Archives & History Committee Interview of Judge Charles Randy Butler, Jr. on August 24, 2022.

And look, this is very, very informal, really a few checks coming in and spending time talking with us. I don't want this, it's easy for lawyers to evolve into taking that position. And I don't want it to be that I want to be sort of an open-ended conversation with you about your life and your career. And that's really what we're all about here today. And I've got a lawyer thing I've got to take care of. Today is August 24, 2022. And we are interviewing today. Just for us to be a training butler of the purposes of our archives in the history, legs, but I call them the legacy project. And this is on behalf of the archives and history committee. But before we start, I just want to formally obtain your commission to conduct the interview and have the interview recorded and trained spot. So it can be preserved and edited and released by the bar association for viewing by its members in the public. Is that okay? And my condition. Thanks sir. Very good. Well, good. Well, look, I always get it in a conversation like this to start up at the beginning. So I'll leave you that. That's where you were born. When you were born. I was born in 1940 in Ridgewood, New Jersey, where my father was a lawyer. He practiced law. Yes, father. My mother was from Mobile, so in 1951, when I was 11, we moved to Mobile. And I went to university militaries school, which is the four one or even less light. I went on the coast on the balcony street. I tried to cross through the back and side. Okay. From there, I went to Washington and we, University. And I was wanting that. And we got. Oh, yeah. So Washington and the old three program were my junior year in college. I took all my senior required courses, economics, my major. So that my senior year, I took all law school, freshman law school, good law school. But it carried all my BA degree in economics. So I graduated from WNL in 1962. And back in those days, you would either get drafted or you didn't do the BRLTC to be an officer. So I did RTC spent two years in the Army artillery, where if I have a hard time understanding your question, I think it would go two years in the artillery with no ear flow, the ear muffled into the mouth. I lost a good bit of my hair in the day way. After that, I came back to the field in 1966. And started practice with my father in front of Hamilton Butler, Dennis, Ben, and Paul. All right, let's stop right there. Paul's at the long career. Let's go back. Tell me about parents turned back to Dan. Well, as I say, he grew up in Virginia, Georgia. He's father of the lawyer and a. A love riddle in one of the community didn't have a hospital. Big enough that maternity more. I was actually born in New York City 15, 20 minutes away back then. I was in the middle of the traffic. And I had older sister. And we had a wonderful wife in there. When she wrote to her dad, my name was at the junior childball. I was taking her mom. The knee shirt, Neville Butler. She was born in the knee shirt, Neville Bayton. My grandfather was the Robert Bayton who was in the longer distance. It was that she was getting. Right. Did you, had your parents meet? Mother went to New York for parties with the woman with the momir. She was living in there back in the women with a momir, one of the lawyers, King Canyon Jackson's aunt. She was married to the guy, Jack Flynn, who was a real naval archaeologist and historian. He wrote the wonderful book about that a little bit. I read it. I read it. I read it. I read it. I also wrote the book. He looked unsuccessful. I didn't know that. I read his book. I didn't know that. I read his book. I didn't know that. I read his book. I read his book. I read it. I read it. Honestly. My expectations were not very, but it was excellent. I read a ton of this book. Yeah. I read his book. It was really well known. Very impressive. I think I didn't know that. I read a copy for me. I think that being arranged in the book, the last sheet, mentioned Jack is being one of the people that looked at the book. The quote is, along with movie lawyers said, she'll. Mm-hmm. Look at the book. Look at the book. That's right. Yeah. But I've always wanted to go to and speak for myself. But I never got to try to find it. So can you go to the library? You know, the new looks. You wouldn't need to be fine. Yeah. Kind of part of the Union. Yeah. It was wonderful. Maybe it was just a peaceful room. Billage. Maybe there was a Billage back there. And I had a newspaper route on the positive. When I was doing questions, probably nine. and, you know, and through loose papers in the neighborhood. And I loved to fish and hunt. My father didn't really live there, but that's what I got my first feeling for the outdoors. It was a big haul in my life, conservation environment, which I mean, the net time I'll talk a little bit about. Oh, yeah, great. These play sports, but they're not in New Jersey. They're in Gwere and I wear it flat. Okay. Yeah. With the state championship and we came in second in the four-four-year-old. That's what they were doing on all day. They did that for the model one. But we get to that effect. So you, your dad and your mom signed the New Jersey to Mobile, and at that time, you were back. I think you were about 11 years old, I had a 11-year-old boy grew up in New Jersey, and I came up and you said that was my sister lost her northern accent on the train with her brother Paul Ryan, from New York to Mobile. And it took me about two years to lose my 90 accent like I shared a lot about it. The thing that brought my father in Mobile, which is really kind of interesting. Tom Hamilton, the old Hamilton Ball of Farm, represented the Quiddly faculty and Quiddly Viewers, which is also a little strange, when Mr. Quiddly died on Hamilton, right at the beginning of the state, and when we're still living. So Tom called my father in New York and said, Charlie, he said, why don't you move to Mobile and buy the Quiddly Viewers company? My father had no experience. So my father actually submitted a bid to buy Quiddly Viewers because he was beat by lost Quiddly. And it gave him a great interview. Yeah, so it came back close to being popular here in other than the middle of the audience probably. So I could have talked to him with me. Wow, that's interesting. So you moved Mobile and you enrolled at UMS and coached back then, University Military School meant what it said, it was what it was good to have, and you like, well, wait, that was great. But about there in the sixth grade, that stayed to the move back a year-to-year with Mobile and his three coaches now, basically a wonderful practice. It was back then, because University Military School was the one that I got and why he didn't move, because it was not the best curriculum. So he is now, but yeah, he used to mark with all the movie writers all the way from the Dolphin's Creek campus out to Magnum's Center. Magnum's Center, Everett Wow Lee Jackson Day, and standing there in the heat in the Confederate section, which of course today nobody would be particularly on what the veteran did at the final of tradition of the UMS back at the time. Right, so when you say that UMS can't, I mean, the Dolphin's Creek campus of the UMS back then, that would have been closer to Bob's perspective. No, no, we don't have that. I haven't seen it since then. All right, okay, officer. I was going to keep going through that intersection and that's the cost for it. Right on the left with a big, basically a couple of big blocks, but University Military School will be in a house, the own house with an extension off the back that was the assembly hall and the low back with the hooker faculty. And you'll be marked in there, Magnum's Center, like, I bet you're new for them right out of the wall, certainly wasn't it? Wow. So then you, you said you, while at the UMS place, for if you're in trial or in trial, you know, that was basically my thing. Okay, back before we really had it back and ran on dirt. Mm-hmm. All right. And the high hurdles, the low hurdles and the latest 4.40 UMS. Thank you, officer. So at the UMS, did you make any friends in UMS if you consider iPhone friends? Yes. But I still, I've come to class agent for the class of 5080 and so we wouldn't go to a class when the 31 were people under the 16 of us left. And yeah, we kept in touch with Sanctum too and we hear from them a good enough. Yeah. All right, excellent. So you're right away from UMS in 1958 and you're going there now. What'd like you to go to the school in Venice? Well, my father had gone to co-gate up in Madison, New York and he kind of wanted me to go to co-gate. But my uncle Robert, they give my mother, mother, had gone to Dunningale and for somehow, I don't remember the exact details, but that's where I went. And it was wonderful. It was all made up back there and that's not what made it wonderful, but it was some different co-gate now. And my lawyer's some Warren there some years ago. It was a first year, it was co-in. And you know, had a student tradition back then. You had a hotel title, campus, but you didn't speak with somebody who was on what was called the assimilation committee. You did a big fine. This was a good condition, started by Robert really. And the honor system, I mean, it was a brick of all the clothes and you did not even consider achieving all the time and you get kicked out of school. So a wonderful environment there. So it's a very strong spot. Yeah, the next one I got a good time. Yeah, that's what I was telling you. All mail until it finally didn't go to bed until, I don't know, 1977. Remember any surgeries? I don't know. I talked about it. It was about there and more. Many of the surgeries were gone. And many of them were gone. And it was resolved. But we got kicked out of campus and some patients were. So place for sports, then I did a middle-year sports. And then ran a track in the first year. And so I realized that as fast as I was, the model, when I went up there, most of those young men can't even get a lot of of them to the northeast. You know, that real highly tuned athletic programs where the U.N.S. industry, you know, didn't have any, you know, the COVID feature of some kind of a coach. So I ran one year and I figured, you know, I think the Olympic races, I said, well, yeah, I'm happy with that. I think that's it. So what we do for you in the economics, is that you're graduating in 1962. So that's right on the cusp of the Vietnam Olympics. I was free Vietnam era. In fact, I was stationed in Fort Chappy, Arkansas and J.A.K. was killed. And when the Gulf of Pumpkin thinks of it, it would occur. And I got a early out from my two-year commitment in August of 1964, because law school has started, you know, back in most days, September 15th, it's not like that. So my wife and I, in a sudden, Randy, the model lawyer, the U.N.S. pilot, grows from fortunate, straight to tough loser, and standing in law school up there for two-year housing. And people who were in either in my class, west pipe, the water west pipe, was my new core partner, Clay Langton was in law school, where it's in law school, where it's long-standing, kind of like that Michael Mike, Paul Cole, and Mr. Crook now. Well, when you're in the U.N.S. Yeah, I probably tell you about it after the bottom of it. That's all I can say. So, and all the things mentioned, you know, regular lawyers here in Montreal, over the years, and you've born, life-long friendships for those guys. And we'll get to this a little bit more minute, and then you've come up a judge, and yes, guys are appearing in the court plan. Yeah, that table, but we'll get back up a little bit, Charlie, when I was a Republican baller, in the early 60s, the moment bar so she was required to provide lawyers for criminal, in-digit defendants. There were no public defendants, and there was no system, other than a one-and-one assignment. Every lawyer was going to be, whether you were with hand-air and dog, whether you were attached along the appropriate lawyer, you got assigned, from the circuit court judge, a criminal case, right, murder of the law board. And so these lawyers were looking at something that they never had, anything like that before. So, the defendants who were in it, the better weren't getting the better of the show, because in Florida, you know, the full spectrum of criminal law. So, how many breeds of the own, private animal farmers found some money with the forward foundation, and got the first grant to establish a public defender office, a movie, it's called the movie of just a defender agency, Wayne Lauer, from the hand-bound author, and Bob Harper, from the own stolen retirement firm, and I, will be public defender when they get it up. And so, I started trying to criminal defendants, and that's all we did. Wow, so did you have your own office? Yeah, it was office, but it was above where Ben Stowe and Brian McGinn said, they're office for, you know, out near where the new post office is, from Ben's animal there. And I had previously gotten a criminal law of spare accident on the pointed lawyer with the hell of a bullet gun when I was assigned a rape case. And I spent more time on that case, researching the law, researching the fact. And I went there and tried it, and I wanted it to be my guilty bird. And when I got back to the office, I was so excited for that and tried it. They said, the firm hadn't developed, they weren't within the law, it's in London, I'm assuming, animal to work, animal playings, fortunately, we don't shit. And so, the firm and I agreed, I would go being a assistant public defender, with the way involved for the eight years to get some trial experience, and to come back, well, I never came back, because after spending a couple of years doing that and seeing our ineffective and inefficient, the difference of the current installments was in motion. My case, the parkingless version of Paul who's been in office for 27 years. And really, the professionalism of the office was just not a part of Paul. So, we were getting guilty police and acquittal and sentencing, but on the way below, one of the effective prosecutors should have died. I mean, I was trying big cases, and I called the defender now, you know, getting excellent results. So, Wayne Loudon helped the head of the district of the district defendants office and others convinced me to run for district defendants and had no plans to do. So, in 1970, I went and as a Republican, it's not only Democratic, you know, I tell you, George Wallace, who we tore up ticket, and the only other Republican who running for local office, who are a secret of the court of murderers, who was willing for a bath, a bath, a bath, a bath, a jacket, which was on the rest of the figure. And so, the election came in November of 1970, and I won 42% to 24% out of the order outlaw with my campaign chairman, for me, the convention center's made on a former mayor. Yeah. I was at the campaign that was one of the early in the morning out by the blue, and I was just talking to the woman in the man that ran it and Arthur walks in. Oh, did you know Arthur outlaw? A little bit, you know, here, it's on the road, key, kind of died. He walks in there and said, Wendy, he said, what are you doing here? Just like that. I said, well, Arthur, I was pinned by the front of the sugo, and he said, you don't need to be here. You need to be out in the mobile account and shape a deadly signal hand in the mobile account. I said, Arthur, there's no one else who did that. He looked me right down and he said, try. So I did, I went off all the mobile account, shipyard, Boston Bay, I mean, shiptaining the stock paper from, I think, every time I've dried down the road and seen any kind of event going on, only now, it's like a mobile hotel. So I can't play it really hard. I'm elected and prosecuted the budget cases of interest in mobile water storage because I wouldn't even have a lot of administrative experience. Larry Smith and I had been really friends. So, hand down all lonely Larry Smith for a year that he became my chief assistant, D.A. So Larry and I applied, he's never actually a big one together and so I did that. He went back to the store and said it was the biggest, most notorious catch you might have to buy the package. Well, there was a shooting by a, of a man, a black man on the street that no one beats me. He's a very, an activist civil rights leader who's driving the car and there's a passenger, passenger the car is shouting, kill this man and the team ride on the streets of the building called Lutheran pride diesel and diesel with a quitter. Burns called one the black woman, Karen J. Cooflin, his young black assistant was defending diesel. So Larry and I worked all this to put it in the driver. I mean, the passenger was set to try and so Larry don't possibly give you the parental thinking and the big picture. And so that was a big catch. Anyway, there was some others but Karen, but that one, I did that Charlie, or I'd say I was really into it, criminal prosecution. I did a criminal defense so shifted completely to prosecution and it was a big case of a hurricane damage case that involved among the school, more on whether it was fallen in the repairs, the school board somehow or falsified the invoices and some of the higher up was the school board of reap the wheat, tens of thousands of dollars from them, and across the field, one of them. And then I got sort of jaded to an old criminal law of the public defender of district attorney and other side of not the one of the legal action. And so Charlie, I did, he was elected from one of the lawyers that I expired, Joe Sullivan, and I went out to practice law together and then grew the firm until the four of us at the time and some of your lawyers merged that firm with what was left of my father's own firm and my father died Tom Penelto, the died while Dennis had been gone and Harry Ridic was just about covered with the retired who was still there but not only elected and they did a lot of all-on-the-guest work in background and really enjoyed it. All right. So that's all, that's a very fascinating history. So in, in 1988, you are nominated by President Reagan on the middle of the year. Yeah. Walk us through how all that came to be, how had that it was completely unexpected and this is not what we've got normally but how that came about. I'm sitting in my office for one day on the 15th of all of the First National Bank, there's whatever it's called now and I get a call from the bar hand who might have been achieved the urge at the time Ken Brevard said, for Andy, what are you doing? And I said, well, at that moment, I was trying to resolve a dangerous period when the client was going to try to resolve a dangerous period for the client. He said, well, why don't you come over here? I said, do you mean right now? People know come over here and be a disparate job. I said, you're serious for all of me, but yeah. I said, well, come over now is the deal, come on over. And that came about because the vacancy was created with cops and then nominated to the lab and sorry. And so that vacancy was what I had to build. And the nomination process went through all the series of background checks at the I've shed and it was extremely much about what it is. So in usual time to be nominated Reagan was a Republican. This I was nominated in April from 1828 when he was in here eighth year and he was going to go out of office for fall in January. So there were 10 of us throughout the country, the lawyer made a few state judgements that were nominated to the federal bench. And the Democrats confirmed the Senate where your chairman was a Democrat at the time and how definitely was a Democrat at the time? Well, so immediately they were looking probably because the Democrats in Movede-O and all over the country we did not want 10 Reagan nominees to get through that low particularly since Michael DeCoccus came out of the Democratic Convention of the United in May with a 14-point over George H. W. Bush and so the local Democrats in Movede-O many of their lawyers and others decided well, we're going to stop for any college nomination and it's cracked but we want a accomplished immigrant lawyer you know what's going to be the next federal judge and Hethwood who had was made a call when Jack was nominated several years before Hethwood did not support here voted against her and he was removed from holding voting Democratic Senator in the Senate at the time so he had a lot of Republican money from Movede-O in this area as well as Democratic money and so my nomination came up and it was trying to be pointed of having got a lot of pressure and he pulled it for and so that 10 of us were confirmed on October 14, 88 when I was sworn in that he would play with right so did you have an opportunity to make a friend of Rayman? No, in first of he had a habit not because he made but he was going to call me and telling I would be considered so I knew the call was coming like 2.30 a month and then I'm sitting in my office from a 54 and look at it so my secretary in the hall she probably 20 thing away but she's been there trying to busy and out of their office and that's 2.20 and 2.1 and it's 1.2 and it's 2.30 she picks up the phone in terms of which it really goes like 3.30 but right so and so my phone rings or whatever when I pick it up when I say hello with the woman's voice and she says Mr. Butler can you hold the president and I said look when it didn't back and I'll hold it back with it so I caught him and this wonderful voice and don't lie and it was above Mr. Butler so I was surprised and very you know, I greatly back around and I was thinking to him over here and of course it's good things about you and like the mom and you just the judgeship and I said Mr. Butler I really appreciate that and he said well, I wish you all the same thing to the judiciary and because we get ready to retire I'll say I'll go out all the time so I wish you made to the best I love you at the time and that's it well very normal very normal yeah so you know we've all seen the late the confirmation process of particularly the United States framework how was that process for you well, that was pretty rude to think about what the Democrats did they won't be well, I don't made names because I'm a some lawyer some alive and maybe I'm still alive who did everything they could to dig up I'm married in my years was just a return because we had a home which is in all shades and back and you know, type and they would take someone something out of the case and in addition to the local resistance Senator Leahy was on the judiciary and they had a stacker who actually drove me insane he would call me every couple of days and Mr. Bono let me ask you about this but it's such an such a case you know and they have been 17 years earlier they let the office do their by why your job where the cargo тора 2 issued and March could be very stressful but about a the I was born there. I can picture the Colton city like that, and all of the bands there, and people all of them, you know, the Mac Colton, the band, and all of the four of them, and some judges, and all of them, said that they're happy, and was there, and they were all, we'd be there much, and probably, well, it's probably you could not do better, and I'm not going to do that. To you, some of the live, some of any, I wouldn't know about it. Yeah, but anyway, I've got to have to actually say the false insertion, but I don't know about it, because I cannot be removed. I can tell that this is what I meant to do, and it was a just balanced prosecutor, the pension lawyers, civil war, you know, and, you know, everything was balanced, and I loved being in the court when I was looking at the judge. All right, but let's look and talk about your judges, your years here in a moment before you do that. Let's talk about your plan, your wife, the jacking of the wife of 59 years, and that's a few I was paying for, she, the boy in Jackson the day, he was Dr. Paul and Warren, Jackson was simply around, and I'm sorry, and they wouldn't want to be able to actually go in World War II, he was a frontline sergeant, landed on Omaha Beach, D-Day, West Island, and went all the way through to the end of the war, and so Gabby had three brothers, two were doctors, one was at the police, and then all were tired of them, and so we had our first son, Ray, the best pilot ball was in court soon, but he put Chappy in court slip on himself, and a second son, Warren, here in Old Beale. Okay, and Warren's, most of us know the lawyer here practicing was going, right, we started out at blind spots, we could have been saying blind, but we were close to certain childhood in the Old Beale. Yeah, so how, as a practitioner lawyer and judges had with, what does it meant to you to have Warren follow your footsteps? We shared stories, and he's got my grandfather's hands, scroll, license to the practice law, and he's all involved, and I think the thing is huge, that all things were signed by all the Supreme Court leaders in New York, that didn't result in my, to worry about his office, you know, so it's a good deal, yeah, yeah, well, good job. We here in Teppin Green talking about that, but I'm sure, well, he's easy to get frustrated. Oh, it's the right to order, isn't it, but, well, my grandfather, my father, and I, well at least, I've been there, I've been there, I've been there, that's one, yeah. I'm the first generation leader. Okay, so, and let me ask you, Grinch, you know, yeah, we have the grand daughter who just got married of this past Saturday, one of the Saturdays, which I participated in, a slight work of whatever, I was the ring bearer at 82. I did not walk up the aisle with the ring on the pillow, I was sitting on the foot row, and Parker and my grandfather asked me to present the rings to the pastor, and I did, and it gave me an opportunity, which she wanted me to do in terms of the guests in the beautiful church, they had a destination where they can be made and mention comments, and it was one of the highlights of my life. So, it's one of the sets like, well, first you can be in the middle. Yeah, well, I said, I told everybody I said, I'm going to cross the young man there, and then my, her younger brother, Barnes, son, his second-year medical student, that South Alabama, and their oldest son, Landley, married, has 14-year-old daughter, she's a freshman, your next wife. Well, excellent. Well, okay, so you take the the federal bench here in the bill, aren't you, Judge 1988, your brand new position. Next, go on to the money. Yeah, and here it didn't rip top, so it's 420-something case. Well, he had a big back wall, blesses all I loved it, but it took a lot of work and cooperation with all the core personnel and the lawyers, because you know, when I put the paper, gel, I've been before judges, I've seen them, but you know, I actually do what you judge in, you know, administratively, you know, just put a lot of it used to it, but as long as I get in the courtroom, you know, I just felt so comfortable in the courtroom, I just love being in the courtroom. So, well, that's where I want to spend most of my life. So, in the case, several of the last minutes, I've all yearned up, you know, to drive to the bill case, I can really be disappointed. Yeah, because I was not, I was not what you might call a writing judge. You know, the sunglasses are the world poor, you know, like the city can even, you know, have incredible development. Yeah, more than those and most, yeah, yeah, I was, I was much involved. Yeah, and then in 2005, you were coming to society, yeah, you know, I'm a little bit kind of sheriff, but I didn't get between, yeah, well, when I was nominated, for some sort of became chief judge, for a period of about eight to eight years, you probably only do it for seven years, but Jenny Grenade was just, they just come on and you have to be a year before you can become chief judge. So, during that time, we had a number of, of gaps in the judgeship staffing, hopefully three different judges in over here. Judge Howard got sick, the bomber got sick, it was a period when Judge Howard took the disability with early retirement, and there was no other judge, the national judge, but it's sort of the two of us and just vomited sick, there was a period of about over and I remember that, yeah, well, I was in the old jury and, you know, I had just a front of a standheld, but I would come in at the morning, and I tried to say, I think in the morning, kind of had a built-in period of sentence in the eight, 15, two, two, nine or 12. I stalked five, sometimes I would take the the jury of 30 in the front, the 10, 30 said, and I took the plea, and then they come back, I take a half an hour for lunch, take a three-year sentence and do that, you know, did that for a long time, but again, with the support and the old retention that I had, just pretty amazing. Yeah, of course, staff here will be a lot of stayed in town for the next time of a year, but the little thing I did for all of it was, while we were in turn, as teacher, and I just say this because, you know, it was something that had been done a long time ever, for that course. We had a, but they could see the courtship of Jack O'Brien, with the American community of retired, and so I didn't mean to be the number of people, and I hired the first woman clerk, a federal clerk in the sewing district, and then I hired the birth of pre-child services, female officer. And during that time, I was blessed to be on the number of committees of the 11th Soviet Judicial Council, and my first assignment was to be the district judge or representative from Alabama to serve on the 11th Soviet Judicial Council, where there was a district judge from between Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. So I did that for a couple of years, but from committees with them, I served on the 11th Soviet panel. The years of the Soviet committee were both criminal, Yuri was broken, her child was considered civil, her child was. Then, during this whole period, and I acted in the leadership of one of the seniors there, I was appointed by Chief Justice Rinsley, to serve on the 11th Soviet panel, on the Judicial Conference of the United States criminal law committee. There were lots of committees of the Judicial Council, criminal law, civil law, bankruptcy of asset-cated universal, about 10 committees. And one of the more interesting things about the criminal law committee was that, for the first time in all, the chair of the committee was Maryanne Trump, Erin Donald Trump's sister. Now, Victor Donald Trump, with long hair, and the same personality, and you have got Maryanne Trump married to a team. She was the most unusual person. Very smart, but a lot like her brother, but she was, I had to say, phone to be around. You might recall that she had been away in the pointee to the district bench, and she later prepared a quote from the pointee to the four-story, four-in-a-team. Then, when one of Trump's nieces, the deceased brother's daughter, I think that there was Mary, started exploding some internal Trump family shenanigans financially. Maryanne Trump, there got tied up in that, and she had the resigns from the funds for it. So the next, I guess, meaningful event was when I got called, as I was on that committee, I still acted on the criminal law committee. It was when the deputy director of the administrative law supports the chief justice branch, which acknowledges the need to be the only executive committee from the district policy of the United States, and they're like seven or eight members, circuit judges and district judges. So I got to be, you know, really involved in that nonjudiciality, you know, my jumping front, but the administrative part of the judicial competition in the United States, and actually just the incredible experience of the great judges and the things we did. Well, what was very, very quick, he was a quiet guy, he was kind of shy, really, sort of regimented, a set of contendable within several times, and one, one time, Ravar Hayan will be ready to celebrate his 25th anniversary on the bench here in O'Neill, and Brent was the minor tall in the, I think it was the job route came, where the Judge Hayan ruled that if you were the ban will legislate, they're always second, when they're human, and they will ban them too. And Brent was agreed with Mavar, all the other judges heard that. That's why, so Brent was in Mavar until he had this bond, so I'm sitting with the one of the lunches for the judicial conference. I said the chief justice, I said, Judge Hayan is getting ready to celebrate his 25th anniversary on the different bench. Would you be willing to come the bill, and we'll have, you know, the chief justice, we'll have a ceremony at honor, and he said, I feel like it to do it, but he said, don't fly commercial anymore, I need a private jet, and I said, okay, so without naming names, I call on the law firm of the bill, they've agreed to send a jet to get, to get Chief Justice Brent was well, somehow the word got out in the courthouse, and Judge Hayan told me that's his office for the day, and he said, ready? What is this I hear about, do you want the Brent Chief Justice, Brent was down here, and I said, what's the bottom line? I thought it would be a really bright idea to do it, and he said, don't you dare do it, and I said, okay, okay, come here, you know, the law was, he just didn't want all that people off, and I thought it would be a form of neat thing to do for him, but he didn't, so anyway, one other thing I did, that went on, and I'll leave that pretty much out the video. The judicial conference had a long range plan permitting that will set up to plan in all range for what the court would expect, and I chaired that for a year in Washington, and I think the biggest event that probably ever happened to me, uh, want the Army to do the conference, I'll set the stage for you. We were in the gathering of the judicial conference, and Chief Justice Brent was in the middle table like this, and they're 11 circuits, so they're in a different zone, a different one, two, I guess, and we're all around the circle, and on two seats from Chief Justice Brent, Brent was, and the beginning was conducted, Jeff says things comes in, so I'm saying it's very competitive, but some remarks and comments, and Chief Justice Brent was, uh, a staff assistant walked in and whispered in his ear, and he kind of looked up, and then he'd go back here and sort of put very regimented guys with a, you know, kids going to meet, and then one of the other accomplishments, and he said, I've just heard that, uh, Jeff, that a, that a plenty has crashed in the moment in contact, and with all kind of fake comments, a shame, you know, from small to an innocent woman towered by accident. Well, not more than three or four minutes, and we're all sitting in the room, there's a courtyard out to one side, and that courtyard fence of the pentathlon, yeah, and we're sitting there, and we're all here at the same minute, and we're turned, everybody turns towards the courtyard, looking in the direction of the pentathlon, and what we heard, what the point is at the pentathlon, and, uh, remember Sally Ryder, Sally Ryder, from the rushing back in, and the Chief Justice gets the word, he looks up, and he says, the second plane is just hit the tower, we are evacuating the building immediately, and we're reconvening the final part of the morning, and he said, my assistant, what? I said, so we go pouring out from the Supreme Court building, and, you know, the plane, of course, they hit the towers with the representative business, they can prepare by, we'll represent the military, and they're not pretty sure that the third plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was for people that forced it down, was going to crash into, uh, Congress, into the capital building, because the center of the capital was in session, and it was, as we all rushed out on the street, the Supreme Court building was probably $150 behind the capital, so, what we might have witnessed would have been hilarious, um, as we go piling out on the street, if we're single person, and there are thousands coming out of every government building, have their cell phones up, and I had mine go send them, and, uh, we rushed down to the administrative office of Portland building, and there's a cell, to go down in the cell, and, of course, everything they received on the television, the heart broken, you know, what we see, and, uh, replay over, over, over, over again. So, uh, when we emerge, to go back to our hotel, if you've been to the Washington internet, what's the point of current station, right there, uh, you know, where the turnings all come together, but, uh, something, anyway, if you'd like to send a lesson, yeah, I don't know, it was packed, you know, it was packed to pay, it was everywhere, it's hard, we get merged with that around here, where the streets were taken, signs were shown by the White House a little bit, so I had to walk back to our hotel, and we go all the way back to our hotel, took about an hour and a half, and there no cars, there no flights, take that out, take that out of Washington, so while we're good friends with a judge on a different conference from another district, uh, who lived in West Virginia, so we drive out of, uh, to go through Georgetown, and it falls to Keybridge, and uh, straight towards the Pentagon, first of all clear gorgeous September day, and there's the giant billows, no control in the Pentagon, and as we hear, south from the industry, from West, from far away, you know, but here's where it's like eight planes, each way with that part of Washington, the zero traffic coming to Washington, but we're all going out of the city, and the traffic back there and going out of Washington, but minimal, so we get to West Virginia, get a little hung there, the stop there, that's out of Charleston, also West Virginia, there isn't Charleston, yeah, it's good that's a factor, what they're saying, we go in to check then the night of this pattern, get up the next morning, the sky's gorgeous, not a single airplane in the sky around the, we're the strength, we go into his office, you know where we're called, no airplane, so it's marked in, his US model, called the mobile US model, and they decide to take me, start a south, mobile Marshall will come to the North, they're going to rendezvous wherever, they're going to rendezvous in Bristol, Virginia, for Bristol, they'll soon get what they're saying down, and I get a fact that I had a, uh, what was it called, the very first little thing you could, you could have a pen, you could type there, uh, by very, well, if you look at the black area, so either, so I sat in the backseat of the car, but they said, you know, spend the night here, Joe, do the black, you know, be the black and white, just a girl and get home, but then I talked to Jack, you know, my wife, and so, uh, I type that in the backseat, my observation, to back this whole thing, when I get back, my gel obviously, I'm going to show you what it meant to be represented was the middle, the center of the porch, all the genders and the circuit about, you know, the, the routine, you know, went along with the conference, and the moment on what was passed, I wrote this long story about what it was called, uh, inside the Supreme Court, and then the day the world changed. And anyway, that was, uh, has that been published in February? I think there's a need to find that out, yeah, we can, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, it's frames, so on DR, but the court may have a copy of it, you know, but it was circulating the moral of every judge in the court, they all read it, uh, so, uh, powerful stuff, right, how's it going? Okay, so, um, so you, you are the chief judge, and then you reach the court, where you take senior status, and then ultimately, uh, in the trial, yeah, about nine years ago, I know you're going to, so, um, do you still get called over to help out now? No, uh, Charlie, when I, when I took senior status at 865, I'm not eating too, uh, I had just about tried as many cases I really wanted to try, uh, and so, Christy Du Boes had been appointed by Reagan. I mean, it just as if it was possible for the three judges that were acting at the time, Jennifer, they will see, you know, Christy Du Boes, and so, I was willing to get Christy just about my whole doctor, so I made him tell you, uh, uh, an active doctor, but I didn't try cases anymore, and so I did that for the time I was 65 to nine years ago, I was 70, 3, 3, 4, I guess, yeah, and then like the society, you know, I don't really need to be doing this anymore, there's life on the other side, and my wife did, look, you're not getting a bit of a quit, you know, we love it too much, and I said, well, watch it, and, uh, people say you won't go back, you miss it all, and I have to be honest, I really don't, I have such a complete life without it, and, uh, you know, assuming you can retire, you know, it's a whole other world, I'm not doing so much of stuff, you know. Well, I would, I would quote him, you're a very long career in, uh, particularly the quote when he was in Civil Lawyer, a criminal, a fifth-order, an off-cheater, a good, um, still a lot of lawyers come together, how average you rate the lawyers, the general practicing, and the quote here, you know, what changed over time, with civility, and, uh, back in the days of, of Tom Hamilton, you know, my father practiced law, everything, your, your, your word, your bond, you know, you didn't worry, lawyers were not, they might have been, they might have been, can't just in the sense of arguing the law in a motion, or in court, but none of the stuff that goes on today, um, so that, that's changed a lot, and not that I saw it too much in the courtroom, because, you know, the lawyers were pretty, for the, uh, composed in the courtroom, but all the stories I hear about what goes on outside of the courtroom are really, you know, really discouraging, but anyway, uh, so I've seen a lot of changes, yeah. Any, any particular case, uh, that you, uh, presided over as a, as a district court judge, sticking them out a lot of them, I mean, you know, I tried to, the case where Land of Men's and others were indicting for, uh, male fall, but basically for a scene to, uh, to fall a man who developed a method to take the garbage and mobile, convert it, convert it to steam and sell the steam to denusa, which was in existence back then, uh, and they were, they were former city, uh, yeah, he was, he was, he was, he was a city commissioner, he was, he was the public court commissioner and, uh, prior to that case, and then a major drug case, a good Russian, uh, Reagan, you know, he had a really tough on crime policy and, uh, Jeff Sessions was a part of that, and so we had a huge, multi-dependent drug case, I mean, uh, but unusual to me to, to try at the same time, uh, five, ten, even a dozen defendants at the same time with multiple lawyers, and, you know, I just, I love that sort of thing, uh, but let me go back a minute to my private practice, I think one of the, one of the many of the funniest cases of a lawyer when I was in private practice after the DA was the, uh, J.C. postpartum of the room area in the year in English constant, but it was back in, uh, late Saturdays, maybe early eighties, they had a mystery fish, and if you call the mystery fish, you would win 50,000 bottles, longer than one of it was hearing it. So, I'm a, some kind of, uh, wildlife, maybe, I've had a lot of problems with ductile, whether it did military wildlife, all sorts of environmental goods, and a man comes up to me and said, in the distance of this man, he said, hey, uh, Mr. and Renny, probably, this is, so it's a, he won the mystery fish, the 50,000 dollar prize, but they don't want a penny, and I said, what was that all about, you know, really? So, uh, the, uh, more to one than our, a little neighbor, they could be wrong, one of the top firms in Mobile, and they buy, buy, I guess it's a very, very good gentleman actually, to, to try to prove that they were just, because who, well, here's what the issue was, the problem was, the man who tagged the mystery fish with a speck of fire was the best friend with the guy who called it, and so my client who called it was station, you know, and tried it before the guy clearly told it was, and after the day in the hair of the trial, there was no evidence to deny the payment. So, 50,000 dollars were down there, and this is back, you know, the late 70s, and it was pretty good, and I don't think the man will get a nice fee. So, as the judgment was announced, the, so the judge, whoever it was, was handed something by somebody, and there's the, well, this is the difference, and here's the dollarsment for this F1, he, the client, my client, was not paying child support at home, he for 11 years, he owes, it was like 40,000 dollars, and so, of course, so I got a pretty good fee out of what we left over, so, he wanted, and then I did, you know, one of the most difficult attorney, one of the, one of the really important things that I had, our co-op aluminum, which had, quote, a plant by then, it was on the west side of the movie, where it was on the east side, and it's huge types of the aluminum, where it's a pop side, where it's an ejaculate extractor aluminum, and it would leave them in the poem that day. So, Bob Adams, representative of co-op, and I, as DA, and it's a lawyer, calls them to reach an agreement, that they will stand a million dollars, protecting the sea beach from those dikes, but couldn't even ditch all around the bottom of it, so it didn't further contaminate the home cat bay, and so that, you know, those kind of things, it's like a civil lawyer, whether it's DA, but let me ask you this, I don't, I don't, most conversation could evolve into political discussions nowadays, from acrimonious and divided, but let me just think their thoughts on that, what are your views on that poem in direction of law these days, and over over the times you've seen it? Well, you know, I've been so, you know, it's been about nine years, since I've been hands-on, direction of the law, you know, one of the things I've think has happened is, particularly today, you know, government tries to fix too many problems, they pay us too many laws, they pay us too many, let's try to fix it with money, and that's not the kind of practice we have lawyers and youth lawyers sitting every day, but it just sort of strikes me that we don't weigh down what the balance was all of us to do, and but in terms of the practice of law, you know, just say, I've been away from it for so long, and it's all again. So, is there anything else about your career or about the courts, the profession, the current mine, these are like to leave the viewers of this, well, you know, I think we've pretty much covered the game, but the point of what I've done in my career, and we could talk about it in the beginning of the case, which all day, what, what, what, what, what, what, what gratitude you have in terms of your life and career and what gratitude, well, I thank God every day for putting me in the position we put me in. I know it was a God thing, I'm convinced of that. I tried everything, I tried, I did everything else in a respectable legal practice, and this came to me, and I felt that I alluded to it earlier at the end of the day. That day, you know, I was in the courtroom being sworn in, I could tell that that that would probably take it to the end of the day, and I know it to this day. And so, it was everything. The wonderful part of my life, as I said earlier, the part of my life I mean now is equally as wonderful, if not better, but enough totally different ways, family, friends, different groups I'm involved in, well, I didn't mention I've been involved since about nine years, the racial reconciliation word, but five of us, six of us started one of the groups, which Jane Johan, her, circuit carer, Jane and I, and the three black pastors, and one for the minister, went to Mississippi to borrow the man, the mission in the Mississippi program, that they had for years over there who had heard racial reconciliation in a group involved in the video, it was called the Plays, and I'm still active for the hit, and we've done it in the effects of incredible gatherings of leaders in the black and white community over the near, the tribal store, broken population relations. I was like to get more information about that for myself. Yeah, I think after this week, yeah, it was possible. And, you know, I've been involved with one of the members of the Plays, he was in Britain for a year, was the head of some of the Baptist conventions, and you talk about a powerhouse in racial reconciliation, but he, he has really led the ways with discharges, which is the redemption church, it was also a Baptist church, I was interested in what we do. So, so that thing on my heart is in things like that, and I was not allowed to share, that's what happened. Well, look, for the record, I'm Charles Potts, I want to thank you so much, John, for coming in and speaking with me on this legacy project, my honor and privilege to have you. Thanks for coming in on to me, thank you very much.