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315 chapter twenty-six Hail to the Chief— and Farewell On July 17, 1967, Elbert Tuttle turned seventy and stepped down as chief judge of the Fifth Circuit. His predecessor in office, Judge Hutcheson, had served as chief until he was eighty, but a federal statute enacted in 1958 required chief judges to relinquish the office at seventy.1 Will Sparks, an assistant to Lyndon Johnson, sent the president a note: “We do not ordinarily recognize judicial retirements by special messages. In this case, however, Justice Department strongly recommends that you make an exception. . . . According to the Justice Department, Judge Tuttle has done more for civil rights than any other judge in the United States.”2 Johnson broke with protocol and wrote Tuttle. “Please accept my heartiest congratulations for a most distinguished career as a United States Judge. All who believe in the rule of law, and the protections it offers all citizens, owe you an enduring vote of thanks.”3 Nearly a year later, in 1968, Tuttle decided to take senior status as well. Senior status allows for semiretirement. An age and service eligible federal judge can be designated as a senior judge by the chief judge of the circuit, and the designation can carry with it an office, an assistant, and one or more law clerks, depending on how much work the judge takes on. Tuttle had no intention of cutting back on his workload, and he did not, for the next two decades. He took senior status because by doing so he vacated his seat, gave President Lyndon Johnson an appointment, and gave the court another judge. The Fifth Circuit historically had one of the highest caseloads in the country (even before the civil rights cases expanded the dockets); more help was welcome. Judge Tuttle’s first successor was Lewis “Pete” Morgan from LaGrange, Georgia; when Morgan assumed senior 316 « chapter twenty-six status in 1978, President Carter appointed Phyllis Kravitch from Savannah, Georgia. In 1997, after Judge Kravitch took senior status, President Clinton appointed Tuttle’s first female law clerk, Frank Mays Hull, to the seat. By 1967, when Tuttle stepped down as chief, the movement and its allies had won the great victories that broke Jim Crow’s back. Lyndon Johnson had been one of three senators from the South who did not sign the Southern Manifesto. As president, he shepherded the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the legislation that signaled the end of the rigid apartheid that relegated African Americans to second- or third-class status. It did not, and could not, solve all the problems or compensate for all the inequities that flowed from a century of slavery followed by a century of Jim Crow segregation. Still, by discarding the doctrine of separate but equal and insisting on equality of treatment between races, these statutes transformed American life. As much as anyone , Judge Elbert Parr Tuttle had made that legislation possible. Although Tuttle continued to carry a full caseload after taking senior status, having been relieved of his administrative responsibilities lightened his workload. He compensated for that by making himself available to sit and help out on other circuits. In 1969 he sat with both the Ninth and the Tenth Circuits. He particularly enjoyed sitting with the Ninth Circuit because that required him to drive all the way across the country to the West Coast. He drove, Sara read, and they talked about what she was reading, about language and word usage, about the countryside they were traveling through. Often one of his law clerks was in the back seat. Sara never minded her husband’s workload, as long as it was composed of cases. He could decide cases on a constant basis and never lose a wink of sleep. She hated, however, for him to agree to give a speech. From the time he agreed to speak until the time he actually gave the speech, he would agonize over it. As a result, by mutual agreement he committed to very few speeches. Those he did agree to give include a classic commencement address delivered at Emory University in 1957. In it, he spoke of what it meant to be a professional. The professional man is in essence one who provides service. . . . He has no goods to sell, no land to till. His only asset is himself. It turns out that there is no right price for service, for what is a share of a...

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