The Paris News

Texas and the judicial system lost an honorable public servant Tuesday with the death of federal Judge William Wayne Justice.

I had the privilege of interviewing him in the early ’90s when he made one of his regular trips to Paris while presiding over the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Texas. He made monthly visits to Paris from Tyler and conducted hearings in the federal courtroom at the former U.S. Post Office building on Lamar Avenue.

Having heard what a tough judge he was on the bench, I was more than a little anxious as I entered his chambers behind the courtroom. I soon learned from the gentle man who had taken off his black robe and was sipping on a glass of water that I had nothing to be anxious about.

He was kind, soft spoken and exuberated justice from his very being.

My mind fails and I don’t remember the exact conversation we had that day. Nor do I recall my reason for being in his courtroom. It may have been more out of curiousity, but I vaguely recall then Paris News managing editor Bill Hankins sending me to cover a hearing that day. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to speak with a man so dedicated to justice and to the judicial system.

Judge Justice, 75 at the time, said he had no intentions of retiring. But in 1998, he did leave the Eastern District and moved to Austin where he became a traveling federal judge, filling in where needed.

The judge certainly reflected his name.

His reputation was sealed by landmark civil rights cases including U.S. vs Texas (on statewide school desegregation); Morales vs. Turman (conditions of juvenile incarceration); Lelsz vs Kavanagh (community placement of mentally retarded persons); Young vs. Cisneros (desegregation of federal public housing — a case originating in Clarksville) — and Ruiz vs. Estelle (state prison reform). Perhaps his most controversial decision — Pyler vs Doe — required public schools to educate the children of illegal immigrants.

According to a Dallas Morning News report, Justice said in a 2007 interview those children would grow up without education, able to work only in low-skilled jobs such as physical labor, or even turn to crime.

“Without that education they would have been just a burden on the rest of us,” the Dallas newspaper reported Judge Justice as saying. “They had the right to an education on the same basis as children of citizens.”

But it was lawsuits in the 1970s brought by the late Rev. A.M. Seamon of Paris and argued by the late and great Leighton Cornett for which Paris owes Judge Justice homage. He ordered single member voting districts in the City of Paris along with single member districts in Paris Independent School District and Paris Junior College. His rulings ushered in minority representation on the city council, PISD school board and PJC Board of Regents. Our community is a better place now, thanks to Judge Justice.

The story goes that the justice had to see for himself conditions of various wards since plaintiff testimony claimed citywide discrimination including employment and segregated facilities.

“It gave me a very good idea of the contours of the town and what class of people lived in each — that is, whether they were poor or rich, white, black,” the justice said in a 1999 interview with The Paris News. The ruling for the plaintiffs was immediate.

In that interview, the judge reflected on his place in history.

“I hope people will think that I’ve followed the law,” he said. “That’s what I’ve tried to do. And I haven’t tried to flinch from it.”

Mr. Justice, you definitely lived up to your name, and taught many of us what “justice” is all about.

Mary Madewell is the managing editor of The Paris News.

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