Veteran jurist may consider entering politics
By Lynn LaRowe
Texarkana Gazette
TEXARKANA, Ark. (AP) — When asked how he feels about retirement, Circuit Judge Joe Griffin tossed a pair of eyeglasses on a desk in an office of Miller County Courthouse that has been his for decades.
“It’s a decision that I’ve had a very difficult time trying to make. In this day and age, you have to ask yourself, number one, can you afford to retire? You have to consider health care and so on,” Griffin said. “I think this time is probably a good time to retire as a judge — but I’m not going to retire from life. I’m not going to sit at the house.”
Griffin said that when his final term expires at the end of this year, it will be a new beginning for his career. Griffin has served as a circuit and chancery judge for 32 years. The 8th Judicial District South, which includes Miller and Lafayette counties in Arkansas, is an offshoot of the district Griffin served when he took his current bench.
“There are opportunities to keep working on a full- or part-time basis,” Griffin said. “I can take special assignments, I can practice law if I choose, or I can work as a consultant to other lawyers.”
A smile crept across the tenured jurist’s face when he considered other uses for his future time.
“There is the possibility of service in another area of politics,” Griffin said. “Something nonjudicial.”
Griffin, an avid outdoorsman, father of two and grandfather of six, said he credits his family’s support for much of his success. He will celebrate his 44th wedding anniversary in August.
“She’s been there for me for a long time,” Griffin said. “There were some lean years, especially in the beginning.”
Griffin graduated from law school and passed the Arkansas Bar exam in 1974, the same year he took the lawyer’s oath. But his diploma clearly gives him a 1975 law school graduation date. During his second year of law school, Griffin took time away from class to fulfill an obligation to the military, commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve, and to earn money to feed his growing family.
“I had a baby on the way, and I was on active duty,” Griffin said. “At the end of May 1974, I lacked two hours to graduate with my law school class. I finished them up in summer school and took the bar and was sworn in with my classmates in August 1974, but I still needed those two hours in May, so my diploma says 1975.”
Griffin told the Texarkana Gazette that becoming a judge or involving himself in the criminal justice system was the farthest thing from his mind when he was poring over textbooks and Arkansas case law as a student.
“But I was lucky,” Griffin said. “The circumstances were right, and there is the good Lord. I was fortunate.”
Less than a year after his graduation from University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville, Griffin was appointed Texarkana, Ark., city attorney. Griffin is a homegrown product of Arkansas-side public schools and Arkansas High School alumnus.
“I’ve known him since junior high,” said Ron Burnett, a retired Texarkana lawyer. “Joe Griffin combined legal abilities with integrity, and that makes for a good judge. That has been his trademark on the bench.”
Griffin served as Arkansas-side city attorney from April 1975 to December 1982. He was elected municipal judge and served as such from 1983 to 1990. In 1990, Griffin was elected to serve as a circuit/chancery judge for the Arkansas district that once included Miller, Lafayette, Hempstead and Nevada counties. Year after year, the citizens voted Griffin back to his bench. In 1998, the state Legislature split the 8th Judicial District, and Griffin’s court went from serving four counties to serving two.
Griffin said a person sitting as a judge has choices.
“A judge can be hard and stern as they want to be, but you have the opportunity to consider the facts and make a difference in people’s lives,” Griffin said. “Defendants have to answer for their wrongs, but if the case is handled correctly, there is a chance they won’t be a defendant again.”
Griffin is humble when he speaks of himself as a drug court judge and appointee to the state’s drug court advisory council, which monitors Arkansas’ drug court system. Griffin was appointed in 2007 by the chief justice of the state’s Supreme Court to the council and continues to serve. He also has served as a governor-appointed member of the state’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Coordinating Council since September 2010 and of the state’s Sentencing Committee from 1998 to 2001.
“Drug court changes lives. It is one of the only courts that offers the opportunity to deal with a person beyond sentencing. Some defendants you see monthly for up to three years,” Griffin said. “When you see that person overcome a serious problem_addiction_when you see them recover, it is very satisfying.”
Griffin’s dedication to those who appear before him in drug court has altered futures for not just the struggling defendants in his charge, but for their families, their children and the community.
“To see them get back, and at times advance, when they’ve lost it all; their families, their property, their freedom. On a number of cases, they enhance their education, they pay taxes, they raise their families,” Griffin said thoughtfully.
The seriousness with which Griffin makes decisions from the bench was mentioned by several longtime colleagues.
“I have the utmost respect for him,” said Circuit Judge Brent Haltom, who was elected prosecuting attorney the same year Griffin was elected circuit judge. “He’s fair and impartial, a good public servant. He always keeps the public in mind.”
Circuit Judge Kirk Johnson became friends with Griffin as a youngster playing youth baseball. The two attended high school, college and law school with each other before setting up a law practice together.
“He’s done a great job as a municipal and circuit judge,” Johnson said. “I think he’s been an absolutely great credit to the judiciary in Arkansas. He’s very active in the judiciary. He lets everybody tell their side of the story, and then makes a good, common-sense decision based on the law.”
Johnson praised Griffin’s work starting the drug court as well.
“He’s helped an awful lot of people and families through that program,” Johnson said. “Nearly every district in Arkansas now has a drug court, due largely to his pioneering.”
Carlton Jones, prosecuting attorney for the 8th Judicial District South, said Griffin has tirelessly been at the helm of finding new ways to address old problems, such as substance abuse and its direct link to criminal behavior.
“He exemplifies what it means to be a jurist in the most profound sense of the term,” Jones said. “He is fair, thoughtful, reasonable and consistent in his rulings on the facts and the law in any case brought before him.”
Jodi Burke, who has served as Griffin’s court coordinator for many years, described Griffin as a “Godly man.”
Burke said she had only worked for Griffin a few months when she watched him manage a “nasty custody battle in Hope.”
Burke said Griffin considered testimony from both sides and took a break.
After some time passed, Burke went to Griffin’s chambers, she said.
“I found him on his knees, praying about the case,” Burke said. “I knew then I was in the right place.”
Deputy Prosecutor Stephanie Potter Black said practicing law in Griffin’s court allows lawyers to perform at their best.
“Knowing that Judge Griffin would never demean or embarrass the attorneys that appear before him, attorneys are able to do their job with confidence and a clear mind, to focus on the issues presented,” Black said. “He is fair, deliberate, thoughtful and courteous to not only the lawyers appearing before him, but to the clients, parties and criminals as well.”
Griffin said he wants the voters to know how grateful he is for his years on the bench.
“I’ve enjoyed it,” Griffin said. “Other than being trained through education and experience in the field of law — a judge is not any different than anybody else.”
