 (N.D. Ga. 1964).

Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130 (1967).

James Kirby, Fumble: Bear Bryant, Wally Butts, and the Great Football Scandal (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1986).

Block. v. Compagnie Nationale Air France, 229 F. Supp. 801 (N.D. Ga. 1964), 386 F. 2d. 233 (1967).

Oral history interview of Sidney O. Smith Jr., November 23, 2011.

Wilson v. Kelley, 294 F. Supp. 1005 (N.D. Ga. 1963).

Doe v. Bolton, 319 F. Supp. 679 (N.D. Ga. 1970).

410 U.S. 179 (1973).

Cohen v. United States, 252 F. Supp. 679 (N.D. Ga. 1966).

“Edenfield Sworn as Federal Judge,” Atlanta Constitution, July 1, 1967.

“Henderson Remembered for Honesty, Dedication,” Daily Report, May 11, 1999.

Frederick Allen, Atlanta Rising: The Invention of an International City, (Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1996).

Lorraine Bennett, “Judges Face Heavier Loads as Court Cases Skyrocket,” Atlanta Journal, 1966.

Act of June 25, 1948, 62 Stat. 869 (Title 28, United States Code, Section 136).

Act of June 2, 1970, 84 Stat. 294.

Oral history interview of Charles A. Moye Jr., November 28, 2007.

“2 Are Named to U.S. Bench,” Atlanta Constitution, October 8, 1970.

“A Private Man in the Public Eye,” Daily Report, March 25, 1988.

In re: Thomsen, 324 F. Supp. 1205 (N.D. Ga. 1971).

“No-Nonsense Nixon Appointee to Preside over Lance Trial,” National Law Journal, June 11, 1970.

“A Private Man.” “A Private Man.” “Justice for All,” Gwinnett Daily News, November 25, 1987, 1.

“Honorable William Clark O’Kelley: Judicial Profile,” Federal Lawyer (February 2001), 28–29.

United States v. Williams, 523 F.2d 1203 (N.D. Ga. 1974).

Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. v. CBS, Inc., 1:96-CV-3052-WCO, 13 F. Supp. 2d 1347 (N.D. Ga. 1998).

Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467 (1992).

United States v. Georgia, Civil Action No. 16373, 351 F. Supp. 444 (N.D. Ga. 1972), and Larios v. Cox, 1:03-CV-693-CAP, 305 F. Supp. 1335 (N.D. Ga. 2004).

United States v. Swindall, Case No. 1:88-CR-477.

Shahar v. Bowers, 836 F. Supp. 859 (N.D. Ga. 1999).

Shahar v. Bowers, 114 F. 3d 1097 (11th Cir. 1997).

“Chief Judge Smith Quits Federal Court,” Atlanta Journal, November 28, 1973.

Reg Murphy, “Why Judges Leave the Federal Bench,” Atlanta Constitution, November 29, 1973.

Sidney O. Smith Jr. to Donna Lorenz, quoted in “Chief Judge Smith Quits Federal Court.”

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Northern District of Georgia | 1849–2013 Pat Chapin, “The Judicial Vanishing Act,” Judicature, Vol. 58 (November 1974), 161.

Letter from Sidney O. Smith Jr. to Judge Irving B. Kaufman, July 23, 1980, files of the Administrative Office of United States Courts.

172 Telephone interview of Judge James C. Hill by Luther D. Thomas, November 28, 2011.

173 “Ford Nominates Judge Hill for Appeals Court Post,” Atlanta Constitution, May 5, 1976.

174 Coca-Cola Company v. Howard Johnson Co., 386 F. Supp. 330 (N.D. Ga. 1974).

175 Inman Park Restoration, Inc. v. Urban Mass Transit Administration, 414 F. Supp. 99 (N.D. Ga. 1975).

176 Judge Richard C. Freeman, “Crisis in the Federal Courts: A District Judge’s Analysis,” Georgia State Bar Journal Vol. 13 (February 1977), 130– 131.

177 “The Speedy Trial Act of 1974,” 88 Stat. 2080, Title 18, United States Code, Sections 3161-3174.

178 Freeman, “Crisis” 130.

179 “Thirty Years of America’s Drug War: A Chronology,” Frontline, PBS, www.pbs.org.

180 R. E. Kamm, “Atlanta is the New Miami—Drugs,” Atlanta High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), press release, March 8, 2008.

181 “Atlanta and Drugs: What You May Not Know about the Drug Activity Here,” The Examiner, January 18, 2011.

182 Telephone interview of H. Allen Moye, retired assistant United States attorney, November 14, 2011.

183 United States v. Rivera, CR-85-361A. 184 United States v. Rosenthal, CR-84-14A. 185 United States v. Miles, 1-88-CR-488-RLV. 186 United States v. Villenas-Reyes, 4-04-CR-57-HLM. 187 United States v. Patel, 4:05-CR-18-HLM/4:05-CR-41-HLM. 188 United States v. Benitez-Torres, 1:07-CR-279-CAP 189 1 Stat. 334 (1793).

190 Act of May 28, 1896, 29 Stat. 184.

191 Official Register of the United States, Government Printing Office, 1893.

192 Act of October 17, 1968, 82 Stat. 1107.

193 U.S. Magistrate Judge Lawrence Anderson, “United States Magistrate Judge: The Utility Fielder of the Federal Courts,” Arizona Attorney (January 2007), 10–18.

194 The part-time magistrate position at Rome, the district’s remaining part-time slot, was converted to full-time in 2002.

195 Northern District of Georgia Internal Operating Procedure 920-2.

196 “The Judicial Improvements Act of 1990,” 104 Stat. 5089.

197 “The Federal Probation Act of 1925,” 43 Stat. 1259. First officers appointed 1927.

198 R. A. Chappell, “Recollections of the Early Years,” Federal Probation Vol. 39 (December 1975), 26–30.

199 Annual Report of the United States Probation Office for the Northern District of Georgia for 1975.

200 Telephone interview of Thomas Bishop, chief probation officer, April 3, 2012.

201 Order Consolidating Pretrial Services and Probation Office, July 10, 1988.

202 “The Judiciary Act of 1789,” September 24, 1789, 1 Stat. 73, Title 28, United States Code, Section 751(a).

203 Luther D. Thomas, “Clerks of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia—A Short History,” Eleventh Circuit Historical News, December 2006.

204 “Fred Beers, Sr. Retires After Half a Century,” Atlanta Journal, October 31, 1956.

205 I. Scott Messenger, Order in the Court: A History of the Federal Court Clerk’s Office, Washington, DC: Federal Judicial Center, 2002.

206 “The Salary Act of 1919,” 40 Statutes at Large 1182.

207 Judge J. Owen Forrester, “The History of the Federal Judiciary’s Automation Program,” American University Law Review, Vol. 44 (June 1995): 1483-90.

208 “Federal Courts Prepping for Mandatory E-Filing,” Daily Report, February 1, 2005.

209 B. Holland Pritchard, “Ben H. Carter: Keeper of the Records,” Atlanta Lawyer, September/October 1980, 20.

210 W. Eldridge, “The District Court Executive Pilot Program,” Federal Judicial Center Paper, 1984.

211 Mark Winne, Priority Mail New York: Scribner, 1995.

212 Knight v. Alabama, 787 F. Supp. 1030 (N.D. Ala. 1991).

213 “Thevis Trial Judge Has a Reputation for Patience and Fairness,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 14, 1979.

214 Common Cause/Georgia v. Billups, 4:05-CV-0201-HLM, 504 F. Supp. 1333 (N.D. Ga. 2007).

215 United States v. Houser, 4:10-CR-012-HLM (N.D. Ga. 2012).

216 “Murphy’s Law: Is Harold L. Murphy Georgia’s Best Federal Trial Court Judge?,” Daily Report, November 28, 1988.

217 Act of October 20, 1979, 92 Stat. 1629.

218 “Four New Judges Will Bring Crunch to Old Courthouse,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 15, 1979.

219 “A Judge That Wants to Do the Right Thing,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 16, 2011.

220 Kilgo v. Bowman, 570 F. Supp. 1509 (N.D. Ga. 1983).

221 Order of October 5, 1992, United States v. Dragoul, 1:91-CR-0078-MHS (N.D. Ga. 2992).

222 L.C. and E.W. by Jonathan Zimring v. Olmstead, 1:95-CV-1210-MHS (N.D. Ga. 1995).

223 Kenny A. v. Perdue, 1:02-CV-1686-MHS (N.D. Ga. 2002).

224 “Small Town Boy Makes Good,” Chatsworth Times, November 4, 1998. 1.

225 Mitchell v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, C-81-1229-A (N.D. Ga. 1984) 170 171

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“Tidwell Recalled as Warm, Direct Jurist,” Daily Report, August 10, 2011.

Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc. v. Toy Loft, Inc., C-79-2325A, TRO hearing, December 21, 1979.

Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc. v. Toy Loft, Inc., 684 F.2d 821 (11th Cir. 1982).

“Jury Convicts Nine in Cocaine Smuggling Ring,” Associated Press, October 26, 1984.

Jager v. Douglas County School District, 862 F. 2d 824 (1987).

Gayle White, “On the Bench: Judge Orinda Evans,” Atlanta Constitution, August 18, 1981, 1-B. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. v. Showcase Atlanta Cooperative Productions, Inc., 479 F. Supp.351 (N.D. Ga. 1979).

Kleiner v. First National Bank, 526 F. Supp. 1019 (N.D.Ga. 1981).

United States v. Tokars, 1:93-CR-357-ODE (N.D. Ga. 1994).

Joiner v. General Electric Co.; 864 F. Supp. 1310 (N.D. Ga 1994), 78 F. 3d 524 (11th Cir. 1996), 522 U.S. 136 (1997).

United States v. Beverly, 1:07-CR-233-ODE (N.D.Ga. 2008).

Cambridge University Press v. Becker, 1:08-CV-1425-ODE (N.D. Ga. 2012).

“Judge Hall Picked for U.S. Bench,” Atlanta Constitution, September 29, 1979.

Bill Rankin, “Judge Robert H. Hall,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 15, 1995, 10-H. Planned Parenthood v. Harris, 670 F. Supp. 971 (N.D. Ga. 1987); Planned Parenthood v. Harris, 691 F. Supp. 1419 (N.D. Ga. 1988).

National Broadcasting Co. v. Cleland, 697 F. Supp. 1204 (N.D. Ga. 1988).

Public Citizen Inc. v. Miller, 813 F. Supp. 821 (N.D. Ga. 1992).

“A Conversation with Judge Horace Ward,” Atlanta Chapter, Federal Bar Association, October 21, 2010.

Ward v. Regents of the University System of Georgia, 191 F. Supp. 491 (N.D. Ga. 1957).

Robert A. Pratt, We Shall Not Be Moved: The Desegregation of the University of Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002), 70–74.

Chief Judge Julie E. Carnes quoted in “U.S. Senior Judge Horace Ward Retires after Historic Career,” Daily Report, September 24, 2012.

Kemp v. Ervin, 651 F. Supp. 495 (N.D. Ga. 1986).

Georgia Association of Retarded Citizens v. McDaniel, 511 F. 2d 1263 (N.D. Ga. 1981).

“Magistrate Forrester Reported Successor to Judge Edenfield,” Atlanta Constitution, September 29, 1981.

Elijah Lewis “Tic” Forrester (1896-1970) served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1951 to 1965. See http://bioguide. congress.gov.

J. Owen Forrester, “History of the Federal Judiciary’s Automation Program,” American University Law Review, Volume 44, No. 5 (June 1995): 1483–1490.

McCleskey v. Zant , 530 F. Supp. 338 (N.D. Ga. 1984); McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987).

Adam Liptak, “A New Look at Death Sentences and Race,” New York Times, April 29, 2008.

United States v. Edward J. Elkins, CR-86-267A (N.D. Ga. 1987).

United States v. Pipkins, 1:01-CR-0074-JOF (N.D. Ga. 2002).

“Federal Docket Goes Online,” Fulton County Daily Report, April 24, 1989, 1.

Public Law 101-650, 104 Stat. 5089 (1990).

Report of the Advisory Group of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Appointed under the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990, September 30, 1991.

“Newnan Lawyer Selected for U.S. District Judgeship,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 19, 1987.

Ann Woolner, “A Family Business,” Fulton Daily Report, September 15, 1991.

R. Robin McDonald, “Chief Judge Reflects on Career,” Fulton Daily Report, March 13, 2009.

United States v. Junnier, 1:07-CR-129-JEC (N.D. Ga. 2009); United States v. Tesler, Criminal No. 1:08-CR-424 (N.D. Ga. 2009).

Wolf v. Ramsey, 1:00-CV-1187-JEC (N.D. Ga. 2003).

Johnson v. Miller, 929 F. Supp. 1529 (S.D. Ga. 1996).

Columbus Drywall v. Masco Corporation, 1:04-CV-3066-JEC (N.D. Ga. 2012).

“Executive Nominations Received by the Senate,” Congressional Record, 102nd Congress (2nd Session), June 3, 1992, p. S7508.

“Bush Judicial Nominations Returned by Democratic Senate in 1992,” Congressional Record, 106th Congress (2nd Session), October 11, 2000, p. 22069.

“Hull, Cooper Picked for NDGA,” Daily Report, August 11, 1993.

Emily Heller, “The Confirmable Judge Hull,” Daily Report, May 6, 1997.

Bown v. Gwinnett County School District, 895 F. Supp. 1564 (N.D. Ga. 1995).

Bown v. Gwinnett County School District, 112 F. 3d 1464 (1995), cert. denied, 533 U.S. 1301 (2001).

Carrie Teegardin, “Medicare Scam Role Admitted,” Atlanta Constitution, September 12, 1995, 1-E. Sierra Club v. Martin, 992 F. Supp. 1448 (N.D. Ga. 1998), 168 F.3d 1 (11th Cir. 1999).

Dena Smith, “Talk about a Role Model . . . He’s One,” Atlanta Constitution, September 22, 1994.

R. Robin McDonald, “Cooper Recalls a Career of Firsts,” Daily Report, April 10, 2009.

United States v. Lam, 1:96-CR-0161-CC (N.D. Ga. 1998).

Selman v. Cobb County School District, 1-02-CV-2325-CC (N.D. Ga. 2005), 449 F.3d. 1320 (11th Cir. 2006).

George and Michael Krull in 1957 (Judge Hooper), Anthony Battle in 1997 (Judge Evans), William LeCroy Jr. (Judge Story) in 2004, and Brian Richardson (Judge Cooper) in 2012.

United States v. Richardson, 1:08-CR-0139-CC (N.D. Ga. 2012).

“A Judge Keeps His Humor During Lengthy Case,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 15, 2001.

226

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NOTES

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285

286

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288

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292

293

294

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281 282

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320

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334 335

United States v. Steven E. Kaplan, 1:99-CR-609-WBH. Carpenters Health and Welfare Fund v. The Coca-Cola Company, 1:00-CV-2838-WBH. Alexander v. Fulton County, 1:93-CV-2131-WBH. “U.S. Judges Recall Nomination Process as Long, Tough Road,” Daily Report, March 12, 2012.

Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Fund, Inc. v. City of Atlanta, 1:95-CV-02550-TWT; 1:98-CV-01956-TWT. United States v. Marcus Alcindor, 1:05-CR-0269-TWT. Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights v. Nathan Deal, 1:11-CV-1804-TWT. “Quiet Judge Back in Glare of Spotlight,” Gainesville Times, February 12, 2006.

Laura Ingram v. Coca-Cola Company, 1:98-CV-3679-RWS (200 F.R.D. 685 N.D. Ga. 2001).

Glassroth v. Moore, No. 02-16708 (11th Cir. 2003) and Maddox v. Moore No. 02-16949 (11th Cir. 2003).

Pelphrey v. Cobb County, GA, 1:05-CV-2075-RWS (N.D. Ga. 2006).

United States v. William C. Campbell, 1:04-CR-00424-RWS (N.D. Ga. 2006).

United States v. Casimir Uwuogo, 1:99-CR-378-RWS (N.D. Ga. 2000).

“Pannell Family Instrumental in Area’s History,” Dalton Citizen, June 18, 2010.

United States v. Rudolph, 1:00-CR-805-CAP. Sun Trust v. Houghton Mifflin, 136 F. Supp. 2d 1357 (N.D. Ga. 2001), rev’d 268 F.3d 1257 (11th Cir. 2001).

Larios v. Cox, 1:03-cv-693-CAP, 305 F. Supp. 1335 (N.D. Ga. 2004).

“Deep Impact: Here Come the Maps,” Tom Crawford’s Georgia Report, March 21, 2004.

United States v. State of Georgia, 1:09-CV-119-CAP. United States v. Georgia, 1:10-CV-249-CAP. Bill Rankin, “Judicial Nominee Follows Instincts,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 30, 2009, 1-A. R. Robin McDonald, “U.S. Senate Greenlights Duffey’s Judgeship,” Daily Report, June 18, 2004.

Jean Marbeth, “Lewis Prosecutor Investigated Clintons,” The Telegraph, February 27, 2004.

Baragona v. Kuwait & Gulf Link Transport Co., 1:05-CV-1267-WSD (N.D. Ga. 2009).

United States v. Sadequee, 1:06-CR-147-WSD (N.D. Ga. 2009).

Bryant v. CEO DeKalb County Vernon Jones, 1:04-CV-02462-WSD (N.D. Ga. 2010).

United States v. Macke, 1:10-CR-310-WSD (N.D. Ga. 2012).

“Federal Court Pick Says He Has No Political Agenda,” Daily Report, September 30, 2005.

Smith v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 537 F. Supp. 2d 1302 (N.D. Ga. 2008).

In re Delta/AirTran Antitrust Baggage Fee Litigation, 846 F. Supp. 2d 1302 (N.D. Ga. 2012).

Georgia State Conference of the NAACP v. Fayette County Board of Commissioners, 3:11-CV-00123-TCB, WL 2948147 (N.D. Ga. 2013).

“Senate Approves Totenberg, Jones to Federal Bench,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 28, 2011.

“Long Road Brings Totenberg to Federal Judgeship,” Daily Report, May 16, 2011.

United States of America, ex rel Bibby v. Wells-Fargo Bank, 1-06-CV-547-AT. CCA&B, LLC. v. F + W Media, Inc., 819 F. Supp. 1310 (N.D. Ga. 2011).

Bates v. Michelin North America, 1:09-CV-3280-AT Reid v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 1:11-CV-2422-AT. “Smith: Steve Jones a Good, Honorable man,” Online Athens, May 29, 2011.

DeYoung v. Owens, 1:11-CV-2324-SCJ Crumly v. Cobb County Board of Commissioners, 892 F. Supp. 2d 1333 (N.D. Ga 2012).

“Federal Judge Doing Job for Legislators in Redrawing Districts,” Marietta Daily Journal, May 9, 2012.

United States v. Georgia, 1:12-CV-2230-SCJ, 2013WL3421982.

David Webster, “Marielitos: Thank You Twenty Years Later,” Atlanta Legal Aid Society Newsletter.

“Detainees’ Lawyers Deserve Praise,” Letter to the Editor, Daily Report, April 16, 2005.

“Judge Recalls Role of Habeas in Earlier Crisis,” Daily Report, October 31, 2006.

“Supreme Court Rejects Mariel Cubans’ Detention,” New York Times, January 13, 2005.

Allen, Atlanta Rising.

Henry Schuster and Charles Stone, Hunting Eric Rudolph (New York: Berkley Publishing, 2005).

“Olympics Bomber Apologizes and Is Sentenced to Life Terms,” New York Times, August 23, 2005, A-1.

Maryanne Voilers, “Inside Bomber Row,” Time, December 5, 2006.

“Hartsfield More Popular as Entry Point for Drugs,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 4, 2000.

Atlanta High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) press release, March 16, 2008.

Tore C. Olson, “Making the International City: Work, Law and Culture in Immigrant Atlanta, 1970–2006,” master’s thesis, University of Georgia, 2007.

United States v. Loc Lam, 1:96-CR-161-CC. “Patent Litigation Continues to Rise in Atlanta,” Daily Report, April 24, 2007.

Title 28, United States Code, Section 453.

Allen, Atlanta Rising.

“Cities With Five or More Fortune 500 Headquarters,” CNN Money, May 28, 2011.

“U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics Rankings of World’s Busiest Airports 1998–2011.”

Online review of Atlanta Airport by Stephen and Karen Conn, July 3, 2007, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, http:// www.atlanta-airport.com.

227

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia Numbers in italics indicate images.

——— abortion, parental notification and, 78 Abram, Morris, 39 “An Act to Establish the Judicial Courts of the United States,” 1–2 Adams, John, 5 Administrative Office of the United States Courts, 49 administrative staff, 48–49 Aeck, Antonin (“Tony”), 172 Aeck, Molly Hull, 172 Aeck, Richard Hull, 172 AirTran Airways, 95 Akerman, Amos T., 22 Alaimo, Anthony A., 208 Alexander, Fanny Percy, 120 Alexander v. Fulton County, 89 Allen, Ernestine, 144 Alston, Miller and Gaines, 76, 158 Alston & Bird, 136 Alumni Achievement Award (Drake University), 184 Americans with Disabilities Act, 74 amnesty oath, 15–16 Anand, Justin S., 216 Andersen, Ellen, 136 Anderson, Ann Morgan, 134 Anderson, R. Lanier, III, 213 Anderson, Walker and Reichert, 213 Andrews, Alexander Rhyne, 124 Andrews, M. Neil, 35–37, 38–39, 50, 128, 129 Andrews and Nall, 128, 152 Arrington, Marvin S., 87 Arthur, Chester A., 21, 22 Article III judgeships, elimination of, 6 Athens, court established in, 27 Atkins, James, 22 Atlanta

becoming an international city, 48

becoming federal court headquarters for Northern Georgia, 9, 11

Centennial Olympic Park bombing in, 64, 83, 99

cultural diversity in, 103

as drug-trafficking hub, 57, 101–3

golf courses of, segregation at, 38

growth of, x, xiii, 9, 11, 17, 48

missing and murdered children case in, 88, 170

Northern District moved to, 15

Olympic Games in, 98–99

public facilities in, desegregation of, 42

segregation in, ruled unconstitutional, 40

suburbs of, 48

United States Penitentiary in, 29, 32, 45, 98

water and sewer systems in, 89 Atlanta Bar Association, 98 Atlanta City Hall, 15, 16

Atlanta Division, 52, 60, 84 Atlanta Journal, 36 Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 75 Atlanta Legal Aid Society, 87, 98 Attorney’s Test Oath Act (1866), 16 Augusta, Confederate Court in, 14 automation, 63, 71, 80 Banca Nationale del Lavoro (BNL), 74, 76 Banks County White Cappers, 22–23, 118 Barnes, Roy, 188 “Bathtub Strangler” case, 180 Batten, Hosea, 186 Batten, Timothy C., Sr., 95, 186, 187 Baverman, Alan J., 212 Beers, Frederic L., Sr., 67 Bell, Griffin B., 39, 42 Bell Bomber plant, 48 Benham (Chief Justice Robert) Award for Community Service, 190 “Benitez-Torres” case, 57 Bennett, Elizabeth, 158 Bennett, Roberts O., 158 Bennett, Wells, 158 Bentley and Gager, 12 Bentley Law Firm, 10 Black, Holly Andrae Freeman, 146 Black, Mary, 148 Blackburn, Ben, 50 Black Mafia Family, the, 77 Bleckley, Logan, 24 Bleckley (Logan E.) Award for Judicial Excellence (Atlanta Bar Association), 148, 150, 152, 174 “blue ribbon” jury selection system, 23 BNL. See Banca Nationale del Lavoro Bond, Venable, 3 Booker v. United States, 104 Bootle, W. A., 23 Bowen, Oliver, 4 Bowers, Mike, 182 Brandeis (Louis D.) Award (Zionist Organization of America), 152 Brenau University, 136 Brill, Gerrilyn G., 207 Bryant, Paul (Bear), 42 Buck, Alfred, 67 Bullock, Rufus B., 22 Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), 57 Burger, Warren E., 144 Burton Awards for Legal Achievement, 174 Busbee, George, 53, 162, 212 Bush, George H. W., 84, 86, 168 Bush, George W., 93, 95, 184, 186 Bush (George H. W.) administration, 168 Butler, Wooten, Fryhofer, Daughtery and Crawford, 217

228

INDEX Northern District of Georgia | 1849–2013 Butts, James Wallace (Wally), 42 Byars, Betsy, 184 Byington, William W., Jr., 205 Cabaniss, Johnston, Gardner, Dumas and O’Neal, 166 Cabbage Patch Kids, 76 Callaway, Howard (“Bo”), 164 Camp, Albert Sidney, 134 Camp, Jack T., 50, 84, 86, 95, 166, 167 Camp, Sophia Rose, 166 Camp, Thomas Henry, 166 Campbell, Bill, 90 Candler, Asa, Jr., 48 Candler Field, 48 Capone, Alphonse (Al), 32–34, 113 Carnes, Charles, 84, 168 Carnes, Julie E., 50, 79, 84–85, 86, 142, 168, 169 Carter, Ben, 64, 66 Carter, Jimmy, 51, 71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 111, 140, 150, 152, 154, 156, 158, 160, 162, 174, 203 Carter, Rosalynn, 73 Carter, W. Colquitt, 20, 28, 65, 67 case-dispositive motions, 60 Castellani, Robert J., 202 Castro, Fidel, 98 Cate, Martha Sue, 154 CBS Inc., 75 Center for Young Adult Addiction and Recovery, 184 Chambliss, Saxby, 93, 95–96 Chancey, Allen L., Jr., 198 channel stuffing, 89 Chapin, Pat, 55 Chappell, Richard A., 31, 61 Chatham County, first courthouse in, 5 Chattahoochee National Forest, 29, 87 chief judge, office of, 49–50, 126 Chivilis & Grindler, 212 church-state separation, 76 circuit courts, 2, 6 circuit riding, 5 Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990, 81 civil rights, 37–38, 79 Civil Rights Act (1964), 39, 40 civil rights cases, 23, 26, 39–41, 42, 43, 64 Civil Rules project, 174 Civil War, 11–14 CJRA. See Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990 Clay, Joseph, Jr., 5, 6 Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton, 216 Cleland, Max, 90, 92, 93, 182 clerk of the court, 63–64 Cleveland, Grover, 24, 120 Clinton, William J. (Bill), 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 109, 170, 172, 174, 176, 178, 180, 182 Cobb County

courthouse, xiii, 10

growth in, 7 Cobb County Bar Association, 140 Cobb County Commission, district lines for, 97 Cobb County School District, 88 Coca-Cola Company, The, 55, 89, 90 Cohen, Meyer Harris (Mickey), 43–45 Cole, Susan S., 212 Cole & Cox, 212 Columbus, as site of the Western Division of the Northern District, 27 Common Cause v. Billips, 72 Confederate courts, 11–14 Confederate Sequestration Act, 14 Confederate States v. Lawshe and Purcell, 14 Conscription Act, 14 Cook, Bobby Lee, 73 Cook, Noell, Tolley and Wiggins, 210 Cooper, Clarence, 86, 87–88, 103, 170, 171 Cooper, Corey, 170 Cooper, Jennae, 170 Cooper (Judge Clarence) Legacy Award (Gate City Bar Association), 170 Coppola, Carl, 75 copyright law, 58, 72, 78, 96, 99, 107 corporations

growing importance of, 17

litigation between, 25 county unit system, 38–39 court minutes (1868), 17 courts, modernization of, 49–50 Coverdell, Paul, 79 Coweta County Courthouse, 28, 30 Cox & Byington, 205 Cozart, A. Z., 25 Crider, Ruth Pannell, 82, 180 Cross and Flame Award (United Methodist Church), 180 Curtis Publishing Company, 42 Cuyler, Jerome LaTouche, 6 Daniels, Maurice, 162 Darrow, Clarence, 174 Daubert trilogy, 77 Daughtery, Crawford, Fuller and Brown, 217 Davies, William, 6, 7 Davis, Thomas Hoyt, 38 Deane, Richard H., Jr., 206 death penalty cases, 40, 88, 180 DeKalb County

race discrimination case against, 93

school desegregation in, 45, 52 Delta Air Lines, 95 deNeergaard, Margaret, vi–vii Desai, Binai, xi desegregation cases, 26, 41, 42, 64, 71, 79, 150

229

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia DeYoung, Andrew, 96–97 discrimination cases, 38, 89, 90, 93 Distinguished Service Scroll Award (UGA School of Law), 150, 190 district court executive, 64 district courts, 2

admission of attorneys to, 23–24

early decades of, 6

growing in popularity and importance, 24–25

judges in, duties of, 6

naturalization of new citizens, 23

second judges in, 30 District of Georgia, xvi, 1, 2, 3

as admiralty court, 3–4

admitting attorneys, 3

division of, 114

first criminal trial, 4 diversity cases, 4 diversity jurisdiction statute, 105 docket sheet (1855), 15 Doe v. Bolton, 43 Doremus (Ogden) Judicial Service Award (Georgia Council of State Court Judges), 172 Dorsey, Hugh M., Sr., 142 Dorsey and Dorsey, 203 Dougherty, John E., 201 Dougherty, Vicki, 91 Dragoul, Christopher, 76 Droms, Laura, 178 drug enforcement, 56–57, 101–3 Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 57 Duffey, Charles, 184 Duffey, Nancy, 178 Duffey, Scott, 184 Duffey, William S., Jr., 93–95, 184, 185 Eastern Division (Athens), transferred to Middle District, 30 Edenfield, B. Avant, 214 Edenfield, Bruce M., 138 Edenfield, David, 138 Edenfield, Heyman and Sizemore, 138 Edenfield, James, 138 Edenfield, Newell, 43, 44, 45–46, 49, 50, 54, 56, 80, 138, 139 Edenfield, Newell, Jr., 138 Edenfield, Steve, 138 Elder, Shirley Mae, 170 electronic appeals, 81 electronic case docketing, 80–81 electronic case filing, 81 Eleventh Circuit (United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit), 77, 86, 89, 90, 98 Elf off the Shelf, The, 96 Elf on the Shelf, The, 96

eminent domain cases, 29 Emory Law School, integration of, 87 Employee Retirement Income Security Act, 96 environmental law, 89, 105 EPIC Inspiration Award (Emory Law School), 152 Erskine, John, 15–17, 21, 116, 117 Ervin, William, 13 Evans, Orinda D., 50, 73, 75, 76–78, 86, 92, 95, 158, 159 exit polling, 78–79 Ex Parte William Law, 16 Ex Parte Yarbrough, 23, 118 Fayette County, elections in, 95 Federal Building (Rome), 81 Federal Clean Water Act, 89 federal courts

criminal caseload, 21st century, 103–5

criminal jurisdiction, limited in early years, 6

expanded influence of, 17

facilities, land condemnation for, 29

increased business for, 25

limited resources of, 49

organization and jurisdiction of, 5

perception of, in Georgia, 120 federal judgeships

compensation for, 4, 54–55

confirmation of, 21

as coveted appointments, 21

oath of office, i

tenure for, 1 Federal Judicial Center, 81 federal judiciary

changes in, 109

security of, 64 Federal Magistrates Act, 59, 60, 193 Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 90, 175 Federal Rules Decisions series, 94 federal sentencing guidelines, 106, 168 Feldman, Joel M., 199 Ferri, Jacqueline, 150 Fifth Circuit (United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit), 5–6, 37, 42, 49 56 Forsyth Street (United States Post Office and Courthouse, Atlanta), 28, 32, 33, 45 Fifty-Eight Lonely Men: Southern Federal Judges and School Desegregation (Peltason), 40 Finch, McCranie, Brown and Thrash, 174 Fisher and Phillips, 158, 164, 200 Fiske, Robert B., 184 Five Outstanding Young Men (Jaycees of Georgia), 180 Floyd County Courthouse, 22 Foot Soldier for Equal Justice Award (University of Georgia), 162 Ford, Gerald R., 55, 148 Ford Motor Company, 48

230

INDEX Northern District of Georgia | 1849–2013 foreclosure crisis, 96 Forrester, J. Owen, 80, 93, 164, 165, 200 Forrester, Randy, 164 Forrester, Rob, 164 Forsyth, Robert, 3 Fort Benning, 29 Fowler, Wyche, Jr., 79 Franklin, Benjamin, 42 Freeman, Richard C., 52–53, 56, 86, 146, 147 “Fulfilling the Dream” Award (University of Georgia), 190 Fuller, J. Clay, 217 Fuller, Olin C., 66 Fulton County Courthouse–Atlanta City Hall, 15, 16, 116 Gaddafi, Muammar, 80 Gainesville, court established in, 28 Gainesville courthouse, 33 Gainesville courthouse annex, 105 Gainesville Division, 28, 33, 52, 60 Gambrell, E. Smythe, 51, 124 Gambrell, Harlan and Barwick, 148 Gambrell firm, 55 Gambrell and White, 51, 142 gang activity, 103 Gates, Bernard, 87 General Motors, 48 George, Walter F., 30, 35, 36, 130 Georgia

county unit system in, 38–39

death sentence in, 80

development in northwestern part of, 7, 9

election schedule of, 97

foster care system in, 74

growth of, 17

judicial districts in, viii, 2, 3, 9, 11, 28

land lotteries in, 7

legislative reapportionment in, 52

mental health system in, 92

moonshine production in, 25

power shift in, to small farmers, 7

provisional government in, 14–15

Republican Party in, 21

secession of, 11, 114, 118

separate judges authorized for federal judicial districts, 21 Georgia Bar Association, 29 Georgia Bar Committee, 22 Georgia Department of Transportation, 75 Georgia General Assembly

Committee on Schools, 40

reapportionment of, 92 Georgia Mississippi Company, 4 Georgia State College of Business Administration, 38

Georgia State Patrol, 52 Georgia State Prison (Reidsville), 40 Georgia Trend, 158, 180, 206 Gleaton, Scofield, Egan and Jones, 208 Glover and Davis, 166 Gold Club, 88 Gone with the Wind (Mitchell), 48, 75, 76, 92 Goza, Claud L., 66 Grant Park (Atlanta), 116 Green, Clara, 188 Green, Emily, 188 Green, Naomi, 188 Green, Ralph, 188 Green, Sonya, 188 greenbacks, constitutionality of, 17 Greene, Nathaniel, 2 Grice, Warren, 22 “Gumball” case, 57 Haas, Holland and Blackshear, 146 Haas, Holland, Freeman, Levison and Gilbert, 146 habeas corpus cases, 31–34, 51–52, 80 Hagy, C. Christopher, 86, 209 Hall, Carolyn C., 160 Hall, Dominick Augustin, 5–6 Hall, Howell A., 160 Hall, Robert H., 75, 78–79, 84, 160, 161 Hall County Courthouse, 28 Hall (Robert Howell) Professorship of Law and Civil Procedure (Emory University), 160 Hamilton, Henry, 67 Hanson, Catherine, 118 Harden, Edward J., 12, 14 Harper, William L., Jr., 203 Harris, Joe Frank, 87, 170, 172, 174, 178 Hart, Florence, 122 Hartsfield, William, 48 Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, 48, 53, 109, 146 Hatten, James N., 64, 67 Heart of Atlanta Motel, 40, 42 Henderson, Albert J., Jr., 43, 47–48, 50, 54, 56, 73, 140, 141 Henderson, Michael John, 140 Hepburn v. Griswold, 17 Heroes, Saints, and Legends Award (Wesley Woods Foundation), 152 High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, 101 Hill, Benjamin H., Jr., 24 Hill, James C., 55, 56, 71, 148, 149 Hill, James C., Jr., 148 Hill, Michael, 148 Hill, Phillip E., Sr., 89 Historical Society of the Eleventh Circuit, 142 Hoffer, Katherine, 62

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia Hollowell, Donald L., 162 Hollowell, Ward, Moore and Alexander, 162 Holly Theater Company, 90 Hooper, Charles, 130 Hooper, Ellis, 130 Hooper, Frank, III, 130 Hooper, Frank A., Jr., 26, 35, 36, 37, 39–41, 42, 43, 45, 50, 54, 56, 124, 130, 131 Hoover, Herbert, 30, 31, 122, 124 Hopkins, John L., 120 Horace T. Ward: Desegregation of the University of Georgia, Civil Rights, Advocacy, and Jurisprudence (Daniels), 161 Horkan, Patricia, 136 Houser, George D., 72 Howard Johnson’s, 55 Howe and Murphy, 150 Hull, Frank M., 86–87, 90, 172, 173 Hull, Thomas H., 74 human trafficking, 80 Hunt, Chris, 174 Hunt, Pete, 174 Hunt, William Henry, 10, 12, 15, 58, 63, 66 Hunt, Willis B., Jr., 88–89, 95, 97, 174, 175 Hunting Eric Rudolph (Schuster and Stone), 99 Hurt, Charles, Jr., 148 Hurt, Hill and Sosebee, 148 Hurt, Richardson, Garner, Todd and Cadenhead, 148, 203, 208 Hussein, Saddam, 74 “I Have a Dream” (King), 52 immigration, 89 Immigration and Naturalization Service, 98 Indian tribes, removal of, 7 inferior courts, 1 Ingram, Ina Russell, 126 Ingram, James F., 126 Institute of Continuing Judicial Education, 156 intellectual property cases, 105. See also copyright law Interstate 485, 146 investment fraud, 93–95 Iraq, loans to, 74 Iredell, James, 4 Isakson, Johnny, 95–96 Jackson, Henry Rootes, 12 Jackson, Jessie Lea, 132 Jackson, Robert, 36, 128 Jackson, Stonewall, 118 Jefferson, Thomas, 6 John Habersham v. Seven Pipes and Two Butts of Wine, 4 Johnson, Andrew, 14–15, 47, 116 Johnson, George, 2 Johnson, Lyndon B., 42, 44, 45, 135, 136, 138

Johnson, Walter E., 214 Johnson administration, 56–57 Johnson and Jordan, 170 Johnson (Ben F., Jr.) Public Service Award (Georgia State University College of Law), 158 Johnson v. Zerbst, 32 Johnston, Sarah Ellen, 142 Jones, Morgan and Byington, 195, 205 Jones, Steve C., 95, 96–97, 109, 190, 191 Jones Day, 206 judges, oath of, 109 Judicial Conference of the United States, 34–35, 64, 81, 144

Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction, 178

Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, 174

Criminal Law Committee of, 84, 168 Judicial Council of Georgia, 156 Judicial Improvements Act of 1990, 81 Judicial Tradition of Excellence Award (State Bar of Georgia), 174 Judiciary Act of 1789, 1–2, 3, 63 Judiciary Act of 1801, 5 Judiciary Act of 1802, 6 jury selection, 23 Kadish and Kadish, 212 Kaplan, Steven E., 88 Kemp, Jan, 79 Kennedy, John F., 39, 41, 134 Kenyon, Hulsey and Oliver, 178 “key man” jury selection system, 23 Kilpatrick and Cody, 214 Kincey, Lillian, 190 King, Janet F., 210 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 52 King, Spalding and Underwood, 31 King & Spalding, 93, 150, 184 Kirby, James, 42 Knight, Lucian Lamar, 16 Knight v. State of Alabama, 71 Krull brothers, 40 Ku Klux Klan, 22, 37 Lamar Inn of Court, 174 Lambdin, William, 30 Lance, Bert, 51 Law Project, 188 Lawrence, Alexander A., 22 Lawshe and Purcell, 14 Lawyers Club of Atlanta, 158 Leadership Award (Atlanta Bar Association), 152, 158, 162, 170 LeFlore, Ruth, 162 Legal Professional of the Year (Association of Legal Professionals), 190

232

INDEX Northern District of Georgia | 1849–2013 Legal Tender Act, 17 Lemon v. Kurtzman, 87 Leonard, Amy Hunt, 174 Life in the Law, A: Advice for Young Lawyers (Duffey), 184 Lincoln, Abraham, 11 Lines, Margaret, 174 liquor, illegal, 29. See also moonshiners Lockheed-Martin, 52 Lumpkin, Joseph Henry, 118 Lumpkin (Joseph Henry) American Inn of Court, 174, 178, 211 Macon, Northern District Confederate Court in, 14 Maddox, Lester, 40, 42, 154, 156 Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan (“Whitewater”) investigations, 93, 184 magistrate judges, 59, 60–61, 193 Mansfield, Walter R., 209 Mariel Cuban cases, 98 Marietta

courthouse in, 14

growth in, 7 Marshall (Thurgood) Award (NAACP), 170 Martin, Beverly B., 92–93, 182, 183 Martin, Snow, Grant and Napier, 182 Mathus Travens v. Brig, 3–4 McAllister, Matthew, 3 McCamy, Minor and Vining, 154 McCay, Henry Kent, 22–24, 118, 119 McClain, Mellen, Bowling and Hickman, 174 McCleskey, Warren, 80 Meadows, Carl, 67 Medford, Jenny Lee, 140 mediation, 61 Medicaid fraud, 87 MetLife, 96 Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), 55 Middle District (United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia)

creation of, 30, 35

present size of, 30–31 Midnight Judges Act, 6 “Miles” case, 57 Milburn, H. Ted, 74, 215 Miller, Zell, 190 Millsaps, Sybil, 126 Mitchell, Margaret, 48, 74–75, 76, 92 Mitchell and Mitchell, 154 Moment of Quiet Reflection in Schools Act, 87 Monroe, James, 6 moonshiners

changing to drug trafficking, 57

empathy for, 25, 29, 31, 120 Morgan, Ann Elizabeth Andrews, 128

Morgan, Clinton J., 60, 128, 195 Morgan, Lewis R., 28, 39, 41–42, 47, 48, 49, 50, 84, 134, 135, 168 Morgan, Parks Healy, 134 Morgan (Lewis R.) Federal Building and United States Courthouse (Newnan), 30, 78, 134 Moye, Charles A., Jr., 50–52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 75, 84, 86, 142, 143, 148 Moye, H. Allen, 142 Moye, Lucy Ellen, 142 Murphy, Harold L., 57, 71–73, 150, 151, 212 Murphy, Mark, 150 Murphy, Paul B., 150 Murphy, Reg, 52, 54 Myrick, Linda, 164 NAACP, Georgia State Conference of, 95 Nash, Bart G., 67 National Industrial Recovery Administration, 31 National Register of Historic Places, 33 naturalization ceremonies, 102–3 New Deal, 31 Newman, William Truslow, 20, 22 24–25, 28, 120, 121 Newnan Division, 28, 30, 60, 76, 78, 84, 95 Newton, Carolyn, 130 Newton, Ruth Elizabeth, 124 Nicoll, Ada Clifford, 114 Nicoll, Eliza Anderson, 114 Nicoll, Eliza M., 114 Nicoll, George Anderson, 114 Nicoll, Georgia Clifford, 114 Nicoll, John Cochran, xiii, 6–7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 114, 115 Nicoll, Mary Anderson, 114 Nicoll, Susan Cumming, 114 Nixon, Richard M., 46, 50, 52, 55, 57, 142, 144, 146, 148 Northen, William F., 24–25 Northern District (United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia)

caseload at, 30, 37, 48, 56

character of, x

civil docket of, 10–11

during the Civil War, 11–14

congeniality of, x

convened for first time, xiii

court moved to Atlanta, 116

creation of, 9, 11, 114

criminal docket of, 11, 13, 25, 57

death sentences in, 40

docket of, going online, 80–81

drug cases in, 101–3

evolution of, 109, 113

federal prisoners filing cases in, 29

first magistrates in, 60

given complete federal jurisdiction, 10 headquarters, ii–iii

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The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia

holding court outside Atlanta, 27 impact of, xiii institutional change at, 48–49 judgeships added to, 34–35, 39, 41–42, 48, 73, 126, 130, 164

present size of, 30–31

probation officers for, 31. See also Northern District Probation Office

reputation of, x

role of, in Atlanta’s development, xiii

security at, 64

separate judgeship for, 118 Northern District Probation Office, 48, 61–63. See also probation officers Northside Realty Associates, 52 Nunn, Geiger and Hunt, 174 Nunn, Sam, 86, 88, 89, 174, 199 Nuremberg trials, 36, 128 Obama, Barack, 93, 95, 182, 188, 190 Ochsenmeier, Linda T., 156 Oconee National Forest, 87 office of the clerk, 48. See also clerk of the court O’Kelley, Hopkins and Van Gerpen, 144 O’Kelley, William C., 46, 50–51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 81, 86, 90, 144, 145 O’Kelley, William C., Jr., 144 Omega Citizen of the Year (Omega Psi Phi), 190 Omnibus Judgeship Act of 1922, 34 Omnibus Judgeship Act of 1970, 50 100 Most Influential Georgians (Georgia Trend), 158, 180, 206 Order of Barristers, 211 Order of the Coif, 217 Orly Airport, Air France plane crash at (1962), 42, 142 Orr, Laura Lynn Vining, 154 Outstanding Jurist Award (Gate City Bar Association), 190 PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), 81 Pannell, Charles A., Jr., 57, 82, 83, 90–92, 99, 180, 181 Pannell, Charles A., III, 180 Pannell, Kate, 82 Pannell family, 92 Paradies, Janice, 152 Parkman, Beth, 186 Parks, Ivy, 154 “Patel” case, 57 patent cases, 105 Patton, George, 152 Payton, Henry N., 60, 197 Pendleton, Nathaniel, xvi, 1, 2–4, 5, 109 Phillips, Sue Lorraine, 134 Pickrick Restaurant, 40, 42 Pittman and Kinney, 180

Pope, Theresa, 138 Potter, Henry, 6 Potts, Jack, 51 Pound, Roscoe, 43 Powell, Goldstein, Frazer and Murphy, 87, 138, 172 pretrial services department, 61 probation officers, 31, 124 proctors, 3 Prohibition, 29. See also moonshiners Proskauer, Rose, Goetz and Mendelsohn, 209 Pursuit of Justice Award (American Bar Association), 148 Quinn, Sidney, 5 Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, 80, 88 Rakoff, Jed S., 216 Ramsey, John, 84 Ramsey, JonBenét, 84 Ramsey, Patsy, 84 Reagan, Ronald, 74, 80, 84, 164, 166, 200 reapportionment, 84, 92 receivers, increased use of, 25 Reconstruction, 16–17, 21, 22, 114 recusal, 74 Reed, Carolyn, 136 Reform in Law Award (Burton Awards for Legal Achievement), 174 Rehnquist, William H., 84, 144, 168, 174 Reno, Janet, 182 Republican Party, 21 Republican State Central Committee, 50 Reynolds v. Sims, 92 Rhyne, Foy E., 128 Rice, Christina, 146 Richardson, Brian, 88 Roberts, John G., Jr., 84, 144, 168, 174, 178 Roberts, Xavier, 76 Roe v. Wade, 43 Rome courtroom, 106–7 Rome Division, 52, 60, 81 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 31, 126 “Rosenthal” case, 57, 76 Ross and Finch, 174 Rudolph, Eric Robert, 83, 92, 99, 113 Rule of Eighty, 84 Russell, Richard B., Sr., 126 Russell, Richard B., Jr., 35, 36–37, 126, 128, 130 Russell, Richard Brevard, III, 126 Russell, Robert Lee, 34, 35, 48, 50, 126, 127 Russell, Robert L., Jr., 126 Russell, Robert L., III, 126 Russell (Richard B.) Federal Building and United States Courthouse, 51, 64, 73, 76, 99, 109

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INDEX Northern District of Georgia | 1849–2013 Rutledge, John, 4 Sanders, Carl, 154 Saturday Evening Post, 42 Savannah, federal circuit and district trial courts in, 6 Scarlett, Frank, 38 “Scarlett Fever,” 76–77 Schlatt, Frank, 80 school desegregation, 40 Schreeder, Wheeler & Flint, 95, 186 Schroetter, Ursula, 174 Schuster, Henry, 99 Schuster, Lee, 140 Scofield, E. Clayton, III, 208 Seaboard Air Line Railroad, 31 segregation, 36, 38, 39. See also desegregation Sell & Melton, 213 Senate Bill One, 3 senatorial courtesy, 36–37 senior judges, 35, 83–84 Sherman, William Tecumseh, 14 Shockley, William, 75 Shoob, Marvin H., 73–74, 75, 76, 86, 87, 98, 152, 153, 174 Shoob, McLain and Merritt, 152 Shoob, Michael, 152 Shoob, Wendy L., 152 Shoob and McLain, 174 Shope, John T., 64, 67 Sibley, Florence Weldon, 122 Sibley, John, 40 Sibley, Samuel H., 28–30, 31, 34, 35, 38, 122, 123 Sibley, Sara Virginia, 122 Sibley, William Hart, 122 Sierra Club v. Martin, 87 Silver Beaver, 180 Sloan, Wilford Baker, 132 Sloan, William Boyd, 26, 36, 37, 38, 41, 42, 43, 132, 133, 135 Sloan and Telford, 132, 136 Sloan and Welchel, 132 Smith, Gilliam, Williams and Miles, 196 Smith, John H., 60, 196 Smith, Rebecca, 116 Smith, R. Wilson, 196 Smith, Sidney O., Jr., 42–45, 49, 50, 53–55, 136, 137 Smith, Sidney O., III, 136 Smith, William Bundy, 15, 66 solicitors, 3 Southern District (United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia)

conflicts in, 30

creation of, 9, 11, 114

present size of, 30–31

remaining in the circuit system, 10

separate judgeship for, 118

Speedy Trial Act of 1974, 56, 61, 63 Speer, Emory, 23, 30 Spottswood, Nancy E., 138 Starr, Kenneth W., 184 State Bar of Georgia, 92 Stephens, William, 6, 7 Steward, Jon Dean, 66 Stoddard, Hartford, 12 Stone, Charles, 99 Story, Elizabeth, 178 Story, Richard W., 90, 178, 179, 217 Story, Will, 178 Strother, John R., Jr., 204 Strum, Louie, 38 Sullivan, Shree, 62 Supreme Court of the Confederacy, 13 Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan, 209 Swindall, Pat, 53 Tennessee Valley Authority, 31 Thevis, Michael, 72 Thomas, Clarence, 96, 97 Thomas, Elizabeth, 166 Thomas, Luther D., 64, 67 Thompson, Fletcher, 50 Thompson, J. Roger, 60, 194 Thompson (J. Roger) Award (Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council), 194 Thomsen, Wiebke, 51 Thrash, Andrew Styles, 174 Thrash, Margaret Van Buren, 174 Thrash, Thomas W., Jr., xi, xiv–xv, 89–90, 105, 174, 175 Threadgill (E. Dale) Community Service Award (Leadership Georgia), 190 Tidwell, David L., 156 Tidwell, G. Ernest, 50, 57, 73, 75–76, 86, 92, 155, 157, 211 Tidwell, Thomas G., 156 TIME 100 List of Innovators, 206 Title VII cases, 60–61, 193 Tokars, Frederic, 77 Tokars, Sara, 77 To Kill a Mockingbird, 90 Torch Award (United Methodist Church), 180 Totenberg, Amy, 95–96, 109, 188, 189 Tradition of Excellence Award (Atlanta Bar Association), 152 trial courts, two sets of, 2 Tri-State Crematory Multi-District Litigation, 72 Truman, Harry S., 35, 36, 37, 126, 128, 130, 132 Turner, Ted, 75 Tuttle, Elbert P., 39, 45, 86, 172 TVA. See Tennessee Valley Authority Underwood, E. (Emory) Marvin, 31–35, 124, 125

235

D O

E Q U A L

R I G H T

The History of the United States District Court | Northern District of Georgia Underwood, Florence, 124 Underwood, Newton, 124 United States

government of, expanding role of, 17

as party to litigation, 105 United States attorney staff, 28 United States commissioners, 59–60, 193 United States Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, 89–90 United States Congress

establishing third judicial circuit in Georgia, 30

war powers of, 29 United States Constitution, 1

equal protection clause of, 39

establishment clause of, 87, 90

Eighth Amendment to, 96–97

Fourteenth Amendment to, 38, 40, 74, 97

Seventeenth Amendment to, 38

Eighteenth Amendment to, 29 United States Department of Justice, 98 United States Forest Service, 87 United States judiciary, origins of, 1–2 United States Justice Department, 97 United States magistrate judges, 193. See also magistrate judges United States magistrates, 59, 193 United States marshal staff, 28 United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum, 99 United States Post Office, Courthouse, and Customs House (Atlanta), ii–iii United States Supreme Court, 2, 17, 31, 32, 33, 38, 39, 42, 52, 77, 80, 86, 89, 98, 105 University of Georgia

athletes at, preferential treatment for, 79

desegregation of, 79 University of Georgia Law School, 41, 84 Van Buren, Martin, 6, 114 Vance, Robert, 64 Vandiver, Betty Russell, 126 Vandiver, S. Ernest, 126, 160 “Villenas-Reyes and Smith” case, 57 Vineyard, Russell G., 215 Vining, Robert L., Jr., 50, 57, 73, 74–75, 86, 89, 154, 155 Volstead Act, 29 Volunteer of the Year Award (Junior League of Athens), 190

voter photo identification law, 72 voting rights case, 95 Walker, Linda T., 211 Walker and Henderson, 140 Wal-Mart, 95 Ward, Horace T., 41, 57, 73, 75, 77, 78, 79–80, 88, 162, 163 Ward, Moore and Alexander, 162 Ward, Ruby Erskine, 116 Ward, Ruth LeFlore, 73 Ward, Theodore J., 162 Ward (Judge Horace T.) Legacy Award (Gate City Bar Association), 162 war on drugs, 57 Washington, George, xvi, 1, 2, 3, 5 Webb and Daniel, 211 Weed and Seed program (Department of Justice), 182 Weil v. Calhoun, 24 Weltner (Charles L.) Freedom of Information Award (Georgia First Amendment Foundation), 152 Western and Atlantic Railroad, 7, 11 Western Division (Columbus), transferred to Middle District, 30 West Publishing Company, 94 White, Carolyn, 156 White, Edward, 51 Whitewater. See Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan (“Whitewater”) investigations Whitney, Eli, 6 Williams, Kate Thompson, 180 Williams, Wayne, 88, 170 Williams, William A. H., 52 Wilson, Charters, 136 Wilson, Frank W., 74 Wilson, Patricia Hall, 160 Wilson, (Thomas) Woodrow, 23–24, 28, 122, 124 Wood, Asa, 12 Wood, Virginia Leigh O’Kelley, 144 World War I, legislation adopted during, 29 worthless services claims, 72 Wren, Janice, 160 Wyatt and Morgan, 134 Yazoo Land Fraud (Yazoo Land Controversy), 4

236

John C. Nicoll ~ John Erskine ~ Henry Kent McCay ~ William T. Newman ~ Samuel H. Sibley ~ E. Marvin Underwood Robert L. Russell ~ M. Neil Andrews ~ Frank A. Hooper Jr. William Boyd Sloan ~ Lewis R. Morgan ~ Sidney O. Smith Jr. Newell Edenfield ~ Albert J. Henderson Jr. ~ Charles A. Moye Jr. William C. O’Kelley ~ Richard C. Freeman ~ James C. Hill Harold L. Murphy ~ Marvin H. Shoob ~ Robert L. Vining Jr. G. Ernest Tidwell ~ Orinda D. Evans ~ Robert H. Hall

Horace T. Ward ~ J. Owen Forrester ~ Jack T. Camp Julie E. Carnes ~ Clarence Cooper ~ Frank M. Hull Willis B. Hunt Jr. ~ Thomas W. Thrash Jr. ~ Richard W. Story Charles A. Pannell Jr. ~ Beverly B. Martin ~ William S. Duffey Jr. Timothy C. Batten Sr. ~ Amy Totenberg ~ Steve C. Jones